Sapa and the Hill Tribes

Note: I am on a roll in the Hanoi Metropole with the first access to internet for some days. What you see below was written in Sapa several days ago--I am trying to keep up with the blog even though I can't publish it right after writing it. Result: It's a little confusing for ME, and must be doubly so for you. I am going to post this without pictures because once again the clock is ticking and I'm out of time. Will try to post pictures without text later tonight.

Thurs., March 22:

Now I don’t want to hear any lip, even in your thoughts, from any of you about contradictions, inconsistencies or outright mistakes in these ramblings, because while I started out quite calm, determined and organized, I now barely know what day it is, let alone what we did two or three days ago when I last jotted down my thoughts. Also, for the nitpickers and historians among you, please remember I am not checking my facts, but just tellin’ it as I sees it. And hears it from the guides, which I have figured out is not always 100% accurate.

Yesterday and today we have been in and around Sa Pa (emphasis on the second syllable), so beautiful in the mist, bonding with the hill people (as long as we buy at least a little), and the children, ohmygod the children, they steal your heart in a moment, wretched little urchins that they are. Today we visited two hill tribe villages, which house the Dao Tien and Flower Hmong peoples, and the little waifs peek from behind trees and bushes as we walk in with our guide Thien, and when you smile and wave they emerge and giggle. I’ve been showing my camera and asking with my eyes if it’s okay to take their picture and for the under ten year olds there is never a problem but the older ones don’t like it. The little ones pose and smile tentatively and after I snap the picture I show it to them. Their little faces, snotty and dirty, light up when they see themselves and they giggle so adorably and they seem so happy with such a simple thing that you want to give them a hug but don’t dare.

Thien, a guide for seven years, seems a little dismayed that the pristine quality of the tribes has been somewhat ruined by the tourists. Ten years ago they farmed and did their handwork and tended their animals as they had for centuries but the last decade has brought the Western world en masse and now they realize they can make more in an afternoon than they can in a season of rice farming. In the more commercialized villages you are immediately surrounded by women asking your name, age, how many children you have, where you come from, etc. etc. Sounds like they speak English but in reality they have a set spiel and don’t much vary from that. You buy from ME, you buy from ME, over and over. Very cheap, very cheap.

But the two tribes today were relatively untouched and I felt like a reader of National Geographic as we walked up the dirt roads with sows and piglets, water buffalo and goats littering the paths, plus the children peeking out as described above. As we approached the settlement, we started to see adults milling about, women all in traditional clothing and men in--well actually you don’t see that many men, but the ones you do see are mostly dressed in pants and shirts western-style. We ask where are the men and Thien tells us that they drink into the wee hours and sleep most of the day. Or gamble at low tables with stacks of money which we saw in the town. Can it be true that the women do all the work?

I hope to post pictures of the houses which are so ramshackle they look like sets from Porgy and Bess but turn out to be fairly substantial because we approached one and after some sweet talkin’ by Thien to the old woman embroidering in the yard we were invited in. Dirt floor, side room with primitive beds and sacks of something like flour, low table and bench and big TV in the corner. The children promptly put in a CD of some Chinese dancers and we were gestured to sit on the bench and invited to watch the video while the old woman (she’s 56) and the two kids sat in rapt attention. Then she poured tea from a earthenware pot into dirty looking glasses and I swear I would have died of dysentery before refusing her hospitality, but Thien said some words and she didn’t seem insulted that we didn’t drink it.

After a while we took our leave and according to Thien’s guidance gave her a dollar (one per couple) which she graciously accepted and we bowed and smiled and thanked and honestly it chokes me up to write about it. All the while the children, who by now are our bestest friends, don’t want us to leave. This particular village is 18 families, 200 people. The young people don’t marry anyone within the village, but they can only marry within their tribe so you can only imagine how limiting that is. Our hostess had six children, all married, one of whom had joined the army and that’s how she was able to afford the fine house she lived in.

The second village we visited was even more isolated than the first. Very few people were around and about, all napping according to Thien, but the ever-present urchins and animals were everywhere. We finally found a couple of women in front of their house and I don’t think the one had ever seen a Westerner before. This family was Catholic of all things, and apparently the local priest comes once a week to minister to them as well as the other believers in the area. We weren’t invited in as before and the young woman looked very uncomfortable. When we offered a dollar it seemed that she had never seen one before. Thien gave her Vietnamese dong and took our dollars in exchange. Then she smiled nervously, but I did feel like an intruder on their privacy. Thien said not to worry, easiest couple of dollars they ever made.

Friday, March 23:

I was able to check email on the hotel computer, but my own will not work so thanks to all who wrote. This morning we had a trek planned to visit a Black Hmong village (there are ten separate tribes in the area), but it rained earlier so the roads were muddy and we opted to stay with the car. We went in the opposite direction from yesterday and the views back toward the town with the mist shrouding the mountains and the rice paddies below flooded with water and glistening in the morning light, it was a sight to behold. We drove as far as we could into the village and saw goats perched precariously on the hillsides and Black Hmongs going to work and school. They are called Black Hmongs because their headdresses are black and much of their native garb is black as well although punctuated with colorful sashes and neckpieces. Every other woman has a gold tooth or two and I suspect it is a mark of status although I don’t know. Must ask Thien. There are also Red Hmong (red headdresses), Flower Hmong (much more colorful overall), Red Dao (more red than the Red Hmong) and the others I haven’t figured out yet. We will see another raft of hill tribes when we get to Northern Thailand and it will be interesting to see if they are very similar or different. These tribes originated in China or Tibet and were driven into Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand where they settled but they don’t really have a country of their own. I can’t even imagine living like they do, and yet most (not all) seem pretty happy. They smile a lot and if you watch them interact with each other they are very loving and gentle.

Oy Hanoi!

Note: I am having trouble uploading the rest of the pictures for this post and so I'm going to post it with only one. I'll try to add them later.

Our first full day in Hanoi. Because of scheduling problems, our days in Hanoi are split up. We had one day yesterday (Tuesday, Mar. 20) and then took the train to Sapa. But just a few words about that day. Our new guide, Thien, picked us up at the airport—this has gone perfectly in each case—and delivered us to the Metropole around 5:00 the other night. Uneventful evening, but yesterday was a really fun day. No guide was scheduled—Thien would pick us up at 9:00 that night to deliver us to the train to Sapa (more about that later.) So we had all day on our own. Considering ourselves experts on the city having spent a few days here before, Mary and I played tour guide to Tom and Neil and didn’t feel the need to avail ourselves of any further professional. First, we left the hotel and secured the services of four cyclos or pedi-cabs to cycle us about town. At $2 an hour per cyclo, this is the only way to travel in the city. Tom and Neil were a little apprehensive at first (what if we get separated, etc.) but soon got into the flow and we had the best time showing our personal drivers on the map where to take us, doing our sightseeing and then returning to retrieve our patiently waiting drivers to take us to the next stop. This is truly a case where the journey is more important than the destination, because a pedi-cab ride in Hanoi is a wild kaleidoscope of sounds, smells, sights and multiple stimulations that cannot be described. The guys called it sensory overload which is the best way to convey the feeling. First you get into your cab, a one-seater, with your driver behind you chatting in pigeon English and pointing out sights; then you move right into the most intense traffic you can imagine with motorbikes and cars and buses whizzing by in all directions. When you come to an intersection, you just keep going and by some miracle the one or more vehicles that you think are going to collide with you miraculously meld around you instead and its like Moses parting the Red Sea. Sometimes they are so close you can reach out and touch them, but it’s best not to, if you want to keep your upper extremities.

And of course pedestrians are crossing the street everywhere without looking or dodging traffic and somehow they avoid getting killed as well. And no one gets mad, or yells at another for cutting them off or displays road rage or any of the things we are used to when driving at home.

But it’s not just about avoiding collisions and witnessing the traffic up close and personal. The horns honking right in your ear, people talking, lights flashing, and all the visual stimulation of the street scene passing by with its smells of food mixed with other less savory odors is just more than one can take in. Shops of all kinds, women carrying their shoulder poles loaded with merchandise, motorcycles carrying pigs, mattresses or furniture not to mention whole families, people squatting on the curbs cooking and selling stuff, and about a million other sights means that you need eyes and ears on all sides of your head to even begin to absorb it all. Any apprehension quickly melts away and believe it or not you not only feel safe, you feel in control! Like king or queen of the road.

So in case you miss my point, the highlight of our day was simply riding the pedi-cabs for a few hours around town. We stopped at the Hanoi Hilton (site of the infamous prison during the war) but it was closed, then went to Ho Chi Minh’s Tomb, also closed, and saw again the various buildings where the beloved Uncle Ho lived and worked during the last years of his life. We rode down Embassy Row and our drivers pointed out the various embassies, saw uniformed police marching in formation, passed parks and monuments, some of the small streets of the old town, the Opera House and so much more. By the time we thought to stop for lunch all the restaurants were closed and we had to wait until five which was just as well since the next adventure was to start at nine. We killed the time by going to a market and quelled our growling stomachs by buying a kilo of peanuts for a dollar and walked through the market eating peanuts and taking pictures. Dinner was at a fabulous sea food restaurant where we had cockle salad, sweet snails (not the same as the previously described ones,), and the best fish rolled in rice paper we’ve ever had. We barely made it back to the hotel to collect our overnight bags, store our larger luggage there, and head for the train.

Hai Van Pass and Hue

Happy Birthday to my brother Charles who is celebrating his 6oth on Sunday. Happy birthday, Chas!

These guides take their work very seriously. Haven’t had a slacker yet. Two days ago, we left Hoi An. Tin and Nam, our driver, were loading our bags promptly at eight, despite an unexpected downpour. The walkways of the hotel were all canopied so we didn’t get wet, though Nam surely did. We were on the road by 8:15 tearing through small villages and almost flooded streets which made me a nervous wreck having experienced a flash flood that stalled and flooded our car during our first years in Dallas. But the van barreled on through and although the waves it created looked like the tsunami, we didn’t stall. We were headed for the Hai Van Pass just outside of Da Nang and it would be a shame if the weather were not clear enough to see. But Tin promised it would clear and it did.

As you’ve gathered by now, I always get suspicious when they say we are stopping at such and such “factory”—it reminds me of the perfume factories in Grasse and the pottery factories in Mexico and Italy or the “jewelry” factories everywhere where you are submitted to a lame demonstration of whatever the product is and then ushered into a showroom and hustled to buy, usually at grossly inflated prices. But the marble factory we pulled into next, like the lantern factory from the day before, was legit. By now the rain had stopped. First, we drove through a village dominated by a mountain which Tin said was nick-named Marble Mountain by the GIs during the war. The town itself is full of marble artists who are carving the most incredible statues of everything from Buddhas to American Indians. Marble slabs are piled up on both sides of the street and every shop or house is littered with marble debris. We passed through the town and then turned into the marble “factory.” Because it was Sunday, there were only a couple of carvers at work, but this was the real deal. The slabs and marble dust were everywhere and the yard outside was loaded with partially finished pieces from small to huge. The workmanship is first-rate and if we’d had the time and the money, it would have been great to buy some fabulous piece and ship it home. But we settled for a couple of small souvenirs—incense boxes and small ring boxes—instead. Note the picture of the two smiling Buddhas above.

Next we traveled on to Da Nang, the location of the famous China Beach infamous during the Vietnam War. Then a site of bloody battle, now it is a serene and quiet expanse of sand and sky enclosed by gentle mountains.

We eventually started to climb into the higher elevations to the Hai Van Pass, one of the highest points in Vietnam. The scenery was spectacular as we hairpinned up the mountain side while drinking in the views and snapping pictures of the bay below. One area of beach had been a leper colony up until the 1930’s because the “unclean” could be secluded nicely from the rest of the population. We stopped along the way to take pictures and at the summit there was a rest stop with some American bunkers left over from the war, souvenir shops and beautiful views of the whole surrounding vista. There were also some highly aggressive “merchants,” one of whom glommed onto me and wouldn’t stop touching me and talking to me in her broken English. She kept saying I like you and where are you from and how many children do you have and how old are you, and don’t you like these bracelets, three for a dollar, blah, blah, blah. At first it was amusing, but after a few unrelentless minutes of being stroked and almost cuddled, it was unnerving to say the least. We each had our own “stroker” and though we had been warned by Tin that this was the drill and not to buy, we finally had to say get us out of here, PLEASE! I don’t know what school of marketing they go to that advocates this hard-sell approach, but it’s not my favorite. As we piled back into the van and it was clear we were not going to succumb, my lady stuck out her lower lip into a pout and glared and glared. I hope she didn’t put some sort of Vietnamese hex on me….I think there is a rash starting to break out on my….

We still had a major site to see before checking into the hotel which Mary and I knew was going to be a good one and which we wouldn’t have time to enjoy. So after a late lunch that was included in our itinerary and not very good, we continued on to the Purple Forbidden City modeled after Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City in Beijing which we will see later in the trip. Home to generations of emperors and their families and harems (one had 142 children with his numerous wives), it is a vast complex which I can’t begin to summarize here. When I post this later, I will try to post a link for anyone interested.

That night we had dinner at a private home in Hue. Professor An, a 60-ish Vietnamese scholar whose wife is the granddaughter of one of the royals, has opened up his home and gardens to visitors like us who, for a fee, get a tour of the gardens and an explanation of the feng shui inherent there by the professor himself, and then a look at the interior of the house which is filled with antiques and memoriabilia from his life. This gave us a glimpse into a typical though obviously upper class version of how people live, and after we had seen various souvenirs of his very interesting life and travels, we were treated to a seven-course dinner prepared by his wife and served by his niece who enjoys practicing her English while majoring in Mandarin Chinese at the university. She plans to be an interpreter. The food was delicious and the ambience authentic to say the least. Again, this seems a clear example of a Vietnamese “capitalist” who decided to market his skills in a special way in order to make a living. I don’t know how often he does this (or what it cost since it was part of our package), but it was most interesting and he and the few other family members we met honestly made us feel welcome. While it was just the four of us, there were three tables that could have seated maybe up to 15-18 people at a time. Quite an enterprise.

Yesterday we went sightseeing in Hue, another lovely Vietnamese city north of Da Nang. First a boat ride down the Perfume River on a replica of the royal water transport to a famous pagoda called the Pagoda of the Heavenly Lady which Tin clearly loved and called it “darling.” We had a 2:40 plane to Hanoi and were pressed for time, but he managed to squeeze in two of the scheduled royal tombs—those of the second and eleventh emperors of Vietnam. The emperors would design their own tombs which could take years and of course covered acres of land and were comprised of a whole complex of buildings.

When the tomb was finished, the emperor and his family would use it as a summer resort until his death when it then fulfilled its original purpose and was closed to everyone except the guardians who protected the now holy site. The second emperor took 15 years to design and build the one we saw and then died almost immediately after it was completed, so the poor chap really didn’t get to enjoy it at all. The second one, tomb of the eleventh emperor, was built during the 1920’s and had a much different style than what we had seen previously. The mosaic work on the inside was amazing. It would have been nice to inspect the mosaics more carefully, but we had a 2:40 plane to catch to Hanoi. Mary and I were so excited to be returning to this most wonderful and quirky city where we had spent several days three years ago. We have just one day there before we board the much anticipated (with some dread I might add) overnight train to Sapa, the mountain town where we will spend the 3-4 days. But first Hanoi.

Good Morning Vietnam!

It is our first full day in Vietnam. We were met at 9:30 by Tin, our guide, for a walk around the ancient town of Hoi An, a central Vietnamese town about 40 km fromm Da Nang. Tourism has saved the town and it is quite prosperous, at least compared to what we saw in Siem Reap. When Angkor Wat is discovered by more people, Siem Reap should experience a similar resurrection. I forgot to mention that Siem Reap had five hotels about ten years ago, and this year alone they are building 100 more, from guest houses to luxury resorts. Sounds hard to believe, but that is what Tek told us.

But I digress. Sadly, we were hoping for cooler weather, but it remains hot and humid. Forget the makeup, ladies, it drips down your nose the first five minutes. First we walked around the old town, which is reminiscent of Hanoi: tree-lined streets and some very pretty colonial houses mixed in with typical Asian hovels and shops. The destination today was to experience a cooking class with a local lady-makes-good, Miss Vy (pronounced Vee) whose parents had a restaurant while she was growing up. She is under 40 and now has a very successful business giving cooking demonstrations in one of her three restaurants in town. Tin walked us to the first stop where we met Miss Lu, who works for Miss Vy. Lu’s task was to take us to the market to show us the ingredients that would be used in the cooking class. She is a bubbly young lady, very knowledgeable when it comes to herbs and vegetables and we learned the names of some interesting ingredients we hadn’t seen before. I noticed in the stalls that there were bins full of teeny, tiny snails and I asked her what they were for. Well, to eat, of course, she says and takes a toothpick and pulls out of its shell the tiniest crustacean I’ve ever seen and pops it into her mouth. Can I try? says I. Of course, and soon all four of us were enjoying live snails au naturel without garlic or butter or French bread, but with the best taste ever. Kind of a cross between an oyster and a clam but so tender and more delicate. We agreed that a bowlful with a martini would be the perfect before-dinner relaxation.

Eventually, we made our way through the market to Miss Vy’s restaurant. I had asked Tin how many would be in the class, assuming (fearing, rather) that we would be part of an assembly line operation with tour buses parked outside. Not so. We were taken upstairs where Miss Vy herself was waiting with a table spread with beautiful vegetables and a table for four set with bamboo mats and chopsticks. She introduced herself and told us her story, modestly of course, but Tin had already told us that she is the epitome of the Vietnamese entrepreneurial woman who has built a business doing what she knows how to do. She is beautiful and gracious and explained all about the cooking of the region and why they eat what they do. Every Vietnamese meal has elements that are crispy, crunchy, smooth and silky, as well as those that are salty, bitter, sweet and sour, in her words—the yin and the yang. This gives the tantalizing texture and taste cacophony that Tom and I eat every week at home. They eat mostly vegetables, fish gets second place and meat a distant third and only for special occasions. In fact, when someone gets married, you might ask what kind of wedding are you having and they will respond “Two pigs and a cow.” They don’t tell you the number of guests invited or the cost of the expensive designer gown for the bride or the number of attendants in the wedding party or brag about the elaborate venue for the wedding—just two pigs and a cow. Your success is measured by the amount of meat you can provide for your family and guests. So while it is an economic thing first and foremost, it also means everyone is slim and healthy. Another interesting thing she told us was that unlike most cultures, Vietnamese people don’t talk while they eat. In fact, children are chastised if they speak during a meal. The reason for this is that if you open your mouth to talk, air will get into your stomach and spoil your digestion. Makes sense to me.

The lunch was amazing. First she showed us how to prepare Japanese (white) eggplant with some ingenious slicing, soaking and flattening. It was then fried in a tiny bit of peanut oil with garlic, onion, and red pepper and the presentation was just lovely. Then we had a mango salad that we chopped and mixed, we made our own spring rolls, and prepared a blue fin tuna dish wrapped in banana leaves and grilled. She had little lacquer bowls with all the necessary seasonings and condiments and each ingredient was added by each of us according to her instructions. What a great dinner party this would make at home. Gwenna, I can see the wheels turning in your mind right now….

I had asked if we would get the recipes for these extraordinary dishes and she said yes we will give you a notebook at the end. I pictured a couple of pages of Xeroxed recipes, but instead we received a lacquer photo album with color pictures of the various courses we enjoyed as well as at least twenty more dishes, all with detailed instructions. Miss Vy is going to publish a cookbook this year and is going to New York as a guest of the CIA (Culinary Institute of America not the governmental CIA) and I for one intend to keep an eye on her career. She could be an Asian Julia Child!

Afterward we walked around the town some more with Tin. Artisans are hard at work in their shops wood carving, embroidering, making lanterns, painting, and creating all sorts of other handicrafts. Finally, he drove us out into the country to visit a lantern factory. It sounds so touristy when you say it and again Mary and I mumbled together that we probably wouldn’t like it, but yet again we were wrong. Talk about authentic! The so-called “factory” is actually a working farm with one of the buildings devoted to making the lanterns that the area is famous for. Lanterns you say? Who wants lanterns? Well, I would have bought twenty of them if I could have fit them into our already loaded luggage—they are that beautiful.

The workers there must have invented the assembly line because each step of the process was being performed by a different person—cutting the bamboo and shaping the pieces into the proper sized strips for the frames; cutting and making the metal sub-structures that hold the lanterns together; tediously tying rows of string around the frame to keep the strips evenly spaced; and of course gluing the colorful silk to the frame to produce the finished product. Tedious work by our standards, but the workers smiled and chatted and seemed quite content. It was fascinating to watch, and at the end we were invited to sit down and make our own! We each had a “teacher” who showed us how to apply the glue, stretch the silk, trim the edges, etc. and the ease with which they could do it compared to our awkward efforts was humbling. The guys did great, finishing before Mary and me, and with fairly decent outcomes to boot. My finished product is pictured above and I am very proud of my handiwork.

It’s Saturday morning (I think) as I write this and today we have a day at “leisure.” Hah! We plan to take a boat ride down the Hoi An River then have lunch and who knows what adventure will unfold after that?

Later: 6:00PM:

Tried to post this tonight, but no can do. The network is kaput for the moment, which I guess we shouldn’t complain about because we are lucky to have it at all. We had a 30 minute Skype with Mark and family this morning—a miracle of technology. So I shan’t be the one to kick a gift horse in the teeth…

Today we took the aforementioned boat ride and saw Hoi An from the water. Very nice and great fun, but not much to report. After, we had lunch in a little dive called Café des Amis where there is no menu. Mr. Kim, the very effusive chef de cuisine/proprieteur immediately showed us his guest book with hundreds of pages of glowing comments in a myriad of languages which in fact raised the expectations a bit more than was due. “Best meal of our trip,” “finest restaurant in all of Vietnam,” “fabulous,” “unbelievable!!!” “j’etait enchante!” “c'est magnifique”, etc. etc. While the comments were a bit hyperbolic, the meal was perfectly acceptable and it was fun to sit on the second floor balcony overlooking the busy port below. Hopefully I will be able to post the picture of the pedi-cab drivers who took us from the hotel to the Post Office and waited (a long time) while we got Sims cards for our phones (which are still too complicated to operate) and then took us to the port and found us a boat for hire. The boatman was the brother of one of the pedi-cab drivers and of course they are all in cahoots and who knows who is who. We had been told by Tin the guide yesterday that about $7 for the four of us would buy a THREE hour ride down the river, but we only wanted to spend an hour and the boatman started at $5 a person. Pshaw, said we, it should be $7 for 3 hours! Much arm waving and stricken looks, but all very good natured and the upshot was, one hour for $8. It was so fun we gave him $10. We are the last of the big spenders.

But the significance of the picture of the pedi-cab drivers is this: they not only took us from hotel to Post Office to boat, but met us on our return hoping to take us somewhere else, and when that didn’t pan out they hovered outside the restaurant (which was very near the boat drop-off) as seen in the picture, WAVED and SMILED to us from the street and then after lunch when we said we wanted to walk a bit before returning to the hotel said “But we wait long time!” We didn’t ask you to, we pointed out, and again tragic looks and something about the loss of income accrued by the wait, but we prevailed and were able to have our walk. A little while later, Tom and I saw our guys hovering yet again and so we acquiesced and back to the hotel we went. Ah, another example of the entrepreneurial spirit, alive and well in Vietnam.

Now I sit unable to post and all packed and ready to leave early tomorrow. We are meeting Tin at 8:00 and driving to Hue via Da Nang which I understand is about a four hour trip counting the various stops we will take. The day is much touted in our itinerary as one of the most memorable we will experience, with a drive through a “sea of clouds” over the 2,500 foot Hai Van Pass, a stop at a fishing village, and a tour of the ancient Citadel in Hue. The Citadel was known as the Forbidden Purple City and was home to generations of royalty. Interestingly, while Hoi An was spared any damage during the “American” war (what we call the Vietnam War), nearby Hue was the site of some of the most brutal fighting during the Tet Offensive.

Angkor What?

A couple of days have gone by since I was able to work on this chronicle. One reason is that we have had no time for such frivolity, and the other reason is that although the hotel touts its WiFi connectability, we have yet to connect. Thus, I’m writing this in Word and hoping to post it at some future time.

Two short flights from Hong Kong and here we were in Siem Reap, Cambodia, home of the Angkor Wat. Do look it up on the internet if you are not familiar with it as it is truly one of the wonders of the world. Covering the size of TWO Manhattans (I believe I originally said one), it is a sprawling complex of early Hindu and Buddhist temples built from the ninth to the twelfth centuries by kings of the Khmer Empire who at the time controlled not only Cambodia, but most of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as well.

Our guide to this spectacular site is Mr. Tek, a funny little man who is a bottomless well of knowledge about the temples including the history of Cambodia from the days of the Empire to the present. After we got settled into the hotel (with its lovely Zen minimalist décor), he picked us up and asked us if we wanted to see the site of one of the killing fields of Cambodia. Clearly Tek felt very passionate about what had happened between 1975 and 1979 when Pol Pot slaughtered two million of his own people, fully one third of the population of Cambodia. We found out later that he was twenty at the time and personally experienced the disappearance (read: murder) of some of his relatives. At the place where he took us there is a school which was turned into a prison at the time and people were summarily shot and thrown into a ditch. The ditch was later excavated and the skulls and bones of the people put into a monument which stands on the site as a visible reminder of the horrors that the Cambodian people went through during that terrible time.

Then we continued on to the first area of the temple complex which is called Ta Phrom. Over the centuries the roots of the trees have grown under the buildings and literally displaced the stones of the temples pushing them out of place. The roots look like giant snakes creeping under, around, and on top of the buildings and are so integrated they almost look like they belong that way. Evidently when Frenchman Henri Mouhot discovered the temples lost in the jungle in the 1860s, they were all like this, slowly being devoured by the surrounding vegetation. I’m not sure if this particular complex is being deliberately left this way or whether the reconstruction efforts have not reached it yet—I hope the former because it is so beautiful just as it is. We were stunned by the sheer enormity of it and all the while we received a running commentary by the historian Mr. Tek.

Yesterday morning we were met at the hotel by Tek and our driver and taken to Angkor Thom (it sounds like Uncle Tom when he says it), another major site of the temple complex. There is a huge corridor of bas reliefs that depict ordinary life as it was in the 12^th century, complete with scenes illustrating fairly continuous wars with the Chinese, market life, childbirth, hunting, the life of the kings vs. that of the peasants, dancing girls and fish being eaten by crocodiles. The reliefs are all original and in wonderful condition, but you have to have the actions pointed out before it is clear what you are viewing. At least I did. The scenes showing market life show people cooking in huge pots, selling vegetables and other wares and busy daily commerce. He told us how to distinguish between the Cambodian army (long earlobes and flat faces) and the Chinese army (no earlobes and topknots and beards) and once you know that you can more or less figure out who is winning and who is losing any particular battle. Of course marauding armies were a fact of life and the fact that the temples survived the centuries of attacks, as well as a series of civil wars, harsh weather and looters is a testament to their durability.

After lunch at an authentic Cambodian restaurant (authentic means no Americans) we went to the crown jewel of the temple complex, the Angkor Wat itself. Five beehived shaped towers dominate this part of the temple and Mr. Tek was able to recite the height and width of every one of them, none of which I can remember but suffice to say they are very large.

By the end of the second day, we had seen most of the temple complex, me screaming for mercy and Mr. Tek showing little. It was good though because although I balked at climbing yet another pile of rocks, the view when there was always worth it and I'm grateful that he didn't let us off so easily. Our final destination was to the Conservancy where hundreds of pieces are being stored for eventual transference back to the site or to the national museum in Phnom Penh. These pieces were recovered from looters who have brazenly stolen or spirited them away from wherever they were found over many years previously. Tek told us that there is a museum in Paris where many of the artifacts lie--the Cambodian government unable to get them back despite all manner of begging and pleading. This is much like the Elgin Marbles which are in London but should be in Greece where they belong.

As I finish this entry, we are settled into our hotel in Hoi An where we will soon meet our latest guide Tin who picked us up at the airport last night. Thus begins our adventure in Viet Nam, the country that so captivated Mary and I and our traveling companions three years ago.

So Long Hong Kong

Tomorrow morning we leave for Siem Reap, Cambodia, where we will spend 3 ½ days visiting the amazing temple complex called Angkor Wat. But for now we are relaxing in our beautiful room at the Shangri La Kowloon hotel in Hong Kong. We arrived late the other night, but surprisingly we haven’t experienced much jet lag, probably because we are traveling west for the most part and we are always ahead of the sun. We crossed the International Date line on Thursday which means we arrived in Hong Kong on Friday, losing a day in the bargain.

Saturday morning we met our guide Andy Yeung in the lobby and after a joyous reunion with the Andersons who are staying at the Marriott on Hong Kong Island, we proceeded on a full day’s tour of the city. When Andy picked us up he ushered us out the door and onto a bus and for one sinking moment I thought we would be part of a larger tour, but the instructions had been understood—it was just the four of us, plus Andy and the driver—and an entire bus. A small bus, but a bus nonetheless.

HongKong is an enormous city with skyscrapers to rival New York and traffic comparable to Bangkok. Seven million people crowd the relatively small space and the high rise apartments are lined up one next to the other for miles. Of course, because Hong Kong is an island there is water everywhere and most of the tourist attractions have to do with the bay and the harbour. Repulse Bay is a beautiful beach which wasn’t crowded because the weather was cool, but one can only imagine what it is like in the heat of the summer. We took a sampan ride through the Aberdeen Fishing Village which isn’t a village at all, but a floating city of fishing boats, house boats, and water taxis. Andy told us that the fishing industry has been all but wiped out because of over-fishing and the fishermen struggle just to make a living nowadays. That was evident in the poor condition of most of the boats. For lunch, at our insistence, we skipped the touristy restaurant on top of Victoria Peak and instead Andy took us to a local dive where the specialties are fish ball soup, fried fish skin, broccoli in Chinese gravy and some other unrecognizable vegetable. It was truly a delicious taste of local color, though maybe not the most delicious meal we’ve ever had. Afterwards, we went to the famous Victoria Peak to see the magnificent Hong Kong skyline from across the harbor, but unfortunately it was a day of clouds and mist and the buildings were all but invisible. On the way up to the Peak we passed #99 (lucky numbers) where we got a glimpse of the home of kung fu legend, Jackie Chan. All of the houses on the Peak are in the $20-40 million range.

Maybe the most interesting part of the tour was a visit to a street where every shop sells dried “stuff,” used for everything imaginable from cooking materials to medicinal concoctions, to potions used in the many superstitions that rule much of Chinese life. There were dried fruits and vegetables of all types, dried shark’s fins, dried birds nests used for the expensive delicacy bird’s nest soup, and bin after bin of things you don’t even want to know about, most of which even Andy couldn’t identify and had to ask. My favorite oddity though was the deer antlers, which they boil for many hours and then when soft slice into paper thin slices and use to flavor soups and stews. The shop that sold the dried deer antlers also had dried deer’s tails—you know, that part of the deer anatomy that started out as a cute little wagging thing that follows the deer into the forest. If you don’t believe how weird some of this dried “stuff” was, note the picture above which was prominently displayed in one of the windows: We Buy Gallstones. Dr. Mark, are you listening? This could be a whole new market!

The tour ended with a visit to a Taoist temple right in the middle of the city. I had noticed earlier that I hadn’t seen that many temples—not like in Bangkok where it seems like every other building is a Buddhist temple. I asked Andy how many temples there were in Hong Kong. Six hundred! Oh well, they must be well camouflaged!

But back to the Taoist temple: The driver parked our bus in a lot with lots of other buses and Mary and I immediately assumed we were being taken to a major tourist attraction. Well, by now we should have trusted old Andy. This temple is an attraction, all right, but what it attracts is thousands of Chinese both locally and from all over China who come with incense and gifts of food and clothing which they proceed to offer to the gods in exchange for long life, prosperity, wealth, many children, etc. etc. The incense was so thick you could hardly see or breathe and hundreds of worshippers were on their knees or prostrate outside the temple doors holding bouquets of the stuff all burning at once, blankets spread out with fruit and raw chickens on them, and at least one of every family shaking fortune sticks. Fortune sticks are kind of like pickup sticks—you shake a box full of them until one shakes itself loose and falls out onto the ground. Each stick has a number on it, and you then record the number of the fallen stick and do the whole thing over and over again. The combination of numbers then tells you your future. Now if what is prophesied in the sticks doesn’t happen, you need to come back and try again, but if it does happen, you need to come back and thank the gods for smiling upon you. Thus, you have a bit of a vicious circle of burning and shaking and kneeling and prostrating.

In re-reading this, I think I sound a bit disrespectful and I don’t mean to be. These people were every bit as pious and into their beliefs as we are into ours. They are just different and it was most interesting to be able to watch. Speaking of superstitions, a few of them that Andy related are: never wear a green hat, never give a bell as a gift, #4 means death, #9 means long life. Don’t ever pat the shoulder of a gambler or he is sure to lose. If you happen to see a monk on your way to the horse races or the gambling hall, turn around and go home because you will lose. Feng shui, which means wind and water, is very important to where you live: a house should face the water and have its back to the mountain, and you should never be able to open the front door and see through to the back.

Kudos to Andy for a great day!

Today was a “day at leisure,” so the four of us met in the lobby of the Peninsula (a lovely place to see and be seen), and then walked through the beautiful Kowloon Park where you can see locals practicing every form of martial art and lots of small groups playing guitars and singing, and many people like us just hanging out. Since most Hong Kong locals live in very small and tight quarters—4 people in a 500 square foot apartment—it is no wonder they use and love the outdoors.

Then on to the “Ladies Market” for another dose of local color. We ate Dim Sum for a late lunch, a two hour affair where once again we were the only non-Chinese. After lunch, the weather had turned surprisingly cold so we scrapped the plans for the rest of the day and returned to the hotel where we now sit, relaxed and ready for the next adventure.

Good Bye Kauai

Note: I've tried and tried but can't find an easy way to caption the pictures. I hope the text will be self-explanatory. Post written earlier today follows:

Well, I’m a little annoyed because I just wrote about a page of this journal and when I tried to save it, I lost the whole thing. No point reconstructing—I’ll just start over. The purpose of this entry is to relate our amazing day yesterday, but first here is how we got to where we are now.

We are about three hours into a 9 ½ hour Japanese Airlines flight enroute to Osaka, Japan where we will transfer to the 4 ½ hour flight to Hong Kong. A killer day, but the anticipation of what lies ahead makes it worth it. Our first flight this morning, from Kauai to Honolulu, was a mere 20-25 minutes, but then we had a 3 hour layover--made bearable, however, by the excellent people watching. Everyone in the terminal was Japanese! There were some elaborate bowing ceremonies among the various strata of traditional older folks, in counterpoint to the hipster young ones in every form of designer clothing who made us feel dowdy and square by comparison. Now we are on the flight, having just finished a lovely (by airlines standards) lunch of Japanese food most of which was unidentifiable—and we have a menu in front of us! Our food rule for the trip—no dogs, frogs, or insects—was not breached however, and we both ate every bite. Now, about our second and final day in Kauai.

Yesterday we left early for the Waimei Canyon, called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, and while I’ve seen one or two other better canyons (not including the Grand—haven’t been there yet), it truly is an incredible sight considering it is on a small island in the middle of the ocean. The canyon itself is 3,500 feet deep and the colors are other-worldly. The day was a bit cloudy so the pictures do not do justice to the truly beautiful range of color, the shadows cast by the craggy rocks and the truly majestic display of God’s beautiful earth.

To get to the canyon, you drive inland from the coast about ten miles up a winding road that is reminiscent of so many Colorado roads we know and love. First, though, we stopped at Poiku Beach and the nearby Spouting Horn, a blow hole which spurts high or low according to the height of the waves. We saw similar blow holes in the Caymans years ago. We had a 2:30 appointment for our Holoholo Charter Whale Watching Sunset Cruise (highly recommended by Eric and Jenn and reserved well in advance), so by the time we drove the length of the canyon and back and had a shrimp taco at a shrimp shack along the road, we were a little pressed for time.

Made it though and went to check in with printed reservation and proof of payment in hand. Puzzled look, clerk leaves desk, much conferring with superiors, and the upshot was that there on the printed reservation plain as could be was Tuesday, March 6, the previous day. We shan’t go into whose fault it was, suffice to say I’d love to blame it on them but in all honesty… Anyway, I begged and pleaded (remember that old psychology axiom that something becomes even more desirable when you think you can’t have it) but while sympathetic they said they were at capacity and the only thing we could do is hang out until the time came and maybe there would be a couple of no-shows. I was desolate, knowing tomorrow would be too late, but Tom said who knows, we were no-shows yesterday and someone may have reaped the benefits then, so why not today? We wait, anticipation mounting, me the glass half empty type, Tom the glass half full, when at the last minue in comes the final couple to check in. The woman was, well, having trouble walking having just had hip surgery, and after much discussion they were rejected on the grounds that they had checked in too late and told to come back on Friday when they could be escorted to the boat and pre-boarded! So we got on, me now feeling guilty for having taken the space of that poor woman, although I’m telling you a person had to be pretty able-bodied to negotiate the bumps and bounces of the pontoon boat we were on.

So God works his magic in mysterious ways, and there we were on Cap’n Ted’s pontoon boat with about 40 other lovely people going hell bent for election toward the Na pali Coast, wine and beer included and flowing freely and what they called heavy snacks turning out to be a full meal with Caesar Salad, wraps, quiche, fruit and veggies, and more. But the best part was the whales, the dolphins and the coast, and the running commentary by Cap’n Ted himself—a veritable encyclopedia of information he was. We saw many whales, none too close, but close enough to see them jump in the air, and do their little dance and undulate above and below the surface and spout their sprays into the clouds. For those of you who read Kelly’s brother’s essay about his moment with the whale at sea in Hawaii, it was a similar feeling although clearly not as personal as his must have been. The sheer size of the creatures— an average adult hump-backed whale is about 95,000 pounds and the length of about 15-18 cars—is enough to inspire awe. And early in the cruise our boat was literally surrounded by a school of dolphins swimming in formation, doing quadruple back flips, and smiling at us with their friendly faces—this lasted at least twenty minutes until they tired of being amused by us and swam away.

But truly the most awe-inspiring, or at least every bit as much so as the whales, was the northeast coast of Kauai as seen from the sea. The water is blue as blue can be and so clear you can see the bottom, and the coast is a series of jagged cliffs made of volcanic rock and deep caves and swirling inlets that rival any scenery we’ve seen. The layers upon layers of craggy tors each one paler and mistier than the one in front, looks like I imagine the karsts in China will look when we get there. Above are a few pictures of the coast but again, due to cloudiness and the amateur taking them, they don’t do justice to the reality. Ted pointed out one cliff and said that if we put the Empire State Building on the beach in front of it, it would only come up half way. And don’t forget, Kauai is only 35 miles wide. With all of the volcanic eruptions over thousands of years you’d think it would have been blown to kingdom come by now instead of transformed into paradise.

We loved Hawaii and now we know why so many of our family and friends go so often. And so until our next trip, Aloha, blue Hawaii. Next stop ASIA!!!!!

Aloha

I'm sitting at the desk in our room at the Hilton Kauai Beach Resort where the WiFi works like a charm (we should be so lucky on the rest of the trip), the torch lighting ceremony is going on outside our window around the pool, and some very romantic Don Ho type music is being played and sung. A cast of thousands (well only about ten actually, but it seems a lot more) has just performed what I understand to be a nightly ceremony--lots of drum beating, hula dancing, racing around the pool lighting the torches--and all the while eliciting squeals of delight from the children and provoking grown-ups to make fools of themselves when "volunteered" for hula lessons. One of the little girls, part of the show and a fledgling hula performer, was introduced as Maile (one of our granddaughters as you know). The name Maile is derived from the vine of the same name indigenous to the highest elevations of Hawaii and used to make very expensive wedding leis which evidently are highly coveted at Hawaiian weddings.

Today we took our rented car and drove up the east coast of Kauaii to the end of the line, where Bali Hai stands as a rugged outcropping of stone cliffs. Lots of movies have been made here because of the gorgeous scenery--Raiders of the Lost Ark, Elvis' Blue Hawaii, and Jurassic Park among others.

On the way back we stopped at the Hanalei lighthouse, which overlooks a magnificent vista of sea and rock. The twenty or so visitors were treated to a performance by a pod of whales who seemed to be performing for our benefit right in front of us. Only one jumped clear out of the water, but there were many many others teasing us with dorsal fins and rounded backs and those familiar whale's tails. They are mating and spawning and "making nurseries" according to one of the informational posters and February and March are the months when you are most likely to see them. During all of this time, the males don't eat. Make of that what you will.

I confess to being a bit of a bird nut and I'm quite delighted with the most mundane of birds, but am literally thrilled with unusual birds. Above you will see two feathered friends that we met today--one is obviously an egret. I know, I know, we have them in Dallas and everywhere else, but this one was up close and personal and didn't fly away. We had a moment. The other is the endangered Hawaiian nene (pronounced nay-nay), which all you crossword puzzle addicts will recognize.

A bird that you can't see is the red-footed booby (whoever named that bird had a mean streak), who are covering the outcropping pictured above. You can't see them in the picture but thousands of them were roosting there and looked so beautiful in all their multitudes. Driving back to the hotel, we passed a bird about the size of a cardinal with a red head, a white band around its neck and the rest of it was blue! No one at the hotel knew what it was but if anyone out there has a bird book look it up for me please. More tomorrow after our whale watching boat trip.

The Waiting Game...

It's Thursday and we're about 80% packed. Clothes and personal items are actually only part of the preparations. In addition, we've registered the trip with the State Department (recommended for American citizens going to faraway lands); started our malaria pills; picked up the cash and the traveler's checks; stopped the paper and put a hold on the mail; left our instructions and itineraries with the kids; made the cheat sheets for all the various currencies we have to deal with; practiced hello, goodbye and thank you in five different languages; checked and re-checked the itinerary against the tickets (no errors!); learned how to use the international phone (not to mention that wonder of wonders, Skype! Do check it out if you haven't already); collected all the cords that go with all the electronic equipment we're taking; cleaned out the refrigerator; pre-paid the bills; and...well, you get the picture.

I want to thank the world's best travel agent, Barbara Wilks of Travel Directions, for working with me for months to get all these arrangements made. She is highly recommended if you need a travel agent extraordinaire. She has the patience of Job and the knowledge of Solomon, and besides that she is as nice as she can be. Barbara also found AsiaTransPacific Journeys, who handled all the specialized arrangements in Asia including 18 intra-Asia flights over and above the long around-the-world flights, two overnight train rides, one overnight boat ride, at least fifteen hotels, as many guides and drivers, and the logistics of putting it all together. Thanks to Pat O'Connell of ATPJ for getting everything worked out. We are prepared for glitches which are inevitable in any journey as complex as this, but we have total confidence that Barbara and Pat have done the best possible job of planning ahead for all possibilities.

Now all we have to do is wait....