Author: jdewyze

Weird and wacky Southeast Asia: a photo gallery

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Sometimes you come across things that don’t fit into any proper blog post but still blow your mind. Our journey through SE Asia offered a bumper crop of those, so here I present my personal photo gallery of 10 assorted weird and wacky SE Asian sights:

1) I probably never would have noticed this vehicle, which was UBIQUITOUS in Cambodia. But Steve, who’s astute about such things, immediately identified it as a Camry, a brand that Toyota has never sold outside the United States. Equally weird, the horde of Camrys plying the Cambodian streets and byways are all 10-15 years old, and they’re universally in mint condition. One of our Cambodian guides said they typically cost about $8,000 (and remember that Cambodia is one of the poorest countries on earth). In the US, a comparable one would run half that price or less.

2) The Southeast Asians aren’t the only ones posting bizarre images on toilet stalls. I’ve puzzled over this (lower) Japanese one before and only this trip, while passing through Narita International, did I learn it means the stall is equipped with a fancy toilet that can spray warm water “for cleansing of the buttock.” We had a short connecting time, so there was no way I was going to test it.

But I’ve added some new ones to my collection:

Here it’s the central right icon that disturbs me. No use of hand brooms on your shoes? (The image on the right clearly is intended to prevent actual showering with the hand-held spray hoses that almost all stalls are mysteriously equipped with.)
We found the following affixed to a public toilet outside one of Bangkok’s most visited temple complexes:
But what does it mean??? I can only guess:

Men can use this toilet. Women can too. You can pee standing up. You can pee… squatting? You can wash your hands. Sit on the toilet. Squat on the toilet. (Really?) You can throw up in it? Kick it??? You can change your baby’s diaper or breast feed (…maybe?) You can take your wheelchair in? Throw something in a waste basket. And that huge image — perverts are allowed???

3) Not only bathrooms have that certain je ne sais quoi when it comes to scatological iconography. We captured this one attached to the dashboard of the taxi that picked us up at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport:

No doubt about its meaning.

4) The only way I can imagine any death-defying babies besting those in Vietnam is if the babies actually were driving the mopeds themselves. The wee one in this photo is hardly the youngest one we saw, but usually we were too slow to photograph them — because we first had to stifle our gasps and close our jaws, which were gaping open. Not only are these youngsters NOT riding in their National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved car seats, restrained by seat belts, but sometimes Mom was only holding on to them with a single hand, while Junior bounced up and down on the seat on his tiny toes. Some infants were too young to hold their heads up, let alone bounce.

5) You might think the only weird or wacky thing about this sign is that the beer is so cheap, but you’d be overlooking the fact that we took this picture in Cambodia. It was on the very touristy Pub Street in Siem Reap, but pretty much every price of everything we saw or were quoted anywhere in that country was in dollars. Sometimes we got riels (the official Cambodian currency) back as change; a 1000-riel note is worth about 25 cents. But ATMs all dispense crisp, clean $100 bills. Sometimes 50s and 20s. Basically, the whole society has acknowledged that their own money is about as important as the penny is in America, thrown up its collective hands, and switched to dollars instead.
 

6) This is Tucker, my Labrador Retriever. We didn’t see him anywhere in SE Asia, but we did see a fellow who looked like his younger brother looking very sad in a very small cage in Hanoi. We also saw heartbreakingly tiny and pathetic puppies for sale on a market street. We had a very, very strong suspicion they weren’t destined to be canine companions; one restaurant not far from that street had a whole section of doggy dishes on the menu. I am aware that some people in China and SE Asia eat dogs, but when I saw that menu, I was too upset to try to photograph it. I felt almost as revolted as if the menu had a selection of delicacies prepared with human meat. I don’t know if this is weird or wacky, but it’s certainly one of those sights that tell you you’re no longer in Kansas (and it’s a good thing your friend Toto isn’t either!)

7) If I were less ignorant about world religions, I would doubtless be blase about this sight of a lingam, which we photographed in one of the Angkor temples. I’d think, ‘Well, duh! Of course it’s normal to have statues of penises inserted into vaginas all over your place of worship.” Actually, most of the phalluses (the linga) have been stolen by vandals over the centuries. But their female counterparts, the yonis

are still everywhere, looking very lonely and reminding you that these folks had a very different view of sex than most of the Christian churches and Muslim mosques I’ve visited recently.

8) A broader awareness of religious practices also might make ancestral shrines seem mundane. They ARE mundane throughout SE Asia. Many are erected outside homes, but some like the one in this photograph (taken in the lobby of one of our Vietnamese guesthouses) are indoor fixtures. The incense stick was burning. The offering on the right was a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. (I guess there’s nothing wrong with smoking if you’re already dead.) And the ice in the glass of Coke on the left was fresh.
 

9) Central Siem Reap has a lot of fish tanks next to benches and adorned with signs offering a pedicure and foot massage all in one. The idea is you put your feet in the tank, and the creatures in it (“pepper fish” was one variety, we were told) instantly swarm around them and begin nibbling on the dead flesh. I paid $3 (“for as long as you want!”) and made something of a spectacle of myself whooping about how much it tickled. (It never hurt, but the feeling ranks very, very high on the weirdness scale.) In defense of the fish, I must say my feet did feel a bit smoother than normal when I got in bed that night.

10) Some fish eat. Many, many get eaten, including this assembly on Steve’s fermented chocolate and rice porridge dish. Breakfast of champions, Filipino style!

Bye-bye Buddha

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[My blogging software wouldn’t allow me to add photos to my last post about Angkor Wat. Now that I’m home again, I’ve corrected that. I wrote the following post and a final one to come on the plane returning home yesterday.]

On this trip, we had a total of less than 15 hours to explore Bangkok. We did our best. We ranged around the city via taxi,

tuk-tuk…
city bus…
water bus…
Skytrain…

and foot. We saw at least 100 things that intrigued us. But the only one I’m certain we’ll both remember is the great reclining Buddha of Wat Pho.

The Wat Pho temple complex is one of the oldest in Bangkok and contains the largest assortment of Buddhas assembled anywhere in Thailand. Some are really impressive…

like him…
and him.

But the unforgettable one is the big, chiller Buddha. I think he was built about 200 years ago. (The informational signs aren’t very clear.) Steve first saw him in 1958, when he traveled around the world with his parents, and he’s been talking about him ever since. He recalls that on his first visit, only a handful of other tourists joined him and his parents in the enormous building the Buddha is crammed into. During our recent visit, there were hundreds, all jostling to try to capture him with their phones and cameras. That’s not so easy to do.

Columns holding up the ceiling obscure a good clear view of him.
This angle from his feet is very popular.
He has enormous toes and extremely fancy feet.
And even fancier pillows!
I’m not sure anything in Las Vegas can compare to him, which feels appropriate, as so many places in Bangkok look like an over-the-top fusion of Vegas and Disneyland. (“Did Walt travel here?” I wondered aloud at one point.)
Of course I say this with the ignorance of someone who’s only been in Bangkok for less than 15 hours. To speak more knowledgeably, I’d have to go back.

 

 

 

The shocking thing I learned in Cambodia

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Say you’re an adult American who went to decent elementary and high schools; maybe even attended a good college. At some point during your life, you become aware there’s an amazing edifice in Egypt called the Great Pyramid of Giza. Although Egypt today is a pretty grubby, unstable place, you like to travel and resolve to see it. Only after arriving do you learn that Egypt once was the center of an advanced civilization, one that shaped a big portion of the ancient world. You might be shocked by the fact that somehow, you never heard of this.

That’s how I feel about Cambodia. Prior to this trip, I associated this little country only with American bombing raids toward the end of the war in Vietnam and the genocide that took place during Pol Pot’s regime. And, oh yeah. The largest religious building in the world was there, legendary for its beauty.

Nat before the moat
The moat of Angkor Wat. You walk across the causeway to get to the wall.

Travelers to Vietnam, like us, often tack on a side trip to this place, Angkor Wat. The closest Cambodian town to it is Siem Reap, which Steve and I reached Saturday via our speedboat up the river from Phnom Penh. With the help of our elegant Golden Butterfly guesthouse ($33 a night including a free half-hour transfer from the boat and two one-hour full massages), we arranged for a tuk-tuk driver and English-speaking guide to take us to the famous temple first thing Sunday morning. My first clue that this structure is more than just an building came when we drove along the man-made moat that surrounds it. As wide as 2 football fields, it forms a perfect rectangle almost a mile long in one direction by more than three/quarters of a mile in the other. Beyond the distant inner side of the moat, we could discern a great wall.

I’d seen plenty of pictures of Angkor Wat over the years, but none of them communicate the vast scale of the complex.After climbing out of the tuk-tuk, we crossed a long elevated causeway that took us over the moat. We passed through beautiful stone gates, then crossed an even longer, more majestic causeway spanning a vast green expanse. Only past a second gate does one truly behold the wat itself, composed of 5 separate towers, the central 100-foot-tall one built on three levels.All the central towersWe explored the first and second levels of the inner compouScary staircasend, then climbed a scarily vertical set of (modern) wooden stairs to get to the top of the central tower. There we surveyed the grand and beautiful composition surrounding us.

Not just the big picture is mind-boggling. The ancient Khmer laborers built most of these structures from big gray sandstone blocks that were quarried more than 30 miles away and floated down the river on rafts. Craftsman carved beautiful images on a staggering percent of their surfaces, images that tell elaborate stories from Hindu mythology.

Carvings detail
One tiny section of the ceiling

At some point, I realized this was the first time in my life I’d been in a country where Hinduism is practiced. The wat was built by Suryavarman VII (between 1113 and 1152) to honor the Hindu god Vishnu. This great Khmer king was renowned for his tolerance, however, and also revered the Buddha (just as many Cambodians today observe practices from both religions). He did this while reigning over the greatest expanse of territory in Khmer history, including big chunks of what today is Vietnam, Thailand, and southern Laos. Like the Romans, Khmer engineers created a far-flung, complex network of roads and irrigation channels that laced together the realm.

Buddha gate
This wonderful gate has four large faces of the Buddha carved into it, one on each side.

They also built temples; more than 1800 of them have been identified in what today is Cambodia, according to our excellent guide, Tep Nat. In the two days we spent with him, we didn’t get close to seeing any of the oldest Khmer temples (some go back to the 600s). But the guide took us to a few built in the mid-900s. He showed us the celebrated Ta Prohm temple, crumbling and literally being consumed by gigantic trees (the movie Tomb Raider was filmed there.) Although some sites were crowded with cocky young Chinese Beautiful People and boisterous Korean groups and a potpourri of other international visitors, Nat several times led us to back entrances and adjoining pathways through the fantastic green cathedral of jungle, where we were the solitary worshippers.

Strangler tree

Fallen column

Like Varik, our guide to the 60s architecture in Phnom Penh, Nat a few times expressed regret at all that the Khmer people have lost over the centuries. Still, things sometimes improve. At one point, Nat mentioned he was keeping a written record of his life to pass on to his three young children. That memoir is already more than an inch thick. Just a baby when the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, he lost his father, two brothers, and numerous other relatives during that dreadful period. Life as a subsistence farmer (how most Cambodians today survive) didn’t seem promising to him, so he worked for a while as a fisherman and then a waiter (in Phnom Penh). Civil war — between Cambodian government forces and the remnants of the Khmer Rouge — raged during most of his childhood and teenage years. That conflict killed around 5 million Cambodians (dwarfing Pol Pot’s toll of 2 million victims). But the war finally ended in 1998, and Nat moved to Siem Reap the next year, sensing opportunites there. He did odd jobs at first. Then he bought a motorbike to make a living with it, then moved on to tuk-tuk driving (struggling along the way to teach himself English). He finally saved up enough to go to guide school and got his guide license in 2007.

He confessed to us that his dream was to one day save up enough money to visit Singapore. He yearned to see what life in a modern country was like. I could have told him. But sometimes you have to go to a place yourself to get it.

 

An alternative to the killing fields

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“You want go to killing fields?” “Go to killing fields?” We must have heard that question 20 times during our brief stay in Phnom Penh. I found it repugnant — Cambodia’s ghastly genocide turned into the town’s biggest tourist attraction. As Steve points out, I shouldn’t blame the Cambodians. We’ve paid our entrance fees at plenty of other testaments to human barbarism around the globe. And I think visitors to Cambodia should know about what happened here (now almost 40 years ago). Almost everything I know about it comes from reading A Cambodian Odyssey, the memoir written by Haing Ngor — the Cambodian doctor-turned-actor who won an Academy Award for his performance in the famous movie. His book recounted the horrible events so vividly, I’ve never been able to shake the memory of them. It also made me aware that virtually the whole country became a killing field during the four bloody years during which the Khmer Rouge rampaged. So why go to one particular spot?

But what else to do on the single day we had to explore the city? (Although we arrived at mid-day Thursday, the heat was so stunning, we couldn’t drag ourselves away from our hotel’s awesome pool.) Fortunately, I had posed this question to the Goddess Google, and she had whispered back: take one of the Khmer Architecture Tours.

Online, I learned that Phnom Penh has a tiny private organization dedicated to educating visitors about the architectural innovation that flowered in the city during the 1960s. Its members give a couple of private tours; one concentrates on the work of the Vann Molyvann. I’d never heard of the guy, but the website made it sound like he was a major figure in architecture, designing at least 100 significant works between 1960 and 1972 (when the looming catastrophic political events prompted him to leave the country). Steve and I love looking at buildings, so we booked the Molyvann private tour ($30 per person, including the cost of hiring a tuk-tuk for half a day and a professional architect to serve as guide.)

Phnom Penh's central market, designed by French architects and recently refurbished, is a cool and elegant architectural icon.

We were scheduled to do that at 2:30 in the afternoon. In the morning we caught a tuk-tuk and walked around the center of Phnom Penh for 3 hours, following the self-guided map published by the KAT organization. It rained for the first hour, so the heat didn’t feel lethal. Cambodia today is one of the poorest countries in the world, and its capital shows the strain. It has a couple of glitzy high-rises, and some upscale neighborhoods that look almost chic by American standards. It has coffee shops to rival Starbucks and fancy cosmetic stores and at least some gleaming supermarkets. But stinking heaps of garbage collect along plenty of streets, and the power goes out frequently. On our walking tour, we saw structures built at various points in the first half of the 20th century. Though we could see the former beauty of them, most looked sad and unkempt.

While the walking tour was interesting, the highlight of the day was our outing with Varik Roeum, our 23-year-old KAT guide. A charming fellow who just completed his architectural studies a few months ago, he spent almost 4 hours with us, during which we talked about topics ranging from Indochinese alphabets to the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. As we chatted, we drove to see three examples of Molyvann’s work: a low-income housing project built between 1965 and 1967, the Teachers Training College facility (now the Institute of Language) built on the Royal University of Phnom Penh campus and inaugurated in 1972, and the massive National Sport Complex dedicated in 1964.

Some of the campus buildings designed by Molyvann
Part of the Foreign Language complex
Details evocative of Angkor Wat

Seeing these buildings, learning from Varik about the innovations that went into their design, made us think: this guy really WAS a genius. His works have the look of the 60s about them — the use of concrete, the sharp geometries. But more than 50 years later, they’re still functioning well, letting in light and air in ways that make them both livable, beautiful, and economical. Molyvann at times pays subtle homage to classical Khmer detailing, but more than anything, we sensed an intelligence keenly attuned to the ever-important question: how can I create a sustainable building that these particular inhabitants at this particular site will be happy living and working in?

“No one is doing ANYTHING like this in Cambodia today!” Varik lamented. Architectural students don’t learn about Molyvann in school; Varik’s passionate enthusiasm only developed after he heard about the KAT group from a fellow student (the group itself was started by a knowledgeable British architect.) At the National Sports Complex, where we watched a horde of Cambodians using the stadium — jogging, strolling, playing soccer on the field — Varik said there were rumors it was scheduled to be demolished to make way for more gleaming, fast-money developments. “I hope it’s just a rumor,” he said. But other Molyvann masterpieces have already fallen victim to the wrecking ball.

The Sports Palace within the complex, with natural light and air flow

I told him I hoped so too. Some Khmer masterpieces have long withstood the attack of brutes and barbarians. Right now we’re blasting up the Tonle Sap River toward the most famous one of all: Angkor Wat.

 

 

On the (river) road

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Coming from a place like San Diego, semi-desert, shriveling in the grip of our prolonged drought, the Mekong River and its gargantuan delta feel unreal. Intellectually we know how there could be so much water here; the rainy season is drawing to a close, but the skies still release drenching daily downpours. Still, making our way through this place where rivers function not just as superhighways but also as streets, as alleys, is unlike anything I’ve previously experienced.

So is the way people think about all this water. On Wednesday morning, we hired a boat and guide to take us out at dawn to see some of the impromptu markets that materialize every morning on the Can Tho river (a branch of the Mekong). Boat dwellers ply the backwaters, buying melons, beans, rice, pineapples, and the myriad other foods grown by people who live along the watery byways. The boat merchants then gather, hoisting poles to which they tie examples of what they have to sell that day. Retailers from the town take boats out to buy from the wholesalers. It’s a fascinating scene, and it provided us with several highly diverting hours.

Notice that among other things, these folks have cabbages for sale.

But none of what we saw astounded me as much as our guide’s comments about the rainy season. He mentioned that at this time of year, the town typically floods twice a day — with every high tide. Over and over, folks living near the water see it seep into their homes and rise to a height of one foot, two, sometimes more. My immediate thought was that this was a consequence of global warning, catastrophic. But Ca’s next comment suggested otherwise. “It very nice,” he said, looking serene. The floodwaters increased the supply of fish and brought in deposits of silt that made the rich soil even richer, he pointed out. Getting all their belongings up and away from the water’s reach might be a nuisance, but it only lasted for a few hours each day, part of the year, and folks were used to dealing with it.

Part of our tour included a visit to a rice noodle factory, where Steve had to stare down this resident over breakfast

After our river tour with Ca, we caught a bus to transport us on the three-and-a-half-hour journey from Can Tho to the border town of Chau Doc. The ride was pretty ghastly. Our seats were directly behind the driver, who seemed to have a bad cold. Every few minutes, he made disgusting noises as he sucked mucus from his nasal passages, rolled down his window, and loudly spat a glob into the street. He also texted and talked on his cell phone frequently, while managing to honk several times per minute — warning the bicycles and motorbikers and cars and trucks and other buses jamming the bad roads that he was about to hit them (though he never did, despite coming very, very close). The honking irritated me, but its aggravational power paled compared to the braying nonstop programming on the big TV screen hanging from the ceiling next to us. Maybe Vietnamese sitcoms and propaganda music videos are more lovable if you speak Vietnamese. It’s possible.

Still, our trip to Chau Doc was neither about the journey nor the destination; we didn’t reach our guesthouse until almost 7 p.m., and we checked out barely 12 hours later. We came to catch the Hangchau Speed Boat, which would take us up the river, across the border between Vietnam and Cambodia, and on to the capital city of Phnom Penh. I’m writing this aboard the boat.

This ride is pretty noisy too, but it’s all the rush of water sounds mixed with the bass notes of the boat’s engine. We’re not bouncing and jerking, but rather barreling along as smoothly as if we were on a jet plane rocked by only the mildest of turbulence. The only air conditioning is the natural kind. The breeze magically makes you forget that it’s 90 degrees outside with 90 percent humidity. And how much more detailed and humane the views are than those available from 35,000 feet. Earlier, near Chau Doc, we saw boats of every sort: wooden skiffs and pirogues and junks and ferries and sampans. Not one single sailboat. One expensive looking cruise ship. Now the banks are lined with jungly greenery. Once in a while, a bizarrely exotic temple materializes.

Fast boat cabin interior

Unlike another bus trip, which I would be dreading, I’m happy we’ll have one final ride on the Mekong. We’ll do that Saturday morning, when we travel from Phnom Penh up to Siam Reap, the site of Angkor Wat. But first we’ll get to see something of this capital of the one-time killing fields.

The Phnom Penh skyline, as seen from our fast boat on arrival

 

 

The bird men of Saigon

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I’ve depended on guidebooks all my adult life. For this trip, I carried Lonely Planet’s guide to Southeast Asia with me, and in Saigon we followed its suggestions for a few things. All the sites we visited on our walking tour with the student were warmly recommended by the Lonely Planet writers. On our own Monday, Steve and I relaxed our aversion to Vietnam War tourism and visited Saigon’s War Remembrance Museum, which pretty savagely indicts the entire US involvement in the region. It’s an entirely one-sided view of those events, with no tolerance or understanding or attempt to present what the warriors or America’s leaders thought they were doing. Heavy attention is paid to the huge numbers of people who died, to the war atrocities (like My Lai), and to the spraying of millons of gallons of Agent Orange to destroy vast areas of cropland. (We have seen a number of hideously deformed folk in the streets, who may be part of that legacy.) Lonely Planet gives it a star.

Bitexco Tower, Saigon's tallest

In recent years, however, I’ve become more and more fond of finding travel suggestions online. The information in even the very best printed guidebook is typically several years old by the time it hits bookshelves (or becomes available on Amazon). Cognizant of this, I’ve started turning to the Internet for more up-to-date suggestions. There, for example, I found a New York Times travel piece published this past summer (“36 Hours in Ho Chi Minh City”) that led us to two phenomenal dinners (one about $12 and one about $25).

I perked up when I came upon the “Fly, Icarus, Fly” blog. It contained a post in which author “James” recently enumerated some of his favorite quirky things to do in Saigon. An intriguing list, it led me to the free student tour. It also advised that while tourists usually experience the Bitexco Tower (Saigon’s tallest building) by paying to go to the “Skydeck” on the 49th floor, locals head to the coffee shop on the 50th floor. We did that, and sipped delicious iced coffees with condensed milk while drinking in the mind-boggling skyline.

James also recommended seeing a show at the Saigon Opera House, and that turned out to be the impetus for me securing tickets to an amazing Cirque de Soleil-style performance (“AO”) that dazzled us Sunday night. He sung the praises of local barbers, and although neither of us got a haircut, we did spring for foot massages ($5 each for 30 minutes). Best of all was James’ advice to stroll over to Tao Dan Park to see the bird men of Saigon.

Vietnam still has plenty of ladies carrying shoulder poles, and they're up early..
Fewer motorbike riders take to the sidewalks in the early morning hours.

He said these were bird owners who every morning gathered in the park to provide their feathered friends with a play date. Intrigued, we set our alarm and were walking out of our hotel by a little after 6 a.m. (Tuesday). It was a pleasant time to walk in Saigon, warm, of course, but not the steamy blast furnace that it builds to by late morning. The streets were far from empty, but the cars and motorbikes seemed more like battalions than armies. Folks were setting up their wares and cooking grills on the street; carving hunks of meat, displaying vegetables for sale. The world felt calmer and quieter than it would be a few hours later in the workday.

The park was a haven of pathways winding in the shade provided by huge, old trees. We arrived shortly before 6:30 a.m. and gaped at the bustle of activity: young men And women clad in black practicing martial arts, joggers, ungainly middle-aged ladies jazzercising to Vietnamese pop music, couples playing badminton. But no bird men! Had we been duped? I pulled out the blog post and re-read it; noted that it mentioned the action occurring next to some kind of cafe. We saw a building like that, headed for it, and found what we were seeking.

Men were sitting on blue plastic chairs at little plastic tables set under metal structures that looked like abstract representations of trees. From these, they’d hung the beautiful wooden cages housing their birds. From what we could see, the birds for the most part weren’t beauties. Some were the size of finches, while a few could have been mockingbirds. Most were singing in the dappled sunshine. In his post, James claimed that the birds actually learn new songs from each other.

The birds seemed happy

He’d said that up to 100 bird owners sometimes gather, and indeed, in the 15 minutes or so in which we watched the scene, we saw at least a dozen more men (young and old) arrive, remove the colored cloth covering their cages, and hang them up to join the other birds. It was the kind of scene that makes you like a place, and we were sorry we had to leave it, to rush back to the hotel. But we had a bus to catch for a gathering of boats, rather than birds, in the Mekong Delta.

Language lessons

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On our very first morning in Vietnam, when we strolling around Hoam Kiem Lake In the center of Hanoi, two groups of young people approached us and said they were students, seeking to improve their English. Both times they asked if we could spare 5-10 minutes to chat with them and give them some conversational practice. My hackles rose. I remembered all the students in Beijing who did the same thing, but there it invariably turned out to be a ruse to try to lure tourists into buying art. So I brushed them off. They didn’t react the way the Chinese students did, however. Instead of pushily pursuing us, they seemed embarassed and apologetic, and they immediately backed away. Steve later chastised me; said we should have talked to them.

In Ho Chi Minh City (still aka Saigon), we got a second chance. While planning the trip, I had found a website for free tours organized by Vietnamese university students to give themselves some one-on-one time with native English speakers. It sounded too good to be true, but I emailed anyway and asked to sign up for such an excursion. I got no response at first. But 5 days after we left San Diego, I received an enthusiastic e-mail from one “Salmon Tranh,” offering to show us some of Saigon’s top sights. We made plans to meet at 10 a.m. Sunday morning (10/26) in front of the Independence Palace.

The Reunification Palace (aka Independence Palace)

By that point, Steve and I had come to understand the desperate need for more and better English-language instruction in this country. We’ve been told that nowadays all Vietnamese children get English lessons in school. But we’ve also heard — and it’s obvious as one travels here — that this education is poor. It focuses on grammar and (some) written comprehension, but there’s little to no opportunity to converse. As a consequence, many shop folks cringe when you ask them anything in English. Others, particularly tour service providers (hotel and restaurant personnel, museum guides, etc.) speak it freely — but with such heavy accents it’s usually tough to understand them.

Twenty-year-old “Salmon” (who arrived right on time) turned out to be an exceptionally perky young Vietnamese woman whose accent was pretty good. Over and over, she exclaimed about how excited she was to be able to talk to native speakers. Although she’s studying accounting at one of the best universities in the city, she seemed to have a clear grasp of how important a strong command of English is (particularly for folks whose language is pretty much only spoken by their own fellow citizens.) She told us she’s only been a member of the free tours group for a month, but that we were the sixth set of visitors she’d taken around.

Salmon and friends
The red circles mark where the bombs hit

We spent a lively and entertaining two and a half hours with her. The palace, where we started out, is a fascinating place — the former home of Nguyen Van Thieu during all the bloody years when American warriors struggled to keep him in power as the head of an independent south. A tour of the place takes in everything from the sumptuous state rooms to the underground bunkers to the rooftop from which Thieu finally escaped in 1975. (Big red circles on the roof mark the two spots hit by North Vietnamese bombs, and the first two Communist tanks that crashed through the gates sit in a place of honor on the grounds.). Salmon also showed us the exquisite Cathedral and central Post Office and City Hall structures built by the French colonialists in Saigon, and we chattered away about everything from English-language pitfalls to where 20-somethings live (in both our countries). We paid for her admission to the palace, and pressed her to join us for lunch. But she demurred, hinting that she had to prepare for her next day’s classes.

For my part, I have to say my biggest regret of this trip is that I didn’t have the foresight to take a semester of Vietnamese. I love learning new languages and have spent a lot of time studying both Japanese and Mandarin. I think I failed to think of it because I knew we’d be passing through dozens of different language zones. Yet if I had concentrated just on Vietnamese, I would have gained a lot. I wouldn’t have become anywhere near fluent, but I would have mastered a lot more of the spoken language than just the “please,” “thank you,” “hello,” “yes,” “no,” and “OMG!” I got Manh on our Halong Bay cruise to teach me. Most importantly, I would have been able to read dozens or hundreds of words. Unlike the Japanese and Chinese and Thais and Cambodians and Laotians, the Vietnamese have long used a standard Latin alphabet (albeit embellished with a bunch of diacritical marks) to write their language. That makes it easy to get around town and find stuff.

If things are written in Roman letters, you at least can read them (even if you can't understand what the words mean.)

We still managed to do a lot of that, but it would have been even more fun if I had had a bit more of Salmon’s gumption.

 

Ground v. air — part II

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I didn’t try to buy our Vietnamese railway tickets from home. I’d read that they would be easy to secure just a few days in advance, so when we checked into our hotel in Hanoi, I told Ms. Julia in the lobby that we wanted berths on the sleeper from Hanoi to Hue, seats on the 3-hour morning train from Hue to Danang (the portal to Hoi An), and seats on the 7-hour train from Danang to Saigon. The first two were no problem; $55 a person for the sleeper and $15 for the second train ride. But I had misunderstood the mechanics of rail travel between Danang to Saigon. Instead of taking part of a day, we learned, it would require a much longer amount of time, leaving Danang in a sleeping car about 10 p.m. Friday and not arriving until late Saturday afternoon.

I think that would have cost around $80 per person. In contrast, Ms. Julia informed us we could get seats on the one-hour-long Vietnam Air flight leaving Danang at 11:05 a.m. Saturday for $115 per person. We agonized a bit over the decision. We’ve come to loathe the time and tedium involved in modern air transport, and we had looked forward to seeing the scenery en route. In the end, however,the thought of giving up our prepaid room in Hoi An to rattle through yet another night made us come to our senses and buy the plane seats.

Thank god! The Vietnamese train system doesn’t offer first-class sleepers, so instead of having our own cozy space from Hanoi to Hue, we shared our 4-berth compartment with 2 other Americans (a likable young couple from Washington DC). We all had working electrical outlets, which was nice (I could charge up my phone and iPad!), but in other ways, it seemed inferior to the Thai sleeper we took from Bangkok to the Laotian border — no dining car, for one thing. And Steve saw a cockroach and spiders lurking in the recesses near his upper berth, though he kindly kept that news from me until after we had arrived.

The morning train ride from Hue to Danang was pretty mesmerizing. We had two seats In a standard day coach on which we appeared to be the only foreigners. The train was probably 60 years old and exceedingly slow, but it hugged a mountainous coastline with jaw-droppingly spectacular views. The action inside our coach was almost as diverting. Across the aisle and two rows up from us, a woman slept on the floor at her husband’s feet. I’m not sure how, with car attendants periodically rolling carts up and down the aisle (at one point dishing up some kind of hot food). Someone’s very naughty two-year-old was on the rampage. And from the ceiling, screens displayed “Rail TV,” which among other things aired a Vietnamese (officially franchised) version of The Amazing Race.

On the day coach from Hue to Danang
A view from the train
Another

All pretty entertaining, but more than sufficient to satisfy the craving we’d had for rail time. Moreover, both of the short Vietnam Airlines flights we took (Luang Prabang to Hanoi and Danang to Saigon) felt like going back to a time when air travel was easy. All three airports were clean and uncrowded; the huge and gleaming one In Danang was only 2 years old. Hassles were minimal — no taking off of shoes nor long security lines. In fact, no one seemed to be paying much attention to what was rolling through the X-ray screeners. On board, the flight attendants didn’t patrol to check for seatbelt scofflaws, and no one seemed to care when I trturned on my electronic devices.

Now we’re in Saigon for two full days. I’ll probably wait until our Tuesday morning bus ride to the Mekong delta to write again. Between now and then, our schedule is pretty packed.

Forget me not the tailor

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I’ve never owned clothes that were made by a tailor especially for me. I’ve never wanted any; ready-to-wear is fine. But I’d read an account by a friend of a friend of having some things made for her while on a trip to Vietnam. That was several years ago, but when I was researching this trip, it became clear that getting tailor-made clothes still ranks high on the agenda of many visitors.

Historic Hoi An

I’d read that Saigon and Hanoi both are places where you can have outfits whipped up in 24-48 hours. But Hoi An is a particular Mecca for clothes lovers, and there appeared to be plenty of other reasons to linger in this town on Vietnam’s central coast. A World Heritage Site, the old quarter was said to be both atmospheric and architecturally distinguished. Superb restaurants abound. So I planned for a two-night stay during which getting some clothes made would be our central mission.

 

To prepare, I did some online research and found one traveler’s fairly recent account of her interactions with a tailor who went by the name of “Ms. Forget-Me-Not.” She was not pushy, charged fair prices, and did excellent work, attested the writer (an exuberant looking blonde who included a photo of herself in Ms. FMN’s stall — #20 in the cloth market. Some recommendation seemed better than nothing.

After arriving in town, we ate lunch at the Mermaid Restaurant, Hoi An’s first restaurant (opened in 1992). Since then hundreds of others have opened, but the simple Mermaid ranks among the best. For $12 we got superb crispy wontons, thick noodles with pork, delicate seafood dumplings, and 2 16-ounce local beers. Then we walked the two blocks to the cavernous building labeled “Hoi An Cloth-Market.” From storefronts along the street, hawkers implored us to let them make our custom garments. We marched on, into the dimly lighted building, moving through narrow aisles, scanning, scanning for #20. “What number you looking for?” women shouted. “I make anything you want! Very good! very cheap!” We tried to ignore their siren cries (Come to me! To me!), but the stall numbering system was completely random. I broke down and confessed what we were looking for.

“She move,” a woman declared. Indeed in the vacant space where she led us, a sign taped to the wall announced that Ms. Forget-Me-Not could now be found at #37 Phan Chau Trinh. Our map indicated the street was just a few blocks away, so we exited, leaving a sea of disappointed seamstresses in our wake.

Within the open-front shop at #37, the walls were stuffed with thousands of fabric bolts. I recognized Ms. FMN from her photo online. She and her sister (“Rose”) and a third sister whose name I never learned greeted us warmly. I have to confess my heart sank to see they were already working with another customer, a chatty young blonde from Britain. She’d been there the year before, loved what she’d bought, and had returned for more. Within a few minutes, two more young Englishwomen joined us. I’m not sure what they wanted because by then we were immersed in the serious business of deciding what to order.

Interior of Ms. Forget-Me-Not's shop

 

Savvy shoppers bring photos, but all I had was the notion that I should get a couple of pairs of pants made (since it’s rare to find ones in any store that fit like a glove). Along the way, Steve had also persuaded me to order up an ao dai — the traditional Vietnamese slit-skirted top and pajama bottoms. I in turn insisted that he get a nice short-sleeved shirt or two. The ladies slapped big scrapbooks in front of us, filled with magazine images of all manner of clothing items. We fumbled a bit but found a couple styles we judged would do. Next we picked out fabrics — a gray checked cotton and regal jade green silk for Steve’s shirts; a pretty floral crepe for my ao dai top; solid black and turquoise blends for my two pairs of slacks. Rose prised the fabrics from the jam-packed shelves and Ms. FMN told us what it would cost: $32 for each of my pants, $15 for Steve’s cotton shirt and $20 for the silk one, and $55 for my complicated ao dai. That seemed fair.

Over the next hour, I began to feel like I was in a friend’s workroom. Outside, the threatening skies opened up with a deluge that filled the street with maybe half a foot of water, but we were busy being measured — chests, waists, neck and crotch, multiple points along my arms and torso. Informed that we were leaving town early Saturday, the sisters told us to return at 2 p.m. the next day (Friday). When we did, we were sticky from all the walking and bicyling we’d done in the heat and humidity. My pants and ao dai top were a little hard to pull on, and I worried: were they too small? But once in place, it was clear: both my outfits and Steve’s shirts fit just the way I’d hoped they would.

Ms. FMN checks the fit of Steve's silk shirt.

 

Ms. FMN wasn’t completely satisfied. She suggested letting out the black pants by a quarter inch; adjusting the torso of the ao dai top by a smidge. We agreed to return and pick up the final products later that evening. (The sisters live upstairs over the shop.)

And so we did. We covered a lot of ground in the 22 hours we had between our first and second visits to #37 Phan Chau Trinh: visited some glorious old houses and temples, strolled the pedestrian streets bedecked with silk lanterns and lined with a million and one tempting things to buy. We hired a motorboat for a 45-minute ride on the Thu Bon river, rode creaky old bicycles past flooded rice fields and water buffalo and cranes. Ate meals that ranked among the most delicious I’ve ever had. Swam in an exquisite disappearing-edge pool.

The pool at our hotel, with the river just beyond.

But when I think back to Hoi An, I’m pretty sure what will stand out is our time joking with Ms. FMN and her sisters. (“Nice ass!” she cracked as she and I surveyed how her handiwork fit me.) I’m impressed by what an intimate and personal thing it is to craft clothes for one particular body. I expect Steve and I will wear our clothes from Hoi An for years (except for maybe that ao dai top), and every time we do, we’ll feel the presence of the tailors.

 

 

 

 

 

In the shadow of the war

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Yesterday (Wednesday, Oct 22), Steve and I arrived in Hue on the night train from Hanoi. We got in just after 8:30, so we had plenty of time to explore this pleasant, walkable little city.

Hue's famous citadel

Hue’s principal attraction is the sprawling imperial fortress built by one of the Nguyen emperors at the start of the 1800s. We spent a couple of hours strolling around the grounds. It was at least 90 degrees and humid, but when we could get out of the blazing sun and under some of the huge sheltering trees, it was tolerable. And the buildings that have been reconstructed within the citadel and “forbidden city” have a striking and graceful beauty.

The interior of one of the reconstructed buildings

Much of the grounds consist of open grassy fields, however, because so much of the citadel was destroyed — beginning in 1946 when the Vietnamese were battling the French imperial forces and more thoroughly in early 1968. During the “Tet offensive” that unfolded then, the North Vietnamese army stormed and occupied the fortress, and American forces launched a sustained and bloody effort to get it back. Thousands died during the battle (soldiers on both sides and civilians), and when it was over, the Americans had re-occupied it. But it lay in ruins.

After we left the citadel and were walking around the town, we got the clear impression that some of the Americans who participated in the fighting make a pilgrimage here. Hue is just 31 miles from the former “demilitarized zone” — the no man’s land that was set up between the north and south. All over town we saw ads for tours to the DMZ and to some of the tunnels the North Vietnamese lived in and from which they launched attacks. One of the maps we got from our guesthouse was marked with the sites of other American battles and bases. All this war tourism might have creeped us out more had it not been for what we’ve already heard about Vietnamese attitudes toward that sorry chapter in our shared history.

Typical war-tour offering

We got some insight from Manh, our young guide on Halong Bay. At one point, Steve and I were asking him about the influence of the Chinese language on the Vietnamese tongue, and he launched into a detailed presentation of the history of China’s 1000-plus-year-long occupation of Vietnam, its attempts to exterminate Vietnamese culture, its current aggressive actions in the South China Sea, and the generally unpleasant behavior of contemporary Chinese tourists. “French people and American people sometimes ask me how Vietnamese people feel about them, because of the wars,” he said. “To us that was a few seconds, compared to what the Chinese did.”

Ed, our friend who’s lived in Hanoi, says the Vietnamese government has always portrayed the “American War” as a dirty conflict that the American people rejected, so average folks blame the US government and not the people. Several ordinary folks here have confirmed that. “We like Americans now!”

Steve and I are glad to hear that. We’ve both felt our guts twisting when confronted with some of the war-touristic options. Back home, when planning this trip, we decided to forego visiting any of those famed tunnels. We saw them when, in preparation for our travels, we watched a 20-part PBS series on the war. That was enough. We decided we didn’t need to spend the better part of a day in order to see them in person. Similarly, we passed on a DMZ expedition. When we were in Hanoi, we declined to tour Hoa Lo Prison (the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” where we knew we could see John McCain’s flight suit on display.) Here we have no desire to go on the 7- hour excursion to the infamous My Lai massacre site.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised by my squeamishness. I haven’t flinched from death camps and genocide museums in other places ranging from Dachau to Rwanda. But this was feels more personal; somehow, I feel more grief-stricken over the destruction, the waste. If the Vietnamese have managed to move beyond it, I’m happy to try to follow in their footsteps.