Well, screw it. We're not going to be catching up anytime soon at this rate. Lately, we have been busy from early morning to late at night and barely even have time to sleep much less write log entries. So, since we've been in Cambodia for a whole week now, I figure we might as well log in some stories from our time here and worry about filling in the rest another time...
The title of our entry comes from Toli, who until he actually saw the temples with his very own eyes, did not actually know what Angkor Wat is. (Yes, he has seen "Tomb Raider" but he was probably too focused on the robots - or was it Angelina Jolie's cleavage? - to notice the surrounding environment.) Not like I should poke too much fun at him, because I myself thought Angkor Wat was this one big magnificent temple in the middle of Cambodia when really it is this one big magnificent temple among at least a dozen big magnificent temples in the middle of Cambodia. :)
So, I guess I should backtrack a little since it's been so long since we've written a decent-sized entry. After our long haul from Hanoi into Saigon (which we do promise to write about when we have time), the fresh young blood of Maria (best friend from high school), Grace (cousin), and John (Grace's ex-roommate and fellow Angkor Wat junkie) joined our tour group's ranks. We did spend a few days in Saigon together, seeing touristy sights and shopping in District 1. The bulk of the tour group then left for Phnom Penh by combination bus and boat trip on the 20th, while Toli and I went by air since the flight was part of our round-the-world airplane ticket. Later, we were told that this was a good thing, since we conveniently missed staying overnight at the "resort" in Chau Doc that had broken air conditioning and smelled like sewage. Whoopee!
However, our luck ran out within the first day of staying in Phnom Penh as Toli and I soon learned that our "iron stomachs" in Vietnam rusted when met with Cambodian cuisine. Toli spent the first night in Phnom Penh in the hotel bathroom, while I only wished that the food could pass as quickly through (or back out of) my own system. By the way, food issues aside, Phnom Penh is indeed a lot more modern than any of us had expected. The layout of the city is easy to grasp, the streets are wide with large sidewalks, the drivers don't honk nearly as much as they do in Vietnam, and more signs seem to be in English than in either Hanoi or Saigon. Also, the favored currency of everyone here is the dollar, and Cambodian riel tends to be used only for very small transactions or as small change since they don't use U.S. coins.
Anyway, after just one night in Phnom Penh, we were scheduled to leave for a boat ride to Siem Reap (where the Angkor temples are) early the next morning. Poor Toli had to drag his mostly comatose self onto a cramped, non-airconditioned boat and bear through the next six hours as the boat traversed up the Mekong River towards Lake Tonle Sap. The lack of air-conditioning was fine since the boat created a nice draft, but there was what seemed like a half-hour stop mid-river to refuel - refuel, meaning that they had to empty several plastic bottles filled with gasoline into the boát's tank, causing all of us on board to swoon in the nauseating fumes and heat. Thankfully, after another change mid-river to a smaller boat (that could handle the shallower waters), we all made it to the port in one piece...only to wait in the searing noontime heat for about an hour until the van from the tourist agency came to pick us up. I cannot impress upon you what the heat is like here in Cambodia - the closest comparison I can think of is sitting in a parked car with the windows up in the middle of Austin during the month of August...while Cambodian children knock on the windows and ask you for food or money.
We were all a pretty exhausted and unhappy bunch by the time we made it to the hotel, and Toli and I ended up collapsing in our room for the rest of the day. At about this time, Grace decided to stage a separatist movement from the rest of the tour group and hire another driver to take her, John, and Maria directly to the Angkor complex and forego the typical tour group itinerary of two-hour lunches, souvenir stops, and irrelevant town sights. Whether this speaks more of her enthusiasm for Angkor Wat or her ballsy nature, we cannot say, but we are very glad that she did it because we sure didn't have the guts to break away!
The next day, Toli and I were feeling well enough to take on the temples ourselves, so we joined Grace's faction for an amazing sunrise at Angkor Wat. I won't bore you with the details of our long day touring the temples, especially since you will see for yourselves once our pictures are up, but suffice to say that the temples are an astounding feat of art, religion, and engineering that the Khmer ("Khmer" is a more accurate word to describe qualities that are "Cambodian") people should be proud of.
Of course, Angkor Wat is the biggie - the major temple that is shown in most pictures, featured in movies, and proudly flown on the country's flag. But each of the other temples we managed to see over the next three days is unique in its own way. The Bayon at Angkor Thom, for example, is a hauntingly beautiful structure with the large face of King Jayavarman carved on each side of the 52 towers. If you think Mona Lisa has the loveliest smile in the art world, you may think again after visiting the Bayon. Ta Prohm, by contrast, is a small temple that has been completely overgrown and overrun by the jungle, with tree roots growing into the structures. Visiting it makes one feel like "Indiana Jones" exploring a hidden and mysterious place. Then there is Phnom Bakeng, everyone's favorite spot for sunset, but where we caught sunrise the following day - avoiding the 500-person crowds. And Preah Khan, which boasts a 2-story temple that looks almost Greek. There are the beautiful sandstone carvings of Banteay Srei, and the Aztec-like brick structures of the Eastern Mebon and Pre Rup. In stark contrast to all of these is Ta Keo, which was unfinished and therefore sports large but bare stone walls. Or Ta Som, which would be considered small and unmemorable were it not for the tree which is literally swallowing up the eastern gate. And last but not least was Preah Neak Pean, a water-based temple, which Toli and I had the wonderful experience of visiting completely alone by ourselves. (Grace, Maria, and John had left for Saigon by this point, and no one else was at the temple when Toli and I visited it at the end of the day!) Okay, so I lied, and I did bore you with the details. But don't worry - Toli took so many beautiful pictures, which will make everything seem that much more interesting...or bore you that much more.
One thing that I forgot to mention about visiting the various temples in the Angkor complex was the prevalence of Buddhist monks in and around the area. The first temples built around Angkor were Hindu temples, in honor of Vishnu, Shiva, or Krishna. However, somewhere in the 11th century, there was a large shift in the population towards Buddhism, and the place remains very much a site for Buddhist pilgrims to this day. Of course, the sight of these monks in their beautiful saffron and orange-colored robes in and around these majestic temples was more than any shutterbug could resist, and Toli took many pictures of them. What we were wholly unprepared for, though, was that these monks owned cameras themselves, and found *us* just as interesting a camera subject! More than once, Toli, Maria, Grace, or I would be approached by a monk or group of monks asking if they could take pictures with us. We're still not quite sure what made us such a curiosity - was it our physical beauty (yeah, right), the mix of races among us, or the fact that we were tourists from America? Even so, it was probably the closest feeling I will ever have to being a celebrity, with small crowds of people around asking for my picture. :)
Lastly, after spending so much time in Siem Reap, marvelling and enjoying the temples, Toli and I found a lovely way to give back to the local people. Or rather, Toli did...or rather, I did, and as usual just pimped out Toli to do the actual work. It probably has not come across very well, as this entry is full of ecstatic descriptions of Cambodia's cultural riches, but the fact remains that this is one of the poorest and most desperate countries in the world. Cambodia's recent history is filled with war and genocide, and despite the cosmopolitan feel of the capital city, this is very much a third-world country. Even in relation to its neighbor, Vietnam. Anyway, while eating dinner at one of the typical backpacker haunts, Toli and I came upon a sign asking for monetary or blood donations to a local children's hospital as they are in the middle of a dengue fever epidemic. For those of you who don't know, until recently, Toli has donated blood very regularly to the Austin Blood Bank. He has not given for the last year or so because of tighter restrictions over mad cow disease that exclude him based on his one-time living in Greece. So it was really nice that we found an opportunity for Toli to give blood again and do so in a way that we know will directly help someone who truly needs it. (I would have given too, but my weight doesn't allow for it, so yes, I pimped out my husband to do it.)
Well, I hope that this long entry will suffice for now, as the local Internet cafe is starting to turn out the lights in the hopes that we will actually get out of here. We'll write again soon, as our adventures in Cambodia have taken us now to Sihanoukville which in itself has many wonderful things to relate!
Sheesh - we're still about three weeks behind in our log activities. Toli is so funny - he's got about another two entries that he needs to upload that will at least get us up another week, but he wants to do finish another entry that belongs chronologically before those entries that need to go up.
So now I'm stuck between wanting to talk about all the cool things we did in the last few days now that we FINALLY have some time and an Internet connection to write about them, but I don't want to mess our order of events up. What to do?
[This is the third of three new log entries, which were actually
written over the past two weeks. You might want to read them in
order.]
The class is over! The countdown started last Monday, when I gave my
last lecture. On Wednesday, the students gave their presentations,
which were of spectacular quality (partly because the first class they
took in this program covered technical communication skills). On
Thursday, they took Christine, her mom, her aunt, another local
relative, and me to dinner (that was the evening before the final). We
had a wonderful time, although dinner included a dog-like forest
creature... which the servers brought to us alive before dinner
(trapped in a canvas bag) to make sure it was fresh; then they took it
back to the kitchen where they chopped it up and served it to
us. Unlike the dog I ate last week, its meat was fairly chewey. (Yes,
I really ate dog as I said on my April 1 entry; there was no April
fool joke in that entry). But, more importantly, the whole experience
of seeing this lovely wild creature trapped in a bag and then served
on a plate in small cubes was, well, hard to take. One step closer to
turning vegetarian, I guess.
That dish aside, the food was fantastic, and since we were the only
group in that room, we could be loud and have fun. So we did, and I
thoroughly enjoyed the company of all my students. And got even more
impressed with them as I got more glimpses into their backgrounds, and
their out-of-classroom life. When the meal was over, one student had
to go back to his wife and child (yup, some were relatively old and
yet still motivated to return to school), and another had to take his
girlfriend back to her home because curfew was at 10pm (she is a
junior in college, and, in these parts, she is too young to be out
that late with a man). The rest of us went bowling, which again was
thoroughly entertaining (Christine and I scored at the very bottom of
the group). Of course, all transportation for all people involved was
on the students' motorbikes, which in itself was a fun ride.
Anyway, the point is that my students goofed off the night before the
final, and so did I. And I'm glad we did since I wouldn't have a
chance to just hang out with them before leaving Hanoi. So they
deserved some extra time for their last assignment (originally due
right before the final), which I had to grade after returning from
Sapa (I'll get to this later). Moreover, the final itself proved to be
much harder then I thought; of course I am curving all assignments and
exams, but still I was hoping the students would finish the class with
a sense of triumph by nailing every problem on the final exam. That
impression aside, the fact is that, after curving, all students did
very well on the exam, and demonstrated an impressive understanding of
the course material. It was so gratifying for me to get a sense that
they really learned something in the end of this short month! The
course evaluations also showed that they felt the same way, which was
extremely motivating for me to return to Hanoi next year.
Back to the final... The students were also a bit surprised that I ran
the final like Stanford classes, i.e. I gave them the exam and went
away: if they had questions, they had to come to my office and ask
me. This also enabled me to have a last-minute meeting with Tra, the
relative by marriage who is trying to come to the US for college. She
is an impressive young lady, and I sure hope she'll realize her dream
as I did mine 15 years ago (my God, it's been that long...). I also
had a chance to go get drinks for my students to celebrate the end of
the final. But because all students used all four hours of the exam,
we finished the exam at 8:30p and I had to be at my mother-in-law's
hotel at 9p (to take off for Sapa). Thankfully, a kind student took me
on his motorbike and we zoomed straight to... the cafe where I had
bought the drinks, in order to return the empty coke bottles (which
are reused by the Coca Cola company, which is why coke is half-price
when purchased in a bottle than in a can... a very good conservation
practice which, if Greece is an example, it will unfortunately go away
in due time as aluminium gets cheaper). And then he took me to the
hotel, where I arrived just in time.
Then we went to Sapa (see the previous log entry), and on Monday we
returned to Hanoi around 5a. After a short sleep, I started grading
the last assignment, and then assigned final course grades, pressed a
CD for Lien (the program administrator) with the course materials, and
so on. I was done at 6a on Tuesday, and then woke up at 8a to have a
wrap-up meeting with Lien. At 10a, I was picked up by the group to
start our trip to Saigon. Naturally, I slept most of the way to our
first night's pit stop. To be precise, the tour had started on Monday
with a day trip to the Perfume pagoda, which consists of a short boat
trip on the Perfume river from Hanoi to a pagoda; but I had to miss it
because of grading. We'll be back to Hanoi next year, though, so we'll
go then.
The class is over, and it was a wonderful experience. I like being a
software developer. I like teaching too. I also think I'd enjoy vet
school. Damn, too many things to do, too short a lifespan.
[This is the second of three new log entries, which were actually
written over the past two weeks. You might want to read them in
order.]
Fancy pants is the name of Vietnam's tallest mountain. OK,
it's not exactly fancy pants, it's Fansipan though many other
spellings are common too (it means Highest Peak in a local
language, which may not have a written form with Latin characters to
produce a standard spelling... just my guess). Fansipan is in the
northern part of Vietnam. To get there from Hanoi, our group took the
night train to Lao Cai (8 hours or so), and then the bus to Sapa,
which is smack in the middle of the mountains inhabited by Vietnam's
Hmong (and other) minorities. Our mission was to reinforce the local
economy by purchasing as many handicrafts as we could, and we
succeeded.
The trip there and back was quite comfortable. Given that the average
age in our tour group is high, our group had been assigned sleeping
quarters in a second class wagon (in fact, I think age is irrelevant,
and that the tour operator, Saigon Tourist, is required to assign us
to second class or above... something silly having to do with
government restrictions on where tour operators can place tourists,
but I'm not sure). It had AC, comfy beds, free water and sweet bread
or Twinkies (well, the filling was mung bean paste, but it had plenty
of preservatives and artificial coloring to be nutritionally
equivalent to Twinkies). Also, the wagon had only four beds per cabin
while the Vietnamese section had six; first class had four also, but
the cabin seemed a tad larger. Naturally, those wagons are only used
by tourists; I don't think locals are actually prohibited --- they are
just happy with the more compressed accomodations for a much lower
price; and the price goes even lower if you take a seat (there are two
seat types actually: without a soft cushion it's a bit cheaper than
with a cushion). Anyway, the cabins were fine, but getting sleep is
another story altogether. The Vietnamese trains are not European ICEs:
they move slowly, stop fairly often at stations (not a smooth
stop/start, mind you... those sleeping on upper bunkers must be alert
to avoid dropping off their beds), and you can easily feel the gaps
between adjacent rails. I was exhausted enough on the way there to
sleep for about 6 hours, but on the way back I caught just a handful
of Z's.
At Lao Cai, we had our first exposure to tour group operations. Our
group joined many other groups, and we all had breakfast together in
the same hotel. You know, the hotel owned by the sister of the wife of
the party secretary of the local government. One of these days, I'll
ruminate more on the whole nepotism and Mafia-like qualities of Saigon
Tourist (which runs our tour group), but that'll have to wait until
the tour's over and I form a complete picture.
One thing we've noticed throughout Vietnam is that smoking is not a
big problem. I was worried that everybody will be a smoke-stack at
every single restaurant and hotel, as in Europe. In fact, smoking is
very rarely a problem. Maybe because cigarettes are a luxury, or maybe
because there is some sensibility to prohibit smoking in closed spaces
(I've seen quite a few No Smoking signs which, ironically, I've only
seen violated by French or Chinese tourists). Anyway, our breakfast at
Lao Cai, and all other meals in Sapa, were smoke-free, which made them
quite enjoyable. What wasn't that great about them was the food
itself: the group was served many seafood or spicy items, which I do
not eat. Still, in Sapa, french fries from a particular potato
(sweetish, but not a yam) are a specialty, and we ate quite a number
of them. Yum!
On the trip from Lao Cai to Sapa, I noticed a strange sight: all these
huts, made of bamboo, wood, and roofing metal sheets and yet... many
had a satellite dish on top! The tour guide said how Unicef (a
development branch of the United Nations) recently gave each household
a plastic water tank so that they can collect rainwater for drinking
(instead of using stream water that is often full of bacteria from the
water buffalo feces upstream). Funny that Unicef would sponsor such a
program when locals can afford satellite dishes. Worse, most tanks
were sitting in the yards without any water pipe leading in/out of
them; I peeked in one, and it was used to store grain (probably
rice). Nice try, Unicef, but you need to teach a man how to fish, not
just hand them a fishing pole and expect them to figure out how to use
it on their own. My honest guess, though, is that there was an attempt
at teaching them: Unicef has enough experience on that front. It's
more likely that changing life-long habits of a proud and headstrong
people is sometimes impossible: if I'm not sick, then my water is
fine, so I'd rather use my Unicef tank for something I really need
(storage) instead of something I don't think I need. Makes sense to
me.
As soon as we arrived in Sapa, and the doors of the minivan opened, we
were mobbed by Hmong! They are a mountain minority, and sport
wonderfully colorful outfits. They are also pushy, persistent sellers,
and if you buy one item from them, you'll only get mobbed even more
because your forehead is instantly marked with the word
SUCKER in magic Hmong invisible ink. We made it past the mob
to our hotel, but after we settled in, our group had to leave again
for a field trip. As soon as we got out of the hotel, we got
surrounded by Hmong again. Some group members impulsively bought stuff
(at very high prices despite some haggling they did), which attracted
additional Hmong. All-in-all, it took us over fifteen minutes to get
past the hotel entrance and into our van which we were told would take
us to see an authentic Hmong village. How authentic? You see, the
village is an old village 3 miles from Sapa, which means it starts at
the very edge of town (which makes you wonder why we took the van
there, until you realize that the average age of the group required
it). So, on one hand, it is authentic, in the sense that it is an old
settlement; on the other hand, a village so close to Sapa was bound to
experience the cultural infiltration of a city that has grown like a
tumor on its side. So calling it 'authentic' is somewhat
misleading... you'll see what I mean soon. Our tour guide paid an
entrance fee for us to walk down the convenient stone-paved path from
the entrance down to the village. Along the way, we saw the local
Hmong girls perform for us a local song and a dance under the watchful
eye of their teacher (they were not good students, actually, got their
steps wrong, and seemed bored to death). Of course, we had our
personal faithful escort of Hmong sellers. And we saw a genuine Hmong
house with genuine concrete flooring, and genuine electric plugs,
exactly as traditional architecture dictated as far back as... last
month. The mixed images continued until we went past the village and
reached a beautiful creek, spanned by another traditionally
constructed bridge, weaving steel and concrete in such an elegant
traditional manner. My sarcasm aside, the countryside views were
breathtaking. Also, we did see elements of traditional architecture
and lifestyle such as two huge pigs that looked just like Christine
and me. Moreover, the bizarre mix of old and modern elements as they
merge to define the modern Hmong lifestyle was intriguing (though I
still wish I could have seen a less modern setting): for example,
houses were laid out in the old style, with lofts for storage, a
hearth for cooking, etc. but they were built using new building
materials, such as metal roofing. In closing, maybe it's better for
the Hmong to abandon their traditional lifestyle --- if nothing else,
more of the jungle might survive the truly traditional expansion of
rice paddies along the mountain side (which look like big carved
staircases).
In the late afternoon, we took off for another trip, this time an
official tour walk (i.e. the route and destination were prescribed by
the tour guide). And a few yards out of the hotel, I saw a sign that
described our destination most accurately: we were heading for the
"Hamrong [Dragon Jaw] Tourist Mountain". So we did go up the mountain,
where we encountered more Hmong sellers, but thankfully very few of
them (relative to the tourists present) and all had their selling
spots (i.e. didn't haunt the tourists, who instead flocked to them...
God knows why they did so after the haunting they get in downtown
Sapa). The gardens were very pretty --- except that they were totally
out place relative to their surroundings: manicured flower beds, and
all the other trimmings of a French garden. In a way, it's an accurate
reflection of Sapa's history as an area which had a large colonial
presence during its French period. In a different way, the particular
aesthetics were questionable as such a garden just doesn't look right
with a pagoda in the background or the bamboo trees and vertical rock
sides of the hills surrounding it. Maybe it was the cognitive
dissonance that turned me off. Anyway, once we reached the flower
beds, the tour guide told us to turn back because the rest of the tour
group didn't want to go up the hill to reach the vista point on the
very top of the tourist mountain. Like hell we would turn
back. Instead, we left the tour group, and plodded forth; the views
from the top were indeed breathtaking with the flower garden below,
Sapa even lower, and the mountains all around.
There were also three cute Hmong girls up there, just playing. No
pushy selling, just playing around on the rocks --- they were as agile
as mountain goats. It was very nice to have seen that sight, which
really felt like the only authentic glimpse into the old Hmong
lifestyle (the Hmong sellers, ironically, are indeed representative of
the present Hmong lifestyle and thus, in a perverse way,
authentic). And so Christine bought a few bracelets from them --- no
bargaining, and still she got a price at the fraction of the cost the
rest of our group had paid for identical items earlier. I was very
proud of that move on her part, rewarding non-pushy sellers and
getting a fair price without bargaining.
Once down the mountain, we tried to locate the rest of the group, but
our homing beacons could not locate the other drones. So we walked the
streets, seeing odd sights like boys and girls in Hmong clothing
playing Hacky sack. Eventually, we all met at the hotel and had dinner
nearby (always at the same place, of course, namely the single
restaurant approved by Saigon Tourist).
After dinner, the group (young and less young included) all went to a
bar! No, no, it's not a regular bar. It's a bar, but during Fridays
and Saturdays, it is a place where locals showcase local dances and
music for a couple of hours. There is no fee to get in, but you are
expected to buy a drink; whether the locals see any of the money, I
don't know. As Christine wrote in her entry, the whole business about
who benefits from tourism in Sapa is murky. Anyway, the oddest feature
of the 20 or so short performances we saw was that one Hmong was in
90% of them. He was:
A very talented young man who thoroughly impressed me. Especially when
he played Hmong music instruments. The first was... a leaf! Yup, just
a leaf, which you stick in front of your mouth, blow air, and as the
leaf vibrates, it makes a sound; that's relatively easy, but try
carrying a tune that way. The other instrument was an unwieldy sort of
thing that looked like a yard-long sailboat. You blow air through the
tip of its main mast. What was truly impressive is that the guy danced
while playing, and not just simple dancing, but all sorts of leaps and
rolls. Amazing!
After the bar, I stayed up a good part of the night grading finals. So
I was still awake around 2a when the love market takes place. As
Christine wrote in her entry, this is a local custom for married
people to have one-night affairs in a socially acceptable manner; or
for unmarried people to have a one-night stand with somebody (but if
the girl gets pregnant, marriage must follow). Anyway, this custom is
old, but in recent years it has become a tourist attraction with more
tourists going to gawk than locals participating. Since it is a major
draw for tourists (why do you think we got the night train to get
there instead of going a couple of days later?), when the locals
objected to the presence of tourists the government simply told them
"Shut up and keep mating". The locals threatened to end the custom,
and eventually a compromise was reached whereby the market now takes
place at 2a instead of 9p. Anyway, the rest of the group (and
Christine) were sound asleep at 2a, but I was awake. I thought about
waking up Christine, but then I realized that going to the market
would be the worst thing I could do: those people want to be left
alone, so just let them be. And we did: I finished grading the finals,
and caught some Z's.
The next day, we went for more shopping. First, the group scouted the
local Sapa market; I slept through this ordeal. After lunch (my
breakfast), Christine and I walked through the town ourselves,
including the market (but, doing no shopping, this part was
fast). Interestingly, all the sellers (in the market and on
the streets) were women; what Hmong men do is still a mystery to
me. One of them is a dancer/musician/singer, and a few are guides who
take backpackers up Fansipan or on multi-day trecks through the
mountains, but I'm sure there are more. It's hard to tell partly
because it was hard for me to tell them apart from Vietnamese men
because, unlike Hmong women, many Hmong men wear non-traditional
western clothing. And we also saw the stereotypical American tourist
buying an overpriced scarf (she didn't bargain), and she then insisted
that the local who sold her the scarf take a photo of her. It was
hilarious seeing her insist while trying to instruct the local how to
use a camera in pantomime... What she was thinking is truly beyond
me. We also went through the food area which Christine described in
her log entry. What she did not cover was the short treck through the
meat market section where you can see very, very clearly where your
food comes from. Meat is not nicely wrapped up in sterile
cellophane-wrapped packages; it's sitting out in large pieces, some
not yet skinned (a pig ear here, a cow leg there), with flies all over
and blood aplenty on the floor. Yet again, the thought of eating meat
somehow became even less appealing.
After the market, we walked through the outskirts of town where
construction is rampant. Large hotels, each obscuring the view of the
one behind it, gobbling up the locals' huts, gardens, and rice
paddies. Like an ugly monstrous cow slowly grazing on the
mountainside. The bitter irony is that our money sponsors all this
because, after all, we did stay in one of those hotels. My conscience,
which was already awakened the night before when considering a visit
to the love market, started acting up again.
In the afternoon, we left Sapa to continue shopping at a Red Dao
village. They are another minority, in the same general mountain
area. While their culture, language, and traditional dresses (sported
only by women these days as I didn't see a single man in non-western
clothing) are distinct from the Hmong, their tourist haunting is
identical (thought the selling pitch is slightly different). As soon
as our minivan stopped there, we were surrounded by fifteen or so
locals selling stuff. The tour itself was a total travesty: we walked
one mile (escorted without a single break by the local entourage of
sellers) to a house showcasing the local's lifestyle. That house
seemed abandoned to me, and I did have a chance to explore it more
than the others because the locals quickly figured out I wasn't buying
anything and left me alone. But when I tried to walk further down the
trail on my own to exlore further, the tour guide called me
back. Clearly, I was not allowed to deviate from the group and heaven
forbid I would set my eyes on unauthorized sights.
The Red Dao have a somewhat different selling approach than the
Hmong. The Hmong go straight to the chase, sticking their wares right
under your nose and saying "want this?" or "buy this". The Red Dao
take the more roundabout route starting with what seems like regular
conversation such as "What is your name?", "Where do you come
from?". Then they start selling. It's very interesting to see that
their approach is more like the approach of US insurance salesmen who
try to build a relationship with their customers. Their interest is
equally fake, as the following experiment proved... I noticed that the
Q & A sessions were always the same. Here's the one between a girl
of 15 and Christine:
Girl: What is your name?
Christine: Christine. What is yours?
Girl: [says her name]
[pause]
Girl: How old are you?
Christine: 26. How old are you?
Girl: 15
When the same girl came to me, I changed my responses, yet I got the
same replies:
Girl: What is your name?
Toli: Toli. Do you know this name?
Girl: [says her name]
[pause]
Girl: How old are you?
Toli: How old do you think I am?
Girl: 15
You get the point. Besides a certain standard drill, and basic numbers
to negotiate prices, most locals lack a substantial knowledge of
English (to be fair, there are exceptions). And therefore little
opportunity to share any information regarding local culture. Oh
well. Now you see why the tourist in the market had to resort to
pantomime to get the Hmong woman to take a photo of her.
Our trip to Sapa ended by returning to Lao Cai. Before heading for the
same restaurant as before (naturally, or a certain comrade would
blacklist our group), we went to the border bridge. Lao Cai borders
China, and it was quite a strange sight to sit on one end of the
bridge, look across, and see all signs in a different (equally
incomprehensible to me) language. In fact, right across, there was a
big building that is used as a trading post by Chinese and
Vietnamese. You can even buy the sellers (the people) themselves, as
they are mostly poor youngsters from the area, and the market is
frequentled by relatively affluent tourists and business people. Sad,
but quite ironic to see such extreme capitalism (everything on sale)
on the border between two communist countries.
Right before the restaurant, we had to pay a mandatory tip to our
driver (not the driver who will take us to Saigon, but the local who
took us to Sapa and back). That was a pisser --- the guy drove like a
maniac, and deserved no tip at all. But such is a Borg unimatrix:
whatever the matrix decides, each drone does. Oh well. Let's encourage
bad drivers, shall we?
In closing, I'd like to come back to Sapa someday. Without a tour
group. And stay in a hut. And backpack to remote villages. Maybe even
wear fancy pants. But I know I have to do this soon, before tourism
changes it all. The men have already gone extinct, it seems, and the
women may follow soon.
[This is the first of three new log entries, which were actually
written over the past two weeks. You might want to read them in
order. Even if you do this, though, a couple of references in this
entry are foreshadowings that will not make sense until later on. Oh,
and if you don't know anything about Star Trek, skip this entry
altogether.]
Vietnam. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship
Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to go where no tourist has gone
before.
Data: Captain, I am detecting a Borg cube on the
long-range scanners.
Picard: Scan for life-forms.
Data: Four Vietnamese immigrants returning to their
hive. Life signs are weak indicating advanced age.
Picard: Worf, any weaknesses on their ship?
Worf: The Borg alcoves are very compressed to
accomodate the huge suitcases in the trunk. But the suitcases are
empty.
Picard: Then?...
Deanna: Captain, I sense an irrepressible desire to
buy trinkets and fill up the suitcases.
Riker: But won't that make their ship too heavy for
flight?
Picard: Number One, weight does not affect space
flight. And Borg cubes allow 70kg (150lb) per passenger of luggage...
Borg: Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
Picard: Never! We will have our own vacation without
endless shopping.
Borg: The individual is irrelevant.
Wesley: Captain, I know what we can do!
Picard: Wes, you are not supposed to be on the
bridge. Go back to popping your zits.
Beverly: Jean-Luc, listen to him, he has a plan.
Wesley: We can send our elite troupe of warriors to
sell so many trinkets to the Borg to boggle the hive mind.
Picard: Excellent idea, Wes! Number One, send in the
Hmong!
[...]
Data: It's not working captain! We ran out of
trinkets! The Borg applied their time-honored negotiating skills and
bought absolutely everything at cheap prices. Then they compressed it
all to fit within the available trunk space and all open floor space
between and under the alcoves.
Borg: Prepare for assimilation.
[...]
Christine: I am the Cutest, designation Six of Seven,
unimatrix Saigon Tourist.
Toli [whose digital camera is now permanently affixed
to his skull]: My designation is Seven of Seven.
Christine and Toli: We are Borg.
Borg Queen [whose fingers are replaced with
chopsticks]: Have some more nanoprobes, my young Borgs, you are too
skinny.
I *know* - it's been nearly two weeks since we last logged in. Sorry - it's been a crazy time touring through the country, and Internet access has been either sporadic or maddeningly slow. Toli has actually been writing logs in his laptop throughout this time, and we plan to post them in the next couple of days once we reach Saigon and have a more stable base. We're also hoping to get his past logs back, so don't despair - you can reread his dogeating stories at any time. And by the way, in a nice little karmic twist, Toli has been virtually vegetarian for almost two weeks now - any sort of meat he's ingested has been met with furious rebellion from his stomach. Guess Fido got the last laugh on this one. Toli's even talking about keeping a mostly meatless diet from now on, so I guess that's a good thing.
So I don't have enough time to regurgitate everything that's happened since we left Hanoi, plus we have some logs coming up, so here are some teasers about what's been happening:
* Walked the longest poolhall in Vietnam in Vinh - We walked a town so boring that every street is lined with pool tables.
* Royal time in Hue - We enjoyed the sugarcane juice and grilled corn in the old imperial capital of Vietnam, but skipped out on the numerous opportunities to play dress up and pretend to be emperor and queen.
* Drive-by spanking in Hoi An - Toli met his ultimate nemesis in an 9-year old on a fast bicycle.
* Fending off stalkers in Qui Nhon - A school assignment plus a cowboy hat turned Toli into a mini-celebrity for a trio of giggling school girls.
* Swimming with the fishes in Nha Trang - An $8 introduction to scuba and lack of decent health insurance was too much for us to resist diving in...twice.
* Zen photos in Dalat - We data-swapped photos and music inside a pagoda with a multi-talented Buddhist monk who owns three computers and seven dogs.
I know I've said it before, but the last few days have been absolutely crazy and busy for us. Last Friday evening, Toli had just enough time to administer the final exam to his students (he called the test "easy" but no one managed to finish within the allotted four hours), grab a motorbike ride home, and scarf down some dinner before having to join our group on the night train to Sapa. There, he spent every spare minute grading the finals (and his computer battery dying out didn't help). Then, after the night-train ride back to Hanoi, he skipped out on the trip to the Perfume Pagoda to finish grading his assignments and assign final grades. Even now, it's 8:30am, and my poor sleepless husband still has to meet with the director of the program and press a CD before we can catch up with the group to leave at 10:00am. Maybe I should just say, it's been a crazy and busy week for him rather!
Anyway, Sapa was indeed a worthwhile trip. It's a little town nestled in the mountains that border China and Vietnam, where the landscape and scenery are absolutely breathtaking. There seems to be this misty fog that constantly hangs over the area which makes it even more mysterious. More than the scenery though, the area around Sapa is where about a dozen or so minority tribes live. Each tribe has its own special dress and customs, and most also have their own language. They live in very harsh and primitive conditions up in the mountains, but the people seem so strong and so beautiful. Like out of a book.
But then there's another side to Sapa - the equally harsh reality of modern tourism. In the last decade, the tourism business in Sapa has been just exploded. The entire old quarter of the city has been converted to hotels, restaurants, and shops, and many of its residents have moved (or been moved?) to the outskirts of the city to the so-called "New Sapa" which is noisy with new construction. The nearby Ham Rong ("Dragon jaw") mountain, which boasts some amazing views has actually been landscaped with orchid gardens and other flowers. The streets are filled with people from minority tribes clamoring around tourists to sell embroidery and silver jewelry. Worse than that, the nearby minority villages now charge an entry fee to visit and then aggressively hawk their handicrafts to visitors. And until this year, the minorities were being pressured by the Vietnamese government to put on their "Love Market" (a unique sort of mating ritual where the youths of all the tribes come together to flirt and possibly mate) every Saturday evening for the tourists to watch. (This year, they've moved it to 2:00am, and Toli and I decided to respect their privacy and sleep instead.) Seeing all this just filled me with so much sadness - it's a such a beautiful and special area, and I worry so much that the influx of tourism is going to take that all away eventually. Toli made the comparison to the Greek islands and how in the past, each island had a unique local color and character that eventually eroded away under the commercialism of tourism.
What also made me terribly sad is that it is the Vietnamese people, not the minorities of the tribes, who are truly benefitting from the tourist boom. They are the ones who own and run the restaurants and hotels, and they are the ones who run the local tour companies. The main market in Sapa is all Vietnamese vendors, except for the top floor which is reserved for minority handicrafts. But even up there, the Vietnamese are the ones who are selling the substantial pieces of silver jewelry. I bought purses and silver bracelets from the minority women, but when I wanted to buy a silver circle necklace like the ones the minority women wear, I had to suck it up and buy it from a Vietnamese seller. It especially hit me hard when we went to the food area of the marketplace and saw dozens of minorities in their colorful dress sitting at the stalls eating Vietnamese food sold by Vietnamese vendors! I suppose one could take a more positive outlook of that - it *was* a Sunday morning when everyone goes to the market, and perhaps like any one of us in the States, the minorities also like to eat out every now and then and enjoy something different from their own cuisine.
Even when it comes to the prices, it feels so wrong that buying a can of Coke in a Vietnamese restaurant is equivalent to the purchase price of three bracelets or a small purse sold by the minorities.
I can't help but think of the minority tribes in the Sapa area as the Vietnamese equivalent to the Native Americans in the States, or the Tibetans in China. They are a unique people with a separate culture, but because they habitate valuable land, they are otherwise pushed aside by the dominant culture and have to either assimilate or be forced under. I've never liked having to read about Indian reservations in the history books or Tibetans in the newspapers, but it's just so much harder swallow watching it happen right in front of your eyes and feeling helpless about it.
Unfortunately, the only thing I can think of doing (besides become a cultural ethnologist and live among them to document their culture in case it disappears) is to stay away. I love love love travelling as most people know, but visiting Sapa has really driven home (no pun intended) the fact that as a tourist, no matter how lightly I tread, I am affecting the people and environment around me. My presence in a country continually encourages the development of the tourist industry at the expense of what attracted me there in the first place. What a terrible paradox! Anyway, Toli and I did promise each other that if we do go back to Sapa, that we will either camp or arrange homestays in the villages and do our best to patronize the minorities directly if we require goods or services. And maybe in a way, it's better to be a "green traveller" than to stay away because if the tourist industry is going to develop anyway, we might as well try to steer it in a direction we're happier with.
P.S. Due to some technical difficulties, Toli's log entries have been removed.
:(
Christine washed my black pants a couple of weeks ago, and since then
they've smelled so bad! Must have had something to do with the water
and/or detergent and/or the humidity, which makes it impossible to dry
clothes on a line here. Anyway, my black pants have been out of
commission for a while.
Then, I climbed onto the water buffalo, and since then my jeans have
smelled a bit peculiar. Not to me, of course, but to others. Our cat
PERL likes this funny smell (she goes straight to lick the
armpits... weird cat, I know; incidentally, when my sister took PERL
at her home, PERL went straight for her armpits because, after all,
siblings smell alike); normal people (like my wife) do not like the
smell.
And thus I was left without trousers. So I had nothing appropriate to
wear to school today: it was either shorts or pyjamas, neither of
which meets dress code requirements. Pyjamas it was, and I think I was
the weirdest sight around campus today. At least shorts are the mark
of foreigners, but a westerner looking like Chi Fu (the scribe from
Mulan) is another thing altogether.
Sigh! Not enough clothes: the plight of the efficiently-packed
traveller. And poor Christine has been busting her brain looking for a
way to remove the smell from those pants. Soaked them in vinegar last
time I checked; I'll smell like a Greek salad soon... call me Feta Boy
(my new comic book villain who is after helpless sheep and goats). By
the way, the vinegar is sold in reused water bottles, with the vinegar
producer simply sticking their label on a La Vie bottle; impressive
reuse!
Talking about food, we had a delicious meal last weekend at the house
of (yet another) relative. All kinds of meat, and especially those
barbequeued nibblets of the leanest, juciest meat I've had in
Hanoi. You guessed it: I fed on Fido. Dog meat. Yuuuuuuummy!
Christine's aunt Dung and her mom (both visiting from the US)
had some too and agreed; Christine abstained. I figured, it was already
cooked and served, I wasn't encouraging a restaurant, and even though
the thought was (and is) very disconcerting to me, it's a local
specialty and we tried so many others. So why not feast of Fido (just
once)?
It's not just that. It's also the fact that we had returned from the
village, where I petted the pot-bellied pig, rode on the water buffalo
(a large cow really), and saw the cutest chicks running around the
mama chickens. It's amazing how arbitrary it is that we eat those
animals and not dog (or cat). Add to that the fact that Christine and
I both tried fertilized duck eggs (inside of which there is mostly
yolk but also a little gooey mass that is the duckling), and at that
point I could have tried fried silkworms (yes, that's what happens to
the worms which are prevented from forming a cocoon because their silk
is harvested... they die and get eaten).
Anyway, the dog was very good, and at this point I'm getting mighty
close to turning vegetarian altogether.
You see, there are many other pleasures in life in Hanoi, as our
room's little trashcan says on it: "OPA! Make your life to be
conveniently and joyful by Inomata" (yes, I typed this correctly yet I
still have no clue what it means). In case you don't know, that's
especially bizarre to a Greek because OPA! is to Greeks what
Yiiiha! is to Texans (i.e. a common exclamatory yell).
One particular pleasure worth mentioning is watching TV. The other
day, there was a 45-minute program dedicated to the song My
Heart Will Go On from the movie Titanic. No
kidding: it started with the Celine Dion music video, then an analysis
of the pathos in the lyrics in Vietnamese, followed by an analysis of
the literary elements in the lyrics by the same guy who does the
English lessons on another TV program (I could recognize that
hilarious combover from a kilometer away). In-between, we saw clips of
the video again, though the audio and video were off-sync and Celine
Dion's lips were not singing what we were hearing (like Milli
Vanilli). That's because they had edited the video to overlay the text
of the lyrics (in English and Vietnamese) at the bottom of the
screen. Maya Angelou, move over, Celine is here!
Another weird sight from the other day: an overloaded flatbed cart
(like the ones at Home Depot stores) moving by itself down the street,
crossing intersections and all. Well, not really, but there was nobody
in the front, and that thing was piled with stuff! The secret: a guy
with a motorbike behind the cart. The marvel is that the bike and the
cart were not connected by any sort of wire, lever, or anything else:
the guy just pushed the cart forward by putting his foot on it and
driving the motor cycle. No brakes, which made me wonder what happens
downhill. Anyway, the guy couldn't see ahead of him, but that did not
matter one bit. One of these days I'll write a comic book about a
Vietnamese superhero who gained X-ray vision powers from Agent Orange.
And some ruminations to wrap up... The class is almost over. Done with
lectures, done preparing assignments and the final (and all
solutions), done with course evaluations, done with the students'
presentations (they did very well). Only two assignments and the final
to grade, and some wrap-up stuff to go. It was a fantastic experience,
and while I look forward to some rest, I already miss it as
well. Thankfully, they are not speaking English with Greek accents.
A word of advice to all tourists coming to these parts: you won't do
anybody a favor in the long term by agreeing to pay inflated prices.
For example, when a motorbike driver asks for 30k while the going
price is 5k, and you agree, you are screwing over the honest guys who
charge fair prices (they exist) and instead you encourage the
crooks. Worse, future tourists will get even more unrelenting
motorbike solicitations. And the prices get inflated, which hurts
local residents who eventually will not afford the services. In other
words, paying high prices is not a nice thing to do to help the poor
people; it's encouraging scam artists and helps nobody (except those
thieves) --- it's not real need that drives up prices, it's greed,
pure and simple. If towns like Hanoi are to retain their local
character (whatever it is), they cannot become gentrified. Not that
anybody will listen to me... sooner or later, Vietnam will be like the
Greek islands: too expensive for locals (Greeks) to visit. And
whatever foreigners do visit, they are served a faked up Hawaian
resort, not the real thing, because the real thing no longer exists.
Anyway, another very interesting personal realization I made in Hanoi
is that race matters here. You see, in Greece and even in the US, I am
part of the white mainstream. In the US, I'm not treated in any
special manner (good or bad) because of the way I look. But here, I am
obviously a westerner, and subject to whatever stereotypes the locals
have of westerners. It's not something I can change about me, much
like somebody black will always be black (Michael Jackson aside) or a
woman will always be a woman. So the main stereotype here is that I am
Mr. Moneybags. Ironically, it is true: Christine and I are upper
middle class by American standards, which makes us richer than Midas
by local standards. But, attitude-wise, I am a total cheapskate, I
don't enjoy consumerism, I don't enjoy waste, and sure as hell I don't
enjoy going shopping for useless knick-knacks (though I admit I asked
Christine to buy a pink Ao Dai for herself). Stereotypes are indeed
accurate statistically, but they are downright annoying if you are not
near the statistic mean; even Christine is well off the mean, despite
her shopping excursions. A primary reason I detest the thought of
living in Greece is that there are all sorts of social expections,
propriety rules, and other such bullcrap based on how others perceive
you; same in Hanoi, though, for a short month, the stereotypes are
just funny (and same in Greece for short visits). Anyway, this whole
experience made me thankful that I live in the US where stereotyping
is much, much less common (despite the occasional exteremist idiots
like the KKK or the religious right; these are the rare exception, not
at all the rule, despite the publicity they get).
Back to my ramblings... The annoyances of the westerner stereotype are
the incessant "motorbike?" "cyclo?" "photo?" "buy a book?" as you walk
on the street or even if you want to sit by the lake (though there is
a park where you have to pay $0.13 to get in, and that buys you peace
and quiet... which many a local couple also do, too, to kiss on the
benches). These annoyances go away in time, as I walk the same route
day in, day out, and the motorbike drivers figure out I'd rather
walk. The somewhat positive flip-side of the westerner stereotype is
that, not only can you live like a king because your money goes a hell
of a long way here, but you are also treated with sincere admiration
sometimes. I'm not talking about the exploitative "oh your husband is
so handsome" that Christine hears time and again from shop-keepers who
are simply throwing compliments her way to get her to buy their wares
(though non-overweight westerners are, in general, exotic enough to be
indeed perceived as good-looking). I'm talking about the simple fact
that a lot of what is old, obsolete, or mainstream knowledge in the US
is worth admiration here. For example, sharing my 6-year old computer
graphics tips with the local Pixar. Or teaching Operating
Systems... the pay I get here relative to US pay is meager, but if you
adjust for the cost of living, education here is highly valued. Or
simply speaking French or English with locals who want to improve
their own language skills. Or being a Greek who immigrated to the US
via scholarships, which so many students here want to do.
In other words, pond size matters. The pond here is small, so a fish
that is small in the US is a big one here. Frankly, to the extent that
this enables me to help others, I enjoy it. But the moment this (well
intended) admiration leads to more stereotypes and subservient or
otherwise odd behaviour, it ain't welcome. Here's a simple example:
the family with which we stayed has two daughters. They both speak
very good English, but because they saw me as a Venerable Teacher at
the "Grand School of 100 Disciplines" (yes, that's the literal
translation of the Hanoi University of Technology, Dai Hoc Bach Khoa
Ha Noi... think "Upper-level Polytechnic"), they were way, way too
embarassed to talk to me. See, this sort of admiration built a wall
instead of a bridge. Only now that we are about to go is the wall
coming down and I talk with them fairly often. It took many an
occasion where I made a fool of myself (esp. with regards to my
insatiable desire for ice cream, called Kem in Vietnamese) for them to
realize I'm only human (and neither critical of them, nor
status-conscious). In short, until I was officially renamed by the
family "the Kem guy", I was a Teacher first, a regular Nguyen (Joe) next;
now I'm Kem, who also happens to teach. Incidentally, I think Mattel
should make a Vietnamese Barbie who looks like Christine; we'll be
Barbie and Kem.
That's just me. I've seen enough examples already where this kind of
stereotyping is seen as most welcome for many a foreigner, esp. Greek
immigrants to the US who then return to Greece, of Vietnamese who
return to Vietnam. Treated as royalty, spending money to show off
their wealth, and oftentimes, taking on a mistress and dumping their
spouse in the US (I've seen both men and women do this). I mean, why
bother learning modesty, being faithful, and appreciating the
independence of your spouse (and learning give and take), when instead
you can splurge, cheat, and be as arrogant as you want?
I think there is a special circle in Dante's Inferno for those who
succumb to this temptation. And I bet it's next to the one for the
religious right. Which is right down the aisle from us dog
eaters. Pass on Fido, will ya?