John's Journal

2006-11-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

"A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles."

- Tim Cahill

THANK YOU!

Here in the U.S. it's Thanksgiving, which has gotten me thinking about all the people I owe a debt of gratitude to for being there for me this past year. You made this experience a whole lot more fun, rewarding, and hassle-free than it possibly could have been otherwise.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who offered support, advice, and encouragement when I decided to embark on this crazy year-long adventure, and to those friends and family members who dutifully kept in touch with me via e-mail during the year--you know who you are! Believe me, a few friendly words from home go a long way when you're in unfamiliar surroundings on the other side of the world.

Next, a shout-out to the good friends who helped me "take care of business" stateside; specifically Leonard, Allison and Ben for keeping my car safe and in good working order; and Tony, Chad, and Kevin for their assistance in storing my stuff and helping me get settled on my return. Big thanks, too, to Ric for keeping up the Not Lost Dammit! website and for posting all those pictures and captions.

Next, I have to single out my good buddies who traveled halfway around the world to meet up with me in exotic locales: Specifically, Eric Iversen, who flew from Norway to help me explore the wilds of Tasmania; Tom Jones, who came all the way from Gainesville, Florida (go Gators!) to meet up with me in Sydney, Australia; and Bill Moore, who took time out from his whirlwind tour of Asia to make my second trip to Hong Kong so stress-free and fun. Oh, and of course my mom and brother Mike, who met up with me in Hong Kong the first time! Traveling the world is great, but seeing those places with friends and family is a hundred times better. Many thanks, too, to Christian Clay and Jin Shu for showing me a great time (and offering me a place to stay!) in Beijing. You guys rock!

Of course, I also have to thank all the wonderful new friends I made during the course of my travels. Even if it was just for an afternoon, I'm so grateful to have shared some time with y'all. Among the many friendly folks I met from all over the world, the following definitely merit a mention: Thomas, Laura, Rhett, Jack, Gareth, Irene, Peter, Teresa, James, Gemma, Kate', Mick, Bjornar (BJ), Ben, Kay, Neal, Charis, Chris, Cynthia, Ed, Colin, Candace, Bridget, Craig, Andrew, James, Andrew, Rachel, Doug, Marko, Jonas, Richard, Ali, Greg, Karen, Matt, Ping, Manuela, Max, Mike, Dennis, Alex, Pete, Katherine, Des, Sven, Brett, Camilla, Laurens, Matt, Andy, Liz, Peter, Brian, Mark, Kyle, Henrik, Chase, Kara, Rose, Tom, Patrick, Kim, Peter, Henrik, Smeeta, Ernest, Steph, Alex, Jeffrey, AJ, Ashley, Laura, Ali, Becks, Helen, Dan, Ian, James, Mando, Pete, Selena, Amer, Matthew, Kim, Gemma, Sammy, Matt, Serkan, Kyle, Daniel, Pia, Greg, Laura, Andrea, Derek, Mark, Rob, Charlie, Charlotte, Justin, Karine, Olivia, Mike, Raymond, Benoit, Bhagwant (Pinto), Amit, Jack, Raphael, and Vincent.

Whew! Hope I didn't leave anyone out. :-) Anyway, thanks, guys; you really made this trip something special. And from the above, I really should single out Kyle, Kim, Gemma, and especially Thomas, for friendship above and beyond the call of duty.

AND LAST, BUT NOT LEAST: This trip wouldn't have been possible without the unwavering love and support of....

...Mom! Thanks for being there for me, always.

John

2006-11-05T23:07:00.000-08:00

"I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home."

- William Hazlitt

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA

Well, that's that.

Hard to believe it's all over, but ten months and fifteen countries later, here I am back in the good ol' U S of A, trying to readjust to life in the "civilized" world. Part of me wishes I could keep traveling forever, but part of me is more than happy to be back in the land of iced drinks, toilet paper, and most of all, good friends and family who I've missed like hell this year. It's really great to travel, but it's also wonderful to have something to come home to.

This has been an incredible year, and despite the inevitable bumps along the road, I would do it again in a heartbeat. For anybody thinking of doing something similar, I have only one question: What are you waiting for? It's easy to imagine all sorts of difficulties in undertaking such a journey, but let me assure you: Traveling the world is one hell of a lot easier, safer, and more affordable than you're thinking. Honest! Whatever obstacles you might encounter are trivial compared to the positive experiences you'll have. That's what I've found, at any rate.

I've seen so many places and met so many wonderful people this year that it will take ages to process it all, and as more than one person has told me, it will make for a lifetime of memories. Thanks for sharing this amazing experience with me.

John Kuge
November 2006

2006-11-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

EGYPT RECAP

Favorite Things About Egypt:

The Pyramids at Giza. One Canadian tourist had the gall to sniff that they weren't that impressive, and he "thought they would be bigger." I wanted to smack him. "What WOULD he find impressive?" wondered another tourist. Good question!
The Temple of Karnak. The. Ultimate. Egyptian. Temple. End of story.

Least Favorite Thing About Egypt:

Baksheesh. That means tipping, and it's expected for every damn thing, from door-openers to picture-takers to the guy who rushes up and offers unsolicited information about some ancient tomb. I know, when in Egypt, tip everybody, but keeping track of who to tip and how much to pay them occupied far too much of my time here. By the time I got a handle on it, it was time to leave.

2006-11-02T19:49:00.000-08:00

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT

Last night I took a sleeper train from Aswan back to Cairo, and this time I shared a cabin with a friendly Taiwanese tour guide named Vincent (Chinese name: Shya) who's leading a group of eleven tourists on a tour similar to mine. We had a good chat, although throughout the evening he kept leaving the cabin to check up on his tour group--and bring them more alcohol! He invited me to join their pizza party, but I figured the last thing I needed was to party with some hard-drinking Chinese tourists on an all-night train ride. I did accept his offer of a bedtime drink of vinegar, though. It's not as bad as you might think, believe it or not, although this was special Chinese drinking vinegar, and not the usual salad stuff. (It's supposed to be good for digestion, he told me.)

We arrived at the Giza station at 7:30 this morning, and I was picked up once again by my faithful driver Tamer. Not stopping in Cairo this time, we drove right past the pyramids (an awesome sight in the early morning sun) and headed out on the desert road to Alexandria. For much of the way, it's an eight-lane highway with big billboards and periodic Shell stations and rest plazas, just like the US. There were even tumbleweeds tumbling around, which I though was an American thing, too, but I guess not.

Anyway, after a couple of hours we arrived in Alexandria, a huge, sprawling metropolis on the Mediterranean. Compared to Cairo it's a lot more modern, with a really long beachfront and lots of luxury hotels. We then picked up my guide for the day (whose name I forget), who pointed out a number of local sights including the new Library of Alexandria (ultra-modern, and built on the site of the ancient one), and several royal palaces and gardens. We then stopped at Qaitbey Fort, a 15th-Century construction which is built on the remains of that ancient wonder of the world, the great lighthouse of Alexandria. Right next door was a tiny Aquarium, so of course I had to go inside and check out the tanks. It had a pretty sorry collection of sea life, including some sad-looking sea turtles and a lethargic octopus--but it was free, so I guess I shouldn't have expected much.

After taking some pictures of the exterior of the fort (I didn't go inside), we then proceeded to Alexandria's famous catacombs, discovered by accident in 1900 when a donkey fell into a deep hole (sadly, he didn't survive). There were hundreds of tombs down there constructed in a mixture of Egyptian and Greco-Roman styles, which were pretty interesting to see. No bodies were in the tombs, though, and I guess grave robbers got any loot that was down there. Typical. Strangely, there were also several tombs for prize horses, which had to be lowered down an extra-wide shaft in order to be buried there. (If you ask me, they should have laid the donkey to rest in one of those.)

After the catacombs, we visited Pompey's Pillar, a famous lone Roman pillar standing tall amid a few other ancient temple remains (sphinxes, columns, etc.), that apparently had nothing at all to do with Pompey. I forget the story, but somehow the pillar is more associated with the emperor Diocletian. We then visited an ancient Roman amphitheatre which was discovered by accident in 1923 during building construction. Next to that were displayed some of the finds dredged up from the sea near Qaitbey Fort--among these were pieces of the famed lighthouse, as well as other worn parts of statues and whatnot that at some point had collapsed into the ocean. Cool.

After that, we dropped of my guide and drove back to Cairo, where we got caught in ridiculous rush hour traffic. Finally, we made it to the Noran Hotel, where Tamer dropped me off for my final night's stay in Egypt.

2006-11-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

ABU SIMBEL, EGYPT

Everyone I've talked to who has traveled to Egypt has told me not to miss the spectacular temples at Abu Simbel, so I arranged for a day-trip there today. Unfortunately, for some reason all tours to the site have to leave together in a police-escorted caravan from Aswan--at 4:00 am! Which of course meant getting picked up even earlier--at 3:30, in fact. Ugh. I joined a vanload of Chinese, Japanese, British, and South African tourists on the 290-km drive south, which took about two and a half hours. Watching the sun rise over the Egyptian desert was awesome, though, and when we got there it was still early enough to be pleasantly cool.

The two temples are built into the side of a mountain near the shore of Lake Nasser. The one on the left is the most famous and impressive, featuring four massive seated statues of Ramses II, and the smaller temple to the right is dedicated to Nefertari, his queen. They're really dramatic and imposing, but the most amazing thing about them is that these temples and the two mountains of rock that surround them were actually moved to this location in the 1960s due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam, which flooded their original location! It's hard to imagine the effort that must have gone into dismantling, moving, and reconstructing all the elements--much of the finer work was done by hand using saws, and it's a near-perfect job. Well, the facade of the mountain looks a little blocky, but the temples themselves look completely intact, both inside and out.

There was no photography allowed inside, but the interiors of the temples were filled with dramatically lit figures of kings and gods--by now I can recognize the major ones, like Horus, Hathor, and Thoth. We wandered around the site for a couple of hours, then returned to the van for the ride back to Aswan. By now in the heat of the day we could see mirages along the way that looked like lakes of water in the desert, but we knew better!

We were back at noon, which was pretty inconvenient timing for me, as I had already checked out of my hotel. I had no choice but to wander the city for six hours until had to catch the night train to Cairo. Thank god for internet cafes!

Book read in the past two weeks:

Animate Earth: Science, Intuition, and Gaia by Stephan Harding: Kind of a strange mixture of hard science and fuzzy New Age thinking, this book makes a lot of good points about mankind's destructive tendencies and the interconnectedness of systems in the natural world. My problem is that while Gaia theory offers an interesting way of thinking about ecology, it's still technically wrong in that the Earth is not actually a single living being by any accepted scientific definition. Still, I guess it's a useful metaphor when thinking about environmental issues , and maybe that's the whole point. Harding's descriptions of natural feedback loops and the earth's fragile self-correcting mechanisms are fascinating, and I'll bet we hear a lot more about these (for better or worse) in the near future.

2006-10-31T19:21:00.000-08:00

ASWAN, EGYPT

Today's itinerary began with a quick trip to the renowned Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, which (for better and worse) prevents the annual flooding of the river Nile and provides hydroelectric power to the region. We drove right across the top of the dam, stopping in the middle so I could hop out of the car and take a few photos. I have to admit I was a little disappointed, as I was expecting to see a really dramatic high wall of concrete like the Hoover Dam or the Gordon Dam I visited this March in Tasmania. But it's not like that at all--just a very wide, low embankment on both sides of the road; not much to look at at all. Still, it's considered a marvel of modern engineering, and was built using 17 times as much material as the Great Pyramid, which I suppose is pretty impressive in itself.

Our next stop was Philae Temple, another temple from the Ptolomaic period which was one of the victims of the dam's success: It originally stood on Philae island in the Nile (now Lake Nasser), but had to be moved to higher ground when the dam flooded its first location. They did a very good job of relocating the temple, though, and landscaped the new island just like the old one. To get to the island, Hossam and I had to be ferried by small boat across the lake, which was kind of a neat way to approach an ancient temple. Like all of the temples I've seen, this one had some interesting columns, carvings, and statues, although I'm afraid I can't single out one to comment on! I guess the temple's location, isolated on a small rocky island, was the most notable thing about it.

Unfortunately, then it was time to visit another tourist trap (IMHO), a perfume factory where some teenage "expert" tried unsuccessfully to convince me of the wondrous medical powers of various exotic extracts and scents. Blah blah blah. Oh, and they can exactly duplicate cK1 too, if you like the way that smells. I decided to pass.

Once that ordeal was over, Hossam took me down to the river for a ride on a honest-to-gosh felucca, one of those Nile sailboats with the tilted shark-fin shaped sails (apparently this is a must-do when you're in Egypt). Piloting our boat was a fat old guy at the rudder and a chain-smoking twelve-year-old working the sails. Neither was very good at getting the boat to move, though, as there was basically no wind. So we more or less drifted aimlessly in the river for 45 minutes or so without going anywhere, which I guess was supposed to be relaxing, but in reality was really irritating. FINALLY we made it to our destination, an island in the middle of the river that's home to the Aswan Botanical Gardens, a haphazard collection of tropical plants and trees (mostly tall palms) that makes for a pleasant enough rest stop. After about an hour there, I had to endure another eternity in the felucca before we finally made it to shore.

2006-10-30T19:10:00.000-08:00

ASWAN, EGYPT

As I didn't need Hossam's services yesterday, he chose to stay home with his wife in Luxor rather than cruise the Nile with me (the slacker!). Then last night he drove from Luxor to Edfu and boarded the boat, and met up with me this morning for some more sightseeing.

Immediately upon disembarking, we were picked up by a horse-drawn carriage which took us through town to our first stop, Edfu Temple. This seemed to me like a completely unnecessary extravagance, and the ride was probably less than ten minutes, but whatever. I guess the clip-clopping and the sleighbells did add a certain ambience to the journey, although really it just made me think of Christmas.

At any rate, the temple was interesting. It's known for being the best-preserved one in Egypt, as it was completely buried under the sand until the late 1800s. That in itself is pretty remarkable, considering how tall it is--must have been quite a dig! It's also notable for being built not by Egyptians per se but by the Greeks(!) in the 1st Century BC, during the Ptolomaic dynasty. The temple is dedicated to Horus, the falcon god, so there were some cool falcon statues about, as well as lots of scenes carved into the walls featuring Horus, Ptolemy, and Horus' arch-enemy Seth, who for some reason here takes the form of a tiny hippo. There were also lots of interior chambers, a hypostyle hall, and a marble enclosure meant to house a golden statue of Horus, which unfortunately is now missing.

Then it was back to the boat, and we continued on up the Nile. Around 4:30 (right after teatime) we came to a hill at a bend in the river and the temple of Kom Ombo, dedicated to Horus (again) and Sobek, the crocodile god. This was the smallest temple I've seen so far, but it had some great columns and carvings, including some of the legend herself, Cleopatra. Believe it or not, she really did look a bit like Elizabeth Taylor! I am so serious.

Other interesting features of the temple: a number of mummified crocs (in honor of Sobek), and carvings that demonstrate the Egyptians' great skill in medicine, depicting a whole range of modern-looking surgical instruments including scalpels, suction cups, scissors, sponges, and even a bone saw! Next to this are some hieroglyphs listing the ingredients needed to make a type of medicine--this is apparently often referred to as "the first prescription in history."

As I walked around the temple admiring the carvings, the sun went down over the Nile in a beautiful orange sunset and a bright half-moon appeared in the sky. As the sky got darker, scores of bats flew out and around the temple before heading off to wherever it is that bats go at night, and lights came on illuminating the temple ruins. Quite a dramatic scene, and very cool to see.

2006-10-29T16:06:00.000-08:00

EDFU, EGYPT

I guess I haven't adjusted yet to the time change from India, because I've still been waking up before dawn. This morning I went up on the sun deck to watch the sunrise, and at 7 am the boat left Luxor and started moving upriver towards Edfu.

Today was a travel day--no sightseeing per se, just cruising up the Nile and taking in the sights along its banks: Palm trees everywhere, mountains in the distance, minarets of mosques, and lush greenery on the riverbank. I also passed fishermen with seine nets, dogs, sheep, and the occasional camel on the shore. The most noteworthy event was traveling through the lock at Esna, where our boat had to squeeze through a narrow passage and be lifted up to the level of the river on the other side. We finally arrived at Edfu in the evening, but didn't go ashore.

The weather here, by the way, has been great--it's cool in evenings, and quite comfortable during the day, despite being the desert and all. It's a welcome change from the oppressive humidity of India, that's for sure!

2006-10-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

LUXOR, EGYPT

Last night at 8 pm I boarded an overnight sleeper train to Luxor, which actually turned out to be pretty comfortable. There are two bunks to a cabin, and I shared mine with a friendly young French guy named Raphael ("Everyone knows my name now thanks to the Ninja Turtle"). He lives in New York City where he works as a photographer's assistant, but right now he's on a three-week holiday with his family, who still live in France. They just finished a trek through Egypt's White Desert, which sounded really interesting.

After waking up early for breakfast and watching the sun rise over passing farmland, stands of date palms and mud brick villages, we arrived in the town of Luxor around 6:30 am, and I was met at the station by my new guide, Hossam, who will be showing me stuff in Luxor and Aswan. He then took me to check in at the five-star Nile cruise boat where I'll be staying for the next three days. There are dozens of these big square boats parked side-by-side along the riverbank, so I actually had to walk through the lobbies of five or six boats to get to mine, the Miss World. All of the vessels are pretty posh, with lots of brass railings, marble floors and grand staircases. When I checked in they offered me a welcome drink of hibiscus tea, which tasted suspiciously like cranberry juice.

Then we were off to our first sightseeing destination, the Valley of the Kings, where many of the great Pharaohs were buried. It looked exactly like it does in the pictures, a barren limestone gorge with a series of excavated tunnels leading to underground tombs. From the parking lot we had to take an electric tram to the tombs, presumably to cut down on damage from air pollution. There are dozens of tombs there, but only a handful are open to the public, and for some reason, each ticket only allows access to three tombs. Not knowing which were the best to visit, I sort of chose at random, which perhaps wasn't the best way to go. Still, the ones I went in (the tomb of Ramses IX was one I remember) were pretty cool, with elaborate painted scenes on the walls, long sloping tunnels, and multiple interior chambers. I decided to pay extra to go inside Tutankhamen's tomb--it's the smallest one there, and there's not much to see, but of course it's the most famous, and significant for being one of the only undisturbed ancient tombs ever discovered. All of the loot from the tomb is now in the Egyptian Museum, but they've left his mummy in the tomb, which was exciting to see.

We then drove to the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, a three-tiered columned structure sticking out of the side of a mountain. Legend has it that the temple was severely damaged by her stepson (who resented her rule), and it is pretty beat-up. But the main design of the temple, with dozens of columns along its front, is still very dramatic, and there are some other interesting sculptures and paintings still visible in the ruins.

That temple was small change, though, compared to the next one we drove to: the temple of Karnak, which is supposedly the largest ancient religious site in the world. It's a massive temple complex built over a 1300-year period, and I have to say it's the most impressive thing I've seen yet in Egypt. There's way too much there to describe, but some of the most impressive sights were a couple of towering obelisks, some great statues of kings and queens, and an amazing Hypostyle Hall of giant columns, considered to be one of the world's great architectural masterpieces. All of the columns are absolutely massive, with scenes and hieroglyphics carved into them all the way to the top. I just wandered through the hall, staring up at them for ages.

After Karnak, any other temple would seem rather insignificant, and that's too bad, because we then visited the nearby temple of Luxor, which is pretty magnificent in its own right, although smaller than Karnak. It's right smack in the middle of the city of Luxor, which was kind of strange to see. Interestingly, part of the temple had been converted into a Coptic church, so there were Christian crosses everywhere as well as the familiar Egyptian gods and goddesses. And at one time, an avenue of sphinxes connected the temple with the temple of Karnak--I kept thinking how amazing it would have been to see them both back in the day.

Conveniently, my cruise boat was parked right across the street from the temple, so after tramping around for a while, I then walked over, hopped aboard and got settled in. It feels a little strange to be the only person on the boat traveling solo, and it looks like I'm the only native English-speaker as well--I'm sharing my cruise with about 50 French tourists and some Eastern Europeans, I think. Like I said, it's a nice boat, and it turns out I have an entire two-room suite, complete with big bed, TV, fridge, bathroom, sleeper sofa, and a great floor-to-ceiling window with a railing, so it functions almost as a balcony--I can watch all the scenery on the Nile pass by while sitting on the couch. Very cool. And there's a sun deck on the roof with a swimming pool, which is pretty sweet, too.

2006-10-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

CAIRO, EGYPT

I spent most of the morning touring the sights of Old Cairo, again with my guide Ragab. We started at the Saladin Citadel, a hill at the center of the city that was fortified in the 12th Century by the famous Islamic leader Saladin (who I have to admit I only knew about because of that Ridley Scott movie). Anyway, the view over Cairo from the top of the citadel was pretty impressive, and so was the most famous building there, the gargantuan Mohamed Ali Mosque ("Not named for the boxer," Ragab helpfully pointed out). Compared to the citadel itself, the mosque is very recent (1800s), and it's constructed of white alabaster, so it's sometimes referred to as the "Alabaster Mosque." It's really a beautiful building, with multiple domes, towering minarets, and a huge chandelier in the main hall. Of course we had to take our shoes off inside the mosque, but Ragab warned me to keep an eye on them, because he had his shoes stolen here once! Not sure who would want my battered old sneakers, but I carried mine around with me anyway while I took photos.

We then headed to the Coptic section of Cairo, which is sort of a walled cluster of very early Christian churches, and also includes the oldest synagogue in Egypt. Interestingly enough, the mosques, churches, and synagogues here all look very similar, with the same basic style of architecture and decoration. One church there, known as Abu Serga, is famous for having a basement floor where the Holy Family (Mary, Jesus and Joseph) supposedly lived for a time, so lots of religious pilgrims come to see it. As if that wasn't reason enough, this is also the spot where lil' baby Moses was supposedly found floating in the river Nile. Another famous church we visited right next door is the "Hanging Church," named because its nave was built suspended above the southern tower gate of the ancient Bablylon Fort. And there may have been another church or two we saw--this surely must have been the largest number of religious buildings I've been in in one day!

Having had enough of that ol' time religion, we then headed to the Egyptian Museum, which of course houses the majority of Egypt's ancient treasures. It's a gigantic place, a little old and musty, and frankly, quite overwhelming in its scope, as there are literally thousands and thousands of sculptures, artifacts and other priceless objects there. Ragab walked me to what he considers to be the dozen or so "must-see" items and explained them, although being an archaeologist, he sometimes got carried away with his descriptions, and by the end of our visit my head was swimming with way too much information about pharonic dynasties, religious rituals, mummification processes, and the like.

Of course, the most famous pieces at the museum are the treasures from King Tutankhamun's tomb, and rightly so: It's a huge collection of priceless stuff, and all of it is fascinating. And considering the size of the exhibit of Tut's treasures that I saw last Christmas in Ft. Lauderdale, the fact that there's so much here is even more amazing. The most stunning pieces are the solid gold inner coffin and the famous golden mask, both of which are on display behind glass in a special room. Up close, the workmanship is incredible, as it's really intricate and precise. And man, all that gold....

After the museum, Ragab and Tamer took me to lunch at a floating restaurant on the Nile, which was a pretty decent all-you-can-eat buffet. Then, since my day's guided tour was over and I had already checked out of my hotel (I'm taking the night train to Luxor tonight), I had them drop me off downtown, as I still had the entire afternoon to kill.

And believe it or not, I decided to walk back to the Egyptian Museum for another overdose of Egyptiana. This time I found an almost-hidden side room in the back with a display of all kinds of animal mummies, including dogs, cats, hawks, shrews, sheep, crocodiles, and even a giant Nile perch! Crazy, but very cool to see. I also checked out a display of Egyptian jewelry, much of which looks identical to designs you'd see today--and of course I had to get another look at the Tut stuff before heading off to the train station.

2006-10-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

CAIRO, EGYPT

Okay, so that was just a layover in Kuwait. Nothing much worth stopping for, from what I could see.

Anyway, after that little side-trip, here I am in the land of the Pharoahs, accompanied by my trusty Egyptologist guide Ragab and my hookah-smoking driver Tamer. They picked me up from my hotel early this morning and after a quick Turkish coffee we headed to see the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World.

I'm talking pyramids, people, and there they were, large as life (and that's big!), only ten minutes or so away in Giza. We started with the most famous, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, which Ragab explained a little about, then I climbed around on it for a few minutes before we walked around to the other big pyramids and some surrounding smaller tombs. One of them you could go inside, which involved climbing backward down a ladder through a narrow shaft at about a 45-degree angle. It was really awkward and kind of claustrophobic in there, but once I made it to the bottom it was cool to see the inside of a real Egyptian tomb. This was one of the few that was found with stuff inside, although like most of the treasures unearthed around here it's all in the Egyptian Museum now for safekeeping, so all I got to see was an empty room.

We then drove a few minutes away to see that other famous icon of Egypt, the Sphinx, which sits beside a small temple with the pyramids behind it. A few pictures there, then another short drive to an overlook with the pyramids in the distance. It would have been a really great picture-taking spot, except for the half-dismantled opera stage for a recent production of Aida that was in the way and kind of ruined the view. I guess there's always PhotoShop....

Our next stop was the ancient capital of Memphis, which like the pyramids was a lot closer to downtown Cairo than I thought it would be. Interestingly, there are houses built right on top of the old city, so it hasn't ever been properly excavated, much to the frustration of archaeologists like Ragab. Some of the finds that have been uncovered, though, are displayed in the Memphis Museum, which we stopped at for a short time. It's a small place with a scattering of weathered statues and sarcophagi outside, but the most impressive pieces are a huge incomplete statue of Ramses II that was found in a nearby lake, and the Alabaster Sphinx, much smaller than the famous one, but more delicately rendered and beautiful.

Our next stop was Sakkara, home of the Step Pyramid of Zoser, built way back in 2700 BC and the precursor to the more famous triangular pyramids. Ragab explained that "Sakkara is my playground," as most of his time as an archaeologist has been spent doing digs here. Consequently, he was able to give me a lot of information about finds in the area, and showed me a nearby tomb with some interesting pictures and inscriptions inside.

Actually, I feel very fortunate to have Ragab for a guide--not only is he a bona fide archaeologist/Egyptologist who really knows his stuff, but he's also apparently well-known by all the guards, museum directors, and site managers, who give him a rock-star welcome wherever we go. On several occasions I think it's gotten us special treatment, as we've gone in some areas that appear to be off-limits to the general public. Hey, I'm not complaining....

On the downside, like my tours in China and India this one also included a couple of obligatory stops at government-run souvenir shops. This time it was a papyrus-art workshop and a carpet-making factory, which I guess were mildly interesting to watch, but of course I wasn't interested in buying anything so it still felt like a waste of everyone's time. I made sure to take advantage of the complimentary beverages, though.

After all that we stopped for lunch at the Sakkara Restaurant, where I had a really awesome meal: A mixed grill of chicken and lamb kebabs, homemade pita bread, roasted eggplant, hummus, and various sauces and pickles. Really tasty. Then it was back to my hotel. Despite all the sights, today's itinerary only went until about 2:30 pm, which left me the rest of the day to hang out and rest up.

2006-10-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT

Wait, what the hell am I doing in Kuwait?

2006-10-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

INDIA RECAP

Favorite Things About India:

The Taj Mahal.
Fatehpur Sikri.
Old Goa.

Least Favorite Thing About India:

The appalling poverty.

2006-10-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI, INDIA

On the recommendation of the two Semester-at-Sea students I met last week in Anjuna (thanks, guys!), I took a trip today to visit Elephanta Island, which features some really cool ancient Hindu cave temples and statues. To get there, I caught a boat from the nearby Gateway of India which took about an hour to cross Mumbai Harbour and reach the island.

When we arrived at Elephanta, I disembarked and walked down the long concrete jetty to the island--bizarrely, you can also pay to ride a miniature choo-choo train down the length of the jetty, but that just seemed stupid to me; plus I got there faster than the train did! Once on the island, there's a long stone staircase you walk up to the top of the hill where the caves are, lined with souvenir stalls on either side--slogging up the steps, I had flashbacks to Tai Shan, as that's exactly the way it was there. Unlike Tai Shan, though, this stairway was patrolled by evil red-faced monkeys. One actually tried to grab my water bottle, and I had to resort to flashing my "mean monkey" face to scare it off. There were signs posted warning tourists "DO NOT BECOME FRIENDLY WITH THE MONKEYS"--believe me, I wasn't trying to!

Once at the top, there were a number of caves/temples to explore dating from between 450 AD and 750 AD. It was really interesting to see how the natural caverns were adapted into man-made structures, with huge stone columns supporting what appear to be the natural cave ceilings. The largest temple contains a number of large sculpted scenes featuring the god Shiva in some of his many roles, including Destroyer, Creator, Protector, and, uh... Dancer? Or something like that. It also contains several smaller rooms with linga altars inside, guarded by tall statues. The most impressive sculpture by far, though, is in the center of the temple: It's a huge bust of a three-headed Shiva, with his eyes closed in serene contemplation. It really is a beautiful work of art.

Some of the other caves were little more than, well, caves, with a few man-made columns, doorways, and sculptural fragments. It's hard to say if they were always a lot more plain than the main temple, or if they've suffered more from weathering, looting, and the like. Still, they were interesting to poke around in.

After visiting the caves, I followed some signs to "Cannon Hill" and hiked up to the top of the island, where sure enough, there was a large artillery gun on a hill that looked like it was from the WWII era. I never got the explanation for why it was there, though.

Oh, I forgot: It's called "Elephanta" Island because originally there were big statues of an elephant and a horse here--the elephant statue collapsed in the 1800s and was later rebuilt on the mainland. (Not sure what happened to the horse, but I guess "Horsa Island" wasn't nearly as good a name, anyway.)

2006-10-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI, INDIA

I sort of made up my own walking tour of Bombay today. Actually I started by taking a bus north for about 45 minutes, hopped out to take a look, and ended up walking all the way back to Colaba. And man, it was hot!

I started at Chowpatty Beach, which is where a lot of Mumbaikars like to meet, eat, and hang out during the early evening. But as I was there in the middle of the day, it was virtually deserted--probably because unlike most beaches, the water is so filthy that not even the locals dare to go swimming there! It's a shame, because it's in a good location with some good skyline views of the city in both directions.

From there I walked south along the seaside down Marine Drive, then headed inland to get a view of some of Mumbai's old Victorian buildings: The High Court, the University of Mumbai, and the totally over-the-top Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), a train station known until recently as Victoria Terminus. It's a mess of 19th Century Gothic architecture with stained glass, stone lions, and lots of crazy gargoyles and waterspouts including lions, monkeys, and crocodiles.

I then made my way south through the areas of Churchgate, Fort, Khala Goda, and finally, Colaba. By the time I made it back to my hotel, I was completely knackered, as the British say.

NP: "Bombay" by Bel Canto

2006-10-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI, INDIA

It's been more than a month now, and I have to say that I've really been enjoying traveling on my own. At first I wasn't sure I would, but it's turned out to be a much more rewarding and relaxing experience than I expected--even in China and India, which I figured would be the most difficult countries to get around in. Seeing what I want to see at my own pace has been great, and when you're traveling solo it seems like it's much easier to both a) meet new people, and b) disappear into the background. Both can be useful, of course, depending on what you feel like at the time....

2006-10-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI, INDIA

This morning I walked five minutes from my hotel to the Gateway of India, a huge stone arch facing out to Mumbai Harbour that was built by the British in 1924 and has since become the symbol of the city. The area around the arch has a real carnival atmosphere, as it's really crowded with tourists and hawkers selling everything from giant balloons to peanuts to cotton candy (or "candy floss" or "fairy floss" or whatever they call it here). There are also gilded horse-drawn carriages you can hire to take you around the area. Not being a fan of the crowds, I didn't stay too long; just long enough to take a few photos of the arch and the ornate Taj Mahal Palace hotel next to it, built in 1903.

A little later on I decided to experience an honest-to-goodness Bollywood movie on the big screen; after all, I'm IN Bollywood, right? So I walked down to the Regal Cinema, one of Mumbai's famous old Art Deco movie palaces, and caught a sold-out showing of Don, the hottest Bollywood blockbuster out now. It's apparently a remake of a famous Indian film from the '70s, a real action-thriller about a ruthless gangster, the lookalike sent by the police to impersonate him, and all kinds of vicious double-crossing and spy stuff.

At least, I think that's what it's about--I have to admit I couldn't follow everything, since the dialogue was all in Hindi without any English subtitles. Actually, what was really frustrating was that the characters would occasionally lapse into English, just long enough to confuse me. (Police Detective: "Gentlemen, I'll get right down to business...[Talks in Hindi]... So you can see our problem.")

The movie was pretty interesting--very slick and stylish, and filmed in a number of locations, including Paris, Mumbai, and Kuala Lumpur. But from my biased Western perspective, it's still strange to see a movie that follows all the conventions of a typical "serious" Hollywood action-thriller (complete with lots of violence and bloodshed) that's also a frickin' musical! Sometimes it was a little too much like Scarface-meets-Grease for me, but I guess that's the beauty of Bollywood! Like a lot of other Bollywood movies, it's also really long--almost three hours, including an intermission. Anyway, it was certainly an experience.

2006-10-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI, INDIA

Happy Diwali, Y'all!!

I have to admit, at first I was crushed to find out that all the celebratory fireworks were not in fact to honor my arrival in Mumbai, as I had first thought. As it turns out, I've been fortunate enough to arrive in Bombay on the first day of the happiest of Hindu holidays, Diwali, the five-day "festival of lights." Err...wait, or is that Hanukkah? :-) Anyway, I'm not sure of all the holiday specifics, but I found out today that a big part of the festivities involves setting off as many REALLY LOUD FIRECRACKERS in the streets as you can. Which on the one hand is pretty fun to be around, but can also be a little unnerving when you're wandering the dark streets of an unfamiliar city. And Mumbai has had its share of recent terrorist bombings, which apparently puts even some of the locals on edge--this year there's been a campaign to do away with all the loud explosions, which evidently has been roundly ignored by the pyrotechnic-loving public.

Besides "bursting crackers," as they put it, Diwali also involves exchanging presents, lighting small lamps, and the usual being-at-home-with-the-family stuff. It's really interesting to see all the parallels with Christmas in the U.S., including the barrage of advertisements for holiday sales mentioning "this festive time of year," lots of "Season's Greetings" signs everywhere, and even articles in the paper about how to avoid gaining those extra five pounds every year at Diwali. Pretty funny.

After arriving today, I attempted to check out Bombay's nightlife by heading to a recommended bar called the Voodoo Pub just down the street from where I'm staying. It was supposed to be rockin' on Saturday nights, but tonight it was totally dead, most likely due to the holiday. I think there were five people there, including myself! But I ended up talking to a local guy there named Jack who was friendly enough, and when the bar closed early we both decided to find somewhere a little more happenin'. Being a local, he knew a couple of possibilities, so we walked first to a trendy club called Red Light where we were both refused entry (snobs!), then to a bar with a live band called Jazz by the Bay, which we decided looked too boring to pay the cover charge for. We ended up at an English pub on Marine Drive where we had a couple of beers and talked for an hour or so. Actually, things were more interesting out on the streets, as the roads were bumper-to-bumper with revelers, even at midnight, and people were setting off all kinds of fireworks by the bay--it was just like New Years' Eve.

2006-10-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

CALANGUTE, GOA, INDIA

Continuing my trip down the coast, I've been staying in Calangute for the past two days. It's a lot more developed than either Anjuna or Vagator--well, I guess "developed" is relative, because it's no metropolis, but there is more of a town here, or at least more of a mess of souvenir shops and restaurants--a little like a post-apocalyptic Daytona Beach, haha. There seem to be a lot of middle-aged Australians here, for some reason, and a good number of Indian vacationers as well. Despite the crowds, there's not really too much to do in Calangute except eat and spend time on the sand...so that's what I've been doing. Today I went to a recommended restaurant on the beach and tried another Goan culinary specialty, beef xacuti, which is sort of a curried beef stew. Not bad, although I should have ordered some rice to pour it over.

Tragically, when I went for a swim this afternoon, I discovered a new definition for "helplessness": Wading out past the breakers and looking back at your T-shirt and shoes on the sand, then watching a big dog walk over to them, sniff them, and then slowly lift his leg....

2006-10-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

ANJUNA, GOA, INDIA

Rather than staying in one place for the next few days, I figured I'd work my way down the coast to experience as many of Goa's towns as possible. So yesterday I took a bus five kilometers south to the town of Anjuna, which has a longer sandy beach than Vagator, but isn't quite as ruggedly scenic. It's a small town that's known for its Wednesday flea market, which I dutifully visited this afternoon. Every week vendors from all regions of India set up stalls under the coconut palms, selling everything from spices to Kashmiri textiles and wooden elephant carvings. It's all really colorful and busy, and even though I didn't buy anything, it was a good place to wander around and people-watch for an hour or so. When I got tired of the hawkers, I walked down to the beach and watched the sunset, which was nice, no doubt due to smog.

Also today I met two American college students on the "Semester at Sea" program, a guy from Alaska and a girl from California, and we traded travel stories. I think they're the first Americans I've seen here, actually.

Later at night I walked down to check out Paradiso, supposedly one of Goa's best dance clubs. It was a pretty interesting place--it's on the side of a hill, right by the beach, and you enter by walking onto the roof, which is the "chill out" area. It's covered with straw mats, and about a dozen locals were sitting there with kerosene lamps selling cigarettes, coffee, and tea, and some had little cooking setups to make fried egg sandwiches for all the ravers. Very bizarre, but kind of neat. The dance floor is downstairs, and it's made to look like a psychedelic spider's cave, painted in fluorescent colors and illuminated with UV lights. The DJ was actually really good (he played techno and trance, as you might expect), although the crowd, which I'd say was about an equal mixture of Indians and Europeans, fell just short of reaching critical party mass. It's apparently the very beginning of the season, so I guess things are still a little quiet. Plus it's a Wednesday. So I had a couple of King's beers, danced a little, and walked back to my guesthouse for some sleep.

2006-10-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

VAGATOR, GOA, INDIA

Traveling up the coast yesterday, I hopped a bus to the town of Mapusa, where I transferred to another bus that brought me to the little beach hamlet of Vagator. It's supposed to be one of the nicest stretches of coastline in Goa, and I would have to agree that it is fairly dramatic, with high bluffs overlooking rocky points and yellow sand beaches, and lots of tall palm trees towering over everything.

Vagator is also supposed to be the center of Goa's party scene, but you wouldn't know it! It must be the off-season, because apart from the locals, there's hardly anyone here. It's a very sleepy little village with just a handful of Israeli and European slacker-types wandering about, some with their kids--seems there are more dogs, goats and pigs in the street than people! I think all the big rave action happens during the Christmas holidays, as that's when the room rates go sky-high.

Speaking of rooms, I'm staying at a little family-run guesthouse down a dirt road, with a nice tropical garden in back. It's a great place to sit and eat my morning French toast while I watch all the crazy butterflies and birds flap around. I wish I knew what some of them were--there are some really unique-looking little green birds, and some larger dark ones with crests that I haven't seen before. There are also a lot of run-of-the-mill crows, which are always making a racket.

As soon as I got here yesterday, I made my way down to the beach and took a dip in the Arabian Sea. It felt good to be in the water again, as I haven't been swimming since Vietnam. In the surf I met two really friendly Indian teens, Bhagwant (aka "Pinto") and Amit, who were eager to talk to me about job opportunities in the U. S. I'm afraid I didn't know a lot about that, but we had a great conversation about India and America nonetheless, and hung out for a couple of hours at the beach.

Later on I decided to do some exploring, as there's a ruined 500-year-old Portuguese fort on a hill overlooking the town, which I scrambled up to just at sunset. There's not much there except the crumbling fort walls and a few doorways, but it was a great place to sit for awhile and take in some amazing views of the ocean and miles of Goan coastline in either direction.

2006-10-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

OLD GOA, GOA, INDIA

Today I took a local bus ten kilometers east of Panaji to the former capital of the state, the Portuguese city of Old Goa. Incredibly, four hundred years ago it was a metropolis of over 200,000 people, said to rival Lisbon. Times have changed, though--the city was abandoned several hundred years ago following plagues and political problems, and the capital moved down the road to Panaji. Now all that's left are a handful of historic churches and cathedrals, but at least they're interesting ones. The whole town has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Like Panaji, Old Goa is surrounded by tropical vegetation, and most of the churches are scattered around a city square with wide lawns and gardens. It's a really attractive setting, and a nice place to walk around. As far as churches go, I have to admit I don't really know my Dominican from my Franciscan from my Jesuit, but I think saw 'em all today! There was the huge Se Cathedral (1562), the largest church in the city and the seat of the Archbishop of Goa, the smaller Church of St. Francis of Assisi (1661) next door, and down the street, the Church and Convent of St. Monica (1627), the largest nunnery in India. Inside the convent is a two-story Museum of Christian Art, which was full of artifacts and sculptures of saints and such collected from various Goan churches. I thought it was interesting to see that many of the Christian figures were carved by local Hindu artists.

My two favorite churches of Old Goa, though, were the Church of St. Augustine (1602) and the Basilica of Bom Jesus (1627). Actually, St. Augustine is nothing more than ruins, as it was abandoned in 1835, and the vault collapsed soon after. All that's left now are half of the bell tower and some other remnants of the original structure, but it was cool to climb over the moss-covered ruins and see some of the remaining features, including marble inscriptions carved into the floor and walls. I was the only one there, too, so I had the whole place to explore by myself.

The Basilica of Bom Jesus was intriguing, too, but for a different reason--it's famous throughout the Roman Catholic world for containing the remains of St. Francis Xavier, Goa's patron saint, who in the mid-16th Century went on legendary missionary voyages throughout Asia. When he died (or so the story goes), inexplicably his body didn't decompose, despite being doused with quicklime. The church later declared his "incorruptible" body to be a miracle, and put it on display here at the Basilica in a silver casket with glass windows. Over the centuries various parts of his body were lopped off and scattered throughout Asia as holy relics, but most of his corpse is still here on display. Apparently every ten years they take him out and parade him around, but the last time was in 2004, so today I had to be content with viewing him through his glass case. I have to say after all these years he looks a little...er...dry, but all in all not in too bad shape if indeed he truly wasn't embalmed. Kind of freaky, though. Adding to the strangeness, there's a modern art gallery upstairs in the church featuring large paintings depicting St. Francis' missionary work. The paintings get more and more surreal, though, and by the end of the exhibit, they're bizarre Dali-esque works with all kinds of grotesque distortions. Very trippy!

Later I couldn't resist returning to A Ferradura for some more Portuguese-influenced Goan cuisine--tonight I tried the feijoada, a spicy stew made with pork and beans, which was really good.

2006-10-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

PANAJI, GOA, INDIA

Greetings from Goa!

For those of you unfamiliar with the place, it's not a city but rather an entire region of India's west coast, known to Europeans as a chill-out beach destination and also a haven for hippies and ravers. But from what I've seen so far, it's actually pretty mellow--in 2000 the Indian government banned all loud music past 10 pm, so the dance scene may not be what it once was. (Although I hear it still gets pretty crazy around Christmas and New Years', when the authorities apparently turn a blind eye to such goings-on.)

Truthfully, I'm not really here to get my rave on, but rather to relax and soak up some of the Goan culture, which is very different from the rest of India. You see, Goa is a former Portuguese colony, which means that instead of Hindu temples and mosques there are Catholic churches and European architectural touches everywhere. The Portuguese influence also extends to the local cuisine, which features all kinds of seafood as well as a lot of spicy pork and beef (yes!). The scenery is a radical change from what I saw in Delhi, as well--it's just as hot, but it's a much more tropical climate, and as the monsoon just ended here, everything is incredibly lush, green and jungle-y. Also unlike Delhi, it's not crowded here, and there's no traffic--in short, it's a lot less stressful! Ahh....

For my first couple of days, I've decided to stay in the capital of Goa, Panaji (also known as Panjim), which is supposed to be one of India's nicest capital cities. And it really is kind of charming, in a run-down, moss-covered, laid-back kind of way. Unlike most tourist destinations in Goa, it's not on the beach, but sits inland along the Mandovi River.

This afternoon I decided to take Lonely Planet's self-guided walking tour of town, which brought me through Panaji's winding narrow streets past three major religious sites:

The first was Our Lady of Immaculate Conception, the main church that sits in the center of town. Built in 1541, this bright white church surrounded by palm trees was the first place Portuguese sailors would visit on their arrival to India, where they'd give thanks for a successful voyage before continuing inland to the former capital of Old Goa.
I then visited Maruti Temple, which sits on a high hill (up a lot of steps!) overlooking the city. It's a Hindu temple dedicated to Hanuman, the monkey god, and from its front terrace I had a great view down on the buildings of Panjim and the river in the distance.
A little further down the road, I walked past Panaji's third important religious structure, the Bishop's Palace, a huge white mansion where the Archbishop of Goa lives. Nice digs!

After my walk, I had dinner at a really good Goan restaurant called A Ferradura, where I had fried chicken marinated in piri piri (I still have no idea what that is) with a fiery-hot green sauce (thankfully served on the side).

2006-10-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

DELHI, INDIA

The last stop on our three-day Golden Triangle tour was the City Palace Museum of Jaipur, which we visited this morning just as it opened. In addition to being a public museum, it's also the private residence of the Maharajah of Jaipur and his family. I was a little disappointed that unlike my friend Kirk, who somehow actually got to meet the Maharajah on his tour of India, I had to settle for looking at his collection of royal stuff.

Still, it was a pretty interesting collection. We walked through galleries of textiles and clothing once worn by the royal family and their ancestors, and large armoury featuring more guns, knives, swords, daggers, maces, and slicing implements than I think I've ever seen in one place. Oddly, this collection also featured an array of back scratchers--you know, the kind that looks like a hand on a stick--only these were fancy ones made of silver and precious stones. I'm not sure why these were included with the deadly weapons, although I suppose you could cause some damage if you lobbed one at an enemy. There was also an interesting art gallery that included more miniature paintings, some huge Oriental rugs, and a collection of photographs taken by a previous Maharajah around the turn of the 20th Century whose hobby was photography. We also saw a collection of ancient royal carriages and automobiles, and two huge silver urns in the museum courtyard which are supposedly the largest silver objects in the world.

Most of the rest of the day was taken up by the long ride back to Delhi, about 300 kilometers to the east. Thankfully, the road between Jaipur and Delhi is in much better condition than the one we took yesterday.

2006-10-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

JAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, INDIA

The reason for our choice of hotel became apparent this morning, when we found out that it's only two minutes from Fatehpur Sikri, the first destination on today's agenda. It's the remains of the Mughal capital built by emperor Akbar between 1571 and 1585. Again, it's a combination palace/fort, with numerous halls, tombs, courtyards, fountains, and mosques, set high above the surrounding town. Shortly after the emperor's death it was abandoned due to water shortages, as Akbar unwisely built his city in a desertlike area far from any lakes or rivers. It's still a beautiful place to wander around, though, and since we arrived a little after 7 am, it was still cool and quiet, as there weren't any other tourists there yet. Adding to the exotic atmosphere were lots of bright green parrots which were roosting on the stone walls.

We then piled in the SUV for the drive through the arid state of Rajasthan to the city of Jaipur, another 200 kilometers to the west. This wasn't too enjoyable because the road is bad in places, and our driver (like everyone else in India) drives like a maniac, constantly slamming on the brakes and accelerator and swerving into oncoming traffic to pass big trucks and buses. Plus it was really hot (the car has A/C, but the sun was so brutal it didn't help much), so I felt pretty carsick most of the way. In addition to motor vehicles, we passed an increasing number of camel carts, which were cool to see. One sight I would have rather missed, though, was an overloaded cart collapsing on top of a camel and pinning it underneath--we were right behind it when it happened. The beast looked like it was in some real pain, and just lay there with its mouth open. I wish we would have stopped to try to do something about it, but we just drove past.

Finally we came to Jaipur, and drove through the old section of the city, known as the "pink city" because all the buildings are painted alike. (Actually, it's more of a terracotta color, but it does look pinkish from a distance.) The traffic in the narrow streets was absolutely insane--our car got scratched at least twice by other vehicles--and adding to the road hazards were all kinds of animals in the streets--goats, cows, and for once, a number of elephants(!), most painted with colorful designs and carrying various items with their trunks.

We then visited Jantar Mantar--virtually identical to the observatory of the same name in Delhi, and built by the same guy back in 1728. It features the world's largest sundial, accurate to within two minutes, as well as various sextants and structures for determining star positions and horoscopes. As the sun was out, the sundial was working quite well, but it also made it beastly hot, so I just ran from the shade of one astronomical instrument to the next.

Poor Benoit was having a minor crisis during our visit: The police department called him from Switzerland to tell him they were towing his car--before leaving for India, he parked it on the street, and now they're doing construction or something. "This will cost more than my entire trip to India!" he told me, although I hope he was exaggerating.

Our trip to the observatory was followed by lunch at a local restaurant; after which we drove to Jaipur's most impressive relic, Amber (pronounced Amer) Fort. Yes, it's another red sandstone fort/palace, but to me it seems like they keep getting better. It was built in 1592, and contains all sorts of interesting buildings and courtyards, and a spectacular view down on the valley below and across to other forts on the surrounding hills. The fort is currently undergoing some restoration work, which was interesting to see, too--men were fixing sections of the fort's walls and turrets by hand with trowels, and women carried baskets of plaster and cement to them balanced on their heads! A number of monkeys have taken up residence here as well, and were running around the top of the walls and the construction scaffolding. At times it looked like they were sentries on watch, looking out over the countryside from the fort's high walls.

On the way back from Amber, we stopped to take some pictures of Jaipur's "water palace" on the lake. Then Benoit decided he wanted to ride an elephant, and convinced me to join him for a brief jaunt down the highway on a pachyderm. Then Tatsuya decided to join us as well. Wow, I had forgotten how bouncy it is up there! They were offering camel rides, too, but after ten minutes atop jerky Jumbo, we had been tossed around enough for one day, so we passed on that.

At this point we were all hot and tired, but our driver and guide insisted on taking us to a couple of "handicraft centres," which of course were really nothing more than souvenir shops. Although these were government-run and fairly inexpensive, I was not in the mood to be sold anything, and refused to go in the second one at all--I sat outside and bought an ice cream instead.

This time we stayed at a hotel in town. Benoit and I had dinner in the restaurant there, then I went back to my room and watched The Grudge on cable TV. Man, I have never seen a more un-scary "scary" movie. It's awful.

2006-10-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

AGRA, UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA

Today I started a three-day tour of the "Golden Triangle," the area between the northern Indian cities of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. I'm traveling in an SUV with four other folks (plus our driver): A nice retired Indian couple from Chennai, a Japanese kid named Tatsuya from Tokyo, and a 36-year-old IT project manager from France named Benoit. All of 'em nice people, and Benoit and I hit it off pretty well, so we've been hanging out for a lot of the trip.

This morning we drove south from Delhi on the dusty road to Agra, some 200 kilometers away, stopping briefly on the way at a rest area of sorts while our driver had some paperwork taken care of. There we got to see some uniquely Indian entertainment: Two snake charmers with real live cobras in baskets(!), who ran right up to the car and began their act. It was really cool to see the snakes "sitting up" with their hoods flared inches in front of these guys, just like in the movies--of course, they weren't reacting to the flute playing, just following the side-to-side movement of the flute. Benoit was a little disappointed that they weren't "dancing," but I was just impressed at the fact that there were deadly snakes about! At one point one of the cobras actually struck out at the snake charmer, biting his robe just inches from his leg, but the guy was completely unfazed. I don't get it--I would be totally freaking out. The snake charmers also occasionally tapped the cobras on the heads to make them rear up, which is also something I don't think I'd attempt. Anyway, it was pretty interesting. Oh, and there was also a guy there with a couple of trained monkeys--well, they were trained to jump on our SUV and screech, at least.

After about three hours of driving we stopped outside of Agra at Sikandra, where we visited Akbar's Tomb. Who's Akbar, you ask? Well apparently he was the greatest of the Mughal emperors, and built a lot of stuff in his day (the 16th Century, I think). His tomb is an unusual and beautiful combination of Hindu, Muslim, and Persian architecture, built of sandstone and marble, and it sits in the middle of four symmetrical gardens filled with grazing deer or ibexes or something like that, which I thought added to its exotic-ness.

It was impressive, but not a patch on our next stop, the world-famous Taj Mahal. You all know about this one--"the world's greatest monument to love," "a teardrop on the face of eternity" and all that, built by the emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife Mumtaz Mahal. Between 1631 and 1653 over 20,000 people worked on the tomb, and amazingly enough, their descendants are still the ones who do repairs and maintenance on the place. And yes, it really is as beautiful as in the pictures. The white marble reflecting the harsh Indian sun makes the building really glow, and its perfect symmetry (it looks the same from all four sides) is simply stunning. We walked around the gardens, took the obligitory pictures in front of the tomb, and then walked inside, where under the main dome are "decoy" marble caskets of the emperor and his wife (for some reason, their actual coffins are under the floor, directly below the fake ones. Up close, I could see that there are huge Quran verses decorating the sides of the Taj, as well as delicate floral patterns all made of colorful inlaid stones (blue lapis lazuli, red coral, etc.).

Our last stop of the day was the Agra Fort, built by emperor Akbar in 1565 and continued by Shah Jahan. It's similar to Delhi's Red Fort in that it's a combined military structure and royal palace built of red sandstone, although I would have to say that this one is even more architecturally interesting and well-preserved. There are various imperial halls inside as well as a mosque, and part of the fort overlooks the Taj Mahal. In fact, Shah Jahan himself was imprisoned here for eight years by his own son--but at least his quarters overlooked his late wife's tomb. Man, what a view!

After an hour or so of poking around the fort, it was back to the car, where we drove a good 40 minutes outside Agra to our hotel, the Gulistan Tourist Complex. It's a fairly large courtyard-style hotel--not bad, really, but it seemed a little strange that it was in the middle of nowhere and we were apparently the only ones staying there! Making things a little more Twilight-Zone, the electricity kept cutting off, including while I was at dinner (and the only one in the restaurant). Everything went pitch black, and I had to just sit there in the dark with my vegetable biryani until they brought me a candle.

2006-10-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

DELHI, INDIA

Books I've read in the past month:

A Magick Life: A Biography of Aleister Crowley by Martin Booth: A very matter-of-fact biography of a very off-the-wall person. I only knew a little about Crowley before reading this, so it was a shock to find out that most of what I "knew" was wrong! Crowley was an odd duck, for sure, but apparently he wasn't ever a Satanist or a devil-worshipper. Who knew? And I didn't realize he was an accomplished mountain-climber, either. Mostly he was an incredibly charismatic showman with a huge ego and a wicked sense of humor, marred by some unfortunate likeability issues and a difficult personality. He was also a sad victim of some awful tabloid slanders--many years before that sort of thing became commonplace. Fascinating stuff.

East of the Mountains by David Guterson: This is the second novel from the author of Snow Falling on Cedars, and it's very good as well. It's a little depressing, as it's about a man who's dying of cancer, but the journey he takes through the countryside of the Pacific Northwest is a healing and redeeming one, so it has a real bittersweet feeling.

The Night Listener by Armistead Maupin: A slightly more "serious" novel from the author of the Tales of the City series and the excellent Maybe the Moon. Maupin's a great storyteller, and it's interesting how all his books seem to combine fiction and truth--it's hard to know in this story how much is autobiographical, and how much is made-up, and in fact he really plays with that idea throughout the story. Sometimes Maupin's perspective is a little too middle-aged-gay-man-in-San-Francisco for my tastes, but it's still a good read.

2006-10-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

DELHI, INDIA

Since Delhi is pretty spread-out and autorickshaw drivers are a pain to deal with, I decided to take the easy way out and go on a cheap all-day guided tour of the city in an air-conditioned bus. The tour was divided into a morning session where we saw the sights of New Delhi, and an afternoon tour of Old Delhi.

The other tourists on the bus seemed to be equally divided between Westerners and vacationing Indians, and during the course of the day I met a number of them, including an Israeli guy who's taking a six-week training course in Delhi, a kid from York, England on a two-week holiday, a backpacking gal from London, and two friendly young Indian guys from Chennai and Mumbai, in town on business. Our guide for the day was a nice guy, too, but he spoke so quickly and with such a strong accent that I had absolutely no idea what he was saying about 90 percent of the time.

We saw a lot of stuff today, so forgive me if I just give a quick sketch of each.

In the morning we toured:

The Lakshmi Naryan Temple. This is a rather garish-looking large red-and-yellow Hindu temple built in 1938 and open to people of all faiths. Around the temple are a number of quotations from religious texts in Hindi and English, some illustrated with paintings. The most interesting features of this temple to me, though, were the swastikas that adorn the building; they're everywhere! Of course the swastika is an ancient religious symbol of great significance to a number of religions, but it's still a little hard for me to get beyond the Nazi connotation.
Jantar Mantar. This is an astronomical observatory built in 1724 by Maharaja Jai Singh II, the mathematician and astronomer king of Jaipur. It's actually a park filled with strange round and angular concrete structures which act as giant sextants and other instruments to show the movements of the sun, moon, and stars. The Maharaja apparently built several more of these in other Indian cities, including Jaipur. It kind of looks like a big modern-art playground.
Qutb Minar. This is a really dramatic victory tower over 70 meters high built in the final years of the 12th Century by Qutb-ud-din, and completed by his successors. It's considered one of the finest examples of early Afghan architecture in India, and it really is unique-looking. The "victory" it celebrates is the coming of Islam to India (and the defeat of the last Hindu kingdom in Delhi), and right beside it stands the mostly-ruined Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid, the oldest mosque in India, built from the ruins of 27 "idolatrous" Hindu temples. Also in the complex are the remains of even larger column that was to be twice as high(!) as the Qutb Minar, but was abandoned almost immediately after construction began.
The Bahai "Lotus" Temple. Unlike the previous sights, this is a much more recent religious structure, completed in 1986, and shaped like a giant lotus flower, faced in white marble and surrounded by nine symmetrical pools of water. The architecture is really striking--with its curved white "petals," it reminds me a little of Sydney's famous opera house. The Bahai faith emphasizes the equality of all religions, so everyone is allowed to use the main sanctuary for silent meditation. It is a very calming environment--"the opposite of Delhi," as my Israeli friend noted.

After our morning tour, the bus brought us back to where the tour started, and we were herded into the cafeteria-like restaurant adjoining the tourism bureau for a quick lunch (I had an awesome masala dosa for less than a dollar).

Most of us then got back in the bus and hit the following sights of Old Delhi:

The Red Fort (Lal Qila). This walled fort (and yep, it's red sandstone), was built from 1638 to 1648 by Shah Jahan, the builder of Taj Mahal. Within the high walls of the fort are gardens and a number of buildings, including an arcade of shops that once served the royal household, Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audiences, where the emperor would hear petitions of his subjects, Diwan-i-Khas, the Hall of Private Audiences, the Hammans, or Royal Baths, and the Moti Masjid, or the Pearl Mosque, which was solely for the emperor's private use. The buildings here, while spacious, didn't really look too palatial to me. This may be due to the fact that various conquerors over the centuries have looted the place and stripped away the precious stones, gold and jewels that once encrusted the buildings. A real shame.
Rajghat. This is the simple black marble platform where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated in 1948. There's an eternal flame next to the platform, and it's all set within a nice sunken courtyard. A number of Indians and foreigners were there solemnly paying their respects; some burned incense or left yellow flowers on top of the ghat.
Humayun's Tomb. This Mughal tomb was built by Humayun's widow Queen Haji Begum in the 16th Century, and is considered the prototype for Taj Mahal. It certainly looks similar, apart from its color (it's mostly red, instead of white). As our tour was running late we arrived there just at sunset--bad for picture-taking, but good for viewing, as the last rays of the setting sun on the marble of the tomb gave everything a beautiful orange glow. After climbing the stairs to the main terrace, we could look out over the four symmetrical gardens surrounding the tomb, where peacocks strutted and raucous green parrots filled the trees--it was like something out of Kipling.

That provided a nice end to the day's sightseeing. After being dropped off by the bus, I then walked to nearby Connaught Place, one of the major retail districts of Delhi, where I had dinner at a Chinese fusion restaurant called Zen. It didn't occur to me until later that eating at a Chinese restaurant in India only a week after leaving China might seem a little strange. But heck, the food was good.

2006-10-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

DELHI, INDIA

Today I braved the streets and paid a visit to Delhi's National Museum, which has a fairly large collection of interesting old items, including wood, bronze and stone sculptures, musical instruments, tribal costumes, coins, and assorted archeological finds. The museum itself is a little shabby and run-down--not too surprising, considering the state of most of the city--but the stuff on display is fascinating. My favorite exhibits were the amazing array of armor and weapons from throughout India's history (including a full set of elephant armor), and the world's largest collection of Indian miniature paintings. I actually hadn't heard of this type of artwork before, but it's really cool. The paintings are mostly religious scenes painted on paper or palm leaf, but in unbelievably microscopic detail. Different regions of India had their own painting style, but they all show some really impressive technique. I have no idea how they managed to get the detail so sharp at such a tiny scale, but they did it. Most of the paintings were several hundred years old.

After the museum, I walked several blocks through central Delhi to the Rajpath, a broad street surrounded by a green belt of parkway running East to West through the center of the city. At one end is the Rashtrapati Bhavan (the President's House), while at the other is India Gate, a 42-meter-high arch erected as a memorial to the Indian soldiers who died in World War I and the Afghan conflict of 1919. It was way too long a distance (and too hellishly hot!) to walk from one end to the other, so I just took a few pictures of the Gate and then sat for awhile on the grass under a nearby tree, which provided a peaceful break from the craziness of the city streets.

2006-10-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

DELHI, INDIA

Hello, Delhi!

(Wait a minute, I already used a variation of that joke when I arrived in Bali. Sorry!)

Anyway, here I am in India, lucky country #13. And after being here for a few days, all I can say is: I'm glad I've already visited Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, because those countries were good preparation for what I'm experiencing here.

When I've talked to other travelers about their impressions of India, the word "shock" comes up often, and now I see why. India assaults your senses from the get-go: It's ridiculously hot (especially after nice autumn weather in China), noisy, dirty, smelly, colorful, and crowded beyond belief with the entire spectrum of humanity--everything from well-dressed businessmen and ladies of leisure to ragged beggars living in filth on the street. It's overwhelming, really, and it's only now, after a few days of taking it all in, that I'm beginning to appreciate some of the nicer aspects of the city.

You've probably heard of New Delhi and Old Delhi--they're really just parts of the same city, so referring to them separately is a little pointless. I'm staying in the Paharganj area, which is sandwiched between the two, and is about as chaotic place as you can imagine. Just when you think it can't get any crazier, it does. Some typical sights: I'm walking down the street today, it's 92 degrees in the blistering sun, and people are frying up piping-hot doughnuts on the street. A motorcyclist weaves through a heavy crowd going at least 40 mph, blaring his horn constantly, but never slowing down--miraculously, no one is killed. A whole bevy of ice-cream salesmen are sleeping curled up on top of their carts. A guy asks me if I want a shoeshine, even though I'm wearing sneakers. And a cow decides to take a nap in the middle of the street, causing a traffic jam. You really have to laugh at stuff like this, or it would quickly drive you completely 'round the bend.

To make things even more confusing, it's really hard to know who to trust, as there seem to be as many scam artists here as there are genuinely helpful people. The guys who run my hotel are pretty nice, but the autorickshaw and taxi drivers have all been a little shady, and all too willing to "take you for a ride," so to speak. It's too bad, as it tends to make you a little paranoid about everyone else.

Apart from soaking up the (cough) atmosphere, I've mainly been taking care of travel arrangements and going through the ordeal of buying a new digital camera, as my old one stopped working in Beijing. I finally succeeded in finding one a little cheaper, smaller, and better than my old one, although I don't think I got as good a price as I could have back home. Sigh...

2006-10-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

CHINA RECAP

Favorite Things About China:

The Great Wall. On a perfect October day, with no tourists to spoil the gorgeous view.
Climbing Tai Shan. They're right; the view really is better from the top.
The food. Duck's blood excepted.

Least Favorite Thing About China:

The spitting. What you've heard is true. And not only do the Chinese love to spit, they're constantly hawking up enormous loogies with that awful cchhhhhhhhhggrrrrr! sound and depositing them right at your feet: on the sidewalk, at the bus station, in a 12th-Century temple courtyard, everywhere! And it's not like they all have pneumonia or anything; I think they just enjoy doing it. Call me "culturally insensitive" if you want, but it's disgusting.

2006-10-02T23:23:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, CHINA

Not feeling too ambitious, I didn't do a whole lot today until late in the afternoon, when I ventured out for a bit to see if I could navigate Beijing's subway system by myself. I immediately found out that my Mandarin pronunciation is pretty awful, as the ticket seller had no idea which station I was trying to get to. I kept saying "Yong He Gong," but I guess it's pronounced completely different to the way it looks. Repeating myself louder didn't help, either. Where's an automated ticket machine when you need one? Ah well.

But somehow I eventually got on the right track, so to speak, and found my way to Yong He Gong, or the Lama Temple--yes, that's right, yet another temple. This one was a little different, though, because it's a Tibetan Buddhist temple complex of ornate halls and courtyards, with big prayer wheels you can spin and lots of large statues of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The last hall features an absolutely gigantic (18-meter-high) statue of the Maitreya Buddha, carved out of a single trunk of white sandalwood. It's in the Guiness Book of World Records, although I'm not exactly sure what for--largest statue of a Maitreya Buddha carved out of a single trunk of white sandalwood, I guess.

Out of all the temples I've visited recently, this one seemed to get the most actual use, as there were dozens of worshippers there kneeling and praying at the altars, while monks in bright robes rushed around doing their duties. The air throughout the place was thick with incense smoke, which added to the atmosphere. Literally.

In the evening, Jin took us to another stop on his culinary tour of Beijing. This time it was a famous wonton restaurant--can't remember any of the names of these places, sorry--that indeed had some tasty soup, as well as individual dumplings with pork and vegetables. Nice.

We then walked past Beijing's Drum and Bell Towers and down one of the city's famous hutongs, or alleyways, to the Houhai district, a busy cluster of shops, restaurants and bars alongside a small lake. We drank mojitos at a bar called No Name while watching people paddling around the lake in small boats and setting off fireworks. It was a really cool vibe. Afterward, we visited a bar called Bed (doesn't every city have one of these?) that had been converted from an ancient hutong courtyard dwelling. Interesting.

On our way back to Jin's place, he announced he was still hungry, so we pulled over on the side of the road where some street vendors were cooking food over a small charcoal fire, right on the sidewalk! They gave us tiny plastic stools to sit on while they roasted the food he ordered on skewers. This included two frightening items: lamb ligament, which was as chewy and tasteless as a rubber band, and caterpillars--or more accurately, chrysalises with pupae inside, waiting to hatch into butterflies. I was further horrified to see that these were skewered ALIVE, and wriggled mightily as they roasted. Surprisingly, Karine really liked them (she ate seven!), and said they tasted like "peanuts and cheese." So I tried one. I guess it was "a little nutty," as Austin Powers would say, but the main thing I remember was the squish. One was more than enough for me. Happily, the roadside roasters also featured some mighty fine lamb kebabs, and some really tasty skewered chives, that made up for the nasties. It was definitely a unique experience--sitting on the sidewalk with the locals really made me feel like a genuine Beijingren.

2006-10-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, CHINA

Another day of sightseeing. Karine and I caught a bus this morning to the Temple of Heaven, which is really a large park with several temple buildings onsite. As it's National Day, there were a good number of tourists there besides ourselves, some carrying little Chinese flags, but it wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it might be.

The largest and most interesting temple structure there was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, built in 1420. It's a tall round wooden pagoda elaborately painted in blue, red, green, and gold designs, supposedly built without the use of nails. A couple of surrounding buildings featured exhibits explaining the complicated rituals emperors would conduct to ensure a good harvest for the coming year. We then walked along a long stone causeway to the Imperial Vault of Heaven, a temple with astrological significance that sits within a round wall known as Echo Wall for its strange acoustics. A little further on we came to the Round Altar, built in 1530. It's composed of three concentric tiers of white marble, each consisting of blocks in multiples of nine (according to Chinese tradition, odd numbers are the most favorable, and nine is the best of all, since it's the largest single-digit odd number). We then wandered through some of the park's gardens. Oddly enough, I didn't see a single bloom in the Garden of 1000 Flowers, but the rose garden was magnificent.

After returning to Jin's neighborhood, Karine and I decided to go to the supermarket and buy food for dinner rather than going out. She ambitiously bought a bunch of vegetables to make a salad, while somehow I ended up with just a baguette and some yogurt, so I supplemented that with a turkey sub from Subway (hey, it was buy one, get one free). Jin stayed the night at Christian's, leaving his two guests to fend for themselves, but that was fine. We stayed in and watched a pirated DVD of The Devil Wears Prada (don't bother).

2006-09-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, CHINA

Today was all about eating.

Jin, Karine and I had made plans to have a big lunch today with Christian, his mom and his aunt Tess at a local Korean barbecue restaurant. (As Christian and his relatives are leaving for a holiday in the Philippines tomorrow, this is our last chance to see each other.) After imbibing too much last night and waking up with a nasty hangover, though, I wasn't sure I could even make it through a big family meal today.

Luckily, once I started eating I felt fine, and it was some incredible food. I had never experienced Korean barbecue before, but the way it works is, they put a charcoal grill in the middle of your table, give you a bunch of meat and vegetables, and you grill everything yourself. As Jin was the "expert," he did all the grilling while the rest of us watched. He cooked up some mean beef, chicken, pork, potatoes, prawns, and several types of mushrooms. We also had side dishes of salad, seaweed, sweet cakes of sticky rice, and of course, spicy kimchee. It was a ton of food, and everything was really tasty.

Afterwards I was too stuffed and tired to do any sightseeing, so I just came back to Jin's and rested. Later on Jin's friend Raymond came over, who's a very...colorful character, to say the least. He's Chinese, but he lived for several years in San Francisco and New York. All day he kept cracking me up by reciting a litany of every American brand that's made it's way to Beijing: "There's McDonalds, of course, and KFC and Subway...and Century 21, and Nike and Adidas and Haagen Dazs, and Sizzler. Sizzler, how awful is that? And Staples, and Papa John's, and Baskin Robbins...." This continued intermittently well into the night.

As part of today's cook-your-own-meal theme, Jin, Raymond, Karine and I later went out to an authentic Beijing "hotpot" restaurant, which was very interesting, but I have honestly say I didn't enjoy nearly as much as lunch. Instead of a grill, they bring a boiling pot of broth to your table which you add meat and vegetables to for a few minutes before fishing it out. We had lamb, beef, cabbage, mushrooms, and meatballs, along with a few things I was a little more squeamish about. Believe it or not, I actually tried a slice of congealed duck's blood (ugh), but gave a pass to the white and slippery-looking ox throat. Truthfully, it was all rather bland, and as Karine noted, everything had a similar texture--kind of rubbery and squishy. And after we had just about finished, three more of Jin's friends joined us, and ordered many more plates of squishy stuff as they chatted away in Mandarin. I really was a bit worn-out by the end, which came more than four hours after we first entered the restaurant.

But the evening wasn't over, of course. It's Saturday night, which meant more bar- and club-hopping. I was careful not to drink too much this time, although it's hard when people keep buying you drinks! The club crowd was pretty friendly, though--at one bar Karine and I met a girl named Olivia and a guy named Mike from Shanghai on the dance floor, then later at Destination I talked to an English guy who teaches English to German kids in Beijing(?), and a guy named Avi from Wisconsin who's in the army stationed in Korea. When I asked him what he did there, he told me rather cryptically, "things you're not supposed to talk about in China."

2006-09-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, CHINA

Several weeks ago I came to the awful realization that I would be in Beijing around the beginning of October, which isn't really the best timing. You see, October 1 is National Day, the holiday marking the anniversary of the People's Republic of China (kind of like our Fourth of July). And the week following National Day is called Golden Week. Most Chinese have the entire seven days off as a holiday, so basically it's one of the worst times for traveling and sightseeing in China. D'oh! Consequently, I wanted to hit the major sights before the start of the holiday, if possible. That's why I wasted no time in visiting the Forbidden City on my first day here, and set out to see the Great Wall today.

There are actually several sections of the wall that you can visit around Beijing, but Karine and I both thought it would be better to see a less "touristic" area, as the Europeans say, and one that hasn't seen a lot of modern restoration work. So we did a little research to find a suitable unrestored section, caught a taxi to the long-distance bus station, rode a bus several hours north of the city, then hired another taxi to take us the rest of the way there. On the way we passed some really nice terraced orchards, cornfields, small villages, and farmers driving donkey carts, until the landscape around us changed to rolling hills.

Finally we approached the wall, which we could see snaking its way over the distant hills just like in all those pictures--it really is an amazing sight. Our taxi driver dropped us off and agreed to wait for us, and Karine and I set out to scale the wall. It isn't as easy as you might think--first we had to walk on a winding path up to the wall, then squeeze through a little window in a watchtower, scale a set of nearly vertical crumbling stone steps (using our hands and feet), and finally climb up a rickety ladder to the top of the wall.

Once on top, though, it was an incredible feeling. We were lucky to be there on a beautiful blue cloudless day, with just a hint of October chill in the air--perfect weather. And best of all, there were no tourists! Amazingly, the only other people we encountered on top of the wall were a group of four Americans from Virginia, in China for a friend's wedding. Other than that, it was just me, Karine, and the wall itself, which is flat in places and unbelievably steep in others as it follows the ridgeline of the hills. Every so often along the wall there are watchtowers, which we snooped around in, but the best thing was just viewing the surrounding river valley from the top of the wall. It's a really beautiful area.

We walked (and sometimes climbed) along the wall for an exhausting couple of hours before turning around and heading back toward the car. On our way there we came across a really big praying mantis, maybe four inches long, right on top of the wall. We stopped to watch it and take a few pictures, then I had the bright idea of "introducing" it to one of the ubiquitous shield bugs crawling around. I instantly felt bad about that, because of course the mantis immediately pounced on the poor thing and began eating it alive. It was a scene of horrible carnage, and yet Karine and I couldn't stop watching as it noisily munched away. Ah, the drama of nature....

After making our way back to the car, our driver took us to a nearby restaurant, where we had a decidedly mediocre lunch. It was amusing to see some of the menu items, though--I noticed there were several donkey-meat dishes, including one called "donkey treasure" that was about ten times more expensive than anything else on the menu. (I asked later on, and sure enough, "donkey treasure" is exactly what you're thinking.)

Back in Beijing, Jin took us to a restaurant famous for its Beijing Duck (I guess they don't call it Peking Duck anymore, although "Beijing Duck" still sounds weird to me). Anyway, the duck was really good--you eat it wrapped in little pancakes, so it's like a duck burrito. Mmm. We then headed to one of Beijing's uber-trendy nightspots (who knew Beijing had uber-trendy nightspots?), the Face Bar, where we had various martinis and hobnobbed with the beautiful people, and then found our way to a dance club called Destination.

Where I had too much to drink.

2006-09-28T23:42:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, CHINA

After suffering through an all-night hard-seater train ride (the less said about that, the better), I arrived once again in the nation's capital at 6:00 this morning.

Walking around the city, it became immediately evident that Beijing is a city in transformation. Business is obviously booming, and the city appears to be growing by leaps and bounds, as everywhere you look there are dozens of half-completed skyscrapers and huge cranes looming overhead. It's massive sprawl reminds me a bit of Atlanta, and I'll confess I was surprised at how modern and cosmopolitan a city it seems to be--not exactly the dull grey communist model I was expecting. It's kind of cool to see all the growth, but at the same time it's a little depressing to notice how big cities everywhere are starting to look the same. Still, I have to admit that after the long train ride, I was glad to be able to procure that Starbucks' Espresso Frappucino....

From the train station, I made my way to the Sanlitun district, where I met up with my old friend Christian Clay at the Embassy of Mexico, where he's Head of Trade Promotion. We chatted for a bit in his office while he fielded calls from the Mexican Ambassador and emails from Liv Tyler (his sister's best friend), while people kept coming in and saying hello to me in Spanish and Chinese. I had to laugh to myself at the strangeness of it all. At any rate, it was great to see Chris again and catch up on things, as the last time we saw each other was about ten years ago in Washington, D.C. (Man, time flies....)

As (bad) luck would have it, Chris' mother and aunt are visiting him this week from Mexico, so I can't stay at his place while I'm in town. But Chris' boyfriend Jin has graciously offered his couch, which will really help me out a lot. Jin actually has a guest staying with him too: his friend Karine from France. I felt a little bad about being in the way, but it actually turned out to be convenient for us all, as Karine and I decided we can go sightseeing together while Jin works (he's already seen all the area's sights, anyway).

So that's what we did this afternoon, when we took a taxi to Beijing's most impressive slab of real estate, the Forbidden City. This is the gigantic complex that housed the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, along with all their officials, attendants, concubines, and various hangers-on. There are supposedly 999 1/2 rooms in the complex, but I'll confess I wasn't really counting. It was certainly impressive, though, from the huge symmetrically-laid-out ceremonial halls to the maze of smaller buildings once used as royal living quarters. Some of the largest halls are undergoing major renovation right now (no doubt to be ready by 2008, when the Olympics comes to Beijing), so they're covered in scaffolding, which made the view a little less dramatic, but all in all it was still pretty impressive--the scale of the place is just massive.

We exited the Forbidden City through the south gate, also known as the Gate of Heavenly Peace (this is the one with the huge portrait of Mao Zedong over it). This brought us into another famous icon of Beijing, Tiananmen Square. Today it was full of tourists, kite-flying youngsters, souvenir-sellers, and larger-than-life displays of the pride of China: Models depicting the new train to Lhasa, Tibet; the Three Gorges Dam, complete with running water; and the "Five Friendlies," the mascots for the 2008 Olympics. It's hard to believe this was ever the site of civil unrest, although as I walked past all the happy people I couldn't help picturing the crowds of angry protesters and tanks that rolled through the square during the ill-fated 1989 pro-democracy movement.

After a few laps around the square, Karine and I then made our way to a nearby shopping mall, where Jin met us in the food court, and we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant there. Jin ordered a whole range of Chinese delicacies that I would never be brave enough to try otherwise, which was kind of cool. The lotus and gingko weren't bad, and even the barbecued whole fish was okay. The fatty pork, though, was a little too...uh, fatty.

After dinner I left Karine and Jin to meet up with Christian, who was just leaving work. We caught up on things and had a few beers at a local pub run by an American expat named Frank, then went across the street to a Muslim restaurant for more beer and some awesome spicy lamb kebabs.

2006-09-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

TAI'AN, CHINA

Having conquered The Mountain yesterday, I was ready to head back to Beijing, so this morning I checked out of my hotel and took a cab to the train station. Not surprisingly, when I tried to buy a ticket on the spot, there wasn't anything available until 11 pm tonight (and a hard seat, at that--ugh), so I was left with a full day to spend in the town of Tai'an.

So after checking my big backpack at the station, I caught another taxi downtown. This proved to be a little more challenging (and comical) than my first cab ride today, because at first the driver couldn't understand where I wanted to go, and then he kept asking me questions in Mandarin, even though he knew I had no idea what he was saying. I kept answering him in English, even though I had no idea what he was asking me. It was completely ridiculous, and in the end we just had to sit and laugh at each other.

But eventually got me to more or less where I wanted to be, so I hopped out and walked down the street, where I promptly ran into Justin from yesterday, having a beer (at 10 am) with a British guy he met on the mountain. They had stayed overnight at the top to watch the sunrise, which turned out to be a no-show (more clouds and fog), and today they're leaving for Qufu (Confucius' hometown, where there's a big celebration, as tomorrow is his birthday).

I wished I could have come along, but I already had my ticket to Beijing, so I walked on a few blocks to Tai'an's main attraction (besides the mountain), Dai Temple. It's a huge complex of temple halls, courtyards, koi ponds, and gardens where pilgrims traditionally offered sacrifices to the gods before climbing Tai Shan. There are a number of gnarled ancient cypress trees growing in the courtyards and several towering stone steles, each resting on a base that looks like a giant turtle. It was a nice place to wander around for a few hours, as the atmosphere here is very serene and meditative.

2006-09-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

TAI'AN, CHINA

There are five sacred mountains in China, but the most sacred is Tai Shan. For centuries it's been a place of pilgrimage for scores of Chinese who have climbed the mountain and offered sacrifices at its summit temples. Legend has it that if you scale Tai Shan, you'll live to be 100. No less than five Chinese Emperors have made the journey to the summit; from its peak Confucius proclaimed "The world is small" and Mao declared "The East is red." I climbed it today and announced: "My legs are tired."

But it was an amazing experience, and worth every sore muscle.

I set off this morning at 9 am, armed only with a bottle of water, four muffins, a bag of pistachios, some oat calcium digestive biscuits, and the last of my Xi'an apricots. Oh, and a Snickers bar. (Okay, that actually sounds like a lot, doesn't it?)

Anyway, this was unlike any other mountain I've climbed before. The path to the summit is laid with 6,660 stone steps, and along the way there are dozens of temples, shrines, arches, bridges, caves, and terraces from all ages of its long history. There are also hundreds of places where the boulders and cliffs that line the path are carved with sayings in elaborate calligraphy--again, some of it dating back a thousand years or more. I have to say it's the most beautiful graffiti I've ever seen. It was amazing, too, to think about the tremendous effort that went into creating a staircase (and temples!) up the side of a mountain, all without the aid of modern construction tools.

The journey to the summit took nearly five hours--that's five hours of climbing stairs; think about it! Good thing my knees are in decent shape. And luckily there was enough interesting scenery on the way, both natural and man-made, to provide a convenient excuse for stopping frequently to take a look. Some of the named features I saw included the Midway Gate to Heaven, the Path of Eighteen Bends, the Cypress Cave, the Dragon Spring Nunnery(?), and the Archway to Immortality. I also encountered some interesting twisted trees and rock formations, as well as some beautiful long-tailed birds and a scampering creature that could have been a stoat or mongoose. By the final dizzying stretch of stairs to the South Gate of Heaven, most of the climbers (myself included) could only manage a few steps at a time. At times I felt a little like Frodo climbing the Winding Stair above Minas Morgul--only without Gollum ahead of me to offer encouragement.

At the top, though, the terrain leveled out, and there was a whole complex of buildings and mini-peaks to explore. Some highlights included the Azure Clouds Temple, with its strange iron roof tiles, where elders give offerings to the gods; the Jade Emperor Temple, on the highest point of the mountain; and Sunrise Peak, where climbers gather at dawn to watch the sun come up (Chinese legend states that the sun begins its daily journey across the sky from Tai Shan). On a clear day you can supposedly see the ocean from here, over 200 kilometers to the East. Unfortunately, today it was grey and misty, so I could only see some of the nearer peaks, and not the terrain below. But I guess that added to the atmosphere, so to speak. For a long while I just sat on a boulder and looked out over the misty mountainside.

Although there were hundreds of Chinese climbers, I only saw four or five Westerners at the summit. I talked to one of them, though, a very cool guy named Justin from Melbourne, Florida(!), who's backpacking around Eastern Europe and Asia. He's just out of the army and about to start school at UCF. Small world, eh? We ended up hanging out at the summit and exploring the alliteratively-named Rear Rocky Recess, a forest of pines with some really cool cliffs and rock formations. By then it was late afternoon, and time to head back down the mountain.

Tai Shan really is a unique place, and climbing it was an unforgettable experience.

At the risk of sounding like a total dork, I have to admit that part of my inspiration for visiting the mountain was hearing the excellent song Tai Shan by Rush almost 20 years ago. The lyrics really do a good job of describing the experience of being there, so I reproduce them here now (this will no doubt be the first and last time I quote Neil Peart in my journal):

Tai Shan

High on the sacred mountain
Up the seven thousand stairs
In the golden light of autumn
There was magic in the air

Clouds surrounded the summit
The wind blew strong and cold
Among the silent temples
And the writing carved in gold

Somewhere in my instincts
The primitive took hold

I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity

If you raise your hands to heaven
You will live a hundred years
I stood there like a mystic
Lost in the atmosphere

The clouds were suddenly parted
For a moment I could see
The patterns of the landscape
Reaching to the eastern sea

I looked upon a presence
Spanning forty centuries

I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity

I thought of time and distance
The hardships of history
I heard the hope and the hunger
When China sang to me

2006-09-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

TAI'AN, CHINA

The latest destination on my whistle-stop tour of China is the town of Tai'an, in Shandong Province. And "whistle-stop" is appropriate, I guess, because to get there I had to take a seven-hour train ride from Beijing.

By the way, have you ever tried to buy a ticket in a Chinese train station? It's an adventure, let me tell you. I think it should replace "Chinese fire drill" as the new politically-incorrect metaphor for a chaotic situation.

Anyway, the train ride itself was pretty comfortable. I chose a "hard sleeper" bunk, which wasn't really that hard after all. It was was definitely worth the few extra few bucks to have a place to lay down, even if the ceiling was just inches above my head. Interestingly, the "Chinese" gentleman in the bunk across from me turned out to be from Sheboygan, Wisconsin(!), on a business trip to sell American plants and trees to Chinese cities for landscaping ("They really need it," he told me).

Oh, the reason I made the rail journey to Tai'an? Even though my time is limited in China, I wanted to do something that's a little "off the beaten path," not on the usual list of tourist spots. So I've decided to climb Tai Shan, the most sacred mountain in China according to the Taoist religion. We'll see how that goes....

2006-09-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

XI'AN, CHINA

Today I took the bus to a couple of places outside the walled city: The Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Shaanxi Province History Museum.

The 64-meter-high pagoda dates to 652 AD, although it's been renovated and added to since then. I'm not sure where the "wild goose" comes in, but the "big" part is to differentiate it from the LITTLE Wild Goose Pagoda just down the street (no, really!). It was originally built to house Buddhist scriptures brought back from India by a traveling monk--now it has a few relics inside, but is mainly just a big tower to climb up and look over the city. It sits in the middle of a well-manicured complex of gardens and a small art museum, and outside that there's a huge pedestrian plaza with sculptures and a "dancing fountain" show, which is actually pretty well done. As it was already misty and drizzling, though, the fountains didn't stand out as much as they might have on a clear day, or at night.

From there I walked to the Shaanxi History Museum, which although not quite as impressive as the Shanghai Museum is still quite a large repository for priceless ancient relics, most of which were found in the area. The place is huge, and walking through its galleries, which are arranged chronologically, proved to be quite a workout. One of the more interesting exhibits was a display of hundreds of brass mirrors, many of which are thousands of years old, and recovered from burial sites. It's the backs of the mirrors, of course, that are interesting, as they're carved with every imaginable type of design--animals, flowers, people, abstract shapes, Chinese characters, and every conceivable combination of the above.

On the way back to town, I decided to hop off the bus at the South Gate and scale the city walls, which you can walk or bike around the top of. Some sections are missing, so you can't completely circumnavigate the city, but you can go a fur piece if you want to. Today it was really grey and misty, which meant that hardly anyone was up there, and the weather gave everything a slightly mysterious atmosphere, which was kind of cool.

2006-09-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

XI'AN, CHINA

Today I stayed close to home (er, hostel), and walked to some of the sights of the inner city.

I started with Xi'an's Bell Tower, a huge brick structure at the center of the walled city, originally built in the 14th Century and rebuilt again in 1739. Inside the building and up the stairs are displays of ancient musical instruments and a few antique ceramic plates and vases. There's also a concert stage where they hold daily musical performances on traditional instruments (yang chin, various bells, harps, flutes, etc.). Since I arrived about 45 minutes before a show, I amused myself by looking at the numerous scenes carved on the wooden doors of the tower. Some of the captions were pretty interesting: "Playing the Xiao to Allure Phoenixes," "Zhen Long Eulogizing Roosters," "Dog Sending Letters," and "Patriotic Yue Fei Has His Back Tattooed by His Mother," among others. I wish I knew what story or stories they were illustrating, because I would definitely read that book! Anyway, the musical performance was really interesting as well; definitely worth the wait. The big set of bells, especially, was fun to hear and see. Bizarrely, one of the tunes they played was "Auld Lang Syne," which makes sense I guess since it's in a pentatonic scale.

From there, I crossed the street and visited the other big tower in town, the Drum Tower. And sure enough, there are rows of big red drums around the building. I think originally they were used as signals to open and close the city gates, but now they're just for show. For some reason the inside is dedicated to a display of Chinese furniture through the ages. Whatever.

Behind the Drum Tower is the Muslim section of town, featuring lots of restaurants and food stalls, as well as a market selling lots of dried fruits and nuts (I bought a giant bag of apricots there that should last me about a month). It's also the location of the Great Mosque (built in the 18th Century), one of the largest in China, which is sort of hidden behind a maze of narrow alleys. I eventually found my way there and walked around the gardens, which are nicely landscaped and provide a peaceful escape from the busy streets just outside. It was interesting to see a mosque that looks more like a Buddhist temple, since it's built in a totally Chinese architectural style. You never think of Chinese Muslims, either, do you? But there they were in their white skullcaps, kneeling in the prayer room.

2006-09-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

XI'AN, CHINA

Yesterday I arrived in Shaanxi province and the ancient city of Xi'an, which has a rich history going back several thousand years, and in fact was the capital of China for over a thousand of them. Now it's a major modern city, but with many remnants of the old town still evident, including the old city walls, which hardly any Chinese cities still retain. I'm staying at a really conveniently-located hostel in the heart of the old city and have been doing a lot of wandering around the city center, soaking up the vibe. There's a real mixture of ancient and modern here which is interesting to observe, as well as a distinctly Muslim influence, since Xi'an was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road.

Some of Xi'an's most interesting sights are historical and archeological sites outside the city, so today I took a tour of some of the major ones. We began at the Huaqing Pool, which is actually a series of pools at the foot of Li Shan mountain, fed by bubbling hot springs. Many of the pools and their associated ceramic plumbing were built during the Tang Dynasty for various emperors and their concubines. The excavated ruins of the pools are on display today, along with some so-so exhibits about what the hot springs were like during that period.

After walking around the springs for an hour or so, we then proceeded to the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the Qin Dynasty emperor who united China and standardized its currency and writing back around 200 B.C. His "tomb" is really nothing more than a giant burial mound, although legend has it that beneath the hill were buried countless treasures including a relief map of China made with mountains of gold and silver and rivers of running mercury(!), supposedly guarded by a series of ingenious automatic defenses. Somehow I think if there were any truth to this they would have found some evidence, but I don't think they've excavated anything important under the hill. There is a sign onsite proclaiming that the levels of mercury beneath the mound were found to be many hundreds of times the normal level, though, so who knows? Anyway, we didn't do much here except take an electric car ride around the perimeter of the mound, and watch a performance of some dancers and acrobats in presumably Qin Dynasty costumes doing some pretty neat ceremonial harvest, hunting, and battle dances.

Qin Shi Huang's REAL legacy is not his tomb per se, but the fake army he buried nearby to protect his mausoleum. I'm talking about the world-famous Army of Terracotta Warriors, discovered by accident in 1974 by a farmer digging a well. This was the next stop on our tour, and the Main Event. There are over 6,000 of these life-sized figures arranged in battle formation, only some of which have been fully excavated and/or pieced together. But they're really magnificent. For some reason I had thought they were smaller (maybe because most of the photos I've seen are looking down into the pits where they stand), but they're actually life-sized, and many held real weapons when unearthed. They're incredibly detailed, too, down to their individual hairs and the treads on their shoes, and each face is different! What an incredible archaeological find, and an impressive sight to see (especially Pit 1, which requires an entire aircraft-hangar-sized building to shelter the main battalion of warriors). Another amazing find on display in the museum there is a sculpture of two fully-equipped bronze chariots and their horses, discovered nearby in 1980. Stunning.

The last stop on our tour was a bit of an anticlimax--this was the "Underground Palace"--basically a tourist attraction depicting what Qin Shi Huang's tomb might have looked like if the legends were indeed correct. But it's obviously someone's modern-day fantasy rather than any sort of archaeologist's or historian's reconstruction. With its miniature figures, models of animals and buildings, and hokey colored lights, it looked to me a little like someone's Christmas yard display gone horribly wrong.

After returning to town, I walked through the Muslim section of Xi'an, eager to try some of the cuisine that's supposed to be unique to the area. Sure enough, there were lots of street vendors selling colorful and completely unidentifiable foods, many of which looked and smelled great. But I was too timid to try any without knowing exactly what I was getting into (the chicken butt incident still fresh in my memory!). I finally found a restaurant with an English menu, but even then I wasn't sure I trusted their translations, as their dishes included "Sheet Iron Cow Spinal Cord (Hot Curry)" and my favorite, "Aluminum Dusting Powder Finless Eel Section." (I came this close to ordering that one just to see what they'd bring!) In the end I settled for a more ordinary-sounding dish of grilled beef filet in spicy cumin sauce, which nonetheless was quite tasty.

2006-09-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

XI'AN, CHINA

To satisfy my insatiable need for speed, today I took a ride on The World's Fastest Train--no, not Supertrain, I'm talking about Shanghai's Maglev (that's for Magnetic Levitation) train, which runs from the Longyang Metro stop to the Shanghai airport. It's only like five bucks, and it reaches a top speed of 431 kilometers an hour (that's like 270 mph), traveling over 20 miles in a little over seven minutes. Sweet! There's a digital speedometer readout in every train car, so I could watch the acceleration. It was a pretty smooth ride, I'll admit--but not exactly "glasslike" as the hype would have you believe. Still, the damn thing's fast. Did I mention that?

On the train I met a nice middle-aged couple from Alberta, Canada, who have done a bit of traveling themselves (they're going to a conference in Shenzhen, but have traveled across much of the world in the past 20 years or so). We had quite a nice little chat about backpacking around the globe, and they gave me much encouragement. What is it that makes Canadians so durn nice, anyway?

2006-09-20T22:42:00.000-07:00

SHANGHAI, CHINA

A full day seeing some of the sights of Shanghai....

I started this morning by taking the "tourist tunnel" underneath the Huangpu river, an EPCOT-like ride that transports people in futuristic little space-pods from the Bund to Pudong through a tunnel surely inspired by the psychedelic boat ride in the original Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It's a completely ridiculous "journey" under the river through a long passageway filled with lasers, smoke, strobes, projections of sharks and other sea creatures, and Time Tunnel-esque spirals of Christmas lights. This is accompanied by a soundtrack of spacy synthesizer music and a narrator barking random phrases in Chinese and English ("Blue cadence!" "Meteor shower!" "Magma waltz!" "Paradise...and HELL!"). Truly bizarre and awful--I loved it.

On the Pudong side I walked around and admired the architecture for a bit, and got a close-up look at the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, the rocketship-like structure that looks like it's the cousin of Brussels' Atomium. I passed on going up to the top, though, and instead added another fish-house to my list by visiting Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. I found that it features some really good exhibits on the life of the Yangtse and the Amazon, and supposedly contains the "world's longest underwater tunnel." That's stretching it a bit, though, because the tunnel actually runs through four or five separate tanks, rather than one big one. My favorite critters in the place: baby cat sharks, a hyperactive sawfish, and a school of huge arapaimas (largest freshwater fish in the world).

I then took the Metro to People's Square at the heart of the city, and checked out the Shanghai Museum, which contains one of the world's finest collections of ancient art and artifacts from China's long history. I have to say that not only are the objects themselves amazing, but the way they're displayed--presentation, lighting, descriptions, etc.--rival those of the great museums of the world. It's extremely impressive, if a bit overwhelming--there are literally thousands of years of stone and brass artifacts, paintings and calligraphy on display, and it's all interesting stuff. At the end, though, I had a headache!

After dinner at Pizza Hut (I know, shut up!), I decided instead of taking the Metro, I'd walk back to the Bund along Nanjing Donlu, one of the biggest shopping streets in the city. It's a really bustling area, great for people-watching. And the Chinese sure love their neon--the strip is a sea of it, a bit reminiscent of Leicester Square in London, or even Times Square in New York.

2006-09-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

SHANGHAI, CHINA

Well, I've made it to the mainland and the amazing city of Shanghai, which despite having a bit of history behind it is now most definitely the face of the "New China"--in other words, it's modern, it's clean, it's cosmopolitan, and it has the most futuristic sci-fi skyline I've seen outside of Disney's Tomorrowland.

I'm staying at a place called the Captain Hostel, a rather posh youth hostel with a nautical theme running throughout ("sailor bunks" and "cabins" instead of dorms and private rooms, for example). In fact, when I first stepped in the elevator I was accosted by a blonde woman in a full pirate costume who invited me to a "pirate party" at the upstairs bar--her bikini top was completely covered in gold doubloons. "It's my treasure chest," she giggled. Well, obviously.

Side note: Believe it or not, this is not the first youth hostel costume party I've encountered on this trip. What I'm wondering is, who the hell gets motivated to buy a pirate costume for a youth hostel theme night, anyway?! Where do you find one, anyway? And is it really worth taking time out of your vacation to scour the streets of Shanghai for a fake eyepatch? I don't get it.

Conveniently, my hostel is only a block away from The Bund, a classy section of impressive colonial and Art Deco buildings along the banks of the Huangpu River. It's an incredible area to walk around, especially at night, when the buildings of the Bund, as well as the modern skyscrapers of the Pudong New Area across the river, are illuminated. That's just what I did this evening. I also discovered that there's a nightly psychedelic light show here, just like in Hong Kong, where they light up the waterfront in a rainbow of neon patterns.

And for the first time since Australia, it's actually cool at night. Yes!

2006-09-18T23:56:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG, CHINA

Once again I'm back in Hong Kong, and once again, I'm doin' it in style! Last month I was met at the airport by my mom and brother; this time it was my old pal Bill Moore who made the trek all the way from suburban Washington, D. C. just to greet me at the Arrivals hall.

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration--I guess he was already in the area (spending a few days in China, and flying home tomorrow). But anyway it was absolutely great to see him, as it's rare enough we get together when we're in the same country. And to top it off, he had reserved a really nice suite at the swanky Regal Airport Hotel, so it was the lap of luxury for us tonight, baby: high-flow shower, free cocktails and canapes, and those little bottles of shampoo. (See, it's the little things....)

The best part, though, was just hanging out with Bill, who I always realize how much I miss whenever I see him. He really managed to buoy my spirits despite the fact I've had an exhausting few days and have also come down with a nasty head cold. You're the best, buddy!

2006-09-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

THAILAND RECAP

Thailand has been a lot of fun (er, mostly), but I have to say that after seven--count 'em--separate stays in Bangkok on this trip, I'm quite ready to get the hell out. (Sorry, Max--hope you have a great year here!)

Favorite Things About Thailand: Southern beaches and northern mountains.

Least Favorite Thing About Thailand: Bangkok cab drivers. They will try to overcharge you, tell you their meter is broken when it isn't, and randomly refuse to take you to your destination, no reason given! It's absolutely infuriating.

Biggest Regret: Spending too much time in Bangkok...and not enough in Krabi!

2006-09-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Yesterday I took a bus from Vientiane across the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge into Thailand and the large but rather unremarkable city of Udon Thani, where I stayed the night. (It's cheaper to fly to Bangkok from there rather than from Vientiane, see?)

This morning I ended up taking an earlier flight than originally scheduled in order to do some more trip planning and get my act together before heading to China tomorrow. (So many countries, so little time to plan an itinerary....)

2006-09-15T04:24:00.000-07:00

INDOCHINA RECAP

Favorite Thing About Vietnam: Halong Bay.
Least Favorite Thing About Vietnam: People constantly trying to rip me off.

Favorite Thing About Cambodia: The Temples at Angkor. Truly stunning.
Least Favorite Thing About Cambodia: Land mines.

Favorite Things About Laos: Luang Prabang, cool waterfalls, and general laid-back vibe.
Least Favorite Thing About Laos: All the torn-up sidewalks. What's up with that?

Favorite Thing About Indochina as a whole: Baguettes!

2006-09-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

VIENTIANE, LAOS

When I asked my good friend Bill about things to do in Vientiane (a city he loves), he actually told me "not a lot." Which I've since found out is a pretty fair assessment. But I guess that's what makes it appealing to some; it's a laid-back kind of city that's best for quiet activities like drinking a Beerlao and watching the sunset along the Mekong.

That being said, there are a couple of minor tourist sights to see, and I dutifully visited both of them today.

The first is Patuxay (literally, "victory gate"), a monument in the center of town that's basically a knockoff of Paris' Arc de Triomphe. Well, maybe that's a little unfair, because it does have some typically Laotian architectural details, but that's what everyone compares it to. (Ironically, it's a monument to those who fought for Laos' independence from France.) Up close it's a lot less spectacular than its famous relative, as most of it is grey, unfinished concrete with lots of cracks and some really shoddy workmanship. The best part is that you can pay a couple thousand kip to climb up through it to the top, and from there you can get a pretty good bird's-eye view of the city.

From there I decided to hoof it a couple more kilometers to Vientiane's most famous landmark, Pha That Luang. It's a Buddhist temple that was built on the site of several other temples, dating back to the original 3rd Century one which was supposedly built to house a sacred relic: the breast bone of the Buddha himself. It's the national symbol of Laos, and its architecture is striking; a square of spires surrounding a central stupa, all painted in gold. It's supposed to be best viewed in the late afternoon as the sun reflects off it. Unfortunately it was overcast when I got there, so it didn't shine as much, although it was still beautiful to see.

PS--Happy birthday, Jenny!!

2006-09-13T21:27:00.000-07:00

NOT LOST... JUST LEFT IN LAOS.

Or something like that. :-)

As many of you are already aware, the big news is that after eight months of traveling together, Chris and I have decided to split up and travel separately from now on. This is no doubt the best thing for both of us.

Unfortunately, "going solo" also means that I'll have to do some major trip restructuring, and will most likely have to come home earlier than originally planned. While that prospect leaves me somewhat disappointed, I can honestly say that I have no regrets, and I'm still having an amazing time seeing the world. And I'm determined to keep on truckin' and see as many places and things as I can before I have to head for home.

I'll keep y'all updated as my plans develop. Watch this space...

2006-09-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

VANG VIENG, LAOS

We left Luang Prabang for Vang Vieng at 6:30 this morning, traveling south for seven hours on what was supposed to be the "VIP bus"--but what I think was actually the trashy one that all the locals take. Consequently, we stopped at every little village along the way, picking up and dropping off passengers (human and canine) while our clueless driver struggled with the apparently foreign concept of shifting gears. Most of the ride was on twisting roads through the mountains, which meant some lovely scenery along the way, accompanied by a not-so-lovely soundtrack of people throwing up (the guy handing out plastic bags was kept constantly busy).

We finally made it to Vang Vieng around two in the afternoon. And guess what? It's an incredibly ugly place. Basically, it's just a strip of backpacker-oriented businesses (restaurants playing Friends reruns and selling "happy" (drug-laced) pizza, internet places, guesthouses, tour companies, etc.) along a dirty street, with piles of rubble where the sidewalks should be. Nice.

The reason all the backpackers stop here is not for the "town" itself, but for the activities in the surrounding countryside: caving, rock-climbing, kayaking, and mainly, tubing down the Nam Song River. Chris and I opted to try the latter this afternoon, which actually turned out to be pretty fun. It's exactly like tubing back in the States, except here some enterprising locals have set up a number of makeshift bars on the riverbanks where you can come ashore and drink a few Beerlaos before continuing down the river. I'm sure it would make the journey even more enjoyable, but unfortunately, we're both running out of kip (and there are no ATMs in town!), so we had to drift on by this time. The scenery was nice, though, and at one point the river winds past some jagged black mountains, which were cool to see.

2006-09-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

LUANG PRABANG, LAOS

There are a number of scenic waterfalls in the countryside near Luang Prabang, but according to everyone we've talked to, two in particular stand out above the rest. The first, Tat Kuang Si, we visited two days ago. And the second is Tat Sae, which we decided to see today.

To get there we had to first hire a sawgthaew to drive us 30 minutes out of town. Then we paid a boatman to take us on a canoe-like motorboat another five minutes down the Nam Khan River until we could see the white water of the falls emptying out of the forest. He then let us out on the bank and we climbed some stairs into the woods, where we came to the main part of the waterfall.

Sure enough, these falls were just as spectacular as Kuang Si--but very different in appearance. Instead of one long cascade, Tat Sae is composed of dozens, if not hundreds, of flat limestone terraces descending through the jungle toward the river, with tons of water rushing over them. The falls are punctuated by large trees growing up through the terraces, so it's really a waterfall and a shaded forest at the same time--very unique-looking! There are some large pools there for swimming, too, but I didn't bring my bathing suit, so I just took off my shoes and waded along the edges of the terraces in foot-deep water.

Next to the falls was a sign pointing out a trail through the jungle, which Chris and I followed to a nearby cave. The cave mouth was only three or four feet high, but you could duck inside to find a living-room sized chamber, empty except for a few big daddy-long-legs. In fact, this area seemed to be a mecca for all sorts of creepy-crawlies: We also came across a number of snails, an army of ants attacking an earthworm, some big spiders, and a giant orange millipede eight or ten inches long.

After returning to town, I took a walk along the river from our guesthouse to the city's most famous royal temple, Wat Xieng Thong, built in 1560 on the peninsula between the Mekong and the Nam Khan. The exterior of the main sanctuary is decorated with a colorful "tree of life" mosaic, and the interior contains a shrine with a large golden Buddha statue. Inside a nearby chapel there's a giant wooden funeral chariot with carved nagas (serpents) in the front and a large cremation urn which once held the bodies of Lao monarchs. Pretty cool.

2006-09-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

LUANG PRABANG, LAOS

The rainy season has finally caught up with us: After weeks of unseasonable sunny weather, the past two days have been rather grey and wet. Which is good news for the locals, as it's been a dry summer, but not so great for us in terms of outdoor activities. Consequently, we haven't done too much, although Chris went kayaking today on some river somewhere--can't get much wetter, I guess! I stayed in town and wandered around, buying a book at a bookstore and chatting a bit with Mark from Georgia, who it turns out owns a local bar and restaurant.

This morning I also paid a visit to the National Museum, which also happens to be the former Royal Palace. That is, until the present communist government took over in 1975, forcing the king to abdicate to Thailand (never to be heard from again). Most of the museum's contents, not surprisingly, are the royal furnishings, clothing, and regalia, along with a large number of small Buddha sculptures from around the country, gifts to the king from other nations, some giant ceremonial brass drums, and various other Lao musical instruments.

I would have to say that as a royal palace, the whole place is actually rather modest. Well, the throne room is pretty dramatic, with bright red walls completely covered in mosaics of colored Japanese glass, and several golden thrones. But the bedrooms of the king and queen, which have been left as they were during his reign, are really quite spartan: White walls, a couple of sconces, a bed, dresser, and a nightstand or two. It's not all that big, either--more like the large house of a well-to-do businessman, as opposed to a king. Still, it was interesting to walk around, and when I visited there were hardly any tourists there, which was cool. I found it amusing to be walking through a royal palace virtually by myself, in bare feet, no less! (Like most Lao dwellings, you're supposed to remove your shoes at the door.)

2006-09-08T23:20:00.000-07:00

LUANG PRABANG, LAOS

After meeting at the White Elephant Adventures office at 8:30 am, Chris and I were joined by three young Londoners--Rob, Charlie and Charlotte--and our Lao guide Max (a former monk and a Slipknot fan!), for our one-day trek through the surrounding countryside. First we were driven about a half-hour south of town via sawgthaew (a covered pickup truck with benches in the back) over dirt roads, through the outlying hills. We stopped at a couple of hill tribe villages along the way, where we got out and took some photos of huts and children and drying peanuts and piglets and whatnot. It's still strange to come across primitive-looking thatched huts with big satellite dishes outside, but I guess that's the 21st Century for ya! It seems that housewives the world over have to watch their stories. We also visited a village primary school, which was a lot of fun. The kids were at recess, playing various playground games and running around like lunatics. They're not that used to visiting Westerners, apparently--seems like many of them couldn't decide whether to be frightened or amused at the sight of us.

We then started trekking, first through a village, then over farmland (fields of corn, squash, and rice), and finally into the jungle. After some three hours of steamy, sweaty slogging, we finally made it to the top of Tat Kuang Si, one of the area's most famous waterfalls. We then followed a staircase that ran down the side of the falls (and sometimes through them) to the bottom, where there's a picnic area with a magnificent view of the falls, which are really tall and dramatic. We had lunch there and then walked farther downstream to even more falls; a series of smaller cascades that drop ten or fifteen feet at a time; and a bona fide swimmin' hole complete with jumping tree. We all had to jump in and go swimming, of course--the water was freezing cold, but felt great after all that trekking in the hot sun. Charlie and Rob were the most acrobatic, doing backflips off the tree and the falls themselves--crazy kids. Oh, and we also ran into Andrea from Munich, who was visiting the falls with a different tour group.

Here's something kind of random: On our way out of the waterfall park, we walked by two fenced-in enclosures in the forest: one containing a number of Asiatic black bears, and one containing a tiger! All of the animals were supposedly rescued from poachers, and I think were being raised for eventual transfer to zoos. Actually, the enclosures looked just as big as those in a zoo, and they each had jungle vegetation and a natural stream running through them, so it looked like the animals had it pretty good. There was a guy selling bananas there so you could feed the bears--at the prospect of food, they stood up and walked around on their hind legs, which was hilarious to see. Chris kept throwing bananas to one bear, but he was so stupid he kept staring at Chris while the bananas kept bouncing off his head and were retrieved by other bears--not the brightest ursine in the bunch, for sure.

We were then driven back to town just in time to visit Phou Si, the sacred hill at the center of Luang Prabang. It's supposed to be best viewed at sunset, so Chris and I scaled the 300 steps to the top just after 5 pm to have a look. The temple itself is nothing special, but the view over the town, the Mekong river, and the surrounding hills, forest, and farmland is really amazing. Chris didn't stick around for sunset, as he wanted to get some information on kayaking from the Canadian guy who runs White Elephant Tours, so he went back down while I chilled out at the top of the hill for another half hour or so and watched the sun set over the Mekong. (And ran into Andrea again up there, too!)

Afterward I met Chris at White Elephant Adventures, who was talking with Derek the owner, a really nice new-agey entrepreneur who moved to Laos several years ago from London, Ontario. We sat for awhile in the shop, drank beer, and talked about life in Luang Prabang, changing Lao society, and his various business ventures.

For dinner, Chris and I decided to check out a "Lao Barbecue" joint on the banks of the Mekong, which turned out to be really good: For $3.50, they give you a bunch of meat, eggs, vegetables, and spices (more than enough for two people), which you cook over a charcoal fire right at your table. They also supply a bowl of crunchy fried eggplant, which tastes a lot like potato chips. Mmm....

Later Chris and I went to a local bar called Khob Chai, where we were befriended by the bartenders and somehow ended up getting taken by them on their motorbikes to the big disco in town, which was packed to the hilt. There we ran into Derek from White Elephant, and met a guy named Mark from Louisville, Georgia(!) who lives in Laos for six months of the year. Small world, eh?

2006-09-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

LUANG PRABANG, LAOS

Another day of putt-putt-putting down the Mekong--more of the same beautiful scenery, and for a little excitement, a few areas where the muddy water was churned into eddies, whirlpools, and some near-rapids. This morning's highlight: Glancing across the river to see a bull elephant standing on the bank! I barely had enough time to point it out to Chris, who managed to snap a picture--I think we were the only ones on the boat to see it.

Around 3:30 pm we docked at Luang Prabang, which from the river hardly looks like a town at all. But it's actually a very nice little palm-tree-shaded hamlet, most of which sits on a peninsula created by the meeting of the Mekong and Khan rivers. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, which basically means that the whole city is a historic district, and is protected from uncontrolled development. It is a pretty charming place, with lots of old-looking colonial-era buildings, lots of open-air restaurants along the Mekong, a night-market selling local textiles and handicrafts, and at the center of town, Mount Phousi, a tall hill with a Buddhist temple at the top.

After checking into a guesthouse across the street from the river, we walked around town and spent some time talking with the staff at White Elephant Tours, who signed us up for a day trek tomorrow.

2006-09-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

PAK BENG, LAOS

This morning Chris and I walked down to the river and got "stamped out" of Thailand at the little immigration office, then took a boat to the other side of the river (Laos) and got "stamped in" to Laos at the little immigration office there. Then it was a fifteen-minute walk down to a different boat landing where we caught the slow boat, a long, narrow craft which carries about 50 people on wooden bench seats. Not the most comfortable way to spend two full days, but we figured it was better than the "fast boat"--which does the trip in one day, but costs more, involves getting wet, requires wearing a helmet and earplugs, and has a much higher fatality rate. Er... no thanks.

As this is laid-back Laos, we were an hour late departing, but once we got going the journey was okay. Unfortunately I had just finished reading my last book, so I had nothing to do except watch the scenery along the muddy Mekong--lots of water buffaloes, wooden farmers' huts, tiny villages, and miles of emerald-green hills, farmland and jungle. Chris claims he saw a dead body(!) in the river at one point, but fortunately I missed that.

After about six hours, we arrived at the halfway point, the little village of Pak Beng, which is nothing more than a handful of shops and guesthouses on the river. Surprisingly, there was a really good Indian restaurant there, where I had some killer chicken tikka masala.

2006-09-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

CHIANG KHONG, THAILAND

Traveling to Laos has proven to be a little tricky. Rather than flying directly to Vientiane from Bangkok (the most direct route) we realized it would be much cheaper to fly to Chiang Rai, Thailand (again) and enter Laos from the north. Our original plan was to take a bus from there to Luang Namtha, in the northwest corner of Laos, where Chris was keen on doing some trekking/rafting/kayaking in the Nam Ha National Protected Area. We would then work our way south to Luang Prabang and finally, Vientiane.

But after arriving in Chiang Rai yesterday and consulting with our old friend Tom (who runs the Mae Hong Son guesthouse), we were advised against that plan. Apparently the road from Chiang Rai to Luang Namtha is pretty bad, and drivers charge a lot of money to get there. So instead we've chosen to take a bus to Chiang Khong, a couple of hours from Chiang Rai, and catch a two-day "slow boat" east along the Mekong river to Luang Prabang. Which is fine with me--we can do trekking from there, and will have more time to relax, rather than spending several days on the road to and from Luang Namtha.

People met today:

Andrea from Munich, Germany, who's at the beginning of a three-month Asian tour. We met her on the bus to Chiang Khong and found out that she's taking the slow boat to Luang Prabang, too. She decided to stay at our guesthouse, and later joined us for a stroll around town (there was nothing to see!).

2006-09-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Books I've read in the past three weeks:

Land Below the Wind by Agnes Newton Keith: This is the book I gave Chris for his birthday; it's an account of life in northern Borneo (now Sabah) in the 1930s by the American wife of a British official. Basically it's her diary, and skips around from discussing etiquette at diplomatic parties and the quirks of her many servants to her bouts with malaria and trips deep into the jungle among floods, leeches, and actual headhunters. Sadly, from what I've seen, in the 70-odd years since it was written it seems like Borneo may have lost some of the romantic appeal Keith describes. Although I guess that's true of just about everywhere in the world, isn't it?

No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late by Ayun Halliday: A really funny collection of backpacker anecdotes from a fellow grungy world traveler. There's a lot I could relate to in here, especially since she talks about her experiences at many of the places I've visited this year. The title, in fact, refers to the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali, where it turns out we were both accosted by the scary little primates.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold: Another book that everyone else seems to have read before me. Given its heavy subject matter (little girl murdered by a serial killer), it manages to evoke emotions without ever seeming overwrought or maudlin, which is no mean feat. I have to say, I can't see how Peter Jackson will be able to adapt this into a decent movie, although I guess I thought the same thing about Lord of the Rings.

The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha, edited by C. A. Burtt: Since I see his guy everywhere I go in Asia, I figured maybe I should read up on what he was on about. Not to mention the fact that it's my heritage: I'm descended from a long line of Japanese Buddhist priests. I have to admit, apart from reading Hesse's Siddhartha, I didn't know much about Buddhism before reading this collection of texts. It's really fascinating stuff, and gives some insight into the culture and history of many of the countries I've been visiting, although I'm not sure it's the religion for me: I just don't think I'm quite ready to forsake all human attachments and the pleasures of the five senses. Maybe next year.

2006-09-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

You know you're a real world traveler when you've run out of room in your passport for any more visa stamps! This finally happened to me, so this morning I schlepped across town to the U. S. Embassy to get some more pages added to my passport. After filling out a form, it only took a few minutes to get 22 more pages stapled in there, and it didn't cost me anything, which was cool.

On the way to the Embassy I walked through Lumphini Park, probably the only green space in all of Bangkok, and was accosted by all varieties of reptiles. Well, really I just saw a lot of turtles in the canal, a couple of really big monitor lizards strolling across the lawn, and a big green snake in the grass that scooted up a tree when it saw me. Don't think it was poisonous, but this is Asia, so you never know.

Not much else to report, as we've just been taking care of business and planning our journey to Laos. Oh, except we did have a nice reunion yesterday with our pals Kim and Gemma, who we met in Malaysia a few months ago. They're on their way back to England today after 7 1/2 months on the road (they started their trip at almost exactly the same time we did, and hit most of the same countries). We had a good time catching up on things, eating, and hanging out on Khao San Road before they had to catch a taxi to the airport. They were nice enough to lend us their Lonely Planet China guidebook, which I'm sure will be an invaluable resource in the next month or so.

PS: Happy Birthday, Mom!!

2006-08-30T00:33:00.000-07:00

PHOTOS OF MALAYSIA AND THAILAND!

For those of you who haven't checked out the photo galleries in awhile, our pics of Malaysia and Thailand have now been posted here for your viewing pleasure.

We're working on Cambodia and Vietnam. Stay tuned....

2006-08-29T23:34:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Today Chris and I bid farewell to Vietnam and flew back to our home base in Bangkok, but as our flight wasn't until 9:30 pm, I had plenty of time this morning to do more sightseeing in Hanoi. Today it was all about Ho Chi Minh, as I visited three of his houses, his tomb, and an entire museum devoted to his influence.

I started early this morning with a trip to his mausoleum, a blocky grey marble building to the west of the Old Quarter. I got there just as it opened, and there was already a line of people (many of them veterans) waiting to pay their respects. The line moved very quickly, and we were soon ushered up the stairs and into a minimalist stone chamber with a glass coffin in the center. Guards hurried us along, so there wasn't much time to gawk, but I would say that old Ho looked pretty peaceful, if a little waxy. I wondered what he would have thought of all this posthumous attention, as he had apparently requested a simple cremation! It was all over pretty quick--we were in and out of the building in only about five minutes.

I then strolled over to the Presidential Palace grounds next door. As my brochure Ho Chi Minh's Vestige in the Presidential Palace Area states: "This relic complex has become vital memories." Um, yeah. Anyway, there are actually three historic buildings here. The first is a modest single-story house where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from 1954 to 1958, with a separate two-car garage still containing a couple of his old jalopies. The second is an even smaller wooden house-on-stilts where he resided from 1958 to 1969, famous for symbolizing his desire to live modestly and simply in traditional Vietnamese fashion. As one guidebook points out, though, it's unclear how much time he actually spent here, as it wasn't even considered as a bombing target by the U. S. during the war. The third building in the complex is the Presidential Palace itself, a huge yellow mansion that we weren't allowed into--it's actually the former Governor's Palace from French colonial days. I'm not sure if Ho ever lived there, as I couldn't find anything about it in the literature, although I can't see him only living in the stilt house. I mean, sure, it looked cozy, but that's a bit like living in a tree fort in your backyard.

Conveniently, for those who can't get enough Ho (easy now!), the Ho Chi Minh Museum is right in back of the Palace complex. The exhibits trace his life story and contributions to the nation, and illustrate various periods with photos, quotes, artifacts, and a whole range of slightly over-the-top artistic flourishes (for example, to illustrate Ho's reaction to Fascism, there's a partial scuptural rendering of Picasso's Guernica with disembodied cubist bull heads sticking out of the walls!). Again, there seemed to be a lot of veterans around--it was a little weird to be in the midst of them as we read about "America's destructive war against the North." Interesting.

2006-08-28T23:10:00.000-07:00

HANOI, VIETNAM

Last night I got wild and decided to fork out a whopping 20,000 dong (okay, it's like $1.25) to get all cultural and catch a performance at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. According to the brochure, water puppetry is a uniquely north Vietnamese art form that dates back to the 11th Century, and was originally performed in lakes or flooded rice paddies. Today, though, there's a special theater in Hanoi with a flooded stage where the magic takes place.

It works like this: Puppeteers hiding behind screens control various wooden marionettes using long poles that extend horizontally under the water. It's kind of hard to describe, but I have to admit, it was very entertaining. Accompanying the puppets was an ensemble of seven Vietnamese folk musicians and singers, who also provided the dialogue and sound effects. The music alone was worth the price of admission, but the puppets made it even better.

The hour-long program consisted of seventeen often humorous short vignettes with such catchy titles as "Dance of the Fairies," "Rearing Ducks and Catching Foxes," "Unicorns Play with Ball," and "Returning to the Native Land After College Graduation." (Huh?) There was also a reenactment of the legend of the big sword-stealing turtle of Hoan Kiem Lake (see yesterday's entry). The range of motion that the puppets displayed was incredible, and the show employed all kinds of ingenious special effects including smoke coming up through the water, fire-breathing and water-squirting dragons, tree-climbing foxes, and phoenixes with bobbing necks.

Today I mostly took it easy and stayed at the hotel, 1) because it's reeeally hot, 2) because for some reason most of Hanoi's attractions are closed on Mondays, and 3) because venturing out on the street involves quite a risk of being run over. I did take a short walk this afternoon, though, to visit Memorial House, a restored 19th-Century residence reborn as a museum showcasing the architecture and lifestyle of the Old Quarter as it was over 100 years ago. There's not a whole lot to it, but it's a quaint little place with some interesting little nooks and crannies.

2006-08-27T18:41:00.000-07:00

HANOI, VIETNAM

Chris flew down to Hue City today to meet up with one of his sponsored children, so I'm hangin' by myself in Hanoi for a couple of days. So far I've stuck to the Old Quarter, where I've checked out the shops and markets, dodged a lot of motorcycles, and walked around Hoan Kiem Lake. Legend states that an ancient king encountered a giant golden turtle there which took a divine sword from him and returned it to the gods (the name Huan Kiem translates to "Restored Sword Lake").

And strangely enough, there actually are giant turtles in Huan Kiem (or at least there were at one time), one of which is preserved in a big glass case at Ngoc Son Temple, which sits on a small island in the middle of the lake. There's a photogenic red wooden bridge leading to the island, which I discovered makes a pleasant place to rest on a hot day.

2006-08-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

HANOI, VIETNAM

The third day of our tour was a little anticlimactic, as it consisted almost entirely of our return to Hanoi--first via little basket-boat, then medium-sized boat, then big boat, then a van that took us back to the city. I have to say that I did enjoy the trip on the whole, although our guide was pretty useless and had an infuriating habit of talking circles around every question we asked him without ever managing to answer it. And the food could have been better. Ah well. Perhaps the most enjoyable thing for me was hanging out with Daniel and Pia, and talking with them about everything from their industrial-coating business to politics and life in Australia vs. America. Lovely people, they are.

A word of warning: I discovered tonight in Hanoi when ordering "sausage pizza" that this could very well mean Vienna sausages. Ugh.

2006-08-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

CAT BA ISLAND, VIETNAM

On the second day of our Halong Bay tour, I awoke at 6:30 am wondering just who had turned on the vibrating bed. It took me a minute to realize that it was just our boat's engines starting up! After enjoying the effect for a little while, I eventually got up for breakfast and then said goodbye to Laura, Greg, and the Spaniards, who had only signed up for a two-day tour. Chris, Daniel, Pia and I then transferred to a smaller boat which took us to Cat Ba, the largest island in Halong Bay, and home to Cat Ba National Park. (Tragically, the theme song from the movie Cat Ballou then lodged in my head, where it kept playing in an endless loop all day long.)

Anyway, after docking there, Pia perhaps wisely decided to stay onboard while Daniel, Chris and I followed Binh onto the island for some "light trekking," which actually turned out to be two hours of pretty rough climbing across the island through steamy jungle and over razor-sharp pitted limestone rocks. Although the island is home to all kinds of birds and animals including monkeys, hornbills, and hedgehogs, we didn't see many critters besides a few giant orb spiders, a ball millipede, and lots of colorful butterflies.

About halfway through our hike we came upon a clearing and some fruit trees, which turned out to be the homestead of an elderly couple who lived in the National Park and acted as rangers of a sort, keeping an eye out for poachers. As the woman fanned us and offered refreshments (bananas, custard apples, and bitter green tea) under their tiny shelter, Binh explained that they were both veterans. As an American, it was strange to think that the providers of such warm hospitality would have been considered "the enemy" thirty years ago. As we stumbled through the hot jungle on the second half of our cross-island hike, I couldn't help thinking how miserable conditions must have been for both sides during the long years of "The American War," as it's called here.

After meeting up with the boat again, we moored next to one of the floating houses scattered throughout the bay, which in addition to housing lots of adults, kids, and dogs, apparently also serve as fresh seafood markets--each house includes floating pens beside it filled with live sea creatures, which in this case included kingfish, mantis shrimp, crabs, clams, and some rather sad-looking cuttlefish. I swam in sympathy beside my cephalopod friends for a bit before doing some more kayaking with Chris and Binh, who showed us yet another "secret" island lagoon surrounded by peaks on all sides, accessible through an opening that's only passable at low tide--the perfect pirate hideout. We then paddled around some more islands and landed on a beach where we swam some more. From the beach, I noticed that the landscape looked just like a Chinese watercolor painting, with impossibly-shaped islands in flat shades of blue fading into the distance until they merged with the sky.

Late in the afternoon, our boat headed around the island and docked at Cat Ba Town, a ramshackle fishing port that seems to be growing quickly into a flashy resort town--there are a number of brand-new hotels, restaurants, and karaoke bars there, as well as a rather showy waterfront walk complete with dancing fountain/light show. For our second night, we're staying in one of the new hotels, which I have to admit although not as unique an experience as the boat was quite a bit more comfortable. Chris and I ventured out later for dinner, where we ran into Daniel and Pia at a local restaurant. After eating together and returning to our hotel, Pia convinced them to play There's Something About Mary on the closed-circuit movie channel, which we went back to our rooms and watched.

2006-08-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

HALONG BAY, VIETNAM

One of the most spectacular natural sights of Vietnam is Halong Bay, a picturesque archipelago of over 3,000 mountainous islands strewn across the Gulf of Tonkin, a three-and-a-half-hour drive due east of Hanoi. Lured by all the pretty postcards, Chris and I booked a three-day, two-night tour of the bay and of nearby Cat Ba Island, which began early this morning when we were picked up at our hotel by Vega Tours and taken by minibus to Halong City. Our tour group consists of Chris, myself, and nine others: Daniel and Pia, a really warm and friendly married couple of 26 years from somewhere near Adelaide, Australia; Greg and Laura, two young students from Dublin, Ireland; and five Spaniards whose names I didn't catch. We were assigned an "English-speaking" Vietnamese guide named Binh, who more accurately speaks broken English with a stutter and a slight French accent.

On the way to the coast we drove past miles of green rice fields, punctuated by several large factories and a few of those big red communist-propaganda billboards featuring smiling industrious families, emphatic slogans, and lots of hammers and sickles. On arrival at the port of Halong City, we then boarded a big wooden boat which took us into the bay and through the maze of islands.

It really was an incredible view from the top deck as our boat motored past all those high limestone peaks, which eerily emerged from the fog one by one (for some reason, since we arrived in Vietnam yesterday there's been a misty haze over everything). The rock formations are apparently some of the world's most dramatic examples of karst topography, where limestone mountains have been eroded into strange shapes by centuries of rain and wave action (you may have seen pictures of similar mountains in Guilin, China, and Krabi, Thailand).

In addition to making the bay look like one big Roger Dean painting, all this erosion has created a number of impressive caves and grottoes on the islands. Our first stop was to visit one of these: Hang Sung Sot, or as our guide referred to it, "Surprising Cave." The "surprising" part refers to the fact that from a rather modest opening in the side of a hill, the cave opens up into three absolutely gi-normous chambers that would make Batman green with envy. In them are all sorts of stalagtites, stalagmites and other cave formations, many resembling statues of people and animals, and illuminated with colored lights. Our guide pointed out Buddhas, lions, dragons, a turtle, and well, a giant...um....okay, a giant penis. Surprising, indeed....

After touring the caverns, we then got back into the boat and again negotiated the labyrinth of islands, finally anchoring in a quiet cove among many other tour boats for the remainder of the day. We were then provided with two-man kayaks, and Chris and I paddled around a couple of the islands and through a tunnel into a "hidden" lagoon, which was pretty cool. We then paddled to nearby Titop Island, which features a tiny beach and an observation pagoda at its very peak, and climbed the gazillion or so stone steps to the top. The view from the summit was pretty incredible, I have to admit, although I must have lost a gallon or more of sweat in the climb. We then swam for a bit in the bay, which cooled things down a bit.

Back on the big boat, we then had dinner, which for some reason wasn't nearly enough food for our table! Guess we worked up an appetite with all that kayaking. Anyway, after dinner Daniel and Pia were gracious enough to share their chocolate biscuits and a big pomelo they had bought earlier in the day with Greg, Laura, Chris, and myself, and we had a good time hanging out and talking while we watched the squid boats troll the bay.

2006-08-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

HANOI, VIETNAM

We arrived in Vietnam's capital this afternoon to find baguettes for sale everywhere and lots of little trendy cafe's playing Acid Jazz and chillout music--just like in Cambodia. All I can say is: Thank God for French colonialism!

Chris and I are staying at a small hotel in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, a maze-like warren of narrow, crowded streets with virtually impassible sidewalks. Each street supposedly carries the Vietnamese name for the type of shops traditionally found along it: Silk Street, Basket Street, etc. I'm sure the names are no longer strictly accurate--I doubt seriously that there's an "Electronic Home Keyboard Street," although I walked past one this morning that seemed to sell only those.

Although Hanoi is a big city, there don't appear to be any skyscrapers here. Many of the houses, though, seem to be built very high but ridiculously narrow, making the city look a little bit like a cross between Amsterdam and Whoville. Adding to the Seussian effect are all sorts of strange colors and psychotic gingerbread detailing, ostentatious columns and balconies, etc. This sort of treatment usually only applies to the narrow facades of the buildings, while the sides are often windowless grey slabs of concrete, looking like they've been sheared off by some huge buzz saw. Very strange. I was told that the reason the houses are so thin and tall is that each household is usually allotted only 90 square meters of property...so they just build upward.

The other notable feature of Vietnam is its infamous traffic. As the U. S. State Department warns: "Nationwide, drivers do not follow basic traffic principles, vehicles do not yield right of way, and there is little adherence to traffic laws or enforcement by traffic police." From what I've seen so far, this does seem to be a frighteningly accurate description of Hanoi, although I will say that it somehow all seems to work for its residents. They're not shy about honking their horns, either--the State Department says they do this "for no apparent reason," although it seems to me to be a rather effective (and amusing) form of constant communication between vehicles.

The most challenging thing as a pedestrian (besides dodging motorbikes driving ON the sidewalk) is crossing a major street, which I soon learned one does NOT do by waiting for a break in the traffic (there are none), but by actually walking out into the street, staring down the dozens of motorbikes, cyclos, cars and trucks heading straight for you, and praying that they choose to swerve around you. I don't think I'm quite used to this yet....

2006-08-22T13:55:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

It was really great getting to spend quality time with family, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. So here I am in Bangkok again! Lord, this city is starting to get on my nerves.

Anyway, for the past few days Chris and I have been getting our act together for traveling to Vietnam. A number of people have warned us that out of all the SE Asian countries, it's the worst to travel around in, that sellers there can be really pushy and aggressive, and that scam artists try to rip you off left and right. Great. It should be an interesting adventure, at any rate. Stay tuned....

Oh, I went to a local dentist yesterday for a checkup and cleaning, and also had a cavity filled. It cost me about $30.

2006-08-17T23:49:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG, CHINA

For our last day together, Mom, Mike and I spent the morning at the Hong Kong Museum of History, which despite its name is actually in Kowloon. It rather ambitiously attempts to cover the region's evolution from over 400 million years ago to the present day, and actually does a pretty good job, given that huge time frame! Naturally, the exhibits focus most closely on the past several hundred years, with a lot of interesting information about the Opium Wars, the island's cession to Britain, and the Japanese occupation during World War II.

After that, we headed to the Star Ferry Terminal, where we paid a ridiculously small fee (something like a quarter) to take a ferry across the harbor to central Hong Kong (we did so mainly for the view of the city as we crossed the harbor). Once there, we caught a cab to Times Square, which unlike its American namesake, is just a high-end shopping mall where Mike attempted to find some good deals on electronics--no luck on that front, though.

Later in the afternoon, we attempted to relive HK's colonial days by having High Tea at the Intercontinental Hotel, which was quite pleasant, especially for the restaurant's fantastic view of the city through huge glass windows. Having not quite stuffed ourselves silly, we then had dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Heaven On Earth, which in my opinion didn't quite live up to its name (in heaven you shouldn't have to watch out for bones in your chicken!), although all in all I guess it was pretty good.

2006-08-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG, CHINA

Mom, Mike and I spent most of today at Ocean Park, the city's premier theme park/oceanarium (a la Sea World), set high in the hills of Hong Kong island. To get there, we had to brave long lines of tourists (unfortunately, it's summer holidays for the kids) before even catching the bus that took us to the park. Once there, mom opted for a wheelchair, which was a good idea for her because the whole place consists of steep hilly paths crowded with tourists--but a bit challenging for Mike and me pushing her around, because the whole place consists of steep hilly paths crowded with tourists! At any rate, we did get to skip to the head of the line at some of the exhibits, which was sweet.

We decided to skip the thrill rides (which didn't look all that thrilling) and instead checked out the seals and sea lions at "Pacific Pier," got completely disoriented in the "Sea Jelly Spectacular," which features lots of jellyfish tanks in a very dark hall of mirrors (I ran into walls several times), and had lunch in yet another Hong Kong restaurant with a fantastic view of the bay. We then watched divers feed the creatures at "Atoll Reef,"a giant reef tank which features lots of really mammoth fishes--stingrays, eagle rays, sawfish, leopard and reef sharks, barramundi, giant groupers, etc.--before taking a skyride gondola down to the lower part of the park, where we observed their two giant pandas, An An and Jia Jia, munching on bamboo. Heh. Pandas are funny.

All of that made for a pretty exhausting day, but of course we couldn't miss the complimentary evening cocktails at our hotel. Mmm, cocktails. Afterwards, we walked to the "Avenue of Stars" again; this time to see the nightly sound and light show where the buildings of the city are lit up with lasers and spotlights and whatnot. Very sci-fi. On the promenade, Mom and Mike were surprised to run into a bunch of people from their mainland China tour group. Small world, eh? Then we headed to dinner at an Indian restaurant featuring live music and some pretty bitchin' chicken tikka masala.

2006-08-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG, CHINA

Today is Mike's birthday, dontcha know. Which of course means: Shopping for electronics! So the three of us set out this morning for a street market specializing in all kinds of stuff you plug in, including phones, stereos, speakers, and various audio cables--a big open-air Radio Shack, basically. Anyway, he didn't find any suitable birthday gifts there, so we headed to the nearby "Ladies' Market," where mom picked up a couple of silk scarves (not for Mike!). I helped her haggle.

At the birthday boy's suggestion, we then hit one of HK's major tourist draws, the Peak Tram. It's a very steep incline railway, in operation since the 1880s, that shuttles people up to the top of Victoria Peak. At the top there are shops and restaurants, and a great panoramic view down on the city and harbor. After having lunch and taking some snaps, we then headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit.

Later, we had complimentary cocktails in the hotel bar, and then took a cab to an uber-trendy high-rise restaurant called Aqua that Mike had chosen for his birthday dinner. Tragedy struck early in the evening, though, when Mike immediately realized that his cell phone was missing. He quickly deduced that it must have fallen out of his pocket in the taxi when he paid the driver--D'oh!! Unfortunately, there was no way for us to track down the cab, and since his phone didn't work in Hong Kong, he couldn't call it to notify anyone that it was his. Kind of a bummer to deal with during your birthday dinner, eh?

Anyway, the food was good, and the view of the city skyline from our table was amazing. During dinner I gave Mike one of his birthday presents--a baby cobra preserved in a bottle of whiskey that I picked up in Laos (no one should be without one)--and later bought him a Faye Wong DVD at the HMV down the street.

2006-08-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG, CHINA

That's right; I've taken a little detour from our Southeast Asian tour in order to meet up with my mom and brother for four days in Hong Kong--they've just completed a two-week tour of mainland China.

So today I took a two-hour flight from Bangkok on China Airlines (their food sucks, BTW) and met mom and Mike at the supermodern Hong Kong airport. We then took the Airport Express Train to Kowloon (the part of the city just across the harbor from Hong Kong island) and caught a free shuttle bus to the Kowloon Hotel where we'll be staying. I have to say, after seven months of cheap backpacker hostels, it's quite a welcome change to be sharing a posh suite on the 18th floor, with an amazing bird's-eye view of the city, and all sorts of perks like a free breakfast buffet, big fluffy towels, and complimentary cocktails! Ah, the high life--I could definitely get used to this....

After dinner at the hotel and some catching up, mom stayed in while Mike and I walked the block or so to the harborfront to check out the Hong Kong skyline, which might very well be the most spectacular of any city I've seen so far. Hundreds of tall high-rise buildings stair-step from the harbor up into the high hills behind the city, and at night are all lit up in different colors, many of them flashing changing patterns which reflect in the harbor. It's quite impressive.

The waterfront promenade we walked along was the "Avenue of Stars," Hong Kong's answer to Hollywood Boulevard, which features the names of famous Chinese film stars in the pavement, along with their gold stars and in some cases, handprints. There were a lot of names I didn't know, of course, but I did recognize some big names like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, and of course Bruce Lee. There's also a cool larger-than-life bronze statue of Bruce Lee there in full badass Kung-Fu stance, which of course we had to take pictures of.

2006-08-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Well, after taking the bus from Siem Reap back to Phnom Penh on Friday ('cause it's much cheaper to fly from PP) and returning to Bangkok yesterday, now I'm a little bummed. I was really looking forward to meeting up with my good friend Bill Moore from Washington, D.C., who was supposed to stop in Bangkok today on his way to Laos. Unfortunately, he had to cancel his flight due to the British airline terror threat, which made his Heathrow connection most likely impossible. (Hopefully he'll be able to reschedule soon and we can still meet up somewhere in Asia....)

Man, terrorists suck.

2006-08-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA

It's our last day at Angkor, and there are still dozens of temples we haven't even seen! I guess it would take a week or more to visit every one of them, and much longer to fully explore them all. To be honest, I would have been perfectly happy returning to some of the temples we've already visited--Angkor Wat, the Bayon, and Ta Prohm, especially. But instead, Chris and I decided to go a little farther afield today to visit two sites some distance from Angkor: Banteay Srei and Kbal Spean.

Banteay Srei is a small temple about 20 kilometers north of Angkor. It's built on a much smaller scale than most of the temples there, so it didn't take long to walk around and see it all. But unlike the other temples we've seen, virtually every surface of the structures is covered with intricate bas-relief carvings and decorations, most of which are still in pretty good shape. Its small size and delicate ornamentation has led to the legend that the temple must have been designed and built by a woman (it wasn't). It was quite beautiful, though, regardless.

After walking around Banteay Srei for about a half-hour, we then braced ourselves for a jarring one-hour tuk-tuk ride over deeply rutted dirt roads north to Kbal Spean, the "River of a Thousand Lingas." What's a linga, you ask? Well, it's a stone... um... phallic symbol that was worshipped by some of the ancient Khmers. There are lots of them scattered around the temples at Angkor, but what makes this site unique is that there are scores of them carved into the riverbed itself. The idea was that the lingas would "bless" the water as it flowed over them in the mountain stream and into the river that leads to Angkor. The site, which wasn't even discovered until 1968(!) is a good 40-minute hike up a mountain trail. We made sure not to stray from the path, as there are still land mines in the area. Yikes.

In addition to the lingas, there are images of Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma carved into the river rocks, as well as figures of animals, including a frog and a crocodile. Many of the carvings were hard to see at first, as they blend into the color and shape of the boulders, and some are partially submerged in the river. Unfortunately, like many of the sculptures at Angkor, some of the figures at Kbal Spean have been defaced in recent years by "poachers" who have hacked off the heads (and sometimes the entire carvings) in order to sell them on the black market. It's a real travesty, because of course it totally ruins the sculptures. Still, despite some missing pieces, it remains a beautiful place in a peaceful natural setting. Adding to the scenery is a nice waterfall just below some of the carvings that's apparently become popular with the locals for swimming and picnicking.

2006-08-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA

Another day at Angkor, another round of temples--this time we decided to follow the "grand tour" circuit, which covers a larger area and includes more sites than the "small tour" we took yesterday. And like yesterday, it was hot as blazes. Chris and I were soaked with sweat before we entered the first temple, and by the end of the day our legs were aching from walking up and down lots of steep stone staircases. Still, it was worth it for the sights, which again were really impressive. Here's a brief rundown of the places we visited:

Preah Khan: A huge temple of countless long passages and doorways (watch your step!) which once housed an entire Buddhist university. At the entrance are a couple of imposing garuda statues (mythical half-bird, half-human creatures).

Neak Pean: This is an interesting cross-shaped arrangement of five square ponds (now dry). At the center of the large pond in the middle is a circular island with a tall sanctuary tower. At one time, water could be poured from the central pond into channels that would flow into the four smaller ponds through spouts in the shape of four heads: a man's, a lion's, a horse's, and an elephant's. Walking around the place, I was really wishing they had restored this to create a swimming pool, as I really could have used a cool-down.

Ta Som: A small temple of three concentric enclosures; nothing too special, although there are a couple of big faces and a fig tree spilling over one of the outer walls.

East Mebon: This wide, square temple is set impressively high on a raised platform--it's so tall because originally it was an island in the middle of a large moat. There are cool elephant sculptures facing outward from each corner of it, and from the top there's a nice view of the surrounding rice paddies.

Pre Rup: Even taller than the last one, this mountainous structure once was the state temple at the center of a city. We arrived here just before sunset, which apparently is the right time to visit, because there were dozens of people camped out at the top facing westward (and just as many souvenir-sellers hawking T-shirts, guidebooks, and beer). Sure enough, it made for a good sunset spot, as it's above the surrounding trees, and the light from the setting sun made the brick towers glow a luminous orange.

2006-08-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA

The reason people come to Siem Reap is to see Cambodia's most famous landmarks, the temples at Angkor, built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 A.D. The temples, which number over 100, are widely considered to be one of mankind's greatest architectural achievements, and make up the largest collection of religious structures in the world. Many of them had been forgotten for centuries and covered over by jungle, and were only "discovered" by westerners in the 1800s.

This morning, at the ungodly hour of 5 am, we hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day and set out to see as many of them as we could. We started so early in order to get a sunrise view of the largest and most famous temple: Angkor Wat. It's a huge stone pyramid on several levels surrounded by a massive moat, with five large towers at its center (symbolizing the five peaks of Mt. Meru, home of the Hindu gods), with a long stone causeway leading up to it. It really is a spectacular place, especially at daybreak, when the towers and the morning sky reflect in the two lotus ponds in front of the temple. After taking some photos of the towers, I spent some time exploring the inner courtyards, then walked along the incredible bas-relief sculptures that cover the four outer galleries. Most of these show events from Hindu epics--the most famous scene is the "Churning of the Sea of Milk," depicting the gods and demons in a tug-of-war, pulling on a giant naga (many-headed serpent) that in turn moves a mountain, stirring the cosmic sea to create the elixir of immortality.

After an hour or so at Angkor Wat, our driver then dropped us off a various other sites on the "small tour" of Angkor, a circuit that includes the most famous temples in the area. We saw so much that I can't properly describe them all, but here at least are their names and a few distinguishing characteristics:

Angkor Thom: Not a temple per se, but an entire walled city of nine square kilometers that includes several major temple sites, three of which are listed below. There are four large gates in the wall; we entered through the South Gate, which features a giant face on each side and an avenue of statues lining the road leading up to it.

The Bayon: This was the state temple of king Jayavarman VII, and is famous for being "the temple with all the faces." There are 37 towers in the temple, all featuring huge enigmatically-smiling faces staring out from several sides, which are thought to represent a combination of the king's features and those of the Buddha himself. It was a little eerie to walk around the temple ruins, because wherever I stood, I was being stared at, usually from several directions! For that reason, this was one of my favorites--and maybe also because it reminds me of Disney's Jungle Cruise, which replicates these same stone faces.

Baphuon: A five-tiered pyramid set within a long enclosure, partially ruined, and at one time probably pretty impressive. An interesting story here: The French had set out to restore this temple back in the '60s, and had proceeded to more or less completely dismantle it stone by stone in order to shore up the collapsing inner foundation. Of course, they numbered all the stones and created maps of where they went so they all could be put back together properly. But when the Khmer Rouge took over the government in the '70s, they destroyed the records which showed which stone went where! So now it's basically the world's biggest jigsaw puzzle, and they're still in the process of figuring out how to put it all back together. There are thousands of numbered blocks strewn all around the grounds of the temple, which truthfully still looks like a big mess.

Phimeanakas: This was the royal palace of Suryavarman I. Like most of the temples in the area, it was at one time the center of its own city, but since only the temples were constructed of stone, none of the other city buildings have survived.

The Elephant Terrace and the Terrace of the Leper King: These are two long terraces with carvings on their side, and were the foundations for royal reception pavilions. The Elephant Terrace features dozens of cool sculptures of (what else?) elephants.

After a full morning of climbing temples in the brutal heat, Chris and I opted to head back into town for lunch and to rest for a few hours at our hotel before we could even think of continuing. Around 3 pm, we headed back to Angkor (only about 10 minutes from our guesthouse) and finished the "small tour," stopping at:

Prasat Kravan: A 10th-century temple consisting of five brick sanctuaries in a row, with unique brick bas-relief sculptures of Hindu gods inside each.

Banteay Kdei: A large temple consisting of a series of enclosures, mostly ruined.

Srah Srang: Translated as "Royal Bath," or as our driver called it, "the king's swimming pool," this is a large rectangular man-made lake with a stone landing stage at the west end.

Ta Keo: A "temple mountain" construction of five high sandstone towers, abandoned before it was finished.

Ta Prohm: This was probably my favorite temple, as it was chosen to be left in its "natural" state. In other words, it hasn't been renovated at all, and it appears much as it did when it was rediscovered by 19th-century explorers, with impressively large silk-cotton and strangler fig trees growing through its mossy ruins. Adding to its wild atmosphere were large flocks of squawking parrots in the trees, making all kinds of jungle-movie noises. Oh, and speaking of jungle movies, scenes from the movie Tomb Raider were filmed here. (Also that movie about the two tiger cubs, but who saw that?)

Whew, them's a lot of temples! And we had purchased three-day park passes, so I'm sure we'll be seeing a few more. It was really tiring exploring all of the above today, but I have to say it was worth it--they are all stunningly beautiful, even the ones that are in ruins. And each temple is completely different from the others, so it seemes like there was always something new and interesting to see.

2006-08-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA

Today we traveled by a so-called "fast boat" from Phnom Penh north to Siem Reap along the Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Southeast Asia. Actually, it's sort of a combination lake/river that during the rainy season expands to five times its normal size and, bizarrely, reverses direction! At times along our six-hour journey it was fairly narrow river, but at other times, you could barely see the shore on either side. It was a nice sunny day, which made for a fairly pleasant ride--for part of the trip, I sat on the roof of the boat, where a number of people were sunbathing as they watched the water buffaloes pass by. Most of our journey was through rural areas, with lots of small farms and houses on stilts, but as we neared Siem Reap, we passed through an entire "water village" of houseboats, which was kind of neat.

On arrival, we caught a tuk-tuk to our guesthouse, the Shadow of Angkor, which I had picked out of the Lonely Planet guide. It's in the Psar Chaa area of Siem Reap, near the old market, and across from the small river that runs through town.

2006-08-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA

This morning Chris and I made another obligatory stop on what a woman we met in Fiji half-jokingly referred to as the "Southeast Asian tour of death and destruction": Namely, the Killing Fields of Cheung Ek,15 kilometers southwest of Phnom Penh, and one of Cambodia's most famous (or infamous) tourist attractions. This is the place where over 17,000 civilians were killed by the brutal Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79), many of them transported here after being held and tortured at Tuol Sleng (see yesterday's entry). It was made famous in the film The Killing Fields, which if you haven't seen, you should run right out to Blockbuster and rent right now. That's okay, I'll wait.....

Anyway, as you might imagine, it's a rather disturbing place. At the entrance to the site is a 17-story monument to the victims, featuring glass walls that hold 8,000 human skulls exhumed from some of the mass graves. Chilling, to be sure, but not as much as the mass graves themselves, dozens of partially filled-in pits covered with grass and marked with signs detailing the number of bodies found in each (usually in the hundreds). One of the most disturbing moments was when I noticed that there were pieces of human bone, teeth, and bits of clothing poking up through the dirt everywhere, including the paths we were walking on! There are so many remains here that it's impossible to account for all of them, and in fact many of the mass graves haven't been exhumed, and are being left as-is. At any rate, all the exposed bones brought home the fact that this was the location of a very real, and very recent, horror.

After paying our respects to the dead, we headed back into town and had our tuk-tuk driver drop us off at the National Museum, a smart-looking red building consisting of four open-air galleries surrounding a central courtyard of palm trees and lotus ponds. Most of the treasures contained in the galleries are sculptures and small stone and metal artifacts from Cambodia's long history, including many from the famed Angkor period. Lots of Buddhas and Shivas, elephants and such.

Chris and I then walked a block or so to have lunch at a cool tapas eatery called Friends, which has a really interesting concept: It's a restaurant that hires former street kids and trains them for the service industry as servers and chefs. The kids, mostly young teens, were really professional, and the food was great--we stuffed ourselves on a whole slew of tasty dishes including honey garlic meatballs, roasted chicken with mangoes, and sweet potato fries with curry mayonnaise. Really good stuff!

Our third attraction of the day (not counting the restaurant) was Cambodia's Royal Palace, which in a lot of ways is similar to Thailand's Royal Palace--from the courtyards, murals, and ornate halls right down to their own version of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha! This palace is beautiful in its own right, though, and perhaps its most outstanding feature is the so-called Silver Pagoda, which is covered in silver floor tiles and lined with cases holding hundreds of small Buddha sculptures.

Cambodia Fun Facts:

Money is a little confusing here, because they use both the Cambodian riel and the American dollar. A lot of times you pay for things in dollars, and they give you change in riel (apparently they don't use American coins, just bills). But one place gave me my change in Thai baht!
Almost every car in Cambodia is either a Corolla or a Camry. I feel right at home here! :-)

2006-08-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA

Today began very early (4 am) with another early-morning trip to Bangkok International Airport, another cheapie Air Asia flight, and another country added to the roster! Our flight this morning to Cambodia's capital only took about an hour, and on arrival, Chris and I were immediately herded onto the back of two motorcycle taxis (motos) for our ride into town.

I have to say, seeing Phnom Pehn from the back of a motorbike was certainly an entertaining experience, if at times a little hair-raising! At first I was excited to see that they actually drive on the right-hand side here, but I soon realized that this is more of a suggestion than an actual rule--in practice it's anything goes, with hundreds of people on motorcycles, bicycles, tuk-tuks, cars, and trucks darting every which way, regardless of supposed rights-of-way and indeed, traffic signals! Fun stuff.

Adding to the fun was the fact that during the entire ride our moto drivers were constantly trying to take us somewhere we didn't want to go! I had already told my driver to take us to Boeng Kak, a lakefront area featuring a number of budget guesthouses built on stilts over the lake, but he repeatedly tried to talk me out of it, saying that 1) it's much nicer elsewhere, 2) the lake is flooding, and 3) the area is swarming with mosquitoes. None of which are true, by the way--he was just trying to get us to stay somewhere that offered him a commission! Sheesh. Anyway, in the end we stood firm and made it to our lakeside guesthouse by noon.

After lunch, Chris decided to stay in and rest, while I opted to take another moto across town to visit the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum--sounds cheery, I know, but given the bloody nature of Cambodia's recent history, I thought I should pay a visit. The location is actually an old high school that was used by Pol Pot's regime as a Khmer Rouge interrogation and torture facility. Almost all of the thousands of suspected "traitors to the revolution" that passed through Tuol Sleng--men, women, and children--were then sent to the nearby "killing fields" for extermination (if they hadn't already died at Tuol Sleng).

It was really chilling to walk through classrooms that had been converted into torture chambers. Many were now empty except for the rusty iron beds that the prisoners were strapped to, and the shackles that restrained them. On the walls were photographs of the rooms as they were found by the Vietnamese when they liberated Tuol Sleng, with horrifically tortured corpses splayed out across the beds--the victims that were found dead in these rooms are now buried in the courtyard. Other rooms of the museum displayed some of the thousands of photographs of prisoners taken during their processing, and written accounts of people who had lost loved ones at Tuol Sleng.

After that sobering experience, I could really use a bit of a cheering-up. Luckily, Chris and I had eaten lunch at The Lazy Gecko, a local English restaurant run by Australians that's apparently also very community-service-oriented. Every Saturday night they provide free transportation to a local orphanage, where the kids perform traditional Khmer dances and serve dinner to visitors (who presumably donate some money in return). It sounded like just the ticket, so we piled in the van and headed there, along with an Australian guy named "Skinny" who's been living here for a few months.

As Chris has detailed in his journal, the kids at the orphanage were great--very happy, polite, fun, and friendly, and most of them spoke English really well, too. (Just like in Annie!) The traditional music and dance performances were really quite impressive, the food wasn't bad, and the "after party" hip-hop dancing with the kids was a lot of fun, too. I will say that I'm not sure how appropriate "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas is for ten-year-olds, but what the heck. Hangin' with the orphans--now that's a Saturday night!

Oh, and after we got back to the guesthouse, Chris bought a pirated DVD of Poseidon (only $3!), which we watched on his laptop. Mmm, cheesy!

2006-08-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Books I've read in the past three weeks:

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould: A (mostly) interesting collection of essays about science, or more accurately, scientists and their various discoveries, with an emphasis on the prejudices that shaped their views. Gould delights in dismantling well-held myths about these famous figures (DaVinci, Darwin, etc.) and their revelations, but sometimes comes across as a nitpicker who's trying a little too hard to prove his points.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon: A fantastic (and short!) novel narrated by an autistic-savant English teen who sets out to solve the mystery of his neighbor's dog's murder. It won the 2003 Whitbread "Book of the Year" prize, and rightly so.

Cradle by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee: Okay, this one isn't one of his best. Clarke was obviously trying to write a "fast-paced modern thriller," rather than his usual high-concept sci-fi novel, and it comes off like an old episode of Miami Vice, complete with '80s cliches and cheesy dialogue. Actually, the one interesting thing about this book for me is that it's set in South Florida, so there are all kinds of familiar references (including a minor character who plays football for the Gators. Go Gators!).

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner: Faulkner is an American genius, and a brilliant writer. And there's some really great stuff in this collection of short stories. That being said, sometimes I wanted to throw this book into the Gulf of Thailand, because his prose can be virtually impenetrable at times. (Then again, maybe I'm just a little slow.) Also, it would have been really helpful if he included a family tree of all the characters, since there's a lot of them, they're all related, and the book spans a good hundred or so years!

2006-08-03T23:48:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Thanks for all the get-well wishes, people! I'm feeling much better now, although it's taking awhile to fully regain my appetite. At any rate, it's not SARS or Bird Flu or Malaria or Dengue Fever, so stop worrying, mom! :-) Oh, and Chris is recovering too--he came down with a milder version of what I had (and about 10 other people we talked to on our street in Chiang Mai had contracted the same bug as well!).

Anyway, now we're back in beautiful Bangers, getting a lot of trip-planning business out of the way before heading to our next destination: Cambodia. We've managed to obtain visas for China and India with the help of a travel agency, and are now in the process of changing the dates on some of the airline tickets we've already purchased. (Fun stuff, I know.) On Tuesday we said goodbye to Kyle, who had to fly back to his home in Hawaii and his life as a surfer dude. It was a lot of fun traveling with him for a few weeks--I'll miss ya, man!

2006-07-30T19:46:00.000-07:00

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND

Kyle, Chris, and I had signed up to take an all-day Thai cooking course today at the guesthouse/restaurant across the street. Unfortunately, last night I came down with a wicked stomach bug that had me puking my guts out for much of the night (and some of the morning, too). When I got up, I was still feeling pretty queasy, and believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was spend the day in a hot kitchen staring at green curry paste, fish sauce, and giant prawns.

So while they took the class, I stayed in bed and watched bad TV, including lots of American cartoons dubbed in Thai. I have to admit, they did a pretty good job with Scooby-Doo (they even did the theme song in Thai!), although Shaggy's voice didn't sound quite right.

2006-07-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND

To heck with these temples, let's taste some danger! Today we took a whitewater rafting trip with Chiang Mai Adventure Co., who picked us up from our hotel and drove us two hours northwest of town, on highways and dirt roads, until we reached the Mae Tang River. There we were teamed up with a nice man from Lincolnshire, England and his two teenage daughters, given some basic rafting instructions, and thrown into a raft with a puny little Thai river guide named Dang ("That's Dang, not Dung!"), for a ten-kilometer ride downriver.

This rafting trip was a little more...er, exciting than normal because of all the rain we've had here over the past few days. The river, which normally consists of Class 2 to 4 rapids, was running high and fast, and some of the Class 4 rapids were up to Class 5 (the highest level you can raft commercially). Which of course made it all the more fun. There were safety teams stationed at the more tricky rapids, but no one even fell out of the boat (one of the girls lost a paddle, though). It was good fun, and certainly a change for me to be rafting through lush jungle greenery instead of the mountains of North Carolina!

After returning from our rafting trip, Chris, Kyle and I had dinner at Miguel's Mexican Restaurant (you'd be surprised how hard it is to find a good Mexican restaurant in Chiang Mai), then walked to the city's famous Night Bazaar, where hundreds of vendor stalls line the streets, selling everything from hill tribe handicrafts and T-shirts to throwing stars and crossbows. Unfortunately, it was often difficult to determine which items were native and authentic, and which were mass-produced in a factory somewhere in China. And after awhile, the amount of merchandise on display and crowds of people were a little overwhelming, so we didn't stay there all that long.

2006-07-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND

Note the "M" above: Today Kyle, Chris and I took a bus westward from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai, Thailand's second-largest city. Like Chiang Rai, it's a good base for trekking and such, but it's definitely more on the tourist trail, with lots of backpackers and other westerners about. It's also a little more interesting, as it contains over 300 temples, as well as the remains of the old city, founded in 1296, which forms a perfect square in the center of town. The moat surrounding the old city is still there, along with crumbling sections of the four walls that once ran along it.

After arriving in the afternoon, we caught a tuk-tuk from the bus station to our guest house, the Bow Chiang Mai, which is actually a rather cushy (for our standards) five-story hotel. After getting settled, we walked to nearby Wat Chiang Man, the oldest temple in the city (over 700 years old), which includes a large outdoor stupa with big plaster elephants around its base. The temple buildings themselves were closed for the day, but we could hear the monks chanting furiously inside, which was kind of cool.

2006-07-27T18:47:00.000-07:00

CHIANG RAI, THAILAND

Who needs an alarm clock when you've got a village full of squealing pigs, yapping dogs, crowing roosters, and peep-peep-peeping chicks all directly underneath the floorboards of the hut you're sleeping in? Combine that with an abnormally large wolf spider that somehow got inside my mosquito net, and you can bet that I was well awake before my morning Nescafe'.

For our second day of trekking, we left through the back of the Lahu village and headed down the mountain past rice fields and deep into the jungle. For much of the way, we followed a rain-swollen stream, often wading through it, until we came to a waterfall, where we took some obligatory "here I am in front of a waterfall" pictures. Kai led us further into the jungle, and then out again into an area of farmland that had recently been replanted with native jungle vegetation. Along the way, we passed some Karen tribe women roasting ears of corn (they gave us some, which wasn't bad), and a hermit in a shack roasting a rat (we didn't ask for a sample). Finally we came to the village where we had left the truck yesterday. Kai then drove us to a nearby hot springs, where we ate lunch and soaked for a bit in the warm spring water (well, it was a swimming pool that they piped some spring water into) before heading back to Chiang Rai.

2006-07-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

CHIANG RAI, THAILAND

Chris, Kyle and I have decided to do a two-day jungle trek which will take us into the hills and give us some more contact with some of the local hill tribes. We started out this morning with our guide, Kai, who's a friend of Tom's, and another guide-in-training named Pan.

Before doing any actual trekking, though, we were dropped off at a riverside boat dock in Chiang Rai, where we got into a longtail boat and traveled upriver through farmland for about an hour. We then arrived at an "elephant camp" populated by 35 Asian elephants and their mahouts (drivers). As I understand it, some of these elephants may have been used in logging operations years ago, but now they're just there for the tourists. I immediately bought a bag of pineapples and bananas to feed the big guys--it was quite amusing to see how excited they got at the prospect of fruit, sticking their long trunks out at us and shaking their heads from side to side in anticipation. (It was also pretty funny to see an elephant eat an entire pineapple in one bite.) We then got to ride the elephants around for about 40 minutes, first through the village (same traffic rules as for cars: elephants on the left side of the street), and then off-road, around some rice paddies and farms. Kind of touristy, but fun. Oh, and speaking of touristy: Before leaving the camp, Chris and I had our pictures taken holding a 100-pound python.

After a quick boat ride across the river to where our pickup truck was waiting, Kai drove us to a Karen tribe village where we began our trekking. Unfortunately, it's been pretty rainy for the past day or so, so this meant hiking in drizzling rain through thick red mud for most of the time. And we hadn't got more than twenty minutes into our trek when we came to a spot where the trail was completely washed out by a roaring river!

At this point we had to come up with an alternate route to today's destination, a Lahu hill tribe village several kilometers away. We ended up taking the "high road," a steep, muddy trail up the hillside which offered some nice views of the surrounding greenery but was a bit taxing on the calf muscles. And the mud on the road was so thick and sticky that Chris and Kyle had to regularly stop and scrape it off their shoes because it was making their feet really heavy. Luckily, I had invested 120 baht (about $3) in some wellies this morning, which seemed to handle the mud a little better than their sandals. On the trail, we came across two giant black beetles with scissor-like mandibles that Kai happily tore the limbs off and stuck in his pocket for eating later on. Mmm, big black beetles....

We made it to the hilltop Lahu village in the late afternoon, where we had a chance to rest on the porch of the raised bamboo house we'll be staying in tonight (along with the family that lives here!). About 70 Lahu tribespeople live in the village, along with a heckuva lot of noisy chickens, dogs, cats, and pigs. In some ways it seems to be a pretty traditional farming village, but there are a few modern touches--many of the villagers have motorbikes, and there are solar panels scattered around that provide limited electric power (for the TVs, of course!).

Kai, Pan, and Chris then cooked our dinner over the fire (which was inside the wooden hut!)--we had potato curry, stir-fried pork and vegetables, and soup, which were all excellent. We washed it all down with some of the local rice wine, very similar to the arak we had in Indonesia. One of the guys in the village then offered to do a "beer run" to the next village on his motorbike, so we gave him some money and he returned a little while later with six big Chang beers, which we shared with the villagers. They then rolled out mattresses and put up mosquito nets, and we all slept on the floor of the hut.

2006-07-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

CHIANG RAI, THAILAND

Yesterday Chris, Kyle and I flew from Bangkok to Chiang Rai, the northernmost city in Thailand. It's a nice enough town, not much of a spectacular destination in itself, but it does make a convenient base for exploring the surrounding area, which includes the famous "Golden Triangle," the border between Thailand, Myanmar (Burma) and Laos.

On arrival, we were picked up by "Tom" (his farang name), who along with his wife runs the Mae Hong Son guesthouse where we're staying. They're some really nice folks, very friendly and personable. And as it happens, Tom also conducts sightseeing tours of the area, so today we piled into his little Mitsubishi compact and headed north for an all-day tour.

Our first stop was the Union of Hilltribe Villages, a sort of mini-EPCOT of northern Thailand's hill tribes (Akha, Hmong, Karen, Lisu, Lahu-muser, Palong, and Lu Mien-Yao). Actually, it's a little more authentic than EPCOT--these are actual villages with people living and working in them; they're just all conveniently located next to one another, which is great for lazy tourists who don't want to hike up into the hills for days! It was interesting to see each tribe's traditional dress and dwellings and to hear a little about their customs. In one of the villages we were treated to a music and dance performance, and in the others we saw women creating handicrafts, many featuring incredibly intricate weaving. Perhaps the most fascinating thing for me to see were the women of the Long-Necked Karen tribe, who wear dozens of brass rings that elongate their necks like giraffes.* It doesn't look very comfortable to me, but they were all smiling and laughing, so I guess it's fine for them.

After that whirlwind village tour, we made a stop at the Monkey Cave and Temple, a cliffside spot that's home to dozens of (what else) monkeys, and also features a stream with scores of huge koi and catfish. The monkeys were a different kind than I've seen before--they looked like macaques, but had red faces and shorter tails than the ones we saw in Bali and Malaysia. Of course, there were vendors there selling bananas, peanuts, and fish food pellets for the tourists to feed the critters, resulting in the usual amount of monkey madness and mayhem. I noticed that the staff also carried slingshots, in case the monkeys got a little out of hand. Luckily, today they were relatively well-behaved, and we were able to feed the monkeys and leave with all of our extremities intact.

Our next stop was Mae Sai, the northernmost point of Thailand, where we stopped at a nice overlook across the border into Myanmar (Burma). There's also a giant sculpture of a scorpion here, which although I forget its significance is pretty cool, regardless.

We then headed east to the famed Golden Triangle, and paid a visit to the "House of Opium," which sounds a lot more decadent than it really is! It's actually a museum about the opium trade, which for hundreds of years (until only about 50 years ago) gave this region worldwide infamy. As museums go, it was only so-so (apparently there's a much more flash opium museum down the road--with a much higher admission fee), but it was still interesting to see all the centuries of drug paraphernalia: Lots of elaborate pipes, scales, and intricately carved weights used in the trade.

After the museum, Tom led us down to the Mekong River, where we boarded a longtail boat that took us on a short tour of the Triangle--at one point, Thailand was the left bank of the river, there was a wedge of Myanmar in front of us, and Laos was on the right bank--pretty cool. We were actually able to stop for a bit on the Laos side, where there was a little "village" of vendor stalls selling Laotian souvenirs; the most popular being bottles of whiskey with poisonous snakes, scorpions, geckoes, and ginseng preserved in them. According to one of the vendors, drinking this brew "make you strong, like Viagra!" Chris actually tried a shot, but I prefer my whiskey straight, thanks.

The final stop on our tour of the far north was the town of Chiang Saen, which features crumbling ancient ruins in the midst of a modern Thai city. We saw a number of temples, pagodas, and Buddha statues at the temple complex of Wat Phra Dhat Pha Ngao, none of which I can tell you much about except that they are quite beautiful, and some are over 700 years old. Tom is a bit of an expert on the various styles of Buddhist temples, and gave a lot of details about their construction, but of course I immediately forgot it all. Anyway, we saw an awful lot today; my brain can't process every detail!

*Technically speaking, the rings don't stretch their necks at all; they just push down the shoulders and ribcage.

2006-07-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Once again Chris and I have decided to join forces with another traveler, which always makes things more interesting and fun. Kyle Honda, who sounds a little like a car dealership, is actually a very cool guy from Hilo, Hawaii, who's here on a two-week vacation. He's never been to Thailand before, but he's interested in seeing the northern part of the country like we are, so now it looks like we'll heading there together in the next couple of days. Oh, and he's also half-Japanese, like me, which is kind of cool.

Yesterday the three of us headed downtown to meet up with a Thai guy named Surawit who Chris met on his return flight to Bangkok. He's a chef who works at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, back in Thailand for a few weeks' vacation. Chris had talked to him on the plane about meeting up in Bangkok and going out to eat--I think the idea was that since he's a chef, he would take us to a really exceptional local restaurant. As it turns out, we met at the mall, and ate at a cheap Chinese restaurant near there, which was fine, if not exactly world-class.

Oh, and speaking of world-class dining, today I ate a bug.

Yep. I think I mentioned in a previous post that there's a vendor on Khao San Road who sells deep-fried crickets, grubs, water beetles, scorpions, etc. Well, after weeks of walking past his cart, I finally got up enough nerve to try one this evening. I chose a big crunchy grasshopper, which actually didn't taste too bad--the worst part were the back legs, which were like eating two sticks. I guess it just goes to prove that you can deep-fry anything and it tastes pretty good. (A scary thought, I know.)

And here's an amusing postscript: To get the taste of the grasshopper out of my mouth, I bought some chicken on a skewer from another street vendor, which is usually quite yummy. I had thought I was buying pieces of breast meat, but on closer inspection, I couldn't figure out what part of the chicken it was--they were little plump triangles, with a bit of backbone in the middle. I ate a couple, but they were a little too fatty for me, so I gave the rest to Chris. Anyway, later I described what I bought to a Thai guy, and asked him what part of the chicken it was. "Oh, that was chicken ass," he said. Great....

2006-07-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Wouldn't you know it--just as I was starting to enjoy myself here in southern Thailand, I got word yesterday that Chris is on his way back to Bangkok! Of course, I'm very glad he's returning, although it's a little sooner than I had expected. Anyway, when I found out he was on his way, I went ahead and booked a flight to Bangkok today on Air Asia--only $46 from Phuket, which ain't bad, and sure beats a 15-hour overnight bus ride!

Before I had to leave Patong, though, I managed to squeeze in a few hours of beach time this morning. Patong Beach is really pretty nice--it's a long, crescent-shaped bay with decent sand and a wide esplanade, similar in size to Kuta Beach in Bali. I was actually admiring the smart-looking beachfront walkway with its nice tile mosaics, sculptures and landscaping when I realized why everything looked so nice--it was all brand-new, because the tsunami had swept away whatever was here before. Then I noticed the tsunami evacuation route signs posted on the beach, which were a little sobering, too--especially when I realized that I could never get to the "safe" zone in time if I did see a giant wave coming in! That aside, it was a lovely beach, and there were plenty of people swimming, sunbathing, boating, parasailing, and generally enjoying themselves there, so I tried not to think too much about giant waves and mayhem and such.

So anyway.... The flight this evening was relatively uneventful, and now I'm back in Bangkok. I met up with Chris at our old guesthouse on Khao San Road, which is just as much of a mess as I remembered, and we caught each other up on the events of the past three weeks.

2006-07-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

KOH PHI PHI, THAILAND

My Lonely Planet guide suggests staying in Phuket town rather than at the island's beaches, pointing out the unique Sino-Portugese architecture which supposedly gives it charm and character. But after a day here, I have come to the conclusion that the book is nuts, this place is completely uninspiring, and I'd much rather be at the beach!

So today I decided to take a boat trip to Koh Phi Phi, one of the most famous and beautiful beach destinations in all of Thailand. Actually, Phi Phi consists of two islands, Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh, both featuring iconic towering limestone cliffs, white-sand beaches, and crystal-clear waters. Phi Phi Don, the larger island, also supports various accomodations, restaurants, bars, and the usual beachside tourist traps, while Phi Phi Leh, which is mostly rock, is uninhabited and undeveloped, although it's even more visually striking.

I took a big charter boat of about a hundred people from Phuket harbor, which made it to the islands in about an hour and a half. After letting off a bunch of people at Phi Phi Don, we moored off nearby Monkey Beach (aptly named, as there are monkeys running around on the beach!) to do some snorkeling. As Phi Phi was one of the hardest-hit areas in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, I was curious to see what kind of damage the coral reef sustained.

Surprisingly, the reef here was in pretty good shape--I couldn't see any overt signs of tsunami damage. What really disturbed me, though, was the damage I did see being caused by stupid tourists touching, kicking, and standing on the coral, which of course kills it. Given the number of tour boats filled with snorkelers that anchor here every day, I'd really hate to see what this location will look like in five years.* That aside, I saw a larger variety of marine life here than in the Perhentians or in Koh Phangan--lots of wrasses, butterfly fish, clownfish, parrot fish, rabbit fish, groupers, and even schools of cool harlequin filefish, which I don't think I've seen since Fiji. I even saw a little deadly sea snake--yay!

After snorkeling, we piled back in the boat and did a quick circuit around Phi Phi Leh. Most of the island's shore consists of sheer rock cliffs, but there are a few "hidden" coves and beaches, and several large caves where locals harvest the nests of swiftlets (for bird's nest soup). The most famous spot on the island, though, is Maya Bay, a gorgeous stretch of sand almost completely enclosed by rocky cliffs that was used as the famous beach in The Beach (that accursed movie again!). Unfortunately we didn't get to stop there, but just did a quick "drive-by."

We then headed back to Phi Phi Don to have lunch at a local restaurant, where I made friends with a Turkish guy named Serkan who's traveling on his own, too. His English was only a little better than my Turkish, but I managed to understand most of what he was saying. After lunch, we decided to hang out at nearby Loh Dalam Beach (another really nice beach) for an hour or so, until we had to board the boat again for the trip back to Phuket.

It was interesting to see how well Phi Phi has recovered from the tsunami, which was only a year and a half ago--if I hadn't been looking, I probably wouldn't have noticed any signs that it had ever happened. The fact is, the damage to the beachfront businesses was so great that they've all been torn down and replaced by new buildings, with just a few construction sites and piles of uncleared rubble left to remind anyone of the destruction that took place. And it wasn't until later when I saw an old postcard of an aerial view of the island that I realized that the large grassy field between two beaches that we walked across had once been a massive stand of hundreds of palm trees! That made me realize that a lot of things probably look a lot different than they did before.

After returning to Phuket, I had the minivan driver drop me off at Patong Beach, the most popular tourist area of the island. It's a bit like Las Vegas by the Sea--a big circus of neon-lit hotels, bars, restaurants, souvenir shops, discos, massage parlors, Vegas-style shows (including Elvis impersonators!) and even a Thai boxing stadium. I was a little tired for all this craziness, though, so I just found a cheap hotel and crashed.

*I was angry enough about this to send an e-mail to the tour company afterward asking them to make an announcement about not touching the coral before letting people in the water.

2006-07-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

PHUKET, THAILAND

I'm staying at the strangely-named On-On Hotel, which is Phuket's oldest hotel, and the first one I could find walking from the bus station.

But it turns out it's also the hotel that was used in the movie The Beach as the run-down Khao San Road flophouse where Leonardo DiCaprio meets the crazy guy who kills himself. I have to say, it looks exactly like it does in the movie. Which is a little creepy, because I keep thinking of the scene where he finds the dead guy and there's blood everywhere--and it looks just like my room.

I don't know why I keep bringing up this movie. It's really awful.

2006-07-17T22:30:00.000-07:00

KAWTHAUNG, MYANMAR (BURMA)

I hadn't planned on staying in Thailand for over a month, but after my situation changed, it became necessary for me to renew my 30-day Thai visa. To do this, all you have to do is leave the country and immediately re-enter it, whereupon they issue you a new 30-day visa. It sounds easy, and in theory I guess it is, but making a "visa run" from Koh Phangan involves a rather arduous journey by boat, van, and bus to the Union of Myanmar (formerly Burma) and then back into Thailand.

So basically that's what I've been doing for the past day and a half!

At 10 pm on Sunday I caught the night boat from Koh Phangan to Surat Thani--but unlike the fast boat that brought me to the island in just over two hours, this one takes seven. Ugh. Inside the boat, there are two levels of sleeping areas, with ceilings so low you can't stand up in them, completely lined with mattresses and divided into narrow sleeping spaces. Kind of like a slave ship, come to think of it. But with all the smoking, eating, and talking on cell phones (okay, not so much like a slave ship), not to mention the vibration of the boat's engines, it was really hard for me to get any sleep on the journey.

On arrival (before 5 am), eight of us were herded into a van that took us to the office of the company that arranges the visa runs, where we had some toast and tea, picked up some more folks, then rode three more hours to the town of Ranong. There we got our passports stamped at the immigration office, got back in the van and rode to the pier, then boarded a longtail boat that took us along the river to yet another immigration office on stilts. After showing our passports again, we took the boat out and crossed a very choppy bay, getting more than a little wet along the way, to the southernmost tip of Myanmar and the town of Kawthaung (formerly Victoria Point).

There, at another immigration office on stilts, we surrendered our passports once again and got stamped into Myanmar, then motored to another pier where we got to disembark and walk around the waterfront for about 20 minutes. The whole time we were surrounded by local kids, who tried to get us to buy whiskey, cigarettes, and Viagra (all of which are sold here for really cheap). I decided to pass on all three, and just gave some change to a monk with a collection plate.

After that ever-so-brief taste of Burma, we got back in the longtail boat and headed back to Surat Thani. I had considered returning to Koh Phangan, but then I thought, Phuket.

That's a joke, people.

Anyway, it's pronouced poo-get. (Which I suppose I could make another joke about, but I won't.) But seriously, I did decide to take the bus to Phuket, as I was getting bored with Koh Phangan, and since I've got time to kill, I thought I'd check out some places on the west coast. The bus ride from Surat Thani to Phuket town took four hours, and by the time I found a hotel and checked in, it was 8 pm, making it 24 hours since I started this trip from Haad Rin Beach. Whew.

2006-07-15T23:58:00.000-07:00

KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND

Well, today is July 15th, which means it's been exactly six months since I left the U.S. and began this trip. I have to say, sometimes it seems like it hasn't been that long--but at other times it feels like a frickin' eternity! Here at the halfway point, I wish things were a little more certain concerning the future of the trip, but I will say that haven't had any regrets so far.

To celebrate this milestone, I had a couple of beers at the Cactus Bar, along with a celebratory spring roll from a street vendor.

Of course, I wish that Chris were here to celebrate with me, but he's dealing with more important things right now....

2006-07-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND

Someone stole my flip-flops yesterday morning.

Perhaps I should have marked this as an ill omen for the Full Moon Party last night. It certainly distracted me a bit at the party, as I spent a good amount of time suspiciously eyeing everyone's feet. But alas, I never found them, or whoever the sick bastard was who pilfered them from the front porch of my bungalow.

As for the party itself, it wasn't bad, but after two weeks of buildup, I guess it was bound to be a little disappointing. It certainly was busy, though--there were literally thousands of people crowding Haad Rin Nok beach by sunset, many of them traveling by longtail boat from other parts of the island and from nearby Koh Samui. By 11 pm there were parts of the beach where it was so packed you couldn't even move!

Unlike most parties of this sort, this one had kind of a schizophrenic feel, as each beachfront bar was blasting a completely different type of music from its sound system. So you'd see people dancing on the sand to drum and bass, then ten feet away it would be house music, then next to that you'd hear techno, then hip-hop, etc. (I tended to hang around in front of Zoom bar, which stuck to hardcore trance.)

I had actually expected more of a rave crowd, but at times it really reminded me of the folks you'd see on a Friday night in Buckhead village. (Scary thought, I know.) Still, there was some cool ravey stuff like fire dancers, dance platforms set up on the beach lit up by black light, flashing police lights on all the water taxis, and a huge sign on the beach that said "AMAZING THAILAND" with figures of elephants and butterflies on it, that they lit on fire at midnight. The kind of stuff that I'm sure would be so much more interesting if you were really drunk or on Ecstasy or 'shrooms or something, which I think everyone else was except me!

I just settled for a couple of Singhas (that's beer, people) and sat on the beach for awhile to look at the moon. That is, until a guy walking behind me tripped and spilled an entire plastic pail full of vodka all over my back--luckily my bungalow was only a minute away from the beach, so I just went back and changed. Of course, this reminded me even more of a typical Friday night in Buckhead, so it wasn't too much later that I decided to call it a night.

2006-07-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND

Books I've read in the past week:

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien: Yes, Tolkien fan that I am, it's taken me all these years to finally get around to reading this. And truth be told, sometimes it did feel a little like a chore (especially when I was already feverish). Because it's not a simple story like The Lord of the Rings; rather, it's all the background stuff. In fact, it's really like the Bible of Middle Earth, in that it starts with a creation myth, then has pages and pages of who begat whom for hundreds of years, and which cities were laid waste and which lands were rent asunder, and all that fun stuff. But there are some really poetic parts in there, too--the tale of Beren and Luthien, for example. (Did I just say that? Wow, I am a geek.)

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking: 'Cuz I likes the science, I does. (And in case you needed further proof of my geekdom....) Mostly a very accessible account of what we know about the Big Bang and black holes and such, but I still may have to read this again, because the part about the universe only being explainable using a model that incorporates imaginary time made my head explode.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel: I have to say, this was the best book about being stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger that I've ever read! Actually, it was a really good read, although there was a point towards the end where I was like, this is getting so unbelievable it's ridiculous. But then the ending totally redeems it, so I was happy again. Check it out; it won the Man Booker prize and everything.

2006-07-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND

Things here at Haad Rin are picking up, as more and more people are arriving for the Full Moon Party on Wednesday. All the bungalows are booked up, and the streets are getting crowded with motorbikes and pedestrians. You can tell this is a party crowd, though, because you can walk out to the beach at 11 am, and it's completely deserted! No one wakes up until the afternoon, and the beach bars don't get crowded until well after midnight. Last night I checked out a few of them, which was actually more fun than I thought it would be. One of the bars had fire dancers on the beach, and then the dancers held up a flaming hoop for anyone to jump through that wanted to. I almost tried it myself, but I had too much stuff in my pockets that I thought might fall out. No, really. Anyway, after watching several dozen people try it (and a couple of guys fall on top of the flaming hoop), I realized that drunken fire-jumping is at least as bad an idea as drunken driving.

Thing I hadn't seen until today:

At breakfast this morning, a woman at the table next to me ordered French toast, and when when it came, she poured a lake of ketchup on her plate and dipped the pieces in it. This same woman actually asked the waiter for coffee--but only if they had instant Nescafe'. You heard me; she actually wanted instant Nescafe'. I so wanted to smack her at that moment.

2006-07-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND

I think being on an island in the sun for too long has started affecting my brain.

For example: There are two restaurants right across the street from one another, about 50 feet from my bungalow, and they both play reruns of Friends on their big-screen TVs. I mean, like 24 hours a day. Seriously. It's a perpetual Friends-a-thon. And if you stand in the middle of the street, it's like stereo Friends-a-thons.

What's worse: Sometimes I go to one of them and order a lemon shake, and watch like eight episodes in a row.

I feel so dirty afterwards.

2006-07-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND

Today I got motivated enough to take an afternoon boat trip around the island, along with nine other tourists (five Australians, two Brits, and two Thais) and a crew of two. We took one of the island's famous longtail boats, so named because the outboard motor is basically a car engine on a pole with a ten-foot propellor shaft projecting out behind it (no, I don't know why).

We left from the beach at Haad Rin Nok at noon, and headed around the eastern coast to the north end of the island, which took made me realize how big Koh Phangan really is! Unlike the west side of the island, which is fairly developed with roads, businesses, etc., most of the eastern side of Koh Phangan is just mountains, forest, and beaches, and is only reachable by boat, as there are no roads connecting it yet with the rest of the island.

We motored for a half hour or so past a number of beaches, rocky headlands, and cliffside resorts before reaching our first stop, supposedly the best snorkeling spot on the island, where we all jumped overboard and snorkeled around for twenty minutes or so. The coral here was maybe a little nicer than in the Perhentians (meaning, it didn't look like anyone had been dynamite fishing there lately), but the water was fairly murky, so there wasn't really that much to see; just a few butterfly fish, parrot fish, and sergeant majors. Afterward, we anchored beside the small fishing village of Chaloklum and had lunch on the beach, where a local dog tried to befriend me--or maybe he just wanted my fried rice.

We then headed south to Than Sadet, where we went ashore, then were taken inland by pickup truck to one of the island's waterfalls. Actually, there are several small falls in the river that made for some good swimming and sitting under, which was nice. Our last stop was a really secluded cove with a great beach, where did some more swimming and laying about, before heading back to the beach at Haad Rin. All in all, it was a good break from the crowds of Haad Rin, and a pretty relaxing day.

2006-07-07T15:12:00.000-07:00

KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND

Travel Tip #8: There ARE such things as bedbugs, and they DO bite.

After a relatively sleepless and itchy night (see above), and a 5 am transfer to the hammock outside my bungalow, suffice it to say that I am now staying at a different location a little ways down the beach!

Other than that, not much news to report. I finally felt up to going for a swim yesterday, since the beach is only about 50 feet from my bungalow. It's a nice beach, but the water isn't nearly as crystal-clear as it is in the Perhentians, and it's a little more crowded with tourists. Still, I guess I shouldn't complain.

Oh, and at night I finally got to see The DaVinci Code at one of the local restaurants (strangely, the Latin dialogue was subtitled in Russian, but the French dialogue wasn't subtitled at all--luckily, most of it is in English!) I'm always bothered when they change the story from book to screen for no apparent reason, and there were a few changes like that here. Some things worked pretty well, but the critics are right in pointing out that there are more than a few boring and incomprehensible parts as well. The Catholic Church ought to oppose it on THOSE grounds! (They definitely seem to know a thing or two about boring and incomprehensible....)