Bangkok, what a ride... We're both relieved to have escaped alive, and it was definitely the most confusing, uncomfortable and just generally stressful couple of days we've had on our journey!
First of all, there really isn't very much to see and do in Bangkok. We were pretty surprised by that. Everything seems to centre around Buddha (someone that we're well and truly sick of) or the king of Thailand (who we're less sick of, but he isn't very interesting).
We saw the Golden Buddha, the Emerald Buddha, the Reclining Buddha, and a bunch of other lesser Buddhas. They're all very Buddha-y, with lots of precious metal and stone, and people praying and lighting incense, and monks all over the place doing monky stuff like sitting looking pious, but there's only so much Buddha one can take in a day. We definitely hit our quota and then some. Its hard to take all this very seriously; you aren't allowed to point your feet at a Buddha, but you are allowed to charge money to let non-believers pile in to look at said Buddha and photograph the hell out of him.
We saw the Grand Palace, and had a cruise along the river. People in Thailand really like their king. I mean, they really like their king. I'm not sure why, and I don't feel I can ask them without betraying my true feelings towards its hilarity, so I've kept my mouth shut. There are huge posters of him and his wife everywhere, and people wear yellow clothes all the time, because yellow is his colour (he was born on a Monday, and it seems Monday has been decreed Yellow Day by some higher power that has authority over this sort of thing). You see "long live the king" written all over the place too.
Bangkok is one big scam that everyone else is in on. We didn't realise this, so we were kind of at a disadvantage when the conmen came to collect their money from us innocent little farang (that's Thai for "stupid foreigner"). See the next post for our run in with Voglee Export Tailors, an adventure which cost me over $1000 (although at least I got something for my money!). We avoided the famous gem scam, but nobody warned us about the tailors. After this experience we heeded the advice we'd received from numerous sources, which was basically to never trust anybody on the street suggesting you do something or go somewhere. It was tiring though, being appropriately paranoid...
Siam Square was kind of like our little sanctuary after experiencing the farang-eaters around Chinatown (where we were based) and the tourist sites. Siam Square is the Bangkok equivalent of Rundle Mall. Its just got a huge number of shops and shopping centres and that sort of thing. Young and affluent Thais seem to be the major customers in Siam Square. But really (and we realised something about the merits of capitalism and big business as our feelings crystallised) we just felt safe sitting in a Starbucks drinking coffee and watching people shop. There were so many little barriers stopping conmen from getting to us while we were in Siam Square: there were people everywhere, rental prices were clearly sky high, most of the stores were international chains with reputations to protect, bartering was not the thing so everything had a price tag (ahhh, glorious glorious price tags - you have no idea). We watched two movies at the cinemas, Harry Potter and Transformers, and we spent an evening eating then drinking at Hard Rock Cafe. We really liked the normality of Siam Square, a stark contrast to Chinatown. I think we will stay in Siam Square when we go back after my elective!
So now we're in Mae Sot, which is a calm little city in comparison. We are really enjoying it here, which is a relief since we were both a little nervous after Bangkok. I can safely say that from my experience Bangkok is the worst city in south-east Asia - the people are generally untrustworthy, the place is dirty, there isn't much to see, it has no character or class and the traffic is horrible! Spend as little time as possible in Bangkok, as the rest of Thailand is where you want to be...
I've completely updated our photo album, since we have yet to take a photo in Mae Sot! You can see it here. We've added a couple more from Hoi An, Phnom Penh and Angkor that were overlooked initially, and I've labelled and written comment for them all now.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Cambodia - Angkor
Our stay in Siem Reap, the gateway town to Angkor, was really, really awesome. We hooked up with a nice and friendly tuk-tuk driver, we had a fantastic hotel, Siem Reap is a great place, and Angkor itself was just mind-blowing. The only real problem was that it was a malaria zone so we had to be pedantic about applying Rid, wearing the right clothes, and just generally avoiding mozzies.
(And for those not in the know, a tuk-tuk is basically a motorcycle powered rickshaw...)
So our tuk-tuk driver, Pete (a Western pseudonym), really was a lucky find. Without explaining every story, he was just always there, no matter what little mess we got into. Now that we're in Bangkok, we wish we still had Pete around to make it all okay!..
Siem Reap is a very tourist-centric town, so we were able to enjoy a very Western friendly night life, much the same as in Phnom Penh. It was about as laid back as Hoi An (in Vietnam), although it was technically larger (and didn't have the spectacular architecture). The river splitting the town in 2 was well maintained, and the centre of town where we went for dinner each night had a number of restaurants and pubs; most served Khmer food, but some also served Western food. It was all priced in US dollars, and everyone spoke good English and understood Western culture, so it was really easy and relaxing to hang out and eat, drink, or whatever in the town.
To give some historical understanding to Angkor (the real highlight of the area): the Khmer are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, and were the original people who inhabited the region around Siem Reap. They once had a huge empire, which engulfed most of South-east Asia, and included much of modern day Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. This was at its most powerful and influential about 900-1100AD.
Angkor Wat, the famous temple that everybody talks about, is pretty fantastic. Its huge, its an audacious architectural achievement, and it just plain rocks. The more you understand about Hinduism, the more you can appreciate and ponder about the thought and work that went into its design. Its basically a big, square temple, with a moat that spans 150 metres in width easily, an outer wall, a huge inner garden, an inner wall with really complex floor-to-ceiling carvings outlining important Hindu mythology, and then a 5 tower representation of Mt. Meru (the mythological centre of the universe where the Hindu gods are found) in the centre. Its hard to explain why its so cool, but its bigger than you think, and its just really awe-inspiring from the second you start walking across the moat to the time you walk away.
Now, Angkor Wat is cool, and its all anyone ever seems to talk about, but that's a bit unfair to the ancient Khmer, because it was just one part of a huge city of 1 million people called Angkor. And really what made this whole experience so unforgettable was all the other stuff around Angkor Wat. I really strongly believe that people should talk about Angkor, not Angkor Wat, because Angkor as a whole is always going to be your real experience if you ever go there. So in the end, although we spend 2 full days at Angkor, only a few hours were spent at Angkor Wat, and both Kelly and I didn't even think Angkor Wat was the nicest place. The ruin of Ta Phrom was more enchanting by a long shot.
Ta Phrom is a temple that is slowly being swallowed by the jungle, and has absolutely enormous trees growing straight out of its stones. We saw it just prior to another Monsoon downpour, and it got carried away trying to photograph it when the rain started pummelling down on us. Fortunately, the ever-watchful Pete left his Tuk-Tuk at the roadside and came running down the track (now a mudslide) and rescued us from the downpour. The funniest (and also saddest) thing was seeing all the little children running after him looking for us, carrying their postcards and bracelets, desperate to make one last sale for the day. I ran ahead, but Kelly was caught sopping wet running for the Tuk-Tuk with a troop of children around her, all offering her all their wares for a dollar or two. She said everyone was laughing, fully aware of the ludicrousness of the situation! Still, its hard to imagine the financial situation these children must be in to be willing, at the age of 4 or 5, to hawk their souvenirs in a torrential downpour to a tourist running as fast as her thonged feet could carry her.
We probably saw another 10 temples (or similar) from the Khmer empire, and you'd need to look at our photos to see how different and cool they all are. Particular highlights were Bayon, Angkor Thom, the Terrace of Elephants, and Baphuon. Most were built by the Khmer kings (each wanted his own shrine to the gods), and really all of them inspire so much from your imagination that they change your view of a time that was "the Dark Ages" in Europe, as well as your ideas about Hinduism, Buddhism and the place of religion in society. I just loved the Nagas that protected each building, and the huge crumbling walls that surrounding them all.
I guess that's really about all I can say for now about Siem Reap. We took so many photos its going to be a real task to sort out the best ones. I'll try to upload some to our photo album here, before I go to sleep.
(And for those not in the know, a tuk-tuk is basically a motorcycle powered rickshaw...)
So our tuk-tuk driver, Pete (a Western pseudonym), really was a lucky find. Without explaining every story, he was just always there, no matter what little mess we got into. Now that we're in Bangkok, we wish we still had Pete around to make it all okay!..
Siem Reap is a very tourist-centric town, so we were able to enjoy a very Western friendly night life, much the same as in Phnom Penh. It was about as laid back as Hoi An (in Vietnam), although it was technically larger (and didn't have the spectacular architecture). The river splitting the town in 2 was well maintained, and the centre of town where we went for dinner each night had a number of restaurants and pubs; most served Khmer food, but some also served Western food. It was all priced in US dollars, and everyone spoke good English and understood Western culture, so it was really easy and relaxing to hang out and eat, drink, or whatever in the town.
To give some historical understanding to Angkor (the real highlight of the area): the Khmer are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, and were the original people who inhabited the region around Siem Reap. They once had a huge empire, which engulfed most of South-east Asia, and included much of modern day Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. This was at its most powerful and influential about 900-1100AD.
Angkor Wat, the famous temple that everybody talks about, is pretty fantastic. Its huge, its an audacious architectural achievement, and it just plain rocks. The more you understand about Hinduism, the more you can appreciate and ponder about the thought and work that went into its design. Its basically a big, square temple, with a moat that spans 150 metres in width easily, an outer wall, a huge inner garden, an inner wall with really complex floor-to-ceiling carvings outlining important Hindu mythology, and then a 5 tower representation of Mt. Meru (the mythological centre of the universe where the Hindu gods are found) in the centre. Its hard to explain why its so cool, but its bigger than you think, and its just really awe-inspiring from the second you start walking across the moat to the time you walk away.
Now, Angkor Wat is cool, and its all anyone ever seems to talk about, but that's a bit unfair to the ancient Khmer, because it was just one part of a huge city of 1 million people called Angkor. And really what made this whole experience so unforgettable was all the other stuff around Angkor Wat. I really strongly believe that people should talk about Angkor, not Angkor Wat, because Angkor as a whole is always going to be your real experience if you ever go there. So in the end, although we spend 2 full days at Angkor, only a few hours were spent at Angkor Wat, and both Kelly and I didn't even think Angkor Wat was the nicest place. The ruin of Ta Phrom was more enchanting by a long shot.
Ta Phrom is a temple that is slowly being swallowed by the jungle, and has absolutely enormous trees growing straight out of its stones. We saw it just prior to another Monsoon downpour, and it got carried away trying to photograph it when the rain started pummelling down on us. Fortunately, the ever-watchful Pete left his Tuk-Tuk at the roadside and came running down the track (now a mudslide) and rescued us from the downpour. The funniest (and also saddest) thing was seeing all the little children running after him looking for us, carrying their postcards and bracelets, desperate to make one last sale for the day. I ran ahead, but Kelly was caught sopping wet running for the Tuk-Tuk with a troop of children around her, all offering her all their wares for a dollar or two. She said everyone was laughing, fully aware of the ludicrousness of the situation! Still, its hard to imagine the financial situation these children must be in to be willing, at the age of 4 or 5, to hawk their souvenirs in a torrential downpour to a tourist running as fast as her thonged feet could carry her.
We probably saw another 10 temples (or similar) from the Khmer empire, and you'd need to look at our photos to see how different and cool they all are. Particular highlights were Bayon, Angkor Thom, the Terrace of Elephants, and Baphuon. Most were built by the Khmer kings (each wanted his own shrine to the gods), and really all of them inspire so much from your imagination that they change your view of a time that was "the Dark Ages" in Europe, as well as your ideas about Hinduism, Buddhism and the place of religion in society. I just loved the Nagas that protected each building, and the huge crumbling walls that surrounding them all.
I guess that's really about all I can say for now about Siem Reap. We took so many photos its going to be a real task to sort out the best ones. I'll try to upload some to our photo album here, before I go to sleep.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Cambodia - Phnom Penh
We're in Phnom Penh now, the capital of Cambodia. Its a funny place, many of the buildings are newer and nicer than any in Vietnam, and it seems much better set up to deal with us tourists (eg the restaurants are much more likely to serve Western foods, and be clean-looking and nice). Things seem to cost a little more here too, from tuk-tuk rides to entry fees. But there is clearly a greater number of people in severe poverty; I get the feeling that there's a much greater gap between the rich and the poor. We've both been having trouble dealing with it, just having kids begging for money all the time and seeing the dirty, ramshackle and sometimes precarious way in which people live. The sewerage system is a bit bodgy too, and you can't necessary put toilet paper into the toilets (but I suppose I should be thankful there are toilets at all!)... We've seen a number of amputees around too (mostly begging), which we presume is a consequence of all the land mines in Cambodia.
Its been a rough couple of days really, and I'm hanging out for Angkor Wat tomorrow to remind me that humanity can create as well as destroy. We spent today learning and seeing what we could about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. In a word, "Brother Number 1" was a real monster of a man. In a few more words, its hard to understand how anybody could sentence nearly a quarter of their countrymen to death by torture, but here's a man that did. We visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, one of hundreds of execution centres across the country. What was amazing was that it had been left so unaltered from the time that they disinterred the bodies. It was basically a huge square plot with 129 mass graves in it (about a third of which haven't been disturbed), so we just walked around these huge holes in the ground and read the sign-posting, which were things like: "here is where 148 headless remains were disinterred", or "this site contained the naked bodies of 253 women, children and babies", or "this tree was used to beat young boys". If you looked at the ground under you, you could still see clothes in the mud.
After that thoroughly chilling experience we hit ourselves with more death by heading to S-21, the most famous of the "Security Centres" set up by the Khmer Rouge to "interrogate" (read "torture") political prisoners, I can't remember numbers, but hundreds of thousands of people were brought there, and less than a dozen ever walked out. To give context, between 1 and 3 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge (estimates are difficult because the Vietnamese and Americans also killed many Cambodians who have disappeared), and this all happened in the late 70s.
It sounds crazy, but Pol Pot wanted all those people dead because of a simple risk assessment: it was better to kill thousands of innocents than let one CIA or Vietnamese spy get away. So, the psychopathic moron set about forcing confessions out of anyone that arouse even the slightest suspicion. Obviously, the people he was most paranoid about were those in his own ranks, so many soldiers and politicians themselves were tortured to death. I don't know how he could have possibly thought the systematic murder of his own political party and army was a sustainable strategy, but he clearly did. His economic policies were equally bizarre and demonstrated a complete and utter lack of insight into the most basic economic principles (he herded almost everyone to the countryside and made them farm rice, dismantled the schools and unis, and killed anyone educated).
But anyway, S-21 itself has been left much the way it was found, the same as the Killing Fields. As an old high school, it has a particularly creepy feel about it. When the centre was found abandoned after the Vietnamese invaded, all 12 of the classrooms in one of the buildings had a single bed in it, each with a tortured dead body chained on it (or by it). They have left the beds there, and each room simply has a photo on the wall of what it looked like when it was found. Very haunting.
So, basically we've been learning about the horrible things that have happened to the Vietnamese and Cambodian people, and coming to terms with the fallout of those things (ie the lack of money and infrastructure, and all that they bring). It makes you feel really guilty and undeserving of being so ridiculously rich, but also so powerless to do anything really meaningful.
Bus to Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat) today. There are some new photos of Saigon and Phnom Penh in our album. There are a couple of particularly good ones up today I think.
Its been a rough couple of days really, and I'm hanging out for Angkor Wat tomorrow to remind me that humanity can create as well as destroy. We spent today learning and seeing what we could about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. In a word, "Brother Number 1" was a real monster of a man. In a few more words, its hard to understand how anybody could sentence nearly a quarter of their countrymen to death by torture, but here's a man that did. We visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, one of hundreds of execution centres across the country. What was amazing was that it had been left so unaltered from the time that they disinterred the bodies. It was basically a huge square plot with 129 mass graves in it (about a third of which haven't been disturbed), so we just walked around these huge holes in the ground and read the sign-posting, which were things like: "here is where 148 headless remains were disinterred", or "this site contained the naked bodies of 253 women, children and babies", or "this tree was used to beat young boys". If you looked at the ground under you, you could still see clothes in the mud.
After that thoroughly chilling experience we hit ourselves with more death by heading to S-21, the most famous of the "Security Centres" set up by the Khmer Rouge to "interrogate" (read "torture") political prisoners, I can't remember numbers, but hundreds of thousands of people were brought there, and less than a dozen ever walked out. To give context, between 1 and 3 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge (estimates are difficult because the Vietnamese and Americans also killed many Cambodians who have disappeared), and this all happened in the late 70s.
It sounds crazy, but Pol Pot wanted all those people dead because of a simple risk assessment: it was better to kill thousands of innocents than let one CIA or Vietnamese spy get away. So, the psychopathic moron set about forcing confessions out of anyone that arouse even the slightest suspicion. Obviously, the people he was most paranoid about were those in his own ranks, so many soldiers and politicians themselves were tortured to death. I don't know how he could have possibly thought the systematic murder of his own political party and army was a sustainable strategy, but he clearly did. His economic policies were equally bizarre and demonstrated a complete and utter lack of insight into the most basic economic principles (he herded almost everyone to the countryside and made them farm rice, dismantled the schools and unis, and killed anyone educated).
But anyway, S-21 itself has been left much the way it was found, the same as the Killing Fields. As an old high school, it has a particularly creepy feel about it. When the centre was found abandoned after the Vietnamese invaded, all 12 of the classrooms in one of the buildings had a single bed in it, each with a tortured dead body chained on it (or by it). They have left the beds there, and each room simply has a photo on the wall of what it looked like when it was found. Very haunting.
So, basically we've been learning about the horrible things that have happened to the Vietnamese and Cambodian people, and coming to terms with the fallout of those things (ie the lack of money and infrastructure, and all that they bring). It makes you feel really guilty and undeserving of being so ridiculously rich, but also so powerless to do anything really meaningful.
Bus to Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat) today. There are some new photos of Saigon and Phnom Penh in our album. There are a couple of particularly good ones up today I think.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Vietnam - Hoian & Saigon
It's our last night in Vietnam tonight. We leave Saigon tomorrow at 1pm by bus to go to Phnom Penh. Not sure how we're going to spend the morning, but we only have about 5 bucks worth of Dong left and we're not gonna take any more out since we'd just get a crappy exchange rate into Cambodian riel, so we'll be pushing our 5 bucks as far as we can!
Our time in Hoi An was relaxing, relatively quiet just generally nice. It was marred somewhat by an expected and reluctantly accepted bout of gastro, which left me functionally chained to the bathroom of our hotel room. It was all a bit of a fever dream really, I remember feeling very achy, wishing the bed was softer, and wishing there was more than one English-channel TV station. While I wasn't throwing up, we were able to enjoy a unique, old port town, with a strong multicultural heritage created by the various European and East Asian groups that settled in the town 300-400 years ago when it served as a link between East and West.
We were also able to get out to My Son, an interesting Cham ruin site just out of the town. It was a Hindu Holy City, and it is set in a shallow valley that was thought by the Cham of the day to be the centre of the universe. It was built in many stages, with different Cham kings between the 4th century and the 14th century building different parts of it, so that there are a bunch of "sites" with unique architecture. Much of it was destroyed in the American war, and since nobody has ever figured out what the old Cham people used to glue their bricks together, it's been a hard task to restore the buildings.
We had a nice boat ride back down the Thu Bon River to Hoi An, and had a nice early night after a dinner of what was advertised on the menu as hamburgers. They weren't bad really, but they were like no hamburger I've had in my life. I suspiciously pecked at what I could of mine before deciding I'd give my stomach a little longer to recover.
After Hoi An, Saigon has really been a bit of a roller-coaster. It's the biggest city in Vietnam, and it has the craziest traffic to support that fact. The street vendors and cyclo drivers seem a little more insistent here than in Hanoi, but we've learned a few tricks to avoid their unwanted attention, and we've resigned ourselves to our place in the Vietnamese economy. It's the city that seems most obsessed with the "American" war, and it seems fractured by the coexistence of ex-Southern Army soldiers and ex-Viet Cong within its boundary. Its more Westernised and colourful than Hanoi, but also less refined somehow.
We managed to get out to the Cu Chi tunnels today, which played a really important part in the American war. In a way, they are a pretty spectacular human achievement; 250km of 3 levels of catacombs connecting towns to each other underground, and all camouflaged from the surface and built with hand shovels. Much of the tunnel system was destroyed by heavy American artillery and bombing, but parts of it are still there, and you can go in them and see what they were like. You can probably imagine: dark, claustrophobic and uncomfortable.
We were both put in a sad, philosophical frame of mind by the (very one-sided) Museum of War Remnants, which had a fantastic temporary photographic exhibition honouring 120 of the photojournalists that were killed in the American war. It particularly focused on about 10 of them, American and Japanese. There was also a long part showing the evidence for American war crimes committed during the war, and showing the damage done by American chemical warfare (phosphor, agent orange, etc). As a view you would be unlikely to see anywhere else, it was pretty interesting, even a little enlightening. Mostly though, it just depressed us with the realisation that real live people can do pretty much the most horrible things they can imagine to other real live people. It really made me think about how wrong war is, and how there isn't a single idea or imaginary line in the history of ideas and imaginary lines that's worth going to war over to defend.
I'm looking forward to Cambodia. I don't really know what to expect though. The story of the Khmer Rouge is another tragic tale in the region, but I've been told that there is much beauty in the country. I'll let you know when I'm there!
We've popped a few more pictures up, not yet of Saigon, but of the rest of Hanoi and of Hoi An. There are also some pretty detailed explanatory remarks for some of them. See our photo album here.
Our time in Hoi An was relaxing, relatively quiet just generally nice. It was marred somewhat by an expected and reluctantly accepted bout of gastro, which left me functionally chained to the bathroom of our hotel room. It was all a bit of a fever dream really, I remember feeling very achy, wishing the bed was softer, and wishing there was more than one English-channel TV station. While I wasn't throwing up, we were able to enjoy a unique, old port town, with a strong multicultural heritage created by the various European and East Asian groups that settled in the town 300-400 years ago when it served as a link between East and West.
We were also able to get out to My Son, an interesting Cham ruin site just out of the town. It was a Hindu Holy City, and it is set in a shallow valley that was thought by the Cham of the day to be the centre of the universe. It was built in many stages, with different Cham kings between the 4th century and the 14th century building different parts of it, so that there are a bunch of "sites" with unique architecture. Much of it was destroyed in the American war, and since nobody has ever figured out what the old Cham people used to glue their bricks together, it's been a hard task to restore the buildings.
We had a nice boat ride back down the Thu Bon River to Hoi An, and had a nice early night after a dinner of what was advertised on the menu as hamburgers. They weren't bad really, but they were like no hamburger I've had in my life. I suspiciously pecked at what I could of mine before deciding I'd give my stomach a little longer to recover.
After Hoi An, Saigon has really been a bit of a roller-coaster. It's the biggest city in Vietnam, and it has the craziest traffic to support that fact. The street vendors and cyclo drivers seem a little more insistent here than in Hanoi, but we've learned a few tricks to avoid their unwanted attention, and we've resigned ourselves to our place in the Vietnamese economy. It's the city that seems most obsessed with the "American" war, and it seems fractured by the coexistence of ex-Southern Army soldiers and ex-Viet Cong within its boundary. Its more Westernised and colourful than Hanoi, but also less refined somehow.
We managed to get out to the Cu Chi tunnels today, which played a really important part in the American war. In a way, they are a pretty spectacular human achievement; 250km of 3 levels of catacombs connecting towns to each other underground, and all camouflaged from the surface and built with hand shovels. Much of the tunnel system was destroyed by heavy American artillery and bombing, but parts of it are still there, and you can go in them and see what they were like. You can probably imagine: dark, claustrophobic and uncomfortable.
We were both put in a sad, philosophical frame of mind by the (very one-sided) Museum of War Remnants, which had a fantastic temporary photographic exhibition honouring 120 of the photojournalists that were killed in the American war. It particularly focused on about 10 of them, American and Japanese. There was also a long part showing the evidence for American war crimes committed during the war, and showing the damage done by American chemical warfare (phosphor, agent orange, etc). As a view you would be unlikely to see anywhere else, it was pretty interesting, even a little enlightening. Mostly though, it just depressed us with the realisation that real live people can do pretty much the most horrible things they can imagine to other real live people. It really made me think about how wrong war is, and how there isn't a single idea or imaginary line in the history of ideas and imaginary lines that's worth going to war over to defend.
I'm looking forward to Cambodia. I don't really know what to expect though. The story of the Khmer Rouge is another tragic tale in the region, but I've been told that there is much beauty in the country. I'll let you know when I'm there!
We've popped a few more pictures up, not yet of Saigon, but of the rest of Hanoi and of Hoi An. There are also some pretty detailed explanatory remarks for some of them. See our photo album here.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Vietnam - Hanoi
Our flights were great fun, as flights always are, and were complete with a delay in Melbourne where we were stuck in the departure lounge for half the day. And since they would only delay the flight by 20-30 minutes each time, we ended up sitting doing absolutely nothing. Well, I did nothing while Kel finished watching the 7th season of Gilmore Girls on the laptop...
On arrival in Bangkok we were both blown away by the weight of our packs. I'm not sure, but I think their might be lead woven into the thread for strength or something. Either that or I packed too many t-shirts. Our night in Bangkok was spent in a pretty lavish hotel room. I've never seen a bed that wide, and that about sums it up since we didn't do anything except sleep. A quick pre-sleeping meal in the hotel restaurant was nice, but we were both sad we missed the jazz band by all of 10 minutes; I was pretty psyched for a "Lost in Translation" moment.
Hanoi so far has been pretty intense. Its a bit sad we aren't going to get to go anywhere outside of town, and since I'm an idiot and forgot to confirm the train tickets, we now have to fly out to Hoi An tomorrow, meaning we leave town earlier than planned (and spend three times as much). But I really don't feel like busing..
I don't get the cyclo and taxi drivers around here. I get the people who heckle you trying to get you to buy their postcards/fans/fruit/clothing/etc, but the taxi drivers do the same thing. And it just can't work. Who's gonna be walking along the road minding their own business and then out of the blue, just cos someone asked them, hop in a taxi and go. Where are they gonna go? Maybe they're thinking we'd like to twiddle our thumbs for a bit in the air-conditioned comfort of the back of the taxi? As a positive, when you do want to get a taxi, its pretty easy to get one. All you have to do is stand on the corner of an intersection and keep your camera and backpack in plain view...
We've realised the wisdom of pre-arranging prices for taxi or cyclo fares. Although this evening even that failed us. We got totally scammed by a cyclo driver who rode us to the nearby marketplace. In a way we were pretty silly not to check the map for where we were, but anyway the dirty bastard rode us all around town and then dropped us off practically where we started from. Fair enough he got us to our destination, but it wasn't exactly the shortest route. And then he had the cheek to A) tell us that the pre-arranged price was for one person not two, and that we therefore had to pay twice, and B) refuse to give us all our change, claiming that he was sweaty and tired and needed a beer. I didn't have much sympathy for him; we gave him a pretty bloody decent fare for something that was 150 metres away, and it was his own dumb fault for getting sweaty riding us there in a manner that wasn't very efficient.
Its funny though, even on principle I had some trouble caring enough to argue over 35c. On a related note, I started laughing last night as I realised I was bartering with a 5 year-old magnet saleswoman over paying 50c and paying 44c for a magnet. She thought it was funny too, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was because 50c was the most any sucker had ever paid for one of her magnets!
We've seen a bunch of really cool stuff. Yesterday we just walked around Hoan Kiem lake and looked at some of the shops before eating dinner at a reasonable rooftop restaurant that charged us 7 bucks for 2 mains and 2 (rather large) bottle of beer. Then we saw a waterpuppet theatre before checking out one of the night markets in the Old Quarter where we're staying. The end of the evening was spent drinking another beer overlooking Hoan Kiem lake and marvelling at the art of the motorcyclists below us (I can't believe I haven't seen anyone die horribly yet, and I'm only slightly less surprised that I myself haven't died horribly yet).
Today we went to the Museum of Ethnology, which had a really interesting exhibit on "life under the subsidy market" (from the start of the American war and the mid-80s). Most surprising was the level of discontent allowed to be recorded for posterity in a government-funded exhibition. I was actually really impressed. I wonder if they'd allow similar comments to be made about Vietnamese life today? The general flavour was that of "sure a policy mistake was made back then, but now we are in 'the renovation' and the improvements we've already made are just the start of a great change for the lives of Vietnamese people". Still, some of those people gave the government of the "subsidy market" period a fair load, which I figure must be pretty much the government of today. Or am I just wrong!?
After that we visited the "Temple of Literature" which was founded to honour the memory of Confucius. Interesting architecture, and another culturally fascinating place to visit. The Vietnamese have a big thing about honouring their ancestors, and they will go to these shrines and leave gifts in front of giant statues that symbolise important dead men. Its really cool to watch. I really need to find out exactly what's going on, because there are a lot of little things that they do which clearly have a lot of importance, but I have no idea why.
That's about it, so far. I've put some photos up here of the places we've been to, but I haven't had time to label them yet and its really late and we have to get up early tomorrow so we can go see the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. I've never been to a mausoleum before so that should be interesting/creepy/awesome. But its 2:20am and we need to be there by 9:30 so I'm really needing some sleeping.
How did I manage to write so much and yet say so little?
On arrival in Bangkok we were both blown away by the weight of our packs. I'm not sure, but I think their might be lead woven into the thread for strength or something. Either that or I packed too many t-shirts. Our night in Bangkok was spent in a pretty lavish hotel room. I've never seen a bed that wide, and that about sums it up since we didn't do anything except sleep. A quick pre-sleeping meal in the hotel restaurant was nice, but we were both sad we missed the jazz band by all of 10 minutes; I was pretty psyched for a "Lost in Translation" moment.
Hanoi so far has been pretty intense. Its a bit sad we aren't going to get to go anywhere outside of town, and since I'm an idiot and forgot to confirm the train tickets, we now have to fly out to Hoi An tomorrow, meaning we leave town earlier than planned (and spend three times as much). But I really don't feel like busing..
I don't get the cyclo and taxi drivers around here. I get the people who heckle you trying to get you to buy their postcards/fans/fruit/clothing/etc, but the taxi drivers do the same thing. And it just can't work. Who's gonna be walking along the road minding their own business and then out of the blue, just cos someone asked them, hop in a taxi and go. Where are they gonna go? Maybe they're thinking we'd like to twiddle our thumbs for a bit in the air-conditioned comfort of the back of the taxi? As a positive, when you do want to get a taxi, its pretty easy to get one. All you have to do is stand on the corner of an intersection and keep your camera and backpack in plain view...
We've realised the wisdom of pre-arranging prices for taxi or cyclo fares. Although this evening even that failed us. We got totally scammed by a cyclo driver who rode us to the nearby marketplace. In a way we were pretty silly not to check the map for where we were, but anyway the dirty bastard rode us all around town and then dropped us off practically where we started from. Fair enough he got us to our destination, but it wasn't exactly the shortest route. And then he had the cheek to A) tell us that the pre-arranged price was for one person not two, and that we therefore had to pay twice, and B) refuse to give us all our change, claiming that he was sweaty and tired and needed a beer. I didn't have much sympathy for him; we gave him a pretty bloody decent fare for something that was 150 metres away, and it was his own dumb fault for getting sweaty riding us there in a manner that wasn't very efficient.
Its funny though, even on principle I had some trouble caring enough to argue over 35c. On a related note, I started laughing last night as I realised I was bartering with a 5 year-old magnet saleswoman over paying 50c and paying 44c for a magnet. She thought it was funny too, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was because 50c was the most any sucker had ever paid for one of her magnets!
We've seen a bunch of really cool stuff. Yesterday we just walked around Hoan Kiem lake and looked at some of the shops before eating dinner at a reasonable rooftop restaurant that charged us 7 bucks for 2 mains and 2 (rather large) bottle of beer. Then we saw a waterpuppet theatre before checking out one of the night markets in the Old Quarter where we're staying. The end of the evening was spent drinking another beer overlooking Hoan Kiem lake and marvelling at the art of the motorcyclists below us (I can't believe I haven't seen anyone die horribly yet, and I'm only slightly less surprised that I myself haven't died horribly yet).
Today we went to the Museum of Ethnology, which had a really interesting exhibit on "life under the subsidy market" (from the start of the American war and the mid-80s). Most surprising was the level of discontent allowed to be recorded for posterity in a government-funded exhibition. I was actually really impressed. I wonder if they'd allow similar comments to be made about Vietnamese life today? The general flavour was that of "sure a policy mistake was made back then, but now we are in 'the renovation' and the improvements we've already made are just the start of a great change for the lives of Vietnamese people". Still, some of those people gave the government of the "subsidy market" period a fair load, which I figure must be pretty much the government of today. Or am I just wrong!?
After that we visited the "Temple of Literature" which was founded to honour the memory of Confucius. Interesting architecture, and another culturally fascinating place to visit. The Vietnamese have a big thing about honouring their ancestors, and they will go to these shrines and leave gifts in front of giant statues that symbolise important dead men. Its really cool to watch. I really need to find out exactly what's going on, because there are a lot of little things that they do which clearly have a lot of importance, but I have no idea why.
That's about it, so far. I've put some photos up here of the places we've been to, but I haven't had time to label them yet and its really late and we have to get up early tomorrow so we can go see the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. I've never been to a mausoleum before so that should be interesting/creepy/awesome. But its 2:20am and we need to be there by 9:30 so I'm really needing some sleeping.
How did I manage to write so much and yet say so little?
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