Dubaious

Wow.  Dubai is certainly the land of excess… we know right away because the Emirates fleet is mostly Airbus A380s… with 6,000 square feet they could sardine in 850 passengers.   But of course this is the land of oil entitlements, so the upper deck is reserved for first class, only $16,000 for our family of four… guess I’m a sardine.  It takes 20 minutes for the bus to transport us from the plane to the massive immigration hall; all goes smoothly and into the cavernous international terminal we go.  Taxis whisk us through the smog and among the downtown skyscrapers, and the boys begin their car game: you get 5 minutes and one irreversible pick of a car you spot on the road.  At home we’re happy to land a Porsche or Mustang; here’s it’s Lambos, Aston Martins and if you’re lucky, a McLaren.

Our 20^th floor Wyndham hotel room is just too big – about 1200 square
feet and sparsely furnished.  But it’s relatively cheap and well located at the southwestern edge of the Dubai Marina between the Marina Walk and the beach.  After taking in the views we wander down to the beach, which is a family-friendly collection of empty and overpriced diversions… $50 to play foot snooker on a giant pool table, $60 to use the floating obstacle course.  But looking is free, so we enjoy the stroll and people watching here in the secular sector.  Hungry from our flight, Sue follows her nose to a the “Operation Falafel” restaurant where we grab some shawarmas to eat on the beach – delicious.  Soon enough our lovely walk turns into a soulless stroll along oversized sidewalks bounding oversized roads flanked by oversized empty buildings… we consider the Metro but opt for a taxi to see the Atlantis on the Palms Jumeirah.  You’ve seen it before… the massive man-made island shaped like a palm tree?  Of course it houses the largest waterslide in Arabia… over the top.

Once there we can’t get into the Atlantis and the rest is just more shopping, so we taxi back to the room to make up for lost sleep.  The boys lure me down to the pool for some afternoon play – the winter climate here has pleasant 75 degree highs, and of course the pool is heated.  But the winter sun sets early here behind smog and skyscrapers, so soon we’re back up at the room ready to emerge for dinner.

The Marina Walk is pedestrian-friendly but getting there isn’t.  Eventually we find Pier 7
but it’s a bust – empty, elegant and expensive, so we return to our earlier informal family favorite Operation Falafel for a reasonably priced dinner and great car watching.  After Gelato we stroll back over to the beach and let the Turkish Ice Cream vendor make good fun of me before exploring the high-end beach side crafts.  Ben’s taken with their sand art; Max and I play on the outdoor exercise equipment.  It’s a pleasant, family-friendly vibe, with shisha pipes replacing beers, and
brown-robed Omanis, white-robed Saudis and burka-obscured wives mixing easily with jeaned Emiratis and westerners.

But we don’t see much of the ethnic service class on the beach.  My impression is that there’s so much oil money flying around here that Dubai must import service workers.  The Pakistanis run the taxi’s; Filipino’s run the lodging; Indians are merchants.  And Dubai may earn bragging rights for carbon emissions per capita: despite its breezy seaside location, a permanent haze surrounds the town, likely from both auto and power plant emissions for the ridiculous building excess.  Recycling?  Fuhgeddaboudit.  Maybe hosting the 2020 World Expo will force dubious Dubai to clean up its act.

Hong Kong

The cheapest flight to South Africa includes a 2000km detour via cosmopolitan Hong Kong, so Sue scheduled a 24 hour layover.  One HK hotel night costs about the same as a month in Cambodia, but again our gracious and generous former neighbors Shelly and Matt came to the rescue, letting us flop at their Victoria Peak penthouse flat.  Hong Kong has more skyscrapers than any other city, and their Victoria Peak penthouse view takes in HK’s greatest hits, including the $1billion marvelously modular HSBC building, the 118 International Commerce Centre, the old art deco Bank of China tower; its edgy newer neighbor, and the Transformer-like Lippo Center. 

To give Matt some space we wandered out into the island night, passing under the Victoria Peak furnicular and winding up with the damp concrete roads and to the summit’s mall.  Our timing was good and after a traditionally noisy and oily Cantonese meal, we caught the light show over the harbor. It wasn’t as impressive as the Christmas lights festooned about the skyscrapers.  Many have integrated lights; the towering Commerce Center building had Santa’s sleigh circling around and up its perimeter.

Honk Kong is an impossibly steep, seeping stone so there’s a temperate jungle climbing the walls between the alternating terraces of roads and buildings.  This north face offers panoramic views south over the skyscrapers and across the harbor to Kowloon and mainland China; the north view out the bathroom window runs just a few feet before slamming into a weeping wall festooned with ferns.

To make the most of our one day, we don our rain shells and traverse across five minutes of misty mountain to the Barker Rd. Peak tram stop.  The old red cable cars charm as San Francisco’s do, and the descent is thrilling.  We disembark near the Cathedral wind through the drizzle among financial district commuters, past the landmark skyscrapers to the comfort of the Mandarin Oriental.  The boys are on best behavior and we breakfast on fine pastries and first-class Asian service.  Their concierge confirms my Google Map route through the covered walkways to the Harbor.

Weighing the weather we delay our channel crossing and opt for a few hours in the recently renovated Maritime Museum, which harbors history: three decks decked out with displays that approach just about every educational discipline through a maritime lens.  History and Political Science (trade routes, cultures, wars and wrecks); physics, mathematics and computer science (via displays displacement and container ship logistics); language arts (ancient scripts, the evolution of Cantonese and Mandarin boundaries); arts & crafts (shipbuilding, paintings).  It’s a fine morning education.

The boys grow restless so we saunter back over to the adjacent Star Ferry terminal and board the old bowed boat, the cheapest sight-seeing trip around.  The ferry is well maintained, it appears to have been built with flat timbers across the keel, a traditional technique that the Maritime Museum taught us maximizes displacement with sparing use of scarce timber.  But the lack of keel makes for a sloppy ride with lots of yaw, and I’m glad it’s a short crossing… just long enough for Sue’s shutter to flutter.

Landing on the mainland China side we find much of Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui East Waterfront is closed for renovation, so we settle for a sandwich at the Garden of the Stars where Ben prevails over bronzed Bruce Lee.  Max’s stomach is objecting to the local food, so nurse Sue pops in to a pharmacy for some meds… much cheaper here than at home.

These Kowloon streets are smoky, dank and grittier than the island’s, so to spare Max we walk west to the comfortable Harbor Mall then south to the Star Restaurant where we enjoy dim sum and some other traditional dishes; Max and Ben spectate.  Urban Asians love shopping and festivals so it makes sense that Christmas is a huge hit here.  Sleigh bells, Santas and shoppers abound across Hanoi, Hoi An and Hong Kong.  On our way back to the Star Ferry some school children pull us aside for a school project; they need to interview foreigners about how they experience Christmas.  Our boys blushed as I detailed our holiday traditions – tree-cutting and decorating, Santa cookies, and have evidence of reindeer and sleigh tracks on our deck… but then we do Christmas right in Tahoe.

On our way back we detour through the lobby of the HSBC headquarters to take in the stunning architecture there; it’s all feng shue, open, airy and modern.  We’ve got Hong Kong dollars to burn so stock up on groceries and a few Christmas gifts before getting a lift back to the huge, swank Hong Kong airport.  Next we fly west 13 hours and gain 6, so we’ll have plenty of time to rest up for the next phase of our adventures in Southern Africa.

Cambodia – Angkor Wat

 

Today we’re the Tomb Raiders.  Sue’s arranged for our driver Saphie to spirit us to spiritual Angor Wat, the world’s largest religious monument.  The smooth, wide approach roads are built for volume, which big Chinese tour buses deliver obligingly.  Past the monumental ticket office we enter a garbage free zone… a KAC (Keep Angkor Clean) billboard campaign supports the cause.  The arrow-straight approach boulevard pays homage to the symmetry of Angkor Wat – its walls align perfectly to true North, South, East and West.  The ancient Khmers knew a thing or two about orienteering.

They knew architecture and construction too… the scale, symmetry and longevity of Angkor Wat is astounding. Conceived as the earthly representation of Hindu’s heavenly Mt. Meru, Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples were built a millennium ago at the ebb of Europe’s dark ages.  It must have been a large society in its day; our guide represents that the kings harnessed a million citizens to quarry, transport, assemble and carve the temples.  In the dry seasons they cut rock from a sandstone plateau 40 miles away, dug canals, carved and assembled; in the wet seasons they floated those 500 lb blocks from the quarry to the construction site.  Holes still visible in the stones accommodated anchors for transport and placement; lacking cement they carved tongue and groove joints.

The stonework is phenomenal, and though much has been pillaged or vandalized, well preserved relics remain. Many of the carvings present excerpts from the Hindu epics the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Our boys took particular interest in carvings depicting how Vishnu convinced the demons, demigods and a snake to create a giant Cuisinart and churn of the Ocean of Milk (no broken blades!), the faces at The Bayon in the massive Angor Thom complex, and the fecund jungle’s reclamation of Ta Prohm, the Tomb Raider temple.

Alas this exquisite craft and knowledge was obliterated in just four years by the Khmer’s
own descendants, the Khmer Rouge.  Bullet holes in the exterior of Angkor Wat’s walls hint at Cambodia’s tragic wounds, which are evidenced everywhere outside.  Here there are few developments over 30 years old.  Most people are younger too, because during their radical and failed social experiment the Khmer Rouge slaughtered and starved the educated, the artistic, and ultimately a quarter of Cambodia’s population.  Vietnamese occupation and Civil war ensued, and only recently has Cambodia returned to a more civil society.

Today those atrocities seem far removed, and it’s all sunshine, selfie sticks and jolly Chinese tourists.  It seems Siem Reap is reaping sown seeds.

Thanks to Sue’s good planning, we have 5 days of good weather and comfortable accommodations in this charming tourist haven, so we have time to relax, reflect, tour, play, read, and of course time to dine (we’re traveling with Sue, after all…).  The Landmine and War Museums provides a somber reminder of war’s lingering costs; the former provides a rehabilitative and training facility for children injured or orphaned by land mines and UXO’s; the latter funds care for war’s injured.  One night we attend the excellent Phare Circus, which provides training and skill development for hundreds of poor village children.  Scooter rentals, mini golf, fish foot feeding, massages, arts and crafts… It’s easy to feel good about spending time and money here as prices are low and cash flows to those who need… there are no one-percenters or mythical Trumpian trickle-down benevolence in Cambodia.

Cambodia – Not Wat it Siems?

We arrived to a rainy Siem Reap late on Thursday.  Our driver was waiting with Cambodia’s version of a Tuk-Tuk: basically, it’s a small stage coach trailer attached to a small motorcycle.  Perfectly adequate for two adults; a tight squeeze for a family of four, and downright dangerous for this family with luggage on laps rumbling over dark, wet, muddy roads!  We held on to hope as the top-heavy trailer listed right and left, and even stoic Dad gasped as I imagined the cart overturned atop our broken limbs and sewer-sodden luggage.   But the adventure ended with our safe arrival at the very comfortable Mango Rain Boutique Hotel, where we found a comfortable room and sleep.

Up early Friday, I slipped out to explore the dawn.  My first impression is sad – I know nearby there’s a there’s a verdurous jungle, but it’s fed by filthy streams, buried underneath the casually discarded roadside plastic bags, and concealed behind the haphazard maze of sloppy concrete construction and discarded building materials.  The Southeast Asian economies are maturing faster than their governments and behaviors: I expect it takes a generation for well managed communities to build the infrastructure and habits needed to manage such public bads… more thoughts on that in tomorrow’s post.

Delhi belly is slowing the family down this morning so for 4,000 Cambodian Riel (fixed to $1) I tuk-tuk north along the dirty Siem Reap river into town to scout routes, bike shops, scooter rentals, restaurants and spas.  A smartphone and downloaded Google Map with saved destinations makes it easy to navigate among preferred spots. A poorly maintained mountain bike rents for $5/day; I overpay $10 for a very well maintained GT front-suspension bike with fenders and am immediately glad I did.  The pace is slower and honks fewer here, and it’s a joy to ride a solid fat tire through the mud, bumps and traffic.  Looping counterclockwise around the core of town, I get a sense for muddy the back alleys and dead-ends, gritty light industrial alleys, eclectic commercial corridors and the tourist district surrounding the backpacker haven “Pub Street”.

In the quiet of morning Pub Street looks benignly playful – an entire road lined by colorful taverns with names like the Red Piano, Angor What?, Viva,  Speakeasy BBQ, Cheers Club, Linga Bar, Gecko Nail Art & Massage, Soup Dragon, Banana Leaf and the Temple Club.  I stop at the local ATM and depart with a fistful of dollars; we accumulate and spend Cambodian Riel’s only in lieu of quarters and other small change.  Back in the saddle, a cheap poncho and the fenders fend off rain from above and mud from below, and I orienteer 2 miles through the scooters and tuk-tuks back to the Mango Rain to find the family up and ready for lunch.

Sue’s arranged for a driver, who swings us by a lovely French Bakery.  Calories stave off the boys’ hanger pains.  We motor on to the Angkor National Museum, which holds many of the relics from Angkor Wat and other temples doomed to tomb raiders.  It’s cool, comfortable, well-lit and organized, and provides the boys with a constructive template for temple tours.  Sue and I keep them focused on the simpler take-aways: early Khmer civilization, snippets of Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and other key Hindu and Buddhist deities, their mounts and related Mahabharata and Ramayana epics.  The context is immediately useful as around town we recognize Nagas, representations of the Ocean of Milk, Vishnu’s turtle incarnation, and Apsara pleasure dancers.  No photos allowed, but some of our old antics back home foreshadowed the day.

After a short exploration, we return for a power nap.  Mine is short so I rise and bike over to the local Angkor Muscle Gym ($1 fee!) for a short workout among aspiring Cambodyans, then bike up to Jungle Burger to meet the family for dinner.  It’s a rugby-themed, Kiwi-run place, with fantastic burgers, free beer, a pool table and a flat screen showing All Blacks rugby highlights in the Men’s room.  Then we stumble upon the Night Market with cheap trinkets and foot fish feedings…just look at Sue’s tasty toes.  Siem Reap charms.

Vietnam – Floating away

At ~5AM this morning the roosters and communist loudspeakers competed to end our
sleep.  I’d noticed and heard loudspeakers in Hanoi, but they were easy to ignore during the din of the day.  Not so at 5AM; the propaganda pierces our earplugs, and in the
premature dawn of my day’s consciousness I consider what might be so important that the Party must wake the entire city.  Perhaps the storm is growing into a dangerous cyclone, or there’s a tsunami on the way?  I fire up my chrome browser, and learn that it’s just an Orwellian broadcast from Big Brother, well-intended but unwelcomed by locals and foreigners alike.

When the sun rises Max scouts the water level – and reports back that we won’t be making and side trips today… the canal in front of our Villa is now a river.  With power failing and water rising, 0ur greater concern is how we’ll evacuate and make our flight.  After breakfast and packing-up we learn… we’ll use the giant wicker basket.  Sure enough, the staff loads me and our suitcases in the basket and floats me upstream to the Taxi; then the return to deliver Sue, Max and Ben.  It’s all good fun and reminds us that people are resourceful and adaptable, and humanity may just survive the coming flood.

Vietnam – Soggy Hoi An

[Editor’s note – I’m told that my embedded links aren’t working… I think I’ve corrected that so please let me know if you have trouble linking to the photos and references in today’s post]

Here it’s Tuesday December 13^th – our birthday – so I call my twin sister Nancy across the international date line where my “Happy Birthday!” arrives on the 12^th.  Are we still twins if our birthdays aren’t on the same day?  In this age of GPS, 24-hour news and instantaneous communications, time zones are an anachronism, and there’s a movement to abolish them in favor of Universal Time… makes sense to me, except it should be called “Earth Time”.  Sure, we West Coasters would have to get used to the idea that kids go to school at ~4PM, come home at midnight and dinner’s at 2AM.  But scheduling long distance calls and travels would be a lot easier, and Nancy and I would still be twins.

Mid morning we taxi into town for a cooking class with Vina – the singing chef.  She’s a tiny, flamboyant woman, quick to tease and smile it off.  Vina walks us through the market, sharing the sights and smells of the produce, and opining on how certain herbs can whiten teeth, reduce wrinkles, reduce blood pressure and ward off mosquitos.  We buy lemongrass, garlic, eggs, spring onion, turmeric powder, bean sprouts, mint, fish and chicken.  We didn’t buy the grubs.
Her Gioan Family Cookery School is just a few steps away, and she immediately hands us our personalized cookbook and sets us chopping, mixing and pounding ingredients.  We set up some marinades for the Chili Lemongrass Chicken and Beef grilled with Sesame Seed, then turn our attention to the 17-ingredient Hoi An Fried Rice and Country Pancake… which upon completion we wrap in rice paper and eat as a crunchy spring roll… delicious!

After lunch with Vina we dead-reckon our way to a sporting goods store where I pick up some swim goggles, then we return for some pool and down time.  I’m writing and researching when Ben calls me downstairs to a nice surprise – a beautiful birthday cake… we devour half and return to a lazy eve of reading and a few games of Exploding Kittens – perfect for boys.

Wednesday morning the weather holds, so using our downloaded Tripadvisor Destination Guide and Google Map, we bike north to the Cua Dai peninsula.  Just east of our hotel the lane is flooded so detour and find a dry paths to the beach.  The full moon is pulling waves high up to the shore, which is reinforced with large sandbags here and a cement breakwater further south… yeah, climate change is a hoax.   Our timing isn’t great, and the grey of the day makes the place feel a bit sad… with wet days here and in Krabi we’re glad our resort segments are just stopovers and not destination beach trips.  Hoping to catch a ferry across the Thu Bon river, we bike south along the peninsula and veer away from the big beachfront resorts east into the narrow side streets to catch local flavor.

Homes here are bungalow-sized, with common, mildewed cement walls supporting corrugated tin or thatched roofs.  Scooters and bikes share the alleys with a few thonged pedestrians, but it’s relaxed.  After a few dead-ends we find the boat launch, but it’s military and there’s no one willing to take us across the river, so we reverse course and bike along the breakwater.  To break up the ride we stop for a coke, and consider a local spa.  I find a route back through the tranquil rice paddies which proves to be a fun
adventure… children riding home from school offer friendly “Hello’s”; water buffalo smile at our passing and egrets take wing.  Back on our Villa’s lane the water’s a bit higher, but we can bike through it slowly without getting wet.  A little pool and chill time, and it’s time to venture back into town for dinner.

Uh oh… now the street in front of our Villa is totally flooded; the taxi won’t enter our lane, so we have to gingerly wade 100 yards upstream through a 6” river (which must now contain some sewage runoff) to the waiting taxi.  Good thing we have Crocs.  He can’t enter narrow old town, so there we walk towards our chosen restaurant… but the streets are now flooded and we decide that dining in a flooded restaurant can’t be a great idea.  A few Tripadvisor recommendations and menu checks later we settle on Baba’s Kitchen, and the samosas, pakora, masalas, tikka, curries and naan are fantastic… especially with a cold Tiger beer.

Leaving the restaurant, it’s now close to high tide, and there are literally children netting fish in the flooded street… we can only imagine that our Villa’s lane is now a canal.  The locals take it in stride, with many scooters paused at the waters’ edge, some braving the waters and throwing a low wake, a few stall.  Taxiing back home, even our driver is surprised by the water’s height; he has to reverse course at one point and find an alternative route to the end of our lane, where he abandons us to what is indeed now a canal.   Wading downstream through the dark, mucky water, we imagine the crocodiles and snakes laying in wait… but make it home safe and soggy, memories made.

Vietnam – Hoi An is for Lovers

We’re happy to fly south to the easy-going UNESCO world heritage site of Hoi An…  where we hope to catch the monthly full moon Lantern Festival despite a very wet forecast.  It’s
wet when we arrive, and en route we pass a motorcyclist downed on the freeway – a sad moment which serves as a sober reminder to our boys on the dangers of motorcycling on roads.  Our contrarian timing has some benefits – Sue’s booked us into a spacious villa on the cheap, and we get attentive service as we’re the only guests in the complex.
Tonight’s the lantern festival so we want to plan a little to manage the crowds.  It’s dry enough that we’re able to bike into town together and explore Hoi An and its sister island An Hoi on foot. We catch the morning market, always good photographic fodder for Sue.  It’s much less crowded and more relaxed than its anagram Hanoi, and we enjoy exploring the old section of town, the ancient Japanese Bridge, restaurant options and the general lay of the land.  Max hones his haggling skills buying a funny T-shirt; Sue gets some color shots, and Ben prices Harry Potter books and decides that Kindle downloads are the better option.  We find CocoBox – Hoi An’s answer to Starbucks – then bike back to our Villa where we drop the boys so Sue and I can sneak out for a kid-free bike ride.  We return for some pool time before showering and laundry.

At dusk, we taxi back in to town to enjoy the lantern festival.  With the full moon the tide rises to flood canal-side sidewalks… we’re in shorts and crocks so are well prepared.  The crowds are here and the boat touts are persistent, but they’re supply exceeds demand and its’ easy for me to laugh away the initial price of 400,000 Dong and determine that 150,000 ($7US) is the fair price.  That knowledge in hand we stroll the night market before paddling out among the floating lanterns.  Hoi An is for lovers – there are plenty of young Vietnamese couples dressed in formal wear both modern and traditional, taking professional pictures among the colorful lanterns in the shops and on the water.

Our own family love boat launches at ~7pm.  A few strokes in our rower pauses and quietly light four lanterns – simple candles in cut paper baskets – and we place them between us in the hull to enjoy the intimate light.  At the apogee of our arc we take turns setting our candles in the canal among hundreds of others, and slowly drift back to our launch.  The whole touristy loop takes ~15 minutes – just enough to make a fine memory.

We’ve got time before our dinner reservation so we pay too much for cokes and beer at a sidewalk café and enjoy the people watching before strolling over to dinner at Cargo Club.  Good thing we made reservations – it’s packed.  We pick a table on the balcony under the eve, and eat too much good food.  As desert arrives the skies unleash, layering more water to the full moon’s rising tide.  We’re cozy and dry, but neighboring al fresco diners aren’t so lucky, and there’s a mass rush for cover.  We’ve got a soggy ¼ mile walk to the taxi stand, but its warm and we’re geared for wet, so it’s just part of the adventure.

Vietnam – Ha Long Bay

On Tuesday Dec 10 we escape Hanoi and make the long drive northwest to Ha Long Bay, famous for its ~2000 karst formations – steep limestone islands piercing the large bay.  The drive out of Hanoi gives us a better look at the city’s sprawl… and we pass several of the coal power plants spewing that milky smoke.  The lanes are not clearly marked, and there’s not much driving etiquette here, so it’s a harrowing drive with plenty of passing – a constant game of chicken with oncoming trucks.

Arriving at Ha Long we’re disappointed to find that we’ve not escaped the haze.  But the ships’ office is pleasant enough, and our host “Harry” is a classic eager-to-please Vietnamese.  Sue’s taken care to stage us out of Bai Tu Long, on the northern edge of Ha Long Bay.  We’re told the traditional excursion point for Ha Long Bay is now very crowded and polluted; the tourist ships have made a habit of dumping trash overboard in the wee hours.  When Ha Long Bay was named a UNESCO world heritage site, the government took some steps to protect Bai Tu Long, providing better pollution control, and relocating fishermen from the caves within the karst formations to floating villages.  Even so the haze detracts from the glamour of the karst formations.

Harry herds us on to a launch boat, and we motor over to our 4-deck ship along The Paoloma with guests from South Africa, Singapore, Spain and Kentucky.  Our cabins are on the first of two living decks; the dining hall is on the enclosed third deck and atop the roof is a very pleasant open sitting area.  Harry provides orientation over a delicious lunch while we motor into the bay, and soon we launch on our first excursion, a visit to a cave that used to house the local fisherman.  It’s a pretty, easily accessed cavern, but not on the scale of many that we’ve toured in the western US.  The climb provides for a nice elevated view of the bay.

Back on the boat and an hour further into the bay, we anchor and launch off on kayaks for a brief exploration around some of the karst formations, then the boys and I jump off the launch for some swimming before showering and cleaning up for sunset drinks on the top deck.  The hazy skies scatter setting sun rays, and Sue needs no filter to capture colorful silhouette shots across the bay.  The dinner of beef and pea soup, king prawns, stirfried fish and beef in black pepper sauce is excellent – we risk a bottle of red before bed.

I’d hoped to lose some weight here in Asia, but it’s not happening, so I rise early to get some exercise on the top deck, then join the Tai Chi class… my first.  It is pleasantly mystical following our guides motions in the middle of the ocean with limestone pillars and a smoky sunrise.  Tai Chi seems like a good morning warm up routine if I could only muster the patience.

After a light breakfast we disembark for a tour of the floating village where the cave-dwelling fishermen now live.  The passengers split into groups of 6 and locals row us past the village, traditional junks, fishing nets, and some boys rowing with their feet while they pay out trolling line.  We pass a natural arch then disembark at the obligatory shop… a pearl farm where we learn about seeding, farming, harvesting and ultimately selling pearls. It’s a pretty pleasant sanitized peasant picture.

Back on the ship we pack up, take some time to journal, then participate in a spring roll cooking class before brunch. Our ship rolls in to port soon afterward, and thanks to Sue’s good planning a taxi van whisks us off on the treacherous return trip to the Hanoi Airport. We know what’s coming this time so defend ourselves with distractions – books, card games, naps and crossword puzzles.  With hours to kill at the airport we log on to the news sites and catch up on the insanity… Trump disbelieves nonpartisan intelligence agencies conclusions that Russians hack our election; he hires big Oil Putin Pal to be Secretary of State.  A bigot for Attorney General.  Climate change denier to head the EPA; then a witch hunt for civil servants who’ve worked to slow climate change.  I can’t help but worry that our kids’ world might look a lot more like harsh Hanoi.

Vietnam: Harsh Hanoi

Hanoi’s hazy glow belies the promise of the sleek new international terminal at Nội Bài Airport: this is a stressful place.  Circled by smokestacks, 7 million souls writhe beneath the permanent dusk of anthracite coal emissions.  Algae clouded waterbodies open some smoggy sight lines… and bottleneck traffic.  Hanoi ranks high on the BPM (beeps per kilometer) index, and the driving is exciting as the road’s centerline is usually ignored.  Scooters are cheap so wheeled vehicles rule – sidewalks serve as parking lots and impromptu scooter repair shops; crossing the street is like playing Frogger with higher stakes.

Vietnam is politically strange as well.  officials in military green with red star caps are a common site.  One of only a few remaining single party communist countries (Myanmar, Laos, China, Cuba and North Korea round out the list), the press and internet are controlled.  Spartan, soviet-style monuments and buildings mix with mildewing French colonial influences.  Fortunately, the French bakery culture survives.

Even so you’ll find smiles beneath the smog masks – the Vietnamese are a jovial people, service minded and eager to please.  Our very friendly hotel staff takes time to orient us and coach us on avoiding taxi scams; on the streets locals are quick to offer help.  Stunned at the site of a westerner fearlessly wading through a river of honking motorbikes and taxis, a bicycle rickshaw driver applauds and shakes my hand…

We spent Thursday evening marking up google maps with walking tour destinations. Friday AM after a generous breakfast of croissants, fresh fruit and eggs, we brave the streets.  It feels like a more metro Kathmandu outside… shops spilling on to alleys crowded with honking scooters.  Max has an excellent head for directions so to get the boys engaged we put him in charge of navigating.  He winds us confidently to the Ngoc Son temple on the north end of little Ho Hoan Kiem lake, and begin our clockwise tour around the French Quarter. 

Hanoi street merchants organize themselves into lanes like Wal Mart aisles… there’s a street for toys, toiletries, Chinese medicines, silks, leathers; one for tapes… even one for bamboo scaffolding and ladders.  To escape the chaos, we regularly slip into “community houses” along the way… communist Vietnam is an a-religious place, but these ancient temples live on as a place of refuge and perhaps occasional worship.  One particularly interesting one has been layered around a huge banyan tree over several hundred years.

 

By mid-day the street stress tolls Sue and the boys, so we escape into the expensive but refined Red Bean restaurant for lunch, and it’s just what the doctor ordered… delicious spring rolls, green curry, and a nice mix of western food – Caesar salad and pastas.  After lunch we visit a traditional house – open and airy for ventilation, a separate kitchen with no chimney, of course… Later we taxi across town to visit the Temple of Literature, a millennium-old university espousing Confucian ethics.  It’s teeming with recent graduates during our visit; the girls their Ao dai gowns are elegant.  Walking north out of the back gates Max and Ben are disappointed to find that the military museum is closed this Friday… but we see a tanks and proud MiG fighter through the fence.

It’s hot and we’re tired, so I hail a cab back to our hotel for a power-nap.  But soon after arrival our building gets browned-out (glad we weren’t in the elevator!!), so we take a cold shower and wilt atop our beds.  At 4PM I put on my best clothes, grab a walkie-talkie and depart for a business development meeting I’ve arranged with an enterprising Hanoi attorney.  It’s a pleasant 20 minutes’ stroll – part of the travel adventure, and an engaging discussion of solar development challenges and opportunities in Myanmar and Vietnam… good of him to take time late on a Friday to meet with me.

By 6:30PM my meeting’s done and Sue and the boys are well into their walking street food tour.  I walk north and using the walkie-talkies we meet up at St Joseph’s cathedral, where our ebullient guide Ellie welcomes me and the tour continues.  She takes us places and feeds us foods we’d never otherwise attempt – crispy rice pancakes stuffed with meat and beansprouts, bon mi, sautéed chicken and mushrooms rolled up in rice paper, quail egg with roasted beef and squid, iced fruit for desert, and egg coffee afterward.  Ellie also tests our comfort zone in her choice of eateries… “The dirty restaurants are best..” she says, “…they are popular so don’t have time to clean up”.  The rule applies to street food too.  In Hanoi it’s illegal to serve food on the streets… but impromptu restaurants appear anyway using children’s chairs and stools which can be quickly gathered and stowed when the cops swing by.  Sue discreetly doles out Purell and Pepto along the way…

Luang Prabang, Laos – Tat Kuang Si

Tuesday 830AM we set off in a taxi – basically a cabover pickup outfitted with two benches and a tall tarped cover – to the must see Kuang Si waterfall.  It’s a winding, bumpy 45 minute drive – we rig a rolling hammock to smooth the ride.  Swinging past upscale schools & suburbs, then up through the jungle and past a military firing range, the increase in shops and signs signal our arrival.  It costs 320,000 kip ($10 ea.) to get in, and soon past the gates we arrive at the Bear Rescue Center, which takes in very cute orphaned and injured Asian Moon Bears.  Many have a missing paw – probably from a hunter’s snare.  Bear bile is still used as a traditional Chinese medicine… some “battery bears” are farmed in small cages for their bile – it’s a horrible Matrix slave existence.  We’re glad to know our entry fee supports bear rescue.

Ambling upstream, waterfalls cascade down the hill like travertine terraces of turquoise rice paddies.  After a few pictures at the base of the tall fall, we clamber up the muddy trail to its crown, explore and make good use of a rope swing over the largest feeder pool.  Still ahead of the day’s crowds, we slip back down through the broad-leaf Jurassic jungle and are among the first in the swimming pools below the falls, probing the uneven footing carefully and throwing our small orange football about.  It’s good fun but cold, so after an hour we dry and descend to the main parking lot for lunch, which consists of crepes cooked by disaffected merchants with hyena hygiene.  Pregnant dogs and puppies from their last lovers wander about the modest cafeteria.  Sue breaks out the Purell – it’s Asia.

Bouncing back to town, we take two to relax at our Cold River guest house before hiking up the local hill to catch the sunset.  It must have been a good idea, because about a thousand other tourists had it, and there’s quite a crowd up top. Obligatory orange orb shots in hand, we zip down the north slope to find the night market vendors setting up.  This gives us time to run a few errands- we book tomorrow’s travels, find our restaurant, take in the color and purchase some of those lacquer coconut bowls.  Then dinner, where we spend too much of the evening fretting about 2^nd hand tobacco smoke.  But our favorite dessert is across the street and we can rely on the Swashbuckler’s chocolate lava cake to distract us… we do and it does.