• **

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”

Our first and last experiences of Nepal (and some in between) were in the Kathmandu valley. Home to over a million people, this bowl between the Himalayas to the north and the Mahabharat Range to the south is Nepal's biggest urban area, combining the historic cities of Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur, and others. Landing here in an airplane is not for the faint of heart: final approach requires a pretty sharp bank and steep descent once you clear the valley's ridge!

The Kathmandu valley from Swayambunath Stupa, a Buddhist shrine overlooking the city

We stayed in Kathmandu long enough that it really began to feel home-like and kind of got into the groove of Nepali life, or at least life with the new friends we made from the missionary organization that our friend Kim had recently left. They were kind enough to look after us for the couple of days we waited for Kim to arrive (she had been delayed due to the closure of the Bangkok airport by pro-democracy protesters, in possibly the only case where I have been annoyed by those calling for liberty...). After so many months on the road, it was great to be among like-minded friends and just hang out, cook spaghetti and watch "The Office." Our friend Anna took me to the Nepali church she attends, which was a fascinating experience; unlike the Indonesian church we attended with my uncle, the music here was entirely indigenous, which I found very interesting.

Nepali men in traditional topi hats, taking it easy in Kathmandu's Durbar (Palace) Square

And there was something about the Nepali people that we were really attracted to. They are beautiful, with the dark skin and hair of their Indian cousins, but almond eyes reflecting their country's proximity to China. And they are very genuine, easy-going and friendly. With dozens of distinct ethnic groups and languages Nepal is truly multicultural, and it's one of the few places on earth it seems to work with almost no ethnic or religious strife. We started to joke that Nepal was India Lite: one-third less pollution, one-third less hassle, and two-thirds fewer cows in the streets.

A hauntingly beautiful Nepali girl in Kathmandu's Thahiti Tole Square

Kathmandu is a city with a lot of problems, though, along with Nepal in general. Although not as bad as Delhi, the air pollution is pretty bad. Like most large cities in the developing world, poverty is rampant, especially on the outskirts. We crossed a bridge over a stream in Bhaktapur where women were bathing and filling water jugs just downstream from a bloated goat carcass. And human trafficking is rampant, with young girls being kidnapped, or even sold by their families, into sexual slavery in Indian brothels.

“It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...”

Kathmandu is the cradle of Nepali culture -- if such a thing exists in a country this diverse. The valley is home to the Newar ethnic group, a sophisticated culture of merchants, farmers and highly-skilled artisans, and the historic cities of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur are full of their architectural gems, with multi-tiered temples and brick townhouses with ornately carved doors and window screens.

Patan's Durbar Square: temples on the left, palace on the right, Himalayas in the distance

The façade of Bhaktapur's Royal Palace, from Durbar Square (yes, each city has one...)

The famous carved wood Peacock Window on the Pujari Math monastery in Bhaktapur

The three cities were originally independent city-states that competed architecturally with each other in the valley until they were united (read: conquered) by Privthi Narayan Shah in the 1700s. Nepal remained an absolute monarchy until 1990, when King Birendra made the country a constitutional monarchy. Democracy didn't come easily, though, with lots of ineffective governments and a Communist insurgency that started in the mountains and gradually grew in power, sometimes hassling hikers on remote Annapurna mountain trails. Tragically, things didn't go so well for Birendra, either -- he and the entire royal family were gunned down by the Crown Prince Dipendra in a drunken rage over a woman his parents had forbidden him to marry.

Ironically, Dipendra reigned for three days while in a coma, sealing his fate as the nation's most ineffectual leader

The new century hasn't been much better for Nepal politically. Birendra's brother Gyanendra took the throne, and dissolved the government in 2005 after several years of a new prime minister every few months and an increasing Maoist threat. Pro-democracy demonstrations forced him to restore the parliament, which in turn dismissed him in 2008 and abolished the monarchy. Elections saw the Maoists take control, making Nepal one of the world's only nations with a democratically elected Communist government. The former king was given 15 days to vacate the Royal Palace so it could be turned into a museum. I suppose it's better than the guillotine, if you're going to fall victim to a revolution.

Popular hopes ran high that the Maoists would bring stability to Nepal.

“It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity...”

For a country that has had such difficulty in getting its act together politically, Nepal is remarkably stable, religiously. In a primarily Hindu nation that was the birthplace of the Buddha and is home to numerous Tibetan refugees, Nepali Hindus, Buddhists, and even minorities of Muslims and Christians coexist with remarkable peace (though not so much for the goats we saw sacrificed in the streets of Bhaktapur on a Hindu holiday).

The iconic Swayambunath Buddhist stupa, with its mysterious eyes of the Buddha on the base of the spire

Red-robed Tibetan women at the Bodhnath stupa

Buddhist prayer wheels at the Bodhnath stupa

Tibetan Buddhism is interesting and very different from the Buddhism practiced by the orange-robed monks of Thailand and Cambodia. Prayer services in the gompas (monasteries) are accompanied by loud banging drums, gongs, and discordant trumpets. At sunset, the whole community turns out to walk in circles around the stupa (always clockwise) in combination of prayer and social gathering.

It's fascinating to be able to experience this unusual culture in Kathmandu's Tibetan community at Bodhnath. Including the rather bizarre traditional cuisine of momos (Chinese style dumplings) and butter tea, which is exactly what it sounds like -- tea made with melted yak butter.

I thought it was disgusting, but Kim was able to choke it down...

Hindus are visibly the most dominant religion, but Buddhism developed out of Hinduism, and in Nepal the two have in some ways blended. A common sight in Kanthmandu are wandering sadhus, or holy mystics. They take a vow of poverty and wander around in robes with painted faces, seeking enlightenment and alms.

Hindu temples in Kathmandu's Durbar Square

A Hindu ceremony in Patan's Durbar Square, where wives are burning sacrifices for their husbands' health

Hindu sadhus sitting outside a Kathmandu temple

Real sadhus are less common, however, than ones who are focused more on getting paid by tourists for posing for photos. These guys were clearly of the economic variety. I prefer the miracle of the telephoto lens, personally.

One of the most interesting facets of Nepal's de-royalization campaign involved a mere girl, the Kumari Devi, Nepal's very own living goddess.

Sajani Shakya, the Kumari from 2001-2007

Chosen from among numerous candidates and believed to be an incarnation of the goddess Kali, the Kumari Devi (or royal Kumari) is worshipped, paraded around the city in a big annual festival, and blesses the king. She and her family get to live in a beautiful home near the Durbar Square and she is venerated until she hits puberty, at which point a new one is found; she gets a big dowry, but that's somewhat offset by the fact that it's not considered good luck to marry a former Kumari -- supposedly, you die coughing blood. Not exactly a turn-on for most guys.

The house of the Kumari, very quiet since the abolition of the monarchy

Of course, because the Kumari is so closely linked to the king, the ascension of the Maoists and the end of the monarchy left her future very uncertain. Ultimately, the Maoists appointed a new one just before we arrived, making a decision formerly reserved for the royal priest. I believe at the time we visited, she was living in her house, but not making any public appearances.

“It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness...”

For everything that is fantastic about Nepal, there are just some things that make you shake your head in wonder. It's a country plagued with institutionalized inefficiency and corruption. For example, guidebooks practically beg you to avoid flying Royal Nepal Airlines, which is notorious for delays, cancellations, and general bureaucratic mismanagement. If you want to get where you're going, they urge you to fly foreign carriers, or one of the private domestic airlines like Cosmic Air or Yeti Airlines (hey, it's owned by Sherpas!).

Another example: this is one of the most mountainous nations on earth, and there is the potential for enough hydroelectric power generation to light up not only Kathmandu, but the entire country and probably half of India as well. And yet, twice a day, every day... the lights go out. Scheduled rolling blackouts; each neighborhood knows what time each day they'll be relying on candles and batteries. It inevitably happens when you want to take a shower, or cook a meal.

The Browns, an America family at our guesthouse, having a dinner with "necessary romance"

“It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...”

All of this was supposed to get better, of course, when the Maoists made the leap from insurgents to the ruling party. The idealists on the Nepali left assumed that now that the right people were in charge, everything would be better. Hope springs eternal, but as is so often the case in these situations nothing really changed. The government was just as inefficient and corrupt with the guys on the other side in charge. The poor were still poor, the electricity still went out twice a day. And a few months ago, the Nepali electorate voted the Maoists out of power, in favor of a coalition government comprising basically everyone else.

(See, procrastination can have its benefits. If I'd written this post back in January...)

Living with this, as well as the religious belief in karma, kind of creates a sense of fatalism in the Nepali people. Your flight was overbooked? The power's out when you want to watch TV? Your new government's as bad as the old one?

You shrug your shoulders. "What can you do?"

“We had everything before us, we had nothing before us...”

And our time in Kathmandu concluded our trip. We set out on a very long trip home, flying from Kathmandu to Bangkok (where the airport was thankfully open again), had pad thai, a massage and a too-short night's sleep, and then flew from Bangkok to Taiwan to Los Angeles and onward to our new home in Houston. There was nothing left of our amazing journey but memories, and a new life ahead.

We came home to a country that had undergone a revolution of its own while we were gone. Like the Nepalis, hopes ran high for some that a swing to the left would solve our great difficulties. It remains to be seen whether the result will be different.

Re-entry was interesting. Lynn, of course, spent the better part of December and January flat on her back with a particularly virulent strain of giardia that required three weeks on antibiotics that turned her tongue black and her skin yellow. And the jobs we'd hoped for at the theatre company in Houston failed to materialize thanks to Hurricane Ike and the economy.

But just like Kathmandu's rolling blackouts, you find ways to create light even when it's dark.

• **

And so ends the travel blog. Check back again soon, though, for some coming attractions with lots of photos:

• "The Best Butchering of the English Language on Asian Signs"

• "Dead Stuff We Saw on the Road in India"

• "Faces of Asia"

...and maybe more!

Thanks for reading.

A Tale of Two... err... Three Cities remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After checking out the wildlife and hot elephant polo action in Chitwan, we headed back to Kathmandu for the weekend (I’ll be covering all of our time there in the next post). Early on Monday morning we caught a flight on Yeti Airlines (truly -- it’s Sherpa-owned, and one of Nepal’s best!) to Pokhara, the trekking capital of Nepal. Resting beside a beautiful lake at the foot of the Himalayas’ Annapurna range, this is a Mecca for outdoor enthusiasts of every kind. We stayed at a guesthouse in Lakeside, one of the world’s hugest backpacker ghettos, stretching for a couple of miles along (well, obviously) the lake.

A Nepali REI

Lakeside is one long string of trekking equipment shops, souvenir stands, used book stores, travel agencies, money exchangers, and restaurants featuring the same menu: Indian and Nepali dishes, Chinese, and “Continental,” which is sort of a catch-all category for hamburgers, pizza, pasta and even Mexican. It’s kind of interesting that Nepalis seem willing to take a culinary shot at making anything; this is a tradition that goes back to the ‘60s and the days of hippies overlanding from Europe through Asia in search of enlightenment and cheap pot, and finishing in Nepal. Some smart Nepalis realized that all these westerners were starved for variety after months of curried lentils and vegetables in Pakistan and India, so entrepreneurs that they are, they started opening travellers’ cafes that served everything under the sun -- but made with locally available ingrediants, so it never comes out quite like you’d expect. Thus, you order “Tacos de pollo” from the menu, and what comes out is a big hard corn shell stuffed with diced chicken and kidney beans, laid on its side and smothered in not-particularly-spicy tomato sauce and cheese like an enchilada, and sprinkled with parsley rather than cilantro. It's not bad, it's just not quite right. It’s sort of a reverse-synergy: the whole is somehow slightly less than the sum of its parts.

It was a misty day when we arrived, so we decided to spend the afternoon looking around the non-ghetto part of the town, attractively dubbed Old Pokhara.

Nothing much happening in Pokhara

Truth is, there’s not really much to see there. It took all of about ten minutes to mosey down the street called the “old bazaar.” There were a few shops selling baskets and cloth and other staples to locals, and that was about it.

Not exactly burning up the cash register

But hey -- no one comes to Pokhara to see sights in the town anyway. The sun came out and mists parted the next day, showing us what they do come for...

Rooftop view

We took a colorful rowboat across the lake...

All those years as a boyscout come in handy once in a while

...and climbed to the Peace Pagoda at the top of the ridge south of the lake for the view of Mt. Machhupachhare (don’t ask me how to pronounce that) and the rest of the Annapurnas in all their glory.

The Annapurna mountains over Pokhara’s Lake Phewa

Machhupachhare

Mountains display a synergy of their own. Really, they’re just incredibly huge rocks. But you put a bunch of these huge rocks together, and you get a sight that defies words. I mean, what can you write about mountains? They’re big. They’re beautiful. They make normally rational people want to climb them. I wish there was more that I could say, but really you just stand there looking at them and saying to yourself, “Yup, this sure doesn’t suck. I am so blessed to be looking at this.” And you take some photos, knowing that there’s no way a camera can capture the view, or the feeling of looking at them. They are simply beyond words. We go to see them, as one climber sagely put, “because it is there.”

Speaking of “normally rational,” the following day we drove around the lake and up to Sarangkot at the top of the cliff, where I proceeded to run off of it and fly back down.

The knowledge of Craig, a Zimbabwean paraglider, is all that stands between you and certain death

Nepal rivals New Zealand as a magnet for adrenaline junkies, and while I’m normally pretty sane, I really wanted to try paragliding. In Pokhara, you can do tandem flights with a seasoned pro, so I strapped on a helmet, and off we went.

You take a big rectangle of nylon and a bunch of ropes, a strong mountain wind, and the mind of a man who can sense the air currents with his whole body, and you create an amazing synergy.

It’s called flying.

Himalayan Highs remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We were meeting an old friend, Kim, at the airport when we arrived. Unfortunately, Kim’s route from the USA took her through Bangkok -- during the week that pro-democracy demonstrators occupied the airport, forcing the cancellation of all flights into and out of the country. She was routed through Singapore instead but got to Kathmandu two days late, so we spent a couple of days just relaxing at our guesthouse. When she did arrive, after a day of recovery time we immediately took off for Nepal’s Terai region, the fertile lowlands along the India border. This semi-tropical plain is home to half the Nepali population, the birthplace of the Buddha, and our destination: Chitwan National Park, Nepal’s most-visited patch of forest.

Lynn and Kim, proving that it IS in fact a jungle out there

Called “Royal Chitwan National Park” until King Gyanendra was deposed a couple of years ago and the country went on the biggest demonarchialization drive since the Reign of Terror, Chitwan is a former hunting preserve for the kings of Nepal and is a great place to see a variety of wildlife. We took an early-morning canoe trip down the River Rapti...

Nothing but the sound of birds and the lap of water against the boat

...and headed into the forest with our guide, Lalu...

The finest in Nepali jungle engineering -- don't fall in, there's crocs down there!

...in search of “big game.”

Rhino poo, and it’s fresh...

Among the creatures we encountered were:

Curious langur monkeys in the trees

”Marsh Mugger” crocodiles sunning themselves on the riverbank

No, this bad boy wasn’t in the wild; he was in a pen, captured after having tasted human blood. Still beautiful, though...

One-horned Indian rhinos grazing in the forest -- this was a treat, these guys are really rare outside the park

And, of course, we saw (and rode on) elephants. We visited the Elephant Breeding Center near the town where we stayed. It’s quite a sight, with mothers and babies.

Elephants in the mist (well, smoke actually -- they produce a lot of poo that needs to be disposed of!)

Who could resist that face?

The unexpected highlight of the trip to Chitwan, though, was going to watch the U.S. team compete in the World Elephant Polo Association tournament!

The finest in pachyderm polo action

Yes, there is such a thing as polo played on elephants (they use a standard ball and mallets with really long handles), and yes, the United States does have a team -- the New York Blue.

How can you not want to hang with a team whose uniform features blue Chuck Taylors?

We happened to be on the same flight from Delhi with these guys, and we decided it was our patriotic duty to come see them play. Basically, they’re a bunch of drinking buddies who decided it was a shame that we didn’t have a team, so they formed one, practicing on top of SUVs to prepare for the tournament.

And the truth is, elephant polo is a blast to watch! We cheered and chanted “USA! USA!” like nationalistic hooligans, and were rewarded for our efforts with a resounding victory over the Indian Tigers.

Mounting up behind their mahout (elephant driver)

The referee tossing the ball to start the first “chukker” (period)

Racing after the ball with India in hot pursuit

It’s anyone’s ball!

Gooooal!

If you’ve been following our blog since the beginning, you know that I like to find a larger lesson in what we’ve seen and experienced, and finish each entry with some sort of pithy observation. Well, apart from noting that the polo players wore something like pith helmets, I really can’t come up with a witty closing for this post. So I’ll leave it at this:

It doesn’t get much better than good friends, the beauty of God’s creation, and eight elephant-borne dudes with sticks trying to whack a little white ball between two posts.

Rhinos and Tigers and Elephant... Polo? remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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And trust me, there is no way that you can miss an Indian wedding. In the West, we tie a few cans to the bumper of a car and paint “Just Married” on the back. In India, there is a procession through the streets with the bride riding behind the groom on the back of a white horse (or even an elephant if you can afford it, I suppose, as we saw several times in Delhi). They are both dressed in incredible finery, with ornate bejewelled headbands for her and a big turban for him, and they are preceeded by a marching band and followed by a horse-drawn cart with a generator for the string lights carried by the merry-makers. It’s a huge, festive party, and I really wish I had some pictures to share, but I never had my camera along when we came upon one!

But we noticed one odd thing, and this comes back to the cultural differences: the bride was always a lot younger than the groom. In the case of one wedding procession we passed in Jodhpur, the groom was about 25, and the bride appeared to be maybe 15. The whole concept of getting married that young, and probably by the arrangement of your parents with the groom’s, just doesn’t jibe too well with the Western ideal of how romance and marriage work. And it also doesn’t automatically sit well with young Indians, either. Many are being influenced by the relationships they see in the movies, and “love marriages” are becoming much more common than they used to be.

From Jaisalmer, we traveled eastward to two larger Indian cities where we observed a lot about love in India, both historic and modern: first to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, and then to Agra, home to India’s greatest icon.

Jaipur is called the Pink City, and upon entering the old part of town, it’s not difficult ot see why: everything, from the city gate...

...to the buildings of the back alleys...

...is painted a lovely warm terra cotta pink. Jaipur may not be the most peaceful or beautiful or dramatic city in India, but the color creates a nice unifying quality that is very attractive.

The city is best known for the famous Hawa Mahal, or Palace of the Winds: an incredibly ornate and stunningly beautiful architectural confection attached to the Maharaja’s palace.

Interestingly, it’s almost just a façade: only one narrow room deep

The Hawa Mahal was built so the women of the Maharaja’s harem could remain secluded while watching the outside world go by. This custom, guarding the virtue of women by protecting them from outside eyes, is called purdah, and is still practiced to some degree today in more conservative segments of Indian society. The Hawa Mahal is fronted with windows filled with fine laticework that shielded the Maharaja’s wives and concubines from the attentions of those going about their business in the streets below.

A short way outside the city is the Amber Fort, one of the most graceful and stately in Rajasthan.

It’s a long climb to the gate

Like every Indian castle, the Amber Fort features two main areas: the public and private rooms where the Maharajas held court and lived, and the zenana, where the women resided. The rules of purdah ensured that only eunuchs served the ladies, and only the Maharaja himself could enter the zenana. This sounds incredibly restrictive and sexist, but it was all in the spirit of protecting the women. Or so we are told.

Today, however, the relationship of the sexes is influenced far less by courtly honor than by the silver screen. India is the world’s most voracious market for movies, and the Hindi film industry has come to be known by the nickname “Bollywood” (after Bombay, or Mumbai, where most are produced). You think the American movie industry is important in our culture? It’s got nothing on Bollywood. The day after the Mumbai terror attacks, the front page of Delhi’s English-language paper, the Hindustan Times, was covered with quotes from... Security officers? Politicians? Nope: Bollywood actors and directors. They’re huge -- looming larger in Indian culture than just about anyone other than Gandhi and the Hindu gods.

Bollywood films are really interesting. They are almost all romantic comedies of the “boy and girl (who are both stunningly gorgeous) meet, fall in love, are separated by some obstacle that they eventually overcome and get married in the end” variety that almost never comes out of Hollywood anymore. They are extremely clean, as India’s censors allow nothing more than chaste hand-holding and longing looks, even after the wedding. And most interestingly, they are almost all musicals, with syruppy balads, soaring duets, and big, flashy production numbers -- all of which may or may not have anything to do with the plot. A really terrific English-language example of Bollywood style is British/Indian director Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice, an Indian adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that is well worth checking out.

In Jaipur, we decided to go to the historic Raj Mandir Cinema to catch the latest Bollywood offering.

Indian Art Deco at its best

I have no idea what the title means

The movie was a real treat, and seeing it surrounded by Indians who were all curious whether we followed it -- we didn’t understand a word but we didn’t really need to -- was a blast. Prem (Sonu Sood) and Chandni (Eesha Koppikhar) meet in a music competition, fall in love and sing to each other a lot, but can’t get married because her father dies and she has family responsibilities. Prem becomes a music star and Chandni opens a music school, and years later things finally work out for them. Not exactly profound, but good fun.

Interestingly, since the censors are so strict, it forces the directors to find other ways to build romantic tension since the characters can’t just jump in the sack. So they are much more creative; this movie had a really wonderful scene where Prem sings to Chandni as she sleeps on a train. There is a terrific moment when a gust of wind blows aside her sari, exposing her foot. Sonu Sood’s acting and the cinematography in that moment were amazing; I never knew that the sight of a toe could be so erotic. It was very effective!

From Jaipur, we headed to our final destination in India: the big, ugly industrial city of Agra, which just happens to be the home of quite possibly the most beautiful building in the world...

...the Taj Mahal. You’ve seen it in pictures, but pictures really don’t do it justice. And it does change colors throughout the day:

Brilliant white at midday

Dusty rose at sunset

Soft blue at dusk

The Taj Mahal is also the world’s greatest monument to love. It was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in 1631 as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child -- now that’s devotion. Quite romantic. A fitting end to this examination of love and marriage, Indian style.

And to our time in India.

Love Indian Style remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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There is no easy train connection between Udaipur and our next stop, Jodhpur. Rather than risk a public bus when we were still not at 100%, we decided to splurge on hiring a car and driver to make the six-hour trip. Let me tell you, the roads in India are a real experience. Some time in the future (probably when we are back and have a more reliable and speedy internet connection) there will be a post of photos of stuff we saw on the road to Jodhpur. And I mean, ON the road to Jodhpur. Driving in India is not for the faint of heart. Even being a passenger requires some guts -- or a blindfold and Valium.

Jodhpur is magnificent. Lying on the edge of western India’s Great Thar Desert, it seems torn from the pages of a history book. With the huge and imposing Meherangarh Fort guarding bright blue houses tumbling down a rocky red cliff, it is Rajasthan’s most dramatic city...

Jodhpur: you can almost hear the echoes of the Maharajas’ horns

...and also one of India’s noisiest and most chaotic. The tangle of narrow bazaars in the old city accommodates a ridiculous amount of autorickshaw, motorbike, bicycle, human, and bovine traffic, and the cramped alleyways reflect and even seem to magnify the incessant horns.

Watch your step -- “cow chocolate” everywhere

In search of a little quiet, we took a jeep ride out into the countryside with Deepak Choudri, a local guide. Deepak is from a region that is home to a sect called the Bishnoi, and he runs tours that raise money for economic and social development, and support local artisan cooperatives.

That’s a vintage 1959 U.S. Army Jeep that he’s restored

The Bishnoi are farmers and herders who traditionally live in grass-roofed mud huts and are very conservation-minded, protecting the endangered trees and antelope with their lives if necessary. We took a drive out among the villages.

Bishnoi village, now complete with solar electricity

Traditionally, Bishnoi women wear elaborate jewellery as a symbol of marriage

We stopped and had chai (sweet, milky Indian tea) with a local family Deepak knew. They spoke almost no English, but the teenage daughters, Sharda and Neema, had a great time getting Lynn all dolled up in local fashion -- Indians really seem to find fair skin fascinating.

Bishnoi fashion plates -- the latest in desert couture

From Jodhpur, we took an overnight train to the end of the line: the remote outpost of Jaisalmer (JYE-sahl-meer). Rising like a desert dream from the dusty Rajasthani landscape, Jaisalmer really feels like another world.

”Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore...”

Only 100km from the Pakistan border, Jaisalmer is ancient. Within its massive sandstone fortress, the oldest inhabited fort in the world, lie dozens of golden havelis (traditional merchant mansions built around courtyards).

Echoes of the silk road caravansarais of the past

As one might expect from its proximity to Pakistan (a fact you cannot forget due to the frequent roar of Indian Air Force jets on patrol), the city has a distinctly middle-eastern flavor. There is a definite frontier-town feel in the air; the streets are a little dustier, the saris a bit brighter, and the turbans a touch whiter than anywhere else. This feels like India’s wild, wild west.

Everything you need for outfitting your expedition over the dunes

However, Jaisalmer is anything but undiscovered; the whole fort seems to exist for three things: selling food and beds to tourists, selling jewellery and textiles to tourists, and especially, selling camel safaris to tourists.

The main square of the old city: autorickshaws, cows, and carpets

No one comes to Jaisalmer without going off on a camel safari (ranging from an afternoon to a week), and we were no exception. Choosing a local outfit called Ganesh Travels that is owned by its camel drivers, we joined a small group that drove out into the desert to meet up with our new humpy pals.

Sweet ride, dude -- tricked out with the cool nose spikes and all

You ain’t lived ‘til you’ve mounted a camel

I am here to tell you that riding a camel for two days is excruciating -- there are no stirrups, so it’s just you, your *ss, and the camel bumpin’ along the sands. My thigh muscles will never be the same. But it was great fun. Our drivers, Mr. Khan and Mr. Ramadan, were hystically funny. Both of them grew up in the area and have been camel drivers with Ganesh for years (“Camel College -- plenty knowledge!”). One camel in our group had serious need of some Tums, frequently letting loud and particularly sour farts...

“OH my GOD! Camel naughty -- make desert perfume!”

They had a rhyme for everything... “No chapati, no chai, no woman, no cry.” “No hurry, no worry, no chicken, no curry.” I have no clue what the point was, but they cracked us up, bantering as they sat around the fire making vegetable curry and chapatis (whole wheat unleavened bread).

Chapatis, fried over an open fire then finished in the ashes -- gritty goodness

The Great Thar Desert is desolate but not barren -- in fact, it is the most densely populated desert in the world. There are many villages inhabited by goat and sheep herders among the scrub brush and acacia trees. During the annual monsoon, the desert blooms and they grow wheat where only a few short months later it is just rocks.

Waning daylight in a Thar desert metropolis

We slept among sand dunes under a pile of blankets -- it gets really cold in the desert. But sunrise over the desert with a cup of hot chai brewed by a turbaned camel driver over an open fire is a pretty darn special morning.

The Swirling Sands of Time remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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They say that if you travel to India, it’s going to happen to you. Clinically known as “Traveler’s Diarrhoea” (I do prefer the British spelling; that extra ‘o’ makes the word look so much prettier), everyone on the road calls it simply “Delhi Belly.” No matter how careful you are, inspecting the seal on each bottle of water, carefully assessing the hygiene of every dining establishment, avoiding food that has been sitting out, and washing your hands religiously, it’s just a fact of life. Come to India, and you are almost certain, as travel host Anthony Bourdain so eloquently puts it, to spend some quality time on the “Thunder Bucket.”

Our adventure -- and trust me, this is a story worth hearing -- began at the Pushkar Camel Fair, where we inhaled prodigious amounts of dust and camel fur, both of which we are allergic to. Combined with the toxic goo still stuck in our lungs from breathing the air (and I use the term loosely) in Delhi, we both were feeling the beginnings of some pretty unpleasant respiratory issues as we settled into the evening train ride to Udaipur.

And then came the fatal error in judgement: dinner on the train. It was such simple food; dhal (lentil curry), rice, and chapatis (unleavened whole wheat bread). It looked so innocent. It didn’t even have any meat. Well, something was hiding in there, alive, lying in wait...

As I have discussed in several previous posts, on this trip we are frequently staying with local people that we have met through an online hospitality organization called Couchsurfing. In Udaipur, we were supposed to be staying for three nights with an Indian man named Raj and his family. We arrived late (about 10:30pm) and they welcomed us warmly: Raj and his wife, his two beautiful little girls, and his mother. A really nice family, typical Indian middle class. They have a very pleasant flat in a classic building in Udaipur’s old city. We sat together in the small living room talking for a while, and they brought us some palak paneer (fresh cheese in spinach sauce) to taste -- we think they probably had a whole dinner waiting for us and were disappointed we had already eaten. But we were very tired, so we said we would like to go to bed.

“Alright, no problem,” said Raj. “You and I will sleep in the room across the courtyard, and the women will sleep in the other room here.”

OK, interesting. Not a sleeping arrangement we had anticipated or ever encountered before, but then, this is India and as I said they are a very traditional Indian family. So, putting on our best game faces, we headed off to separate sides of the house to sleep. Interesting and unusual, but certainly nothing we couldn’t handle.

And then, about an hour later, it happened: the Gut Gurgglies. You know what I’m talking about; that ominous feeling of the flood gates at both ends of your stomach being thrown open, emptying its entire contents into the express lanes to the nearest exits. The harbinger of imminent and extreme digestive unpleasantness. “This is Mission Control, T-minus-five and counting...”

I was going to be sick, and I knew it. In someone else’s house.

I got up and went out to scout the bathroom situation. It was just off the courtyard; thankfully not attached to either bedroom area -- not that Raj was likely to hear any unpleasant sound effects considering the depth of his slumber. I opened the door; yep, as expected, it was a squatter. Well, not ideal, but I would make do. Toilet paper? Of course not; this is India, where only foreigners wipe instead of wash. But no problem; I had a roll in my backpack, which was still in the living room. I went to the door to the other part of the house, where the women were asleep.

Padlocked shut.

Apparently they really take protecting their women seriously in India. I did not take personal offense at this, since my own wife was in there as well, though I did pause to consider the implications if there were a fire. But I can’t say I was very pleased with the development. Beginning to feel an urgent situation arising, I went back to the bathroom that would be my personal chamber of horrors for the rest of the night, resigned to the unfamiliar and unpleasant task of washing after each round of fireworks.

Diarrhoea with cramps on a squat toilet is not a very amusing experience. Vomiting into one is worse. The old plumbing leaked water all over the floor, so I had to kind of straddle the puddle, crouching with my knees against the edge of the toilet platform, and get my face quite unpleasantly close to the squatter to avoid missing it. In retrospect I am sure I looked really funny. Say what you want about the squat toilet being more ergonomic for defecation, the western toilet is way better for vomiting.

About 6am, I heard movement (and an unlocking padlock) from the other side of the flat, and I went to find Lynn. She had spent the night attempting not to cough in the faces of the wife and daughter with whom she had shared the bed. One look at my face as I croaked, “Hotel...” and she understood that things had not gone well for me either.

We apologized profusely to Raj and his family for needing to leave and be sick in private. They were all very concerned for us and sorry to see us go. And we were sad to leave -- they were lovely people, and we would have enjoyed getting to know them better. But it’s really hard to be a good guest when you are dreadfully ill. So we caught a lift to a cheap guesthouse and spent the next four days recovering. And there are certainly worse places than Udaipur to be stuck in a hotel room, looking at the view out of your window.

India. It has a way of getting into your head, and your heart.

As well as your guts.

Toilet Traumas II: The Squatter Strikes Back remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Peaceful Pushkar, by its holy lake

The train was pretty normal, but the bus was quite an experience: a brightly-painted old school bus, packed full of excited Indian locals in their Sunday (or whatever day is appropriate for Hindus...) best. And, two bemused Westerners.

What this picture does not fully capture is that the kids in the front are all singing at the top of their lungs

And the reason for all the hullabaloo?

The Pushkar Camel Fair, for which we were arriving on the tail-end. It was over-the-hump several days earlier.

Sorry.

Anyway, the Camel Fair is a huge deal, one of the biggest festivals in India, with tribal people from all over Rajasthan coming into town to trade livestock...

”OK, ten thousand camels, but only because your sister broke a glass!”

...gossip and buy the latest in deserty fashions...

”So Vikram told Arvind that Nitin likes Kiran, but Deepti told...”

...and strike marriage bargains (I am of course not making this up).

If you can’t read the bottom, it says “Arrangement of Marriages & Parties”

The Fair coincides with Kartik Purnima, a festival in which the Hindu faithful come to bathe in the waters of the sacred lake where Brahma, the creator, dropped a lotus flower. They go down to the ghats, steps to the lakeshore, and ceremonially wash while saying prayers.

These are the steps down to the ghats; photos there are not allowed

From Pushkar, we travelled south to another lakeside city: lovely Udaipur, a city of grand palaces. Capital of the kingdom of Mewar, which maintained sovereignty under its proud Maharanas right through ‘til independence from Britain in 1947, Udaipur has numerous palaces ringing, and in the middle of, peaceful Lake Pichola.

The City Palace, now restored as a museum

Fateh Prakash Palace next door, a swanky hotel

Lake Palace, an even swankier hotel, and James Bond hangout

Udaipur is an incredibly romantic place; wonderful for sitting on a veranda, sipping a cocktail as the sun slips below the mountains across the lake. Unfortunately, we didn’t experience a whole lot of that romance, because we were mostly holed up in our room. Stay tuned for exciting details in our next post...

Toilet Traumas II: The Squatter Strikes Back

Of Camels And Castles remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The way of the world: the sun sets on everything eventually

After the intensity of Bangkok and the preceding month of rushing through Southeast Asia, we needed a vacation from our vacation before taking the plunge into India. So we set off for the Thai coast and the island of Koh Chang, enduring a rather unpleasant five-hour van ride with a group of four French stoners who insisted on smoking in the van, doing more to damage Franco-US relations than Dominique de Villepin. But it didn’t matter once the ferry pulled up to the island.

Mountainous Koh Chang under a glowering sky

After its food, Thailand is probably best known for its beaches, and its islands are legendary. Swish Koh Phi Phi is too budget-breaking and party heaven Koh Phangan with its beach raves isn’t really our scene, so we opted for Koh Chang both because of its proximity to Bangkok and its status as a National Marine Park, meaning slightly less development. We were just looking for a place to chill out for a few days, and we found it: on the more quiet eastern side of the island, at a secluded beach-side spot called The Souk.

Nuthin’ but the sound of the surf (and the rain...)

Just what the doctor ordered: for $10 a night, you get your own thatch-roofed, whitewashed bungalow, complete with groovy under-the-bed lighting...

Note that the drug laws in Thailand are very severe, which I think is sort of too bad because how can you not be tempted when you’ve got a bed like this?

...and trippy tunes in the beachside cabana where Ed, the long-haired hippyish Thai “Head Dude” (so it says on his business card) holds forth behind the bar, mixing a mean margarita.

Yes, we can see you behind the glass, Lynn

So, after a pleasantly unhurried couple of days of mellowness, we took a deep breath, plugged our noses, and jumped off the pier from paradise into the swirling maelstrom that is Delhi, India.

Hope you’ve got your hanky handy, because you’re in black snot land now

There is absolutely no way to prepare yourself for India. The noise, the filth and pollution, the crush of people, and the poverty are unlike anything else that I have experienced... ever. We sat on the highway while our cabbie argued with another motorist after a fender-bender on the way into the city from the airport. We sat in the streets -- twice -- while wedding processions with brass marching bands and elephants stopped traffic. We were accosted by beggars with every possible deformity. We witnessed people defecating in the streets. It is, without question, the most soul-wrenching place I have ever seen.

Delhi: the bazaar of the bizarre

And yet, that is not the only side of Delhi. We were there during a big Sikh religious festival (celebrating the death of one of the gurus, not sure exactly), for example, and at times beauty pierced the ugliness. From colors on the street...

Offering flowers

Old Sikh warriors marching in a parade

...to stately architecture amid the decay...

The Mughal-style Jami Mosque, the largest in India

The British Raj-era government buildlings -- and note that this is at mid-afternoon, not sunset

...to simple glimpses of the faces of the people being human in a place that drains humanity...

A gorgeous sari at sunset

Morning light

...there are moments when Delhi has a certain charm. Moments when grace contrasts with chaos and filth.

It reminds me of some lines by a poetic songwriter named Jeff Johnson:

On and on this cycle goes
Wretchedness and beauty juxtaposed

The modern world often amazes me -- we can wake up on Koh Chang, in a quiet island paradise, and go to sleep in Delhi, a frenetic, seething cauldron. I can't think of two places that are more radically different. The concept of juxtaposition is one that has always fascinated me, pairing two opposites to highlight each other's qualities. The beauty of Koh Chang amplifies the ugliness of Delhi. And yet Delhi's ugliness in a way provides an ideal lens to magnify its charms.

Juxtaposition remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Bangkok: Oriental setting
And the city don’t know what the city is getting

Actually, this city knows perfectly well what it is getting: tourists, in droves. Bangkok’s attractions along the Chao Phraya river are well-known, and we hit them: the Grand Palace, Wat Pho temple.

Bangkok’s gilded Grand Palace

”This enlightenment stuff is hard work; feels good to take a load off”

But we had an impulse to dig deeper into what makes Bangkok tick.

This grips me more than would a
Muddy old river or Reclining Buddha

For a significant portion of those who come to Bangkok, this city means one thing...

Sex.

Thailand, dubbed the “Land of Smiles” for the friendliness of its people, has built quite a business of putting smiles on the faces of lonely men (and yes, women too) from around the globe who come there for the sole purpose of getting their rocks off. The “sex tourism” industry -- and it is definitely an industry -- is practiced almost as openly in Bangkok as the silk trade. And it is just as smooth.

In the lobby of our hostel

So as night fell we set off, curiousity piqued and guard up, to observe Bangkok’s nocturnal offerings.

One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain’t free
You’ll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you’re lucky, then the god’s a she
I can feel an angel walking next to me

Our first stop was the brightly-lit commercial strip of Sukhumvit Road, home to the Mambo Cabaret, one of Bangkok’s most famous floor shows. Muscular young Thai men in tuxes dance to hits Asian and Western with lip-synching chorus girls strutting their stuff in feathers and sequins.

”You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you...”

It’s classic Vegas-style schtick, but with a twist. The chorus girls... aren’t girls.

They’re transexuals. Very convincing, and very beautiful, they are kathoey (“third gender”), or “lady boys.” This has a long history in Thailand and is an accepted part of the culture, and Bangkok has them in spades. Many of them practice the street trade, which could make for a big surprise for a unsuspecting customer, since many of them are impossible to distinguish from the real thing.

But the Mambo Cabaret is more cheese than sleaze; it’s just good clean fun with great choreography, flashy costumes, and... umm... chicks with... well, you know.

”Dude looks like a lady...”

After the end of the cabaret show, we set off for someplace a bit darker, and more historic.

”Tea girls, warm, sweet
Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite”

Get Thai'd! You’re talking to a tourist
Whose every move's among the purest
I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine

During the Vietnam war, American GI’s came to Bangkok on R&R, and the center of action was a soi (side street) that went by the name of “Cowboy.”

Echoes of ”Hey Joe, me love you long time!”

Soi Cowboy is still going strong 40 years later, and remains an underworld circus of cheap beer joints, go-go bars (where the dancers wear bikinis -- ironically, Thailand is quite conservative about public nudity), and hostess clubs. In these establishments, “hostesses” are waiting to engage in flirtatious conversation with you for as long as you are willing to buy them outrageously expensive drinks.

Waiting outside for customers

Hit it off with your new “friend”? Simply go to the bar and pay the “bar fine” to allow her to leave with you. Any further negotiation is between you and her.

The girls come with numbers for easy identification -- and dehumanization?

Let it not be said that the Thais in this business don’t have a sense of humor, though...

Now that’s what I call truth in advertising

And they aren’t lying -- we saw some real elephants on that street.

I did say it was a circus, didn’t I?

You can’t visit Bangkok without noticing a certain phenomenon. There are a lot of older -- and often bald and pudgy -- farangs (foreign men) walking around with young, hot Thai women. This has become so common that there is a slang term for it: “Nana couples.”

Oh yeah, she’s out of his league, alright

The name comes from the Nana Entertainment Complex, a three-story outdoor strip mall of bars, pool halls and dance clubs, all of them featuring women who are in business. Everything you could want, under one roof -- makes comparison shopping easier, I suppose.

A veritable one-stop sin emporium

I asked the young woman who worked at the desk at our hostel what she and other Thais thought about this. Did they look down on their countrywomen who take up with farangs for economic reasons?

“Yes,” she nodded. “We don’t really approve. But at the same time, many of them come to Bangkok from very poor areas of Thailand, and they have no other skills. They are just trying to make a better life for themselves. So even if we don’t approve, we don’t really condemn them, either. I can understand their choice.”

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstacy

And as we walked around that night, and the days since, I started to notice a pattern in my thinking. I found myself becoming suspicious of nearly everyone that I passed on the street.

One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can’t be too careful with your company

That well-dressed and attractive young Thai woman getting off the Skytrain...

Is she just gorgeous and out for a night on the town, or is she open for business?

That older farang pausing at a food stall near Soi Cowboy...

Is he just a friendly guy out for a snack, or a sex tourist taking a break between bar girls?

That Westerner and local woman sitting together at the restaurant where we ate dinner...

Is the basis of their relationship love, or money?

Awareness can be a dangerous thing. When your eyes are opened to what’s really going on around you, it changes your perceptions. The “Land of Smiles” can all too easily become the “Land of Leers.” Sometimes maybe it’s better to keep your eyes closed.

I can feel the devil walking next to me

• * *

Disclosure: Should go without saying, but most of the background information for this post comes not from personal experience, but from a website called “Stickman’s Guide to Bangkok,” which is recommended in Lonely Planet as a pretty palatable look into this world.

Song lyrics for One Night In Bangkok from Chess by Tim Rice. Copyright sometime in the ‘80s, but I’m pretty sure this falls under the fair use clause anyway, so who cares.

One Night In Bangkok remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Massive Angkor Wat, serene on its island

There are many smaller ruins in the area to explore: an amateur archaeologist’s dream come true. The ruined city of Angkor Thom features dozens of mysterious faces on the Bayon, thought to be a mausoleum for the king.

Ever feel like you’re being watched?

The most fascinating is a small temple called Ta Prohm, which has been left in pretty much the same condition in which the encroaching jungle has left it. It feels straight out of an adventure movie.

”Indy! Over here... Watch out for that snake!”

The detailed carving in some of these temples is astounding. Angkor Thom’s Bayon, for example, has over 1.2km of carved friezes featuring over 11,000 figures. It’s overwhelming.

An apsara (heavenly nymph) figure from Banteay Srei temple

But as amazing as Angkor was, we were also a bit sad because our time in Cambodia would be so limited -- only a few days, too little time to really do justice to a country that has suffered so much and has so much to offer visitors. One of the poorest nations in Asia, Cambodia is of course best remembered for its recent history of terrible violence and genocide under the communist Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. Now liberated from Pol Pot’s maniacal grasp, Cambodia is slowly clawing its way out of poverty and into the world of modern democracy.

Minefields -- a legacy of years of civil war

Some of our most rewarding experiences in Cambodia were trips through the countryside on our way to see the “sights.”

Cambodia -- home to some of the worst roads in the world

"OK, you want transport?" No, not all public transportation is quite this bad

We took a boat trip through the flooded forest of Kompong Phhluk to a floating village. Quite an experience.

Poor, but with loving touches like bright paint and flowers

A life lived on the water

What struck me most was the smiles of the Cambodian people. They have been through so much, and have so little compared to us visitors from “richer” nations. And yet, they seem to live with a sense of contentment that I envy, a joy in simple things like a swim in front of the house.

This sounded exactly like it looks

Is it condescending of us to come half-way around the world, float by, and look at people who live their entire lives in what we consider terrible poverty? Possibly.

Is it equally condescending to watch the way they live and to observe that they seem happier than many people I know who have far more? Maybe. I’m not saying poverty is a good thing; if there was a way that I could personally snap my fingers and make their lives “better,” I would. But I also could not help noticing those smiles. I don’t see a lot of people I pass on the streets in America with smiles like that, even though they have a lot more stuff.

I noted that there were pumps in the yards of many of the houses of the people around Angkor, with signs from a charitable organization stating who had donated the money for them. I think this is great, and a way in which tourism is having a real, positive impact on the lives of ordinary people who need help. Visitors to the temples see the poverty and are driven to donate so that someone less fortunate than them can simply have clean water.

I would like to do this. I can only hope and pray that I might learn some of that ability to smile in return.

Stuff, Part 2 remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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For Americans of three generations, there is possibly no country on Earth that has left as deep an imprint on the psyche as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The images of our military involvement there -- a Viet Cong guerilla with a pistol to his head, Jane Fonda sitting on a North Vietnamese cannon, a little girl running naked from her burning village, the last helicopter leaving the roof of the American embassy as Saigon fell to the communists -- are indelibly burned on our imagination.

Only thirty-three years ago

But what is Vietnam today? This narrow strip of a nation with over 80 million people, stretching from the mountainous Chinese border in the North to the delta of the mighty Mekong in the South; is it still the jungle quagmire where America lost such a huge piece of its innocence?

In a word, not even remotely. OK, that was actually three words. But Vietnam today defies easy description. The old coexists with the new in Vietnam in ways that are immediately apparent to the visitor.

Duality in today’s Vietnam

For starters, like its giant neighbor to the north, Vietnam has chosen a middle path that maintains authoritarian governmental control while jettisoning communist collectivism in favor of a market economy. And the Vietnamese people, entrepreneurial to the core, have embraced it whole-heartedly; witness the taxi driver with a faulty meter who ripped us off for a 5km ride costing $30.

We arrived in Hanoi, the former capital of communist North Vietnam, from Shanghai. We had heard wonderful descriptions of the French colonial Old Quarter, and came with visions of quietly crumbling cafes, breakfasts munching crispy baguettes with espresso, peaceful Buddhist temples amid misty lakes, and locals in conical hats on bicycles.

The Hanoi of our dreams

Well, there are bikes on the road in Hanoi, but the vast majority are motorbikes -- swarms of them. They are everywhere.

Adventures in crossing the street

Now, credit where credit is due: the baguettes in Vietnam are actually the best I’ve ever tasted, even better than in France. But truthfully, Hanoi’s Old Quarter was a bit of a let-down. Oh, the faded elegance of bygone colonial days is there, but it’s mostly plastered over with billboards for Levis, signs for travel agencies and cheap backpacker guesthouses, and awnings for silk shops.

Gallic goodness... it’s in there somewhere

The biggest black mark for Hanoi, though, was that it was incredibly stressful to walk around. There is the constant buzz of motorbikes, the drivers of which all consider it their moral duty to beep their horn incessantly whenever there is another person in the same time zone. And furthermore, you have to walk around in the street because the sidewalks are full of... parked motorbikes. And whatever sidewalk real estate isn’t being parked on is taken up by little impromptu sidewalk restaurants with locals sitting around eating pho (light and savory Vietnamese soup with slices of beef -- quite tasty) on little plastic chairs.

There is no longer a war in Hanoi, but there certainly is no peace.

So we bugged out of town for Halong Bay, which is one of the natural wonders of the world -- we know this because of the billboards all along the highway leading there encouraging you to go to a website and vote for it to be so declared. Halong Bay is definitely very beautiful; sharp cliffs of limestone thrust dramatically out of the water, creating a misty wonderland that Dr. Seuss would envy. Locals ply the waters in little boats, ekeing a meager existance from the sea.

The cliffs of Halong Bay

Unfortunately, every visitor to Hanoi makes a side-trip to Halong Bay just like you, so it is nearly impossible to find any solitude, or even quiet away from the drone of dozens of boat motors.

And you thought you were going to be here alone?

Oh, and those meagre-existance-ekeing locals? Their living is mostly pulling up beside your tour boat and calling, “You want cold driiiink?”

It’s like a floating 7-11, but without the Slurpee machine

So we decided to high-tail it way off the beaten path, up into the mountains of northern Vietnam along the Chinese border, to the land of the hill tribes. The H’mong, Dzai, and other tribes live here, in small villages in the misty mountain valleys, tending their rice paddies and water buffalo much as they have for hundreds of years.

Like Middle Earth, but with rice

Dubbed Montagnards (“Mountain People”) by the French, and just “the ‘Nards” by the CIA, they were recruited by the Americans to fight the communists during the war. Many H’mong were resettled in the USA to avoid government persecution (shout out to Mrs. Xiong, our tailor back home in Milwaukee), so their culture and history are familiar to us and we were really looking forward to a few days of trekking among their idyllic villages.

What we found, however, was a very-developed backpacker tourism industry in the town of Sapa. The hotel we stayed at had seven stories, though to its credit it had great mountain views and was locally owned. But there was no peace in Sapa, thanks to the little girls we semi-affectionately dubbed “The H’mong Purse Mafia.”

Oh sure, they look cute, but watch out -- they’ll ambush you when you least expect it

You can’t set foot on the street in Sapa without being accosted by these entrepreneurial ten-year-old girls with embroidered purses. Their English and their business accumen are flawless. They’ll walk with you for an hour, lulling you into a sense of false security that they are just along for the ride, and then when you least expect it... “You buy from me? Five dollars? Please? Maybe later, OK? Promise?”

Vultures. Adorable little impossible-to-resist purse-hawking vultures.

This poor guy is toast

Best line of the trip... Upon telling one maybe, but I had to go check with my wife because she keeps all the money: “OK, but you come back five minutes -- I no got all day wait for you!”

But then, when we least expected it, we found our peace in Vietnam -- in Me, our H’mong guide who led us on our treks into the villages.

Me, in her traditional H’mong costume and new purple Wellies

Me is from the Black H’mong tribe, is 24 years old, and has been married to her husband Vang since she was 15. Originally traditional animists, she and Vang became Christians four years ago. She has a 7-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter, and her family lives in a village three hours’ walk from Sapa. She has been leading treks for several years, and catches a ride on a motorbike each morning to get to the hotel.

Hair that hasn’t been cut since she was a girl

With a sunny disposition and an infectious smile, Me was a delight and a wonderful companion for a few days. She led us along narrow mountain paths and through tiny villages of tin-roofed houses, teaching us about rice growing and indigo dyeing.

The village of Lao Chai

Always quick to laugh and crack a joke, even in the face of a life most of us would consider very difficult, Me had a quiet contentment about her that I sincerely hope and pray was contagious. She found it bewildering that we had been married for 17 childless years -- “No babies?” But she accepted our choice even if it seemed unnatural to her. “Maybe next year!”

We asked her about the increased tourism in the Sapa region over the past ten years, and whether she felt it was a good thing for her people. “Yes,” she said pragmatically. “We can earn money and buy what we need. Sometimes we have bad harvests. Price of rice has gone from 40,000 Dong a kilo ($2.50) to 120,000 Dong in a few years. I have to buy phone to be tour guide. Very expensive! But maybe a few too many tourists, you know?”

Ring ring -- surreality calling!

With economic and political uncertainty (today is election day), a house still not sold, and jobs in Houston not yet secured, I would like the same inner peace and simple trust in God’s provision. I found it in Me; I hope that I can find it in me.

War And... remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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“Only Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai,” we replied. “Not too much time, too short to see such a big country.”

“Ah,” he smiled. “But you see all times in China -- Beijing present, Xi’an past, Shanghai future.”

I had never heard it put that way, but I really like it. Xi’an (pronounced she-AHN) was the capital of China from before the time of Christ, under the first emperor to unify the country, Qin Shi Huang. He was a brilliant military strategist who brought China together at sword-point, but he lacked diplomacy and was a bit of a megalomaniac. He had a massive tomb built starting when he was still in his thirties, then had the architects killed (Dale Carnegie would not approve...) and ultimately was buried there with a huge army of life-size warriors fashioned from terra cotta, each completely unique. Rediscovered by local farmers digging a well in 1974, this has become one of China’s biggest tourist draws. And it is quite fascinating.

Ever wonder how people forget there is something like this buried beneath them?

”Boy, after two millenia, I really can’t wait to get out of this dirt and have a bath...”

While Europe languished in the Dark Ages, Xi’an was the center of the world. It was the beginning and end of the Silk Road, and traders from all over the world made their way there. The present-day city walls, the best-preserved of any city in China, date from the Ming dynasty in the 1400s and stretch 14 miles around the city center. If you think that’s impressive, consider that the Tang dynasty walls in 800 A.D. were seven times larger.

Fun to walk around; scaling, not so much

Xi’an today is unfortunately a not-all-that-picturesque city of 5 million. Inside the walls it is mostly broad boulevards and high-rise hotels...

Looking toward the ancient Bell Tower

...but there are pockets of very beautiful and historic old houses built of the city’s distinctive gray brick.

A bustling market street near the walls, restored to medievaly goodness

From Xi’an, we zipped forward in time what seemed about 4,000 years, to Shanghai, China’s bustling east coast metropolis and showcase of wildly futuristic architecture.

The Pudong New Area, home to science fiction-style buildings like the Oriental Pearl TV Tower

Arriving at the airport, we took the world’s only implemented Maglev train (Magnetic Levitation for non-geeks, in which the train hovers over the track on big opposing magnets) into the city -- a 35km journey that takes 8 minutes. The cars driving toward the airport beside the track flash by so quickly, it looks like they are speeding in the opposite direction.

I am not making this up

Shanghai has a rather interesting history; in the mid-1800s it became the Chinese colonial trade center for England, France, and America, and by the 1920s it was the greatest Western city in the East after Hong Kong. Home to banks and shipping companies, brothels and opium dens, it was the Paris of the Orient (or the Whore of the Orient, depending on whom you talked to). Stretching along the west bank of the Huangpu River opposite Pudong is the Bund, a street of beautiful Art Deco skyscrapers that rivalled New York in their day.

Memories of Shanghai’s Jazz Age

Incidentally, Lynn’s sister Jane (a John Denver fan) inquired whether there were in fact “Shanghai Breezes,” as he sang about in a song. Standing on the promenade overlooking the Bund, we can categorically deny the existance of breezes in Shanghai -- gales is more like it; it was very windy.

The Roaring ‘20s in Shanghai weren’t all galas, gambling and gangsters, though. Shanghai was the birthplace of the Chinese Communist Party, which “liberated” the city in 1949 during the Communist/Nationalist civil war. The Customs House on the Bund with its giant clock tower modelled after Big Ben, once a symbol of Western colonial profit-taking, became a broadcast tower for propaganda during the Cultural Revolution.

The triumph of the people over capitalist oppression, Shanghai style

But those days are so far past in Shanghai they might as well be buried with Xi’an’s terra cotta warriors. Today, Shanghai’s streets are flooded with expats doing business and locals shopping for the latest handbags from Gucci or Coach (some of them even non-counterfeit!). Like Beijing, or perhaps even more so, Shanghai is a city firmly faced forward, proudly displaying its past, but rushing to embrace its future.

Whatever tomorrow holds, Shanghai is ready to embrace it

Past and Future remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The Bird’s Nest: it’s not just for soup anymore

There is perhaps no other nation on earth that is modernizing more rapidly, and today’s China is far less about...

Long live the glorious people’s revolution

...than...

The National Grand Theatre: the mothership has landed

Or so one would think from first impressions of the city, which has more newly-constructed glitzy skyscrapers and fantastic modern architecture than you can shake an Olympic gold medal at. Or would, if you could see them...

Smog over Tian’anmen Square

We arrived here on Sunday the 12th from Seoul, and were immediately struck by how different Beijing is from our expectations. Oh, sure, the major tourist sights are the icons of its imperial past:

The Forbidden City

The Summer Palace

The Great Wall at Jinshanling

But this is not your father’s China. Today, the subway is full of posters for LG and Toyota rather than communist propaganda. You only have to spend a few hours walking among Beijing’s fashionably-dressed young people, more interested in their cellphones than Chairman Mao’s little red book, to realize that this is a country that is undergoing a second Cultural Revolution -- and one that is potentially even greater in its impact on Chinese society.

The future of China: you can’t fool the children of the revolution

The China of old, with its olive-drab uniform of communist conformity, has crumbled under the weight of a new consumer-driven culture that appears content to coexist with the totalitarian political system. This is really not surprising when you consider how deeply ingrained capitalism is in the soul of the Chinese people -- as the hoards of souvenir hawkers will attest. One old lady, “Ginger,” hiked with us for an hour on a very strenuous portion of the Great Wall, teaching us Chinese and "helping" Lynn up steep steps, all as prelude to pulling out a picture book and starting the sales pitch. That’s commitment to profit.

But step away from the neon and glitter of Beijing’s main thoroughfares, and you discover just how thin the veneer of modernity can be. For every brand-new modern edifice, there is a centuries-old hutong (alley) full of traditional courtyard houses, where life clings to the old ways of public baths and coal-burning stoves.

Out for a late afternoon stroll

In this Beijing, old men still gather in doorways to play mah jong and haircuts are given on a stool in the square. We paused in a particularly evocative alley, and an old lady invited us in to see her two-room, coal-heated apartment (she didn’t seem to care that we spoke no Chinese, she happily carried both sides of the conversation).

This hutong is home to at least 6 families

A common tongue isn’t necessary for friendship

Beijing is a city in transition, and we found that most evident in the faces of her people. I will close this post by letting them tell their own stories.

Bei-Bling remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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”Augh, my students were so naughty today!”

Hiking in the mountains over Seoul

I have to confess that we originally scheduled this stop primarily as a chance to visit April rather than out of an actual desire to see Seoul. Fair or not, Korea didn’t hold much interest for me; from my limited (read: from watching M*A*S*H) knowledge, it struck me as a limbo between Japan and China -- neither as dynamic as Tokyo nor as historic as Beijing.

Well, after visiting, I have to say that my opinion is somewhat altered; Seoul is quite a pleasant place. We had a terrific time with April, and it was fun to learn about a culture that we really had not put a lot of time into learning about. We did take a bit of time to see some of the historic sights, including the Gyeongbukgong palace, Korea’s version of the Forbidden City, where they do an elaborate changing-of-the-guards ceremony accompanied by incredibly discordant music -- I didn’t know it was possible to produce such screeches from a trumpet.

”Hmm, I hope none of the tourists notice that my beard is fake...”

Speaking of screeches, we also indulged in a night of karaoke. We were joined by Jane and Ami, two of April’s fellow expat teachers.

Butchering Switchfoot’s “Meant To Live” together

Jane and Ami are doing much better with their duet

By far the most interesting sight was the tour we took to the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjeom.

The UN’s JSA (Joint Security Area) -- that bombastic white building is North Korea

Under the watchful eyes of soldiers of the South...

”I love how badass these glasses make me look!”

...and the North...

”Running dog capitalist pig tourists, I will not even bother to watch you with my binoculars...”

...you are ushered into the conference room where negotiations are held, and allowed to step ever-so-briefly into one of the world’s most reclusive nations.

The most moving part of the trip is the stop at the Freedom Bridge, where prisoners of war were exchanged after the cease-fire. There is a wall of memorials that has become something of a place of pilgrimage for those who fought, and families separated by politics.

Remembering

What was unexpectedly fascinating, though, was learning about Korean cuisine. I came knowing very little about the food here, so the whole weekend turned into a bit of a culinary odyssey. We started with dinner at a Korean barbeque with Jane. Everyone sits around a grill and cooks their own yummy little strips of marinated beef or pork.

What’s Webber got that we ain’t got?

Contrary to what you’d think, vegetarian food can be tough to find in Asia. One that’s practically a national dish in Korea is bibimbop, a mixture of bean sprouts, pickled veggies, and a fried egg. And, as a bonus, it’s really fun to say -- try it... “BEE-beem-bop.” Bonus points if you can say it three times, fast.

”I don’t care how you say it, I’m just glad it doesn’t contain squid!”

Of course, you can’t discuss food in Korea without talking about the national culinary obsession: kimchi. The “cabbage that they ravage with the chili paste taste.”

”Kimchi, kimchi, it is good for you and me!”

Those quotes are from the English Village Boyz’ “Kickin’ It In Geumchon,” a hilarious hip-hop ode to being an expat in Seoul. Go watch it:

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=QjBfy_HVoSM

As they say, kimchi is cabbage that has been mixed with chilis and dried shrimp and other stuff, and left to ferment for up to a year, buried underground in big jars like these...

55 gallons of kimchi goodness

Hardly a meal goes by that Koreans don’t eat kimchi. After mealtimes, the subway has a distinctly spicy, vinegary smell -- and I swear I am not making that up. Koreans claim that the reason they never got SARS is the medicinal value of their kimchi. I can believe it -- if I was a germ, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near the stuff either. In fact, I am not a germ and I still don't want to. It really smells bad.

Street food is big here, too -- especially food on a stick.

Various animal parts and balls of stuff

That, believe it or not, is a hot dog rolled in ketchup and french fries, all on a convenient stick

Of course, there is also plenty of western-style food in Korea as well...

Hey, I don’t write ‘em, I just take the pictures

They actually do not sell any cheese here

April’s favorite: sweet potato pizza with honey mustard sauce... much better than it sounds!

Without question, though, our biggest foodie adventure was our quest to go eat boshintang...

Dog stew.

No, it is not a myth, they do in fact eat dog in Korea -- specially bred food dogs that look like big huskies, not pet dogs kidnapped off the street. I guess it’s not as common as it used to be, because we had to hunt down a small basement restaurant in a very off-the-beaten-path neighborhood, and there we sat down and tucked into a big ole' steamin’ bowl of spicy Fido soup.

Don’t think about what you’re about to put in your mouth!

Mmmmm... Boshintang!

And the verdict? Well, it was...

Umm...

Actually, pretty gross.

Neither of us could finish more than half our bowl. The meat didn’t taste too bad; it was kind of gamey and really fatty, sort of like mutton. The broth was so hot that it kind of killed the taste, really. But it was hard to get past the smell; it had a distinct scent of, well, wet dog. Which it was.

The mother and daughter who ran the place were really sweet. They wanted their picture with us; apparently not too many Westerners come through their doors.

I'm smiling on the outside, but I'm thinking, ”I have a doggy hair stuck in my teeth...”

A drawing we did for their wall

As our weekend together drew to a close, we sat in a cafe on Sunday morning, savoring a good cup of coffee. Savored it so long, we actually missed our flight to Beijing. Good food and good friends -- it can really be addictive.

All except the boshintang. That made me want to arf.

Seoul Food remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Bier hier, Bier hier, or else I will collapse

After a week and a half of mostly staying around Lynn’s sister Gail’s place or the military bases getting practical matters taken care of, on Saturday night we finally got outselves out of the house. One of Mark’s former coworkers, Dave, invited us to join him and his wife Arlene for the evening at the Canstatter Volksfest, Stuttgart’s answer to Munich’s Oktoberfest. I haven't properly fact-checked this (hey, it’s election season so who’s checking facts), but apparently this is the second largest fall festival (read: huge beer-focused event) in Germany.

Knowing that finding a parking place in the city would be even more fiendishly difficult than usual, we took the S-Bahn (commuter train) into the city. Immediately upon arriving at the festival grounds stop, we were surrounded by already-tipsy Germans wearing red and white scarves -- the VfB Stuttgart football team had apparently just wrapped up a 4-1 trouncing of Bremen... and the whole stadium came next door to the Volksfest to celebrate. Beer and soccer hooligans, one of the classic recipes for fun, fun, fun!

"We're Nummer Eins! We're Nummer Eins!"

Not being much for ferris wheels and other carnival rides (and it was only about 45º), we had a walk around the grounds, and then found a nice beerhall to grab some dinner.

Yes, that girl in the Dirndl is wearing light-up bunny ears

The tents were all completely packed, and very loud with music and drunk people. Not the oom-pah bands you'd expect, though; the first one we walked through had a rock band playing "The Time Warp" from Rocky Horror Picture Show. A thousand Germans screaming, "It's just a jump to ze left..." was as surreal as it sounds. We grabbed a seat outside in the cold and ordered up some nice, light Schwäbisch (southwestern German) grub: personally, I murdered a couple of smoked pork steaks with sauerkraut and rye bread.

Lynn is having a love affair with those spätzl, and Dave seems surprised at how good his roast chicken is

Now, normally, you have to understand that German society is very polite and reserved, and order is the guiding principle of life. At festivals like this, however, the concept of "restraint" is utterly absent -- as exemplified by the mugs of beer, which only come in one size: a maß (as in "massive"), which is about a liter.

Gail is a "limonade"-drinking lightweight

Interestingly, Germans generally have a much more healthy attitude toward alcohol than Americans. Kids are allowed to start drinking beer when they are teenagers, and as a rule they are very responsible drinkers. Most of the people at the fest were out having a great time and behaving themselves.

Nice lederhosen, dude!

Then suddenly, as we were eating, there was a crash from within the tent, and a bunch of beer-besotted ruffians came tumbling out in a melée of fists and spurting blood. Within seconds, there were security guards and Polizei officers everywhere, and sirens as paddywagons pulled up.

Yes, that's a guy with blood all over his shirt, five feet away from us

"Bad jungen, bad jungen, was machst du ven zey komm für you?"

We spent the rest of the evening finishing our drinks and watching the entertainment as the German cops chased down, clubbed, and arrested the instigators. There's an old parable I love about the nations of Europe...

Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and the whole thing is organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the police are German, the lovers are Swiss, and the whole thing is organized by the Italians.

How true.

Beer Doesn’t Kill Germans; Germans Kill Germans. With Beer. remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Indonesia and Malaysia are lands of squat toilets. The advantage of these toilets is that you get a great thigh workout at the same time (anyone that knows me knows that I love multi-tasking). It also is truly ergonomically correct in facilitating the evacuation of one's bowels. Unfortunately, these bathrooms only supply water and a scoop for it -- no toilet paper. If you are firmly in the wipe-over-wash category, make sure you always have toilet paper with you.

Imagine riding on an overnight bus that is filled with people sprawled everywhere trying to sleep while the bus is careening down the road, swerving in and out of oncoming traffic like a spy being chased by the KGB.

Then suddenly... you have to go.

Into the tiny, smelly, damp 2' x 2' cubicle at the back of the bus with a hole in the middle of the floor and two grid marks on either side for better traction -- if only the bus tires had this much traction -- you must venture. As the bus sways radically, accelerating and decelerating with no perceivable pattern, you try to balance over the hole while keeping any piece of clothing from touching the ground or sides. Remember to breathe through your mouth!

Then the bus lurches forward and you have to reach out to catch yourself from falling face-first into the wall. It is damp from something... don't think about it! Just grab one of your precious pieces of toilet paper and wipe it off as best you can. As you are attempting to pull your underpants back up, your elbow hits the flimsy door and it swings open... to hit a man that is trying to sleep outside the bathroom. Quickly! Pull the door shut and get yourself presentable before reopening the door and stepping over the man without making any eye contact as you find your way back to your seat. Try to forget about what is fermenting on your hand until you can find a sink to wash it in -- four hours later.

I will absolutely deny that this was me... I am simply relating a story another traveller told me. Yeah, that's it!

Mind you, in people's homes the toilets were very clean even when they were squatters.

Singapore provided both squat and sit toilets, and they were far more clean and sometimes they even had toilet paper. I was very thankful for this since I was getting a weak with dehydration, which made it harder balancing over the squat toilets...

Now in Japan, the toilets are really high-tech -- when you walk in, the cover automatically opens for you. If it is below a certain temperature in the room, the seat is heated. And believe it or not, there is a little remote control on the side of the seat, with a button that makes a flushing noise (for those with gastric problems they don't want others in the bathroom hearing). And, they have three different buttons for washing your "backside" with a jet of warm water, a button for drying after you have washed, and a 'STOP' button. And of course, there is also toilet paper for the fearful American who doesn't want to try the wash & dry settings.

I mentioned how we don't have any high-tech toilets like that in America to a Japanese woman we met, and she asked if I had tried the buttons. I had to confess that I had not and she said, with a twinkle in her eye, "Oh, I highly recommend it." I didn't ask any further questions, but determined to push the 'WASH' button next time...

It was amazing how the jet of warm water found its exact "mark" each time.

I started to wonder whose job it is to figure out precisely where the "target" will be when sitting on the toilet. Can you imagine if that was your job? How do you explain that at Christmas parties? "Hi, I'm Tony. I am a salesman for vending machines. So, what do you do?"

There is also one button that I never tried. It was the only one that didn't have a picture symbol under the Japanese Kanji "letters." I was afraid I would come out of the stall with wet hair or something.

I will always wonder if this was the button that made the Japanese woman's eyes twinkle...

Toilet Traumas remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Things we didn’t expect to see on our trip to Asia. This:

Nor this:

I guess sometimes life’s most interesting journeys are the ones you weren’t anticipating. We left Japan on Sunday, September 14th, to return to the USA for Lynn’s brother-in-law’s funeral in Tucson, and are now in Germany helping her sister organize her stuff to move home.

Mark Allen was born in St. Louis in 1958. He enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1982 and met Lynn’s sister Gail at their first assignment, in California, where she was told by a friend that he gave really good backrubs. They married in 1985, and duty assignments stationed them in the Azores Islands (following which she retired), Oklahoma City (part of which Mark spent in Korea), Biloxi, Germany, and Boston. A satellite communications specialist, Mark was often among the first military personnel into a hotspot, and he was veteran of missions to Panama, the Persian Gulf, and the Balkans.

Mark retired after 22 years of service, and he and Gail returned to Germany, where he worked for the European Command in Stuttgart as a civilian contractor. Last year he began to suffer from ongoing health problems, and shortly after Lynn and I bought our tickets for the trip in March, he was diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare cancer-like disease which produces excess proteins that then attack the body. After months in German hospitals, he was being airlifted back to the USA for treatment, and he passed away at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C.

We spoke with Mark and Gail while we were in Bali, before they began the journey home, and he told us (he didn’t ask -- as a sergeant he was used to being obeyed) to continue our trip, enjoy ourselves, and not worry. The day we arrived in Nara, we received the news of his passing, and so we began to make our emergency plans to return home.

Lynn and Mark having a relaxing evening during our visit in 2006

Mark was a good friend to us, and loyal in service to our country. The funeral was held at the Southern Arizona Veterans Cemetery, a peaceful spot in the mountains overlooking the Sonoran Desert. The words of the soldier from the Honor Guard who presented Gail his flag, “Ma’am, the President of the United States, the Department of the Air Force, and a grateful nation thank you for your husband’s service,” are a beautiful tribute.

Thank you, Mark.

We travelled from Nara back to Tokyo (rather than on to Korea as originally planned) where we spent a couple of days in the stores, since any funeral-worthy clothes we had were in storage in Houston. Shopping in Tokyo is a pretty interesting experience. For starters, it’s ridiculously expensive, but we were able to find an outfit for Lynn that wasn’t too bad, and I really scored -- found a men’s store with a big sale going and I was able to put together a whole suit, shoes included, for only about $280.

Equally cool was that I really fit the Japanese mold for size: I was able to pull a suit right off the rack and it didn’t need any alterations except hemming -- something I have never been able to do in the States. Lynn, however, really went through a brutal self-esteem bludgeoning. “I have never felt like such a fat cow,” she whimpered after trying on what seemed like dozens of outfits that were all too small. “The women here are all toothpicks!” We were completely unable to find her a pair of shoes that fit -- they simply don’t come any larger than a size 7.

We spent our final Tokyo night with a uniquely Japanese experience: a capsule hotel. This is the cheapest place you’ll find in Japan to lay your head, at about $35 per person for the night: designed for business travelers on short stays, you get a locker, access to a common bathroom, and your very own little 3’ x 6’ x 3’ private sleeping capsule in a room of twenty, complete with a tiny TV. Men and women have their own separate floors.

Dang, which one was mine again?

What, no tatami mat?

We left early the next morning on a very long day that took us from Tokyo to Beijing, to San Francisco, to Phoenix. The stop in Beijing was actually rather interesting. All that stuff you heard about them trying to clear the smog for the Olympics? Here’s how successful they were:

Welcome to -- *gag, cough* -- China

Beijing has a fantastic airport that they recently built in anticipation of the Olympics and the imminent growth of air travel to and from China. The central terminal was quite amazingly lovely -- after we got through the most absurdly thorough Immigration check for connecting passengers that I’ve ever experienced... including thermal scanners to check whether you have a fever. I am not making this up. Lynn was suffering from a cold and we were praying she didn’t have a coughing fit. “No, really sir, it’s just the... *cough* ...pollution! Yeah, that’s it... It’s not SARS, really!”

Welcome to China. Listen to beautiful music during your Immigration rectal exam!

The funny thing was, they have this massive airport, and one thing immediately struck us...

Hellooo...looo...looo...

There was hardly anyone in it. They did, however, have really cool lounge chairs at the gates. Find that at O’Hare!

”Pardon me while I take a load off...”

After, I don’t know, maybe 30 hours (it gets really hard to keep track of time when you’re changing time zones that frequently) we arrived in Phoenix. We picked up Lynn’s sister Jane the next day and drove to Tucson, which is a very pleasant city, incidentally.

Sunrise over the valley

The day after the funeral, my mom came down for a couple days’ visit. Then we hung out for the next few days, and on Thursday the 25th, we flew to Stuttgart via Los Angeles and Düsseldorf. In college, I briefly dated a girl whose family lived in Düsseldorf, and I went over for a visit one summer, so it was fun to see the city from above as we landed -- “Oh, hey, I remember that Rhine Tower...”

So now we are with Gail in the small town of Waldenbuch, just outside of Stuttgart. It’s beautiful country around here in southern Germany, very much like Wisconsin -- weather-wise, as well: all this week it’s been cloudy, drizzly and 50°. Just what we were attempting to escape. Last week was lovely, sunny fall weather, though, and we enjoyed seeing the color spreading across the forests.

Making cider at the Stadtmühle (town mill)

Waldenbuch’s claim to fame is being the home of Ritter Sport, Germany’s favorite chocolate bar.

My personal favorite variety, dark chocolate with hazelnuts

It comes neatly divided into 16 easy-breaking squares, with a resealable wrapper. Advertising slogan: Practisch. Quadratisch. Gut.

“Practical. Square. Good.”

Which pretty much sums up Germany itself.

As a side note, here's one good thing about this detour that I learned: we avoided a huge typhoon that recently swept through southern China and northern Vietnam, leaving about 50 people dead in flooding. We were originally due to arrive about a week after it came through.

I’ll take the Deutsche drizzle, thanks.

So, we're here until October 8th, when we fly from Frankfurt to Amsterdam to Seoul and resume our trip, starting with a visit to our good friend April, who is in Korea teaching English.

Incongruities remains copyright of the author Bwinky, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The city of Nara from the surrounding hills

In the 7th century, Nara became Japan’s first capital city, and during this period the world’s largest wooden structure, the Todai-Ji temple, was built.

The entry to the Todai-ji: burn some incense for good luck

Now, when I say the world’s largest wooden building, I know what you’re thinking -- “Hmm, OK, it’s the world’s largest wooden building. *yawn* What else ya got?” I know this, because we thought the same thing when we read the description in the guidebook. “Well, it’s the world’s largest wooden building, and the reason people come to Nara. I suppose we should go see it.”

What you fail to comprehend is that this temple is big. I mean, really big. Words and especially little pictures on a blog in no way communicate the immense hugeness of the Todai-ji. You don’t even realize how big it is from a distance. You see the thing from a fair way off as you’re walking up to it, and you think you’re not that far away; then the walk is a lot longer than you thought and the temple just keeps looming bigger and bigger. When we finally stood at the bottom of the front steps, we both looked at each other and said, “This thing is really... big.”

For perspective, note the size of the people in the doorway

Oh, and for the record, the current building was built in the 16th century after the first one burned down... and it’s only two-thirds the size of the original.

Inside the Todai-ji is a very large (of course) bronze Buddha. It is also quite amazingly huge. And again, you don’t really realize how big it is when you’re first looking at it, until you notice a guy standing in front of it for perspective.

”I’m the Buddha, and I am way bigger (and more enlightened) than you will ever be.”

We stayed in Nara with a very pleasant couple, Mayumi Anzai and Rob (never got his last name). Mayumi runs a restaurant called the Cafe Youan in the old part of the city.

Mayumi and Rob, hard at work in the cafe kitchen

She lives in the rooms upstairs and starting hosting couchsurfers. Rob came to visit, wound up staying for a while, and they became an item and he’s been there since (apparently, they are not the first host/guest couple who have met through Couch Surfing...). Mayumi is quite the whiz in the kitchen, and whipped up a fantastic batch of veggie tempura for us while we were there.

Oh, and that salad in the foreground? Seaweed -- the Japanese love it... imagine wet spinach

The next day, we took the train an hour or so west to Japan’s most perfectly-preserved medieval castle, the Himeji-jo.

Himeji-jo castle: Samurai not included

Through most of the Middle Ages, Japan was a collection of feuding city-states. Each local warlord built his own castle like this, with a massive central tower. When the extremely ruthless shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa consolidated control in Tokyo in the 16th century, most castles were destroyed, but Himeji-jo fortunately was spared.

Muskets inside the castle

Now, I have always found this phase of Japanese history fascinating -- bushido, the samurai code of honor, the Jesuit missionaries and persecution of Christians under the Tokugawas, etc. I think it started when I played Ko-Ko, the inept Lord High Executioner in Gilbert & Sullivan’s brilliant comic operetta The Mikado, in eighth grade. Pardon me for a brief lyric interlude from its opening chorus...

If you want to know who we are, we are gentlemen of Japan
On many a vase and jar, on many a screen and fan
We figure in lively paint, our attitudes queer and quaint
You’re wrong if you think it ain’t...

I venture off into this cultural tangent only because this traditional view of the Japanese culture it portrays...

...is so far from the reality of today. As was illustrated to us that evening when we stopped in Osaka on our way back to have dinner in Dotombori, the riverside entertainment district.

Today’s “gentlemen of Japan” posing amid the Dotombori neon

Osaka is Japan’s Chicago -- a hard-working, broad-shouldered merchant city that really knows how to cut loose and have a good time. They even have a unique slang word, kuiadore, that means to eat and drink until you collapse (thank you, Anthony Bourdain, for inspiring us to stop and experience it). And they have a specialty that I was dying to try: okonomiyaki, an omelette-like pancake of egg, cabbage, and meat smothered in mayonnaise and barbeque sauce that you cook yourself on a griddle-table. Sounds kind of nasty, but darn tasty: good, solid, hard-working-and-partying “Take your fancy sashimi and shove it” food.

Eggs and chopsticks: a difficult combination to master

We spent two days exploring Kyoto, which is kind of like going to Italy and spending only two days in Florence -- there’s so much to see there, you can barely scratch the surface in a week, let alone a couple of days. At first glance, Kyoto is not a particularly attractive city; the visitor expecting to step off the train into a woodblock print of old Japan is facing disappointment. For starters, the train station itself is a modern architectural wonderland...

Kyoto station: keep taking the escalators up and don't look down

...and the city itself is, well, just a city.

Downtown Kyoto from the 15th floor of the station -- which, yes, has 15 floors

Like an oyster, Kyoto’s exterior is tough, gray, and ugly, and you have to work hard to pry it open.

Nice metaphor, eh?

Well, I can’t extend it to come up with something in Kyoto to compare to the nasty filter-feeding creature inside... but the point is that deep inside if you look hard enough, you find beautiful pearls. Peaceful shrines, tree-lined canals, geisha hurrying to appointments in the alleys of the Gion entertainment district: this is the real Kyoto, and it’s waiting for the patient seeker to find it. I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...

Torii in the Fushimi-Inari shrine, made famous in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha

Wearing kimonos for a walk in the bamboo forest

Wooden bridge in the Arashiyama district in the waning sunlight

Strolling along the Philosopher’s Walk

Backstreets of Gion

Two maiko, apprentice geisha, out in their finery at dusk

It seems appropriate that Kyoto is the very soul of Japan, because it has a talent for working its way into your soul and making you sorry to leave it.

And so, with our time in Japan ending and the necessity of our return to the United States looming, we headed back to Tokyo aboard the shinkansen, or bullet train -- one of Japan’s most iconic engineering marvels. Head to the station and find your platform...

Smile in wonder as the sleek white machine glides to halt almost silently...

And settle in as you are whisked past the Japanese countryside at over 250 miles per hour.

A very pleasant way to begin a not-so-pleasant detour.

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We crossed the water, but Fuji-San wasn’t there.

We flew through the sky, but Fuji-San wasn’t there.

So we took a train somewhere else, and Fuji-San still wasn’t there.

“Ah, Fuji-San is very shy,” said the lady who ran the B&B we stayed at in Moto-Hakone, a mountain town by the shore of Lake Ashi, near Mount Fuji. It’s no surprise that we weren’t able to see Japan’s iconic volcano, really -- summer is very humid here and the sky is hazy. You can really only be sure of seeing Fuji-San (the suffix “-San” is used as both an honorific title, like “Mister,” and a word that means “Mount”) in the winter, when the air is totally clear. At other times, Fuji-San mostly remains bashfully cloaked in a swath of clouds.

It’s OK that we came to the mountains of central Japan and didn’t get to see Fuji-San, though. There’s plenty else to do and see in this resort area, including hiking on cedar-lined trails that were once the main highway between Kyoto and Tokyo...

The old Tokaido Highway. You can almost hear the clip-clop of the hooves of a passing samurai’s horse.

...As well as soaking in onsens, spas that feature baths in natural hot springs.

Obviously, I couldn’t take pictures inside the baths, because they were full of naked people, including us. And my camera has a phobia of hot steamy water. This is the outside of the Ten Zan onsen.

Japan sits smack-dab on top of one of the most geothermally active parts of the planet, and hot water bubbles up from below all over the place. The Japanese love to soak themselves in it; in fact, they say that the onsen is the only part of their culture that is uniquely Japanese, not imported from mainland Asia.

Some onsens are free, but most cost anywhere from $10-25 to visit. You take off your shoes upon entering (like almost everyplace else in Japan) and pay your fee, then men and women go their separate ways. You put your clothes in a locker and take a shower (major faux pas to go into a public bath without cleaning the naughty bits first), sitting down on a bench and washing, using a bowl to rinse yourself. You have a sweat in the nuclear-hot sauna if you like, then step outside into the rotemburo, a series of pools of various degrees of heat and bubblocity. Most of the pools are lined with natural rock and nestled in overhanging foliage. It’s quite beautiful, and very relaxing. Settle in, and if you’re going totally Japanese, drape the little towel you use to cover yourself outside the baths over your head.

After a good long soak in the bath of your choice, you shower off again, put on a yukata (light cotton kimono) and relax with tea and a book. It’s all very peaceful and reinvigorating after a long day hiking (or slaving in the office, if you’re Japanese).

Nothing but the sound of the waterfall outside

After a couple of Fuji-less days in Hakone, we moved on to Takayama, a small city on the edge of the Japan Alps.

Takayama from the foothills

The riverside old town has beautiful streets lined with perfectly preserved wooden and half-timber houses built during the era of the Shoguns, from the 17th-19th centuries.

Edo-era shops and houses

Waiting for a fare

Needless to say, it’s a very popular weekend trip for Japanese families.

”I refuse to smile for foreigners just because I look so darn cute in my kimono!"

Takayama is full of ryokans, traditional Japanese inns.

Ryokan Irori Sosuke

For about $100 per night, you get your own futon in a tatami-lined room with sliding paper doors, a yukata, and a bath down the hall.

I think I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so...

For a bit more, you can get meals downstairs, by the irori, the small fireplace in the living room.

Inside the ryokan

Refreshed from our time in the mountains even if we didn’t see Fuji-San, we headed onward to the cultural heart of Japan, the Kansai region: a big conurbation of the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, and our destination -- Nara, Japan’s 7th century capital and home to the world’s largest wooden building, the Todai-ji temple.

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Besides, I dare you to say “urban rabyrinth” out loud, and not giggle. It’s funny, OK -- lighten up.

Anyway.

So Tokyo is big. Really, really big. You may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts compared to Tokyo (apologies to Douglas Adams). It was the largest city in the world for some time; now I think it’s been passed up by Mexico City and Sao Paolo or something, but anyway, it’s still really, really... REALLY big.

Like, this big:

No end in sight...

It’s also exceptionally confusing for the first time foreign visitor. English signage is limited, and there are fewer people who speak English than you might guess. I’m not sure we would have figured out how to get from Narita airport into the city if a very kind young woman named Yukiko, who spent some years studying in Topeka, Kansas, had not taken pity on us and spent the morning helping us figure things out. She was a real God-send. She even showed Lynn the intricacies of Japanese toilets, which is a story for later...

Now, you have to understand that I pride myself on my sense of direction and my ability to figure out my way around any city and its public transportation. But Tokyo has been my nemesis. There are hardly any street signs, because most streets do not actually have names; addresses are something like “1-11-2-4 Ginza, Chuo-ku,” which is area number, block number, building number and floor, area name, ward. And the numbers are not necessarily consecutive, because prior to the 1950s, they were assigned by building construction date.

I shudder for any poor fool attempting to become a taxi driver.

More specifically, I have developed a severe phobia of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station. Shinjuku is the largest hub in the city for Japan Rail, the Tokyo Metro, and various private rail lines, and it is one of the largest and busiest train stations in the world. I’ve been in some big railway stations: Grand Central, Victoria, Gare du Nord, Termini... Nothing prepared me for the organized chaos of Shinjuku. I’m used to walking into the main hall of a station and seeing a big Arrivals/Departures board with platform numbers, and a bunch of ticket counters and stores. In contrast, Shinjuku looks like this:

”Umm, which way do we go now?”

That’s one small segment of a very long, very wide maze that runs through the center of the station -- which is three floors high, incidentally, and takes over 20 minutes to walk through. Branching off of this very crowded central hallway are lots of smaller areas for different rail lines, like this one:

”If that little old lady in a kimono can find her way...”

As a side note, those yellow lines on the floor have patterns in them so blind people can follow them. How on earth they figure out where to go, I have no idea...

Tickets for the metro and suburban rail lines are purchased from automated machines, like this one, in front of large rail network maps -- which frequently do not feature English translations!

”One of these red ones is Ikebukuro, I think...

This leads to such misadventures as spending $50 on what we thought were two multi-use passes that turned out to be a single-ride tickets we used to go two stops (and should have cost $1.60 each).

I find myself waking in a cold sweat just thinking about it. After several days here, I started finding routes that specifically avoided Shinjuku, prompting Lynn to taunt me: “C’mon, Brad, what are you... Chicken? Caw-cuh-caw-cuh-caw!”

(Right now, our Mercy Hill friends are falling off their chairs laughing at the visual image of Japanese commuters staring at Lynn doing the Arrested Development chicken strut in the middle of a station...)

All that said, the Tokyo metro and rail system is quite effective. Sure, the map resembles nothing so much as an accident at a pasta factory, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad. Yes, at rush hour it is extremely crowded...

Did I forget my deoderant this morning?

...but at other times it’s nice for a little snooze.

Must wake up when we get to Asakusa...

The stereotype of the Japanese as hard workers is most definitely based in fact, and we wondered when they actually find time to sleep -- until we saw it with our own eyes. Amazingly, they sleep through a dozen stops and then wake up just in time for theirs. I have no idea how this gets programmed into their brains.

And how do you get to the subway station?

Dang, I know I left it here somewhere...

So. From all of this kvetching, you might think that we do not like Tokyo.

You would be dead wrong.

Tokyo is confusing, confounding... and absolutely amazing. It is everything that you expect, and total surprises. A dynamic mix of the modern and the ancient...

Shinjuku by night

A traditional 18th century house near where we stayed

The classic and the crazy...

Out for a pizza

Teens strutting their stuff in Harajuku

The peaceful and the chaotic...

The Imperial Palace gardens

Ginza crossing, the world’s busiest intersection

The sacred and the profane...

Senso-ji temple

The Kabukicho “entertainment” district -- full of host and hostess bars for women and men looking for company

The sublime and the ridiculous...

Cocktails atop the Tokyo Metropolitan Building

Need I say more?

We spent our nights in Tokyo at a distinctly less-than-traditional kind of place: Yuji Hidemura’s apartment.

Yuji, the man, the legend

For the record, some of you may be wondering about this whole “staying with people” thing. We are members of The Couch Surfing Project, an international hospitality organization that matches visitors with locals who like to host international travellers. We’ve been members for three years, and have hosted people in our home about a half-dozen times. Well, we’re nothing compared to Yuji, who is a bonified Couch Surfing legend. Yuji lives in a two-bedroom apartment in this building on the outskirts of Tokyo:

Yuji’s place

Yuji and Marie at the stove

Last year, Yuji hosted over 700 people. At any given time, there might be a half-dozen or more international travellers crashed out on the tatami (wall-to-wall woven straw mat) floor in Yuji’s extra bedroom:

Home sweet home

We shared the bedroom with Marie, from Sweden, and Maxime and Deborah from France while we were there. Yuji has a whole system worked out because he works crazy hours as a Yamaha piano salesman: he sends you an email with picture directions, and if you don’t come while he’s home, someone else will be there to let you in. He has a fridge and computer for surfers and a notebook full of advice on everything from where to do laundry to martial arts. Unlike most couchsurfing hosts, he asks for a small donation, since hosting 700 people per year has a major affect on his water and electric bills.

One night we were there, we went shopping with Marie, who made Swedish pancakes. Yuji decided to take them with fruit and blueberry whipped cream, and make them into sushi. He used to be a sushi chef, so I guess it’s in his blood...

”It’s not exactly seaweed wrap, but I think this can work...”

”Mmm... better than wasabe!”

”Swedish Pancake Fruit Sushi! Hai!”

Frushi, anyone?

And after that bit of weirdness, I have nothing more to add on the subject of Tokyo. From there, it was off to the mountains of Hakone... in search of Mount Fuji.

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The Kuala Lumpur skyline, dominated by the Petronas Towers

There’s the Petronas Towers, which were the tallest building in the world for a few years before the Taiwanese decided to outdo them, a few strangely Indian-looking colonial buildings left over from the days of British rule (guess the Brits figured if it was part of their colonial Empire in Asia, it deserved to look Indian...), and a fantastic museum of Islamic art. But beyond that, we didn’t find it too thrilling.

What was a thrill, however, was meeting Meng Kiat “Alan” Tiong and Ping Yi “Daphne” Tan, a Chinese couple that hosted us for the night we stayed. Alan is an executive at a company that builds gasoline storage tanks, travels all over Asia, and speaks about a dozen languages (I am not exaggerating). Daphne is an executive assistant in Johnson & Johnson’s contact lens division. We really hit it off and had a great evening with them, despited being delayed getting home by a downpour of Biblical proportions -- when it rains in Asia, it can really rain. Alan is a worship leader at their church, and we had a great time playing guitar together and singing old worship songs from the early ‘90s.

Alan Tiong and Daphne Tan

Incidentally, we learned a few interesting tidbits about Chinese culture from them. When Alan and Daphne married, they became “the Tiongs” and you might call Daphne “Mrs. Tiong,” but when referring to her individually, she is still “Daphne Tan.” Also, I did not realize that the Western names many Chinese use are given by their parents along with their Chinese names.

But the most fun we had with Alan and Daphne was learning about Asian produce. Daphne picked up a bunch of interesting fruit for us to try, and Alan took us out to pick up the king of Southeast Asian fruit, which I’ve been dying to try: the durian (previously mentioned in the post about Jakarta). Here’s a few of the highlights:

This is a pulasan. It looks like a purple sea urchin, and you twist it apart to reveal a white rubbery fruit that looks sort of like a peeled grape with a big pit.

This is a mangosteen, which you crack open between your palms to reveal wedges of fruit.

And this is a duku langsat (which I can’t help thinking sounds like a villain in Star Wars), which looks like a nut and cracks open to reveal a little white fruit.

What do all of these taste like? Well... umm... grapes, kind of. Hard to describe.

And then there is the durian. This thing looks like a little spiky green cantaloupe. It only grows in Southeast Asia, and it doesn’t travel well, so you can’t get it anywhere else. In fact, I seem to recall that Queen Victoria offered a huge reward to anyone who could get one back to London. The first thing that you notice when you’re around one is... the stench. They honestly are about the worst-smelling thing that has ever crossed my nostrils. Some people describe it as smelling like rotting flesh. I don’t know, I think it smells more like an old towel left in a high school locker room in the heat of August. Let’s just say it’s really stinky.

And yet, someone chose to crack one open, taste it, and declare it a delicacy. Some Asians are addicted to them, others can’t stand them -- and Daphne is one of the latter. But she kindly acquiesced, and so our mission to taste durian was fulfilled. Inside the spiky rind are little sacks of creamy yellowish pulp, kind of like slightly stringy custard.

Durian, in a to-go box

And so, we had a durian-eating party on the balcony of their apartment overlooking the city...

Lynn, going for it. Hold your nose and swallow!

Alan is a fan. Daphne -- not so much!

C’mon Daphne, open wide!

I can eat anything with a view like this!

And the verdict? We didn’t care for it much. The taste wasn’t bad, sort of vanilla-ish yet fruity, kind of like over-ripe banana, but the stench keeps rising up your throat even after you swallow it and into the back of your nose, which in case you weren’t aware works just as well in reverse. We’re glad we tried it, but once was enough.

The next day we took the bus a couple hours south to Melaka, a smaller colonial city on the west coast of the Malaysian penninsula.

Melaka’s colonial Town Square

Melaka has quite an illustrious history. Founded by a Sultan, conquered by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally handed over to the British, it was the trading center for the spice market for centuries. It’s full of beautiful old colonial buildings, most of them painted a beautiful red.

Foogie and Amelia, our new friends in Melaka

We stayed with Foo Guan “Jacob” Sim, aka Foogie, and his girlfriend Qiu Xuan “Amelia” Li, who are both computer security students at Multimedia University in Melaka. Amelia just moved into an apartment of her own but was still paying rent at a dorm apartment, so we were able to sleep in her old room.

We did a lot of walking around the city at night, and it’s quite spectacular: many of the buildings are lit up red, reflecting the look of the day time.

Melaka by night, reflected in the canal through the city

Jacob and Amelia introduced us to a lot of great food, some of it Baba-Nyonya, or Straits Chinese: cuisine that developed independently among the Chinese living in Melaka through the centuries. One meal that is particularly memorable was at a little family-run outdoor cafe on a back street, where they served plates of steaming seafood -- snails, cockles, clams, squid, you name it -- all for about a buck a pop. Really good.

If you cook it, they will come...

Lynn’s looking awfully happy considering her spinach came piled with squid on top!

We made one final quick stop on the Malaysian penninsula: Singapore, just for an afternoon. I didn’t plan more because my impression of Singapore is that it’s a big, sterile modern city that’s great if you like expensive shopping.

Singapore, Southeast Asia’s Manhattan

Well, that was a mistake -- Singapore is actually quite fascinating. The downtown riverfront is beautiful...

Kind of reminds me of Chicago...

...and there is a lot of history from the British days, when Sir Stamford Raffles watched over the colonial city. This guy governed Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, plus established the London Zoo before dying at 34. Makes me feel like a slacker. He now has a famous hotel named after him, where they invented the Singapore Sling.

”Stammy”?

The Asian Civilizations Museum is one of the best in the world -- we had only two hours, but could have spent two days. But we had a flight to Tokyo to catch, so we had to leave Singapore’s ultra-clean streets behind.

Anyway, it’s a little fascist for my tastes -- they ban durians from the subway.

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On Saturday, August 23rd, we headed down the Sarawak River from Kuching for Santubong, a rainforest-blanketed penninsula to the north. The name “rainforest” was certainly applicable based on the weather, which alternated between light drizzle and hard downpours.

Mount Santubong rising above the Sarawak River

We spent a couple of much-needed days resting at the Permai Rainforest Resort, an eco-resort tucked into the rainforest above Damai beach. It’s a beautiful place, and was a perfect break within our trip. It was rustic without being nasty (we’ve had plenty of nasty already; did I mention our disgusting place in Kuta?), and we had a lovely treehouse that was a great place to sleep in, hang out, and read and write.

Our tree-top castle

With our batteries recharged, we did venture into the rainforest for a strenuous and very drippy (from sweat -- even when it isn’t hot, it’s so humid you still wind up drenched) hike.

Don’t look down, just keep moving!

”Honey, we’re gonna need a bigger bottle of wine...

The Santubong penninsula is also home to the Sarawak Cultural Village, an outdoor folk museum where they have assembled traditional tribal longhouses from all over the area.

The Sarawak Cultural Village

We really love these kinds of places, and it was a very enjoyable afternoon (in the rain, again) checking out the various artistic styles of the Iban, Bidayuh, and other local tribes, who live in communal dwellings where each family has a room that opens onto one long central common area. Nowadays, they are mostly constructed with tin roofs and satellite dishes, of course, but the traditional wooden ones at the Village were fascinating.

Various longhouses

They also have costumed staff who describe their native crafts, as well as a dance show that mostly cool and only a bit cheesy.

Iban woman demonstrating cutting bamboo strips for weaving baskets

Iban dancer, with characteristic tattoos

Now in Kuching, they actually run tours to the real longhouses that the Dayak tribes still live in. You can go upriver and visit the longhouses, and even stay there overnight. We were going to do that, but we only had time for a daytrip, and the closest one where they all go sees a lot of visitors, so we ultimately decided against it. We got lazy and just settled for the "culture in a can" route at the Cultural Village.

As is so often the case after a rainy day, the sun broke through just in time for a beautiful sunset -- just before we left.

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Kuching from across the Sarawak River

The modern state of Malaysia was granted independence by the British 50 years ago after a century of crown rule. But Sarawak was a unique case; it had never been an official part of British Malaya. In the early 1800s, the British adventurer James Brooke helped the Sultan of nearby Brunei put down a rebellion, and was given Sarawak as his own personal kingdom. He and his descendants benevolently ruled Sarawak as the White Rajas, including tribal leaders in their government and discouraging European exploitation, until the Japanese invaded. Following the war, Sarawak was integrated into greater Malaysia, with Kuching as the state capitol.

The largest ethnic group in Kuching is the Chinese, and we are staying with Jee Kiun “Barry” Chong, a Chinese chef who runs a food court with several partners.

Barry Chong, our host in Kuching

His ancestors, who come from southern China, have lived in Kuching for generations. The Chinese were invited to Sarawak by the Brookes to work in mining and agriculture, and over time they have come to dominate the economy. And certainly the restaurant industry -- there are enough Chinese markets, food stalls, and restaurants here to feed all of Beijing, I would think.

Chinese shops in Kuching

The night we arrived, Barry took us to the Kuching Food Festival, which runs for three weeks every August.

The Kuching Food Festival in full swing

It’s an outdoor park of food stands, full of Malaysians happily munching their way through the country’s multi-ethnic cuisines.

Meat on a stick -- it’s the univeral culinary language

In the past, Barry and his friends have run a stall selling doughnut-like desserts, but this year they decided not to due to the cost of the stall and the increased price of flour. We walked around, sampling various goodies like fried squid balls with a sweet sauce, as well as, umm, stranger things...

Tastes like chicken!

In the morning, Barry took us to his food court, where we breakfasted on roti, Indian fried flatbread.

Barry’s food court

Breakfast with Barry

Most of the people there were having Sarawak’s culinary obsession: laksa.

The breakfast of champions, Sarawak-style

This is a bowl of noodles, bean sprouts, shredded chicken, and shrimp, all swimming in a bubbling red hell-broth of coconut milk and chili paste. And yes, they eat this for breakfast.

Mmmmm... Laksaaaaaah...

I had a bowl for dinner at the food fair, and while it was delicious, it left me requiring some intimate time with the thunder bucket the next day. I can’t imagine what it would do to my guts first thing in the morning!

Speaking of which, it is worth a quick detour to mention that we are now solidly in the land of the Asian squat toilet.

Watch your sneakers...

Think what you want about it, but there is something to be said for this toilet architecture. The position it puts you in is actually quite physiologically advantageous for the task at hand. And it has additional bonus features: we have noticed that most Asians have really beautifully toned thigh muscles, and if you are a habitual bathroom reader, you will find that you have noticably more time in your day for other pursuits.

We spent the rest of the morning walking around Kuching, which has a lovely waterfront promenade and a beautiful colonial area.

The gate to the market

Notice the sign on the right: “Tan Heng Thai: Speical [sic] Maker For Fancy Coffins”

Kuching means “cat” in Malay, and the city fathers have built statues of cats all around the city. There’s even a cat museum. It’s kind of corny, but rather endearing as well. Assuming you’re not a mouse, I suppose.

Meow, welcome to Kuching, meow meow.

But the highlight of the day was unquestionably a trip for the afternoon feeding at the Semenggoh Wildlife Center, where they rehabilitate orangutans and reintroduce them to jungle life. Of all the meals we experienced in Kuching, theirs was definitely the most memorable.

One other memorable thing we experienced in Kuching with Barry: we got to visit with a group of Chinese theatre people. Barry is part of the Cicada Drama Company, the first Chinese Buddhist theatre company in Kuching, founded by Taiwanese movie director Tsai Ming Liang, whose movies have received some international acclaim (I’ve never heard of them, but I don’t follow Chinese cinema much). Barry was very excited to find out that we were theatre people, so our final night with him, he invited his friends over and we talked theatre -- running a company, communicating to audiences, etc.

Talking shop with Barry and Sheau Fen “Jean” Lai

We watched a video of a recent performance of theirs, an original play called “I Want To Fly Away Into The Sky,” which was about dealing with terminal illness. It was quite interesting to watch even though we didn’t understand the dialogue, and had some very touching moments.

It was a fun night, and an unexpected treat at the end of our long taste of Kuching.

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