Tourist Sites

Rajasthan is the India of dreams: Lying on the edge of the western sands along the Pakistani border, it is imposing fortress walls, swirls of bright-hued saris, and camel caravans into the desert. After two days, we were more than ready to leave Delhi, so we rode off into the domain of the Maharajas, taking an overnight train and morning bus to the lakeside Hindu pilgrimage city of Pushkar.

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

From Bangkok, we took a brief sidetrip north to check out the ruined city of Ayutthaya (eye-YOU-tay-uh). When Europe was just emerging from the Middle Ages, this place was one of the capitals of the world, larger and more splendid than London or Paris. Then the Burmese came in and sacked it, and now it is a sleepy provincial town with a backyard full of evocative ruined temples.

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.

WARNING: This blog entry has received a PG-13 rating from the Blog Rating Board due to adult content

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.

We arrived in Siem Reap (pronounced see-EHM ree-EHP) from Hanoi with feelings of both anticipation and regret. We were very excited to see the ruins of Angkor, a huge complex of remnants from the 12th century Khmer empire that once ruled most of Southeast Asia. Angkor Wat, the well-preserved main temple, is believed to be the largest religious structure in the world.

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.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

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.