BelkBlog

Vietnam Part II: Hanoi and Halong Bay

 

Hanoi and Halong Bay

I'm behind and a bunch of folks out there are giving me a hard time about being behind. So, I'm going to write today and tomorrow and catch up. There have been a few requests for maps of where we are, but that you folks will need to go to google for!

So, we travelled from Siem Reap/Angkor Wat back to Hanoi, Vietnam. Hanoi was probably one of the biggest surprises of the trip so far. Our expectation as that Saigon would be the 'pretty city' with wide boulevards and great architecture. Well, Saigon was a great place to visit, as I've already described, but Hanoi was just wonderful. Again, the history is there, both above and below the surface, as the following photo of a crashed B52 in a wealthy district lake shows (read about this and had to hunt a bit to find it). Surreal, and probably won't be there in ten years. You have to look closely, but it is wing and landing gear of a bomber that crashed in 1972.

 

 

Our guide was very happy that we really did not want to see too many Vietnam war sites. Like the guide in Saigon, they knew their history, but it is a country that is about 65-70% under thirty, and they want to focus on the future, rather than the past. Another shot, not one of my best, I took while driving, but gotta throw it in here. It was the week of both the Vietnamese elections (totally democratic to vote for basically the one candidate available (actually there were 30 independents out of about 570 seats, which is a start), as well as Ho Chi Minh's birthday. This shot shows a slogan image of Uncle Ho, and the sign above him is a banner for the latest Garfield the Cat movie!

In my last entry (I know it was a while ago), I talked about the motorbike culture. Hanoi is filled with motorbikes, but at least in the areas where were were in the "old town" the density was a bit lower. But folks seemed to do everything on their motorbikes. One evening, we sat outside our hotel having a beer, and you could see a street corner down the block where dozens (hundreds?) of kids and their bikes were on the sidewalks socializing and flirting. We found out the next day that there was a popular ice cream shop down one of the alleys---where folks would drive their motorbikes down the 75 meter narrow alley to hang out with their buddies eating ice cream---on their motorbikes!

My wife go this shot, not sure how they do it, but folks sleep on the bikes as well!

One of the more fascinating exhibits we stumbled over was in an unexpected place. We took our kids to the Hanoi Museum of Ethnology, which is dedicated to the 55 various ethnic groups in Vietnam, and has an open air museum of house and community structures that were built on site by various minority groups. A great open air museum, the kids loved it, but it was not what blew our minds. In the museum, there was an exhibit called "Life in the Subsidy Economy 1975-1986", beautifully done, and a tough critique of what life was like under the hard core communist leadership before Doi Moi the opening that started in '86 and accelerated in '93, and then with normalization of relations with the U.S. in 1995. They had a reconstructed apartment for a doctor and his extended family---seven people in a 28 square meter urban apartment (280 square feet), and that was not counting the pigs and chickens they needed for extra food and cash. Sure the exhibit is tucked away in an 'ethnology museum', but it's a start. I did a google on the exhibit (nothing on the museum site), but here is a link to a WSJ Article: http://www.asiafoundation.com/Locations/vietnam_wsjoped.html I did not take photo's, as it looked like they were kinda monitoring who was in there, but it was hugely educational. Our guide, early 30's, described how in his pre-teens would have to go and queue for his family for hours to get rice. The exhibit described that even if you were able to be entrepreneurial, you could not spend the money, as there were no hard good, and an entire security apparatus that would suspect anyone who 'owned' anything.

Another surprise of the exhibit was the description of just how "undemocratic" the process was, as high party officials had the highest level ration cards, other party functionaries did well, but the 'people' all got screwed. It looked like a staggeringly horrible decade to follow forty years of war. In a twisted way, 1.1 million Vietnamese soldiers and almost 60,000 U.S. soldiers had to die, and another decade past, before the unified Vietnam realized it needed a different path. Whether this path works for them for decades into the future, who knows, I hope so, and on this Memorial Day, with other foreign wars underway that are getting ever more like Vietnam, you can only hope that the kids, both local and foreign, don't have the die by the droves to better the lives of the politicians and elite. Although the party seems to have near control in Vietnam, it is opening up, and as I said in the Saigon segment, the growth and enthusiasm are staggering.

On a more touristy note, we headed out for a four hour drive to overnight in Halong Bay. Seems like everything in Vietnam is a four hour drive, on great roads that must have been an eight hour drive thirty years ago. Halong Bay is a UNESCO (United Nations Education and Cultural Org) designated site that is STAGGERINGLY beautiful. And the drive was beautiful as well…(back to good photo's again):

 

Halong Bay, although rapidly undergoing 'touristization' (if not a word, it should be),is serviced by about 400 "junks", small passenger boats with anywhere from 6-50 passengers. The Bay itself is hundreds of square kilometers of limestone 'karsts', eroded limestone mountains that great an amazing vista wherever one looks. This one was from the deck of our "Ginger Junk":

All through the bay are small 'fishing villages'. Fishing village is a bit of misnomer, as they are fully floating villages….houses linked to houses of people that spend their life afloat. When I asked on board, estimates are that about 7,000-10,000 people live afloat, with government buildings, stores, restaurants etc.

And although these folks were not material 'rich', a lot of the houses were very nicely built, the kids were clean, everybody was well dressed, well fed, and full of what I would call Vietnamese smiles and enthusiasm. The young girl below was selling large shells, and rowed herself to our boat (the folks row standing up, pushing the oars forward). She was wearing stylish jeans, gold jewelry, and was having a great time yakking it up with the Junk's crew. There was another young boy, probably about 9 or 10, rowing around, hundreds of meters off shore, in a woven boat, using the oars and the boat like the appendage to his body that they probably were since birth. Watching him row back to his house at high speed, ROWING WITH HIS FEET, was an amazing sight.

Halong Bay. It is a boggling place. Right now most of the trips are one or two nights, or day trips from shore. A few years from now, this will change, but I hope the Bay and the feelings it engenders does not. In itself worth the trip to Vietnam.

 

 

Angkor Wat---Cambodia

 

Angkor Wat---Cambodia

After our foray through Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, and a few days out in the Mekong (remember, key tip, DO NOT eat the raw, uncooked veggies in your spring roll unless you want to lose weight fast the hard way), we headed on a Vietnam Airways flight to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat.

Vietnam Airways is yet ANOTHER Asian airline that staff from U.S. Airlines should fly. Clean planes, service staff that actually helps passengers, and flights that left and arrived early!

Cambodia is an interesting contrast for my family and I. The Temples of Angkor are truly a wonder of the world. "Angkor Wat" is only ONE temple of a complex of 100+ temples that range from the 9^th until the 16^th Century, over an area of jungle tens of square miles or kilometers (take your choice). As you will see from the photo's below, the environment and the landscape are some of the most unique that I have ever seen.

However, there is another side of Cambodia which is unlike anything I have ever seen. I've travelled through India, South America, Asia, and I've never seen the level of abject poverty and despair that I sensed in Angkor and Siem Reap. Which is staggering, as it is a dollar economy. One is charged $25 per person for a "Visa on Arrival", $20 PER DAY PER PERSON to visit the Temples, and $14 to leave Siem Reap. The hotels are "dollar priced", the meals are close to "dollar priced". However, there is ZERO infrastructure, besides a few nice toilets for the tourists. There are various buildings that look like 'show buildings' on the tourist roads, but the people are among the most deprived I have ever seen. Within a few hundred meters of the main roads you see people living in cardboard shacks that look way worse than the worst Favellas I saw in Brazil in the early 90's. The kids are barefoot, wet, and dirty, and one can see them walking in and out of debris strewn dirt trails leading in and out of the jungle. Although our guide was wonderful (he has lived his whole life in Siem Reap), in any restaurant or hotel one stepped into there was an underlying tension that was palpable. It's interesting that my first post of this blog talks about the dynamics of groups and the types of feelings that one can sense from a group, both positive and negative. In Cambodia, even what should have been a showcase, and a prosperous showcase at that, felt like a darkness was permanently descended on the place. I can't even conceive of what it must have been like ten or more years ago.

Another piece of evidence was the youth. We had been travelling for about four weeks when we got to Cambodia. We had been through China, Bali, and had five days in Southern Vietnam. In our time to date on this trip, there had never been a time when our 'personal alarm bells' started to go off, when we felt our personal safety was at risk. When you go on a side street in a city, and suddenly one is aware that you may be in a place where you should not be. On the streets of Siem Reap, even in the temple areas, there were groups of teenage boys that smacked of malevolence. They were not in school, of course, and you sensed they had nothing to lose. We recognized the type, as unfortunately, we've seen this too often in cities across the U.S. Unlike the U.S., however, these kids had actual reason to despair, as there is probably little to no way out of the situation they are in. Where the money goes, who knows, I need to add that mystery to my lengthening list of blog items that I 'really can't write or speculate about'. The only money that seems to visibly be available for 'the people' seems to be from the Aid Groups, as there was a huge children's hospital, and other Aid driven buildings.

While the Aid groups do what they can, and they are always to be admired, respected, and with every other adjective and financial help, supported, I think even those groups would agree that Aid is just throwing water down a bottomless well, that helps who they can, but does not change the overall structure of the issues and malaise. China and Vietnam, both with lots of foibles (to say the least) are examples of the structural changes that have to occur to really affect the lives of most (but not all) of the people in an area or country. Vietnam, an a scale of 90 million people vs. a billion plus, seems to be doing an even more staggering job than China did (more on that later), but unless Siem Reap is an anomaly for Cambodia, and the rest of the country is in better shape, I worry.

OK, that aside, I gotta talk about the temples. Once again, my 18 years of schooling have failed me miserably. For some reason, and I know I've said this before in this blog, and will be saying it again, the 'history of the world' that is taught in the U.S. is the U.S.'s own short history, the history of the European side of the U.S. family tree. Even as more and more of the U.S. population is from a broader heritage, and I have always believed (and this trip reinforces that belief) that our strength if from the multiplicity of histories and cultures that make 'America', Asian history is a blank for us. As I wandered around the temples surrounded Angkor, seeing vast temple complexes. Temple Complexes 1.5 kilometers by 1 km for some temples walls, surrounded by immense moats that make "Euro Moats" look like canals for toy boats, like think moats 100 meters wide (that were stone walled and floored) that stretch for 5+ KM around the temple. Think of temple blocks that came from quarries 50 KM away. This an economy that could support a worker/trademan populace of a scale to build the structure after structure that we visited. Although the lives of the people that built the temples most likely sucked by our views, bottom line, if they were 'slaves or trademen' there needed to be a certain scale of consistent nutrition and hygiene that allowed the temples to be built. If you assume that diseases and injury killed off folks as well, then bottom line is the skilled carpenters, stonemasons, quarry workers, sculptors, priests, planners, managers, accountants (or whatever they were called then) had to be sustained. Killing everybody off continually would not have allowed what we saw to be built.

Another interesting thing about Angkor. It is obviously a 'working site' for a vast number or archeological teams from around the world. There are various temples and projects being worked on by the French (after all, they 'discovered' Angkor in the late 1800's, ha, ha, ha), the Japanese, and the Germans. Probably other countries and universities as well. And these are well funded, well staffed, heaving construction projects, with vast field of numbered blocks, massive scaffolding, hardhats and heavy equipment. A bit of contrast (to say the least) with my second visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian, where I wondered (like my first trip), but why the heck wasn't there any work going on on-site! Although I scaled these up a bit from my other blog photo's, I'm not sure that one can capture Angkor.

This is fun one though, in a spot recommended by our guide:

Everything is "under water". It adds to the mystery and allure of the temples, but unfortunately, also to the feeling one gets when you leave the temple complexes.

Even with the massive reconstruction, they folks working on the temples are just touching the proverbial 'tip of the iceberg'. Everywhere one walks, there are immense vistas of carved bas reliefs on the walls, sculpture on the walls, and even on the ground. This piece just was where it was, and images like this prompted me to start shooting in Black and White, which for a lot of reasons seemed more appropriate for these ruins.

 

On our second day, we visited the temple of Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom, although also being somewhat restored, has been left to show the effects that time and nature has on the works of man. With the grey skies, the rain, the fever I had the night before, the flooded landscape, the water dripping from the temples ruins and the forest, the net effect was the closest I had ever experienced to a waking dream. The landscape almost felt alien, like one was part of an 'away party' of a sci-fi film we have all seen.

 

What was most humbling about the ruins is that these are incredible structures, from what must have been a prosperous and noble society. Things happened, wars happened, disease happened, and over the hundreds of years, the temples were swallowed by the jungle. In the case of Angkor Wat (remember, that is one particular temple out of more than 100), the reason it is still so well known, is that although it was built in the 16^th century, it has still been in use, and although with some wear and tear from Machine Guns and Mortar shots in the last Cambodian war, has been kept pretty well intact.

I'm sure I'll have more to say as we see the remains of Greece and Rome over the coming months, but what does it mean about our society if/when we screw it up in the next generations or in the next few hundreds of years? In four hundred years will hungry, decrepit, dirty children be begging from tourists visiting the ruins of DC or the ruins of LA? Or if not us doing it to ourselves, there are the viruses, which a lot of folks think will have the last laugh anyway (there are LOTS of billboards with warnings on H5N1 aka "bird flu" in Vietnam). And given the beginning the posts, and the environment of Siem Reap, I can't even fathom the courage of the Doctor named on this photo to put this placard, in English, on the main tourist route from Siem Reap to the Temples.

I did not mean to do this, I did not mean to be this dark, but it was a place for a lot of introspection, on a lot of levels. And as I was about to post this, I realized that I've done a 'reverse Wizard of Oz' from Color to Black and White and then back to Color. And then back to Vietnam, which thankfully, after decades and centuries of black and white, is now a full landscape of vibrant color.

Vietnam Part I and Some Other Commentary

Vietnam

I've been wanting to go to Vietnam for a long time. Several times, I've almost gotten there for business reasons, but the trips/itineraries often got changed, and Vietnam fell off the itinerary. Like most Americans, my views of Vietnam were formed and colored by the Vietnam war, even though I was barely in my teens when it ended. Ho Chi Minh was 'the enemy', sort of like the Saddam of his day. Living in San Diego, native Vietnamese are everywhere. The Vietnamese we meet or work with are hardworking, warm, and fun hearted people. But given Vietnam=Vietnam War + (sort of) Communist Country, I really did not know what to expect.

Saigon. Landing in Ho Chi Minh city airport (nee Saigon), the impression that the war is still part of Vietnam's history hits one immediately, as the Airplane revetments/bunkers from the Vietnam remain intact lining the taxiways. But then you get to the gate, and the war ends. A modern efficient airport, a modern efficient custom's staff, a bustle of activity and color that is a precursor to what we were about to see. Leaving the airport, you learn pretty much everything you need to know about Vietnam on the 45 minute drive from the airport to one's downtown hotel.

First, the motorbikes. There are 4 MILLION motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh city. That's about 10,000 per city block as far as I can tell. Motorbikes are to HCM what pedestrians are to a downtown Tokyo street. They are everywhere, swarming around our van, swarming around each other, swarming on the wrong side of the road, and occasionally on the sidewalks. Crossing the road, people just wade out into the swarm, which organically flows around the pedestrians.

Second, the youth. Everybody is young. There is vibrancy, there is motion.

Third, the growth. It's not like a China with the megabuildings and megacities, but still, you sense that the infrastructure is changing rapidly. Streets are being torn up, bridges built, highways expanded. As my wife was the first to observe, the basic structure of current Vietnamese architecture is "the box". All of the shops and houses are narrow, long structures, sometimes only about ten or twelve feet wide, stacked continuously against one another for miles. When buildings go vertical, it's still the "box", but goes up 4-5 stories. The small shopkeeper is still the bastion of the city, as the boxes show neverending rows of shops.

Fourth, the Communist party. Party posters are everywhere. There is a national election on May 20^th, and obvious government posters line the streets, along with red banners with the Vietnamese star, and incongruously, red banners with hammers and sickles!

 

Fifth, the war is still a big part of the Vietnam landscape. Lots of the government posters show revolutionary imagery, the AK47's, the peasant warrior. On the drive in from the airport, you go past the 'reunification palace' where the Vietnamese Army crashed through the gates on April 30^th, 1976, with the tanks still arrayed out front.

 

 

Note: The two picture above were incongruous together, but are indicative of the New Vietnam. The caption of the first (if you zoom) says something about enjoying letters at the front, and the next is bunch of monks at the Capital in DC!

Sixth, statues of Ho Chi Minh are everywhere. Unlike Mao, who seems to be a bit less ubiquitous in China, Uncle Ho is everywhere. But in the last week, I've learned that what I thought I knew about Ho Chi Minh I did not know and was probably wrong about. He was educated in a French Lycee, left Vietnam at 21, and was out the country for 30 years, mostly trying to find ways to get the French out, who at the time were just the latest in a centuries long line of people that wanted to Own Vietnam. He spoke four languages, lived in 12 countries, could write letters fluently in English (the Vietnam Airlines inflight mag has a copy of one in this month's issue), and had his flaws as all leaders do, but it is clear that he is seen more as the Vietnamese George Washington than Saddam.

We then headed off to the Mekong Delta. Nothing moves slowly in Vietnam, not the people, not the vehicles. But nothing moves quickly either. There is a constancy, a pace that seems to be the heartbeat of the country. Which seems to be somewhere between 30-50 kilometers an hour. So, a trip of any distance to anywhere takes a while. To the Mekong, about 4 hours each way. The trip is somewhat mesmerizing, as the "box" architecture follows out of the city, and intro the countryside and beyond. Tens of kilometers of narrow shops and houses, seeming to continue into infinity.

The Mekong was about agricultural productivity and water. Water water everywhere. Geez, a lot of what I'm writing about today is about water (see below). But the food. The fruit, the rice. It puts your Safeway's and Albertson's to shame, as people to not have huge refrigerators, and might not even have electricity (although we saw a lot of very big TV's in very small houses, which would seem to imply that they are hooked up the grid somewhere ;- ) Nobody seems wealth, but nobody is starving, to the contrary, everybody seems healthy, and nobody seems to be trying to 'find the gene that causes obesity' because nobody is obese. A kilo of rice is about 6000-8000 vietnamese Dong (yes, that is the name of the currency), which is about 30-50 cents in USD. Maybe it was harvest time, but the abundance of food and fruit in the rural areas was just staggering.

A couple of other topics, tunnels and religion. We went out to the Tunnels at Chu Chi. During the war against the French and then what is called here the "American war", the Vietnamese dug almost 200KM of tunnels underground, to hide arms, people, and do nasty things to our fellow countryman. I don't want to negate the suffering on any side, but it is pretty boggling that the U.S. actually put part of any Army base right over one of the tunnel complexes. We actually went down into a few of the tunnels, which I had read about in the mid-90's, and were the scenes of some of the more brutal battles of the war. The landscape all around Chu Chi was still pockmarked with bomb craters.

The tunnels they let the tourists into had actually been expanded over time. You go down about 3-4 meters, and end up in an "anteroom" maybe about 1.5 meters square. The adjoining tunnels into other areas are maybe a bit over 1 meter high (again, expanded to keep tourists happy), and lit (mostly) with electric lights. I followed my two older girls (and a guide) through the tunnels through the first few sections. Even on a cool rainy day, the heat and the closeness was oppressive, and I'm a guy that does not get claustrophobic. In the last section, they had a segment that "went down to a lower level), about 5-6 meters deep. My guide and kids had gone ahead, as I was trying to yell back to my wife and youngest daughter to let us know where we were going. I started following to sounds I heard though the dimly lit tunnel. Suddenly the dirt floor started to slant deeper. I'm about 5' 10", and was almost crawling, as the height of the tunnel (again, tourist expanded) did not allow me to walk hunched over, but needed to 'crab walk'. As I slanted downwards, the tunnel got smaller, there were suddenly no electric lights, I could not hear or see my kids, and my heartbeat accelerated and I started to sweat like crazy. No way in hell that that I would want to be on any side of conflict that involved an environment like that, because it was hell.

 

Religion:

Vietnam as a function of policy obviously did not like religion at some point, as most of the people we have talked to speak about religion as being something for their parents. However, all of the temples are in much better condition and much better occupied and visited than shall we say "other countries" that we have been to.

I ate something bad (don't eat raw veggies with your spring rolls in small countryside restaurants) and was miserable for several days. But then we went into this Buddhist temple in the Mekong, and although I'm not Buddhist by a long shot, the sound of the monk chanting, the bells, the serenity of the temple itself, was the first time in days that I felt well. And this neon image above the Buddha was one for the ages!

 

We also went to a Cai Dao Temple. Cai Dai is somewhat (and I apologize to any folks who are adherents) a combination of Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Judaism, and Graceland. Buddha, Jesus, and Moses are part of the pantheon. But somehow, so is Victor Hugo. The temple itself has the "all seeing eye" on the door that is on U.S. currency. And the imagery, sights and sounds of the ceremonies are never to be forgotten.

 

 

Connectivity Notes:

Indonesia/Bali was great. Just got a phone card, popped it in my phone. It was one of my first transactions in Bali, and I thought I was getting about $30 USD in phone credit, but realized that I had just handed over a bit over $3 USD to get up and running with my phone! Instead of the $4.99 per minute that it could have cost me to call the U.S. from Bali, it cost about $0.15 per minute! And to get more phone credits, you would pop into any corner phone store, hand over about $5, the proprietor would punch numbers into their phone, and BINGO, an SMS would pop up with more calling time. I spent about $15 total in ten days, and all the grandparents got all calls and updates from the kids and grandkids that they wanted.

Vietnam/Cambodia: Much tougher,as prepaid phone cards are harder to obtain, and you need to hand over your passport info in some cases. Not worth it.

HSDPA card still has not worked. Great profits for Cingular, I pay them $139 a month for an international card, and the card does not work internationally! I miss my DO card in the U.S. that works everywhere, painlessly, seamlessly. Oh, to never have to worry about internet connectivity!

Vista on the downswing. I said nice things about Vista before, and probably will again, but I keep on running into connectivity situations, both wired and Wi-Fi, where Vista does not work. So I'm mad at Vista again. The Business Class lounge in Singapore is at least honest about it…in the fine print on their free wi-fi, they say Vista not supported, but hopefully this fall. There have been a couple of instances where my wife's Mac also has not worked, but my Vista issues probably outnumber hers by 2 or 3 to 1. Thankfully, we have one of each, and we have always been able to connect somewhere with at least one computer.

Wi-Fi still ain't 'free'. We've maxed out at about $26 per day, most hotels are in the $18-$20 per day range, sometimes with iffy coverage and iffy bandwidth. Sometimes there is an area of the lobby or business center with free Wi-Fi, but as I said almost five years ago, neither me or anyone else in the hotel wants me down there wandering in my underwear with my laptop. Better to keep it in the room.

TV: We have gone almost five weeks without seeing a movie, and have gone weeks in a row without even turning on a TV set in a hotel room. The IHT and the internet gives us our news, and surprise, surprise, we have lived without all the shows that my wife and I diligently watch each week at home. Time and days have different meanings when you are on the road. With one's brain near overload from what we are experiencing every day, more stimulus, more news at the end of the day does not even enter our minds.

Wireless in General in Indonesia and Vietnam: Shops are everywhere, billboards are everywhere, but bottom line is that there is still a ton of growth to go. Even in countries like Indonesia with low wireless density, and inexpensive calling rates, there were not too many people on the phone, relative to what one would see in a U.S. or Europe. It's the old adage about the two shoe salesmen that go to an island where no westerner has visited and nobody wears shoes. Sales guy one telegraph's back (actually must be via sat phone, since I just said no westerner has visited) that "terrible sales opportunity, nobody here wears shoes", and sales guy #2 writes back "fantastic sales opportunity, nobody here has shoes!!!". In my view, human's desire to communicate is pretty much universal, as is the desire not to overpay (in any currency, see water story above). If service prices can lbe attractive, folks will start to use their phones more, and those without phones will find a reason to get one. And adding wireless internet to the equation changes everything, not just for 'comms' but for people's access to information and knowledge, health care, and commercial opportunities. Sorry for the soapbox, but I've been a wireless weenie for the last 13+ years and I really believe this stuff…

And now for something completely different, but has been bugging the crap out of us for weeks:

Water and Why the Hospitality Industry is making it something miserable

One of the most irritating things in the world as a traveler, or as an 'eater in a restaurant', is what the WATER INDUSTRY has done to the FOOD Industry.

I go to a restaurant to EAT not to go through a selection of waters. In a hotel, in a developing world country, I don't need $8 USD bottles of water, I just need water that won't make my family or if there are signs that say that the water in the room is 'non-potable', then there better be water to brush one's teeth.

In four weeks of travel, we've had a lot of exceptional experiences, but with the exception of the Four Seasons Sayan, and mid-Market restaurants in the smaller cities, EVERY hotel, and EVERY restaurant plays the water game. This has been a pet peeve of my wife and mine for some time. In our view (call us rebels), one goes to a restaurant with family and friends to have a meal, an experience, hopefully good service. An appropriate "upsell" in a restaurant should be 'do you want one of our wonderful desserts', or 'would you like an after dinner drink', not this constant badgering to consume more and more expensive waters in ever smaller containers. We've had restaurants that would serve our family of five 250ml (about 8 ounces) bottles of imported water!!!

Then there are the resort hotels. My wife Kim and I have had extensive conversations, and have boiled it down to four courses of outcomes that a hotel or resort in the developing world, where there is not water for guests to safely consume. It's easy:

1. Give away bottles of water: Not too expensive, in most countries the "local" water has be ten to twenty cents per 500ml bottle (16.9 ounces). Liter bottles are usually less than 50 cents. Result: Hydrated, happy, healthy guests
2. Charge for expensive water everywhere. There are three results from this alternative: a) Guests drink tap water. Result: Guest get sick, and are miserable and pissed off at the hotel or resort. B) Guests have to purchase water everywhere. Result: Guest at the margin consume less water than they should, resulting in a less healthy visit than they would experience otherwise, combined with the fact that they get royally pissed at the hotel / resort for charging obscene prices for water. C) Provide LOCAL, safe, bottled water at a reasonable price. I really, really don't need to drink French water in the middle of Vietnam or Cambodia! Result: Customers won't impose cost burden, will consume water, will be healthy, won't love the hotel/resort as much as getting it free, but also a reasonable solution.

The interesting thing about the alternatives above is that there is NO outcome where a hotel or restaurant charges a fortune for water that results in happy customers. My guess is that the restaurant trade mags are filled with the profits driven by water sales, and I know there are water companies out there that advise restaurants on what stemware to purchase to maximize sales, and how to train staff to keep on keeping the glasses filled to the rim, but I wonder whether they know how much the 'water game' detracts from the dining experience.

We have been at restaurants on this trip that ONLY have European imported water available with dinner. Serving spicy foods, and selling the water for often $6-$8 per 500-750ml bottle! We had great dinners in China for less money than our water bills in lesser restaurants!

 

 

Bali Chapter I---Ubud, Rice, and Festivals

I've been a bad, bad blogger. We went off from China to Bali. The RPM's on the culture and on my family had a similar effect, we ramped down. I've got a lot to say about Bali, but I'll probably break my commentary into "bali I" and "bali II". Part I will be more of standard travelogue of Bali. The photos that we took in Bali were boggling, because the people were boggling, the scenery and the landscapes were boggling. The sounds and smells were boggling.

We spent the first six days of our trip to Bali in Central Bali, near a place called Ubud, which has been a cultural and religious hub for Bali for centuries. I won't say the pace of life was unchanged, as motorbikes were ubiquitous, stylish shops and restaurants were everywhere, but some indications of constancy were still evident. Temples and shrines were within every sightline. Offerings, of flowers, rice, and incense, were in front of every house and shop. As our trip to Ubud also coincided with the full moon, and for one temple region the "new year" for the 210 day Balinese calendar, there were festivals everywhere. We also go to see rice planted, and the prior harvest gathered. And the faces, the children and the old, well not much I can say beyond the photos.

Terraced rice field being planted.

Offering                    Musicians off to Festival

Rice Fields                    Threshing Freshly Harvested Rice    Rice being readied for drying        A few weeks to a month of food per bag

Statue in front of Temple

Then there was the new years festival at a temple about twenty minutes south of Sayan, the town outside of Ubud where we were staying. As you will see from the photo's this was not for the tourists, although we were quite welcome, as long as we followed the rules (no photos in front of praying folks, staying out of many areas of the temple, not taking any photos without clearing it with our guide, wearing sarongs and headdresses, all very cool, and amazingly memorable).

Bringing your offerings to the temple

Priest taking a break

Kids

Hundreds of Guys doing a wild line dance…

Young                                And Old

Observer                            Participants

Happy New Years!!!

Beijing and China Summary

Beijing and China Summary:

It is with mixed feelings that we leave Beijing and the China portion of our trip. China for me, on a "non-business" basis has been an eye opener. I've been trying to figure out the way to do this, as my wife and I had an experience more appropriate to the "old China" than new the day before our visit ended, and I'm not sure I'm even able to write about it. The "old China" is still there. Oh yes, it is still there.

But there are so many positives. So, since everyone outside of the U.S. seems the think the U.S. is defined by westerns and Clint Eastwood, I think I will do a Beijing and China summary in the form of "the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".

First the Good:

The Chinese People: When one is in a business suit, being whisked from Airport to Hotel to Meeting Room, to Dinner, to hotel, to meeting room, repeat till departure to Airport, one expects that folks around will be responding to the 'westerners in dark suits' syndrome, i.e. great service, not a lot of interaction. When one is in jeans and a sports shirt, travelling around lots of cities, lots of tourist attractions, especially travelling with three young kids in a 'one-child' state, you expect a different set of interactions.

And it was. The Chinese people are warm, humorous, good natured, diligent, and all in all our interactions were wonderful. They love kids, and my four year old had as many pictures taken of her as Madonna on Tour. A few photos of some unique faces, fair play considering the hundreds of photos folks all over China took of my kids!

 

The photos above and the one below were taken at the Temple of Heaven. There were hundreds of school kids, all in their school track suits.

The Food: We ate phenomenally well. The food was universally good, even in restaurants that were a bit sketchy at best. We were never 'price gouged' (or if we were, not that much, like my Guilin tea example), and portions were always huge and of good quality. My kids ate things that they never had before, duck all different ways, eels, tofu dishes, spicy dishes, all sorts of vegetables that we don't see in the U.S. Counter to popular belief, you don't have to get sick in China. We had five people (three kids) eat for two weeks in restaurants ranging from Sub-One Star to Five Star with only one stomach ache for one kid.

The Hotels: With the exception of one hotel that had great service and needed an upgrade, and another hotel that was beautiful but where we had a significant issue that I can't write about, the hotels are great, and good values.

The Drivers: What can I say about the drivers. Complete Chaos everywhere, a traffic system predicated on 1) who has the larger vehicle and 2) Black Audi's with Party or VIP's in them, bicycles, dozens of types of motorized cycles, every sort of truck imaginable, and somehow it all works. An the drivers kept us safe all through the trip!

The Guides: Some variance here, but all very professional. All VERY constrained on what they can and can't say, especially in Beijing.

The Growth: This one also falls into both the bad and the ugly category, but the growth is obviously providing benefit to a lot of people. In a lot of the palaces there are pictures and statues of the bird the Crane, which is a symbol of Longevity. Almost right in modern China, as the Crane is ubiquitous, but of a different type:

On a lighter note, the National History Museum in Beijing (said I would include some Beijing stuff here). Not touted, but a GREAT visit with kids. Spend time with the dinosaur bones and the dinosaur park, skip the dissected human body parts.

The Airlines: We flew three internal flights, one on Air China, two on China Eastern. These may have been showcase 'tourist routes' but the VAST majority of passengers were Chinese. The planes were clean and on-time, the service was excellent, all ground and flight staff highly professional. A long way from what folks would tell me about Air travel in China ten years ago or more.

 

There are many "Bads"here as well:

The Traffic: Although infrastructure growth is dramatic, and the freeways between cities (expensive and almost empty), the number of cars is causing near gridlock, worst of all in Beijing.

The Pollution: This one I can actually write about, as the Chinese English language newspapers had daily articles while we were there discussing the degree of river pollution, and discussing the implementation of daily air quality reporting to the people. My kids made an interesting observation that "Sunset" in many Chinese cities began while the Sun was still high up in the sky. Even when the sky was blue, with the exception of a few days, it was hard to see the sky.

These were taken from our hotel room at about 6pm…Sun still high in the sky, near darkness on the ground. Some may say we are mistaken, and that this was "fog". Nope.

History: The Forbidden City, Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, all are great sights, and all have been or are being restored meticulously. However, you get a sense that it is all stuff that was shall we say, trashed over the past few decades, and only now being resorted, but it is still new. To be fair, the Chinese are not taking the easy way out, and are restoring everything using traditional methods and techniques, probably to original plans where available, but you still get the sense that it is all new, and a nation with thousands of years of history did itself irreparable hard to its past heritage. That's all I can say I think…

The Blue Buicks: This is more a question than a bad. As I've mentioned, all Government officials, and business / gov't VIPs seem to be in Black Audi's or Mercedes. Grey cars also seemed to be consistent to different types of individuals. There are all types of Minivans, of all sizes and shapes, but somehow we were in SIX different Blue Buick Minivans, in four different cities. All the same model, all the same color. Pure coincidence, our guides in different cities and regions of China would uniformly say when we asked the question. Odd.

English Language Skills: This is going to be a REAL problem when tourists descend for the Olympics. People are well meaning, but even in the five star hotels and key tourist areas, English skills are really lacking. This is going to be especially tough on European tourists and folks from other Asian countries (Japan, Korea etc) where English is a second or third language. Right now, the vast majorities of foreigners that we saw in China over two weeks fall into two categories: 1) Business folks from around the world who are escorted by their local hosts (so no real language issues there), and 2) Senior Citizens from around the world on Escorted tours who are kept well 'between the lines' for their stay in China. Anyone even slightly outside the line (as we were barely 'independent' as we had guides in each city) is going to have issues when the go out and about without 'escort'. And if you have small children, and want to get a babysitter for a night with English language skills, even when requested weeks in advance and confirmed, forget about it.

Chopsticks and Napkins: First of all, we live in California, and eat foods from all areas of the world, often from night to night, my wife will cook Thai chicken one night, and Chinese stir fry the next. We use chopsticks at home, especially for salads, where chopsticks are just a better "Tool" for a salad than a fork and knife. But for some food, peanuts or cashew, other round and slippery foods, what's with the sticks? Also, why is it near impossible to get a napkin at a restaurant (see language skills above).

The Ugly. The interesting and most salient part about "The Ugly" is that you still can't write about it. There is one visible China, that I have discussed over the last few weeks, but the other China is still there, below the surface. I guess I really don't know if it is truly "good, bad, or ugly", but the experience that my wife and I had that got close to this part of China was very disturbing. On a "one to ten" crisis meter, where one is "green" and ten is "red", this was probably a four, nothing life or heath threatening, and a relatively minor amount of property, and we spent a portion of our last night in China only half-joking about being dragged out into the night.

So, without any further ado, a pretty photo (Summer Palace),

Another pretty photo (Summer Palace):

 

And: