Asian Travel

enough said

Movie Stars!

So sometimes when your wandering the dark streets of Hoi An and a guy rides up to you on his motorbike asking if you want to be in a movie the next day, its probably not a good idea to say, 'yeah I'd love to.' But that was our particular approach, and more or less, it turned out pretty ok. The pic above is not actually Mike and two Swedish travelers travelling. Thats acting gang! Karen and Matthias got pulled into the flick by the same promise of $450,000* for 5 hours of movie work that Mike and I signed up for. The allure of a Korean ghost film directed by the Korean Spielberg was too much to resist. The deal ended up being sweetened by the fact that I was singled out to share the screen, in a crucial shot filling the space between two huge stars, the Vietnamese Tom Hanks (pictured in tie and glasses between the Swedes) and the Korean Julia Roberts. Spelberg was evidently sufficiently pleased with my ability to look like a traveler standing at the front of a line waiting for a customs official. I got a big smile and hearty slap on the shoulder after the scene's final take. Things got a little sillier from there as we were required to stay on set, a fourty minute drive from town, nearly 5 hours longer then we had agreed to. Of course extra money was then promised and never received. But hey 450 large and the possibility of stardom come the summer release of 'Moui': how can I complain?

*and yeah it ended up working out to like 3 bucks an hour, out of which I had to pay for breakfast, lunch and snack, if you want to get all technical about it, so just don't ok.

Dalat

'La Petit Paris'. You gotta love a mini replica eiffel tower perched next to a lake in an elevated city in Central Vietnam. You just gotta. Relaxing town that we biked up, through and around. Local specialty are vegetarian dishes prepared in the traditional style to look like different meats. Evidently its an old Buddhist tradition to make the faux meats so that visitors can feel at home by eating things that appear to be part of their normal diet, while at the same time upholding Buddhist vegetarianism. I dug it. I was particularly pleased with the fake orange chicken looking thing, for no particular reason.


Yeah, and we hung out with cows. 'Vogue, vogue... work it for the camera'. Gotta love Dalat, just gotta.

War Museums

War Museums are plentiful in Hanoi and Saigon, all the better to re-enforce the trauma that war has brought this country. The suffering of the victims of chemical and biological warfare continues today, maiming new generations, and was particularly striking. Agent Orange didn't only maul thse who were sprayed, but also often mutilated their offspring. The atrocities in the name of war were not only inflicted on innocent civilian Vietnamese, but in a deplorable twist of fate, American GI's were the recipient of their government's experiments. Check out what the U.S. state department has to say.


One of my favorites of the old propaganda posters. I think they captured his smile pretty nicely.

Cao Dai and Cu Chi tunnels

Cao Dai - a uniquely Vietnamese religion that around 10% of the population adheres to, and that includes Sun Yat-Sen and Victor Hugo as two of its patron saints. The half hour service that i attended involved the worshippers sitting as pictured and bowing periodically as a chorus sang and music played. I enjoyed it and found the service soothing. My batteries ran out after I shot a video, but the link above has some cool pics.


The Cu Chi tunnels would not have been a good place for me to hide out. The fella above is wriggling his way in through a preserved original entrance to the tunnel. It would have been covered and hidden with shrubbery, unseen by the unknowing eye.

Frazzled after a mere 30 meters in the tunnel. The sides and ceiling have each been expanded 20 cm so that tourists can check them out, but i still struggled. The tunnels varied in size from those in which the Vietnamese could hunch in, frog walk through, or slither in like a snake. This was supposed to be an expanded frog walker, but I was forced to hands and knees.

Ho CHi Minh City. Saigon....whatever.

I tried to trim the beard and it ended up looking like I was shedding. So, I paid this gentleman, located conveniently on the street a few steps from my hotel, 15,000 dong (94 cents) for the trim. He spent a solid 20 minutes grooming me and another 20 giving me a scalp massage. We shared a moment.


Saigon's organized chaos. Check out my videos for a little closer look at the fun.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is a beautiful city on a river that would be exquisite if it wasn't for the rampant poverty. The terrifying history of the city would be devastating in any frame of reference, but especially so considering how recent the atrocities. In the early 1970's the Cambodian capital was home to around a half a million people. With fear of American bombs and rural guerrillas driving the countryside into the city, the population swelled to over 2 million. When the Khmer Rouge 'liberated' the capital on April 17, 1975, they forced all its inhabitants out. The civil servants, government employees, educators and military that were asked to stay were killed. From the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 to as recently as 1996, bouts of violence and unrest wreaked havoc on the city and its inhabitants. Corruption, mismanagement and incompetent leadership still leave the people and the city without a firm grasp on progress. The smiling friendly faces that I experienced in these dire conditions made the situation that much more tragic.
Mark, the ever smiling and helpful driver we befriended, who doesn't always make enough to buy his baby formula, brought us to the orphanage pictured above and suggested not a cash donation but a large bag of rice that we were happy to oblige. The orphanage is located INSIDE a shanty town. Rice at every meal and 10-15 kids in every room, and all this within walking distance of the grand palace.

For more on Cambodia, and specifically the role of the 'Vietnam' war on it: I loved ' Sideshow ' by William Shawcross.

A cell at S-21, or Tuol Sleng Prison. This former high school, converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge, was transformed from a place of learning to a den of intolerance for education where torture and punishment was the name of the game. The detainees eventually ended up in the killing fields.

The Killing Fields where the Khmer Rouge exterminated the Khmer people, including women, children, the elderly and the handicapped. Genocide in the 1970's.

On the road in Cambodge; Featuring Kampot

A typical Cambodian rest stop. Displays almost to a tee the strange intermingling facets of Cambodian society: Cow minding his own business, man relaxing in the 'asian squat' and a text messenger hard at work.
The ride from Sihanoukville to Kampot seemed easy enough. A straight shot two hour drive in a shared taxi. By our guesstimates a solid 95% of cars in Cambodia are Toyota Camrys. Our taxi happenned to be the smallest model ever made. So, of course, our driver informed us that we needed a total of 6 passengers for the journey. Not pictured in the back seat: me taking the photo from a silly angle, mike squished next to me, Justin and Oreli, a young french couple to his left. In the front left is their buddy Sam, one of the great charachters of the trip. And yes, that would be the driver in the middle. The young Khmer lady was not pleased with the idea of sitting with Sam, so she just squeezed in and tried to stay out of the way. The French couple proceeded to make out and i fell asleep. Mike was not pleased.
Epic arts cafe - One of the many non-profit ventures we've visited, this one is run by and for the hard of hearing and physically disabled residents of Kampot. Good food, great cause.
Seeing Hands massage - this was actually taken in Siem Reap, but they have branches all over the country. You get a one hour massage from a person who is blind for a bout $4. The place is again operated by and for the sight challenged, providing them safe housing and opportunity.

View from the balcony of our guesthouse in Kampot, at rush hour.

The road to Kep

The trip to Kep might be my single favorite travel experience to date. Mike and I decided to take bicycles, old rusty no geared bicycles whose handlebars my knees would hit on each rotation if I didn't pay attention, on the 50 kilometer (roundtrip) journey. My discomfort was more then made up for by the serene rural road and the throngs of children that it held. Cambodia's population is heavily skewed under 18.... to the sound of something like 50%. At seemingly every cluster of stilt houses that we passed there would be children ranging from around 3-12, smiling, waving, and yelling "hello" at the top of their lungs. We would reply in turn, and they loved every minute of it. Some kids that we would encounter on bikes would ride along with us for a minute or two trying out every english phrase they knew. The conversation would go something like this on their ends: "Hello how are you? Where are you from? How old are you? Where are you from? How old are you?" I would eventually say goodbye and escape the thouroughly pleased child. The smiles never faded from their faces or mine. We stopped a few times for Mike to take pictures (such as the above) and mini photo shoots accidentally went down. He would snap a pic, show the kids, and pandamonium would break loose. They loved it. Ridiculously rewarding experience.

Mike with one of his fan clubs.

The journey itself was the treat for me, but Kep didn't disapoint either. Once a beach town for well to-do Khmers, as well as a spot for Prince Sihanouk to entertain important guests, it was delivered to the elements by the war and the khmer rouge. Many of the fancy villas are now as shown above; burned out and squatter friendly.

Somebody's been helping themselves to the digs..
and doing a little re-decorating of their own.

Angkor

Angkor

3 and a half days at Angkor and I can see why people stay longer. The largest religious site in the world truly is a wonder. I'm no ancient Khmer history buff, but the architecture and intricacy of the work was incredible. The major hot spots were flooded with tourists, but if you went early enough, which we did, you could still get some private moments to marvel in the splendor. We did a sunrise, sunset, and midday trip to Angkor Wat itself (above), checked out bas reliefs and read along in guide books. Educational, touristy, and rewarding. All that and a bag of chips.

Sunrise at Bayon was one of the highlights. The tour groups all start at Angkor Wat leaving Bayon nearly empty. We wandered around and inside looking at face after face. Strange, beautiful, mysterious, diggable!

Ta Prohm is one of the more famous examples of how a massive civilization completely abandoned its most sacred location, leaving the forrest to do as it pleased with it. The Khmers dominated southeast asia a thousand years ago, only to lose it all and be completely dominated by their neighbors on all sides. All of angkor was eventually abandoned to the forrest where it lay dormant until tourism came to save it. At the current rate of growth, and with a Korean company possibly getting contracts to operate much of its goings on, some are predicting 'Angkor Disney'. Get here as soon as you can.

Four of the 10,000 or so kids thats tried to sell me something at the temples. Most were good natured and quite a few had a fairly insane grasp of conversational english, and in some cases knew phrases in 7 languages. They were also eager to show you that they knew the population and capital of the US as well as the capitals of a handful of the states. Most claimed to go to school half the day, but all learned the languages and facts on the job. Many that I spoke to wanted to go to university and become teachers, but only a few of them could even afford the extra cash it takes to pay the teachers at the high schools. As resourceful as these kids are, Cambodia would be in much better shape for the future if they could only get this generation a legitimate education. Sad for all parties involved.

Early mornings, long days and late nights. Our driver and eventual drinking buddy took every opportunity to nap. I took every opportunity to give him a hard time about it. He then took every oppoortunity to drive with no hands on the wheel, facing us with a big smile, eliciting justifiable concern. It was a thing we had.

Taking a break from duties as 'serious tourist concerned with history' to eat a 900 year old fish. Would have been better with a little honey glaze.