We're back in Saigon now wrapping up our trip. I just love this city. The rest of the Southeast Asian cities don't even rate compared to it. Coming from Vientiane, Phnom Penh seemed really nice (Vientiane is only about 150,000 people. It also has sewage ditches running along the sides of all the sidewalks with most of the covers missing.) But once we were back in Saigon... man...
Just to try and give you an idea what it's like here, we started out our evening by taking motorbikes to Saigon Square. I'm not a huge fan of cities without public transport, as I'm sure everyone knows, but if you have to have all vehicles, 100 scooters for each car is definitely the ratio you should be going for. If you don't have your own bike, guys sit at all the corners and take you wherever you want for 60 cents. The fact that you are always jumping on and off of motorbikes gives the city such a fast paced feel.
At Saigon Square, we went DVD shopping. We bought boxsets of the complete British version of the Office, the first four seasons of Scrubs, the complete Sex and the City and about ten movies for the equivalent of 75 cents per disc.
After we finished shopping, we went to Jessica's friend My's apartment to go out to dinner with her. We got her motorbike and went for dinner. We had an amazing pork and shrimp wonton soup along with sugar cane juice mixed with strawberries. One of My's friends met us at the restaurant, and he happened to be a hairstylist, so after dinner we went back to his salon to get haircuts.
Now this is the kind of salon where you get served free drinks by girls in miniskirts while the stylists are working on you. I'm thinking it would have been in the $60-$100 range in Boston. The bill? 50,000 Dong. About $3. I seriously don't know how I'm going to get used to spending more than $5 at a time in Boston.
After that, it was back on the motorbikes and off to a super trendy rooftop ice cream shop (by the way, Vietnamese people know the best stuff to put on ice cream. Try coffee poured over vanilla or caramel over vanilla with a shot of rum poured over the top sometime).
We lounged about there for awhile and then it was off to one of Saigon's night markets. This is where all of the trendy kids get their knock off designer clothes in the middle of the night. I'm thinking we need to start a Chelsea Street night market. Anybody with me?
So anyways, we have one more full day in Saigon today. J is off getting a manicure/pedicure for the last time.
I love this city. I love Southeast Asia. I love Vietnam.
26.6.06
25.6.06
I'm now in the awkward position of not having written in such a long time that I have far to much to say. Each time I thought about sitting down and writing I was overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that we've done so I wrote nothing at all. So, I think for the time being I'm going to pass over the Lao PDR and write about what we've been doing most recently. Hopefully I'll remember to go back and write about Laos later. For now I'll just say that I really enjoyed it. Especially Luang Prabang.
Needless to say, J was able to get pages added to her passport. It's was rather painless in fact. No money and very little time. So now she's got the passport equivalent of a double-wide, which is pretty cool.
We've been in Cambodia for about 5 days now. We were supposed to fly into Siem Reap, but the flight was cancelled for 2 days, so we took a flight to Phnom Phen instead.
We've been spending so much time in fairly uncorrupt socialist countries it's been interesting to contrast Cambodia. For example, we needed to get J another visa for Vietnam because hers had expired. It wasn't until the second trip to the embassy that we even got the guard to let us in. He kept trying to convince us to leave our passports and come back tomorrow. Once inside, the conversation went something like this:
us - how much is visa and how long does it take?
him - $30 and two days.
us - there is no way to do it faster?
him - give me $5 and sit down.
us - uh, ok.
So anyways, we got the visa right there and then. There are also a lot more beggars and con-artists here.
All of that said, I do like it here. The first day here, we were in a restaurant and we had finished eating so I asked to "pay." I think they thought I said "play" so they brought us a deck of cards.
The last three days, we've been at Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. Angkor was probably one of the biggest cities in the world in the 13th century, but only the religious buildings were allowed to be made of stone, so everything else is long gone. Imagine if the monuments of New York (the statue of liberty, the Chrysler building, the empire state building) were the only things left and everything else were just swallowed by the jungle and that will give you an idea. It was absolutely amazing. I've always wanted to visit something like that (the pyramids, Machu Pichu, ect) and I'm so glad that I've finally gotten the opportunity.
Since Scrubs is on TV now and skinny dorky guys who daydream are in fashion I have no problem admitting that I was pretending to be Indiana Jones most of the time. uh... yeah...
15.6.06
The Nerve Racking Flight to the Lao PDR.
Our flight was terrifying, but not in the way I expected. Yes, it was an incredibly small airplane and yes, it had propellers (did you know they still used those?). The real problem, however, was that once we got to the airport, the check-in lady looked at J's passport and say that the only complete blank pages were the very back ones that say something about "Amendments." She said she wasn't sure customs would let us through without one of the normal pages blank. They made us sign forms that Bangkok Airways wasn't responsible if we got turned back. Scary stuff. Luckily it wasn't a problem. The customs guys just put it at the end.
All of that just made Laos all the better. It's much cooler (I mean temperature wise) here and very relaxed. More later when I can add some pictures.
The real problem is that J still needs a visa for Cambodia and a re-entry visa for Vietnam. We're going to stop at the embassy in Vientiane on Monday and hopefully they will be able to add pages for her.
14.6.06
City of Angels
Time to sum up our time in Bangkok. We ended up getting in a day late due to a delayed flight, which turned out to be a good thing, instead of getting in at 10 PM we got in at 11 AM. Finding a hotel was much easier.
After 4 months in Vietnam, J freaked out a bit seeing McDonalds, Starbucks, 7Eleven and fat people. Once she was over that though, we have had a good time.
From a planning standpoint, Bangkok feels a bit like Los Angeles (which is funny since they're both the City of Angels). In a lot of ways it's a bunch of people living near each other more than it is a city. The buildings are either 2 stories or skyscrapers. The infrastructure feels like an afterthought. Highways and public transport are mostly placed above the streets on soaring concrete. Like LA though, there is a ton of stuff to see. Here's the rundown of our days here:
Day 1:
It just so happens that we came in on the 60th anniversary of the King's ascension to the throne (which is especially impressive considering he only looks like he's about 50 years old). People love the king here. We went to a movie one night and before hand they play a video that strongly implies that the king is the one who makes it rain. 
So we both got I (heart) King Rama VIII t-shirts and joined in the celebration.
Day 2:
The only problem with being there for the King's thingy was that a lot of the tourist stuff was closed for visiting dignitaries. We ended up riding the subway (yea!!!) around for awhile.
We ended up at a mall that had the trendiest shops I've seen since Berlin.
In the afternoon, we went to the Jim Thompson house. 
Thompson was an American art collector who lived in Thailand for a long time. His house was actually six traditional Thai wood houses that were taken from different parts of the country and then reassembled for him in Bangkok. He disappeared in the 60's in Malaysia, but donated his collection to the city. I really like Thai art and architecture. The traditional houses are all wood panels that slide together. You can build an entire house with no nails. The statuary is also super cool. We ended up buying this little guy. 
Day 3:
We spent the morning at the National Museum.
We got a great tour that explained the art of Thai Buddhism. Buddhism is interesting because it doesn't have a god. Instead it grafts itself onto the existing religion or philosophy. So there are basically two types of Buddhism, the kind in Vietnam is based more on Confucianism (since it came from China) whereas the Thai Buddhism is based on Hinduism (since it came from India). Very interesting stuff.
In the afternoon, we went to Wat Phra Kaew (the Temple of the Jade Buddha) and the Royal Palace. It was amazing. I don't have words. It was so far from anything I've ever seen before that we just stood there. So here are some pictures. Even these don't do it justice. Imagine that it is sparkling in the sunlight. 
Tomorrow we fly to Luang Prabang, Laos. Fingers crossed.
11.6.06
10.6.06
Back in Saigon... and it feels great. Central Vietnam is HOT. I always like the city more anyways.
I'm kind of winding down my thoughts on Vietnam. Tomorrow we go to Bangkok for 4 days. I've really enjoyed my time here (and in China) much more than I thought I would. For some reason, I've really been looking forward more to the Indo-influenced cultures that the Sinic ones. I was trying to figure out why and all I came up with is that I've always had the vague feeling that Chinese art is Kitsch. I think it comes from having my introduction to it come from cheep resturants instead of museums. In all of its fullness it's really quite amazing and beautiful.
Our last few days in Hoi An were great. We both liked the suits that we had made so much that we had some other clothes done. Two days ago we took an excellent Vietnamese cooking class (Red Bridge School if anyone wants a recomendation).
Today in Saigon we visited a few museums. I was disappointed that the Revolutionary Art exhibit at the Fine Arts Museum was out on tour. Tonight we just wind down and tomorrow we fly out. I think I'm going to have some time tomorrow at a wireless cafe to upload some photos.
7.6.06
I haven't been able to get to my blog for several days, and now I feel like I have far to much to write about to do anything any justice. The bottom line is that we are have an incredible time. This country is absolutly amazing.
The first trip outside of Saigon that we made was to Ben Tre, which is the town where J conducted a lot of her research. Ben Tre is pretty small and you can't get to it by road (you have to take a ferry across the Mekong) so they don't see a lot of tourists. Everyone just kind of stares at you. Some of the braver little kids would yell Hello and then laugh when you replied. Our time in Ben Tre consisted mostly of walking from house to house of people J met during her research. They would sit us down and feed us, in a lot of cases with the fruit that was growing outside. I think we had about 5 full meals in about a day and a half. Everybody was so generous and kind.
From there, we travelled to Hue, which is the old Imperial (oh, sorry, that's Feudalistic in Commiespeak) Capital of the Nguyen dynasty in Central Viet Nam. The old city is about 200 years old and is based on Beijing. There are three giant square walls, the center is the Forbidden Purple City, which is just for the emperor, then the imperial city, which is for the mandarins who served the emperor and then the citidel, which is the regular city. Unfortunatly, the Forbidden Purple City was destroyed during the 1st and 2nd Indochinese wars.
The most interesting thing for me in Hue were the tombs of the emperors. We visited three. The older two were based on Chinese art and architecture while the newer one seemed very southeast asian (in recalled Angkor Wat for me) and seemed to be designed to be seen as a ruin. It reminded me of the way the opulance of Neue Schwanstein was built during the final decline of the Bavarian monarchy. It's seems like monarchs can be very aware that thier time is coming to an end and build extravagently to try and establish a place in history.
The last couple days, we've been relaxing in Hoi An, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The wars never really came here, so the center of the city is full of preserved 2 and 3 hundred year old homes. It's beautiful, but also a major tourist trap. It's also the center of Vietnam's tailoring industry. The tailors are pretty great. You can just bring in a picture from a magazine and they'll be able to reproduce what you want. I'm getting suit made right now.
Well, that pretty much brings me up to date. We are staying here a couple more days and then we head back to Saigon before J's parents fly out and J and I move on to Bangkok.
Cheers.
