A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
In a fit of efficiency (and/or idiocy), Heike and I decided in planning our week to do the Halong Bay and Sapa Mountain Trek trips back to back. In theory this meant we didn't have to hassle with finding ahotel for one night in Hanoi. In practice this meant we had a three hour layover after leaving the bus from Halong Bay in which to repack, have dinner, do email and accomplish any other necessary errands before boarding the night train to Sapa. The whole process was a bit tiring, but that's what happens when you're trying to fit lots of activity into two and a half weeks!

Sapa is a small town way up in the mountains of northwestern Vietnam, not too far from the Chinese border. During the early decades of the 20th century the French started building hotels, using Sapa as a mountain retreat from the stress of colonial rule in Hanoi. For centuries the residents of the region have been members of minority hill tribes -- not ethnic Chinese or Vietnamese -- who migrated to its fertile mountains and valleys from most of the countries of southeast Asia. The advent of French tourism and plantations substantially altered the lives of these "Montagnards", a collective term used for many different mountain tribe members. Many families and tribes were displaced from their traditional hunting and agricultural areas and transformed into plantation labor rather than collective farmers, and thousands of ethnic Vietnamese laborers were brought into the region as well, ultimately competing for scarce resources and land. During the Vietnam War the Montagnards occupied key positions along the Ho Chi Minh trail (used to supply and move troops from North to South Vietnam) and were recruited by both sides for their expertise in guerilla warfare and knowledge of the territory.

Although the French are gone and the war is over, the culture of these tribes is now under siege by tourism as thousands visit Sapa each year, trekking through tribal villages and taking innumerable photographs. As a result, the local economy has expanded as the individual tribal cultures have deteriorated. Literally hundreds of Black H'mong girls in traditional garb wander the streets of Sapa and its surrounding trails and villages, hassling tourists unmercifully in their efforts to sell silverplate jewelry and beautifully woven and embroidered textiles in the form of blankets, pillow cases and various types of clothing.

If this sounds like a huge pain in the ass, you're right, it is. But the stunning vistas of lush green mountains, terraced rice paddies and traditional villages and homes more than makes up for it. We spent three days hiking around the area and just couldn't get enough. And in fact the swarming textile vendors did serve a purpose -- with so many of them around, it was fairly easy to get decent photos of them dressed in their layers of indigo embroidered fabric, tubular hats (which would seem more for fashion than practicality) and dark cloth wrapped around their bare lower legs. Each girl wore many silver bracelets, necklaces, and large hoop earrings that eventually greatly elongated their earlobes. The other notable Black H'mong fashion statement (apart from their extreme dirtiness) was their hands. As the dye they use for all their clothing (and the tourist goods) is not set, many women have permanently stained dark blue hands.

More on Sapa tomorrow -- I'm off to buy my ticket to China.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 9:28 PM

 
A Word to the Wise VII:

When going on an overnight train in Vietnam, do not, under any circumstances, drink a Coke and half a bottle of water before you board.

It's challenging enough squatting over those (obviously male-designed) male-designed hole-in-the-floor toilets, but try doing it on a swaying, bumpy train at 2:30 in the morning. It ain't pretty, people.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 7:40 PM

 
It's very difficult to describe in words the natural wonder that is Halong Bay. The Vietnamese legend is that the area was created by an enormous dragon fleeing from the mountains and gouging crevasses and channels with his flailing tail, which were later filled in by seawater. In fact, there is a complicated geological reason for the existence of these limestone islands, but I can't remember exactly what it is and these computers are so slow that I don't want to do the research. So if you're interested, Look it Up, as my mom used to say. Here's a sample of what it looks like:
Halong Bay.

The area, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, includes more than three thousand dramatic stone mountains jutting, in many cases, straight up out of the sea. Some just look like giant rocks with a bit of greenery attached, while others are sizable islands with lovely grottoes and hidden inlets and bays. Travelers reach the area by boat, and spend a couple days snaking between the islands, visiting stalactite-filled caves large and small, and various villages, both floating and land-based.

Heike and I went on a three-day tour with 8 other travelers, one guide and 3 crew, on a big wooden boat with cabins down below for us to sleep in the first night. The whole trip was fabulous -- great people, absolutely gorgeous scenery, and since we didn't go for the cheapest tour around, the food was great and everything was well-organized. I've learned to really appreciate this -- you do get what you pay for.

Day One of our trip called for swimming, but as it was sprinkling on and off, we were thankfully relieved of the misery of all sitting around at anchor waiting for someone to give in and go swimming. Instead we hiked up to the top of one of the islands -- 425 steps, a little practice run for the big trek on Day Two. Though since it had stairs, wasn't slippery, and only took 15 minutes to summit I guess it wasn't really much of a practice run after all. At any rate, we were rain-free for most of the hike and the view truly was lovely from the top, with hundreds of misty green islands visible. It's really a challenge to find a bad view in Halong Bay.

Our next stop was Hang Sung Sot, or "Amazing Cave". Now, I'm not a big fan of caves in general, as Heike will attest. Many of them, in my experience, are rather creepy, wet, and have a lamentable tendency toward bats, weird birds, and their respective bodily excretions. This cave, however, discovered in 1902 by a Frenchman, was huge, dry, and thanks to Chinese investors, paved with stone. It was a stunning cave, actually, featuring huge caverns with bizarre stalactites and stalagmites and a white scallopped roof made smooth and clean by wave action over the centuries. As blatant evidence that humans have no respect for nature, many surfaces within the caves bear grafitti, most of it from Frenchmen between 1902 and the 1940's. Idiots.

On Day Two we meandered through the islands to a weird peninsula of Cat Ba Island, the largest island in Halong Bay and the site of a National Park. We walked an hour through the forest, hills and rice paddies on a surprisingly well-paved road. In fact, they were extending the road as we walked, in order to provide a viable motorbike route to the cove/boat station during the rainy season. In my inimitable way, I managed to step in wet cement, forever commemorating my trip to Cat Ba. The walk was gorgeous, as usual, and we ended up in the small puppy-infested village of Viet Hai, population 206. They grow rice in this beautiful mountain valley, and the advent of adventure tour groups has substantially altered their subsistence economy. Traditional mud, straw, bamboo and thatch huts are making way for the usual brick and concrete soulless boxes so prevalent throughout rural Vietnam. Progress? Hard to say. Their lives are less dependent on the weather or the rice crop, and their children are better educated, but certainly the rhythm and serenity of their previous lives will disappear. Knowing the Vietnamese, they probably consider it a fair bargain.

The next bit of the trek was something of a personal nightmare. As mentioned earlier, my utter gracelessness is a real hindrance when climbing anything, and my lack of physical conditioning exacerbates the problem. As a result, I trailed the rest of the group on our muddy vertical scramble. It didn't help matters that I was wearing Tevas rather than hiking shoes. It made sense to me at the time -- I had just worn my real shoes for the first time in five month on our day in Hanoi and managed to get blisters on both feet. Now that I've actually experienced a hike in Tevas, however, I'm putting a new pair of hiking shoes on my Hanoi shopping list.

The problem was that it had been raining for days, though it was clear the day we hiked. The mountain we were climbing, Soldier Hill, was 260 meters high and most of the trail was at a very steep angle, full of rocks and roots. Those were a godsend, actually, since it was so damned muddy that they were the only traction to be had.

So the way up was steep and difficult, and I heaved and rested frequently but made it up eventually. Rest, photo op, watermelon, half a bottle of water, then back to the mud, downhill this time.

It was instantly clear that the Tevas were wholly inadequate footwear for the descent, particularly when located on the feet of a complete klutz. And I wasn't the only one who notice my utter flailing ineptitude. I was soon the object of concern of not one but both our guides who, humiliating enough, were scampering over the rocks and roots like bunnies, while wearing plastic slip-on shower shoes. We proceeded to pick our way down the slippery path, screeching from one near disaster to another. And while I never completely fell in the mud, I experienced approximately 73 near misses involving flailing arms, sudden grabs for trees and rocks, or a strategically placed guide blocking my plummeting forward descent and/or precipitous backward slide. At least it wasn't as tiring going down, though it was considerably more painful in terms of twisted knees, scraped hands and my poor overworked arm muscles, which were sore for two days from hanging onto trees all the way down.

After the hike back to the boat and some refreshing (read: cold) swimming, we spent the night in Cat Ba, a fishing town whose land-based services appeared to consist entirely of hotels, restaurants and karaoke bars. After more cruising and another roll of film down the drain, we headed back to Hanoi.

Next stop: Sapa.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 5:34 PM

 
My parents are notorious for timing their vacations in the worst possible way in terms of the international political situation. They visited Israel a week after the prime minister was assassinated, Egypt shortly after terrorist tourist shootings in Cairo and Luxor, and were scheduled to fly to Prague on September 11, 2001. When they rescheduled that trip, they managed to arrive in eastern Europe just a few days after the waters receded from the worst floods in a centure. Predictably (and with impressive timing, considering they planned the trip months in advance), they just flew out for a week in Brussels and Bruges on the very weekend that the US went to war with Iraq.

In an effort to meet the stringent requirements of this new family tradition, I too engaged in international air travel this week. And since Cambodia to Vietnam isn't such a popular route for international terrorists, Heike and I managed to coordinate our trip with a global outbreak of some mysterious and deadly flu-like virus that originated in southern China, Hong Kong and Hanoi. Guess where we are? Hanoi. Guess where I'm heading next week? Southern China.

Some would call it foolhardy -- I would call it too damned lazy and cheap to change plans at the last minute. Here's hoping for continued good health for both of us.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren




posted by Katy at 2:28 AM

 
The most thrilling and terrifying experience of my trip to Angkor Wat was definitely the climb up the tallest temple. Our aim was to watch the sunset, and it made sense to do it from the highest point. Unfortunately, the highest point was reachable only via a nausea-inducing set of stairs, made of irregularly eroded stone at an angle unsafe for any but the most adventurous mountain goat. Seriously, these steps were about twice as high as they were wide.

For myself, bearing the twin burden of congenital klutziness and a mild fear of heights, the whole thing looked and felt like a deathtrap. Naturally, Heike practically jogged up, while I hugged each step like it was a long-lost brother. And coming down was ten times worse -- I could barely peel myself off the surface to take another step down. By the time I was back on solid ground I realized that hiking in 100 degree weather was nothing -- now I knew the true meaning of sweat. To add insult to injury, as we rounded the corner of the temple we came upon another set of stairs, WITH A METAL RAILING!!! Not only that, they had installed a block of concrete on each crumbling step so that practically all the heart-stopping danger was eliminated. I'm thinking that a nice informational sign with an arrow might be in order there.

The thing is, in Cambodia they completely lack the liability concerns that would shut the whole complex down in about 30 seconds in the States. So they don't block anything off that seems even remotely navigable. This is good in many ways -- it gives you a lot of freedom to scramble over things and get good photos, but it also means you have to watch your step every second. I'm not so good at that, but I made it out without any significant injuries or bruising, which hopefully is a good omen for the rest of my trip.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren


posted by Katy at 3:23 AM

 
Okay, Angkor Wat. It's hard to know where to start in describing the Angkor temples, but I guess I'll start with a little history, which may or may not be entirely accurate.

Around 2000 years ago, the various peoples of the Cambodia area were slowly being incorporated into one "country", for lack of a better word. Emperors and various religious leaders would annex parts of Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand, lose it again, and so on. But from about 900, things really got rolling for the Cambodians, with the advent of the Angkor civilization. These rulers, sometimes Hindu, sometimes Buddhist, ruled a vast empire stretching across Southeast Asia and based in central Cambodia. The more successful of these rulers built huge temples, the remains of which are scattered all across the region but are primarily located just outside of Siem Riep. In the mid 1860's a Frenchman "discovered" the temples (some of which were still being used by the locals for religious purposes), crumbling and being overtaken by the relentless jungle. His later book sparked huge interest in the area, and at the beginning of the 20th century French archeologists moved in to start the restoration process. From the first it attracted tourists, with good reason.

There are three absolutely must-see sites: Angkor Wat, the Bayon, and Ta Proem. A "wat" is actually a Buddhist temple, and Angkor Wat is the largest and best restored temple in the complex. It's the one you see in postcards, with its walls and three rounded conical spires reflected in a moat. It's almost fully restored, and though some of the carvings were destroyed as religions changed back and forth in Cambodia, even after a thousand years it retains an incredible amount of detail and impressively complicated stonework.

The Bayon is a very deceptive temple. From a distance, its towers and walls look muddied and indistinct, but from up close the detail is astonishingly creepy, with hundreds of faces of the god A____ (name escapes me at the moment) who was central to the sort of Buddhism practiced by its builder in the 12th century. This temple is in a medium level of repair, with hundreds of restored carvings and intricate bas reliefs, but a courtyard strewn with giant stone bricks and partial carvings that have yet to be put in place.

The third must-see is Ta Proem, which is in the worst repair but is one of the most interesting sites. It has basically been left to the jungle, and apart from some efforts to ensure that the ever-encroaching vegetation doesn't take down any more walls, the temples look much as they did in the 1860's when the site was first seen by outsiders. Huge trees have become part of the very structure, intertwined with walls and doorways in a very primeval and Indiana Jonesish sort of way.

These are only the three most visited sites -- there is really so much to see that it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully explore the Angkor area in one day. And although Siem Riep has an absolutely staggering amount of hotels and guesthouses (and many more under construction), there is no organized shuttle bus to take tourists between sites. As in all of Asia, private enterprise is alive and well, and thrives in a vacuum like Siem Riep. Most visitors, from the lowliest of budget travelers to those staying in the fabulous and historic Grand Hotel, arrange their tours through their hotel or guesthouse.

There are several basic methods for touring the site. Large organized tour groups ride around in air-conditioned buses, and while I loathe large groups, I did envy them their air-con. More independent travels can hire a car and guide to take them around, and the more frugal among us just hire a motorbike or tuk-tuk driver for the day. I seriously considered hiring motorbikes without drivers, since I was sure that that 10 minute motorbike driving lesson I received at 1:00 am last week in a tipsy haze was sufficient training, but in the end sanity prevailed. I suspect my family will be relieved to hear this, since they are rather prone to slandering my driving ability, even in a more stable four-wheeled vehicle.

Our Day 1 drivers were nice, but had considerably less English and guiding ability than promised. We started off a bit slow -- Roza, my driver, had a flat tire so I began my tour of Angkor with a 25 minute visit to a roadside motorbike repair "shop", consisting primarily of a large air compressor, a folding table with vehicle supplies, a set of tools, one plastic garden chair, three stools, and a hammock. On the plus side, I took several pictures and was able to solve the mystery of the aged soda bottles -- they do indeed carry motorbike fluids.

After this hiccup, we had a great three days wandering around various ruins. The only unfortunate element was the temperature -- it was approximately 157 degrees and humid. After 20 minutes of clambering up stone stairs and around ruined buildings I was sweating like a racehorse after the derby and ready to jump into the weedy moat. My pores had more of a workout in three days in Cambodia than they had in the previous decade. Nonetheless, it was a gorgeous place with irresistable photo opportunities around every corner. I am alarmed to report that I took nearly three rolls of film. Now that it's too late, I have to wonder whether 90 photos of ruins are absolutely necessary, particularly when the camera is in the hands of someone as inept and unartistic as myself. I'm sending my film home with Heike when she goes back to the states, and I'm starting to feel sorry for my parents who will be subjected to such an overwhelming volume of crumbling rock walls and reliefs. Oh well, can't put the film back in the camera now.

All in all, had a fabulous time at Angkor Wat, and are now much relieved to be situated in a country that has a more rational temperature. Of course, now we're cold -- you just can't win with me.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 2:37 AM

 
Since Heike and I are heading out to Halong Bay, Vietnam for 3 days, the description of Angkor Wat will have to wait. But suffice it to say that it was AMAZING! Really, any description I give it can't possibly do it justice, but I'll give it a shot on Monday.

posted by Katy at 2:28 AM

 
At first glance, Cambodia looked exactly like Vietnam. Which is to be expected, since I was just continuing a boat trip up the Mekong, and the climate and economy is basically the same.

But differences did emerge. The rickety shacks on stilts are a bit ricketier in Cambodia, though there were many more solidly built stilt houses right along side the ones that looked like they would teeter over in a big wind. Some of the nicer houses actually featured wooden siding, real glass windows and sturdy 12" x 12" support poles mounted in cement.

Along the highway, many Cambodians are engaged in some sort of commerce involving the prominent display of old, very dirty soda bottles. Many were displayed empty, and others were filled with yellow, red or green liquid. It could be my Vietnam experience that leads me to believe that all roadside mysteries are motorbike-related, but I suspect the yellow liquid is gasoline. I am notably inept and underinformed when it comes to vehicles, so I have no clue what the red and green might be.

Motorbikes are common, but don't dominate the landscape as they do in Vietnam. In the cities Thai-style tuk-tuks are a common sight, ferrying tourists around in colorful roofed carts pulled behind motorbikes. In the countryside a different type of vehicle is in use as a local bus. It basically looks like a motorbike hauling a wooden boat on a trailer, but actually consists of a colorful narrow boat-shaped cart on two wheels with boards nailed across the top for passengers to sit on. The whole contraption was connected to the back end of your standard motorbike. Those things must be more powerful than they look.

It is also clear that the Cambodians take religion a lot more seriously than the Vietnamese, and their many temples are much more influence by India and Thailand than China. Which is just as well for me, since I was getting kind of tired of the Chinese-style pagodas and temples in Vietnam. I'll try to overcome this temple fatigue when I get to China in a couple of weeks.

The other notable thing about Cambodia was the large number of signs advertising the Cambodian People's Party. They were the first thing I noticed, actually, huge blue signs on long poles in front of various homes and businesses. They look very official, like road signs, and when I saw the first one I thought it must be local party HQ. But after the 10th or 15th of these, plus a handful of similar signs advertising other political parties, I decided they must be the Cambodian equivalent of yard signs. If so, they need a consultant, because they're all facing the road, in such a way that accidents will be caused if a driver tries to read one.

Since I only spent about 13 hours in Phnom Penh, the capital city, I'll save any description for when I come back through on my way to Saigon at the end of the trip. Due to Heike's imminent arrival from Seattle, I caught the fast boat to Siem Riep, the town just outside the temples of Angkor Wat. You know how I mentioned recently that I had a new love of boat travel? Asia constantly tests my good nature. This boat was seriously, dangerously overcrowded, and I'm pretty sure there were few, if any, lifevests aboard. There were maybe 50 people down below, and another sixty of us on the roof, mostly slathered with 45 SPF sunblock and hoping that 5 hours would go quickly. As a late arrival, both the interior and the roof were crammed by the time I arrived, so I got stuck in the small area right in front of the engine. Lordy, talk about loud. Thankfully, in an uncharacteristic fit of good planning, I had put some ear plugs in my daypack, otherwise my ears might still be ringing.

The ride was 5 hours of (loud) tedium, for the most part, as the river is wide, the landscape is flat and unchanging, and we spent a great deal of time Tonle Sap Lake, a body of water so large that we didn't see land in any direction for almost 2 hours. Despite my usual crotchety grumbling, no matter how loud and boring this boat trip was, it was far better than 12 hours of spine-crushing busride on sketchy Cambodian roads.

© 2003 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 1:54 AM

 
Heike is a very bad influence! You may have noticed that I've now been in Cambodia for 5 days and yet haven't written one word about it. There are a couple of reasons for that, really. First, all of a sudden I have the opportunity to talk to someone I know, and who knows me. So we can gossip about friends and family and get caught up on everything, and I'm no longer stuck in my own head for many hours a day. It's been fabulous. The second reason I've been such a slacker, apart from it being an intrinsic part of my personality, is that we've been so damned busy visiting the ruins at Angkor Wat, walking around town, eating, and all those other time-fillers.

Even though it's a lot more fun to travel with someone, especially a proven traveling companion like Heike, for the most part I don't mind being in my own head all day. In fact, one of the things that bothers me most when I return from a long trip abroad is that there are suddenly so many distractions from my internal monologue. Instead of spending hours a day thinking and writing in my head, I can suddenly overhear other people's conversations, read signs, etc. Even though it's often loud in terms of noise in many places I visit, there's a real sense of peace and isolation when you're not bombarded by images and sounds 24/7. Well, maybe you are, but if you can't understand them you can tune out a lot easier.

So the bottom line is that I'm behind, OK? But I'll try to put some thought into the writing today, and at least give you all an overview of my week in Cambodia. Or maybe tomorrow, since I have to go back and pack now.

© 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:25 PM

 
We spent the night in Chau Doc, a town just a couple of hours (slow boat) or an hour (by fast boat) to the Cambodian border. We stayed in a nice little thatched roof bungalow complex not far out of town, about which I had two main complaints. First, there was no mosquito net. Frankly, I believe every fan-only hotel room in a malaria-inested area should provide a net as a matter of course. While I didn't notice many mosquitoes flying around, I did in fact notice several bites. Hopefully they weren't malarial, since I'm trying to put off starting the malaria drugs until after I get back from China. The other annoyance was that the room featured a fan on a timer, so it would turn off on its own after two hours or less. Believe me, it is not so cool at night that your average westerner can sleep without a fan. About five minutes after the fan went off, I would wake up sweating and uncomfortable. So basically I was up every two hours all night long.

In the morning we headed down to the riverside and boarded long, heavy, canoe-like boats each piloted by a scrawny Vietnamese cone-hatted woman standing upright in the back and rowing forward with very long oars. It's the first time I've seen this rowing technique, and it seemed to work pretty well. Our first destination was a "floating village" that basically adjoined the land-based portion of Chau Doc. Local residents live, travel and make a living on the river. Some "houses" are little more than boats with curtains and hammocks, while others are elaborate structures built on large wooden platforms atop empty fuel barrels. All space is utilized -- the houses are essential mini-fishfarms, with pens for growing fish between the barrels underneath, accessible for feeding through removable floor panels. Many of the structures sport a huge vat where they cook up a foul-smelling fish food made of bran, fish parts, and otehr nixious ingredients that are made into large sticky clay-like balls, and most have an apparatus on one side that provides artificial current through the farming pens for when the Mekong gets too slow to keep the fish alive. Fish farming is a precarious business for these delta residents, dependent on the current, weather, water level and the right mixture of food.

In this area of the delta, houses that are not floating are built on stilts. Over the course of a year the water level varies as much as 9 feet on average. The 2000 monsoons were disastrious, with a high water level of over 18 feet, burying most structures up to the roof and beyond. Many erected flagpoles atop their roofs to warn boats that their houses were just underneath the surface.

Our second and final stop on our rowboat ride was a riverside Cham village built entirely on stilts. My Son, the ruilts I visited up near Hoi An a few weeks ago, were built by Cham people, Hindus who came to the area two thousand years ago. These Mekong Cham, by contrast, came from Malaysia less than a thousand years ago. Hence, they are referred to as the "New Cham" in Vietnamese, to distinguish them from their central Vietnam counterparts. Although the two Cham groups are similar ethnically, culturally and religiously they differ greatly, as the Mekong version are devout Muslim polygamists.

Next stop, Cambodia!

© 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 8:03 PM

 
About the only positive element of the Mekong bus ride was our guide, who shared all kinds of fun facts. So today you get a little education, courtesy of Thanh, our helpful guide:

Fun Fact #1: 50% of Vietnamese motorbike drivers do not have a licence. Needless to say, this was not a surprise to me. Remarkably, during our Mekong drive we actually passed a police checkpoint at which the cops were checking for licences. I never thought I'd see the day.

Fun Fact #2: Families in the Mekong used to be very big, for a variety of reasons. Parents needed workers for the rice, they needed someone to take care of them when they were old, and they all went to bed early because of the lack of electricity. Perhaps even more crucial was the fact that delta residents wed very young -- between 13 and 16 years old for girls, 15-18 for boys. As uneducated illiterate agricultural workers with no family planning information and no electricity, It wasn't uncommon for girls to have 5 or six kids by the age of 18. Yikes.

Fun Fact #3: Facing overpopulation pressures, the Vietnamese government put their mind to the above problem. They sent teams of doctors and teachers down to the delta to provide family planning information and devices, required that all children go to school and learn to read, outlawed marriage for people under 18, and started a campaign strongly promoting a two-child policy. Although there is no monetary penalty for having more than two children as there is in China, a government employee with more than the requisite number will find it a serious obstacle to promotion.

Fun Fact #4: Television has only come to the Mekong in the last 10 years or so, since the economic liberalization reforms of the early 90's. Once the economy started to pick up, thousands of young Mekong Delta residents migrated to factory jobs in Saigon, sending money and durable goods back to their families in the rice paddies. Today the Mekong is a veritable orchard of aerial antennae sprouting from the rickety shacks among the coconut palms. Even the boats in the floating market sported aerials alongside their vegetables and fruits.

Do you feel more educated now? Any questions?

© 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:43 PM

 
As a consequence of the rushed, semi-conscious packing, I have spent much of the last two days thinking of things I believe I have either lost, accidentally packed in the suitcase left behind in Saigon, or left in the room. For perhaps the first time, I neglected to look under the bed and in all the cupboards before I departed, hence my continuing low-level anxiety about my belongings. At least I have the basics -- money, passport, and the camera held together with electrical tape.

So I have begun the travelling portion of my Asia experience in a rather haphazard way, but at least I have made it to Cambodia, my first new country. I decided that since I had been in Saigon 5 months without visiting the Mekong Delta, a short trip most tourists accomplish if they're in the city more than 3 days, I should kill two birds and take the combination Mekong Delta/Exit to Phnom Penh trip offered at travel agencies around town. The first day of the tour was mostly on land, with a 5 hour boat trip bringing us to Chau Doc, a town not far from the border. The second day was to be a bit of touring followed by a long boat trip upriver into Cambodia.

Apart from the boat ride, the first day of the Mekong tour was something of a bust. We spent all morning on a hot minibus on what passes for a highway in Vietnam. Since I'm pretty familiar with the housing styles of the Vietnamese countryside, and the scenery wasn't too engaging, it was a pretty tedious drive. And remarkably, although the delta is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world, we saw virtually no rice paddies the whole day.

The Mekong Delta is flat. Very flat. No, flatter than you're thinking. Pancakes are the Alps compared to this. In fact, I have my doubts as to whether the curvature of the earth is in effect in the delta. And since I have the innate prejudice of a born mountain-dweller against level terrain, I wasn't too enamored of the region. And did I mention that it was hotter than Satan's armpit down there? Well, it was.

The tour company inflicted further torture upon us by taking us to a Crocodile Farm in Long Xuyen, another little episode I could have given a miss. Imagine walking slowly with 25 other people in 100 degree heat past enclosure after enclosure of lethargic crocodiles doomed to become dinner in China or handbags in Italy. This delight was followed by what was billed in the brochure as "fastinating (sic) trekking through one of the most peaceful villages of Mekong". In reality, it was a 10 minute walk from the Crocodile Farm to the boat, carrying all of our luggage.

Just as I had convinced myself that I had subjected myself to a full day of hell for very little return, things started to improve -- we got on the boat. I have a newly developed love of boat travel, which directly and inversely corresponds to my loathing of buses. Boats can be slow, but there are no bumps, the air circulates, the seats are wider, and you can get up and walk around. I think I may be seeing a lot of the Mekong from water level thanks to this newfound travel preference. The river we traveled on got narrower and more scenic, with houses on either side made from the usual combination of thatch, old planks, and corrugated metal. The river is highly populated -- kids are everywhere, swimming, cleaning and fishing and young and old would wave and yell hello. You'd think that would get old for them, but I guess they only get one or two tour boats a day up that river, and there can't be that much excitement in those villages.

This is getting long and, I suspect, boring, so I'll continue this later.

© 2003 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 6:08 AM

 
It wasn't entirely my fault that I was frantically packing at 6:00 am yesterday. Though I admit that going out drinking may have been a tactical error.

My problem actually began with laundry.

On Wednesday I moved to a different house (long boring story not suitable for the web), and that night I handed over my laundry -- practically everything I own, apart from one t-shirt, a pair of ratty shorts, and two skirts that were due to be put in storage with a friend. Based on my experience with laundry at my previous residence, I figured I'd get everything back either Thursday evening or Friday morning at the latest. Plenty of time for packing, in other words.

It seems I overestimated their efficiency.

On Thursday night I received only a towel and one pair of underwear. Both of which were quite welcome, don't get me wrong. But the next day, after my grueling sleep in/breakfast/internet/coffee shop/lunch morning, I returned to the house to find a serious lack of laundry, and there was nobody home who spoke English. At this point, you must understand, I had already packed up a suitcase full of stuff to leave with a friend, which included various books, maps, cutlery, and, most unfortunately, two skirts and a Vietnamese/English dictionary.

Here was the problem. I had to leave to teach at 3:00 pm, and my only available clothing included a t-shirt, pair of shorts, raincoat and a microfleece shirt. Not an option. So I spent five minutes attempting to explain the situation in sign language and bad Vietnamese, while the woman of the house nodded and smiled and didn't understand a word I said. She told me to return to my room (or motioned, rather) and indicated by pointing at the clock that something, I know not what, would happen in 20 minutes at 2:20.

So I waited. 2:20 passed, nothing happened. 2:30, more nothing. At 2:40 I decided the situation was getting dire -- I really needed pants. Thankfully, the man of the house had just arrived (perhaps that was what was to happen at 2:20?) and I was able to follow the lady up to the top floor and grab a pair of pants from above the busily ironing maids.

The working situation was thankfully solved, but the fact remained that I still had none of my clothes and the packing wasn't started. This wouldn't have been such a problem if Friday's schedule were easier, but I pretty much taught straight through from 3:30 to 9:30, and I did have that drinking on the schedule already.

So you can see that it was not my fault -- I was quite at the mercy of the fates on this one. In the future, I am going to turn over a brand new organized leaf and do all my packing well in advance like the rest of my family seems to do. But actually it's getting kind of late and I could really go for a nice pineapple juice on the lakeside deck of my hotel, so maybe I'll save the packing for tomorrow.

© 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 5:50 AM

 
Dammit! This crappy Cambodian computer just ate my post.
posted by Katy at 5:45 AM

 
A Word to the Wise VI

If you are leaving at 7:15 am for a five month trip, it is advisable that you do not:

1. save the packing until the morning you leave
2. stay out until 1:00 am the night before
3. drink several beers on an empty

Packing on five hours sleep with a low-grade hangover is just not fun, and, with proper planning, is avoidable.
posted by Katy at 5:28 AM

 
You know how some people love to make you guess their age? My friend H does this. She actually likes to guess other people's ages, and makes a game out of making them guess hers.

I hate that game.

To me, guessing the age of strangers and acquaintances is an activity strewn with barbed wire, mines and traps for the unwary or innacurate. I avoid it at all costs, and in general have no talent for it. When forced, I tend to guess at least 10 years low just to be on the safe side.

But here's my problem. I am living in a country in which everyday conversation is one big horrifying game of Guess My Age. See, in English we have this fabulous word that makes life easy for all of us: YOU. In Vietnamese, life is hardly so simple. There are multiple "you"s, depending partly on age or relative age, partly on the situation (casual/formal), and partly on the relationship between you and the person to whom you are speaking.

So before you say a word to someone you must assess their age and status. This would be bad enough if I had to do it on a regular basis in my own country where I know the rules, but here in Vietnam I just don't know the culture well enough to do this properly. For example, is it better to call a new acquaintance "ba" (older woman, grandmother, respected person) and potentially insult her by guessing her age too high? Or should I call her "chi" (woman same age as myself or older, older sister, casual) and have her think I'm a mannerless clod who doesn't respect my elders?

The situation became further complicated when I discovered that most Vietnamese don't really use the word "I" in conversation. I figured this out by talking with the maids in my guesthouse. I would ask a question and one of them would answer using one of the "you" words, which caused me no little amount of confusion. It turns out that not only do I have to judge the age and status of other people, I also must simultaneously determine how they will judge mine. The "you" that they would use is the one I should use for "I". Confused yet?

And just when you think you've got the relationship clear with someone, the rules change. Because you might use one "you" when you first meet someone, and as you get to know them you may switch to something more casual or quasi-familial. You may have heard Ho Chi Minh referred to as "Uncle Ho". That "uncle" is a loose translation with much more meaning than the English word implies. It refers to your younger paternal uncle, the fun one, rather than the older more dictatorial paternal uncle who rules the family with an iron Confucian fist. Politically, this self-adopted designation allowed Uncle Ho to let his generals and underlings do the heavy revolutionary lifting while he pulled the strings and maintained a benevolent, beloved familial role for the Vietnamese people.

Another interesting element of this "you" issue is that in a married couple, the husband always calls his wife "em", which is the word you use for people younger than you and for all children. The wife calls her husband "anh", which sort of translates to young man older than I or older respected brother. When I suggested to my Vietnamese teacher that this perhaps spoke to a rather patriarchial power structure within marriages here, he scoffed. And he may be right -- women do tend to rule the roost around here at least at home, though it's more difficult for them to get good jobs.

It's pretty clear that I need more than six weeks of classes to get a handle on these very basic issues of Vietnamese grammar and vocabulary. Maybe I shouldn't have fired my Vietnamese teacher, but how long could I really stand to spend two hours a day with someone who didn't laugh at my jokes?

© 2003 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 12:02 AM

 
I'm ready to leave Saigon! At least, I have completed all the legal requirements as of today, though not without some nervewracking moments.

Last Tuesday I took my passport to Mr. Thuy, our neighborhood entrepreneur and visa guy. My 3-month multiple-entry business visa runs out inconveniently just five days before I leave the country, so I needed to renew. Since Heike and I are coming back into Vietnam to visit Hanoi and Halong Bay in a few weeks, it was just as well, really.

I thought I allowed myself plenty of time to get the visa. In most (civilized/normal/non-communist) countries it takes just a day or two to renew your visa. It's not like I'm in the hinterlands, for crying out loud -- I'm in the largest city in Vietnam. So I expected to get my passport back in a couple of days, at which time I would go get my Cambodian visa, my first stop upon departure from Saigon.

So by Friday I was thinking it could come back anytime. No passport, no visa. Saturday, nothing. Monday, nothing. By this time I had read my guidebook which suggested that it took seven working days to get a Cambodian visa, so I was starting to sweat. Not to mention the fact that I have had rather more than my fair share of run-ins with the law over the course of the last five months, and I know the Ho Chi Minh City police have the address to this website, helpfully handed over to them by The Armwrecker, much to my dismay. By the time I realized, it was a bit impossible to ask the cops to give me the card back. The Vietnamese government is very particular about what is written about them here, and I have a feeling they wouldn't appreciate some of my comments.

So I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday fretting that they were going to kick me out and/or I wouldn't get the passport back in time to meet my Cambodia schedule. My one reassuring thought was that the government here is so bureaucratic and disorganized that it seemed unlikely that they would actually go to the trouble of checking around with local agencies about me. Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Thuy called and I was able to breathe freely again.

So at 4:50 pm on Wednesday (7 working days before my departure to Phnom Penh) I motorbiked up to the Cambodian consulate. Now, I have been to the US consulate here on several occasions, and it's like an armed bunker. You have to go through a full bag check/xray process not once but twice, and they temporarily confiscate anything you're carrying that looks like it might be dangerous (cameras, for example). Visiting the Cambodian consulate was like more like going to a friend's house. Sure, there was a "guard" outside in an aluminum and plexiglass guard box, but he just waved me into the unlocked courtyard without even asking my name. The place was totally deserted, so I followed the little signs across the patio and the badminton courts, past the fountain and the dry swimming pool, and into an unairconditioned office where four or five people were sitting around chatting.

They were extremely helpful, it took two minutes to fill out the form, and I was able to pick up my passport and new visa today, less than 24 hours after I applied. Though it seems incredible, Vietnam could really take a lesson from Cambodia in efficiency and customer service.

© 2003 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 3:09 AM

 
I was going to make an entry here last night, but the power went out all over my part of Ho Chi Minh City. So a bunch of us sat there at the internet place in our swiveling desk chairs in the dark as the clerk dripped wax on the top of every other CPU so the candles would remain erect and give us some feeble light while we waited. The sight of ten people in a room full of computers with candles burning on top is surreal, let me tell you.

I only waited as long as it took him to finish the candle-lighting process -- by that time it was clear that this wasn't one of those 2 minute outages. So I decided to go get some dinner at a sidewalk noodle soup place a few blocks away. You'd think, wouldn't you, that things would be pretty quiet during a blackout, since nobody could play music or anything, but it was actually quite the opposite. For one thing, everyone was on the street. It's just not fun to sit in your pitch black house for an hour in 85 degree heat with no fan while waiting for the power to return. But the real noise came from from the generators. Standard operating procedure for most of the restaurants and hotels catering to foreigners is to wheel a generator out onto the sidewalk to get business going as soon as possible. So the streets were alive with people wandering around chatting and eating, motorbikes as usual, and small generators apparently competing to be the loudest. Not serene, but no looting, so I guess it's not all bad.

© 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 8:18 PM

 
Now, you'd think that such an experience as the one described below would have led to my living a more cautious, circumspect life here in Saigon. Of course, if you think that, you don't know me very well. Because it's not that I go out of my way to get into weird situations; I back into them because I'm not paying close enough attention.

Yesterday, for example, I metamorphosed into SuperKaty, Crime Fighter of Saigon! Or to be more honest, it was more like it was SuperClover, Crime Fighter of Saigon. I played the Robin role in this scenario, though without any cheesy bodysuits involved.

I was up in Pham Ngu Lao with Clover, an American woman who is visiting the city for just a few days. Those who have read previous entries of this weblog know that I view this backpacker area of Saigon to be an unbearable den of thieves and potential victims, and I generally avoid it like the plague. But it was Clover's first day here, her map was very limited, and she was staying near there, so we arranged to have lunch in the heart of Pham Ngu Lao.

After a leisurely lunch we decided to wander up the street to get massages from the blind masseuses a couple blocks up. So there we are, chatting and walking and minding our own business, when a kid runs past us and grabs Clover's bag from around her neck, cutting the strap with a knife and zipping toward his motorbike parked conveniently a few dozen yards from where we were. This sort of crime is distressingly common these days in Saigon, and normal the result is that the victim is on the ground with some serious neck bruises. Clover was one of the "lucky" ones who were blessed with a knife-wielding purse-snatcher, however, and before I could really register what was going on she was after him at a dead run. She's from New York, and clearly wasn't going to stand for that kind of thing.

And she caught the guy too, making a valiant effort to stop his motorbike from moving. I, meanwhile, was a few seconds behind, and reached the scene in time to grab the bag and push the guy over while Clover hung onto the back of the bike and screamed "You Shithead!" over and over. We all went over -- I fell backwards onto the sidewalk (becoming a habit, isn't it?) and Clover and the robber fell kind of under the bike into the street. Really, the whole thing was bizarre and vaguely farcical, and the folks on the street clearly found it remarkable as well, as they all circled around us after it was all over. And by that I mean after it was well over. The locals definitely weren't interested in assisting during the actual fracas.

The most amazing thing was that after we got the bag back and dusted ourselves off, the driver remained there, yelling at us! Gee, so sorry to have interfered with you doing your job, buddy.

© 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 4:59 AM

 
PART 4: Your Mother Was Right -- Always Wear Clean Underwear

Columbia Asia Hospital was like no other hospital I've ever been in. For one thing, it's a sprawling one story building in which you get from one room to the next by being wheeled along covered walkways next to large open-air courtyard gardens. Since it was dark, I'm not sure how healthy the gardens were, but they gave sort of a creepy jungly feeling at night. The corridors are dimly lit and made of either cement or tile, depending on whether the tile in that area has disintegrated and been replaced more cheaply.

The x-ray room was like something out of the 1960's. The equipment was from G.E. or some other US manufacturer, but there's no way it was less than 40 years old, and the non-english-speaking x-ray attendant clearly had no time for such frivolities as the lead apron. I think I got about 3 years worth of radiation in one fell swoop. After the painful manipulation of my arm on the x-ray table, I was wheeled back to the ER, this time by The Armwrecker's girlfriend, who didn't have the expertise that the nurse had. Consequently we were continually knocking into doorways and pillars, much to her embarassment and my pain.

Long wait.

Any pain medication?

Waiting.

Sure there isn't any pain medication?

Waiting.

Time to set your arm!

By this time I was no longer dreading the arm-setting process, because I was pretty sure it would mean that pain medication was going to be on the way. So they told me that they would wheel me over to the broken bone room, but I wanted to walk -- at least I could avoid any collisions that way. But they were unusually adamant about my using the wheelchair, and I wasn't really in a position to argue at this point, so I conceded and we were on our way down more long open-air corridors.

We arrived, I stood up, and I realized why everyone wanted me to take the wheelchair. A cool breeze wafting across my backside made me instantly aware that there was something seriously wrong with my pants. You know how your mom, or at least fictional moms, always told you to wear clean underwear in case of an accident? It's absolutely true! When that motorbike hit me in the posterior, it did noticeable damage to my pants, resulting in the rather more generous view of my person than I would normally have allowed strangers in a foreign country. Fortunately I was wearing some very cute lavender underwear with little white flowers -- I'm sure the sight was as soothing as a garden in spring to all those ER people who I thought were just staring at me because I was bloody and foreign.

But my underwear isn't the real issue here -- my arm is. After lounging for a while on a table in a dirty room with dusty, waterstained diagrams of skeletons and an industrial sink, the doctors finally arrived. I think I got two of them because the bone expert didn't speak a word of English and needed a translator. By this time The Armwrecker had been taken off by the police. The policeman actually came into the bone-setting room and tried to talk to me, but I was not exactly in the mood and I'm afraid I wasn't as polite as I should have been to a Vietnamese officer. So he decided to cut his losses with me and had The Armwrecker take him out to the Scene of the Crime to do a report and no doubt shake him down for money.

The doctors finally injected me with some kind of painkiller, but frankly it wasn't strong enough for my taste. Setting a bone is a really revolting process, which included hanging my arm from a metal pole using this weird little piece of bamboo mesh (you sure don't see that medical device in Seattle) and sort of scrunching my bones together in a modified version of Vietnamese foot massage. However, since they had also given me the option of being put completely under and having pins inserted in my arm, I was willing to endure. There was absolutely no way I was spending the night in there, and I did not want to be unconscious for even one minute. So we completed the setting process, got an absolutely gigantic heavy plaster cast, and arranged to have the doctor do some field repairs on my pants by attaching the pieces together with long strips of white medical tape. Of course, this meant I had to sit very gingerly and not stretch too much, lest the tape come unstuck.

The rest of the evening (after getting stitches in my chin -- weak anaesthetic, no fun) was a bit surreal. Since The Armwrecker had been taken off, he called his parents to come down and provide support. Since they had no English and I needed medical information that nobody in the hospital was capable of relating, I agreed to go home with them and wait for their son to return from his foray with the policeman to do all the explaining.

So we walked outside, and I got aboard the back of a motorbike to take me who knows where.

How else would we get around?

© 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 12:55 AM