Are all cities in Asia the same?

There seems to be this conventional wisdom among travellers that all Asian cities are the same.

A typical exchange:

-"Oh, you've been to [some Asian city]! How did you like it?"
-"Oh, you know. It's just like all the other cities in Asia."

Every time I heard a variation on this exchange, I would shake my head and wonder how anyone could think Chiang Mai, Thailand was like Dalat, Vietnam. Now, on my third day in Kathmandu (the eleventh city in Asia I've visited) I'm beginning to see where they might be coming from. I'm going to spoil the implied conclusion right now: No, Asian cities are not all the same. However, many of them seem to share at least a few conspicuous qualities.

I arrived in Kathmandu on Wednesday afternoon after an overnight stay on Khao San Road in Bangkok. The first time Emily and I stayed there, I remember it for its crazy Westernized exoticism. This time felt very different. I'm sure there were a few objective differences, but the biggest difference seems to be that it felt normal. I was also struck by how courteous the Thai are. Cambodians and Vietnamese may be nice, but they are not always that polite. The Thai seem to be always pleasant.

Kathmandu, on the other hand, does not feel normal or polite. From the moment I stepped into the virtual riot of touts advertising cab rides and hotels until the moment I closed the door of my hotel room, I was surrounded by advertisement and coercion. I took a government sponsored taxi into town because I thought it would protect me from touts. Then, at the airport exit, the taxi driver stopped and picked up anther man who proceeded to give me a sales pitch about good hotels and his trekking agency.

Kathmandu is much poorer than most of the places I saw in Vietnam--not quite as bad off as Cambodia, but maybe close. It was hard to get much perspective on the city on the short ride from the airport. I saw street after dirty street until we reached the Thamel neighborhood, which is a bit of a backpacker's district, when everything changed to hotels, souvenir shops, internet cafes, and restaurants.

This is apparently not the season for panoramic views in the Kathmandu Valley. There are large mountains in all directions from the city, but in the morning a thick fog hides them and by the time the sun clears the fog an impenetrable haze has taken over. It is partially due to that haze, I think, that my throat is perpetually sore and the color of my phlegm is somewhat peculiar.

So, that's been a lot of complaining so far. Let me round it out and then focus on some things I actually enjoy about this place:

1) Beggars - I had a child lean on me for the entire walk from the supermarket back to my hotel, perhaps a quarter mile, repeating, "Please, sir. Five rupees. Please, sir."
2) Holy men who overcharge for a five second service - Today a man wanted the equivalent of USD2.85 for placing a flower blossom on my head and painting my forehead with his thumb. "God's blessing, very lucky, 200 rupees," he said nodding and smiling. I was trying to give him something more like fifty cents, which he finally accepted after I tried to walk away.

3) No good pictures - The jumble of buildings all promiscuously on top of one another makes walking the streets always surprising and somewhat mystical. It also means that you can never get far enough away from anything moderately large to get a well-framed picture.

4) Hashish? Hashish? - How many times have I been offered drugs? Probably twenty.

Phew. Alright. If some of you are asking how the heck I'll survive India if these things bother me now, rest assured, I'm asking myself the same thing. A friend of mine once said, "Nepal is like India Light," which is a good argument for being here first, I think.

So, aside from all that, Kathmandu can be charming. My hotel room is on the fifth and highest floor and gives a nice view both north and south over the Thamel neighborhood. It's a relief sometimes to look down into the street and watch from a safe distance. Thamel is also not a domain of early risers. The streets stay almost deserted until almost nine o'clock in the morning.

On Thursday, I caught up on some email and then walked a few blocks south to Durbar Square, which is a collection of over thirty temples within a few city blocks. The temples have been constructed and augmented over a period of several hundred years. There are a few predominant styles but each edifice is unique and independent of the other structures. South from Durbar Square runs Freak Street, which apparently housed a large community of hippies in the sixties and seventies, doing what hippies did back then. After exploring the Durbar Square area, I walked east on New Road to the unmaintained park Tundinkel and then back to Thamel through a bunch of street markets. New Road is lined with a wide variety of upscale boutiques (upscale being a relative term comparing them to the other venues I've seen here) selling nice clothes, watches, and electronics. The street markets reek of character. Incense, vegetables, baked goods, pots, pans, and everything else anyone needs to live are conveniently repeated for blocks and blocks--some of the streets so narrow that two people barely fit walking opposite directions until a motorcycle comes barrelling down the center.

Today, I rented a bicycle and got out of the city. I biked north over heavily potholed roads on the west side of Thamel, across the Bisnumati River, and up to the entrance of the Nagarjun Reserved Forest. Leaving my bike at the entrance, I hiked the five kilometer trail to the summit, Jamacho, at seven thousand feet. I met no one until the strange scene at the temple. The views on the ascent were not what I'd hoped because of the midday haze, but perhaps seeing only forested ridges instead of the city stretching across the valley floor was a good thing.

The stupa and watchtower at the summit are adorned with strings of prayer flags that stretch from their pinacles down into the trees, sometimes hundreds of feet long. A group of three men were throwing rice and hundreds of small prayer sheets from the watchtower, carpeting the top of the hill in small pieces of paper. Some monks sat in a shelter facing the stupa chanting and playing musical instruments while laypeople lit candles. A large group of young monks seemed to be taking a lunch break in the grass.

I took a detour on my way to return the bicycle along the western edge of Kathmandu to see Swayambhu, sometimes called the Monkey Temple. Swayambhu is also at the summit of a hill, but is much more accessible with a staircase leading from the gate to the top. Swayambhu has been a site of worship for over fifteen hundred years although the buildings are more recent. The centerpiece is a huge gilded stupa with Buddha statues around its base facing each of the cardinal directions.

After a peaceful ramble through the extensive network of brick terraces, I biked back into town, and returned my bike. Now, I'm hungry and I think it's time to eat.

A short stay in Hanoi

Well, I just spent a woefully short twenty-four hours trying to tour Hanoi. One of my great curiosities about Vietnam was what differences might be apparent between the north and south. I thought that comparing Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi might give me some insight, but I'm afraid my experience might not reflect reality for a couple reasons.

February 18th was the last official day of the Tet Festival, so most of the shops and local restaurants were still closed. I have heard that Hanoi is a much quieter and nicer city than Saigon, but it was hard to tell during a holiday. Whatever the reason, I was glad to find that the traffic was much less stressful than Saigon, and most other cities in Vietnam.

Had I more than one day to explore, I would have gone back to sleep immediately upon arrival in Hanoi, because I felt quite run down. Instead, I checked into a backpackers' hostel and set out on a walking tour of the Old Quarter. It seemed like a popular plan. Groups of tourists roamed each of the streets, following the suggested route in the Lonely Planet guide.

The Old Quarter is a nice neighborhood with a French feel. The prominent feature is Hoan Kiem Lake in the center of the Quarter, containing two islands. The northern of the two islands contains Ngoc Son or The Jade Mountain Temple and is connected to the lake shore by a colorful bridge. The temple was quite crowded--Vietnamese seemed to be spending their holiday there. The southern of the islands has no bridge but contains a smaller shrine called Thap Rua, or Tortoise Tower. There is a legend that a golden turtle rose from the lake to reclaim a divine sword that the gods had given the Vietnamese Emperor Le Loi.

After seeing the lake, I set out through the northern part of the quarter along narrow streets, lined by tall houses, that gave the impression of a network of canyons. There seemed to be trees on most blocks, giving the city a natural feel. Groups of children were playing with small firecrackers--throwing them into traffic, or at each other, or at tourists. The only storefronts not closed were very geared to tourists so it was hard to get a feel for what the neighborhood was like aside from that.

After stopping back by the hostel to lay down for a bit, I walked west to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. The avenues to the west of the Old Quarter are much larger but the traffic is still disciplined. The open space in front of the mausoleum was filled with Vietnamese families dodging the sprinklers to take pictures.

People seemed friendly. I met some children by the statue of V. I. Lenin that talked to me a little bit and wanted to take some pictures with my camera. On my way back towards the Old Quarter a man introduced me to his young son, who is studying English. The kid wasn't as keen on practicing his English as his father, but it was fun.

I was feeling much better after walking around, but ate a quick dinner and went to bed early anyway. I was sleeping in a dorm room with eight other people, but heard none of them getting ready for bed after I fell asleep.

The next morning I had time for breakfast but not much else before making my way to the airport to catch my flight to Bangkok.

Tet Festival in Hoi An

Hoi An is small town on the central coast of Vietnam a few hundred kilometers south of the boundary that split North and South Vietnam during the American War. Heavily influenced by both Chinese and French architecture, there are scores of beautiful temples and buildings on fairly quiet streets. The old town section of Hoi An contains charming architecture and was recently designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I heard that the beach a few miles east of town was quite nice, but I did not go. I spent my days mostly exploring central Hoi An on foot. Aside from the beach and the architecture, the other large attraction to Hoi An are the numerous tailors which can be found everywhere, often more than two on a single block. Many people come to spend time on the beach while they have clothes custom made.

The Tet Festival, or Lunar New Year, is the most important holiday in Vietnam. I was quite worried about finding a place to stay and food to eat, but since the town of Hoi An caters to tourists, I did not have any problems. Probably nine-tenths of the shops and restaurants were closed, but given the sheer number of venues, that left plenty open to choose from. The actual Lunar New Year was Saturday, the 17th, but the 18th and 19th are also official holidays.

Music seems to be an important part of the Tet festivities. I woke up on New Years Eve at seven in the morning to someone behind my hotel blasting instrumental versions of old American pop songs. Walking around town I would often come upon a private residence that sounded more like a disco or dance hall than a house: sometimes American music, some electronic dance music, every once in a while some Vietnamese music, but more often than not it seemed to be the Scandinavian group Abba. Abba and more Abba, all day.

Generally, the Vietnamese spend Tet with their family and the streets are very quiet, but New Years Eve is a very large celebration. Banners hang over all the main streets wishing a happy new year and flower peddlers lines the sidewalks selling large bouquets. The city set up a lighted stage on the north back of the river that runs through Hoi An and put on skits and songs starting around nine o'clock at night. At midnight, there was a countdown, everyone sung the national anthem, and then a boat in the river shot off an almost continuous firework display for over ten minutes. Then, after the fireworks, a group of singers on the stage led everyone in singing the Abba song, "Happy New Year".

I've just arrived in Hanoi this morning at about seven o'clock on my second overnight bus. I'm beginning to detest these cramped all-night bus rides. Hopefully this will be my last for a while. Tomorrow, I fly to Bangkok on my way to Nepal.

A quiet few days in Mui Ne

I've been having difficulty updating my blog the last couple of days. Some internet cafes here can't seem to load the Blogger start page at all, and those that do are so painfully slow that updating takes forever. At least Flickr works consistently.

The town of Mui Ne is a small fishing village on the southeastern coast of Vietnam, about a five hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City. It has a reputation for being much quieter and less commercialized than Nha Trang, the main beach resort town in Vietnam. The village itself is a dense group of narrow dirt side streets splitting off the paved main street for about fifteen blocks. The market on the south side of town is smaller than the others that I've seen in Vietnam and there's not much to do in town.

A long, nice beach stretches along the shore to the south for several miles. The road that runs out of town to the south stays several hundred yards from the beach and hotels are packed side by side, facing the ocean. A variety of restaurants, small shops, and travel agencies are located across the road on the inland side. The road itself is not very aesthetic, but the beachfront makes up for it.

The tour bus that Tiffany and I took from Dalat deposited up at a travel office just next to a hotel that was charging twelve dollars a night for their rooms. It seemed a little steep, but since we had planned to split the cost, and the hotel was quite nice, we decided to stay there instead of walking around bargain shopping. One of the reasons that the tour buses are cheap in Vietnam is because they are subsidized by the restaurants they visit and the hotels where they choose to end. I don't like being shepherded into a hotel at the end of a bus trip, but if the hotel is reasonable, and the staff is not too pushy, it's alright.

There are several sights around Mui Ne other than the nice beach. On Tuesday, Tiffany and I rented a motorbike for about three dollars and visited the white sand dunes, the red sand dunes, and a small canyon. We spent so much time at the first dunes, that we did not get to see the waterfall, the Cham Tower, or the lighthouse. It was refreshing to have our own transportation and choose what to see and when to see it.

The white sand dunes were definitely the highlight. The white sand dunes are about ten miles north of Mui Ne and the road that leads to them has fantastic views of undeveloped coastline. The map we were using was drawn in an inappropriate scale on the back of a business card advertising our hotel, but after asking directions once or twice, we found our destination.

We arrived at the parking area just as another tourist couple we had seen previously pulled up. They had also rented a motorbike but had not asked for helmets and had mentioned earlier that our helmets were a good idea. We sat down at the small shack at the trail head and ate lunch with them: Guy, a Frenchman, and his Serbian girlfriend, whose name I forgot. Guy spoke almost no English and his girlfriend spoke English about as well as I speak French, so we all got to practice languages other than our first.

After lunch, we rented plastic mats to use as sand sleds and hiked over to the highest dune we could find. The dunes stretched for perhaps five square miles and beyond, the countryside was dry grassland over rolling hills as far as we could see inland. It reminded me more of pictures I have seed of Africa than Vietnam. We spent perhaps an hour goofing around on the dunes, sledding, rolling, jumping, and running down them.

Guy and his girlfriend had to get their motorbike back by five in the evening, so we decided to caravan back towards town, looking for the red rock canyon. About halfway back we spotted it and pulled over. The canyon sat at the end of a trail about a hundred yards above the road, overlooking the ocean. The red "rock" was actually more eroded dirt, like parts of Bryce Canyon, but much, much smaller. We explored the whole thing in about five minutes.

After the canyon, Tiffany and I stopped at the red sand dunes, which were neither as big or as steep as the white dunes, and only spent a few minutes there. On our way back through town, we stopped at the fishing beach, took pictures of sunset, fooled around with some school children and bought some snacks from a street vendor.

A lot of our time on Mui Ne was spent arranging travel in the coming days. The Tet Festival complicates all aspects of touring. All domestic airplanes and trains are booked, buses and accommodations are more expensive, and I'm fairly certain that the unfavorable dong exchange rate that just changed the other day is also related.

The beach in front of our hotel was a nice place to relax from the sometimes stressful business of figuring out our itineraries. It was not a wide beach, probably only fifty feet from the hotel to the water, but the views both up and down the coast were beautiful.

On Wednesday afternoon, Tiffany and I boarded our buses, mine to Hoi An, and hers to Ho Chi Minh City. It has been nice to have such a good travel partner, and it was sad to part after only a few days.

My bus ride from Mui Ne was long and a little trying. The tour operators tried to seat a group of older French tourists in the aisle of the bus on plastic chairs, but they very obstinately refused and gave up getting on our bus. During our stop in Nha Trang, a woman boarded the bus without a ticket and then refused to either get off or buy a ticket for ten minutes. Then after the sun set, our bus driver played chicken with the oncoming headlights while passing slower traffic on the two lane highway. We drove overnight and arrived in Hoi An at about eight o'clock in the morning.

Three Days in Dalat

The town of Dalat is situated on the rolling hills surrounding Xuan Huong Lake at about five thousand feet above sea level. The narrow streets wind around closely packed buildings. My hotel was in the center of town, downhill from the market.

On Thursday I decided to do my own walking tour around Dalat. The weather was beautifully clear all day. First, I walked across the dam to see the quieter side of town which contains the cathedral, several dozen small hotels, and more cafes than I could count. There is a nice trail around the entire lake that I walked next, stopping at the flower park. Dalat is known as the city of flowers because it can grow flowers year round that cannot be found elsewhere in Vietnam. The flower park was impressive but the landscaping was a little gaudy. As the sun set, the air got quite cold. Many of the locals were wearing thick coats and hats, but I enjoyed it.

On Friday, I rented a bicycle to ride around the outskirts of Dalat. In the morning, I saw the two impressive pagodas Chua Linh Son and Thien Vien Van Hanh. Chua Linh Son was very nice but Thien Vien Van Hanh was very different than the other pagodas that I've visited. The pagoda was much wider than it was deep and the whole front opened to a grand view over the city. I stopped to take in the architecture and several monks came over to talk to me.

After the pagodas, I stopped at Dalat University and looked around the campus. I found an open classroom and took some pictures. I stopped at a bakery for lunch on my way over to the other side of town to see the Lake of Sighs, so named because of a legendary tragedy that befell two lovers there.

I continued my circuit around Dalat to the south and headed out of town on one of the main roads looking for several other pagodas, which I never found. What I did find was a huge hill, descending, as it wound south. It was probably two miles later that I gave up on the pagodas and turned around to climb back into Dalat. After getting a little lost on the southwest side of town on top of a large hill that overlooked the farms and flower greenhouses to the west I headed to the war memorial, which sits atop another large hill.

I spent about thirty minutes at the war memorial looking around before returning to my bicycle and starting back to town. A short ways down the long hill immediately outside the monument, I squeezed my brakes, only to find that neither front nor rear were working. I stomped my feet down to the pavement and turned the bike towards the ditch at the side of the road, but luckily stopped before I went into it. I examined the brakes to find that both front and back had been partially dismantled and some of the parts stolen. I stormed back up the hill back to the memorial, wheeling my bike and heatedly talked the the attendant.

Unfortunately, the old man tending the office spoke absolutely no English. He mimed to me that he had seen several children bent over my bike and had scared them off. Then he invited me into the office, telephoned someone, and poured some tea that we shared in silence. I had no idea who he had called until a young boy showed up. They talked for several minutes and the boy ran off as we still sat in the office drinking more tea. I was making plans to walk my bike back into town when the boy brought several other children to the front gate of the memorial, where they left a pile of my missing parts. I spent fifteen minutes reassembling everything by hand without tools. I never got the front break working, but made it back to my hotel safely with only the rear.

When I returned to the hotel, there was a bit of a crowd waiting to get rooms. As I waited to talk to the woman at reception about repairing the bike, I met Tiffany, who had just arrived from Hoi An and was looking for a room. We decided to share the room that I already had. After she settled in and I haggled with the bike mechanic, we went out to dinner at a nice local restaurant.

Many of the sights around Dalat are further than any tourists care to walk or bike, which makes motorbike guiding quite popular. The Easy Riders are a group of guides, sanctioned by the government that speak very good English and have fantastic knowledge of the area. From what I'd read and heard, getting an Easy Rider guarantees a good tour.

On Saturday, I had asked the manager of my hotel to call an Easy Rider for a day tour. Tiffany was hoping to hire another driver for the tour. I was disappointed to find that my guide, although seemingly competent, was not a registered Easy Rider. To make a long story short, after an exceptionally unpleasant thirty minutes of talking to the guide, the receptionist, and then the manager via phone, I took the guide, but Tiffany and I moved hotels immediately.

After a bad start, the tour turned out quite well. Our guides, although not Easy Riders, were pleasant and professional. We drove out of Dalat to the west and toured some flower greenhouses and stopped at some coffee fields before a mid morning stop at a roadside cafe. The road wound through a valley between two ridges first covered by jungle and then by coffee plantations down into a broader valley where we spent the afternoon. We had a fantastic, home cooked lunch at a local house consisting of at least ten different dishes and then went to see an impressive waterfall. After the waterfall we started our drive back to Dalat stopping at a silk factory and a passion fruit orchard. The silk factory was absolutely amazing. We got to see the different stages of the silk worms, the machines that unroll the silk of the worms' cocoons, and the machines that actually weave the fabric.

Today, Tiffany and I took an open tour bus from Dalat to Mui Ne, which is a beach town on the southern coast. The lunar new year, also known as the Tet Festival, is the most important holiday in Vietnam. Travelling in the country is a little difficult these days because Tet is next weekend and many of the Vietnamese are travelling to meet their families. Our bus stopped to pick up people on the way out to the coast until they were sitting and standing in the aisle. Luckily, the whole trip was a quick four hours.

From Saigon to Dalat

I'm never sure whether to call Ho Chi Minh City by its older name, Saigon. Before I arrived in Vietnam, I assumed that the government had changed the name and that was that. Turns out it's not that simple. The map says Ho Chi Minh City but just about everyone I've met, tourists and locals, calls it Saigon. The signs are probably half one and half the other. I've gotten to like the inconsistency. It's a little idiosyncrasy that reminds me there's a lot to learn here.

Right now, I'm in Dalat, which is a beautiful mountain town in the central highlands of Vietnam. The central highlands are roughly the center of southern Vietnam, not the whole country. I arrived last night at the end of what I began to fear was an interminable bus ride. When I booked my ticket, the agent told me we would cover the 300km from Saigon to Dalat in six hours. It actually took nine.

The first part of the bus ride was quite boring as we rode through the regular suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City. Eventually, the bus started climbing into the highlands and rolling hills of forest, orchards, and plantations stretched away from the highway. The last few dozen kilometers to Dalat were even more enjoyable. As the bus crawled up mountain passes, the air cooled, and I started seeing evergreen trees. When we disembarked, a Swiss man I had been talking to said, "Just like home," and I was thinking the same thing. I checked into a nice hotel room with a balcony, ate dinner, tried unsuccessfully to update my blog, and then slept for ten hours.

Tuesday morning I ran some errands: booking my bus ticket and sending a package home. I first tried FedEx, but they wanted to charge me 97USD to send a sub-2kg box. I next went to the main post office, right next to the Notre Dame Cathedral and was relieved to pay less than 30USD. We'll see if it makes it. Jaqi and I met at the Museum of Fine Arts around noon, had lunch at a nearby cafe and then spent the afternoon in the museum.

The Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts is a beautiful yellow and white building, constructed by the French. The three floors contain exhibits on traditional folk painting, contemporary art, and older lacquer, pottery, and sculptures. The traditional folk paintings were interesting, but without any accompanying interpretation, my appreciation remained superficial. Each small gallery of sculptures and pottery on the third floor had a short description posted at its entrance, but the artifacts were poorly dated and the historical context was poorly conveyed. To really make the visit worthwhile, I would have had to bring my own description of Vietnamese history.

The most disappointing aspect of the museum was the contemporary art exhibit. Of several dozen works, all but a handful were depictions of the American War. Some of the oil paintings were quite good, but the feel of the exhibit seemed myopic. I understand that the American War defines a huge part of Vietnamese history and culture, but war is a poor cultural focus. The exhibit portrayed the war to defend Vietnamese culture and life well, but then made no mention of what value or beauty that culture and life might have. As I explored the courtyard of the building, however, I discovered four or five art galleries out back overflowing with contemporary works from Vietnamese artists.

The arrangement seemed like a perfect metaphor for the Vietnam that I have seen so far. Walking into the state museum, I discovered the official front of the party--stiff and focused, but walking around behind to the commercial galleries, I found a vibrant expression of life. Which is not to say commercialism is the answer.

After the museum, we walked over to the Rex Hotel, which is a swank, expensive affair in the center of District 1, overlooking the People's Committee Building and right next to several shopping centers. We had a drink on the rooftop bar, which Newsweek called one of the ten best bars in the world back in 1996. It was a pleasant spot. The view was the best I'd seen in the city and gave a nice perspective to our pedestrian tours. A cool breeze blew through the shaded section where we sat and watched evening fall on the city.

The hotel where Jaqi and I stayed is located in Pham Ngu Lao, the backpacker area of Saigon. The area spreads over several blocks surrounded by large, busy boulevards. Jam packed shoulder to shoulder are travel agencies, restaurants, hotels, and cafes. Some establishments stand out with some character but most blend into a generic pool of commerce. It is not the place to have an "authentic" Vietnamese experience, but it is an experience. Watching people there is particularly entertaining. Jaqi and I would pick a spot in the evening after dinner, have a drink and share stories while we watched the odd comings and goings of our fellow travelers and the locals trying to make their living from them (and us).

The streets are full of younger Vietnamese on shiny, new motorbikes and vendors walking from cafe to cafe. Booksellers hold stacks of books four feet high, tied together with ribbons, against their hips trying to tempt backpackers with their titles: Lonely Planet Cambodia or China, popular American fiction--Nick Hornby, classics set in Vietnam--The Quite American, and local subject matter--The Sex Trafficking of Women in Southeast Asia. Middle aged women hold babies while selling packets of gum, gesturing to their infant when a Westerner first refuses to buy. Cyclo drivers pedal their fixed-gear, lumbering bicycles with seats at the front slowly past. Men with a vertical rack of dried squid constructed on the back of their bicycle stop at each bar looking to sell someone their snacks. Cigarette vendors act offended that you don't smoke. Young, smartly dressed men pedal bicycles around the block discretely advertising their "massage" service by shaking a rattle made from bottle caps. I did eventually try the dried squid--it was quite bad. Squid is already chewy enough without the jerky consistency. I ate very little and then gave the rest to a street kid who asked for it.

There were a few things I missed in Ho Chi Minh City. I would have liked to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels constructed during the war and see the History Museum, but I'm glad for the change to Dalat.

Saigon and Cholon

Ho Chi Minh City is split into several districts. Jaqi and I have spent the last two days in district 1, which is still technically known as Saigon, and district 5 is Cholon, or Chinatown. Yesterday, we tried to follow a walking tour suggested by the Lonely Planet guide book.

The walking tour first circles the roundabout just south of Ben Thanh Market, which is a fairly nice venue. A nice couple side streets with some beautiful antique shops lie immediately southeast. Before hitting the waterfront, the walking tour heads further north to the municipal theater and the Hotel de Ville, or People's Committee Building. After a stop in a nice cafe, Jaqi and I walked over to the Independence Palace, which is really just a bunch of fancy state rooms decorated in the seventies, and then visited the War Remnants Museum.

The War Remnants Museum was a little difficult. It is a small enclosure the size of a city block with several American fighter jets, some tanks, some artillery pieces, and the entire story of American atrocities during the Vietnam War (War of American Aggression). There are whole sections on the destruction Agent Orange wrought on both land and people; the affects of landmines and white phosphorous artillery; and massacres perpetrated by the American aggressors. It was an odd experience.

We followed that heavy material with a walk past Notre Dame Cathedral, which is a red brick replica of the cathedral that stands in Paris, and dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant, where I ate goat for the first time. I can't say I recommend goat--the texture was stringy at best and the mediocre taste did nothing to compensate.

Today, Jaqi and I walked to Cholon, which is Chinatown. I read that many of the ethnic Chinese that used to live there intimidated out of the country following reunification. Cholon is noisy. Motorbikes seem to drive everywhere: on the street, on the sidewalk, through green lights, through red lights. It was tiring being so vigilant. There are some nice sights, though. The Cholon Mosque, the Nghia An Hoi Quan Pagoda, and the Thien Hau Pogoda were all peaceful refuge from the frantic streets. There were very few Westerners in Cholon, but many of the younger Vietnamese shouted, "Hello!" and waved as we passed.

On the walk back from Cholon, we stopped by the An Dong Market, which is supposedly one of the best markets in Ho Chi Minh City, which would also rank it as one of the best in Vietnam. The market is four levels of booths selling clothes, food, clothes, cooking equipment, and more clothes. It was four-thirty when we arrived and the shopkeepers seemed to be closing down for the day. The aisles between booths were barely navigable.

The differences between Cambodia and Vietnam have been striking. Vietnam is so much more prosperous--it seems like a different world. Except for the obvious differences--language and communist banners--Ho Chi Minh City could be any Western developed metropolis.

Ho Chi Minh City

It was another early morning to catch my shuttle to the bus stations at 6:30 AM. The bus started east from Phnom Penh on Highway 1. Highway 1 is paved two lanes wide in most places, but there are several construction projects that create dusty and bumpy detours. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch just before the Vietnamese border. Customs went well and we were on our way after about half an hour.

The drive from the border to Ho Chi Minh City started through a rural landscape that quickly changed to endless suburbs. We arrived around one in the afternoon and I set about finding a hotel. The first place I tried was full, but their second location, just around the corner still had some rooms. I walked up to the reception desk to find a Dutch woman, Jaqi, looking for cheaper accommodations. She asked if I minded splitting a room, which I didn't.

After checking in, Jaqi and I set out walking to see a bit of the city. Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, is much more developed than anything I saw in Cambodia. It is much more ritzy, lively, and loud. We looked through one of the markets, checked out the industrial waterfront, and found a few blocks filled almost exclusively with Japanese restaurants.

I'd like to write a bit more, but I'm very tired, even after sitting on a bus for six hours of the day.

Last day in Cambodia

Not much going on today--just waiting for my visa for Vietnam, which I got this evening. Tomorrow, I leave ealy on a bus to Ho Chi Min City, formery Saigon. Today, I went to the Russian Market in the southern part of Phnom Penh. It seemed a lot calmer than some of the other markets I've visited. The aisles between booths were almost spacious and their was a lot less noise.

The boat to Phnom Penh

Last night, Voun took me to a Cambodian restaurant on the east side of Siem Reap. I was the only Westerner there and Voun was the only Cambodian who spoke English. The main dish was a communal plate of cut steak which we dipped in a sauce that we each made from several ingredients on the table. The food was quite good, but it was frustrating not being able to talk to anyone.

My shuttle for the boat to Phnom Penh was to arrive at six o'clock this morning. I had set my watch alarm, but the hotel attendant helpfully knocked on my door to wake me up. At 4:53. So I thanked him and then went back to be for about an hour. I waited outside in the predawn until about 6:25 when the already packed twelve passenger van finally arrived. We stopped at three more guesthouses and eventually had eighteen passengers crunched inside.

Siem Reap lies about ten kilometers north of Tonle Sap, which is an enormous lake, the biggest in Southeast Asia, in fact. The road out of town runs on a spine overlooking some beautiful farmland that was beautifully lit by the low morning sun. We arrived at the chaotic boat platform just before seven o'clock, in time to buy some bread and water before boarding.

The boat platform actually sits at the end of a channel maybe two kilometers from the actual lake. About half of the passengers started the trip sitting outside the cabin at the bow or on the low roof, until we reached the open water and sped up. The wind started showering everyone with cold spray and there was a bit of a mad slippery dash to get inside.

We crossed the lake in about ninety minutes the water calmed as we started down the river. The rest of the trip was a pleasant and sunny three and a half more hours. Fishing villages lie on both banks occurring more frequently as we approached Phnom Penh. There were fishing boats out along almost the entire length of the river, with long nets that sometimes stretched entirely across the channel. Our boat avoided the fishermen, but drove right over the nets, knocking the aerosol cans used for floats aside.

Children we passed almost always waved as we flew by and occasionally a fisherman whose boat was at the river bank would run down to make sure our wake wasn't throwing it against the shore.

The boat arrived at Phnom Penh at about 1:30 PM and a throng of drivers waited at the pier waving guesthouse signs and trying to secure fares. I stopped by the bus station to arrange my trip to Vietnam and then checked in at the Angkor International Hotel. After a short nap, I had lunch and walked around the waterfront. I feel surprisingly tired for a day of not doing too much and I'm looking forward to a long night's sleep.