Let’s jump right in, woo! China did not make my list of top 3 countries (Right now held by Namibia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, respectively- though I have very high hopes for Japan), but it was definitely a blast. I traveled to Beijing with my friends Carla and Mark (adorable couple), Carla’s roommate Jaime and her friend Sara, plus Mark’s roommate Josh and their friend Matt. They’re all my friends, but there’s the specific rundown for those of you who feel I haven’t been giving you enough social information.
China was a challenge. It was a good challenge in my opinion, but I think others, a little spoiled by our easy time finding English speakers in all the previous countries, found it less positive and more frustrating. The most challenging aspect was the fact that NO ONE speaks English. This was not a problem in, say, Brazil, where Portuguese is relatively easy to pick up and you can get by with decent Spanish. In China, Mandarin and Cantonese aren’t exactly romance languages, and reading the characters is a feat even some Chinese people can’t do. The most English tragedy…okay. I got up to do stuff in the middle of that sentence and I have NO clue what it was going to say. “The most English tragedy is Romeo & Juliet?”…”The most English tragedy is running out of tea?”…I don’t know. If you can comment on what should have been the best sentence, I will give you a special gift when I get home. Give me until then to decide what it is. Probably a baked good, because god do I ever miss baking.
Back to China. Language barrier was tough. We figured out ways around this, like having the hotel concierge write where we wanted to go in Mandarin beforehand. This did not always work out, as cab drivers had the justSOfun habit of staring at the piece of paper like someone wrote “These people think your mom is a stripper,” on it, then sometimes nodding and saying, “(insert Chinese characters here),” or, even more graciously, simply going, “No,” and driving away. OH THE ENTERTAINMENT. So, having at least 7 people at all times, and therefore hailing two cabs, is no easy feat on the streets of Beijing. One cab drove up to us and then drove away laughing. Glad I could pay the fun forward and give a Chinese dude a good laugh with no effort required. Of course, there were friendly cab drivers, too. One talked to us the whole way to the Temple of Heaven- unfortunately, as he was speaking Mandarin, all we could do was laugh and nod confusedly.
But before Beijing, there was Hong Kong. The ship docked next to a mall, so when we disembarked, we disembarked into the couture kids’ section. This was a giant and rather upscale mall, including D&G Children, Chloe Junior, and all sorts of absurdly expensive baby clothing. There was other unusually upscale stuff too, my favorite of which was PIZZA HUT. This was the swankiest Pizza Hut I have ever seen. It looked like it should have sold $50 steaks and $14 plates of pommes frites, not greasy pan pizzas. The first day a few VB friends and I set out to explore. We really just spent the day walking around Hong Kong- our intent was to go to the art museum, but it was closed on Thursdays (random). Our ship was docked on mainland HK, Kowloon, but we took the ferry to Hong Kong Island, where all the action is. We wandered up Hollywood Rd., went on a very long people-mover, saw a deli with a “Oba-macaroni & cheese” special, elbowed our way through a market street, saw a really weird cut of fish wherein a piece was still throbbing, went in the HK equivalent of Pleasant Surprise (favorite sighting- a dish towel that says “Pandas are the Most Cuddly,” I almost got it for you Michelle but it was way too expensive for a dish towel, sorry), and lunched at a superdelicious create-your-own burger place.
It was hot in HK, and as we walked in our attempts to find the Victoria Peak Tram, we were sweating like crazy, Vietnam style. Sidenote: It felt SO. VERY. GOOD. To be in Beijing where it was about 40*. I never thought I would miss the cold, but I would rather be in the cold than in the sweat-through-your-shirts heat & humidity of good old rainy-season SE Asia. Anyway, with the help of a friendly cab driver, we found the tram and rode it up to the top of- you guessed it- Victoria Peak. The view was gorgeous. We watched the sun set over the HK skyline and took lots of touristy pictures and got gelato that was far too expensive. We took the ferry back to Kowloon just in time for the light show. That’s right, the light show. Every night, Hong Kong Island’s building light up in a frenzy of lasers, spots, and rainbow flashing seizure-givers in a SWEET light show set to music. It is really bizarre to see a city make itself into a light show, but also incredibly cool.
That night was pretty amusing. We went in search of a nice chill bar in which to get a beer and some snacks, and instead found the following: First, a German beerfest in the Marco Polo Hotel. That was almost over and very expensive, so we moved on to Ladies Night at Zaza, also expensive but the first (and only, for us) drink was free. The kicker with Zaza was that it was some James Bond/Bollinger champagne promotion party, so there was a Cantonese fashion show with girls prancing around in gold and making spy motions. It was really uninteresting, but we thought it was funny that we managed to go to a beerfest and a fashion show in a two-hour span. We hit up McD’s for a magical western chicken mcnugget or two and went to bed.
I have definitely reached my foreign-food quota. Japan doesn’t count because I ADORE sushi and anything even slightly noodle related, but China was a place where I caved and ate a fair amount of things like BK and TCBY and other such acronyms. I even ate KFC, which I don’t think I’ve eaten at home since age 9. Desperation smells like a “Zinger Burger” and hot wings.
Anyway, the second day in HK was Tai Chi, Tea and Dim Sum. Dim sum was yummy, Tai Chi almost made me fall asleep but was actually really cool and surprisingly energizing (despite that whole sleepy thing), and I spent way too much money on tea and tea-related items that are a shared Christmas present for us, Mommy. My favorite dim sum item was a tasty bbq pork thing that is best described as steamed wonderbread outside with pork sloppy joe inside. It was a delight. I got a really cool loose tea press at “The Best Tea House.” That’s actually its name. It was really a lovely place and a deserved moniker.
After my morning/afternoon of culture, I met up with Carla/Mark, Sara, Jaime (jay-mee, not hi-mee like a latino boy), Josh and Matt for our flight to Beijing. After taking advantage of the free wifi to book a hotel room, we got on the plane- I was last, as I was literally booking the hotel room as I walked down the jetway. All went well, there was a full and delicious meal on our 2-hour plane ride, and they played Wall-E, which you all know I adore. We got off and set about the business of finding our way to the Zhongan Hotel. Frugal students, we opted to take the shuttle bus for Y16 to Beijing station, then catch a cab to our hotel. However, once at Beijing station (bus ride involved hearing “My Heart Will Go On”, America’s everywhere), we could not find a cab who would take us to our hotel, the address of which was written in Mandarin on a piece of paper. It was 1am and very cold, and the concierge pointed us in the general direction of the hotel, so we started walking. On our way, we found an elderly Chinese gentleman on a bike who kindly showed us the way to our hotel (about eight blocks) and then requested Y100, about $18. We talked him down to Y30/$5 because paying $15 for someone to walk you somewhere is absurd. The last two blocks involved going down a tiny, dark, deserted alleyway with no lights and no hotels/buildings, just little shack places. Once we actually reached the Zhong’an, it was a cute little courtyard hotel tucked away in a real Chinese neighborhood, which, barring our first late-night foray, was not at all sketchy. As it was late, we just went right to bed, ready to wake up early for a sojourn to the Forbidden City.
Sojourn we did, although not that early. We booked our evening’s activity- an acrobatics show- and our next day’s tour to the great wall, then headed in search of brunch. We found it at Chengdu, a place with a chili pepper icon that so resembled Chipotle that we continued to call the restaurant Chipotle. I had amazing chicken with spicy sauce, dumplings galore, and fried rice for about $3. Good start. We walked to the Marriott and caught a cab to the Forbidden City. It was cool, but was made a lot more useful by the GPS-led audio guides we bought. If not for those, I think it would’ve been your average series of old buildings, but the guide told us all about what each building’s purpose was in the dynasty days, plus interesting architectural notes and factoids. We went through the buildings to the other side, checked out the giant portrait of good ol’ Mao-ey Z, then skipped across the street to Tiananmen Square. We just looked around and took in the history, also taking the requisite jumpshot- if there’s one thing I’ve learned here, it’s that SAS loves the jumpshot.
With a few hours left before our acrobat show, we went to the Temple of Heaven. We couldn’t go inside because of a ceremony, but we walked around the beautiful gardens and absorbed the fact that we were finally in a country where coats were welcome. It was nice to be in a place where it was COLD and autumnal. The park and temple were both really beautiful and nature-tastic.
The acrobatics show that night was FANTASMAGORICAL. Seriously. The finale involved 12 people on a bike. One bike, I tell you! There were so many ridiculous feats of human agility, it was like Cirque du Soleil on crack. It was really cool to see, but kind of funny because it was in a theater that was more than vaguely reminiscent of a high school where PHS Chorus performed. After that, we headed over to the main bar street, where we headed into a place where the singers asked us where we were from, then yelled , “Oh, America! Barack Obama,” to which we yelled a very vigorous “OBAMA!!!,” an act which earned us a free popcorn from the Italian girls seated next to us.
The next day was GREAT WALL DAY, and my 21st birthday! It was a super terrific day, as we went to the Ming Tombs (sorry to say, these were boring and entirely uneventful) and a Chinese doctor who said I needed to exercise more and told me I needed $160 pills (to help me exercise more?). Really those were the only crappy bits, the wall was amazing! It is crazy to know you are walking on 2400 years of history, that you are walking on something that has been around over 10x the entire history of the United States. The Great Wall is over 6,000 miles long. That is crazy. You could walk to California and back on that wall. We took copious amounts of pictures and pushed our way through a million Chinese people to get to the top, as this was not rude because the Chinese have no concept of personal space. I’m not being rude, it’s completely true. I definitely had a “How lucky am I?” moment staring at all the miles of wall before me.
That night, we celebrated my birthday at the Golden Jaguar, a magical all-you-can-eat-and-drink-yes-drink buffet. It was sweet- I had another ton of dumplings, roast duck, sushi, and all sorts of tasty confections.
We spent our last Beijing day in the Land of the Olympics! We took a dubious cab (because he didn’t know why we wanted to go there, he wasn’t a dubious guy, he was actually pretty cool) to the Olympic Village, then wandered around to the Bird’s Nest. It is huge and silver and nesty and irony and AWESOME. It is so cool to see close up, especially because I had major Olympics fever this summer. We saw the Watercube next door too, which looked like the Bubble at the Newport Athletic Club, but more architecturally sound and pretty. It really looked like a building made of iridescent pinky-blue bubbles, with water running down the glass windowpanes. There was a sweet building a block away called the Torch Building, the top of which looked- well, should have looked like a torch, but really looked like a combination of Elvis’s hair and a frozen yogurt. We hopped back in some cabs and headed to the airport for our flight to Shanghai.
Shanghai was pretty uneventful. I stayed in that night, as I was super tired and not in the mood to deal with another new place. The next day, Carrie, Sam and I went to get Japan Rail passes and ate a fabulous lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. I know, I know, I really should’ve eaten Chinese food, but that Thai pizza satisfied my SOUL. Shanghai looked cool, but I really just didn’t have the energy or wherewithal to really explore and discover an entire giant business-based city in less than 12 hours.
Now here’s the not-so-fun part: While we were in Hong Kong, a student was hit by a drunk driver and killed. His name was Kurt, and while I didn’t know him personally, everybody said he was a really nice, genuine and intelligent guy. We just had a memorial service for him tonight (November 20, obviously I’m a bit slow with the blog post), and it was great to hear about what a great person Kurt was, but heartbreaking, because such a young life was lost. I have a hard time dealing with the idea that he will never graduate or get a job or get married or have a family. I feel like the shipboard community dealt with it in a really gentle, respectful way, by celebrating Kurt’s life instead of solely mourning his death. Kurt’s death made me even more aware of just how lucky I am to be here on this trip, and here on this earth. I can’t imagine the pain his parents must feel knowing that the time they said goodbye to their kid in the Bahamas would be the last time they saw him alive. Please send up a prayer for Kurt’s family and friends, or, if you’re not the praying type, just send some good healing vibes and thoughts.
Okay. I know it’s hard to segue into anything happy from that, but I will do my best. I would definitely come back to China, but it’s honestly not at the top of my list, especially after going to Japan, where I am determined to live at some point. More on that next post, which I shall write directly and probably post at the same time as this one. On the next “Voyage of the Me-me”, our intrepid heroine deals with the idea of returning home and her feelings on the journey as a whole!
24 November 2008
05 November 2008
Lesson Eleven: How to Post in Anachronistic Order (alternate title: How To Rest, Relax & Run Rampant in the Rain)
Malaysia was a refreshing respite after the hectic and mentally/emotionally taxing whirling dervish known as India. I still feel like I haven’t adequately processed that, or indeed anywhere I’ve been, and while I’m positive this experience will stay with me forever, I am simultaneously petrified that I will forget even the tiniest things that happened. I think that is why I write such long and detailed blog entries, because while I’m sure you find my life fascinating, I probably find it more fascinating than you do, and want to use this as a memory aid in the future.
I have been feeling a little bad that I have been basically just giving a play-by-play of what I do and not what I feel or what happens aboard the ship, but there’s just so much that goes on in every possible sector that I have to pick something to focus on. So far, I have been brought to tears several times, bowled over by the realization that this is happening, that this world traversing is my life, and how utterly blessed I am to have the supportive family, financial means, personal stamina and general beautiful life that I have. I don’t know if I will ever find a way to repay you, Mom and Dad, for making this trip possible; or to thank you enough, Gram & Pop, for the amazing sendoff gifts you gave me. I know I will certainly spend many years trying.
Enough sentiment, let’s get to the play-by-play! Malaysia is AMAZING. I would go back in a heartbeat. Penang is super safe- I never felt threatened or bothered in any way- and the people are all friendly and ready to have a conversation. Several factors helped Malaysia’s natural charms shine ever more: the relaxed atmosphere and lack of tight time budgets and my fabulous travel partners, Katey, Eleanor and Danica. We had so much fun basically hanging around and eating, because there is no better way to experience a culture than to eat its food. Seriously.
Malaysia is semi-multicultural, albeit not to the degree of the mostly-immigrant US. Malaysia has three main ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese and Indian. The Chinese and Indians have been in Malaysia for centuries, but some still feel that the Malays have all the power, and that they are treated as second-class citizens. Most Chinese and Indian Malaysians have never been to their ancestors’ home countries. The racism was never apparent to any of us, but it is very clear that neighborhoods and restaurants (no fusion) are separated by culture.
Day 1: I went on an FDP to a drug rehab center, an experience that was far less dry and far more rewarding than I had expected. I am a total psych nerd, so I obviously enjoyed it, but what made it really cool was that instead of taking us on a lame tour of the grounds, we were able to speak with and quasi-interview several of the patients at the facility. This place, while it was clearly a clean, well-maintained and quality facility, was VERY different from a rehab center you’d experience in the US.
There was a staff of only 7 for nearly 400 inmates (they called them ‘inmates’, not ‘patients’, another difference I will return to in but a few sentences), and none of them were professionally educated in psychology, just a training program for that specific facility. They followed an 8-step program (that none of us had never heard of, even Dr. Cargill) based on a center in NY, and had a minimum stay of 24 months, although most inmates are let out earlier for success and good behavior. The patients are called inmates because it is a government-mandated facility, and as such is more of a penal system solely for drug addicts. While we got differing answers from the staff and the inmates, we eventually eked out of them that the recidivism (the do-you-come-back-for-more) rate was about 70%, which is fairly high, but not surprising considering that it is a mandated and not voluntary facility.
The man I spoke with was 52 and was on his second go, having been in the center in 1995 and then clean for the next 12 years. He said that the most dangerous thing for him to have once released was free time. In the center, the inmates are up and occupied from 5:30am to 11pm, and once released, there is little to no follow-up counseling, job placement, or training to ensure success outside of the facility. Malaysia is trying to eradicate drugs COMPLETELY by 2015 (a lofty goal in my and my interviewee’s opinion), and there are government mandated rehab facilities all over the country. Most addicts (that are convicted, at least) are men, and there is only one center each for women, juveniles, and voluntary admittance.
After that illuminating field trip, I headed back to the ship, then back out to grab some dinner. This going back on the ship then leaving again may sound simple to you, but it was not. We had to do something called “tendering”, which meant our ship was anchored in the harbor, not docked, and we therefore had to use one of our lifeboats as a baby ferry to take us the 8 or so minutes from ship to shore. These boats left the ship on the hour from 7am-1am, and left the shore on the half hour from 7:30 to 1:30. Luckily, we only have/had to tender in Malaysia.
Dinner that night meant Chinese food, and then out to the clubs on Penang Rd. because it was ladies night. Ladies night was a lot less awesome than it sounds, and we got on the midnight tender to beat the river of SAS kids that was inevitably going to come in on the 1am. Dinner was REAL Chinese food, which meant tasty duck and fried rice and the strangest “dessert” I have ever eaten. It was a yam paste with bits of dried fruit and sesame seeds in it. It was definitely a paste, and pretty much tasted like…well, paste. It was the consistency of…paste, and looked like…paste. It was not super tasty, it WAS super pasty, and none of us were really game to order seconds of that particular dish.
The second day I had another FDP about the religions of Malaysia, which was fairly uninteresting and involved walking around to various temples, churches and mosques in the Georgetown area. Relatively unremarkable, although the Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple had some really cool Chinese architecture happening. That night, we went to Little India in search of henna. We found it, and lots more fun, because it was Deepavali, the Hindu festival of lights (yeah, every religion’s got one, whether the lights are religiously symbolic or simply a nuisance to hang when it’s 20 degrees out). We found a girl doing mendhi, and while she artfully decorated us, ended up having a really good talk with her and her brother about cultural differences and living as an Indian in Malaysia. We asked her for her dinner recommendation, took it, and enjoyed better Indian food than we’d eaten in most of India. Cashew-sauce covered chicken, a spicy Kashmiri chicken, lots of naan, and amazing mango-yogurt smoothies called lassi. We headed back to the ship after dinner because of our early ferry to Langkawi the next day.
Langkawi is a GORGEOUS archipelago off the coast of peninsular Malaysia (there are two bits of Malaysia, Peninsular and the part on the island of Borneo, aptly named ‘Borneo Malaysia’). Seriously, when you see pictures you’ll say “Oh, that’s beautiful,” but pictures do not BEGIN to do it justice. I had a “I am so lucky” moment just standing on the ferry looking at the lush green islands all around. Langkawi is a tax-free island, and we got a sweet four-star hotel room for $10 each.
We spent our two days on Langkawi relaxing. We were ravenous as soon as we got off the ferry, and made the FANTASTIC choice to eat at this dumpy looking Thai place called “Siam Palace” or something equally uninspiring. It is a rule of the world that the crappier the place looks, the better the food (only up to a point, though, I’m not advocating eating that really tasty-looking prawn off that dirt-covered plastic plate in Chinatown). This place had the BEST fried rice I have ever eaten in my life, along with an incredible coconut-milk-and-lime seafood soup, chicken curry, and fresh lime juice. I would pay airfare to Malaysia just to eat that rice once more. No lie. Okay, a little lie, but everybody loves literary embellishment.
It had been pouring rain all day, but we went in the water anyway, being the free spirits that we are. This was a good choice, because the cooler air temperature meant the water felt bathtub warm and toasty, plus a rain shower is the best shower. We chilled in the room and watched hilariously bad Malaysian soap operas (in Malay, so we dubbed it ourselves), then got a DELICIOUS dinner of noodles, the best satay of my life, and fried ice cream downstairs at the restaurant. We then hung out in the room some more, taking advantage of the WiFi to stalk Facebook and Youtube like the internet-starved techno-children we are before deciding that it was karaoke time.
Yes, there was a karaoke bar in the hotel, and yes, we took it over from 11:45pm until well after 1. I mean took over literally, because there was no one in there and no hotel staff to set it up, as it technically closed at midnight. We figured out the equipment for ourselves (lucky for me the CD player was the same one we used to use at YMCA gymnastics), then proceeded to spend the next hour and a half serenading each other with fantastic English (there were also Malay, Mandarin and Hindi) hits, including one song that we had never heard and used the on-screen lyrics to make up notes for it. I love hanging out with music nerds, because there is usually improvisation, there is usually dancing, and there is always harmony (pun intended).
The second day was paradise- super sunny and warm. We relaxed on the beach in the morning, then Katey and I went in for our spa treatments. We paid less than $60 for an hour-long massage, a facial, a body scrub, and something called a milk bath, which will come into play later.
This spa treatment will forever be known as Katey and my “Accidental Lesbian Holiday” (seriously, that’s how we refer to it now), because after being in the same room for our now-couples massage, facial and scrub, THEY DREW US THE SAME BATH. This was clearly because there was only one bath, but Katey and I thought it was hysterical nonetheless. Our initial shared look as we walked in was pretty priceless, and while we decided taking turns in the bath would be the best course of action, we thought the whole concept was fairly uproarious.
We took the evening ferry back, which yielded stunning views of the archipelago and the Malaysian sunset, then headed to Penang Rd. to stay in a hotel for the night, as we wanted to go to a morning market up the street the next day. We fought other SAS kids for rooms at several hotels before nabbing the “family suite” at the Oriental Hotel, which was clean but by no means fancy. The “family suite” was code for “two twins and a double bed in a strange round formation, circling-the-wagons style, centered around a large pole in the center of the room.” We left our suite and hit up dinner at the Red Market, which is a mini night market and ginormous food market with entertainment. This was the dinner highlight of Malaysia. We ate like kings for about $3 each: pad thai, fried rice, chicken satay, amazing Malay BBQ chicken, and incredible duck, all finished off with fried sweet corn ice cream. I know it sounds weird that sweet corn is an ice cream flavor, but this was seriously the most awesome dessert I have tasted in a while (especially after the yam paste). It genuinely tastes like corn, but the sweet summery yellow corn. It is textured like ice cream and coated in a thin layer of fry-age. I have daydreams about this fried ice cream. Seriously. Full of ice cream and happiness, I bargained a dress seller down from RM90 to RM50 (a little less than $15) for a cute long gray jersey dress.
In the morning, we left our wagon encampment and headed up the street to the market. The Little Penang Craft Market is held the last Sunday of every month, and contains several trinket/curio sellers, a few clothing sellers and A LOT of jewelry. The atmosphere reminded me of the Scituate art fair, but a lot smaller, more like the Bird Sanctuary’s autumnal bonanza. I bought a lot of gifts, for myself and for others. If I tell you your gift came from Malaysia, it’s either from this craft market or from the STELLAR craft shop in the mini-mall-thing attached to the ferry place.
After the craft fair, we headed back to the ship to ditch our many purchases, eat a quick lunch and head back out for our final service projects. Katey and Eleanor went to the St. Joseph’s Orphanage, which they said was unfortunately very crowded and overwhelming for the kids that live there. I went to the Cheshire home, a care center for mentally challenged teens and adults. It was tough to interact with the combination of the language barrier and the differing levels of cognitive development. It was hard for me because I’ve never worked with the mentally challenged, and we weren’t informed as to the degree of developmental delay in most of the people there, so I wasn’t sure who wanted to color and who wanted to practice their English. We all eventually found friends though, and I spent a few hours helping a guy named Lim work on puzzles, and coloring with a really sweet woman named Hooilee. All in all it was a learning experience for me.
After that it was back to the ship, and off we sailed for Vietnam! We’ll be there tomorrow morning, and then I leave pretty much right away for Cambodia. I’ll let you know how it goes! Who knows, maybe I’ll bring home a baby, Angelina style. Send me emails to come back to!
I have been feeling a little bad that I have been basically just giving a play-by-play of what I do and not what I feel or what happens aboard the ship, but there’s just so much that goes on in every possible sector that I have to pick something to focus on. So far, I have been brought to tears several times, bowled over by the realization that this is happening, that this world traversing is my life, and how utterly blessed I am to have the supportive family, financial means, personal stamina and general beautiful life that I have. I don’t know if I will ever find a way to repay you, Mom and Dad, for making this trip possible; or to thank you enough, Gram & Pop, for the amazing sendoff gifts you gave me. I know I will certainly spend many years trying.
Enough sentiment, let’s get to the play-by-play! Malaysia is AMAZING. I would go back in a heartbeat. Penang is super safe- I never felt threatened or bothered in any way- and the people are all friendly and ready to have a conversation. Several factors helped Malaysia’s natural charms shine ever more: the relaxed atmosphere and lack of tight time budgets and my fabulous travel partners, Katey, Eleanor and Danica. We had so much fun basically hanging around and eating, because there is no better way to experience a culture than to eat its food. Seriously.
Malaysia is semi-multicultural, albeit not to the degree of the mostly-immigrant US. Malaysia has three main ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese and Indian. The Chinese and Indians have been in Malaysia for centuries, but some still feel that the Malays have all the power, and that they are treated as second-class citizens. Most Chinese and Indian Malaysians have never been to their ancestors’ home countries. The racism was never apparent to any of us, but it is very clear that neighborhoods and restaurants (no fusion) are separated by culture.
Day 1: I went on an FDP to a drug rehab center, an experience that was far less dry and far more rewarding than I had expected. I am a total psych nerd, so I obviously enjoyed it, but what made it really cool was that instead of taking us on a lame tour of the grounds, we were able to speak with and quasi-interview several of the patients at the facility. This place, while it was clearly a clean, well-maintained and quality facility, was VERY different from a rehab center you’d experience in the US.
There was a staff of only 7 for nearly 400 inmates (they called them ‘inmates’, not ‘patients’, another difference I will return to in but a few sentences), and none of them were professionally educated in psychology, just a training program for that specific facility. They followed an 8-step program (that none of us had never heard of, even Dr. Cargill) based on a center in NY, and had a minimum stay of 24 months, although most inmates are let out earlier for success and good behavior. The patients are called inmates because it is a government-mandated facility, and as such is more of a penal system solely for drug addicts. While we got differing answers from the staff and the inmates, we eventually eked out of them that the recidivism (the do-you-come-back-for-more) rate was about 70%, which is fairly high, but not surprising considering that it is a mandated and not voluntary facility.
The man I spoke with was 52 and was on his second go, having been in the center in 1995 and then clean for the next 12 years. He said that the most dangerous thing for him to have once released was free time. In the center, the inmates are up and occupied from 5:30am to 11pm, and once released, there is little to no follow-up counseling, job placement, or training to ensure success outside of the facility. Malaysia is trying to eradicate drugs COMPLETELY by 2015 (a lofty goal in my and my interviewee’s opinion), and there are government mandated rehab facilities all over the country. Most addicts (that are convicted, at least) are men, and there is only one center each for women, juveniles, and voluntary admittance.
After that illuminating field trip, I headed back to the ship, then back out to grab some dinner. This going back on the ship then leaving again may sound simple to you, but it was not. We had to do something called “tendering”, which meant our ship was anchored in the harbor, not docked, and we therefore had to use one of our lifeboats as a baby ferry to take us the 8 or so minutes from ship to shore. These boats left the ship on the hour from 7am-1am, and left the shore on the half hour from 7:30 to 1:30. Luckily, we only have/had to tender in Malaysia.
Dinner that night meant Chinese food, and then out to the clubs on Penang Rd. because it was ladies night. Ladies night was a lot less awesome than it sounds, and we got on the midnight tender to beat the river of SAS kids that was inevitably going to come in on the 1am. Dinner was REAL Chinese food, which meant tasty duck and fried rice and the strangest “dessert” I have ever eaten. It was a yam paste with bits of dried fruit and sesame seeds in it. It was definitely a paste, and pretty much tasted like…well, paste. It was the consistency of…paste, and looked like…paste. It was not super tasty, it WAS super pasty, and none of us were really game to order seconds of that particular dish.
The second day I had another FDP about the religions of Malaysia, which was fairly uninteresting and involved walking around to various temples, churches and mosques in the Georgetown area. Relatively unremarkable, although the Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple had some really cool Chinese architecture happening. That night, we went to Little India in search of henna. We found it, and lots more fun, because it was Deepavali, the Hindu festival of lights (yeah, every religion’s got one, whether the lights are religiously symbolic or simply a nuisance to hang when it’s 20 degrees out). We found a girl doing mendhi, and while she artfully decorated us, ended up having a really good talk with her and her brother about cultural differences and living as an Indian in Malaysia. We asked her for her dinner recommendation, took it, and enjoyed better Indian food than we’d eaten in most of India. Cashew-sauce covered chicken, a spicy Kashmiri chicken, lots of naan, and amazing mango-yogurt smoothies called lassi. We headed back to the ship after dinner because of our early ferry to Langkawi the next day.
Langkawi is a GORGEOUS archipelago off the coast of peninsular Malaysia (there are two bits of Malaysia, Peninsular and the part on the island of Borneo, aptly named ‘Borneo Malaysia’). Seriously, when you see pictures you’ll say “Oh, that’s beautiful,” but pictures do not BEGIN to do it justice. I had a “I am so lucky” moment just standing on the ferry looking at the lush green islands all around. Langkawi is a tax-free island, and we got a sweet four-star hotel room for $10 each.
We spent our two days on Langkawi relaxing. We were ravenous as soon as we got off the ferry, and made the FANTASTIC choice to eat at this dumpy looking Thai place called “Siam Palace” or something equally uninspiring. It is a rule of the world that the crappier the place looks, the better the food (only up to a point, though, I’m not advocating eating that really tasty-looking prawn off that dirt-covered plastic plate in Chinatown). This place had the BEST fried rice I have ever eaten in my life, along with an incredible coconut-milk-and-lime seafood soup, chicken curry, and fresh lime juice. I would pay airfare to Malaysia just to eat that rice once more. No lie. Okay, a little lie, but everybody loves literary embellishment.
It had been pouring rain all day, but we went in the water anyway, being the free spirits that we are. This was a good choice, because the cooler air temperature meant the water felt bathtub warm and toasty, plus a rain shower is the best shower. We chilled in the room and watched hilariously bad Malaysian soap operas (in Malay, so we dubbed it ourselves), then got a DELICIOUS dinner of noodles, the best satay of my life, and fried ice cream downstairs at the restaurant. We then hung out in the room some more, taking advantage of the WiFi to stalk Facebook and Youtube like the internet-starved techno-children we are before deciding that it was karaoke time.
Yes, there was a karaoke bar in the hotel, and yes, we took it over from 11:45pm until well after 1. I mean took over literally, because there was no one in there and no hotel staff to set it up, as it technically closed at midnight. We figured out the equipment for ourselves (lucky for me the CD player was the same one we used to use at YMCA gymnastics), then proceeded to spend the next hour and a half serenading each other with fantastic English (there were also Malay, Mandarin and Hindi) hits, including one song that we had never heard and used the on-screen lyrics to make up notes for it. I love hanging out with music nerds, because there is usually improvisation, there is usually dancing, and there is always harmony (pun intended).
The second day was paradise- super sunny and warm. We relaxed on the beach in the morning, then Katey and I went in for our spa treatments. We paid less than $60 for an hour-long massage, a facial, a body scrub, and something called a milk bath, which will come into play later.
This spa treatment will forever be known as Katey and my “Accidental Lesbian Holiday” (seriously, that’s how we refer to it now), because after being in the same room for our now-couples massage, facial and scrub, THEY DREW US THE SAME BATH. This was clearly because there was only one bath, but Katey and I thought it was hysterical nonetheless. Our initial shared look as we walked in was pretty priceless, and while we decided taking turns in the bath would be the best course of action, we thought the whole concept was fairly uproarious.
We took the evening ferry back, which yielded stunning views of the archipelago and the Malaysian sunset, then headed to Penang Rd. to stay in a hotel for the night, as we wanted to go to a morning market up the street the next day. We fought other SAS kids for rooms at several hotels before nabbing the “family suite” at the Oriental Hotel, which was clean but by no means fancy. The “family suite” was code for “two twins and a double bed in a strange round formation, circling-the-wagons style, centered around a large pole in the center of the room.” We left our suite and hit up dinner at the Red Market, which is a mini night market and ginormous food market with entertainment. This was the dinner highlight of Malaysia. We ate like kings for about $3 each: pad thai, fried rice, chicken satay, amazing Malay BBQ chicken, and incredible duck, all finished off with fried sweet corn ice cream. I know it sounds weird that sweet corn is an ice cream flavor, but this was seriously the most awesome dessert I have tasted in a while (especially after the yam paste). It genuinely tastes like corn, but the sweet summery yellow corn. It is textured like ice cream and coated in a thin layer of fry-age. I have daydreams about this fried ice cream. Seriously. Full of ice cream and happiness, I bargained a dress seller down from RM90 to RM50 (a little less than $15) for a cute long gray jersey dress.
In the morning, we left our wagon encampment and headed up the street to the market. The Little Penang Craft Market is held the last Sunday of every month, and contains several trinket/curio sellers, a few clothing sellers and A LOT of jewelry. The atmosphere reminded me of the Scituate art fair, but a lot smaller, more like the Bird Sanctuary’s autumnal bonanza. I bought a lot of gifts, for myself and for others. If I tell you your gift came from Malaysia, it’s either from this craft market or from the STELLAR craft shop in the mini-mall-thing attached to the ferry place.
After the craft fair, we headed back to the ship to ditch our many purchases, eat a quick lunch and head back out for our final service projects. Katey and Eleanor went to the St. Joseph’s Orphanage, which they said was unfortunately very crowded and overwhelming for the kids that live there. I went to the Cheshire home, a care center for mentally challenged teens and adults. It was tough to interact with the combination of the language barrier and the differing levels of cognitive development. It was hard for me because I’ve never worked with the mentally challenged, and we weren’t informed as to the degree of developmental delay in most of the people there, so I wasn’t sure who wanted to color and who wanted to practice their English. We all eventually found friends though, and I spent a few hours helping a guy named Lim work on puzzles, and coloring with a really sweet woman named Hooilee. All in all it was a learning experience for me.
After that it was back to the ship, and off we sailed for Vietnam! We’ll be there tomorrow morning, and then I leave pretty much right away for Cambodia. I’ll let you know how it goes! Who knows, maybe I’ll bring home a baby, Angelina style. Send me emails to come back to!
Lesson Twelve: How to Make Far Too Many Jokes about Dong & Cu Chi
Sorry for you sensitive eyes out there, but that title was totally necessary, because everyone giggled any time ANYONE said “dong” or “cu chi”. Seriously, Vietnamese currency is the dong. I swear every country’s currency either starts with D or R. Dollars, dong, ringitts, riel, rupees, rand, reais, renminbi (colloquially yuan, though). It’s just silly. Be a little more creative, people!
PS- I forgot to post Malaysia first, so it's out of order. Deal.
Beyond stupid double entendres, Vietnam/Cambodia was at times VERY intense. The two most moving things were seeing the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. I do not, nor will I ever, understand how a human being can be so torturously cruel to another human being. The tortures prisoners endured and the conditions in which they were held are deplorable, and I truly do not understand how people could do things like round up 60 children, toss them up in the air, and catch them on their bayonet on the way back down. THAT HAPPENED. The Khmer Rouge didn’t just take a bunch of Cambodians out back and fire away. They cruelly, methodically tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians in the name of “revolution”. Against what? NOTHING. I don’t think I will ever forget the feeling of standing in a field where 30 years later, in the rainy season, clothes and teeth from the mass graves still rise to the surface. I saw people’s clothing buried in the dirt, people that were beaten, maimed and even decapitated, then thrown into a giant hole in the ground. I still cry every time I think about standing there amidst that kind of evil.
The War Remnants Museum, while very biased, was not biased enough to discount its truths. A simple room, the museum holds war-era weaponry and shows off tanks and fighter jets on its front lawn, but the real power of the museum lies in its photographs. I can’t imagine the pain of being the photojournalist who took these pictures. There are pictures of Vietnamese prisoners of war, families (pregnant women, infants, grandparents) needlessly killed off in town raids, people affected by Agent Orange and napalm, and American soldiers torturing Vietnamese. The hardest thing for me to see was the Agent Orange wall. Agent Orange, which releases a pollutant called dioxin, is now recognized as one of the most hazardous defoliants on earth. The wall showed pictures of Vietnamese people affected by Agent Orange, from a 30-year old woman who stands only 2.5 feet tall, to a child born in 1998, still debilitatingly mangled despite being born 30 years after the war. Women whose husbands have been exposed have had miscarriages due to the potency of dioxins in affecting the reproductive system.
Tonight (back on the ship) we had a discussion led by faculty and lifelong learners who had lived through the war. Almost all were against it, some were very active protestors, some were conscientious objectors, and one professor who served got up to speak and choked up before he could get out even a full sentence. I thought India would be the tough country, the country that was most difficult to see and the most transforming. India was outstripped by Vietnam and Cambodia. I have teared up almost every day in the countries, and tonight at the talk. I think a little bit of it might be collective guilt for everything that’s happened to Vietnam, but as was brought up, it is especially difficult because the Vietnamese people are kind, friendly, and show no anger or resentment when they hear that I am an American. It is difficult because when I see pictures of children and adults affected by Agent Orange and napalm bombs, I know that we did that. It is difficult because standing on ground where thousands of people were brutally murdered in the name of revolution makes me lose a little of my faith in the human race. I have gotten a good look at human cruelty in the last week, and the interspersion of that with the striking beauty of thousand-year-old temples and the graciousness of the Vietnamese and Cambodian people has been the most emotionally affective part of this voyage.
One of the best things about Vietnam was the timing. Going right before the presidential election, right before we decided on who would be the person to deal with our Vietnam Redux situation in Iraq, made Barack Obama’s victory today all the more emotional. I have NEVER cared this much about a presidential election, or a concessions speech, or a “yay-I’m-the-president-elect” speech. I cried. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately, not out of sadness but out of strong emotion, whether it is horror or joy. John McCain’s concession speech made me like him more, and Barack Obama’s speech was FANTASTIC. He is going to make an amazing president, I can feel it. This is such a huge historical event for our country, and the fact that his personality and charisma far outshines his skin color, and that he has never played “the race card”, makes me like him all the more. BARACK OBAMA! WOO! There was a massive celebration in our mostly-Democrat population. People were cheering and jumping up and down, especially when Barack shouted out to “those in the far unknown corners of the world,” which is, in fact, exactly where we are, being somewhere in between Vietnam & Hong Kong. My morning class was cancelled so we could watch the votes roll in on MSNBC streaming video in the Union. It was amazing! I love that the place where I grew up is so very, very blue. Props, Northeast.
Okay, since that “feelings” bit was so long, I’ll try and keep the “what I did” bit short. Probably won’t happen though, by now you know how I like to go on. Day 1: We didn’t even get in to Vietnam until after noon, because floating down the Mekong takes a long time. Once we arrived, I didn’t have time to do anything, so I just bided my time until meeting my Cambodia group and heading to the airport. One very short (50 minute) flight later, we were in Phnom Penh. We were supposed to go to an orphanage founded by SAS alums, but thanks to said late arrival, we had no time and just went straight to dinner. Dinner was a tasty seven course affair with your average asian dishes- soup, noodles, rice, and a Khmer special called amok, which is this curried, SUPER soft and tender fish business. After fresh fruit for dessert (Cambodia papaya is fairly magical), we went back to our sweet hotel, and Steph and I got massages. A one hour Thai massage for $14=awesome. She stepped on my back and twisted me around and cracked all my bones. It was pretty sweet.
Day 2: Killing Fields. As mentioned, it was really sad. One thing that was a little symbol of hope: at the stupa where all the exhumed skulls were, there were piles upon piles of tiny stacked Japanese paper cranes hanging on the door. Japanese legend says that if you fold 1,000 paper cranes and make a wish, your wish will come true. Because of Hiroshima and Sadako Sasaki the cranes have become a symbol for world peace. We also went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Tuol Sleng used to be a high school until the Khmer Rouge turned it into an interrogation and torture camp. Like the War Remnants museum, there were pictures on the walls of prisoners, beaten and tortured. After our morning of mourning, we went to the Royal Palace and tried to think about the beautiful architecture and pretty colors without getting distracted by either a) the depression that set in after morning or b) the staggering heat that was literally worse than the Amazon. I, wanting to be all respectful, had worn a button-up oxford, and was absolutely DYING. You know when you have a shirt that you don’t wear much and can’t remember why, so you wear it again, and only then do you remember? YEAH. That’s why. Because it is hot as ANYTHING and NOT breathable. After the Royal Palace, we ate lunch at another generally asian restaurant, spring rolls and morning glory (best green vegetable ever, I kid you not) and crossed the heart-poundingly crowded street and went to a market. Now, we didn’t think of this when we couldn’t find the market’s entrance, but we sure realized it when we came out: the whole thing was EXACTLY SYMMETRICAL. This thing looks the same from every possible angle. We left out one side, then kept running around and around it looking for the area where our bus was. We were late, ducking and weaving through cyclos and cars hoping that our bus had not left for the airport. It hadn’t, we found it, and got on.
The flight to Siem Reap was seriously the shortest flight I have ever been on. It was literally only 35 minutes long. Despite this, we still got a snack. I have determined that US airlines have the worst service in the world (I can say that un-hyperbolically now, because I actually know). All the planes I’ve been on in Brazil, India, Vietnam and Cambodia have served GOOD food, taken off on time, and not been delayed. Props, world. Our first Siem Reap stop was Angkor Thom, a sweet temple where we watched the sun set with a billion other tourists. The steps were really steep going up and down the temple, less than the width of my foot. After sunset we went to a restaurant with a FANTASTIC buffet and watched a really cool dance show, a style called apsara. Our hotel, the Borei Angkor, was amaaaaaaaazing. It was all silk curtains and hardwood floors and mahogany paneling everywhere, plus a sweet bathroom with slate tiles, a big porcelain clawfoot tub, and shampoo/conditioner in stone bottles. Craziness. It was Halloween, but as we were waking up at 4:30 to see Angkor Wat, we just decided to hit up the nearby night market and go to bed. The night market was cool and very well set up. My friend Liz got a crazy pedicure type deal where you stick your feet in a pool of fish and the fish come eat all the dead skin off your feet! It was absolutely ridiculous watching fish eat my friend’s feet.
Sunrise at Angkor Wat was pretty but cloudy. We ate breakfast at the hotel, then started our Temple Day. At Angkor Thom, we went to Bauphon, a really cool legends-of-the-hidden-temple looking thing with stone faces everywhere, plus an elephant temple. I rode an elephant! I sort of take issue with the way they are trained and treated, but Steph didn’t want to go by herself and it was an experience. My favorite part was the jungle temple called Ta Prohm. A guy built the temple for his mother the queen in the 11th century. It was abandoned in the 15th, and not rediscovered until the 19th century. After 400 years of complete abandonment, these giant symbiotic trees had wound their roots in and around the stone until the ruins and forest were one big tangle. It was really, incredibly amazing. We also went to Angkor Wat again in the afternoon, but this time we got to go inside and explore. It was amazing to stand on 1,000 year old stone and walk through truly ancient archways. After all those temples we got on the plane and headed back to Vietnam.
My first full day in Vietnam was spent hanging with my friends Carla and Mark, who I’m also going to China with (tomorrow!). We hit up the Ben Thanh Market, where I got many a Christmas gift, plus a little lacquered something for myself, a square painting of Paul Klimt’s “The Kiss”, one of my fave paintings. I went with them to their tailor and sighed despairingly as they tried on their custom-made suits (that I had no time for, thanks Cambodia). Carla found glasses (frames and prescription lenses) for $30. You can’t beat that. I almost got a pair (they could check your eyes and get you a prescription right there), but as I barely wear the glasses I have, I figured it wasn’t worth it. We went to the Vietnam History Museum, which was super boring except for the water puppet show, which was delightful in a campy sort of way. People stand in waist deep water behind a curtain and move these puppets through the water- usually fish and ducks and river-dwelling people and such. After all that, we dropped our stuff off at the ship and went back out for dinner at a super tasty grill-it-yourself restaurant not unlike Melting Pot (except waaaay cheaper at only $6). We had to go back to the tailor, and in the process, found a place that grills frogs. Oh yeah you know I ate frog. We actually got to hand pick our frog out of a tank, which was a little sad but not sad enough for me not to eat it! It was okay, I didn’t love the texture but it tasted great.
The last day I went to the Cu Chi tunnels with Eleanor, Katey, Carla and Mark. It was crazy to see all the guerilla tactics and booby traps the Viet Cong used in the war. We watched a mildly propagandalicious video about “the untouched beauty of the Cu Chi” (“Many flowers were grow, and many trees” etc.). Everybody except for me crawled in a tiny little sniper hole (I didn’t want to risk having my giant bum get stuck, thus giving me a Winnie-the-pooh-in –the-window situation that does not mesh well with crowds of foreign tourists and humiliation) in the ground that couldn’t have been much bigger than an 8.5x11 piece of paper. People would crouch in those holes for ages. We saw all the booby traps with bamboo and metal spikes and craziness. It’s no wonder Vietnam vets lobbied for PTSD, I can see how being afraid every step would blow you up or impale you might cause a little anxiety. After visiting the shooting range (where my friend shot an AK-47 that bowled her over because of the recoil), we actually went down in the tunnels. Despite being widened 40% for our pampered American butts, they were still just barely small enough to ball yourself up in, and they were muddy and very dark. I can’t imagine spending days upon days in the tunnels, snake-crawling on your belly through 250km of tunnel. There were storerooms, kitchens, even a honeymoon room. Ironically, the napalm bombs the Americans threw only served to harden the mostly-clay soil, making the tunnels stronger.
We drove back to HCMC and went to the aforementioned War Remnants Museum, then ate a tasty street dinner with Thai fried rice, curried wild boar with rice noodles, morning glory and a Vietnam special, the avocado milkshake. I must bring the wonder of this back to the States. Sweetened condensed milk + avocado = heaven. After a bit more DVD buying and some tasty flan, we took cyclos back to the ship and said goodbye to Vietnam. Motorcycle taxis are awesome. So is Vietnam. I wish we could’ve spent at least another week there.
We’ll be in HK tomorrow. From there I go to Beijing for 3 days (21 here I come), then Shanghai to meet the ship. The closer we get to heading home, the less I want to. Of course I will be very happy to be with my family and friends and have it be Christmas time, but I absolutely do not want this journey to end. A plus- my journey is certainly not ending, as yesterday I got accepted to the BU Paris Internship program for spring! I will be home for 30 days, and then leave for the city of lights until May! YAY!
PS- I forgot to post Malaysia first, so it's out of order. Deal.
Beyond stupid double entendres, Vietnam/Cambodia was at times VERY intense. The two most moving things were seeing the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. I do not, nor will I ever, understand how a human being can be so torturously cruel to another human being. The tortures prisoners endured and the conditions in which they were held are deplorable, and I truly do not understand how people could do things like round up 60 children, toss them up in the air, and catch them on their bayonet on the way back down. THAT HAPPENED. The Khmer Rouge didn’t just take a bunch of Cambodians out back and fire away. They cruelly, methodically tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians in the name of “revolution”. Against what? NOTHING. I don’t think I will ever forget the feeling of standing in a field where 30 years later, in the rainy season, clothes and teeth from the mass graves still rise to the surface. I saw people’s clothing buried in the dirt, people that were beaten, maimed and even decapitated, then thrown into a giant hole in the ground. I still cry every time I think about standing there amidst that kind of evil.
The War Remnants Museum, while very biased, was not biased enough to discount its truths. A simple room, the museum holds war-era weaponry and shows off tanks and fighter jets on its front lawn, but the real power of the museum lies in its photographs. I can’t imagine the pain of being the photojournalist who took these pictures. There are pictures of Vietnamese prisoners of war, families (pregnant women, infants, grandparents) needlessly killed off in town raids, people affected by Agent Orange and napalm, and American soldiers torturing Vietnamese. The hardest thing for me to see was the Agent Orange wall. Agent Orange, which releases a pollutant called dioxin, is now recognized as one of the most hazardous defoliants on earth. The wall showed pictures of Vietnamese people affected by Agent Orange, from a 30-year old woman who stands only 2.5 feet tall, to a child born in 1998, still debilitatingly mangled despite being born 30 years after the war. Women whose husbands have been exposed have had miscarriages due to the potency of dioxins in affecting the reproductive system.
Tonight (back on the ship) we had a discussion led by faculty and lifelong learners who had lived through the war. Almost all were against it, some were very active protestors, some were conscientious objectors, and one professor who served got up to speak and choked up before he could get out even a full sentence. I thought India would be the tough country, the country that was most difficult to see and the most transforming. India was outstripped by Vietnam and Cambodia. I have teared up almost every day in the countries, and tonight at the talk. I think a little bit of it might be collective guilt for everything that’s happened to Vietnam, but as was brought up, it is especially difficult because the Vietnamese people are kind, friendly, and show no anger or resentment when they hear that I am an American. It is difficult because when I see pictures of children and adults affected by Agent Orange and napalm bombs, I know that we did that. It is difficult because standing on ground where thousands of people were brutally murdered in the name of revolution makes me lose a little of my faith in the human race. I have gotten a good look at human cruelty in the last week, and the interspersion of that with the striking beauty of thousand-year-old temples and the graciousness of the Vietnamese and Cambodian people has been the most emotionally affective part of this voyage.
One of the best things about Vietnam was the timing. Going right before the presidential election, right before we decided on who would be the person to deal with our Vietnam Redux situation in Iraq, made Barack Obama’s victory today all the more emotional. I have NEVER cared this much about a presidential election, or a concessions speech, or a “yay-I’m-the-president-elect” speech. I cried. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately, not out of sadness but out of strong emotion, whether it is horror or joy. John McCain’s concession speech made me like him more, and Barack Obama’s speech was FANTASTIC. He is going to make an amazing president, I can feel it. This is such a huge historical event for our country, and the fact that his personality and charisma far outshines his skin color, and that he has never played “the race card”, makes me like him all the more. BARACK OBAMA! WOO! There was a massive celebration in our mostly-Democrat population. People were cheering and jumping up and down, especially when Barack shouted out to “those in the far unknown corners of the world,” which is, in fact, exactly where we are, being somewhere in between Vietnam & Hong Kong. My morning class was cancelled so we could watch the votes roll in on MSNBC streaming video in the Union. It was amazing! I love that the place where I grew up is so very, very blue. Props, Northeast.
Okay, since that “feelings” bit was so long, I’ll try and keep the “what I did” bit short. Probably won’t happen though, by now you know how I like to go on. Day 1: We didn’t even get in to Vietnam until after noon, because floating down the Mekong takes a long time. Once we arrived, I didn’t have time to do anything, so I just bided my time until meeting my Cambodia group and heading to the airport. One very short (50 minute) flight later, we were in Phnom Penh. We were supposed to go to an orphanage founded by SAS alums, but thanks to said late arrival, we had no time and just went straight to dinner. Dinner was a tasty seven course affair with your average asian dishes- soup, noodles, rice, and a Khmer special called amok, which is this curried, SUPER soft and tender fish business. After fresh fruit for dessert (Cambodia papaya is fairly magical), we went back to our sweet hotel, and Steph and I got massages. A one hour Thai massage for $14=awesome. She stepped on my back and twisted me around and cracked all my bones. It was pretty sweet.
Day 2: Killing Fields. As mentioned, it was really sad. One thing that was a little symbol of hope: at the stupa where all the exhumed skulls were, there were piles upon piles of tiny stacked Japanese paper cranes hanging on the door. Japanese legend says that if you fold 1,000 paper cranes and make a wish, your wish will come true. Because of Hiroshima and Sadako Sasaki the cranes have become a symbol for world peace. We also went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Tuol Sleng used to be a high school until the Khmer Rouge turned it into an interrogation and torture camp. Like the War Remnants museum, there were pictures on the walls of prisoners, beaten and tortured. After our morning of mourning, we went to the Royal Palace and tried to think about the beautiful architecture and pretty colors without getting distracted by either a) the depression that set in after morning or b) the staggering heat that was literally worse than the Amazon. I, wanting to be all respectful, had worn a button-up oxford, and was absolutely DYING. You know when you have a shirt that you don’t wear much and can’t remember why, so you wear it again, and only then do you remember? YEAH. That’s why. Because it is hot as ANYTHING and NOT breathable. After the Royal Palace, we ate lunch at another generally asian restaurant, spring rolls and morning glory (best green vegetable ever, I kid you not) and crossed the heart-poundingly crowded street and went to a market. Now, we didn’t think of this when we couldn’t find the market’s entrance, but we sure realized it when we came out: the whole thing was EXACTLY SYMMETRICAL. This thing looks the same from every possible angle. We left out one side, then kept running around and around it looking for the area where our bus was. We were late, ducking and weaving through cyclos and cars hoping that our bus had not left for the airport. It hadn’t, we found it, and got on.
The flight to Siem Reap was seriously the shortest flight I have ever been on. It was literally only 35 minutes long. Despite this, we still got a snack. I have determined that US airlines have the worst service in the world (I can say that un-hyperbolically now, because I actually know). All the planes I’ve been on in Brazil, India, Vietnam and Cambodia have served GOOD food, taken off on time, and not been delayed. Props, world. Our first Siem Reap stop was Angkor Thom, a sweet temple where we watched the sun set with a billion other tourists. The steps were really steep going up and down the temple, less than the width of my foot. After sunset we went to a restaurant with a FANTASTIC buffet and watched a really cool dance show, a style called apsara. Our hotel, the Borei Angkor, was amaaaaaaaazing. It was all silk curtains and hardwood floors and mahogany paneling everywhere, plus a sweet bathroom with slate tiles, a big porcelain clawfoot tub, and shampoo/conditioner in stone bottles. Craziness. It was Halloween, but as we were waking up at 4:30 to see Angkor Wat, we just decided to hit up the nearby night market and go to bed. The night market was cool and very well set up. My friend Liz got a crazy pedicure type deal where you stick your feet in a pool of fish and the fish come eat all the dead skin off your feet! It was absolutely ridiculous watching fish eat my friend’s feet.
Sunrise at Angkor Wat was pretty but cloudy. We ate breakfast at the hotel, then started our Temple Day. At Angkor Thom, we went to Bauphon, a really cool legends-of-the-hidden-temple looking thing with stone faces everywhere, plus an elephant temple. I rode an elephant! I sort of take issue with the way they are trained and treated, but Steph didn’t want to go by herself and it was an experience. My favorite part was the jungle temple called Ta Prohm. A guy built the temple for his mother the queen in the 11th century. It was abandoned in the 15th, and not rediscovered until the 19th century. After 400 years of complete abandonment, these giant symbiotic trees had wound their roots in and around the stone until the ruins and forest were one big tangle. It was really, incredibly amazing. We also went to Angkor Wat again in the afternoon, but this time we got to go inside and explore. It was amazing to stand on 1,000 year old stone and walk through truly ancient archways. After all those temples we got on the plane and headed back to Vietnam.
My first full day in Vietnam was spent hanging with my friends Carla and Mark, who I’m also going to China with (tomorrow!). We hit up the Ben Thanh Market, where I got many a Christmas gift, plus a little lacquered something for myself, a square painting of Paul Klimt’s “The Kiss”, one of my fave paintings. I went with them to their tailor and sighed despairingly as they tried on their custom-made suits (that I had no time for, thanks Cambodia). Carla found glasses (frames and prescription lenses) for $30. You can’t beat that. I almost got a pair (they could check your eyes and get you a prescription right there), but as I barely wear the glasses I have, I figured it wasn’t worth it. We went to the Vietnam History Museum, which was super boring except for the water puppet show, which was delightful in a campy sort of way. People stand in waist deep water behind a curtain and move these puppets through the water- usually fish and ducks and river-dwelling people and such. After all that, we dropped our stuff off at the ship and went back out for dinner at a super tasty grill-it-yourself restaurant not unlike Melting Pot (except waaaay cheaper at only $6). We had to go back to the tailor, and in the process, found a place that grills frogs. Oh yeah you know I ate frog. We actually got to hand pick our frog out of a tank, which was a little sad but not sad enough for me not to eat it! It was okay, I didn’t love the texture but it tasted great.
The last day I went to the Cu Chi tunnels with Eleanor, Katey, Carla and Mark. It was crazy to see all the guerilla tactics and booby traps the Viet Cong used in the war. We watched a mildly propagandalicious video about “the untouched beauty of the Cu Chi” (“Many flowers were grow, and many trees” etc.). Everybody except for me crawled in a tiny little sniper hole (I didn’t want to risk having my giant bum get stuck, thus giving me a Winnie-the-pooh-in –the-window situation that does not mesh well with crowds of foreign tourists and humiliation) in the ground that couldn’t have been much bigger than an 8.5x11 piece of paper. People would crouch in those holes for ages. We saw all the booby traps with bamboo and metal spikes and craziness. It’s no wonder Vietnam vets lobbied for PTSD, I can see how being afraid every step would blow you up or impale you might cause a little anxiety. After visiting the shooting range (where my friend shot an AK-47 that bowled her over because of the recoil), we actually went down in the tunnels. Despite being widened 40% for our pampered American butts, they were still just barely small enough to ball yourself up in, and they were muddy and very dark. I can’t imagine spending days upon days in the tunnels, snake-crawling on your belly through 250km of tunnel. There were storerooms, kitchens, even a honeymoon room. Ironically, the napalm bombs the Americans threw only served to harden the mostly-clay soil, making the tunnels stronger.
We drove back to HCMC and went to the aforementioned War Remnants Museum, then ate a tasty street dinner with Thai fried rice, curried wild boar with rice noodles, morning glory and a Vietnam special, the avocado milkshake. I must bring the wonder of this back to the States. Sweetened condensed milk + avocado = heaven. After a bit more DVD buying and some tasty flan, we took cyclos back to the ship and said goodbye to Vietnam. Motorcycle taxis are awesome. So is Vietnam. I wish we could’ve spent at least another week there.
We’ll be in HK tomorrow. From there I go to Beijing for 3 days (21 here I come), then Shanghai to meet the ship. The closer we get to heading home, the less I want to. Of course I will be very happy to be with my family and friends and have it be Christmas time, but I absolutely do not want this journey to end. A plus- my journey is certainly not ending, as yesterday I got accepted to the BU Paris Internship program for spring! I will be home for 30 days, and then leave for the city of lights until May! YAY!
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