1. Hanoi
The first thing you notice about Hanoi after fending off the inevitable taxi drivers at the airport is the traffic. Everyone drives like a cross-country trucker on seven lines of speed with a load of salmon that’s starting to smell and a thousand kilometres to the next fridge.

Everybody overtakes whenever they can: it’s not unusual to swerve onto the wrong side of the road to overtake only to have another car or scooter overtake you at the same time (on a road with one lane each way and oncoming traffic). The Vietnamese make Aucklanders look like models of patient, copybook driving; if this strikes fear into your hearts, well it should.

Unsurprisingly, there are lots of accidents. We witnessed the immediate aftermath of a couple including a particularly brutal push-bike vs. bus head-on collision (the bus won).

Then there’s the tooting: most Vietnamese drivers honk their horns at least once every ten seconds. After careful study I have deduced four specific messages:
• I am about to drive over you;
• Please do not drive over me (many times we wished for a pedestrian version);
• I have just had a new horn installed which plays a beautiful warbling melody and wish to share the gift of music with my sleeping neighbours; and
• It has been ten seconds since I last honked.

There is something almost existential about the tooting. It is a statement of identity and defiance in a huge uncaring world where 3,000,000 other people have the exact same red scooter as you do. Clamo ergo sum.

2. The best guesthouse in Hanoi

We arranged to stay in a lovely guesthouse just off To Ngoc Van- one of the more exclusive streets in Hanoi. It was run by a lovely couple with excellent English named Ros and Bill who took us in, fed us, clothed us and showed us the sights for two weeks out of the kindness of their hearts. We cannot thank Ros and Bill enough for their hospitality- we left feeling refreshed, replenished and pampered.

Towards the end of our trip we decided to take Ros and Bill out for a meal to thank them for looking after us. They suggested one of the local restaurants just around the corner. I decided again to broaden my horizons: this time with a tortoise (one of the four auspicious animals of Vietnam with the dragon, the phoenix and the other one). The others looked a bit worried so I confirmed with the waiter that this would be a single serving.

True to Aesop, the other meals appeared, were consumed and taken away while the tortoise made its slow way to the table. About an hour and a half after we arrived the waiter proudly deposited a huge casserole dish in front of me. They had cooked a whole tortoise. The poor beast had been dismembered and pieces of dark grey meat floated in the yellow broth; the dark grey colour was because they had left the skin on. Cooked tortoise has a particularly vivid smell that is close to indescribable: it smells a bit like fat being rendered for soap mixed with an almost-perfumed scent. Summoning it to mind makes me feel faintly nauseous.

I picked out a leg with my chopsticks and chewed it half-heartedly, spitting out the claws. Surprisingly the taste was tolerable: a mix of fish and chicken rather like crocodile. I noted that the underside of the shell had also been sliced and stewed. As I did the following thought occurred to me: somewhere in this dish, waiting like the telltale heart, is the head of the tortoise. I feebly ate another leg. Bill gallantly also had a couple of pieces but I could not bring myself to stir the mix.

Feeling quite ill now, I asked for the bill. The tortoise, listed as “market price” in the menu, turned out to cost 540,000 Dong or about $43 NZD (around ten times the cost of most main courses). Of this we probably ate about $3 worth. The waiter asked several times whether we wanted the tortoise wrapped up to go; when we insisted grey-faced that we did not he looked very pleased. His family were sitting down to dinner in the next room and I do not think it went to waste. For my part I think I’m swearing off amphibians for a while.

3. Uncle Ho and the damned Yankees

As is obligatory for budding revolutionaries we decided to pay our respects to Uncle Ho. While I haven’t done enough reading to judge Ho Chi Minh on his merits (and he did some terrible things) one has to be impressed by his guiding hand in Vietnam’s independence. There aren’t many colonies that first overthrew their colonial masters and then defeated the most powerful nation on earth.

Paying our respects involved queuing with thousands and thousands of Vietnamese to be whisked past Uncle Ho’s preserved remains. Uncle Ho is lit up with a strange yellow-orange light that makes him look like nothing so much as an eighties children’s toy called a Gloworm:

Uncle Ho seems to have been quite a humble and modest man. He wanted to be cremated when he died but ultimately the Party’s need for a freeze-dried figurehead took precedence over his wishes.

The nearby Ho Chi Minh Museum was also very interesting. This was largely due to the symbolic (and bizarre) way they had decided to tell Uncle Ho’s life story and the history of Vietnam during this period. The rise of industrialism, for example, was symbolised by a model of a Ford Edsel smashing through a wall. The World Wars were represented by a pastiche of various European Expressionist and Surrealist art from the time. Not the most scholarly approach to biography but fun nonetheless.

Later we visited the remains of the Hoa Lo Prison (the ‘Hanoi Hilton’). Most of the complex was demolished to make room for a huge apartment building called the Hanoi Towers.

The French built Hoa Lo just before the turn of the last Century and housed many of the Viet Minh’s most important members. The exhibits make a pretty convincing case for the French as despicable colonial overlords: most of the prisoners were kept rigidly shackled at the ankles for much of the time. The prison was built to house about 500 people but at the height of the resistance in the 1930s held four times that number.

During the American War Hoa Lo was used by the Vietnamese to hold downed American pilots shot during bombing runs over Hanoi. They included America’s next first runner-up for President, John McCain. The information about the American pilots is amusing largely because of the transparency of the propaganda. Judging by the photos the Hanoi Hilton was essentially one long summer camp with bars on the windows and broken glass atop the walls. Here the pilots are playing basketball. There they are celebrating Christmas with a tree and presents. Here are their handicrafts. There is a letter from one pilot to the warden asking to take her cat home when she went back to America.

4. Big head strikes again

The Vietnamese are world leaders in at least one aspect of their culture: the appreciation of male beauty. Indeed I have realised that I am, in point of fact, the Vietnamese George Clooney. A few telling examples (most not from Hanoi- I’m jumping ahead) will suffice:

At one point we rented motorbikes with guides to take us around the sights. As I hove into view our guide’s jaw dropped a little. He exclaimed “Big body!” with a sense of awe and (I suspect) trepidation. The guide fetched a helmet, which sat daintily atop my melon-sized head. “Big head!” he cried, his eyes widening in amazement. “You are a big man.” I was rather saddened to realise that I was Mr Potato Head in three quarter pants but our guide later explained that in Vietnam junk in the trunk is seen as a sign of importance and prosperity (partly due to the resemblance to the happy Buddha- one of his more beloved aspects). My Rubenesqueness was actually quickening pulses all across the country (not just those of the people who had to drive a motorbike with me on the back and prevent wheelies). Yet another guide told me that I had “big face” but I think he was actually being rude.

I have also developed a pronounced farmer’s tan (brown arms, face, and neck and white, white, white everywhere else). The forward thinking and progressive Vietnamese aren’t interested in the nut-brown and chiselled Europeans who lurk near picaresque beaches everywhere showing off their many languages and shallow personalities. Nope, what wows them is the pure creamy, corpselike pallor of my back and chest (or they have been momentarily blinded). I mentioned this curious inversion to a tailor and she smiled sadly and said, “We all want what we can’t have.”

Some of you may also know that I have hugely flat feet. Indeed, were I not a land animal they might fairly be described as flippers. I showed these to a cobbler in the manner of a carney drawing back the curtain at a freakshow only for her to explain that flat feet are considered very lucky and a sign of great future wealth.

There it is, ladies: big body, big head, big face, pale skin, flat feet. The complete package.

5. Halong Bay

Something everyone recommends in Northern Vietnam is Halong Bay. This doesn’t make it any less necessary although certainly more crowded. We jumped in a mini-van and drove the four hours out there one morning stopping only on the way for the inevitable rest stop at the giant souvenir warehouse. If you’re in the market for a life-sized marble statue of a dolphin riding on a mermaid riding on another couple of dolphins, have I got a deal for you: only $5,000 USD for this beauty.

On the way I chatted with a labourer from Milton Keynes with more than a passing resemblance to Right Said Fred. Fred (name changed to protect the guilty) saves up all his leave and most of his pennies each year and gets as far from Milton Keynes as he can. For the last couple of years, when his allotted leave proved insufficient for his relaxation needs, Fred had concocted bogus illnesses and emergencies to get a few more weeks in Asia (back-ache in Thailand ‘06, biking accident in the Philippines ‘07). By this stage Fred’s boss had become suspicious and Fred was trying to think of a really good medical condition this time around. Putting all my employment law skills to work I suggested monsoons washing out the road in Cambodia.

At Halong Bay we were shepherded towards our boat with the precision of a military operation—if said operation was Dunkirk. Here’s a picture that may give you some idea of the chaos:

Halong Bay is another trip I’m going to give you mostly in pictures:

We kayaked for the second day of our trip. Unfortunately we didn’t bring the camera for this bit (a big mistake). Due to the porous nature of the limestone our guide would paddle into tiny openings in the rock that would open into big caves that would open into marine lakes. We saw:
• Monkeys swinging through the trees on the islands;
• Either bat-like birds or bird-like bats in the caves. I asked our guide, “Are those bats or birds?” and he replied “yes”;
• About the best seafood meal I’ve ever eaten, cooked basically on a primus in the back of the wee boat that pulled our kayaks around;
• A black pearl fishery;
• A fishing village where everything was afloat- the houses, the post office, the school;
• Floating acres of rubbish. Unfortunately this tended to accumulate where the current was slow (such as the protected marine lakes); and
• A tiny cave, which we followed up to a freshwater lake inside one of the island.

Both nights our junk moored with about 20 others in a bay set aside for that purpose (essentially a floating backpackers’ ghetto). Our crew busted out the karaoke (fortunately for all aboard I didn’t succumb) but we could tell we weren’t on the real party boat. Looking out across the bay we could see a junk that was completely dark except for an industrial strength green strobe light. Straining our ears we could just make out the oonst-oonst of hard trance pounding.

All in all Vietnam thus far has been great although a bit of a change of pace from laid-back Laos.

Note: Sorry about the delay in this post.  I’ve certainly had my anxious public in mind:

I had hoped to finish it about a week ago but I’ve been quite ill with rampaging bronchitis and a 40 degree fever for the last few days. I’m just back onto solid foods and am feeling much better now although still a bit weak. Unfortunately it’s delayed our travel to Cambodia and we will likely have to skip Phnom Penh.

Ka kite,

Jeff and Sara

1. Getting there

Bus and train rides have provided some of the most interesting moments on this trip. On the 4-hour bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng we drove through a village with long rows of market stalls on either side of the road. So far so normal, except that every single stall was selling one and the same product: pineapples. Yep—stall after stall after stall of pineapples. Because we weren’t on a VIP bus we were not surprised when we stopped and the driver squashed as many pineapples as he could into the gaps between the suitcases in the luggage carrier. I think his second job might have been pineapple salesman to the restaurants of Vang Vieng.

I also knew I wasn’t on the VIP bus when the bus pulled over on the green hills in misty rain and the driver said, “Break!” and everyone piled out and just peed on the side of the road, all in a row. People were very matter of fact about it, and might I say that young men of every nationality seemed completely un-phased.

2. Spring Break Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is a popular stop to break up the long bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. Lonely Planet says it’s a place travellers either love or loathe and for the most part I think I’m in the “love it” camp, if only because of the place we stayed. The geography of the landscape is certainly spectacular: towering limestone peaks, green fields, and lots of rivers.

Our guest house—run by a rather spacey British hippie—was across the river from the centre of town in an area more for locals than tourists. Its bamboo bungalows sit beside the river in a butterfly garden, with a view of watercress fields and limestone cliffs. Just down the road at the mouth of the river was a popular place for locals to swim and wash clothes. It was a very peaceful if somewhat bug-heavy spot, filled with what there is to love about Vang Vieng.

Staying here we discovered the nasty truth about roosters. For years country folk have been feeding their city cousins propaganda. Roosters don’t go “Cock-a-doodle-doo.” They make an awful guttural screech like fingernails on a blackboard. They don’t do this at dawn to let you know the sun has come up; they do it any time from about 3 in the morning. And they certainly don’t do it just once. They do it over and over and over just to make sure everyone knows they’re alive.

The main drawcard in Vang Vieng is river tubing. Unlike me, most people in town aren’t tubing for the stunning scenery, the fun of the tube ride, or the cooling swim. Most people are tubing for the pub-crawl. What could be better when coasting down a fast and unpredictable current on a light and difficult-to-control loop of inflated rubber than a lot of cheap beer? All along the tubing route bars pump 90s dance music. As you bob past in your tube the owners shout with delight, throw you a rope, and pull you in. Being at these bars felt a bit like being at Spring Break 10 years too late. We decided not to stay and watch drunk 19-year-old guys drawing breasts on their chests with felt tip pens but moved on to quieter waters and a more civilised bar further on.

The town area contains more of what some hate about Vang Vieng as it also seems to be catering primarily to the tourist party crowd. Post-tubing drunk people stagger about in bikinis and togs in defiance of signs asking them to respect the locals and dress modestly. The streets are lined with TV bars, where you can dine slouched on raised mattresses watching endless re-runs of Friends. Why Friends? Why not The Simpsons or perhaps something more recent and relevant? Who knows. A couple of brave bars try for a different vibe. We showed our support by going to one playing Family Guy.

3. Concrete

Four more hours on a bus took us to Vientiane, the busy capital of Laos. Vientiane gets some bad press in comparison with Luang Prabang, but while it is certainly not as pretty it does have some fun sights. Behold, Patuxai:

In 1969 the Americans donated concrete to Laos to build an airport. Instead, Laos used it to make its very own Arc de Triomphe. Hence its nickname–the vertical runway. Laos hasn’t quite got the hang of the positive spin. A plaque at the base of the arch says: “From a closer distance Patuxai looks even less impressive, like a monster of concrete.”

Views from the top gave more of a sense of the city:

And I practised my sniper technique on some monks:

In Vientiane Jeff had the chance to be a little more experimental with his menu choices and enjoyed a big plate of fried crickets, which he recommends heartily to you all.

He also tried to order ant-egg soup but was disappointed to be told it was the wrong season.

Another highlight of the city was Xieng Khuan Buddha Park, built in 1958 by a yogi-priest-shaman. It is park chock full of a bizarre mix of Hindu, Buddhist, and random animal statues. There is also a giant concrete pumpkin that you can walk inside, through the scary gaping mouth and up different levels representing hell, earth, and heaven:

We had a great time at the park:

We’ve gotten a bit behind with the blog and have already had almost 2 weeks in Vietnam. Keep an eye out for Jeff’s next post on Hanoi, appearing soon.

Love Sara and Jeff

I. The Mekong

The Mekong is the chocolate brown river of Augustus Gloop’s fantasies. It begins in the Himalayas and wends down though China, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia to the South China Sea.

We crossed the border into Laos at Huay Xai for our first experience of a communist country (Hong Kong really doesn’t count). So far the politburo seem to have impeccable taste- visas cost considerably more for Canadians than anyone else ($42 vs. $30 for the rest). Otherwise Huay Xai looks a bit like a frontier town- yellow concrete paving makes the whole town seem in need of a sweep and no street lights means most shops were decorated like Christmas with fairy lights. Even just across the river Laos is very different to Thailand. As a great man (well okay, Nick Preval) once said “the food is Laos-y, the people are Laos-y and the weather is Laos-y.”

To avoid getting stuck on the floating sheep truck of the slow ferry we decided to splash out a bit and booked two tickets on the luxurious Luang Say cruise. The Luang Say plies the same route as the cattle cruiser but provides meals, accommodation (in Pak Beng), guides, life jackets and room to stretch your legs.

Quite a lot of room as it turned out. Instead of the normal 40 passengers there were eight: your humble narrators, four Aussies who had retired to sail the world and two not-so-quiet Americans. The Australians had been sailing around the region for about four years and had been deep-fried by the sun until their skin was the colour and consistency of spring rolls.

The Americans were on a vacation where they packed in three countries in two weeks. They had the pristine pink baby skin of people who spend nearly all of their time under artificial lights and at a constant temperature of 23 degrees.

The voyage downriver was quite extraordinary. Instead of battering you with adjectives, here are a couple of photos:

Our accommodation at Pak Beng was the most luxurious we’ve stayed in. We had our own beautiful teak chalet. With a certain irony, given the dodgy joints we’ve been staying in, the Luang Say Lounge was an ‘eco-lodge’ which is Laotian for “open to the elements but pricey anyway.” You know you’re in the jungle when a grasshopper the size of a toblerone lands on your mosquito net next to your face.

After another day of making our pampered way downstream we docked in Luang Prabang.

II. Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is the old capital of Laos and the former seat of the Laotian kings. In 1995 UNESCO declared it a world heritage site and mandated its protection. It is a surprisingly compact charmer of about 100,000 people. The narrow lanes and sidewalk cafes feel very French but with a laid-back Laotian pace.

One of the highlights of Luang Prabang is the National Museum.

It is in the former Palace vacated by the royal family in 1975 when the Communist Panthet Lao forced them into exile. Although the Government hasn’t admitted it yet, the King of Laos and several of his siblings later died of starvation in a re-education camp. The museum preserves much of the palace as they left it including exhibitions of their clothing, personal effects and the table set as if for dinner.  Most Lao believe that the palace is haunted by the ghosts of the royals and will not venture near it after dark. Certainly it is a most eerie place: whatever you thinks of regicide it echoes loudly.

The sign for the ex-royal Theatre in the palace grounds with ‘Royal” painted over

Otherwise we’ve mainly been mooching around eating great food and sweating in the heat. It’s been sheer torture and we’ve longed for the New Zealand winter.  Sara’s done a weaving course which she loved but I’ll leave the gory details of that to her.

III. Farangs

The terms for foreigners (farang in Thai, falang in Laotian) actually mean ‘French’ as the French were the first Europeans to regularly show up on the doorsteps of these countries. Perhaps, however, this is more than a linguistic artifact. I had initially put my declining personal hygiene and insistence on speaking my mother tongue down to backpacking and poor linguistic skills but now the horrifying truth dawns. I suspect that I am, in fact, becoming French. The next time you see me I may have a little dog under my arm and a man purse.

Two types of farangs are strangely omnipresent:

1. Dodgy old men. Inevitably accompanied by a young, pretty Thai woman. Nearly all bear an uncanny resemblance to Josef Fritzl. The dodgy old men are a disturbing manifestation of the free market gone wild.

Another sound decision on the part of the politburo in Laos was to ban all relationships between Laotians and foreigners unless Government sanctioned. While this seems a bit draconian in theory, in reality it more or less quashes the exploitative sex trade. We haven’t seen any Josefs here and Laos is the better for it.

Now if they would only ban commercial relationships between tuk tuk drivers and Westerners we’d really be talking.

2. Really tall women. It seems like every second farang women is a six foot plus gargantua. I’m not sure what lures these amazons to South-East Asia but it can’t be anonymity: on crowded streets they hove into view above the mass of dark Asian hair like clipper ships.

We’ve seen more massively tall ladies in Thailand than elsewhere. I suspect medical tourism of some sort. However I have no idea whether the tall women are having vertebrae removed to become average-sized or whether regular women are having extra bones added to their legs in order to become giantesses.

A bientôt,

Jeff and Sara

Ah, Chiang Mai—the first of our destinations we could idly imagine ourselves living in someday. It is more charming and of a more manageable size than Bangkok. The old city is surrounded by a moat, with cute, narrow, leafy streets winding off the main roads. Our guest house was on one such lane, along with many others. I imagine that in the high season the old city is full of tourists, but when we were there it was quiet and relaxed. A market at the end of our street supplied for our addiction to Thai mangoes, and we rented bicycles for getting around town easily, though these were better at night than in the death rays of the sun (only in these temperatures has the sun become for me something to be avoided!).

In Chiang Mai, aside from the usual wafting around eating, we took advantage of a couple of the touristy options. First up was a cooking course on an organic farm about 45 minutes out of the city. On our way to the farm we went to a market and learned about different rices and spices and about Thai ways of eating. Having previously wandered through such markets rather aimlessly, it was great to have a local tell us what was what, and to finally solve the mystery of pink eggs (look it up if you don’t know). Also, it turns out that Thais have rice with their soups to alleviate some of the spiciness. Here I’d been thinking that waiters were just offering rice to feeble farangs (foreigners) ordering tom yum.

Rice at the markets:

The farm itself was very pretty and tranquil. Over the day we cooked five dishes, getting to choose between three options for each dish. This included pad thai (hurray) and yellow curry. Any of you who are putting us up in London, prepare for a feast—if we can track down the ingredients. And yes, Robyn, we also made your great favourite, mango with sticky rice! There are mangoes in London, right?

Here’s Jeff cooking up a storm:

And here’s the lunch Jeff and I cooked:

Apropos of Jeff’s musings in his last post about language and communication difficulties, on the back of the truck riding back to town I overheard the following conversation between Jeff and a Dutch girl who was in Thailand to volunteer at an elephant camp:

Jeff: Do they have many elephants at the camp?
Ramona: Mini elephants? No, I don’t think so. Normal size. Asian elephants.
Jeff: 18 elephants? That sounds like a lot to me.

Before leaving Chiang Mai we also did a 1-day trek. There was not much actual trekking involved, but rather a day of action adventure, with elephant riding and waterfall swimming in the mix with visits to hill tribes. The first village we visited felt like it had been manufactured for tourists. It didn’t seem that people were actually living there, and there was hardly anyone around except for a couple of people selling crafts and one toothless woman who thrust her baby at us for a photo and then asked for money. The second village felt more real, with lots of animals, and people in the houses weaving or resting (it was just after lunch, and very hot). But on the whole these hill-tribe visits felt quite exploitative. We want to see how these people live, but I don’t really know how to get an authentic experience of this without being intrusive.

Anyway, here is my 20 baht photo:

On the trek up to the village:

A woman weaving at the more authentic village:

Probably our favourite event of the day was bamboo rafting down a river. We shared our bamboo raft with a nice Kiwi couple and rather prophetically dubbed ourselves Team New Zealand. The Thai men punting the rafts were full of jokes and mischief. Throughout the ride they were cracking the punting sticks (technical term) on the water to splash us, leaning on the rafts to make one side go underwater, and careening under low-hanging branches of trees. This was all very entertaining and fun until a giant spider appeared from inside the bamboo and ran up my leg. I’m not quite willing to point the finger, but it is entirely possible that this spider was planted as another funny joke. Once I had recovered from this excitement, Jeff thought he would join in the fun and leaned over to the raft next to us and yanked at a rope to pull one corner under the water. It turned out that the rope was rather loosely holding the raft together. Fortunately we were close to the shore, so the guys were able to fix it up before we continued. Then Jeff decided to be helpful and do some of the hard punting work at the back of the raft, which went fine until the stick got caught in a rock and he fell in. He went right under, but came up wearing his sunglasses and a big smile, and managed to catch the raft before we floated away. Hilarious.

Here is a picture taken whilst riding an elephant of other people riding an elephant (I realised later we should have swapped cameras). The baby elephant came along for the ride and did some very cute clumsy sliding down mud hills:

Food on this trip continues to be delicious, and we can’t get enough of the local specialty, khao soi, a noodle soup dish. The taste approximates tom yum crossed with satay and is really, really good. Unfortunately we didn’t learn how to make this one at the cooking course, but we plan to seek out a recipe online and give it a go sometime.

Most restaurants that we go to are those recommended in guidebooks or on the Travelfish website (a great site that I highly recommend to anyone travelling to south east Asia). This is partly because we are too wussy to go somewhere where we can’t tell what the food is, where the menu is in Thai, and where nobody speaks English. Does this make us wimpy travellers? We’ve still been experiencing a lot of wonderful, authentic Thai food and trying different things. But you don’t see a lot of locals dining in the places where we go, except for young pretty Thai women with older (sometimes elderly) white Western men. Interestingly, in Laos it is illegal for a foreigner to have a relationship with a Lao person, so I guess we will be seeing less of this in the next country.

Since leaving Chiang Mai we have travelled up to Chiang Khong—part of the trip in an old bus that doubled as a postal service—and had a night in a lovely teak guest  house overlooking the Mekong river. Today we ferried over to Huay Xai in Laos, and tomorrow head off on a 2-day luxury cruise down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. Jeff will tell you all about it in the next post.

Last view of Chiang Khong as we sail away from Thailand for awhile:

Love to you all

Sara and Jeff

I.

After the Second World War, this country changed its name from Siam, meaning ‘land of riches,’ to Thailand, meaning ‘land of freedom.’ This was a pragmatic branding move.

The minimum daily wage in Thailand is around 175B or $7 per day (the NZ minimum wage is $100 per eight-hour day). Many backpackers will spend at least 175B on beer. For this $7 most Thais seem to work hugely hard with street vendors and shop assistants working 12-hour shifts as a matter of course. Due to the low cost of labour many jobs are not exactly good quality. There seems to be an entire occupational class in Thailand whose sole role involves sitting in a small booth (like a parking attendant) outside buildings of significance that are closed for the night.

Much of being a tourist in Thailand is about unearned luxury. Every meal is eaten out (admittedly often out = out on the road). Your laundry is done for you. When something wears out you can buy a new one. Massages are about $16 per hour after your weary trekking around the sights and the malls. It is cosmically unfair that by accident of birth we westerners are exponentially privileged against those no less deserving.

This is a troubling issue, and I’m not really sure of the solution. For now, we’re trying to remain culturally appropriate (long pants and shoes when visiting culturally significant sites even in 35’ heat), not to participate in exploitation of Thais (e.g. the sex shows) and not being too tight with our money (I’m reigning in my brutal negotiation skills). This all feels pretty inadequate and we’re thinking about ways to be more responsible tourists.

Thus far we’ve managed to avoid being scammed completely (and food poisoning also touch wood). We’ve caught metered cabs everywhere (including from the airport), we didn’t buy anything at the fake tourist information office we were ‘helpfully’ directed to on the first day and even our tuk-tuk driver didn’t manage to get us into any shops or charge overmuch. While we’re not taken in by the scams I don’t blame the scammers. We’re generally not talking big bucks here in each case and the money means a lot more to them than us. As a utilitarian, I feel almost obliged to play the sucker every now and then. Fortunately Sara is basically Paul Newman in the Sting in such instances and reigns in my shillish tendencies.

On a related self-flagellating note, a study reported in Newsweek has recently concluded that religious conservatives tend to be considerably happier than progressive liberals (the study was American so I’ll use their shorthand). 47% of conservatives described themselves as ‘very happy’ versus 27% of liberals. These findings have been replicated overseas. One of the explanations given for this by the authors was that conservatism’s emphasis on individual choice and responsibility means that they tend to be less affected by the suffering of others (seeing it as a consequence of poor choices). This reminds me of the old saying that a liberal is a conservative who has spent a night in jail. To this I would add, or travelled abroad.

II.

Despite my overactive conscience we’re still managing to have a great time amid all the that dashed luxury. We’re in a small city called Phitsanalok on the main trunk line and leave for Chiang Mai this afternoon.

Yesterday we bussed out to the ruins of the old Thai capital at Sukhothai. Sukhothai was the capital in the late 14th and 15th centuries and is regarded by many Thais as the birthplace of Thai art and culture. Certainly it was integral to the spread of Buddhism in Thailand. We were impressed by the calm and stately air of Sukhothai. The various wats (temples) are in very good nick although we did notice a suspicious number of new bricks lying around on pallets: it may be that the restoration efforts are quite hands-on. Here’s an example of the awesomeness:

Also we got to ride cool bikes. Here’s Sara’s sweet ride

And mine:

III.

I recommend travelling for a while in a country where you do not speak the language. It’s a humbling experience. We’ve been travelling quite a bit recently on public buses and our train car from Bangkok to Phitsanalok was second class no air con: in these instances and in Phitsanalok we were just about the only farangs and almost no one spoke English.

Sadly the unscrupulous passport thieves also stole my trusty point-it book so we’ve had to resort to mime largely. We’ve been reading up on our Thai but are pretty intimidated- Thai is a tonal language so different intonations of the same word mean completely different things. As a result, we’re not far past sawadee. ON the bright side we don’t stick out quite as much as these guys (spotted at MBK in Bangkok and yes they are twins):

Not much to report on the crazy food front I’m afraid. I had a papaya salad that just about levitated me with pure spice but otherwise much of the food so far has been relatively staid. Don’t delete us from your bookmarks yet however- in about 4 days we go to Laos and I’m planning to eat everything that crawls on the earth, flies in the skies or swims in the waters there.

IV.

Our first Wellington experience after about an hour off the train in Chiang Mai. We were sitting outside a sweet little restaurant on a wee side-Soi when Sadie Preval (the sister of a couple of my best friends) walked past. We had no idea that she was even in town and she left at 5.30 the next morning. It was lovely to see a familiar face and Sadie helped us with her Thai pronunciation.

Goodnight and good luck

Jeff and Sara xx

As part of the perils of coming to South East Asia in hot season, the air in Bangkok is clogged with humidity, and we have had to spend much of our time flopped like cats under the fan in our room. There have also been thunderstorms that last for hours and rain for even longer. The storms can interrupt sightseeing plans, but they do cool things down and also add to the atmosphere of the city.

Not that Bangkok is light on atmosphere. Everywhere you look in this city something is happening. Stray dogs chase tuk tuks down the street like maniacs; food stalls and makeshift restaurants spill onto the roads, the gourmet chefs shouting out what’s on offer; and every back alley you look down leads onto more excitement—more food stalls, more people, more dogs, cats, and chickens, or maybe 50 gold seated Buddhas piled in a corner. Tonight at dinner a small elephant was led past the window of the restaurant. On a long walk back to the guesthouse from Siam we saw an aerobics class taking place on the sidewalk. Five minutes later we passed a food stall that was on a traffic island between two lanes of infamously crazy Bangkok traffic; the two proprietors were taking a break to watch a small television that was squashed in beside the stove.

I can’t get far through this post without mention of the food. Many of you have been here and know how great and cheap it is. In particular I am loving the 30 baht fruit shakes from road-side stalls and of course the ubiquitous pad thai, which you can pick up at a stall for a mere 25 baht (about $1 NZ). I love watching the ingeniousness of the cooking that goes on at these stalls, with maybe one wok or one little gas-powered BBQ.

As well as food, religion is never far away in Bangkok. Red Fanta seems to be a popular choice as an offering at shrines around the city. We also get to hear the worship; from somewhere close to our guesthouse we are treated to prayerful wailing about eight times a day, including at sunrise. I have become quite fond of one of the tunes.

We have been trawling through some of the tourist standards—impressive Wat Pho temple with the enormous Reclining Buddha, the National Museum, Dusit Palace Park. Some of the museums have been disappointing, with fascinating and often clearly very old treasures stuffed into dusty cases in dingy, un-air-conditioned rooms with only the most cursory of English labelling.

On one of our sightseeing missions we stumbled upon the local zoo. Like most things in Bangkok, the zoo used to belong privately to the king. As this zoo doesn’t even rate a mention in the Lonely Planet we didn’t expect much, but it cost only 100 baht ($4 NZ) so we thought we’d give it a go. It was a little shabby, and the cages were less than generous, but there was a surprisingly great range of animals, including white Bengal tigers and snakes of all levels of deadliness. Perhaps because of more lax safety restrictions we could get really close to the animals. We spent a long time watching a 1-month old monkey, shaky on his legs, stuck in a corner of branches and trying to learn how to get around. The adult monkeys took it in turns to sit close and make sure it didn’t fall and even the momma monkey got to go off and eat some fruit while other adults babysat.

We also have been learning a bit about Thai royalty at an exhibition of recent treasures acquired by the king and queen. They have set up a scheme to get farmers and villagers skilled in traditional arts. Farmers are given lessons and materials and create crafts to supplement their income. The fruits of this scheme include a lot of rather obscenely decadent treasures for the king and queen. Tonnes of gold dotted with hundreds of diamonds have been crafted over months and years to create model replicas of carriages, boats, howdahs (throne-like seats for sitting on an elephant), and thrones. These are primarily replicas of bling that the king and queen already own, so it all seems rather excessive, but the treasures are amazing to see. Although I have mixed feelings about the beloved Thai royalty, the current king and queen do seem to be genuinely doing some good work for the people, be that as it may be from atop a $5 million howdah.

Some pics:

A Buddha being transported in the back of a truck. We have heard mixed information on the meaning of Buddha hand signals. This one is either giving blessing or stopping a tsunami.

Jeff at dinner at an outside restaurant. The whole delicious meal, including beer, cost us about $10 NZ.

Marco Polo makes a surprise appearance at Wat Pho temple.

Lots of love to you all. Keep in touch—we’re always keen for news from home or wherever else you may be.

Sara and Jeff

A man on Nathan Road walks past wearing a t-shirt that says “give me five every moment” in block black letters. This more or less sums up Hong Kong.

Hong Kong radiates capitalism like Adam Smith’s fever dream. Every alley hides three shopping malls. Seemingly everything is for sale in endless variety- from the sidestreet tat at the Night Market to the glittering obscene genuine articles at the designer stores. Restaurant menus present dozens (sometimes hundreds) of choices. The magazines are obsessed with the finest gradations of status and consumption (an entire article on the best personalised numberplates?). It feels like you can be whatever you want in Hong Kong so long as you have the money to back it up.

The superstructure of this gilt edifice is made up (mildly paradoxically) of thrift, industry and civic pride. Everywhere you go (at least in the touristed parts) there is someone sweeping the streets- even the construction workers periodically down tools up brooms and push their dust into the gutters.

There is a sense of obsessive orderliness throughout. Each slope and ramp in Kowloon Park has its own prominent individual serial number: I imagine a rapid regrading response team dispatched with klaxons and sirens in case of any loose paving or deviance from the mandated 25′.

There’s not much opportunity to get lonely, either. Everywhere you go the teeming masses of humanity poke , jostle, elbow and nudge you. I have realised the real real purpose of umbrellas is to provide a bubble of personal space using the sharp spokes. At Ocean World we learned some hard lessons about getting between chinese and panda viewing. At one a man egregiously pushed in front of us wearing a t-shirt that said “after you.”

We’ve had some amazing food here, including the whole dim sum experience, and some sublime Xiao Long Bao (dumplings filled with stew). A regular feature of this blog will be my adventures in unusual cuisines. By this standard Hong Kong was pretty tame although I did have whole deep-fried baby pigeon (with head still attached and a slightly quizzical expression on its face) at the dim sum restaurant and stir-fried frog at the night market. Frog is surprisingly delicious- yes it tastes like tender chicken- although a bit fiddly with the wee bones and tiny spine. In a similar vein, Hello Kitty icecreams are also pretty good.

In less exciting news, I’ve been inadvertently lessening my attachment to the material world.  Thus far I had my UK passport, my cell phone and some money stolen (at Auckland airport no less) and broken my camera.  Thank goodness for insurance, eh?

Here’s a random experience:

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Occupational Safety & Health World:

This exhibit is part of the HK Science Museum. In a masterly display of cutting-edge 80s animatronics Dr Safe (who only has about three moving parts and consequently pops and locks like Mr Freeze) introduces us to the hazards around the workplace including Uncle Explosive, Auntie Irritant and Harmful Jr (a good MC name I reckon). Just between us, I think that Uncle Flammable and Auntie Oxidising have a bit of a thing going on.

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Anyhow, we’re off to Thailand this evening so we’ll see you in Bangkok. We’re planning on alternating posts at this stage so Sara’s up next.

Ka kite and much love

Jeff and Sara