Washington, D.C. (Nov. 3, 2011) -- Nearly eleven months living out of a suitcase. That's what I've been through.
It's been almost one full year of constantly looking ahead to the next stop, planning the next jump, like the famous photograph of the guy out in the bay, ten feet above the water, jumping from piling to piling.
That's what it's felt like and that's what came to an end for me the other night as I hung up my clothes and unpacked my suitcase in my very own apartment here in the capital of the United States of America.
It all started in mid-December when I was already on the road -- in Miami -- when I learned that my time was finished at the newspaper over there in Paris.
Not wanting to go back to "The City of Light" to be alone over the holidays (yet again), I delayed my return to Paris a few weeks, to mid-January.
Even though I was unemployed, my new job was figuring out how I was going to transition back into life in states.
It had been easy moving across the Atlantic, with only two suitcases full of clothes, no friends, no commitments and no idea how to speak the language.
Coming back the other way would prove to be much tougher.
After the holidays I hung around Paris for almost all of January, cleaning out the apartment while also trying to get the cooperation of "the Velib people" as they would come to be known.
My idea had been to get 20 or so rental bikes, known as Velibs, and then station them around France. I would then ride these terrible and bulky rental bikes, which have essentially no breaks, along the 2011 Tour de France route -- and then, if I lived, I would write a book about it.
I approached the city hall about it and they loved the idea. Great publicity, they agreed.
But, they said, the problem is that we don't actually own or operate the bikes that are scattered all around the city. A major corporation, called JC Decaux (similar to ClearChannel) owns the bikes and they would have to sign off on it.
So I approached JC Deceaux with the same pitch; crazy American rides the 3,400-kilometer Tour on a bike that is designed to go about one hundred miles during its life span.
The wait for an answer lasted about a week before they came back with a firm 'no.' Their explanation was that they have lots of trouble with people taking the bikes and selling them out of the country or just plain stealing and vandalizing them.
No matter. Having never been to Asia before, I set off for a one month tour of South East Asia (not on a bike), visiting Vietnam and Cambodia between the middle of February and the middle of March.
All went well except for the return part of the trip. On my way back I changed planes in Moscow between Hanoi and Paris. I didn't have my French work visa with me and so I looked to the customs officials like I was going illegally to France for more than six months without a job. That's not really allowed.
I had a problem with this when I was leaving Vietnam. They almost didn't let me go. They finally relented, telling me that I could fly to Moscow but they might stop me there.
I had a bad feeling that the strict Russians were going to take my mistake and punish me for it.
In an effort to avoid that from happening I skipped a customs desk in Moscow where they were checking for work visas and documentation. Then I somehow blended in with a group of Asian tourists that the Russians didn't want to bother processing and I raced to my plane. Well, actually I stopped at the bar and had two beers and three cigarettes to calm my nerves and celebrate my having had thwarted a Russian victory.
Then I raced to the plane.
I wasn't entirely sure that I succeeded until our plane was floating safely above the frozen soil far below.
Once back in Paris I had a few days to shake off the jet-lag before my parents and sister arrived to attend my going-away party that was on a boat by Notre Dame. The party was a blast. We sang "My Old Kentucky Home" and we thanked all my friends for being my friends.
Then mid-April came up and, for the first time, I purposely closed the door to my apartment with the keys still inside.
So long to all that, I thought.
Never again would I stand on the balcony in the morning and look at the Canal St. Martin while drinking coffee.
Never again would I throw an egg from that same balcony late at night, aiming for the bright yellow mailbox down below and about 30 yards away. (I never did hit that damn thing.)
I would, however, return to 31 Rue Beaurepaire late one night in the summer. Bored and restless, some friends and I climbed up the ladder and onto the slick tin metal roof and into the cool night air just one more time for good measure.
The new tenants of my old apartment heard us up there and they came out and chased us off. "You're life here is over," one of them shouted at me as I came down the ladder. He was mad that I had left the apartment in a condition that required some cleaning up.
Fair enough.
As Hunter S. Thompson once said, “I knew it was wrong. I did it anyway."
But I digress. From Paris that morning in April I flew off to Kentucky for the Derby. I was only there a for few days before I flew to Washington, D.C. for a short stay. Then it was back to the Commonwealth just in time for Derby. Everyone is living out of a suitcase at Derby. That weekend is a journey for all, and much is learned along the way.
Then, a week after Derby, it was back to France to once again work on closing up the shop. But this time the goal was to find a job on a super yacht down in the south of France and work as a deck hand, swabbing the deck, witnessing sordid behavior, meeting famous people and whatnot. And then I'd write a book about it.
Surely mopping can't be that technical of work.
As it turns out, working on a yacht is in fact its own little industry and it requires certifications and CVs and confidentiality agreements. If you're name pops up after a Google search as a journalist, for the New York Times no less, then the odds of you getting a job are not very good.
But I had traveled down to Nice in search of my white whale of a job and so I figured that I might as well give it some time. "Some time" turned out to be a lovely and almost dream-like month or so in southern France.
The couple I stayed with, Jenn and Andi, were kind enough to let me hang around and sleep on their spare sofa for only the small price of Jenn getting me hooked on "The Bachlorette" reality TV series. (dot, dot, dot)
Andi worked early each morning and Jenn made her own schedule at her start-up company and so we would often spend afternoons taking drives along the coast to scenic villages or just to a wonderful French fry stand on the side of the road.
The road, keep in mind, plunged right off into the navy blue waters of the Cote d'Azur. And we would sit there and look at the yachts on the water and laugh about all the problems they must have with all that money.
But that all ended in mid-June when I decided that seeing my favorite band, The Walkmen, play in Paris was more important than working on articles about the super yacht industry.
And so I said my farewells to Jenn and Andi and their brilliant son, Coach Henry, and flew up to Paris.
I spent the summer there in Paris, living with my good friend Etienne, while I wrote a book about my time in Paris and some other adventures. To write the book in such a short period of time (about a month and a half) I used several volumes of journals that I had kept during my time in France and I also used lots of Red Bull and many cigarettes (I've since quit smoking).
I knew that I had to finish at least a good version of the book while I had the time, the setting and the ability to concentrate. My usual routine was to rise from my slumber at 10 or so, drink a Red Bull a little before noon, then get to work and continue as such (with maybe another Red Bull in the late afternoon) until Etienne arrived home from work at seven or so. That was my finish line.
From there I would call it a day and we would usually drink beer and play chess and listen to Led Zeppelin.
The book was done in by mid-August and I was left wandering around Paris feeling like I was overstaying my welcome. I said goodbye one more time to that sultry and elusive mistress of a city.
So it was back to Kentucky in late August. The plan was to settle down in Louisville and work with my father as a financial advisor.
I got very close to this happening before I decided that I was game for one more roll of the dice.
And so it was across the river and through the mountains of West Virginia to the city where I've decided to roll the bones once more, here on the eastern shore of what was once the New World.
The past is prologue, as they say.
I guess that the future will be the judge of that.
All I know is that it's been an amazing year filled with wonderful times with lots of friends and family. That being said, I'm also happy to be somewhat settled at long, long last.
Take care,
Brett
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
A prophetic column for Business First from 2004
Louisville, Ky. (May 20, 2004) -- I would have to say that the “Gone Tanning” sign that hung from a closed shoe store in Florence, Italy comes closest to summing up the work ethic of many countries in Europe.
That laidback lifestyle added a mellow feel to my April vacation to Europe.
But living in that part of the world, or trying to run an errand in a just a few minutes, requires patience that I don’t think many Americans possess.
This matter of work ethics abroad was recently in the news as the French government is proposing an extention of the 35-hour work week in an effort to deal with the country's deficit.
I doubt this extension, even if implemented, will be successful because the French seem to value their lifestyle as much as the rest of us. Imagine how a similiar suggestion to increase the American work week to 48 hours would fare.
“That’s two whole days out of my week!” math savvy Americans would cry.
I like the idea that was recently in the news; Sweden is beginning a study to see if a 30 hour work week at a 40-hour-salary will result in healthier, more productive employees. I hereby formerly volunteer for that study. Anything for science.
Most days while I was abroad, the loafing began early and went late into the night. Most businesses like restaurants or clothing shops that relied on customers
would not open in France until around 10 a.m.
In Italy, it was closer to 11 a.m. And then some places close in the afternoon and open back up for dinner.
The major exception in this tale of Western European loafing was Germany. Talk about some people who can put the pedal to the metal. All Europeans, as far as I could tell, drive like a complete banshees. It’s the only thing they do at high speeds.
But the Germans take it to the next level in that they even walk fast. I’m talking brisk jog pace, here.
And, as history tells us, they are an industrious people. A Canadian told me on the train from Paris to Berlin that of all the people in all his classes during his semester abroad, Germans were the hardest workers.
“And all the French kids make fun of them for it,” he
said.
Oh, have we learned nothing from the 20th Century?
But back to the food.
My favorite difference was the way the dinner bill arrived.
Across Europe, as far as I could tell, the bill would not arrive in less than 30 minutes unless you asked for it. The rule seemed to be that the table was yours
for as long as you wanted.
I adjusted and grew to like the difference. I even gave a weak effort to slow down the pace of those around me shortly after I returned. I might as well have tried to make the Ohio River flow north.
I was home, I realized, and things as deeply entrenched in a society as the pace of life aren't easily changed.
And, in turn, expecting things to be exactly the same when on a vacation to a foreign country is a strange expectation that may people, myself included, seem to
have. (Did you read the plane ticket? It didn’t say
Pittsburgh, did it?)
So yes, things are different in other countries, especially the work ethic.
In fact, a cab driver in Paris explained this all to me in broken English as we weaved through the city streets, monuments rushing by, avoiding accident after
accident.
“If you want to do something in America, you can do it very quickly. There is no waiting. But life is not sweet. In Paris, if you want to do something, it takes a long time. But life is sweet.”
That laidback lifestyle added a mellow feel to my April vacation to Europe.
But living in that part of the world, or trying to run an errand in a just a few minutes, requires patience that I don’t think many Americans possess.
This matter of work ethics abroad was recently in the news as the French government is proposing an extention of the 35-hour work week in an effort to deal with the country's deficit.
I doubt this extension, even if implemented, will be successful because the French seem to value their lifestyle as much as the rest of us. Imagine how a similiar suggestion to increase the American work week to 48 hours would fare.
“That’s two whole days out of my week!” math savvy Americans would cry.
I like the idea that was recently in the news; Sweden is beginning a study to see if a 30 hour work week at a 40-hour-salary will result in healthier, more productive employees. I hereby formerly volunteer for that study. Anything for science.
Most days while I was abroad, the loafing began early and went late into the night. Most businesses like restaurants or clothing shops that relied on customers
would not open in France until around 10 a.m.
In Italy, it was closer to 11 a.m. And then some places close in the afternoon and open back up for dinner.
The major exception in this tale of Western European loafing was Germany. Talk about some people who can put the pedal to the metal. All Europeans, as far as I could tell, drive like a complete banshees. It’s the only thing they do at high speeds.
But the Germans take it to the next level in that they even walk fast. I’m talking brisk jog pace, here.
And, as history tells us, they are an industrious people. A Canadian told me on the train from Paris to Berlin that of all the people in all his classes during his semester abroad, Germans were the hardest workers.
“And all the French kids make fun of them for it,” he
said.
Oh, have we learned nothing from the 20th Century?
But back to the food.
My favorite difference was the way the dinner bill arrived.
Across Europe, as far as I could tell, the bill would not arrive in less than 30 minutes unless you asked for it. The rule seemed to be that the table was yours
for as long as you wanted.
I adjusted and grew to like the difference. I even gave a weak effort to slow down the pace of those around me shortly after I returned. I might as well have tried to make the Ohio River flow north.
I was home, I realized, and things as deeply entrenched in a society as the pace of life aren't easily changed.
And, in turn, expecting things to be exactly the same when on a vacation to a foreign country is a strange expectation that may people, myself included, seem to
have. (Did you read the plane ticket? It didn’t say
Pittsburgh, did it?)
So yes, things are different in other countries, especially the work ethic.
In fact, a cab driver in Paris explained this all to me in broken English as we weaved through the city streets, monuments rushing by, avoiding accident after
accident.
“If you want to do something in America, you can do it very quickly. There is no waiting. But life is not sweet. In Paris, if you want to do something, it takes a long time. But life is sweet.”
Monday, May 23, 2011
The 2nd Hanoi dispatch
Hanoi (March 8, 2011) -- I'm back in this chaotic city where horns blare, motors screech and where being a pedestrian involves harrowing moments of imminent peril.
I flew in last night from Phnom Penh and was sure that my luck would be better this time around since my backpack made it to luggage carousel before I got through passport control.
After bargaining hard about the taxi fare into the city, I threw my stuff in the trunk and the driver and I took off. We seemed to be going in an odd direction and not at all headed toward town. It was dark and the roads were dusty. The driver kept pointing out and slowing down outside of massage parlors.
"Right. I understand," I said. "It's a massage parlor. Let's go to the city now."
But we kept driving until we stopped to pick up a friend of his.
Then the three of us took a turn down an even darker dirt road that was lined with brick walls. Occasionally there were food stalls with steaming pots of something foul.
I didn't ask where we were going since they were sure to lie to me if they were planning on mugging me and leaving me in the middle of this maze that we had entered. I doubted that I could take both of these guys since they probably know some kind of martial arts stuff. So I just sat quietly and tried to stay calm.
A short while later we emerged out of the maze and near the airport again. We parked near a group of taxis with drivers standing around.
"You go with him," the original driver said, pointing to a surly looking chap who had a small car without a trunk.
So I switched cars and we were soon on the road to the city. I have no idea what that whole detour was about. If it was to scare me, then it was wonderfully effective.
The ride was going well until my driver came upon a busy, vehicle-clogged intersection and tried to turn down a one-way street which was filled with scooters and cars and buses coming the other way. I'm not sure why he did this -- it's likely that he was from the country, didn't know the streets well and knew only one way to get to the destination -- but it was a disaster.
What he had successfully done was to get his car smack into the middle of gridlocked intersection that featured all the traffic slowly coming right at us. It wasn't dangerous since no one was really moving, they were just inching along trying to get out. It was just stressful for him I imagine.
The worst part was when another driver slowly inching towards us in the chaos hopped out and came over and started yelling at my driver. I thought there was going to be a fight. Meanwhile, I was sitting in the back working on a play list of songs for my going-away party.
But we finally made it out and onto the open road. The driver and I both lit up cigarettes.
We weren't done yet, though. The driver had misunderstood where I wanted to go since knowing how to read a map or how to find addresses is an optional requirement for taxi drivers here.
Knowing how to press your horn for four consecutive minutes is the M.B.A. of taxi driving in Vietnam.
So I finally did arrive back at the Freedom Hotel. They were happy to see me and it was good to be back. I did notice though on my way to dinner down the street that The Lucky Hotel is just a few doors down and across the road from the Freedom. I probably should have been staying there the whole time.
But I'm loyal and so the Freedom Hotel it is. I also have a few other places in the area that I frequent. There's my pho place for breakfast every morning. I have a routine there; I walk in and the lady behind the steaming pot of noodles says either "pho ga" for chicken noodle soup or "pho bo" for beef noodle soup. I just repeat back to her whatever she says. And then we laugh.
Today is a free day in the schedule since the past week or so has been busy with tours and travel.
My last tour of the trip was to see the temples of Angkor Wat, north of the tourist town of Siem Reap in Cambodia.
My guide (in the loosest sense of the word) was a tuk-tuk driver who offered to drive me around the massive complex of temples all day long for $20. (A tuk-tuk is a motorcycle with a covered carriage in the back. Here's a picture of one.)
I wouldn't really recommend my guide since we started with the largest temple and then went in a circuit where the temples got smaller and less impressive. It would have been much better to go in the reverse order and end with the big one.
Like I said, he wasn't much of a guide. At one point I asked what the history of a temple was. "I have no idea," was the response.
Really? You're not even curious as to what this thing is that you drive to and sit outside of everyday? Good thing you're a pro at honking the horn.
The temples were cool for about the first two hours and climbing on them was exciting since the smallest mis-step would result in a sprained ankle or a broken leg and would certainly lead to major pain and a possible limp for the rest of your life.
And the heat made things even more Indiana Jones-esque. I would venture to say that it was well above 100 degrees F.
The best thing about my guide/driver, in his favor, was his insistence that I not try to walk from temple to temple. It was miles and miles between them and I would not have lasted long in the sweltering heat.
But I'm done with the heat for the time being since Hanoi is just as cold and cloudy as when I left it two weeks ago.
So this is how the trip ends.
I've not found any new religion or any enlightenment, but I really didn't come for that anyway. I took this trip to see a new part of the world and to have some time to reflect on where I've been and where I want to go next. I haven't made any huge strides on the second point besides what I had already decided, but it's been good to have some time to get some distance and reflect.
I did make some random observations along the way.
Peace -- Why do Japanese people always make the peace sign when posing for photos? The war is over. This is almost as strange as Asian people who don't smile at all in photos. They might as well be giving the camera the finger. I imagine them back at home showing their photos to friends..."Here's me in front of a huge temple. And you said I couldn't do it! Ha! Ice grill!"
Lazy fingers -- Vietnamese men grow their fingernails very long as a sign that they are so well off that they don't have to trim their own nails. It's disturbing and creepy and makes no sense at all.
Meeting point -- Here's how to negotiate is Southeast Asia; you ask how much an item is and then you offer to pay half. Eventually you end up in the middle and that's what you pay. It's quite easy once you get the hang of it.
DQ -- There is a Dairy Queen in the Phenom Penh International Airport. They don't have chicken strip baskets or biscuits and gravy. They only have chili cheese dogs, which aren't bad. I had to eat there just for the unabashed randomness of finding a Dairy Queen in this part of the world.
Improvements -- Thanks to dirty surroundings, filthy money and floating grime in the air, I've cut back drastically how much I bite my nails since I arrived. And washing my hands before sitting down to eat has also become instinctual behavior since I arrived because I suspect that the little bout of sickness at the beginning of the trip was due to underestimating how dirty this dusty part of the world actually is. Lesson learned all too well.
God bless you, Steve Jobs -- Riding on bumpy buses and on boring boats for hours at a time would have been terrible without my iPhone, which I nearly didn't bring. Thanks to the music and podcasts that I had loaded before I left, I was able to block out the terrible tunes the driver had chosen or the squeaky and loud phone conversation that the local woman behind me was having.
The iPhone was also a huge help because of the alarm that I used to get up almost daily to make it on time for morning tours and stuff like that. I'm not sure what I would have done without it.
On my first trip out of Hanoi to the Pink Pegoda, I befriended a French woman who was a few months into a year-long trip with her boyfriend around the region. As I got out my iPhone to cancel out whatever awful noises were happening around us, I asked her if she had brought an iPod or an iPhone along for the trip.
She lowered her eyes and shook her head slowly, "No, I didn't." Pause."That was a big mistake."
So that's the final dispatch for now, and that's why it was a bit longer than usual.
I hope the previous dispatches have been somewhat entertaining and less than annoying.
Until the next time, best of luck to everyone.
Take care,
Brett
I flew in last night from Phnom Penh and was sure that my luck would be better this time around since my backpack made it to luggage carousel before I got through passport control.
After bargaining hard about the taxi fare into the city, I threw my stuff in the trunk and the driver and I took off. We seemed to be going in an odd direction and not at all headed toward town. It was dark and the roads were dusty. The driver kept pointing out and slowing down outside of massage parlors.
"Right. I understand," I said. "It's a massage parlor. Let's go to the city now."
But we kept driving until we stopped to pick up a friend of his.
Then the three of us took a turn down an even darker dirt road that was lined with brick walls. Occasionally there were food stalls with steaming pots of something foul.
I didn't ask where we were going since they were sure to lie to me if they were planning on mugging me and leaving me in the middle of this maze that we had entered. I doubted that I could take both of these guys since they probably know some kind of martial arts stuff. So I just sat quietly and tried to stay calm.
A short while later we emerged out of the maze and near the airport again. We parked near a group of taxis with drivers standing around.
"You go with him," the original driver said, pointing to a surly looking chap who had a small car without a trunk.
So I switched cars and we were soon on the road to the city. I have no idea what that whole detour was about. If it was to scare me, then it was wonderfully effective.
The ride was going well until my driver came upon a busy, vehicle-clogged intersection and tried to turn down a one-way street which was filled with scooters and cars and buses coming the other way. I'm not sure why he did this -- it's likely that he was from the country, didn't know the streets well and knew only one way to get to the destination -- but it was a disaster.
What he had successfully done was to get his car smack into the middle of gridlocked intersection that featured all the traffic slowly coming right at us. It wasn't dangerous since no one was really moving, they were just inching along trying to get out. It was just stressful for him I imagine.
The worst part was when another driver slowly inching towards us in the chaos hopped out and came over and started yelling at my driver. I thought there was going to be a fight. Meanwhile, I was sitting in the back working on a play list of songs for my going-away party.
But we finally made it out and onto the open road. The driver and I both lit up cigarettes.
We weren't done yet, though. The driver had misunderstood where I wanted to go since knowing how to read a map or how to find addresses is an optional requirement for taxi drivers here.
Knowing how to press your horn for four consecutive minutes is the M.B.A. of taxi driving in Vietnam.
So I finally did arrive back at the Freedom Hotel. They were happy to see me and it was good to be back. I did notice though on my way to dinner down the street that The Lucky Hotel is just a few doors down and across the road from the Freedom. I probably should have been staying there the whole time.
But I'm loyal and so the Freedom Hotel it is. I also have a few other places in the area that I frequent. There's my pho place for breakfast every morning. I have a routine there; I walk in and the lady behind the steaming pot of noodles says either "pho ga" for chicken noodle soup or "pho bo" for beef noodle soup. I just repeat back to her whatever she says. And then we laugh.
Today is a free day in the schedule since the past week or so has been busy with tours and travel.
My last tour of the trip was to see the temples of Angkor Wat, north of the tourist town of Siem Reap in Cambodia.
My guide (in the loosest sense of the word) was a tuk-tuk driver who offered to drive me around the massive complex of temples all day long for $20. (A tuk-tuk is a motorcycle with a covered carriage in the back. Here's a picture of one.)
I wouldn't really recommend my guide since we started with the largest temple and then went in a circuit where the temples got smaller and less impressive. It would have been much better to go in the reverse order and end with the big one.
Like I said, he wasn't much of a guide. At one point I asked what the history of a temple was. "I have no idea," was the response.
Really? You're not even curious as to what this thing is that you drive to and sit outside of everyday? Good thing you're a pro at honking the horn.
The temples were cool for about the first two hours and climbing on them was exciting since the smallest mis-step would result in a sprained ankle or a broken leg and would certainly lead to major pain and a possible limp for the rest of your life.
And the heat made things even more Indiana Jones-esque. I would venture to say that it was well above 100 degrees F.
The best thing about my guide/driver, in his favor, was his insistence that I not try to walk from temple to temple. It was miles and miles between them and I would not have lasted long in the sweltering heat.
But I'm done with the heat for the time being since Hanoi is just as cold and cloudy as when I left it two weeks ago.
So this is how the trip ends.
I've not found any new religion or any enlightenment, but I really didn't come for that anyway. I took this trip to see a new part of the world and to have some time to reflect on where I've been and where I want to go next. I haven't made any huge strides on the second point besides what I had already decided, but it's been good to have some time to get some distance and reflect.
I did make some random observations along the way.
Peace -- Why do Japanese people always make the peace sign when posing for photos? The war is over. This is almost as strange as Asian people who don't smile at all in photos. They might as well be giving the camera the finger. I imagine them back at home showing their photos to friends..."Here's me in front of a huge temple. And you said I couldn't do it! Ha! Ice grill!"
Lazy fingers -- Vietnamese men grow their fingernails very long as a sign that they are so well off that they don't have to trim their own nails. It's disturbing and creepy and makes no sense at all.
Meeting point -- Here's how to negotiate is Southeast Asia; you ask how much an item is and then you offer to pay half. Eventually you end up in the middle and that's what you pay. It's quite easy once you get the hang of it.
DQ -- There is a Dairy Queen in the Phenom Penh International Airport. They don't have chicken strip baskets or biscuits and gravy. They only have chili cheese dogs, which aren't bad. I had to eat there just for the unabashed randomness of finding a Dairy Queen in this part of the world.
Improvements -- Thanks to dirty surroundings, filthy money and floating grime in the air, I've cut back drastically how much I bite my nails since I arrived. And washing my hands before sitting down to eat has also become instinctual behavior since I arrived because I suspect that the little bout of sickness at the beginning of the trip was due to underestimating how dirty this dusty part of the world actually is. Lesson learned all too well.
God bless you, Steve Jobs -- Riding on bumpy buses and on boring boats for hours at a time would have been terrible without my iPhone, which I nearly didn't bring. Thanks to the music and podcasts that I had loaded before I left, I was able to block out the terrible tunes the driver had chosen or the squeaky and loud phone conversation that the local woman behind me was having.
The iPhone was also a huge help because of the alarm that I used to get up almost daily to make it on time for morning tours and stuff like that. I'm not sure what I would have done without it.
On my first trip out of Hanoi to the Pink Pegoda, I befriended a French woman who was a few months into a year-long trip with her boyfriend around the region. As I got out my iPhone to cancel out whatever awful noises were happening around us, I asked her if she had brought an iPod or an iPhone along for the trip.
She lowered her eyes and shook her head slowly, "No, I didn't." Pause."That was a big mistake."
So that's the final dispatch for now, and that's why it was a bit longer than usual.
I hope the previous dispatches have been somewhat entertaining and less than annoying.
Until the next time, best of luck to everyone.
Take care,
Brett
Friday, March 4, 2011
The Siem Reap Dispatch
Siem Reap, Cambodia (March 3, 2011) -- Anton was bored almost as soon as the boat left the dock.
He was already complaining about how the seven-hour boat ride to Phnom Penh was going to be too long.
There wasn't much to see along the shore of the Mekong River, besides the house on stilts hanging over the water and people washing themselves in the river. Interesting at first, sure, but a bit repetitive after a while.
So even though it was 10 or so in the morning, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a plastic bag containing two flask-sized bottles of Wall Street whiskey. He had tried various other kinds of Vietnamese whiskey and declared that this brand was the best of the bunch.
Off came the caps and down went the spirits.
Before I had left Paris two weeks ago I bought some Cuban cigars for this very moment in the journey and so he and I moved all the way to the back of the 20-person boat and fired up the stogies.
That was the start of strange and fun day of travel.
I had met Anton and his two travel companions, Johnny and Rob, at the bar across from my hotel in Saigon. The bar also offered hotel rooms and they were staying a few floors above. The three of them are Swedish, in the their early 20s and traveling around the region for several months.
So Anton and I finished the first bottle without much effort and then he cracked the second bottle shortly after.
"This will be a story to tell the grand kids," he said. "The time I drank whiskey and smoked a cigar while floating down the Mekong."
After a few hours we reached the Cambodian border. The tour group, which was made up mostly of young backpackers, had lunch while our fixer arranged for the visas. I was a problem member of the group since my passport is nearly full and so there wasn't much room to glue in the full-page visa that Cambodia sells to travelers. I have to get more pages inserted sometime very soon.
But the fixer pulled some strings and I got in eventually.
Our boat for the second half of the voyage was larger, with a small concession stand and a sturdy wooden roof. The bathroom on the boat was in the back and had no roof. It didn't take me long to realize that we could to step on the back of the toilet and climb up on the top for a better breeze and a better view. So that was how we spent the final trip of the cruise.
It sure was better than a bus, even if it did take a bit longer.
In addition to Anton and his friends, I've met dozens of other travelers and spoken with them for anywhere between one minute to an hour depending on the circumstances.
After a few days everyone over here for an extended time period seems to have their life story and what they're doing down to an easily delivered and swallowed soundbite.
The standard rundown goes like this...
"Where are you from?" (My answer usually draws something to the effect of... "Kentucky...is that in the middle?"
"Yeah, it's south of Chicago and north of Nashville. Muhammad Ali is from Louisville." I throw that second part in just because I think it's cool.)
"How long are you traveling for?'' (This is the question that seperates the "serious" travelers from the amateurs. My three weeks is nothing compared to some people who have answered ten months or, even more impressive, have no real set timeline at all.)
''Where have you been?'' (This is where travelers are trying to glean information and tips from each other. It's really useful.)
"Where are you going next?" (And this is where the traveler asking the question tries to help the other traveler if they can.)
Very rarely, in my experience, does work or family come up unless it's a very long conversation. It's kind of nice to have some kind of structure and checklist in the interaction with like-minded strangers. And it was cool to have some friends to hang with for a few days since solo traveling can be a bit tedious after a while.
But I'm back on my own now and I'm cool with it. I took a six-hour bus ride today from Phnom Pehn to this city near the temple complex of Ankgor Wat which I'm off to see tomorrow and maybe again the next day.
And then it's back to Phnom Pehn (possibly by boat since I do have one Cuban cigar left, afterall) and then to Hanoi and then to Paris.
I was thinking today about whether this was the best trip I've ever been on. Despite the minor bad luck at the beginning, I think it might be. It's a fascinating part of the world.
I hope all is well with everyone.
Take care,
Brett
He was already complaining about how the seven-hour boat ride to Phnom Penh was going to be too long.
There wasn't much to see along the shore of the Mekong River, besides the house on stilts hanging over the water and people washing themselves in the river. Interesting at first, sure, but a bit repetitive after a while.
So even though it was 10 or so in the morning, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a plastic bag containing two flask-sized bottles of Wall Street whiskey. He had tried various other kinds of Vietnamese whiskey and declared that this brand was the best of the bunch.
Off came the caps and down went the spirits.
Before I had left Paris two weeks ago I bought some Cuban cigars for this very moment in the journey and so he and I moved all the way to the back of the 20-person boat and fired up the stogies.
That was the start of strange and fun day of travel.
I had met Anton and his two travel companions, Johnny and Rob, at the bar across from my hotel in Saigon. The bar also offered hotel rooms and they were staying a few floors above. The three of them are Swedish, in the their early 20s and traveling around the region for several months.
So Anton and I finished the first bottle without much effort and then he cracked the second bottle shortly after.
"This will be a story to tell the grand kids," he said. "The time I drank whiskey and smoked a cigar while floating down the Mekong."
After a few hours we reached the Cambodian border. The tour group, which was made up mostly of young backpackers, had lunch while our fixer arranged for the visas. I was a problem member of the group since my passport is nearly full and so there wasn't much room to glue in the full-page visa that Cambodia sells to travelers. I have to get more pages inserted sometime very soon.
But the fixer pulled some strings and I got in eventually.
Our boat for the second half of the voyage was larger, with a small concession stand and a sturdy wooden roof. The bathroom on the boat was in the back and had no roof. It didn't take me long to realize that we could to step on the back of the toilet and climb up on the top for a better breeze and a better view. So that was how we spent the final trip of the cruise.
It sure was better than a bus, even if it did take a bit longer.
In addition to Anton and his friends, I've met dozens of other travelers and spoken with them for anywhere between one minute to an hour depending on the circumstances.
After a few days everyone over here for an extended time period seems to have their life story and what they're doing down to an easily delivered and swallowed soundbite.
The standard rundown goes like this...
"Where are you from?" (My answer usually draws something to the effect of... "Kentucky...is that in the middle?"
"Yeah, it's south of Chicago and north of Nashville. Muhammad Ali is from Louisville." I throw that second part in just because I think it's cool.)
"How long are you traveling for?'' (This is the question that seperates the "serious" travelers from the amateurs. My three weeks is nothing compared to some people who have answered ten months or, even more impressive, have no real set timeline at all.)
''Where have you been?'' (This is where travelers are trying to glean information and tips from each other. It's really useful.)
"Where are you going next?" (And this is where the traveler asking the question tries to help the other traveler if they can.)
Very rarely, in my experience, does work or family come up unless it's a very long conversation. It's kind of nice to have some kind of structure and checklist in the interaction with like-minded strangers. And it was cool to have some friends to hang with for a few days since solo traveling can be a bit tedious after a while.
But I'm back on my own now and I'm cool with it. I took a six-hour bus ride today from Phnom Pehn to this city near the temple complex of Ankgor Wat which I'm off to see tomorrow and maybe again the next day.
And then it's back to Phnom Pehn (possibly by boat since I do have one Cuban cigar left, afterall) and then to Hanoi and then to Paris.
I was thinking today about whether this was the best trip I've ever been on. Despite the minor bad luck at the beginning, I think it might be. It's a fascinating part of the world.
I hope all is well with everyone.
Take care,
Brett
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Saigon Dispatch
Saigon (Feb. 25, 2011) -- It's not the traffic in this city that I'll be honoring in this latest ramble, but rather the seemingly happenstance way that sky scrapers sit next to crumbling buildings while beggars are on street corners as brand new Bentleys cruise silently by.
Bi-polar spending -- Being in a country that's really cheap has done strange things to me. For example, I'm staying in a $16-a-night hotel room that resembles Martin Sheen's room in the opening sequence of "Apocalypse Now," yet I've spent $23 the last two afternoons sitting by the pool at the Carvavelle Hotel drinking $5 beers when the going rate in the city for a beer is $1. I was quite shocked the first time the pool-side waitress told me how much the beers were. If I was in any other region of the world, mind you, $5 beer by a gorgeous pool would be a bargain.
I feel guilty about lounging about, but the pool is just so nice and it's too hot to really see many sights around town without sweating profusely. And plus, it's hard going back to coach once you've been in First Class.
Along these same lines, I've started hailing and hiring scooters to get around town since they are cheaper and more efficient than a taxi. A ride on the back of one of these scooters costs 20,000 Vietnamese dollars (about $1) and yet I walked away today from a guy who wanted 40k instead of 20K. That was a bit extreme, I thought afterward.
I did see my first scooter accident today. It wasn't a bad one -- a minivan clipped a moto and the guy riding the moto fell off but he was OK. So we can cross that off the list of things you must see in Asia.
Daka Daka -- When packing for the trip I threw all the usual things in the bag; bug spray, swimming shorts, sunscreen and a baseball cap for the heat. I never considered the baseball cap and how it looks.
My baseball cap that I'm wearing right now as I type this is an old school Atlanta Braves cap. It's three-quarters blue, with a white front and a bright red 'A' in the center.
So...red, white and blue. As if to make things worse in an effort to appear to be the most patriotic man ever to leave America, it has '1974' on the back of it. The year is to mark the season that Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth's home run record.
Yet 1974 was also the year that the last Americans evacuated Saigon. So basically I look like a member of Team America, possibly here to even the score.
The locals seem more amused than angered by my choice of headgear.
It's blazing hot though right now in Saigon and so the hat is being worn no matter what the appearance.
Speaking of America and Vietnam, I went to the War Remnants museum this morning before hitting the pool. There's always two sides to every story, I realize, but the 'Home of the Brave' sure doesn't come out very well according to the way that the Vietnamese tell the tale. (Agent Orange, anyone?)
It just goes to show that no one ever really wins a war.
Traffic update -- There are painted lines on the street here, so that's a start. Yet they still run red lights and crossing the street remains something that is so nerve wracking that I exhale deeply once I'm safely on the other side.
Halong time coming -- Shortly after sending the last dispatch about all the bad luck that I had been having, I joined a tour group on a visit to Halong Bay, a body of water that features massive outcroppings and islands scattered about.
Our boat was four hours late leaving, so not the best start. And of course I had told some people on the tour about my string of bad luck. So they jokingly started blaming the lengthy delay on me. ("Bad luck Brett" will not be a nickname that I answer to, by the way.)
Once we were on our way though it was amazing. Our boat cruised past islands and outcroppings and it was me and a group of British travelers and a French couple and that was it, besides the staff of eight or nine Vietnamese dudes.
Dinner was a formal feast and then we played cards and ended the night fishing for squid off the back of the boat.
The next day we spent cruising around some more, but not before some of us went kayaking into a secluded cove where we watched a family of monkeys playing on the rocks. It was a great trip despite the bumps in the road and I took it as an end to the run of the bad travel luck that I had experienced thus far.
Coffee -- It's amazing here. Really strong, really cheap and with hints of chocolate. The French taught them very well in this regard.
Zen babies -- I've seen lots of babies here since families tend to live together and their shops are usually at the front of their living quarters -- and yet I've not seen a baby crying. It's strange. That is all.
Old white dudes -- "I wish I was an older man." Those are not words that one usually hears a 32-year-old man say, and yet that is what my friend Nick said as we sat at a bar the other night.
Nick, who has lived here for several years, was bemoaning the fact that simply because he was young, the hostitutes tending bar at a place where we stopped to have a beer were ignoring us in favor of all the older men in the place since they presumably had more money and more desperation than he and I had.
It was a rather bizarre scene to begin with. All the Vietnamese women behind the bar (there might have been 20 rotating in and out -- it was hard to tell) were identically dressed in red shorts and black tops. Their job was to sling drinks and flirt with the guys at the bar chugging beer.
And these older dudes at the bar looked like they had just found the fountain of youth. I imagine that they probably felt like they had indeed done just that.
So that's Saigon. Things have improved greatly since the last dispatch. I'm heading out to the country in the morning to see some Vietcong tunnels and some temples. And then on Sunday it's off to the Mekong Delta and then Cambodia from there.
With about a week of fairly rough and dusty travel awaiting, a little time by the pool didn't seem too extravagant, $5 beer or not.
Take care,
Brett
Bi-polar spending -- Being in a country that's really cheap has done strange things to me. For example, I'm staying in a $16-a-night hotel room that resembles Martin Sheen's room in the opening sequence of "Apocalypse Now," yet I've spent $23 the last two afternoons sitting by the pool at the Carvavelle Hotel drinking $5 beers when the going rate in the city for a beer is $1. I was quite shocked the first time the pool-side waitress told me how much the beers were. If I was in any other region of the world, mind you, $5 beer by a gorgeous pool would be a bargain.
I feel guilty about lounging about, but the pool is just so nice and it's too hot to really see many sights around town without sweating profusely. And plus, it's hard going back to coach once you've been in First Class.
Along these same lines, I've started hailing and hiring scooters to get around town since they are cheaper and more efficient than a taxi. A ride on the back of one of these scooters costs 20,000 Vietnamese dollars (about $1) and yet I walked away today from a guy who wanted 40k instead of 20K. That was a bit extreme, I thought afterward.
I did see my first scooter accident today. It wasn't a bad one -- a minivan clipped a moto and the guy riding the moto fell off but he was OK. So we can cross that off the list of things you must see in Asia.
Daka Daka -- When packing for the trip I threw all the usual things in the bag; bug spray, swimming shorts, sunscreen and a baseball cap for the heat. I never considered the baseball cap and how it looks.
My baseball cap that I'm wearing right now as I type this is an old school Atlanta Braves cap. It's three-quarters blue, with a white front and a bright red 'A' in the center.
So...red, white and blue. As if to make things worse in an effort to appear to be the most patriotic man ever to leave America, it has '1974' on the back of it. The year is to mark the season that Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth's home run record.
Yet 1974 was also the year that the last Americans evacuated Saigon. So basically I look like a member of Team America, possibly here to even the score.
The locals seem more amused than angered by my choice of headgear.
It's blazing hot though right now in Saigon and so the hat is being worn no matter what the appearance.
Speaking of America and Vietnam, I went to the War Remnants museum this morning before hitting the pool. There's always two sides to every story, I realize, but the 'Home of the Brave' sure doesn't come out very well according to the way that the Vietnamese tell the tale. (Agent Orange, anyone?)
It just goes to show that no one ever really wins a war.
Traffic update -- There are painted lines on the street here, so that's a start. Yet they still run red lights and crossing the street remains something that is so nerve wracking that I exhale deeply once I'm safely on the other side.
Halong time coming -- Shortly after sending the last dispatch about all the bad luck that I had been having, I joined a tour group on a visit to Halong Bay, a body of water that features massive outcroppings and islands scattered about.
Our boat was four hours late leaving, so not the best start. And of course I had told some people on the tour about my string of bad luck. So they jokingly started blaming the lengthy delay on me. ("Bad luck Brett" will not be a nickname that I answer to, by the way.)
Once we were on our way though it was amazing. Our boat cruised past islands and outcroppings and it was me and a group of British travelers and a French couple and that was it, besides the staff of eight or nine Vietnamese dudes.
Dinner was a formal feast and then we played cards and ended the night fishing for squid off the back of the boat.
The next day we spent cruising around some more, but not before some of us went kayaking into a secluded cove where we watched a family of monkeys playing on the rocks. It was a great trip despite the bumps in the road and I took it as an end to the run of the bad travel luck that I had experienced thus far.
Coffee -- It's amazing here. Really strong, really cheap and with hints of chocolate. The French taught them very well in this regard.
Zen babies -- I've seen lots of babies here since families tend to live together and their shops are usually at the front of their living quarters -- and yet I've not seen a baby crying. It's strange. That is all.
Old white dudes -- "I wish I was an older man." Those are not words that one usually hears a 32-year-old man say, and yet that is what my friend Nick said as we sat at a bar the other night.
Nick, who has lived here for several years, was bemoaning the fact that simply because he was young, the hostitutes tending bar at a place where we stopped to have a beer were ignoring us in favor of all the older men in the place since they presumably had more money and more desperation than he and I had.
It was a rather bizarre scene to begin with. All the Vietnamese women behind the bar (there might have been 20 rotating in and out -- it was hard to tell) were identically dressed in red shorts and black tops. Their job was to sling drinks and flirt with the guys at the bar chugging beer.
And these older dudes at the bar looked like they had just found the fountain of youth. I imagine that they probably felt like they had indeed done just that.
So that's Saigon. Things have improved greatly since the last dispatch. I'm heading out to the country in the morning to see some Vietcong tunnels and some temples. And then on Sunday it's off to the Mekong Delta and then Cambodia from there.
With about a week of fairly rough and dusty travel awaiting, a little time by the pool didn't seem too extravagant, $5 beer or not.
Take care,
Brett
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Escape from Hanoi Dispatch
Hanoi (Feb. 20, 2011) -- Not planning much before arriving at a destination has always worked out well for me. I had no trouble having fun without an itinerary in Cuba -- both times. Turkey and India also went well without much prior preparation.
But a string of bad luck, a deadly accident, losing my credit and then a stomach bug have meant that I've spun my wheels here in Hanoi for the past week.
It's a nice city, but a week is far too long.
My first attempt at trying to leave this traffic-congested town happened on Thursday when I bought a ticket for an expedition to Sapa, a mountain-town developed by the French occupiers back in the 1930s or so.
My journey started when a young Vietnamese guy wearing a Burberry-patterned motorcycle helmet asked for me at the front desk of my hotel.
I was in the lobby drinking a Heineken.
We grabbed my stuff and walked outside. Waiting for us was his scooter.
"We're riding on that thing?" I asked.
"Yes, it is fine."
"Oh, man. What about my backpack?" I was hoping this would be a reason for me to not have to ride on the back of his flimsy mo-ped.
"It is fine." And then he wedged the bag between his legs, under the handle bars. I climbed on the back and off we went.
Moments after we set off for the rendezvous point, I reached for my camera to take some video and realized that I had left it at the hotel. And so back we went, extending a trip that I couldn't wait to conclude.
Back on the contraption, zipping through town, I filmed while he drove. (Here is the video.)
Eventually we made it to the train station. I was supposed to leave off of platform seven. Apparently, though, the boss of the train station decided to change the platform and my Vietnamese, while progressing rapidly, (hahaha) is still not good enough to understand if it is spoken too quickly.
So the train left without me. (This turned out to be not all that bad since I later learned from other travelers that Sapa was shrouded in mist and very cold when I would have been there. I didn't pack for cold weather and so this was for the best.)
After fuming for a few minutes about having missed the train, I shrugged it off and got a taxi to the Old Quarter.
The Kangaroo Cafe is owned by an Australian guy named Max, whom I've never met, who has nothing good to say in articles posted in his cafe about local travel agencies that operate boats in Halong Bay. He says their boats aren't well-maintained. And for good reason he believes this since a boat sunk in the bay just a day earlier, killing 12 people out of the 27 on board.
My plan, however, after missing the train, was to get a spot on the weekend cruise that the Kangaroo Cafe was putting on. So I strolled into the cafe right before it closed and got a place and was told that there was still room and that I should show up at 8 the next morning.
Finally, I thought, I'm getting out of this town.
Bright and early and plenty groggy, I showed up at the cafe -- which is located around the corner from the Freedom Hotel, where I am staying and where the staff seem to derive great enjoyment from my attempts to check out.
For $20 a night, I'm pleased to entertain.
All trips done by the Kangaroo Cafe must be paid for in advance with cash and so I had to run to the ATM. A group of Japanese tourists had just walked in as I was leaving for the cash machine and I was sure that they were going to fill up the remaining places on the boat -- so I raced to get money and get back. In the process, my very near and dear BNP Paribas card got left behind and sucked back into the machine.
I wouldn't realize this until about 12 hours later.
Because of the deadly accident that killed tourists of several nationalities, the tour was canceled that Friday morning.
It was rescheduled for Saturday morning.
So yet another day in Hanoi.
The highlight of Friday was a visit to the Hanoi Hilton prison museum.
Shackles in small cells!
John McCain's flight suit in a glass display case!
Propaganda!
Tales of Vietnamese prisoners escaping French occupiers in "Shawshank Redemption"-style sewer crawls!
More shackles!
A guillotine!
Not one, but two gift shops! (Sadly, nothing in the gift shops had to do with prison. It was just the same nick-knacks as everywhere else. You better believe that I would have stocked up on stuff if it had been anything like the gift shop at Alcatraz. Capitalism is still a toddler 'round here.)
And all that for the low, low ticket price of 50 cents. It was awesome.
At some point on Friday night I realized that I didn't have my credit card. Bad news.
To the Freedom Hotel! Surely, they'll know what to do.
The mother-daughter team at the front desk spent about 30 minutes making calls to help me figure out where I needed to go in the morning to get my credit card. It was all very nice of them.
They were less helpful after I admitted that, upon further reflection, I had actually left my credit card in a different machine, operated by a different bank.
Good luck, they said.
A nice young Vietnamese girl at a quick store next door to the real ATM did step in and was able to tell me the address of the bank where I needed to go to get the card.
So I had a plan for the next morning; go to the bank at 8 a.m., get my card quickly, then race to the cafe and get on the bus that would take me to the boat. Oh, the best laid plans...
Without going into details, I came down with a terrible stomach bug Friday night and felt like death on Saturday morning.
The ladies at the bank, understandably, did not share my urgency for getting me my card back. It was Saturday morning, after all.
I wouldn't get it back until 9:30. The boat cruise group was long gone by then.
Yet another day in Hanoi. I spent most of Saturday drinking soda, sipping soup and humming "Lodi" by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Would I ever get out of here?
Feeling better after a nap, I went to a travel agent and booked a tour to the Perfume Pagoda for Sunday. Then I went to the Kangaroo Cafe and booked a spot on the two-day cruise in Halong Bay for Monday.
Then I got on the computer and booked a plane ticket to Saigon for early Wednesday afternoon. Then I bought another plane ticket for March 7th from Phnom Penh to Hanoi.
My plan is to go to Saigon, spend a few days there, then travel by boat through the Mekong Delta to Cambodia and then fly from Phnom Penh to Hanoi before I fly back to Paris on March 9th.
Like I said, that's the plan.
I did finally make it out of town today on a day trip to the Perfume Pagoda. Of course it was an even date (seen as very lucky by the Vietnamese) and so it was too packed to make it to the top pagoda. But the time out of town and a lovely cruise down a river to the pagodas was a good omen of things to come. And some of the numbers in my date of birth are even.
Yeah, I know. But, at this point, I'll take any luck that lets me escape the Freedom Hotel.
Take care,
Brett
But a string of bad luck, a deadly accident, losing my credit and then a stomach bug have meant that I've spun my wheels here in Hanoi for the past week.
It's a nice city, but a week is far too long.
My first attempt at trying to leave this traffic-congested town happened on Thursday when I bought a ticket for an expedition to Sapa, a mountain-town developed by the French occupiers back in the 1930s or so.
My journey started when a young Vietnamese guy wearing a Burberry-patterned motorcycle helmet asked for me at the front desk of my hotel.
I was in the lobby drinking a Heineken.
We grabbed my stuff and walked outside. Waiting for us was his scooter.
"We're riding on that thing?" I asked.
"Yes, it is fine."
"Oh, man. What about my backpack?" I was hoping this would be a reason for me to not have to ride on the back of his flimsy mo-ped.
"It is fine." And then he wedged the bag between his legs, under the handle bars. I climbed on the back and off we went.
Moments after we set off for the rendezvous point, I reached for my camera to take some video and realized that I had left it at the hotel. And so back we went, extending a trip that I couldn't wait to conclude.
Back on the contraption, zipping through town, I filmed while he drove. (Here is the video.)
Eventually we made it to the train station. I was supposed to leave off of platform seven. Apparently, though, the boss of the train station decided to change the platform and my Vietnamese, while progressing rapidly, (hahaha) is still not good enough to understand if it is spoken too quickly.
So the train left without me. (This turned out to be not all that bad since I later learned from other travelers that Sapa was shrouded in mist and very cold when I would have been there. I didn't pack for cold weather and so this was for the best.)
After fuming for a few minutes about having missed the train, I shrugged it off and got a taxi to the Old Quarter.
The Kangaroo Cafe is owned by an Australian guy named Max, whom I've never met, who has nothing good to say in articles posted in his cafe about local travel agencies that operate boats in Halong Bay. He says their boats aren't well-maintained. And for good reason he believes this since a boat sunk in the bay just a day earlier, killing 12 people out of the 27 on board.
My plan, however, after missing the train, was to get a spot on the weekend cruise that the Kangaroo Cafe was putting on. So I strolled into the cafe right before it closed and got a place and was told that there was still room and that I should show up at 8 the next morning.
Finally, I thought, I'm getting out of this town.
Bright and early and plenty groggy, I showed up at the cafe -- which is located around the corner from the Freedom Hotel, where I am staying and where the staff seem to derive great enjoyment from my attempts to check out.
For $20 a night, I'm pleased to entertain.
All trips done by the Kangaroo Cafe must be paid for in advance with cash and so I had to run to the ATM. A group of Japanese tourists had just walked in as I was leaving for the cash machine and I was sure that they were going to fill up the remaining places on the boat -- so I raced to get money and get back. In the process, my very near and dear BNP Paribas card got left behind and sucked back into the machine.
I wouldn't realize this until about 12 hours later.
Because of the deadly accident that killed tourists of several nationalities, the tour was canceled that Friday morning.
It was rescheduled for Saturday morning.
So yet another day in Hanoi.
The highlight of Friday was a visit to the Hanoi Hilton prison museum.
Shackles in small cells!
John McCain's flight suit in a glass display case!
Propaganda!
Tales of Vietnamese prisoners escaping French occupiers in "Shawshank Redemption"-style sewer crawls!
More shackles!
A guillotine!
Not one, but two gift shops! (Sadly, nothing in the gift shops had to do with prison. It was just the same nick-knacks as everywhere else. You better believe that I would have stocked up on stuff if it had been anything like the gift shop at Alcatraz. Capitalism is still a toddler 'round here.)
And all that for the low, low ticket price of 50 cents. It was awesome.
At some point on Friday night I realized that I didn't have my credit card. Bad news.
To the Freedom Hotel! Surely, they'll know what to do.
The mother-daughter team at the front desk spent about 30 minutes making calls to help me figure out where I needed to go in the morning to get my credit card. It was all very nice of them.
They were less helpful after I admitted that, upon further reflection, I had actually left my credit card in a different machine, operated by a different bank.
Good luck, they said.
A nice young Vietnamese girl at a quick store next door to the real ATM did step in and was able to tell me the address of the bank where I needed to go to get the card.
So I had a plan for the next morning; go to the bank at 8 a.m., get my card quickly, then race to the cafe and get on the bus that would take me to the boat. Oh, the best laid plans...
Without going into details, I came down with a terrible stomach bug Friday night and felt like death on Saturday morning.
The ladies at the bank, understandably, did not share my urgency for getting me my card back. It was Saturday morning, after all.
I wouldn't get it back until 9:30. The boat cruise group was long gone by then.
Yet another day in Hanoi. I spent most of Saturday drinking soda, sipping soup and humming "Lodi" by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Would I ever get out of here?
Feeling better after a nap, I went to a travel agent and booked a tour to the Perfume Pagoda for Sunday. Then I went to the Kangaroo Cafe and booked a spot on the two-day cruise in Halong Bay for Monday.
Then I got on the computer and booked a plane ticket to Saigon for early Wednesday afternoon. Then I bought another plane ticket for March 7th from Phnom Penh to Hanoi.
My plan is to go to Saigon, spend a few days there, then travel by boat through the Mekong Delta to Cambodia and then fly from Phnom Penh to Hanoi before I fly back to Paris on March 9th.
Like I said, that's the plan.
I did finally make it out of town today on a day trip to the Perfume Pagoda. Of course it was an even date (seen as very lucky by the Vietnamese) and so it was too packed to make it to the top pagoda. But the time out of town and a lovely cruise down a river to the pagodas was a good omen of things to come. And some of the numbers in my date of birth are even.
Yeah, I know. But, at this point, I'll take any luck that lets me escape the Freedom Hotel.
Take care,
Brett
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Hanoi Dispatch
Hanoi (Feb. 16, 2011) -- In honor of the traffic system here in the capital of Vietnam, this dispatch will flow freely and in no coherent manner. But it will somehow make sense, or so we can hope.
Make it a better place -- Upon my arrival yesterday, I decided that I had just about enough of the public transportation up to that point and so I made an executive decision to take the first taxi available at the airport that offered a reasonable price -- as opposed to trying to figure out the bus system into the city and to my hotel.
As I was getting money out of an ATM at the airport a young Vietnamese man came up to me and asked if I needed a taxi.
For $15, he said, he could take me to my hotel in the center of town.
Deal, I said, since my guide book from 2003 or so said the price should be around $10. So off we went off, on the road after a little waiting.
"You like Michael Jackson?" he asked as we sped away.
Sure, why not? I replied. Who doesn't?
Suddenly, we were listening to MJ sing about how we could, if we really wanted to...
"Create a world with no fear
Together we'll cry happy tears
See the nations turn
Their swords into plowshares."
This was all blasting as we sped down the highway on a cloudy and cool morning toward Hanoi, past rice fields featuring women in conical hats tending to their crops.
Poetic, no?
Yeah, I didn't think so either.
I was wondering if I could smoke in the car, in fact.
Next up was Celine Dion singing "My heart will go on."
And then it was another playing of ''Heal the world.''
Having apparently run out of American music, we drove in silence the rest of the way. Honking was our soundtrack.
It was an improvement.
Spooning -- Having dropped my bags at the hotel, I ventured out into the bustling city to get something to eat. I tried several places but had no luck, mostly because my Vietnamese was so bad (more on that later). But I finally found a busy street-side restaurant that seemed, if not eager to have me, at least willing to take my money for the hassle of having a round eye like me take up a table.
The process of eating at a street stall isn't all that easy. You're supposed to pick out what you want and what you don't want and it's a bit difficult when you don't know the word for chicken or for beef or how to say, "Please, no intestines, thanks."
But I managed to get them to fill a half bowl of rice with pieces of chicken and what I think was beef. And the rest was some kind of spinach vegetable. And then they gave me a soup on the side.
I sat in the corner on the second floor.
I'm not good with chopsticks. I did fairly well with the rice until it stopped sticking together. Then I tucked into the soup and I finished that off.
But suddenly, just I was getting to leave (which would have made the waiters very happy since they were trying to turn over table very quickly at lunch hour) I had an "ah-ha" moment.
I can use the soup spoon to finish the rest of the pesky rice, I thought with glee.
And so I did. It was great.
That was until I looked up to find a Vietnamese woman at a nearby table watching me do this much in the same way that a Westerner would watch an Asian man eat cheese cake with a pair of knives. She seemed more amused than horrified -- and so I just smiled. And she smiled back. Ah, the international language of jackassery.
Frogger, for real -- Traffic isn't all that crazy here if you're involved in it. If you happen to be walking, however, it's a life or death scenario.
You're going to think I'm joking when I say that people on foot just wander out into oncoming traffic when they cross the street. But that's it, they just venture out there and see what happens. The scooters (which make up 80% of the vehicles on the road here) don't stop to save the lives of pedestrians, they just alter their course so that they don't hit them.
It seems to work out rather well from what I've seen so far.
Myself, on the other hand, remember stories about how much it hurts when you get hit just by a bicyclist and so I don't want to find out what happens when a Vietnamese Vespa clips me. And so this has left me sprinting across the streets when I cross, which, now that I think about it, is probably worse than doing the normal walking thing since I'm probably messing with their timing.
I guess that time will tell.
I'd rather run for it though as opposed to having my obit read, "Brett Corbin died while leisurely walking through heavy traffic in Hanoi. He was 32. Blood tests are pending."
Thanks to all those scooters, the smog is very bad here. Lots of people walking around, and nearly everyone on a scooter, wears one of those swine-flu virus masks. But what's really strange is when a suddend lull in traffic occurs that leaves you walking down a quiet street in the middle of the city.
You can actually hear yourself cough.
It's spooky.
The thought also occured to me, while walking the streets today, that they should have a global competition for the best/worst drivers in world.
There could be a division for scooters and a division for cars. It could be part of the Olympics. My money is on India.
Work it, gurl -- Thanks to an amazing case of jet lag, I was out on the street rather early this morning in Hanoi and so I was able to witness the exercise routines that take place around a lake in the middle of the city.
My favorite was a group of about 12 women doing dances that looked like those guys from the "Night at the Roxbury." Young and old, they were showing no shame in breaking it down and getting a bit freaking right out on the sidewalk under the cover of a department store entrance in the middle of town as their boom box blasted disco tunes.
This was at 8 a.m.
I would have taken a video of them, but I was too embarrassed to look at them, much less stand there filming them. They did all, however, look to be in good in shape and so I guess it's working. "Get up, check ya weave..."
Travels in another language -- Finally, after flailing about for the first day of trip in an attempt at even basic commuication, I decided to buy a Vietnamese phrase book and try to learn some of the language.
Vietnam, you will regret this.
As my French friends of five years can certifty, my pronounciation skills in another language are less than great -- and so the hilarity that I must be bringing to the people of Vietnam with my attempts to say please, thank you or to ask for another beer must be out of this world.
And yet, I find this entertaining and the laughter that I hear when I exit my last location of business tells me that they do also.
Laughter can heal the world.
I think M.J. would agree.
Take care,
-- Brett
Make it a better place -- Upon my arrival yesterday, I decided that I had just about enough of the public transportation up to that point and so I made an executive decision to take the first taxi available at the airport that offered a reasonable price -- as opposed to trying to figure out the bus system into the city and to my hotel.
As I was getting money out of an ATM at the airport a young Vietnamese man came up to me and asked if I needed a taxi.
For $15, he said, he could take me to my hotel in the center of town.
Deal, I said, since my guide book from 2003 or so said the price should be around $10. So off we went off, on the road after a little waiting.
"You like Michael Jackson?" he asked as we sped away.
Sure, why not? I replied. Who doesn't?
Suddenly, we were listening to MJ sing about how we could, if we really wanted to...
"Create a world with no fear
Together we'll cry happy tears
See the nations turn
Their swords into plowshares."
This was all blasting as we sped down the highway on a cloudy and cool morning toward Hanoi, past rice fields featuring women in conical hats tending to their crops.
Poetic, no?
Yeah, I didn't think so either.
I was wondering if I could smoke in the car, in fact.
Next up was Celine Dion singing "My heart will go on."
And then it was another playing of ''Heal the world.''
Having apparently run out of American music, we drove in silence the rest of the way. Honking was our soundtrack.
It was an improvement.
Spooning -- Having dropped my bags at the hotel, I ventured out into the bustling city to get something to eat. I tried several places but had no luck, mostly because my Vietnamese was so bad (more on that later). But I finally found a busy street-side restaurant that seemed, if not eager to have me, at least willing to take my money for the hassle of having a round eye like me take up a table.
The process of eating at a street stall isn't all that easy. You're supposed to pick out what you want and what you don't want and it's a bit difficult when you don't know the word for chicken or for beef or how to say, "Please, no intestines, thanks."
But I managed to get them to fill a half bowl of rice with pieces of chicken and what I think was beef. And the rest was some kind of spinach vegetable. And then they gave me a soup on the side.
I sat in the corner on the second floor.
I'm not good with chopsticks. I did fairly well with the rice until it stopped sticking together. Then I tucked into the soup and I finished that off.
But suddenly, just I was getting to leave (which would have made the waiters very happy since they were trying to turn over table very quickly at lunch hour) I had an "ah-ha" moment.
I can use the soup spoon to finish the rest of the pesky rice, I thought with glee.
And so I did. It was great.
That was until I looked up to find a Vietnamese woman at a nearby table watching me do this much in the same way that a Westerner would watch an Asian man eat cheese cake with a pair of knives. She seemed more amused than horrified -- and so I just smiled. And she smiled back. Ah, the international language of jackassery.
Frogger, for real -- Traffic isn't all that crazy here if you're involved in it. If you happen to be walking, however, it's a life or death scenario.
You're going to think I'm joking when I say that people on foot just wander out into oncoming traffic when they cross the street. But that's it, they just venture out there and see what happens. The scooters (which make up 80% of the vehicles on the road here) don't stop to save the lives of pedestrians, they just alter their course so that they don't hit them.
It seems to work out rather well from what I've seen so far.
Myself, on the other hand, remember stories about how much it hurts when you get hit just by a bicyclist and so I don't want to find out what happens when a Vietnamese Vespa clips me. And so this has left me sprinting across the streets when I cross, which, now that I think about it, is probably worse than doing the normal walking thing since I'm probably messing with their timing.
I guess that time will tell.
I'd rather run for it though as opposed to having my obit read, "Brett Corbin died while leisurely walking through heavy traffic in Hanoi. He was 32. Blood tests are pending."
Thanks to all those scooters, the smog is very bad here. Lots of people walking around, and nearly everyone on a scooter, wears one of those swine-flu virus masks. But what's really strange is when a suddend lull in traffic occurs that leaves you walking down a quiet street in the middle of the city.
You can actually hear yourself cough.
It's spooky.
The thought also occured to me, while walking the streets today, that they should have a global competition for the best/worst drivers in world.
There could be a division for scooters and a division for cars. It could be part of the Olympics. My money is on India.
Work it, gurl -- Thanks to an amazing case of jet lag, I was out on the street rather early this morning in Hanoi and so I was able to witness the exercise routines that take place around a lake in the middle of the city.
My favorite was a group of about 12 women doing dances that looked like those guys from the "Night at the Roxbury." Young and old, they were showing no shame in breaking it down and getting a bit freaking right out on the sidewalk under the cover of a department store entrance in the middle of town as their boom box blasted disco tunes.
This was at 8 a.m.
I would have taken a video of them, but I was too embarrassed to look at them, much less stand there filming them. They did all, however, look to be in good in shape and so I guess it's working. "Get up, check ya weave..."
Travels in another language -- Finally, after flailing about for the first day of trip in an attempt at even basic commuication, I decided to buy a Vietnamese phrase book and try to learn some of the language.
Vietnam, you will regret this.
As my French friends of five years can certifty, my pronounciation skills in another language are less than great -- and so the hilarity that I must be bringing to the people of Vietnam with my attempts to say please, thank you or to ask for another beer must be out of this world.
And yet, I find this entertaining and the laughter that I hear when I exit my last location of business tells me that they do also.
Laughter can heal the world.
I think M.J. would agree.
Take care,
-- Brett
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