Home - Orange County, CA

Ever checked out what's actually on TV at 4:48 in the morning? It's pretty disappointing, I can tell you. I almost prefer the inane Chinese game shows and costume soap operas which I didn't understand even a little.

Surprisingly, I managed to sleep that late after the long day of travel. The flight left Seoul at 9:15 and landed in L.A. eleven hours later. Again, thanks to the nice little pill provided by my physician, I slept for about half of the flight. I mention it because I (famously) never manage to sleep on flights and because being out for so long really screwed with my head. Before on long flights, since I was awake the whole time, an overseas flight really felt long. When I would arrive (whatever) the destination, it really felt like I was far away. Upon arrival yesterday, L.A. didn't seem all that distant. It's hard to explain, but it threw me into a melancholic funk. However, that didn't keep me from hitting the In 'n' Out on Sepulveda for my first meal. The Double-Double was memorable as always and probably made an immediate dent in the 10 pounds I lost the past six weeks.

Part of my mindset has to do with going from being surrounded by (seemingly) millions of people all day long to life in So. Cal. and our concept of what crowded is. The 405 at 6:30 on a Monday night? No problem. In fact, I am vowing to never complain again about traffic conditions. Maybe I'll whimper a little, but that'll be it. Part of my mood also has to do with the fact that I may have suffered a serious technical glitch that may have wiped out a few hundred pictures mainly from Vietnam and China. I haven't cried in a long time, but if it turns out that I really did lose a lot of my photos, I may lose it. The flashcards are at Costco as we speak undergoing some kind of analysis. Hopefully by today, I'll have a better sense of things.

No matter where I go, I always consider it a valuable experience. Obviously, some places are better than others for any number of reasons. Would I go back? Yes and no. Here's the wrap:

Cambodia - I would absolutely love to go back to the southern coast and explore that area in much more detail. The people were wonderful there. The countryside was spectacular and with a few exceptions, the area is not very touristy. If I were an ancient temple fanatic, I'd go back to Angkor Wat, but since temples aren't really my thing, don't see any reason to go back there. The only temples that I really cherish are named Fenway and Camden Yards, so you know... And Phnom Penh? I know that if I travelled to the south, I'd pretty much have to go through PP to get there so I won't say anything too negative except that it wasn't my favorite place. Cambodia was a fascinating place all in all. I was pretty prepared for most of what I saw, though I admit that the road conditions caught me off guard. Still, in a developing country, it comes with the territory.

Vietnam - I really wasn't prepared for how crowded just about everywhere seemed to be and the level of poverty I encountered. I think I can best explain myself by saying that the only Vietnamese community I know is the one in Garden Grove. In less than two generations the Vietnamese who came to this country have built a very impressive community. It really goes to show the impact that governments have on people's lives. Culturally the people that live here aren't all that different from the ones that live there, but Vietnam is definitely another world as the result of it's socialist policies. It's really a shame, because it's a place with so much natural beauty that is marred by pollution, corruption and overcrowding. Hoi An/Da Nang was great. I'd go back so that I could visit Sapa and Ha Long Bay and possibly Dalat, but with the exception of Hoi An, I don't think I 'd be going to any of the places I visited again. And I'd prefer to go with someone who speaks the language so as not to be getting ripped off quite so much. The food, however, was something very special. As I moved from south to north, I tried new things and really saw a lot of variety in the cuisine. And of course, the fresh beer for about .25/glass can't be beat.

China - The China I saw last year was very different from the one I saw this year. Maybe my plans were too ambitious which caused me to spend a whole lot of time moving from one place to another on one bus or train too many. Maybe it was the lack of English time and time again. Or maybe I got a more accurate glimpse of the real deal. Without my friend Chao accompanying me, it would've been almost impossible to move the way I did. As with Vietnam, the food was unbelievable. Chinese food is my second favorite (Italian is numero uno) food and this trip really solidified that perspective. If the Chinese had better dessert options and anything approaching Italian wines, it would be number one, but that's a whole 'nother blog. Of all the cities I visited, really only Huangshan and Shanghai are really the only ones I'd want to see again.

The amazing thing is that for all of the travel-related issues that I came across, all three countries make it work somehow. My complaints are based on what I have come to expect from my travels both here at home and abroad. For all my discomfort, I got to where I needed to be, as did the hundreds of my fellow passengers on every bus, train, plane and boat. The two things that this trip really confirmed in my eyes is that a country's transportation infrastructure clearly relates to how far along it is. As I moved from Cambodia to China, I saw better conditions of roads, vehicles and facilities which translate directly into traveler comfort. I've seen the same things in Latin America and Western and Eastern Europe. The other revelation is the trash situation. It's simply a tragedy that I saw so many beautiful places stained by people whose cultures don't value cleanliness a whole lot. I know that the reasons behind this are complex and that my own country craps all over the environment like few others, but I'm not talking about dumping chemicals in streams which most people never see, I'm talking about putting lunch leftovers in a receptacle. Shame.

All in all, no serious regrets. And if the economy doesn't improve, then Asia will remain a great place to spend my meager dollars and get a lot of bang for the buck. I'll be back. Thanks for reading for the past six weeks. If you're in need of any travel ideas, tips and the like, get in touch. Hopefully, all of the pictures of the trip will be at www.fotoz.smugmug.com in the next week or so.

You can't expect to understand the world unless you get out and see it.

Z

"I can't believe this is China." - Seoul, Korea

Just landed here in Seoul after a 90-minute flight from Shanghai on a eerily empty plane. Even when I flew to Mexico when the swine flu thing was hopping, the plane was more full. This was a huge 777 about 1/3 full, I'm guessing. I had all three seats to myself and there were no passengers in the four seats next to mine, nor the three on the other side of the plane. Not sure how Korean Air made any money on that one... The ride to the airport was first on the subway and then on the Maglev train. This is a magnetic-elevated bullet thing that goes 300 km/hour- that's just under 200 m.p.h. and unlike the Shinkansen of Japan which rides on elevated lines above everything, this train rides just a little higher than the traffic below it. So you really get sense of how fast you're hauling. That was good fun! It covered 30km in seven minutes. Gulp...

I had planned to blog from Shanghai, but in the tourist areas (unlike in seemingly everywhere else in China) there aren't any internet cafes. Actually, this works out better because I am actually doing this myself on the Blogger website, rather than having to use my sister as a mule for my scary words and thoughts. Plus, the good folks that run this airport are letting me do this for free.

The advertised 6-hour bus ride to Shanghai turned out to be around 8 hours. This was standard practice as I found out due to the 23 stops that apparently must be made before entering the highway. Despite the length, the ride was very good on roads that rival the best highways of North America and Europe. We stopped for lunch at one of those places that exist (in the middle of nowhere) just for passing buses to stop for lunch. I swear, it was the cleanest one of those places I've ever seen in any country! Other than the driver's co-pilot guy screaming at some guy for not sitting in his assigned seat, it was a pleasant ride. We found the hostel and didn't do a whole lot that first night after the long day of travel.

The next day we ventured out and started to get a sense of this city. It didn't take long before my buddy Chao muttered the "I can't believe this is China." line. I couldn't believe it either, but I don't know it as well as he does obviously. So why the amazement? Well, as we walked down a street with a shopping center on every corner and all of South Coast Plaza's best tennants at every turn, it was easy to see why we were struck with bewilderment. I knew that the city was a shopper's paradise, but I wasn't expecting this kind of shopping. So even though it was all nice, it was also way beyond my means. We arrived at the Bund area and again were floored by the stores and the Times Square feeling. At night the place came alive and took on a Vegas look. Yesterday we considered going to the top of the tallest building in China for a look at Shanghai at dusk but decided that the $20 to ride an elevator was obscene.

Unfortunately, next year Shanghai is hosting the World Expo which means that this year there is construction all over the place, taking some of the luster off the sights. That, of course, didn't keep huge crowds from the city. It wasn't too hot, but the humidity was pretty brutal. Which reminds me of a not-so-thrilling adventure: My search for deodorant. I ran out yesterday. Of course, I knew I would soon be out so I went looking the day before. I think I would've had better luck finding a snowball in Beirut. When I asked Chao why this was the case, he explained that the overwhelming number of Chinese don't use it because they don't need it. I asked him how this was possible, and he rambled on about being a more evolved superior race. I know he was half-kidding about the superiority thing, but since he mentioned it, I admit that walking the streets one doesn't pick up the scents that one might on the streets of most European cities in the summer. Or maybe the odors are overwhelmed by all the cigarette smoke. I finally did find a can of that Axe crap but the store wanted $10 for it. I decided it was better to smell like an earthy man than a 7th-grade boy. As soon as I am done, I will look for some here at this airport, but it is an airport so I'm not expecting any bargains.

Speaking of smells...I also sought baking soda to clean my sandals and backpack, but was shut out time and time again. After six weeks of sun and sweat, my sandals and especially my backpack couldn't smell worse. The backpack smells like it's been wedged between the saddle and a camel trekking through the desert. I don't actually know what this smells like, but I imagine it is something along the lines of an exhumed corpse. Too much? Well, finally found it at the place with the Axe, but with only two days left at that point, decided to let it add to my aura.

OK, enough with the less-than-glamorous aspects of travel. A note about the food: Wow. Again and again, I ate amazing things all over China. The past week has been especially memorable around the mountain where everything is locally grown and very fresh and then in Shanghai. We ate so well that I'll repeat what I said last year: It's worth all the hassles just to come here and eat. We seemed to find lots of varieties of mushrooms prepared in all kinds of ways including some wild ones that I had never seen. And yet again, I ate lamb and loved it. I got to thinking that I hadn't eaten it in a year since I was in China. I can't eat lamb anywhere that does not require me to use my passport. It's complicated...

Happy to report that today my knees are finally resembling my knees. The brutal descent the other day at the mountain damned near killed my legs the following two days. I guess the 43 years (as of yesterday) are starting to show up in ways beyond the receding hairline. Reality is not a pleasant thing sometimes. And here is another one: This trip is over. In some ways the six weeks flew and in others, it definitely seemed like six weeks. I always do a post-trip entry after I arrive. And in case you aren't aware, I always observe the traditional first meal back. The rule is that if I travel for at least three weeks overseas, then the first meal back must take place at In 'n' Out, provided that I have not had any hamburgers on the trip. I never eat hamburgers anwyhere but America, so that condition is safe. My flight gets in at jsut before 5:00 pm in L.A., so the timing couldn't be much better. The first time I awaken at 3:00 am in a jet-lagged stupor I'll do one last entry to wrap it up.

Thanks for reading.

The Hike - Huangshan, China

Woke up early and started out on the the big hike. The first two hours was a sadistic uphill climb. Fortunately, it was pretty early and actually kind of cool. There were plenty of folks already on the trail when we arrived at 8:08. Upon completing that two hour stretch, we arrived at a scene that reminded me of a train station here. There were thousands of people everywhere at a kind of crossroads of different trails. The omnipresent tourgroups were extremely well-represented. And since there is no smoking on the trail, this was the chance that seemingly all the Chinese men had been waiting for. I'm not kidding. There is a redline painted on the ground where the trail ends and this part begins to indicate where you can puff away and where you can't. It was quite the scene but absolutely nothing compared to what we'd stumble across soon enough.

The next hour or so was pretty much a level hike, but the number of hikers on the trail seemed to be getting bigger. It was. After that, the next couple of hours were spent in what could be best characterized as L.A.-style freeway gridlock. There were times where we did not (could not) budge for a minute or two at a time due to the insane numbers of folks on the trail. Part of the problem was the width of the trail itself. Also, there were folks who sat in throne like carriers being carried up and down the darned trail by some pretty stout dudes with calves like cannons. But seriously, the big culprit was the quantity of hikers. In my naivete, I thought that I'd be enjoying a nature-bonding experience more or less on an intimate level. I simply didn't fathom that there would be (easily) over 10,000 people out and about doing the same thing. As we apporached points of interest, the bottlenecking began and it was surreal, at least for this American. There came a moment at THE most popular site, that I decided that I was over it. I couldn't deal with the numbers. Imagine Disneyland on a typical summer day, but out amongst the mountains, I guess.

It has to be noted that the scenery was spectacular, which explains the bedlam on the trails. The cloud cover, rain and fog kept me from getting the pictures I would've preferred, but also kept us reasonably cool. The last 3 hours-plus was spent going down and down and down. This was a knee-popping experience, but mercifully more peaceful as the majority of the hordes had opted for taking the cable car back to the base. I would love to come back here in the slow season or even in winter with snow all around. The place merits all the hype it gets!

Tomorrow I have one more bus ride of the six-hour variety into Shanghai as I round third and head for home. I can't believe it took me so long to throw in a baseball metaphor. I'll be back once for sure and then again when I get back to the OC.

Cheers.

10:08 - Huangshan, China

Early on yesterday I knew that whatever happened, it would be a nightmarish sort of day. You know, the kind that would help explain why it is that something like 85% of Americans don't even have a passport. So in a moment of morbid curiosity, I decided to time the amount of time spent actually travelling, hence the title. However, truth be told, the actual amount between walking out of one hotel and into another was in the neighborhood of 14 hours and change.

The day started out on a crappy note when we missed the first bus. It was a nine-hour trip, but that was scratched almost immediately. Oh yeahh, time to 'fess up. As I started to blog about the China leg of this trip, I wrote everything in the first person as if I was doing this solo. Actually, my pal Chao from last year's China trip joined me from the get-go and we've been going through all the China-stuff as a team. I guess I had hoped to make it appear as if I could handle China on my own. The fact is, for the overwhelming most part, I can't see how a non-Chinese speaking person (even one with my considerable experience) could possibly get around this country and in particular on a day like yesterday when things didn't exactly go as planned. Without Chao in tow, I'd be in the middle of a rice paddy right now trying to figure out how to contact my embassy. So, yeahh, he's been around. He gets to practice his English and I get a little peace of mind and after four weeks of going solo, it's nice to have a friend around.

So, yes, we missed the bus and ended up having to take another bus to a different city (Jiujiang) where we would then (in theory) catch another bus to here. First off, the 'bus' was a basically a 15-passenger van, but I admit that we were pretty comfortable in there. Of course upon arriving, we were told that there was no bus that day. So we hopped in a taxi and went to the train station to see what our options were there. They basically were non-existent, but we were told that there was a bus that went to (yet) another city (Jing Dezheng) that would allow us to take the train that we wanted. So, back into another taxi to the bus station. This time the bus was an actual bus that happened to be driven by my dad! Well, not really, but he might as well have been. I mean that in the nicest way possible. Honestly, for as slowly as he drove and on a road that was undergoing construction, I could've built a house of cards on my lap and not had it collapse. I guess all my venom about the drivers here must have been read by the censors and forwarded to someone in high places here.

Well, the best part was coming up...I typically prefer trains to bus travel for any number of reasons, but I have to say that after the four hours-plus yesterday on the last big leg of the trip, I can think of a dozen very unpleasant things I'd rather do before I get back on a Chinese train. I'd rather be dodging mopeds in Saigon or sitting in a sadistic dentist's chair, for example. How to describe it? In a word, a circus. I think we were in the car from hell, though Chao swears that the others were worse. The people in there reminded me of what you might see on a typical visit to the DMV. Too harsh? Perhaps. After all, at the DMV, people don't spit on the floor and throw their uneaten food there either. Not even at the one in Santa Ana! Sorry. The sad irony was that the car we were in was maintained by a saint of a woman in a way I have NEVER seen on any train anywhere. Of course, if the passengers in it didn't treat it the way a baby treats a diaper, she wouldn't have had so much to do. Anyway, she more than earned her yuan. Oh and the noise. I cannot begin to describe what that was like. Between all the yelling, screaming into cell phones and the loud radio program piped in to the whole car, my iPod finally met it's match. When I went to turn it on, a message appeared on the screen saying "Yeahh, right!" Actually, despite my killer headphones and the poor thing at full blast, I was only able to escape as far as purgatory. And just to put the cherry on the sundae, the last scene was the best. Some loud, shirtless pile of #!*%# tried to forcibly open the bathroom with a knife which the woman had locked as the train was arriving to the station. He yelled at her to open it, kicked it very hard twice and finally, she relented. I felt so bad for her. To think that she has to deal with this kind of crap day in and day out, depressed the heck out me.

So finally got to Tunxi and hopped in a taxi for a 45 minute ride to Huangshan. The road we took to get here was honestly, the nicest road in all China. The tunnels we went through looked brand new. There were hardly any cars on the road (it was approaching 11:00) which allowed our driver a chance to really let it all out! It was actually pleasurable getting to the hotel. The hotel is the nicest one I've been in on the whole trip and after yesterday, a welcomed relief!

Here, by the way, is one of the more picturesque spots in the country. Tomorrow we will spend around 10 hours hiking and taking it all in. Today we got our feet wet (literally) at a series of waterfalls that required some trekking. It was beautiful and got us kind of fired up for tomorrow. The food here in Anhui province is very nice but I stayed away from the rat and dog entrees. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I might not have believed it.

Hope to blog after the hike or at the latest, upon arriving in Shanghai for the last three nights of this adventure. Stay tuned...

(Mostly) Cruising the Yangtze - Wuhan, China

I got a hold of the contract that bus drivers in this country sign upon being handed the keys. I looked and looked, but nowhere did I see any kind of stipulation requiring the driver to push the physical limits of the vehicle at every possible moment. Nor could I find any language pertaining to the number of times that passengers' butt cheeks should leave their rightful place on the seat. This, of course, ought to give you an idea of what the three-hour drive was like the other night in lieu of cruising time. This was due to high levels of river water which for some reason, makes it dangerous for cruise ships. Ironically, all of us brave souls were put on a bus driven by someone who had to have been exposed to pesticides as an infant. I know I'm prone to exaggerate, but the audible gasps of others on the bus would seem to confirm my take on the situation.

The bus finally (literally) came to a screeching halt at 10:30 whereupon we all descended a couple of hundred steps down to the river and then (with suitcase in hand) walked about 300 yards on a series of catwalks suspended precariously over the water out to the ship. Oh and it was basically pitch black out there. Nice beginning! The room was nothing luxurious by any stretch, but it was plenty adequate. That first night, the ship didn't budge. The following morning, did a tour of the ghost city of Fengdu. To get there, we had to retrace our steps from the night before. It was only then that I fully appreciated what we all had to endure the night before. We were all herded around by a woman with a portable microphone and one of those flags that tour guides wave. I simply can't think of too many things that I hate more than precisely this kind of tourist experience. But, I sucked it up and dealt with it for the moment. It didn't help that it was very, very hot and there were dozens and dozens of other tour groups doing exactly the same thing. Almost all were Chinese groups, of course.

As a Cuban, I am well within my rights to say that Cubans are some of the loudest people in the history of the world. But I have to say, that even some of the most raucous Cubanazos I know simply wouldn't be able to keep up with some of the folks I spent the past few days with. And to make matters even more festive, is the peculiar habit of firing up a cigarette for just about any reason. Let's see...we all took turns posing in front of this pagoda, we must smoke. We just climbed this intimidating staircase...we're all sweating and out of breath so...let's all have a ciggy! In all my China euphoria from last year, I simply had forgotten about the love affair this country has with the cancer sticks. I'm considering taking up the habit when I return, since in the week I've been here, I've second-handed a repugnant quantity of smoke...I might as well get the less-offensive stuff straight from the source.

But back to my cruise...This was my first cruise experience. Did I mention I was the only American? And no, for once I am not exaggerating. I know this because, the tour organizer had the peculiar practice of identifying the foreigners by their nationalities. So I also know that there were 2 Brits, 8 French and 2 Dutch. This out of 150 passengers. Kind of par for the course on this trip for me, so no worries. Oh, the food...well done there! There was plenty of it and it was very good. I was so pleased that after the first day, the fork and knife that had been there the first meal were gone. At one point I did drop some cabbage in my beer, but everyone was very kind to overlook that.

The river itself was something of a disappointment. It's called The Mighty Yangtze and this is fine if by 'mighty', they mean 'mighty polluted'. What a shame. There is a lot of natural material that stays on the surface and that's fine, but the floating slippers, bottles and other crap are not so nice. The water is very brown and murky as well. However, the actual gorges are well, gorgeous. Fantastic scenery without a doubt!

Yesterday, we were taken on a smaller boat for an hour to a completely almost pristine part of the river and then transferred into canoes that were rowed by local men. This was great. The water was so inviting and the mini-gorges were almost better than the bigger, more famous ones. Upon returning, we were informed that the ship would not be going through the locks and passing by the third of the three big gorges. Again, something having to do with the water levels and a back up of other ships with higher priority. Hmmm. So today, we toured the impressive dam facility by bus and foot. Then we got on a bus (thankfully piloted by someone who hadn't been sniffing glue) and drove the final leg of the cruise.

Hopped on a train and five hours later, here I am. Only here, it should be noted, as a bit of a break in the miles. Tomorrow, I am prepared to endure what will probably be the worst travel day on the whole trip. For one, it's going to be nine hours (at least). Second, it's on a bus...don't get me started again. And third, a decent chunk of the time will be spent driving all kinds of curves at all kinds of elevations. Fun, fun, fun. The payoff will be in the scenery when the sun rises on Wednesday. More to come...

The Sizzle - Chongqing, China

If you know me then you know of my heritage and can assume some things about what my diet must have included ever since I was a little 'mocoso'. Point is, I've been an eater and lover of spicy foods forever. I'm not fanatical like the old man, but I love a good curry, hot sauce or whatever dish has a little kick to it. Despite all manner of hot and spicy foods that I have consumed all over the world, what happened yesterday was a first.

The 'hotpot' experience involves cooking any number of things using chopsticks in a huge kettle-like thing of a chili-saturated sauce right at your table. Imagine a sadistic version of fondue and you got the idea. You order all the stuff raw and it appears moments later on a huge tray. You wait for the chili to start to boil and then drop your food into the murky, chili-infested waters. Mercifully, you are also given a bowl of toasted sesame oil and raw garlic which you add to the sesame oil as much as you'd like. Prior to eating your food, you dip it in the oil to take some of the edge off. So, after all this build up, you know that it was painfully hot. However, it was also very tasty. It wasn't just hot for hot's sake; there was a lot of great flavor there. There are two main chilis at work here and one of them is not much bigger than a peppercorn. Small though it might be, the punch in that little peppper caused my lips to tingle in a freakish way. That's never happened. It was as if someone had attached electrodes to my lips and thrown a switch. I was later informed that dentists here use that particular chili as a novacaine substitute! And of course, the more I ate, the more it went on. And it goes without saying, that the sweating that went on was legendary. In my haste to mop my brow, I (more than once) wiped off my forehead and cheeks with napkins that had been used to wipe off the chili sauce, so within minutes, pretty much my whole face was a tingly mess. I was encouraged not to drink the beer for relief because that would only cause the next bite to appear to be hotter than it actually was. It was quite the experience. I am so relieved that I was able to eat quite a bit and with the exception of some heartburn, I didn't suffer the kind of intestinal distress that I thought would surely be my destiny.

The over 6 1/2 hour ride here from Chengdu was nowhere near the pleasant experience that my first bus ride in this country was. The driver...where to begin?!? Nice enough of a guy, but not what I would think of as being a pro. Were it only for smoking half a pack of cigarettes or talking with his buddy in the first row for half the ride, then he might've been OK. But he also seemed to pay too much attention to the TV monitor just above his head and spend too much time on his cell phone. And the dozen or so times he hocked up a nice phlegm biscuit didn't do a whole lot to endear me to him either. Oh and he drove the bus through a curvy, hilly region with a little too much gusto for my taste. It was a memorable ride on a trip where there have already been a few too many. Crap, I have three more to go I think.

This city is staggeringly huge and not all that picturesque in a nice way, to be honest. My hostel is sandwiched and dwarfed by huge tenement apartment buildings which are covered in city-filth and look like they were all the rage right about the time Nixon was getting his walking papers. It's really something to see yet another huge city in this country. And huge in China is not like huge in USA. This city would probably only be topped by NY, as far as people go. And I just left Chengdu which could claim the same thing. On it goes...I heard the other day that the population is now 1.3 billion here. Just imagine what it would be if the government here was a little more relaxed when it comes to such things.

Tomorrow I head off on a three-night, four day cruise of the Yangste River. I know, I know, I claim to not do cruises. Well, this is on a river, so that's the first thing to understand. Also, to come to this part of the country and not do this cruise is not really an option. It's supposed to be staggeringly beautiful. However, I was informed tonight that due to the rising levels of the river, I will not be able to board here in Chongqing. I will have to (oh, the agony!) hop on a bus for three hours to board down river somewhere else. Lovely.

I doubt seriously I'll be able to write anything until after the trip, so until then, eat something spicy and think of me. Especially if you have to get up in the middle of the night to deal with some of the consequences!

Bon Appetit!

Pandas, Buddhas and Confessions - Leshan, China

Sitting in a obscenely crowded internet place in a town where yet again, I stand out like a sore thumb. I know I've mentioned this before and I hate to be repetitive, but when you get into your forties and I encounter something for the first time despite my worldliness, it just doesn't fade away all that easily. And again, I'm not complaining at all...but I can't help but say something. At least at this place (unlike the one in Chengdu) the air is breathable. The other one could not have had a bigger show of no-smoking signage at the entrance despite boasting a collection of overflowing ashtrays that would rival a typical casino in Vegas.

Pandas: Gotta say that the panda thing was actually pretty cool. They are hilarious animals. Got there early enough to see them quite active and putting on quite the show. I could've actually held one and been photographed, but the 'donation' they were requesting was over $100 for less than a minute. And that's dollars, not RMB. I like them and all, but that would buy a lot of a lot of things here. The night before, was convinced at the hostel to attend a performance of the Sichuan Opera. When I made a face, I was assured that by 'opera' they meant something that had nothing to do with my idea of what an opera is. Fair enough. It turned out to be more like a variety show of all kinds of talented folks doing everything from hand shadow puppetry to mask-switching to a nimble young lady who juggled a table (!) with her feet. That was incredible. By the way, the mask-switching is awesome. Hard to explain it, but it's kind of like a magic act in that the performers literally change the elaborate mask they are wearing into a completely different one in the blink of an eye. Google it. It was that cool.

Buddha: The reason this town is on the map, is because of the world's largest Buddha carved into the side of a hill. Kind of like Mt. Rushmore, I suppose. The thing is 71 meters high. First you get to climb a bunch of steps to get to the top of it, then descend an insanely steep and vertigo-inducing set of steps to get to the bottom of it. Then walk up again. It sounds kind of goofy, but it was pretty cool, I have to admit. The place was crawling with tourists. At one point, a Chinese woman motioned for me to pose with her so her friend could take our picture. When I tried to indicate to her that I was a sweaty, repugnant mess, she made it clear that it was OK. Maybe she was participating in an elaborate scavenger hunt and I satisfied the get a picture with a foreigner requirement. The hotel I'm 'enjoying' is the second worst one on the trip. It goes to show that blindly following the old Lonely Planet travel guide can sometimes be a lousy strategy.

Confessions: I have two. First, for the most part, I really enjoyed the hostel environment in Chengdu. I hadn't stayed in a proper hostel in ages, but found the whole dynamic there very, very invigorating. You meet people of all ages from all over the world, share stories, maybe play some pool and just hang out. The place had a bar, restaurant and the staff made it very livable. I may be staying in a few more before this trip is over. The price is very right, which doesn't hurt. My other confession involves what I are for dinner tonight. I usually make fun of the tourists who eat in Western places whilst in eastern locales, but I caved. Mostly, it was cause honestly, the majority of places I've seen here look a lot like the place in Hanoi where I had that gnarly bowl of noodles that made my insides an ugly place. The other thing is that I go to KFC about once every three years anyway, so while it did have some of the comfort of a meal from home, it was still kind of exotic for me. But wait, it gets better. I ate a chicken sandwich with what can best be described as a hazelnut curry spread. This was served with fries (that was nice) and little fish sticks and a coffee-flavored drink. This value meal was about $4. The chicken patty was not the all-white meat you get back home, but the ketchup was Heinz, so they got that right. I only feel a little guilty because after four weeks of different versions of a lot of the same things, I needed to change it up a bit.

Tomorrow, it's off to Chongqing to kill a couple of days in preparation for a Yangtse river cruise. By the way, the 2-hour bus ride here was by FAR the best bus I've been on in four weeks. It helps that the road was paved correctly and free of animals, tuk-tuks, bicyclicsts and mopeds. The only thing that made it any different from being home is the unique driving style of the Chinese. I think that's about as far out on that particular limb as I'm willing to go.

Mum's the Word - Chengdu, China

Find myself in China and unable to update what you're reading. That's right, the expression cops are out in force and I'm prohibited from accessing this website. So, my sister in Italy has been summoned to be a proxy for me. I'm sending her the info and she is posting it. So in a way, this is even more dynamic given all the miles that my ramblings are traveling. Grazie Mille Caridad!

The last couple of days in Vietnam were a mix of the same and some pleasant surprises. After eating the first thing on this trip that my stomach didn't appreciate none-too-much (a bowl of beef pho...me thinks the beef and a refrigerator never met along the way to my stomach), I ate really well at the same restaurant. I was told to go there by someone at the hotel and it was so good, I ended up going for both lunch and dinner there. The menu was extensive and the quality of the food was outstanding. I'm not all that used to drinking my beer with ice, but it's either that or enjoy it like the Brits do. The last day hopped on the back of a motorbike and got a better sense of Hanoi, not just the old quarter where the hotel was. Again, just a crazy town in so many ways. My last night was spent huddled under the awning of a a storefront avoiding the pouring rain with a bunch of locals and tourists and enjoying my last few bia hois.

The next day I got up and went out to the airport to await my immigration fate. I decided that loading my passport with a wad of dong in anticipation of my being punished for the expired visa was not a good tactic. I figured I'd just play dumb and pretend that I didn't know about it. Good call. The guy took a little longer than usual to surmise the situation, but in the end, without even uttering an unitelligible syllable, he stamped me right out of Vietnam and that was it. All that stress for nothing. A couple of hours later I was in China on a layover at (yet another) stunning airport in Guangzhou. It was huge! I deplaned at gate 121 and walked into a gorgeous facility. The entire downstairs was a nothing but restaurants and shops. I flew China Southern for both legs of the trip here and was very pleased by the service. For example, I was not charged for having the audacity to you know, pack a suitcase and was offered a meal on both flights for free. Staggering, I know. On the second flight, I was the only western face on the aircraft, but all the announcements were done in English as well, so I kind of felt like it was all for me.

So, China! Chengdu is a huge city of over 10 million. There are new buildings going up everywhere and this is the food capital of the country, arguably, of course. It is the capital of the Sichuan region which is known for some of the spiciest food on the planet. I have to say that I almost welcome the chaotic traffic here compared to in Vietnam, perverse as that may sound. It's simple: Here the overwhelming majority of traffic is cars and there isn't the constant din of horns blaring every second of the commute. It's not exactly relaxing, but a very nice change of pace. Spent the morning today walking quite a bit and taking in some very impressive temples. At one, there were hordes and hordes of tourists, most of which looked nothing like me! In fact, I counted more planes taking off from the nearby airport than any of my peeps! In front of a particularly picturesque temple, a dad tried to get his (I'm guessing) 5 or 6-year-old kid to pose with me for a picture, but the kid would have none of it. It was very funny. He kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye, but couldn't get himself to work up the courage to get too close. Good stuff. Amazingly, surrounding the temples is a series of well-manicured streets with shops and food that is like a cross between Universal Studio's Citywalk and Downtown Disney. I almost choked on my green tea as I turned a corner and bumped into a Dairy Queen. Who would've thunk you could get a Blizzard in a place where it's almost impossible to find someone who speaks English? Gotta love corporate America, boy! USA! USA! USA!

Oh and a weather update...it is NICE here. It is normally supposed to be infernally hot, but it has been raining lately and even though it hasn't rained since I've been here, it has been blissfully very mild! Just ending on a positive note!

Haven't put my digestive system through the challenge of the fiery food yet, but what I have eaten has been (not surprisingly) very good. Things are not as cheap here as in Vietnam, which is not to say they are expensive, but I definitely got spoiled over the past two weeks. Staying at a funky youth hostel. I know, I know. I am not the eldest tourist there, however! It's an old factory building that was rennovated by some artists. They brought in unfinished wood, metal and along with industrial cement and some cool artwork, it's a very unique place. It's along the lines of what I want to do in my retirement in Mexico, maybe. Tomorrow, it's off to see the pandas! I normally wouldn't be fawning over the bears, but apparently, this is a must-do thing whilst here. And come to think of it, I don't think I've actually ever seen one in person so me and Ling Ling have a date!

Same, Same...But Different - Hanoi, Vietnam

The title above is in reference to a saying that's found on T-shirts all over South East Asia. I'm not really sure what it means or why it is so popular, but the locals tend to use it a whole lot. It's appropriate to mention it given the particulars of this city.

While I won't go so far as to say that things are more hectic here than in HCMC, I'll definitely admit that it's in the same ballpark. I'm staying in the old quarter which is only enhancing my perspective on things. For one thing, there are no signal lights. Well, there actually are signal lights, they just don't work. The streets are very narrow and there is a constant parade of all manner of people getting around in all manner of ways. The traffic signals would only congest everything, so they just don't function. So in some ways, crossing the street here is even more hair-raising than in HCMC. The old quarter itself is rough around the edges, to say the least. I can certainly see why people think this area is charming and all, I had just hoped it would've been a little more placid.

The ride to the hotel took almost as long as the flight from Hue. Traffic moved about as fast as a funeral procession. I've seen a few things since I arrived yesterday morning, but really, my plan is just to walk around a lot and take in the city. I'm not a museum person all in all. There is the Ho Chi Minh tomb where you can actually see the guy's body. But really, that just doesn't do a darned thing for me so I think I'll skip that. Last night after eating a great bowl of noodles in a fish, crab and pork broth for just over $1, I walked down to the corner on the same street as the hotel and sat on a tiny little stool and enjoyed the 3,000-dong bia hoi...the fresh beer, which is even cheaper than in Hoi An. It's a lot of fun just to hang out down there with locals and foreigners, literally on a street corner and enjoying the evening.

It's very humid at the moment, though not so hot. I'm going to hang here at the hotel ($22/nite) and relax a bit before I venture out for more scenery. By the way, I am in the country illegaly as of 12:01 this morning. I've tlked to a bunch of people about my expired visa and they all say the same thing: Don't worry. You'll be fine. No problem. Etc... I guess in two days I'll find out for sure. Oh yeahh...

Yesterday I searched for an internet cafe that had Skype and a camera so that I could chat (and see) my family in Italy. Found a place and was told by the youngish guy running the place that it would cost 5,000 dong per hour, about .30. Great. When I returned a while later, the guy was gone and an older guy was there instead. He said the rate was 15,000 dong/hour. Under a dollar, but 3 times what I had been told earlier. I somehow managed to communicate to him that I was told something far less and he went along with it, albeit none too thrilled about it. When the time came to pay, the little monitor on the screen said 2,000 dong. He demanded 3,000. The difference is a pittance, but it is symbolic of the all-too-frequent gouging of the foreinger that goes on here. I encountered it (unbeknownst to me at the time) from the moment I stepped foot in this country and am still being victimized by it. Perhaps 'victim' is too strong a word, but this isn't about money. It's the principle of the thing. In Hoi An when I rented a bike for example, I was told 15,000 dong even though the woman before me had been told 10,000. When I pointed this out, the renter gave me the 10,000 price. Yet the next day when I went back to the same woman, she again tried to get 15,000 out of me. I guess this is the price (literally) of being a foreigner here. It is a shame because I'm obviously not wired to think that this is a fair practice, whatever justification the folks here may have for doing business this way. Hate to round out my two weeks here this way, but hopefully as I've blogged, I've pointed out the good, the bad and in this case, the ugly. It's the kind of thing that people tend to think about when they decide to return.

'Hue' to Go Idiot - Hue, Vietnam

It's pretty amazing in that my desire to be witty in my last post, I closed with that mention of the word 'guey' in Spanish. In case you don't know, that word can mean many things. Mostly it's used between good friends as a way to say a little spicier version of 'dude'. But it's also used as a minor insult when someone has done something stupid. For example, booking a hotel room for only one night when it should've been two. So my little play on words turned out ot be somewhat prophetic as I spent the first moments of my arrival here searching for another hotel because the one where I spent last night is full tonight. Done, and with a pool, no less. By the way, the first one ($35- yikes!) was easily the best one yet. A huge king-size bed and for the first time on this trip, I actually slept the entire night without being awakened by a rooster, a moped horn or any number of the other possibilities. Nice place...each room has a DVD player and downstairs there's an impressive library of pirated DVD's to use for free. Oh and on the map they hand out, there is a little section entitled Tips for Travelers that has a a hilarious list of suggestions for crossing the road. The best part is where it tells you not to panic if you should get stuck and above all, do not go back! Ironically, crossing the street in Hue is child's play compared to HCMC! Seriously...or maybe it's like with the chopsticks, you just get used to it.

So the train yesterday was thankfully my last in this country. It was less than three hours, but a pretty miserable experience despite passing by some incredible scenery along the coast. Sadly, this particular train should've been the best one of all. The first 20 minutes we just sat in the train waiting to get going and without A/C. Remember the scene in Schindler's List where the poor souls are on the train and Schindler pitties them by hosing down the train with water? Granted, not remotely the same thing, but that's the first thing that came to mind. And even after we got going and the A/C came on, it wasn't anywhere near as meat-locker like as the buses tend to be here. At some point I noticed that there were a set of bare feet inches from the back of my head. Lovely. I had to try to explain to the woman that really, lovely though you may think your feet to be, they really shouldn't be propped up anywhere near that close to a stranger's head. Didn't do a whole lot of good. I was thrilled to walk out of the station and on to yet another dude's motorbike for a 20,000 dong ride to the hotel.

The food continues to be very good, however. Ate a French restaurant last night and had roast duck and a Hue specialty. Can't remember the name, but they were almost like little tamales: gelatinous rice with bits of shrimp steamed in banana leaves and dipped in fish sauce. Yum! Had a mango tart for dessert. And wached it all down with a Huda beer- a local beer. I don't just try the local food! I also partake of the potent potables.

This morning I headed across the Perfume River to the citadel and the forbidden city within it. Very impressive stuff. Not as big as the one in Beijing, but nicer in many ways. Saw some very elegant old buildings and relics and tried to keep cool. It is repugnantly hot and humid, which is why I am in here only sweating a little as compared to buckets were I to be outdoors instead. I'm going to head out to some dude's tomb in a little bit and catch the susnset there. The ladies I ate with last night insisted that I must go there as it's quite the photogenic place. We'll see.

Tomorrow I will complete the Vietnamese travel trifecta by flying to Hanoi (buses and trains were the other two). I'll be there for three nights (yes, I double checked the reservation confirmation, by the way) before (expired visa willing) I'll head over to China.

Guacamole in Vietnam - Hoi An, Vietnam

It's hard to say how exactly I found myself making guacamole last night, but sure enough, not only did it go down, but it was one of those great things that can happen when one travels. It all started two nights ago...
I ate dinner at a place called Mango Mango. The chef is a guy from California and it's one of those fusion places that would be uber-trendy in West L.A. It did not disappoint. I had a great bowl of bun, Vietnamese vermicelli with all kinds of greens, herbs and pork of course. Along with a funky eggplant and pumpkin tempura thing and a couple of beers, it came in under $10. What I ate would easily have pulled down $35 back home. I wandered around a bit afterward and as is often the case with 'pretty' food, found myself a little peckish a bit later.

I headed back to the open eating/drinking area where I ate the night before. Had an incredible beef fried wonton thing that was nothing like any wonton I've ever known. Got to talking to the woman who served it to me. Somehow got on the subject of my profession and the next thing you know, she's showing me a notebook where someone had written out a few phrases in Spanish to use with the tourists. I made sure all the accents were where they were supposed to be and then started talking about , surprise, surprise...food. Somehow got on the topic of avocadoes which are plentiful here and used quite a bit in the cuisine, much to my surprise. One of the most popular ways to use it is in a shake, apparently. It's blended with ice, milk and sugar and is supposed to be delicious. I made a face when she explained. I told her that in my experience, avocadoes are used in savory recipes, not sweet ones, as in guacamole. Then she made a face. Whoah. I told her that if she had not liked guacamole, it was only because whoever made it for her could not have done it right. This went back and forth for a little bit and in the end I told her that I would make it for her the next day.

So yesterday morning I headed to the central market and rounded up all the ingredients. I was very worried about the chilis because the ones I would normally use were nowhere to be found. I picked a couple of green ones that most resembled a serrano and hoped for the best. Tonight I returned to the scene of the crime and when she and her husband (the owner) saw me approaching with a couple of bags in my hand, I think they were pleasantly surprised, to say the least. First I had to eat, however. I had another bowl of the cau loa noodles and ordered a special eggplant dish that took forever to prepare, but was worth it. It was tangy, smoky, sweet, sour all at once. Amazing. Then, in a scene that no self-respecting health department would approve of, I was given a knife, a bowl and a cutting board. And where I finished my meal a few minutes earlier, I started to put it together.

She took notes while hubby used my video camera to capture the scene. Everyone seated around us obviously took notice and within a few minutes, everyone was watching the spectacle. Good stuff. When it was finally done, I tasted it and was pleasantly surprised (and more than a little relieved) that it was actually pretty good! The whole staff approached to try it. Some really liked it. Others made the face I make when confronted by squash. But then a bunch of other customers also dove in. People from Australia, Belgium and the best was a guy from Chile who happened to be a chef and gave me a big thumbs up and said it was damned good. Not sure how any other event on this trip will top how much fun all of that was.

Other than the above, yesterday was a nice day off. Folks here at the hotel had remarked how nice the beach nearby was. Yeahh, yeahh, yeahh. People tend to exaggerate their beaches, but I decided that yesterday I would just do nothing, in essence. I had not had a day like that since the trip began. So I rented a bike (.75) and pedallaed the 5 km. to the sand. Wow. I was pleasantly surprised! The beach really was very nice! Super-soft sand, clean, warm water, no waves...just very relaxing. Chilled under a palapa thing on a lounger at an eatery and just took it easy. Oh and ate a plate of spring rolls and grilled shrimp that were very, very good. It goes without saying that it was very, very cheap, no?

Today I'm back on the train for only three hours and I head north for Hue. I think I will like it if for no other reason than Hue, almost, almost sounds like one of my favorite Spanish words: guey (with the umlat over the u) which is kind of like way in English. I realize that this is as moronic a thing as I could admit to, but there it is.

Back to Normal - Hoi An, Vietnam

The one day in Quy Ngon gave me a repreive from 'folks that look (even slightly) like me' which was nice in that I got a sense of the real Vietnam. It was also nice because I didn't get attacked by touts every few seconds trying to sell me everything I could possibly need or not. Hoi An could not be any more different than the place I left yesterday. Before that, another transportation anecdote, however.

I took a taxi from my hotel to the train station yesterday. It started out OK with my driver driving in the style most favored by the Vietnamese, namely as a homicidal maniac. About a third of the way there, I think he realized that if he maintained the pace, he wouldn't be able to charge me what all his buddies are nailing all the tourists for, so he slowed down to an embarassingly slow pace. For my benefit, he (ironically) buckled up so I would think that he was slowing down because cops were looming or something. Old ladies on mopeds were whizzing by us. I tried my best to indicate that I didn't appreciate his tactic, but to no avail. The ride ended up costing 140,000 dong or not-quite $9. Seriously, it was one of the more expensive things I've bought here. The hotel room was only $15, for goodness sake! I scoured my guidebook frantically trying to figure out how to say something along the lines of you disgraceful son of a flea-ridden dog, but strangely, it was nowhere to be found.

Although the train left at a little after 9:00 am, the only 'seat' was a soft-sleeper bed in a sleeping compartment. Normally, you only get a sleeping compartment bed for a train that departs in the evening and runs all night. That was all there was so I had to take it. I shared the compartment with three Vietnamese men right around my age, more or less. I chilled out on my bottom bunk bed listening to my iPod and reading. At some point I dozed off and was awakened by one of the dudes who had sat next to me the way one would sit on the bed of say, a sick kid or something. I mean his butt was right up against my waist. He and his buddies were about to eat lunch and the little table that sticks out of the side of the compartment was (inconveniently for me) right next to where I lay. I tried to make it clear that I was having some space-issues. Rather than sit on his friend's bed, he only moved closer. Great. Again, my guidebook didn't have the phrase sorry, but I'd really rather you not get chicken parts all over my sheet please. I finally made him understand that he needed to sit somewhere else, but then I relented, good guy that I am. I moved my sheet out of his way and allowed him to sit there, but I got out of his way and sat upright for a while as they ate lunch. To their credit, they offered me some chicken and rice, but I declined. By the way, this train was only marginally better than the hard-sleeper and certainly only a little cleaner. The bathroom was also an improvement in that there appeared to be soap and a few squares of tissue on a roll.

Upon arrival in Danang, I hopped on the back of a motorcycle and some guy at the station brought me to Hoi An. On the way here passed by China Beach and the ruins of the U.S. Military base. The beach is quite nice and is slowly being developed in a Cancun-like manner, so not so sure if that's a good thing. So, finally Hoi An. The old part of the city is a Unesco World Heritage site, so it's very picturesque and crawling with tourists and touts. This is a great place to shop for any number of things. There are over 500 tailors in town! They can make a suit in a day for next to nothing, apparently. I walked all over town this morning taking pictures and ignoring the cries of "Hello!", "Hey you!" and "Motorbike!" by getting lost in my iPod. It kind of stinks to have to go that route, but I have to keep my sanity. I'd rather not hear them than have to say NO every nine seconds. I remind me of some of those iPod kids that walk around school between classes in their own little worlds. The difference is that no one is hounding them and it's 9 minutes between classes, not three hours of tout inundation. So, my strategy may be ugly, but I've got to keep my head above water.

My hotel ($25/nite) is kind of a splurge for me. It has a very refreshing pool (!), free internet access (that's why this is so long) and breakfast included. By the way, the meal pictured was part of my lunch. Pictured is something called white rose, which is like a wonton thing that was delicious and a fresh beer. There is a kind of beer here that is like cidra in Spain, I suppose. It's meant to be consumed within a few days of being brewed and is very low in alcohol so you can have lots and lots of it. It costs 4,000 dong/glass which is like (I am not kidding) 23 cents or so. Two glasses of that, the white rose thing plus a bowl of amazing noodles made only in this town and served with pork slices, pork cracklings, basil, mint and a tangy sauce came to 43,000 dong: about $2.50. Money isn't everything, but seriously, as a traveler, it is an important consideration and I have to say that it certainly makes having decided to come here appear to be a good move.

Time for a nap before heading out again. Oh yeahh, haven't whined about the weather lately. It is bloody hot. It's approaching Kyoto-hot, which is why I am indoors wating out the worst part of the day before I head out again in search of more good eats and fresh bia!

Hard Sleeper - Quy Nhon, Vietnam

Managing to sleep in the sleeping compartment of a train basically comes down to who you have to share it with. My first choice for the trip here had been a soft sleeper, but it was sold out. The soft sleeper has four people in the compartment and an actual cushion of some kind. The only option was the hard sleeper. It has six people in the compartment and pretty much a sheet over a hard bench. Not much choice so I paid my $26 and left HCMC last night at 7:00. I spent my last day walking around a lot and dodging mopeds basically. Actually, I also went to the War Remembrance Musuem which displays in harrowing detail, all the horrible things my country did to this country during the war. Though it may be obviously biased (though it would be impossible to present a museum of this type in either country and not have it be biased one way or the other) it once again highlights the lunacy of war, period. The most chilling thing is seeing what politicians and the great thinkers of the day (usually not the same people, by the way) had to say about America's role. It's chilling because many of the sentiments expressed over 40 years ago are eerily similar to what's being said now. We just don't get it.

So back to my train. The conditions reminded me of my first couchette experience in 1992 from Berlin to Prague. This was only three years after the wall came down and the train was an old Russian job with burlap for sheets. I kid you nyet. But back to last night...I was fortunate in that the inhabitants of my compartment weren't a bunch of drunk backpacking teens, loud families or (as in one trip in France) a particularly amorous couple. That was awkward. They were pretty quiet folks who let me get some sleep. All seven of them. There was a baby. A first for me. Cute kid and all, though not so much when he awakened with a blood-curdling cry to indicate hunger, I suppose. Oh and there was an eighth guest who made himself at home on my bench and over my arm and over my pillow, but I don't count cockroaches as official passengers. Also a first, but fitting, given the condition of the train. On the off chance that you just finished eating, I won't go into the aesthetic wonder that was the bathroom. Let's just say that after my first visit there, I willed my insides to wait until arrival before having to go again.

This is my third trip to Asia and something happened today that has never happened. I swear, I spent the entire day here and saw less than a dozen western-looking faces. I don't have a problem with it, but it was odd. I mean, I didn't just finger the index section of my travel guide and pick a place. Granted, it is known for not being so well-known, but I wasn't expecting this. So, the unusual physical attributes that I bring to the town have granted me celebrity status almost. Mostly, it's the little kids that trip all over each other saying "Hello", "Where you from?" and "What's your name?" At one point today, I was spotted by a mom who was walking with her two young boys. The kids hadn't seen me so she said something to them along the lines of, "Hey...a white guy!" and they instantly greeted me very enthusiastically. On the way home from dinner a little bit ago, I was surrounded by a bunch of little kids saying hello and wanting to shake hands and all. It was hilarious and I am very cool about playing along. I wish some of the grown ups wouldn't stare quite so much, but it'll soon be over.

Tomorrow I get back on the train for about 5 hours and head to Hoi An where I will be for three nights. It's supposed to be a very laid back town that somehow managed to avoid being obliterated during the war, so I look forward to that. Also, Bourdain says the food in the market is amazing. So that's a plus. By the way, my hotel here is $15/nite and is huge. It has A/C, cable TV, a balcony, a fridge and is immaculate. The people there speak next t0 no English, but couldn't be nicer. And the no English has been par for the course here. Breakfast was an adventure. I picked what looked like the nicest place in town and got a menu. Luckily I recognized 'Pho', so I picked one of the Pho options and hoped for the best. It was very good and with my coffee (a sweet, super strong Cuban-like variety) I was out the door for under $3. Well, I am surrounded by kids playing video games and it's getting loud, so I'm out of here. By the way, I had to go back and edit this because the space bar basically doesn' t work. But as I sit here and watch kids treat the keyboard like a pinata as they play their very violent, bloody games, it's no wonder.

Plan to wake up very early for some pictures of the fishermen doing their thing in the bay.

Z

Apologies - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I take back everything I ever said or thought. Heck, it was less than a week ago that I pronounced the traffic scene in Phnom Penh to be the worst I'd ever seen. So I offer apologies to that city as well as Mexico City, Beijing, Rome and even Cairo- never been, but I've heard stories. For mine eyes have seen things the past 24 hours that defy belief. I had heard that it had to be seen to be believed and lo and behold, it is true. Were it only the major intersections, it would be one thing. But it's everywhere. On every street corner and seemingly at all hours of the day and night. The thing that put HCMC way over all the other cities is the unfathomable number of mopeds on the street. The roundabouts are clearly the most entertaining spectacle. To be in a taxi and watch as the almost ballet-like dance that takes place between all the different vehicles and pedestrians is just a whole lot of fun. It takes a little nerve to cross the street here for the uninitated, but I found that it's best to be cautiously aggressive. In other words, you can't appear to be timid or you'll get creamed. The traffic is like a dog- it smells fear, so best to take it on respectfully and emerge unscathed. Another disturbing thing here is the random nature of adherence to traffic laws, assuming there are some. Yes, there are traffic signals and all, but just cause the little guy is flashing walk on the sign means next to nothing. I think prisoners in Guantanamo have more rights than pedestrians here. And if you think the sidewalk is safe, think again. All the mopeds have to park there and more than a few drivers go ahead and drive on the sidewalks as well. But what really shocks the uninitiated is the number of toddlers and little kids that either ride in front of mom or dad, or standing between the seat and the handle bars. Yes, most are wearing helmets and many have the mask over their nose and mouth. As if the real threat here to life and limb is what you are inhalling. And despite all of the above, I've only seen a couple of near-misses. Somehow, this all works.

Despite the chaos that characterizes the street, I have to admit that I like it here much more than I thought I would. Were it not for the (not-quite-as-obnoxious-as-in-Phnom Penh) touts that hassle the poor tourist, it would be perfect. It has the energy of NYC or Mexico City, for example. The area where I am staying is very lively with many, many foreigners. There are great places to eat, get coffee, relax and take in the neverending parade on the street. My hotel room ($20/nite) is unique in several ways: it's on the fifth floor (and there is no lift) and the bathroom actually has a partition for the shower. Up to now, every bathroom in every hotel I've stayed in has not. So when using the shower, you have to get all the crap you don't want to get wet out of the bathroom. A huge pain and not being used to it, I'd tend to forget to remove the toilet paper. Not pleased about that. The decor is something out of I'm not sure what. Woke up this morning, looked out my window and noticed a guy walk on to his balcony, walk over to the rail and relieve himself on the roof next door. He obviously didn't see me. It's not like I wanted to see that, but I guess our timing couldn't have been worse. Along those lines, in both countries, men tend to do their business pretty much anywhere. Driving a while and need to pee? No problem. Pull over, stand next to the car, turn your back (a little modesty, I guess) and go. The little kids, on the other hand, have no such inclinations, modesty-wise. You see them just about everywhere doing their business. Mom or dad standing right there too. Different...to say the least.

Yesterday's adventure in obtaining the various things I needed for the rest of the Vietnam leg of the trip did not exactly go swimmingly. I did get my plane ticket and my train tickets though I had to stay an extra night here because tonight's train out of here was sold out. And I had two different travel agents tell me not to worry about my expired visa situation. I was told to slip the equivalent of about $10 in my passport where the visa is and that it would be OK. I'm a little uneasy about this, since I am one of the most anal-retentive people I know when it comes to stuff like this. The problem is that in order to extend the visa, the agency would need to have my passport for at least 4 days and that's no good, since I won't be anywhere the rest of my time here for more than three. So I'm a little nervous about it, but have been assured that it's OK since apparently 5 is the magic number of days that will get one tossed into the slammer. We'll see...

Just had lunch with the Lunch Lady! On Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations program awhile back, he visited this woman who sets up her street stalls everyday and sells the best bowls of soup in town. This isn't the first time I have followed up a Bourdain hotspot and it has to be noted, the man isn't kidding. The soup really was incredibly delicious. To be honest, not completely sure what was in it, but I'm pretty sure it was a pork broth. It also had a shrimp, a quail's egg, noodles, all kinds of sauces, sprouts, cilantro, basil, other herbs I couldn't identify and a slice of some kind of liver. I tried the liver slice because I really wanted to like it, but me and liver just don't get along. Never have and I suspect, never will. Oh yeahh, the huge bowl of soup and two spring rolls came to 19,000 dong...or about $1.05 or so. Insane.

The rain is letting up so I'm out of here. Tomorrow night I am in a sleeping compartment of a train headed for Quy Nhon. Hopefully, the 11 hours I spend in there will be nice and boring.

Z

Life on the Mekong - Can Tho, Vietnam

I think it was a bit ambitious and a little crazy to book a 6-hour boat ride at 6:00 this morning through the waterways of the Mekong River. The ride was fine, but I hadn't really counted on sitting there without doing much in the way of movement. There was really nowhere to move. The boat was a little thing made for 3, maybe 4 people tops. By about half way through, my butt cheeks were crying out for mercy. However...such scenery!

The Mekong River Delta is a massive area that is criss-crossed by a riot of canals, streams and tributaries of the mighty Mekong. People have been living right on the water for millenia and in some ways, I could see that many things hadn't changed in a long time. First however, the main attractions which were a couple of floating markets. Again, this is a practically ancient tradition that has vendors of produce, baked goods, meat and so forth selling their wares on the river out of boats. It's very colorful. My favorite part was the way they display what the particular boat sells. A sample of whatever is for sale is run up a pole at the end of the boat. So, if you are looking for cabbage, just look for a head of the stuff hanging off a pole about 15 feet in the air.
After visiting the markets, the woman navigating it (it seems that all the boats are piloted by women) took the very scenic route back to the port. This is where I got to see how people really live. It was fascinating. Sadly, the river was unbelievably polluted, but that didn't stop people from washing clothes and dishes in it, cleaning fish in it and even bathing in it. My boat came to a halt about a dozen times because the propeller thing kept getting stuck on all kinds of trash that it would entangle, mostly it was plastic bags that folks just chuck off their porches into the water. The woman would whip out a knife, hack it off and keep going. I'm sure I heard her curse a few times, but hard to know for sure.

After I had some lunch and ran into a family from R. S. Margarita. The woman is a flight attendant for A.A. and it turns out that she knew the mother of a couple of brothers (also a flight attendant) that I taught back in the dark ages. Amazing. Anyway, they clued me into the bus that I had to take to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow. So, I dutifully went to arrange it and upon doing so, became painfully aware that in addition to yesterday's misery of getting here, based on what I paid today and what I paid yesterday, I got ripped off big time too. Oh well...

After lunch I came upon a great market by accident. I spent a couple of hours in there taking in all the sights and did something I almost never do which was approach people about taking their picture. Almost all were very welcoming. They loved seeing their images on the display screen of the camera- another reason to go digital, Kevin. And if they had little kids, even better, because they were even more willing to be photographed. Only one woman wanted something in return. At first she wanted my watch (!) and then my hat and finally showed me a wadded up dong note. I offered to delete the photo, but in the end, she and all her buddies and I laughed about it. I don't pay folks for their picture. It was a lot of fun all in all. Got some great images and gave lots of little kids a chance to practice their 'hello' a whole lot. Honestly, I'm a little surprised at the lack of English-speaking here. I'm not complaining, but I am surprised because in Cambodia, it was much more prevelant.

So tomorrow, another 4 hour bus adventure, though this is the good orange bus, according to my RSM pals. We'll see. I sure hope so. With any luck, this will be my last bus ride until China. It's trains and planes the rest of the way in this country. Oh yeahh... a slight problem with my visa here. It turns out that the visa I bought in Cambodia was for 15 days and not 30 days. It expires three days before I'm supposed to leave, so I'll be digging into that mess upon arrival in HCMC tomorrow. Oh and I'm not posting pics lately because the internet cafe scene in this town is pretty meager and they don't have the hardware to make it happen. Hopefully in HCMC, I'll be able to post some images.

Until then...

The Oddysey - Can Tho, Vietnam

Yes, more whining is surely to follow so get ready...It involves a tuk-tuk, 2 motos, 2 buses and a taxi.

Left my hotel in Kampot this morning at 8:30 and arrived at the new one in Can Tho, Vietnam at 5:00 pm. The hotel is only $15/night, but for once, I'm getting what I paid for. What a dump. Were it not already paid for and the fact that no one there seems to know any English other than 'passport', I'd try to get my money back and go elsewhere. Oh well, live and learn.

The tuk-tuk took basically about 2 hours to get to Vietnam. Took the same road to Kep initially and then veered off on yet another red dirt road which wasn't in all that bad a shape at first given the rains the past couple of days. Again, mile after mile of amazing scenery...folks planting rice, that sort of thing. The road was basically OK except for the last kilometer. It's as if the Cambodian government figured, whoever is on this road is leaving anyway...why bother to do anything to maintain it even a little. I truly regret that I did not film that stretch.

At the border the tuk-tuk guy inofrmed me that the town where the bus is caught wasnot walking distance. Indeed, it was like 10km away. Lucky for me, his buddy would take me on his moto for $5. "But what about my heavy suitcase?" I wondered. No problem. Sure enough, the driver positioned it bewteen his legs and with me on the back, off we went. The first thing I noticed upon crossing the border was the asphalt. As in, the fact that it existed. Good start.

Arrive at the bus station (really, it was a small section of a small parking lot) and rode right up to this guy's buddy. Wow! Such luck! He tells me that the bus for Can Tho left for the day, but for $5, he can take me to the next town (20 km. away) to catch another bus. Hmm. What choice do I have? There is no signage anywhere as to indicate a schedule. There is nothing in English anywhere either. So be it. Off we go...

At about 11:45, we stop at an ATM so I can get some dong. OK, feel free to make all the sophomoric jokes you want at this point. But $1 buys 17,000 dong! Crazy. I only got $100 worth or so for the moment. We leave the main road and go on this very bumpy dirt and stone road into a residential zone, though not at all pleasant. So now I am thinking that I am about to be robbed. Really. We pull up in front of this house where about 6 men are hanging out shooting the bull. I have picked out the smallest one thinking that if need be, he can be the one I thump. I swear, this is going through my mind. The moto driver speaks next to no English. I tell him that this is NOT a bus station. He tells me to sit. Like hell. He says in 15 minutes a big bus will appear. I can't imagine a Greyhound thing rumbling down this little country road, basically. But sure enough, here comes a bus. Big? Hardly, but it IS a bus. I am told it will take 5 hours. Lovely. I pick a seat in the back. There is next to no one aboard. I start out on yet another bumpy 2-lane 'highway' andtake in all the new scenery.

Three hours later, we pull over and I am told I need to board a different bus. OK. I get on this much bigger bus and I am stared at as if I had just arrived from the surface of the moon. No one speaks English though this drunk guy smoking cigarettes tries to talk to me in very shaky English. He smelled like Milwaukee and I wasn't up for it. I made the mistake of sitting in a seat of a woman who apparently worked on the bus. She made it clear that I was not to sit there and gave me a shove as I was moving. Were it not for the fact that I had been in the country for three hours, I think I drop her right there. Two hours later after listening to the driver go no more than 42 seconds without laying on the LOUD horn, we arrived.

I hopped into a taxi and located my dive of a hotel. Too early to say, but Vietnam appears every bit as hectic as Kampot was placid. Things are cheap, however. More on that later. Off to sleep for a very early wake up tomorrow to check out some picturesque floating gardens.

Z

The Real Deal - Kampot, Cambodia

It may sound absurd to say, but it wasn't until yesterday that I finally got a genuine sense of this country. I know it's been over a week, but Siem Reap could've been just about any town near a world-class archeological site such as Angkor. And I've already said enough about Phnom Penh. So the other day after writing my entry, I set out for that day trip I mentioned earlier.

The first stop was Kep. I really only wanted to go there to eat. The crabs are kept in pens tied to ropes that are hauled in when an order is placed. The tasty arachnids are whacked right there and prepared. Upon arrival, I wandered over to a boat tied up and looking very picturesque. After taking my photos, I walked by a small group of five locals enjoying a feast of crab, shrimp and squid. I asked them where they had bought the seafood and before you know it, I had a plate in front of me and they would not let me go until I had sampled everything, including a beer. It turns out that they had made the trek down from PP just to eat the food. They were planning to return that evening. That's 8 hours of hellish road just to eat. That effort is so impressive, that words fail me. Communication was at times a bit of a struggle, but what we lacked in eloquence, we more than made up for in good vibes. I can't believe how generous and welcoming they were to me, a perfect stranger. After that, I ended up going to one of the restaurants but I had squid...the crab was tasty, but they are tiny and require a lot of effort for very little pay off.

It's funny because even on the way out to Kep, I had been thinking that I really hadn't said enough in these posts about the amazing warmth of the people here. It's as if those folks happened along as a reminder to say some good things amidst all the horrors that have dominated my rants. It only got better on the way to the cave. The driver turned off the main road and onto a red dirt road chock-full of puddles and every road hazard imaginable. It took 30 minutes or so to get to the cave, but what a ride.

I had commented earlier about the view as I rode all over the country on those buses. But to sit in a tuk-tuk and ride with the wind in my face, at ground level and able to hear the dozens and dozens of folks call out 'hello' as I went by, was simply wonderful. You could expect little kids to be so warm, but I was floored by people my age and older being equally kind. And the smiles! Honestly, that ride to and from the cave was the best thing on this trip so far.

In fact, I was so inspired that today I rented a moto ($5) and went back on that same road so I could go at my pace and get some pictures. Unortunately, it rained today like I had almost never seen in my life. On the way back to Kampot, I got soaked like no other time- no exaggeration. Ended up getting some hot soup at the hotel (yes, it was actually a little cool) , drying off and chilling out. Kinda bummed that my remaining hours of daylight here were spent this way, but I didn't want to put my cameras in jeopardy any more than they already were.

So tomorrow, I leave Cambodia and head off to Vietnam. I know where I need to get (Can Tho) and I know how to get to the border from here, but I have no idea exactly how to get there once I cross the border. O have my visa and hopefully, I won't be required to grease any slimy officials just to step foot on their soil. It ought to be an adventure, to put it mildly.

Z