When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon—do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your heart does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive here is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let if last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

—Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)

When Doctor Sanjay Gupta (not that Sanjay Gupta, but apparently a distant relative) paid us a house call in the morning, he suggested we immediately check into the hospital. Which is how I found myself in the intensive care unit, hooked up to an IV drip (for severe dehydration), all sorts of wires and machines (x-rays, EKG, etc.) and surrounded by about twenty nurses who gawked at this crazy foreigner who couldn’t handle India.

The night-shift nurse, in particular, took quite a liking to me and I felt like I was getting a bit more attention than everyone else in the ward. He literally spent the entire night next to my bed, shaking me every once in awhile to ask in broken English if I was sleeping and if I needed anything. For the record, yes, I was sleeping; and no, I’m fine. Just as fine as I was when you checked twenty minutes ago. When Greg came to visit in the morning, this nurse mysteriously disappeared, but promptly returned after visiting hours were over to ask if he could take my picture (hospital gown and all) and to give me his phone number, telling me to contact him if I was ever in Delhi. Despite centuries of colonial rule and contact with the West, foreigners are still a bit of a novelty in some places.

After one day in the ICU, I was feeling much stronger so they moved me to a regular private room where, thankfully, Greg could stay too. But it would be two more days of bad hospital food, comical miscommunication, and a futile search for soap before we could leave. Three days in an Indian hospital.

Ajmer

When we finally broke out of there we had an auto-rickshaw drop us off in the center of Ajmer and then commenced the long and arduous search for a place to sleep. There weren’t many options available, so we finally settled on a cheapie called Hotel Lovely—which was decidedly not. And while we were in no mood to be picky, we were a bit concerned about the basic cleanliness of the place, especially after the following exchange:

Us

“We’ll take the room, but we’d like the sheets changed please.”

Manager

“What’s wrong with the sheets?”

Us

“Oh….well…They’re dirty and have a few holes in them; we’d just feel better with a fresh set if that’s okay.”

Manager

“Fine, but we’ve had the same sheets on the bed for two weeks now and nobody else has complained!”

Ahhhh, India. Okay, so maybe things didn’t happen exactly like this, but it’s a pretty good approximation of our experience with Indian hotels. Our standards have fallen drastically in the fifteen months we’ve spent in Asia.

Not keen on spending a lot of time in the hotel room and badly in need of some decent food, we walked to the bus stand to catch a ride back to Pushkar for dinner. The thirty-minute ride took us back over the glowing hills and into the colorful town, while on the way there we met a family and played games with their two little girls, who had us in stitches with their giggles and toothless grins.

We would meet the family on the ride back when, by coincidence, we ended up on the same bus again. This time the little one had a newly shaved head (a religious practice for Hindus) and the older one was making light work of an ice cream cone. We chatted to the parents in English about our travels until the older girl—about six years old—popped up from her seat, pointed to my forehead where there should have been a bindi and exclaimed in sparkling English “You are not Hindi?!!”

I was so surprised to hear this clever little girl speaking in another language that I nearly fell out of my seat, but I didn’t have time before she jumped down and shimmied her way into the empty spot beside Greg. For the rest of the way, she and Greg chatted happily in English, discussing important topics like cartoons and ice cream flavors and generally ignoring me. This girl was obviously a bit smitten with my husband as she batted her eyelashes and flashed her toothless smile as if to say “That girl you’re with; you don’t need her. Look how cute I am.” But I’m used to this by now; Greg has already charmed the Mickey-Mouse-socks off of kids on two continents.

The next day was no different, either. At one point as we wandered the town of Ajmer, I left Greg with our backpacks for about twenty minutes to visit the local Sufi shrine. When I returned, I found him surrounded by a gaggle of boys, laughing and joking about boy things like cricket and Spiderman. While Greg went to explore the shrine for himself, I made friends with these kids and a few other curious, young onlookers who listened to everything I had to say and then tried to teach me some Hindi words, laughing at my clumsy tongue.

After the weekend we had in the hospital—and the disappointment we felt about not seeing more of Rajasthan—it was so nice to spend time with these kids. Ajmer didn’t have the spectacular sites of Jodhpur or Jaisalmer, but the people we met there were so kind and helpful that we were feeling much better about the world. The kids in particular were bright and inquisitive, and in the end just like kids anywhere else in the world: they don’t see difference as a bad thing, but merely an opportunity to learn, to ask questions, to explore, without letting a little thing like lacking a common language get in the way.

Agra

After two days in Ajmer, we resumed our travels by catching an early train to Agra, home to a big old white building that some guy built for this girl a while ago. I don’t remember what it’s name was, but we heard it might be worth checking out.

Actually, there’s not much one can explain about the Taj Mahal and it doesn’t need much explanation. It is simply magnificent. The world’s greatest building.

Delhi

And then finally, finally, finally we were in Delhi. The last stop—it’s almost unbelievable—on this adventure (and sometimes misadventure) that we’ve been on for fifteen months. Finally. All that was left now was to spend our last days exploring Delhi’s sprawling districts.

We wandered the tree-lined streets of GK-II, ate in an Italian restaurant, and then retreated into the relative quiet of our clean and comfortable guesthouse. Then the next day we lazed around Lodi Gardens, which is a little like Central Park, if Central Park had 15th-century Afghan tombs and bright green parrots everywhere. We grabbed an auto-rickshaw bound for teeming Old Delhi to catch sunset at India’s largest mosque and then ate some of the best chicken we’ve ever had in one of Chadni Chowk’s back-alley restaurants. Then it was time to head back. It took several hours, three different drivers, and a couple of threats (for good measure) to get us all the way from Old Delhi to GK-II.

It was a long journey, but not as long as the next one will be. We are going home.

Down from the border

But lets go back to the beginning; how did we get here? Our last night in Tibet was spent in Zhangmu, a small border town clinging to the side of a hill (a mountain really, but in comparison…). The town is not so much at the border, as on top of it, looking out over a vast gorge, Tibet on the left and Nepal on the right. For us, it was reminiscent of Sapa and its easy to imagine how the H’mong people we met in Vietnam and Northern Thailand originally called this place home.

In the morning we hopped into our Land Cruiser and descended the final few hundred meters to the Friendship bridge-the official border crossing between China and Nepal. While we handed over the last of our US dollars in cash for our last Visa ( we already had one for India) we said goodbye to Tashi and hello to Raj, who was going to take us to Kathmandu.

From Kodari (in Nepal) it was another four hour drive into the Kathmandu valley. I found myself plastered to the window while we drove up and down green hills with the ghostly white peaks of the HImalayas floating in the distance. In Tibet, it was difficult to comprehend just how big these mountains are; as humbling as it was staring Everest in the face, when you are already 5,000m high an 8,000m mountain hardly looks like a record-breaker. But down here these peaks reveal their true selves: epic, colossal,monstrous, magnificent.

Kathmandu

Upon arriving in Kathmandu, we checked into a lovely hotel in the busy Thamel district and then we were out for the night. This has become a routine for us on the last leg of the trip: check-in and crash. The next morning, perhaps because we slept so much the day before—or maybe because of the 2 hour and 15 minute (?!) time difference with Tibet—we were up bright and early. We ate our breakfast in the hotel’s garden which provided a quiet respite from the chaos already swirling around us. While clogged alleyways, swerving motorcycles, and traffic pollution were largely absent from our lives in Tibet, down in Kathmandu the kamikaze motorists were back with a vengeance. All we could do was hug the closest wall and try to stay out of the way.

Despite the traffic, Kathmandu is a remarkable city. Whatever you might think it is or expect it to be, it’s not that. Instead it reveals itself as a nonsensical potpourri of disparate geographies and time periods: sometimes we imagined it like 1930s New York, and sometimes like Elizabethan England with the brick townhouses and wooden beams. At other times it felt purely Indian: all rose petals and marigold garlands, saffron and turmeric, ritual and chaos. There is a shrine, stupa, or statue to Buddha, Ganesh or Vishnu in every courtyard. Cows wander everywhere like they know they’re holy. Orange clad sadhus—devotees of Shiva—squat in narrow doorways, from which the throbbing rhythms of tabla drift and reverberate someplace between your gut and your heart.

But then there is the cool Himalayan wind that scatters the prayers of Buddhist flags in every direction. And those looming mountains again. And you remember that this is Nepal—like no place else on earth. We may have arrived with no idea what to expect, but when we left Nepal after only a few days it certainly left us with a strong impression.

Urumqi—the capital of Xinjiang—has made it into the international news lately (The New York Times is, oddly, not blocked by China’s firewall) because of riots that have broken out between the Uighurs—who have called Xinjiang home since before Kublai Khan—and the newly arrived Han Chinese—who are bussed in by the thousands and are generally viewed as an occupying force. When we finally made it to Kashgar, the reality of the situation in Xinjiang became clear: Every few hours, green army tanks would roll through the streets filled with glaring Han soldiers and their assault rifles, while men driving ox- and donkey-carts followed at a safe distance. When the trucks passed, additional troupes of soldiers would march by and Uighur men would stop and stare apprehensively, probably knowing that dozens of men and children have disappeared from Xinjiang in the last few months. But they only know what trickles through by word-of-mouth. There is no internet in Xinjiang, we were told: the government shut it off months ago.

Indeed, the Party’s enforcement of its world view is absolute in Xinjiang. For example, Beijing’s single timezone policy extends to all its borders, even to Kashgar 4000 kilometers from the capital. And the government has had some success taming the clouds lately, they can’t move the sun; 9 a.m. in Kashgar is still as black as midnight.

The Karakoram Highway شاہراہ قراقرم 中巴公路

13205China is often baffling, infuriating, and frustrating, but it is also fascinating in it utter vastness. Growing tired of all things Han Chinese (military procession, propaganda posters, internet firewalls, false benevolence) we decided to get as far away from it all as we could while still remaining within China’s borders. So on our first full day in Kashgar we hired a taxi to take us 200 km over the Pamir Plateau on the Karakoram Highway, heading toward Pakistan and some of the most desolate and stunning landscapes we have ever seen.

This piece of Earth is just unbelievably, jaw-droppingly beautiful. We often wondered if we had somehow landed on the moon as we gazed over rocky terrain, sand dunes, and sky high craggy peaks. If you had told us this was the Sea of Tranquility rather than the Karakorams, we might have believed you until we passed the earth and rock homes that dotted the roadside, looking like they had been ripped from newspaper photographs of some war-torn Central Asian country.

About four hours after leaving Kashgar, we finally made it to our destination: Karakul Lake, a shimmering alpine lake at the foot of 7,546-meter-high Muztagh Ata. We spent the late afternoon and early evening hiking around the lake’s clear, icy waters before camping out with a Kyrgyz family who filled our stomachs with yak milk tea and then buried us beneath a mountain of blankets.

All those blankets it turned out, were entirely necessary, as the yak dung burned out in the stove and the temperature plummeted. But there were about a million stars outside our window and the cold made everything still—so quiet and peaceful.

At dawn (10 a.m. Beijing time), we awoke to the rising sun and the sounds of mountain life stirring: rooster crows, yak growls, and people beginning the business of the day. Emerging from the yurt, we were greeted with a scene that was even more beautiful than we remembered from the day before, as if that was possible. The sun, still low in the sky, bathed everything in a warm yellow glow while a fresh layer of snow and ice glittered on the peaks above us.

After breakfast (more yak milk tea and frozen bread), we said our goodbyes and climbed back in our little green taxi. It was bittersweet, leaving. We were dirty, exhausted and freezing cold, but we felt alive and so thankful to have seen this place. Perhaps only a few times in an entire life does one get to experience something like this, something so monumental, so spectacular that it touches your soul: evidence of work by the hand of God.

Kashgar قەشقەر 喀什

13359Returning to Kashgar, it was easy to imagine how Marco Polo passed through here on his way down the silk roads. In some places it probably doesn’t look, feel, taste, or smell much different than it did 800 years ago. People still live in earthen homes or ger tents, they make their living shepherding sheep, goats and yaks, and—yes— many still travel the region on the backs of camels. This is a place that I thought only existed in my imagination, the mysterious nothingness of Central Asia, and yet here it was: the end of the earth, except that it really is the center.

Unfortunately, like elsewhere in China, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has done its very best to demolish the culture of the Uighurs. Old homes, markets, and mosques are often labeled “cultural relics”, a linguistic maneuver that dismisses the living history of these places and buries them (literally) beneath the “progress” of a unified China.

Yet the CCP has not been entirely successful in its attempts, often violent, to enforce conformity. For now, there is a fragile peace within which the Central Asian culture of Xinjiang still flourishes. Here, the people hold fast to their way of life and especially their languages: Uighur, Kazakh, Tajik, and Kyrgyz. Stepping into the old neighborhoods can feel like stepping into a page from Aladdin and the Forty Thieves and the livestock and sunday markets still teem with humanity buying everything under the sun—from carpets to cows—just as they have for a thousand years.

Perhaps we are just trying to rationalize our own invasion of these places (camera in hand), but we hope that for all its flaws, tourism might save Kashgar and other cities like it from the bulldozers and the bullets. But if not, we are grateful to have seen it while we could.

Luang Prabang

12333We know we are not the first people to say it, but Laos makes Cambodia look like a fully industrialized nation. While both countries are classified by the UN Development Index as “least developed nations,” Laos is clearly lagging behind with barely a handful of ATMs and not a single fast-food restaurant (as if the number of KFCs is an important indicator of economic progress). We found a more potent example of growth and development in the houses across Southeast Asia. The homes in Cambodia were ramshackle affairs, but most had metal roofs and televisions (powered by car battery), but in Laos we saw very little evidence of the slow rise of modernity outside the cities. Instead we found stilt houses with thatched roofs and not a hint of indoor plumbing or satellite dish.

Even the steady and inevitable encroachment of tourism is happening at a slower pace in Laos (their ancient capital doesn’t yet draw the same crowds as Siem Reap or Phnom Penh), although you wouldn’t know it walking the streets of Luang Prabang. It is a beautiful little town, but we kind of felt like it has turned into a UNESCO Disney version of what it probably once was. Perhaps it was how every house had a fresh coat of paint or how the streets were so clean and the gardens so well tended, we just felt altogether too comfortable there, like we had stepped onto the set of a French Colonial period film. Even the monks’ saffron robes seemed excessively bright and well laundered as they walked barefoot through the town collecting their morning alms.

That isn’t to say we didn’t enjoy Luang Prabang. It really does have some of the most beautiful and interesting architecture we’ve seen: vibrant tile mosaics, brightly painted elephants, golden nagas, and swooping eaves. The town also has one of the highest concentrations of working Wats anywhere in Southeast Asia and the number of monks wandering the streets nearly outnumber the number of tourists and locals.

We only had a few days in Northern Laos—not nearly enough—but we tried to make the best of it and soak in this country that often seems forgotten by the rest of the world. We wandered through Wats and floated down the Mekong. We watched the monks from our hotel balcony as they collected clumps of rice for their only meal early every morning. We pondered the legacy of the French as we ate baguettes and chocolate crepes at sidewalk stalls, and we watched the world drift by as we drank a toast to better luck in Laos. Beer Lao, of course.

Vientiane

12533A few days after our arrival in Laos, a tiny prop plane brought us down to Vientiane, the modern capital, for a quick stopover on our way down South. Vientiane, in contrast to everything else we’ve seen in this country, was a strong testament to the fact that, however slow change comes, no sleepy backwater, no quiet corner of the earth can resist it, not even in Laos. The oldest temple in town, Wat Si Saket, is less than 200 years old, a flash in the pan for a region that embraces the world’s oldest religions.

One side note: until now, we’d never met a city willing to disparage its own [not-quite-historical] landmarks so strongly; but a sign at the Victory Gate (Laos’ Arc de Triomphe) reads “From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete.” Well, fair enough. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but we enjoyed the view of the city, and especially liked watching the young monks climb over each other to get a better look. It was a good day.

By nightfall however, we were on a sleeper bus headed for the southern province of Champasak. And when I say, “sleeper bus” I don’t just mean it runs at night. In place of seats, this bus was filled with about 12 sets of bunk beds. Think the night bus in Harry Potter, and the driver kind of drove like Stan Shunpike, too. This trip was to be a test of our nerve after our recent bad luck with buses and lets just say we failed miserably. Sharing a top bunk we could feel every small twist, turn and tiny bump in the road. Tears were shed, prayers were said and after many sleepless hours we finally arrived in Pakse.

Pakse and Champasak

12621We stumbled off the bus, groggy but relieved, and were met with the usual crowd of touts and scammers as well as gray skies and a light drizzle. Our plan had us continuing on to the tiny town of Champasak, even further down the Mekong, and so we began the long and arduous process of haggling for information. The thing with these communist-cum-capitalist countries is that sometimes it is difficult to get directions without the person expecting something in return. Generally, nobody knows which way is north or whether you should turn right or left to get where you are going, but they are always willing to take you there for ten times the fair price. In Asia, there is no such thing as free information. Finally after spending about three hours standing in the rain trying to figure out where we were, where we were going, what time we would get there, and how much it would cost, we gave up.

And its a good thing we did because about 12 hours later, the weakened-but-not-beaten remnants of Typhoon Ketsana made landfall in Da Nang almost directly to our east. A few hours after that it was in southern Laos. We spent the next 36 hours holed up in our hotel room, eating junk food and watching old episodes of The West Wing. Kind of like a vacation from our vacation. I guess we could have done the same thing in Champasak, but at least in Pakse we had air conditioning and CNN.

When there was finally a break in the rain, we were able to do a little sightseeing, taking a songthaew out to see a local tea plantation and walking perilously close to the edge of Tad Yeung waterfall. We did eventually make to Champasak, but we’re glad we only stayed one night at the $3 hotel we found. It was fun, though, to get back on a motorcycle for a ride out to see the pre-Angkor ruins at Wat Phu, although my feet and some giant red spider-ants would have been happier if we’d stuck around town. Ah, the curse of the Khmers strikes again.

For his birthday, Greg decided that all he wanted was a return to semi-civilization so we took off early for Thailand. The border city of UBON Ratchatani greeted us with a warm bed and plenty of 7-11 franchises before our flight into Bangkok.

Bangkok

Back at Christmas, we spent a wonderful week with my family on the beaches of Southern Thailand. This time our itinerary had us visiting two cities in the north: Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Somehow, we managed to miss Bangkok entirely on our first foray into Siam, but now we were ready to tackle it’s noisy, smoggy, crowded modern streets and maybe see a few palaces and wats for good measure.

12791On our first night there, we decided to take advantage of the mostly-developed world and took a taxi out to Siam Square to catch a movie. Siam Plaza felt much less like being back home than being back in Korea, with it’s multileveled movie theatres, expensive designer stores, and vast gourmet food court in the basement, but we had a good night sitting in a dark theater, watching the latest from Hollywood and sipping on a jumbo-sized diet coke.

And just in case you don’t believe catching a flick in a shopping mall is a cultural experience, consider this: in place of the usual “no cell phones, no talking” PSA before every movie, theaters in Thailand play the King’s anthem while everyone stands in tribute. This of course comes after all the previews for Thai horror movies and gory action flicks, and while our initial impulse was to scoff, it was actually a very moving piece. Images of smiling Thais harvesting rice, teaching children, tending to the sick, or carrying sandbags to the beaches of the Andaman flashed across the screen while a children’s choir sang the official hymn “We Love the King”. Propaganda perhaps, but beautifully executed, terribly effective propaganda.

The next day we did the grand tour of Bangkok’s major sites. First up was the impressive Wat Phraew Kaew with its emerald Buddha (stolen from the eponymous temple in Vientiane), and miniature scale Angkor Wat. Looking like someone dumped a gargantuan bag of sequins all over its walls, it was definitely one of the most colorful temples we’ve seen and while it shares similarities with other temples in Laos and Cambodia we appreciate the subtle stylistic differences between Wats across southeast Asia.

Next, we made our way through the Royal Palace, humming songs from “The King and I” and then ran down the road to Wat Pho to see the giant reclining Buddha. We’ve seen some big Buddhas before, but this one beats them all.

Heading for the water, we decided to take one of the river taxis to our next destination. We ended up getting off at the wrong stop, but everything turned out alright. We wandered through an amulet market where local taxi drivers buy good-luck charms to display in their windows and picked out one for ourselves (we need all the help we can get). Then we grabbed some food from a local stall (noodles with pork and a waffle sandwich) before making a beeline for the hotel pool.

Having had our fill of Wats and palaces, our second day in Bangkok was all about the modern city. Our first visit was to Jim Thompson’s house. To be honest, neither of us had any idea who Jim Thompson was before coming to Bangkok, but after learning of his interesting and tragic life, we were intrigued. Also, his traditional Thai house has one of the best collections of Thai art in the city.

After taking the official tour, we walked around the peaceful gardens for a bit, pondering what this place must have been like in the 1960s. Today, the urban jungle engulfs the little house in noise and smog, but forty years ago there was only forest and slow moving canals. It must have been a wonderful place.

The rest of our day was spent wandering rather aimlessly around the city. We visited a college campus and watched the uniformed students go to and from class. We rode the skytrain for an hour without any destination in mind. We ate ice cream and kebabs from whatever food stall we found along the way. We kept our eyes down and our pace brisk through the night market in the red light district and then walked down the famous (or infamous) Khao San Road on our way home. In the morning we had a plane to catch.

Chiang Mai

12897Almost unbelievable, we had made it to our last destination in Southeast Asia: Chiang Mai. After this there would be no more lazy river boat trips, no more colorful wats, no more nagas, no more coconut curries, fresh squeezed lemon juice, banana pancakes, juicy mangoes, tuk-tuks or motorbikes. We were particularly sad about this last fact, as the motorbike had become our preferred mode of transportation in Southeast Asia (it just felt safer than a bus). So after taking yet another day off to nurse a head cold, we jumped back on the bike and headed for the hills.

Of of the things left on our Southeast Asia to-do list was to swim beneath a waterfall; check. After that, we headed deeper into the jungle where the road quickly became narrow, uneven and unpaved. It was quite a test for Greg’s new motorcycle skills, but he did wonderfully until it started raining and the drive suddenly became a slow and messy mud fight. To get out of the rain, we stopped at a local coffee plantation for a quick pick me up and an even better view. It was absolutely stunning, perched on the hill side overlooking swaths of green jungle and rows of coffee plants.

The drive was worth it, though, because when the rain let up and we finally made it to the out-of-the-way Hmong village at the end of the road, it seemed like we were the only foreign visitors they had seen in weeks.

And with that, our six weeks in Southeast Asia were over and we were on our way back to the Middle Kingdom. But we did have one last bit of bad kharma before taking off: we missed our flight! Au revoir, Indochine!

Hanoi

10268Working our way North to South, we hit Hanoi first and were immediately struck by the busyness of the capital city. The profusion of motorbikes and dearth of traffic control mechanisms left us feeling stuck in a real-world game of Frogger. By now, we barely hear the constant roar of car horns, but it was deafening at first. At times there are so many “moto-bikes” flowing through the streets that they look more like schools of fish than anything else. Even still, there were hundreds more parked on the sidewalk. It’s as if each resident owns two bikes: one to drive, and one to park right in our way.

We quickly learned that the sidewalks here don’t really live up to their name because they are, under no circumstances, used for walking. They are for sitting, selling, talking, eating, parking, sleeping, peeing, welding, dancing, driving, dumping, playing, working, lounging, living. They are not for walking. Despite that, we spent three days wandering around the busy streets enjoying the architecture, food, and atmosphere. Hanoi—and Vietnam in general—are full of charming and quirky shops and cafes with plenty of cheap and delicious food. We know we’re spoiled when we balk at the thought of spending $5 on a nice dinner.

Halong Bay

10495From Hanoi, we went spent last weekend in Halong Bay on a big junk sailboat that was only a sailboat in the academic sense. It had tall wood poles and large pieces of cloth that may have once pulled it forward, but we didn’t get a chance to see them in use. We’re not sure the crew knew much more than how to refuel the diesel engine and kick the throttle into high gear, but Dad I’ve got an idea for when you retire.

It felt great to be near water again though and it was a stark contrast to the stress and hustle of the capital; we went kayaking through limestone cliffs, swam off the back of the ship, ate lots and lots of seafood, and spent the evening on deck watching the stars come out. Tourism is already going strong in Halong Bay, but for now it still feels like an escape. It was quiet and we rarely saw any other tourists apart from the 7 passengers on our big boat. We’re just glad we got there before these enterprising capitalists exploit vacationers’ nascent demand for jet ski rentals and banana tubes.

Sapa

10609In an attempt to avoid sleep at all costs on returning from Halong Bay, we immediately boarded an overnight train to Lao Cai in the North. The province borders China and the makeup of the people is very different from the people in Hanoi. In Lao Cai and Sapa—where we stayed—there is an interesting mixture of Vietnamese, Chinese, and local tribal minorities. Sapa is a hill station high up in the Eastern Himalayas that the French developed as a getaway from the heat and humidity of Indochina’s lowland cities. The town and its surrounding hills feel like another planet, as serene as any place in Vietnam. And the landscape is absolutely breathtaking with thousands of terraced rice paddies and mountain springs.

As you can imagine, such natural beauty brings a fair number of tourists to the area, and some of the locals have seen a market opportunity. Women walk around town and through the fields in colorful costumes selling handmade clothes and linens out of baskets on their backs. They are—in a word—persistent, but always friendly and we were able to learn a great deal about their lives from talking to them. It’s amazing how much English these women have picked up just from interacting with the tourists. The ladies we met were almost all trilingual, having spoken knowledge of Vietnamese, English, and their own tribal dialect. Yet, most of them never went to school and cannot read or write in any language.

Given the income disparity between ourselves and most of the local residents, we always have a little crisis of conscience when it comes to bargaining. It’s a way of life here in Asia, but we haven’t yet perfected our strategy; we’re always trying to strike a balance when it comes to getting a good price. On one hand, we don’t want to be taken advantage of just because we are foreigners (we’ve had enough of that already, thank you very much). But on the other, we have to remember that we’re haggling over such small amounts that really mean a lot more to the people here than to us. Holding out for 5,000 VND makes a difference of only about 30 cents, and that buy a lot more here than back home.

In town, we stayed at a little boutique hotel on the hill with smashing views of the mist-shrouded mountains. The place is run by an Australian expat named Pete who fell in love with the area and decided to spend his life running this non-profit hotel and doing what he can for the community. Everyone he hires—from the chefs and maids to trek guides and managers—are from the low income (very, very low income) minority groups that live in the area, and he also runs several charitable programs to help with schools, hygiene, and farming.

Have nots

After reading about Pete’s community efforts, we brought along some crayons, notebooks, and stickers from South Korea. The day we arrived at the hotel, Pete was heading to the school to conduct some interviews with the kids and talk to the teachers about what they need most (answer: supplies, boots, and clothing). He told us to jump on the back of a motorbike and come along so we could meet the students and teachers and give them our things personally. All the children seemed so happy and full of life, but many ran around without shoes or even pants, never mind proper schoolbooks. This place was a world away from our school in Korea, but if we’ve learned anything from teaching, it’s that children are the same everywhere. So despite the fact that these kids probably need shoes more than stickers, we hope the things we brought them will give them some small measure of joy. Visiting them was certainly a very moving experience for us.

From the school we were joined by a girl Pete had hired as a guide from one of the Black H’mong villages and she took us on a 5 hour trek through the hills. The area around Sapa is perhaps one of the most beautiful places on Earth (I think we’ve said that already). Huge mountains are covered with miles and miles of lime-green rice terraces. Kids ride around on water buffalo with piglets, puppies, and chickens at their feet. The people here eke out a living by subsistence farming and selling their crafts to tourists and their animals in local markets. The homes have dirt floors and no windows, but we did see the occasional satellite dish peeking over a rooftop pumpkin patch and heard a pop song or two blaring from a cellphone. Considering their state of living in this modern world, we don’t at all begrudge them these small conveniences.

Onward

After Sapa, it was time to get on a plane and leave Northern Vietnam for the rainy mid-section. Off we went to Hoi An.

Vietnam

August 26th-28th: Hanoi
August 29th: Halong Bay
August 30th: Hanoi
August 31st-September 2nd: Sapa
September 3rd- 4th: Hoi An
September 5th-7th: Saigon
September 8th- 9th: Chau Doc

Cambodia

September 10th- 12th: Phnom Penh
September 13th-15th: Kep
September 16th: Phnom Penh
September 17th-19th: Battambang
September 20th-22nd: Siem Reap

Laos

September 23rd-25th: Luang Prabang
September 26th-27th: Vientiane
September 28th-October 2nd: Pakse and Champasak

Thailand

October 3rd- 5th: Bangkok
October 6th-8th: Chaing Mai

China

October 9th: Guilin
October 10th-12th: Yangshuo
October 13th-14th: Xian
October 15th-19th: Kashgar
October 20th: Urumqi
October 21st: Chendu
October 22nd-November 1st: Tibet ( Lhasa, Everest Base Camp)

Nepal

November 2nd- November 4th: Kathmandu

India

November 5th-6th: Varanasi
November 7th-8th: Khajuraho
November 9th: Orchha (TBD)
November 10th-12th: Jaipur
November 13th-14th: Pushkar
November 15th-16th: Jodhpur
November 17th-21st: Jaipur
November 22nd: Delhi
November 23rd: Agra
November 24th: Delhi

United States of America

November 25th: Newark, New Jersey then Walled Lake, Michigan!!!!

We are going to seven countries in 3 months . We will see some of the world’s mightiest rivers (Mekong, Ganges) and its mightiest mountains (Karakoram, Himalayas). The highest, the oldest, the longest, the holiest. We want to see and do as much as we can, while we can. We are ready.

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Of course, anything that can possibly be overstated about Japan has probably been said before, but it takes a much more talented observer not to crescendo into hyperbole in this country. Japan’s dichotomies are so stark and it’s subtleties so perplexing that it is extremely difficult not to feel overwhelmed and intimated. Yet, one of the first things we learned about Japan is that it is not a country which rewards timidity. One cannot expect a warm welcome here without taking a few risks.

The old streets of Kyoto are especially intimidating in their traditions and exclusivity. Shops, restaurants and cafes are hidden along narrow alleyways with no sign or placard advertising their existence—the idea being that if you don’t know where it is, you shouldn’t be there anyway. In Japan, instead of waiting to be invited or dragged inside, you have to muster enough courage and confidence to slide open the darkened screen door of a machiya (traditional wooden house) restaurant or teahouse.

And it isn’t just social anxieties one must overcome in Japan, but more traditional phobias a well. Japan demands a Godzilla’s-eye-view of everything, above the throngs of traffic and zillions of people. Thus we found ourselves continually searching for high ground atop hills, skyscrapers and hotel restaurants (where we clearly did not belong). Needless to say, Japan is not a country for sufferers of acrogoraphobia.

Yet for all its challenges, Japan offers up a lot of pleasant surprises as well. On Sunday night we were wandering around the mostly deserted streets of Gion in Higashiyama, Kyoto. As we walked up one cobbled street and down another it seemed as if the city had shut down for the night. But then, somewhere immediately to our left, a screen door slid open, illuminating the street, and five figures staggered out. It took only a few seconds to realize what was going on as three smartly dressed men and two maiko (apprentice geisha) emerged from one of Kyoto’s exclusive hidden teahouses. Seeing as we were the only other people on the street and only a few feet away, I resisted pulling out our camera, but much to Greg’s dismay, I couldn’t keep myself from staring as they brushed past us.

All in all, our trip to Japan was a whirlwind of experiences and sensory overload that we couldn’t possibly detail in one post. In Kyoto, we spent our mornings drinking matcha (powdered green tea), listening to the hypnotic tones of temple chanting, or hiking to a mountain waterfall. By the afternoon we were in electric Osaka—45 kilometers and a lightening fast 14 minutes away.

In Tokyo, we were awake before dawn to take in the frenetic energy and slightly macabre atmosphere of the Tsukiji fish market. Then in Rongponggi, we stayed up late wandering through bookshops and museums (like the fabulous Mori Art Museum). We window-shopped and gallery-hopped in Ginza. We slept on tatami mats in a ryokan and in twelve-bunk hostel rooms. We bathed in sento and ate kaiseki. We took our shoes off, put them back on, and then took them off again. And again. And again.

Pretty soon we will be putting our traveling shoes back on once more. Japan was kind of like a warm up for the next few months, but for now it’s back to business: packing and saying annyeong to Korea.

There are a lot more photos posted here if you’d like to look through them more thoroughly:
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