I just spent three hours on the phone trying to finalise a travel itinerary… it’s almost there. I think its possible that we may have packed a little too much in… on paper it looks really exhausting, but it should be flexible to drop out stuff while we’re on the run. More details later.
So, I have about seven months of freedom in between uni finishing and work starting. I’m filling up four of them by going backpacking again, leaving in a couple of weeks on July 10. I’m spending two months in South-East Asia with Cheryl, then a month in Eastern Europe with Doz, then a month in the US and Canada with both of them. I don’t know if any regular readers live in any of the cities that appear in my itinerary, but if so, please drop me a mail! Looking heaps forward to it. More details as they come.
Postcard requests
I will do what I did five years ago and offer a postcard, to the first five or ten readers who ask, from their country of choice. E-Mail me with your postal address and desired country if you want a postcard.
A lot of people have been checking out Google Earth recently so I created a list of cities I’m going to in a Google Earth’s .kmz file format. You can download it here, open it in Google Earth and then click the play button in the “Places” pane to start the “tour”. Google is so cool. I better go to sleep now.
Update: web browsers seems to want to incorrectly download the .kmz file as a .zip. So what I did was zip up the kmz file into this file which you can download and unzip to get the real .kmz file. Strange.
Cheryl and I had just stepped off the express train from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Backpacks in tow, we negotiated our way through the various offers of carriage from taxi drivers and stepped into the muggy heat of Malaysia.
“You ah beng! Check out the hair lah!” came Justin’s voice, sailing across the carpark.
Justin’s greeting was a remark concerning my recent change of hair do. Only a week beforehand I had cut my hair shorter than usual in preparation for spending four months overseas, resulting in it being spiked up. It was the idea of another friend, Kevin, to get it dyed. Figuring that it would probably be the only chance I would have to do it before I started work the next year in the conservative legal industry, I went along with the idea and my hair turned, after a tedious two and a half hour process, a pale shade of copper. For the most part, I was interested by the reactions I would get from this apparently out-of-character decision. In this regard, I was not disappointed.
Dad was mortified. “You’re going to be a lawyer soon, for goodness sake!” he exclaimed in exasperation when he first saw it. It generally didn’t sit well with the older generation, and I was variously described as looking “ugly”, like a “punk” and like a “street kid” (which, a friend’s mother pointed out was a good thing because it means I would be hassled less when overseas). My parents were most worried that it signalled the emergence of some sort of repressed rebellious phase, neglecting to realise that I had nothing really to rebel against.
Reactions from my friends were a bit more positive. However, when I held a farewell gathering a couple days before departure, two of them didn’t even recognise me. Jarrod, after I had opened the door for him, offered his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Jarrod.” Dorian, a friend of over 12 years shook my hand, abruptly brushed past me and then shouted into the room, “So where’s Stuart?” before being told with a great deal of amusement that I was standing directly behind him.
If I had anything to worry about, it was that immigration officials around the world were going to detain me on suspicion of stealing the passport of someone who actually looked respectable in their passport photo. I was assured that this would not be a pleasant experience, especially in a non-English speaking country.
Nonetheless, I found it somewhat ironic that despite the perceptions and more often than not misperceptions of the danger of going to some of the countries I was going to (landmines and Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, terrorist activity and political instability in the United Arab Emirates because it was in the Middle-East, mafia and gypsies in Eastern Europe), the recent tragic London terrorist Tube bombings had turned a bastion of the Western World into place more dangerous than these “non-mainstream” countries.
We got in the car. David turned to us in the backseat. “Why are you two wearing seatbelts? Don’t you trust my driving?” he asked. It remains a mystery to me why seat belts in the back are optional in Malaysia. Surely the laws of physics don’t operate differently there.
But anyway, there there we were, 6616 kilometres from home, with Justin jeering at my ah beng haircut and Dave weaving his car across the slippery Kuala Lumpur roads, on day one.
Justin Tho owns me. In snooker.
I was 11 points up with the pink and black left on the table. I fouled on the pink, setting Justin up for a pot. He made the shot and was 1 point ahead. After knocking the black around the table for a few tense shots, the bastard potted it and hence I was forced to proclaim the above message. Then I partnered up with him against Dave and Ee Laine and lost three games of pool straight. Not a good run!!
When the time came to leave Kuala Lumpur and the genial company of Dave, who I must again say is an excellent host, I had several options. Taking a plane down to Singapore was relatively expensive and wouldn’t save that much time given KL International Airport is situated some distance from the city centre. Getting a bus was more desirable, giving me time to type up this post. Dave’s father suggested I try a new coach service which he kept insisting was “super luxurious”.
Transtar runs a bus route between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur which they’ve called a “First Class Express” service which the company’s brochures optimistically insist is better than taking a plane. The Transtar bus is actually a second hand coach, purchased from the United States and repainted in a gaudy browny-gold colour. The inside has been completely stripped and refurbished. As a result, the full-sized coach only carries 16 passengers, each with their own oversized Osim leather lounge chair with a built in massaging system, and electronic footrest and recliner. I was told that Osim chairs can cost as much as a car, with their flagship model going for tens of thousands of ringgit. The company brochure goes on to list the various features of the bus service. Each seat also has its own LCD screen with on-demand audio, video and computer games. The brochure displays a picture of a smiling Malay lady holding a tray of food, captioned with, “A stewardess on board a coach? Unheard of but true.” Finally, to cap things off, the coach proudly comes with the latest safety innovations, most notably, seatbelts.
I must admit, the coach was very comfortable. Unfortunately, the extravagant Osim massaging chairs turned out to be rather poor at massaging. The five massage modes alternated between various forms of spasming and intermittent vibration against my calves and lower back. This turned out to be more annoying than soothing. The stewardess also turned out to be an effeminate soft-talking Indian man who seemed to have an aversion towards eye contact.
The journey, although only 5 hours, including the time it takes to get processed at immigration, included not one, but two toilet stops. (I was told on arrival in Singapore that 5 hours was quite quick and the bus must have been speeding.) There is a toilet on board, but this was to be used only in the most direst of emergencies. Apparently if the diarrhoea struck while we were en route, I was to tell the steward, who would then tell the bus driver, who would then stop at the first available opportunity by the roadside. Until then, passengers were encouraged to “hold on” as best as possible.
No one used the seatbelts.
Even the overnight bus services in Australia don’t come this extravagant, so I was trying it out of curiousity more than a desire for comfort. You can catch a regular coach down to Singapore for less than half the price I was paying, but even then, the trip only cost RM86. Of course, when I say “only”, I say that being someone who earns their money in Australia.
Salaries in Malaysia are quoted in terms of a monthly amount and are low. A graduate at PricewaterhouseCoopers gets about RM2100. A graduate lawyer undergoing chambering (or a pupillage there is no real equivalent for this in Australia as far as I know) earns about RM3000. Converted into Australian dollars, these amounts are barely much more than dole payments in Australia (indeed, the Malaysian minimum wage is a mere RM700 per month). Naturally, the cost of living especially food is proportionately lower, but not everything is so. Purchasing power is generally on a dollar for dollar basis. A Malaysian spending RM1000 would feel roughly the same amount of hip-pocket pain as an Australian spending A$1000. However, the purchasing power of the Ringgit, once you start to move beyond food and other basic necessities, rapidly diminishes.
Corruption is still visibly prevalent. Bribes are paid routinely to avoid traffic infringements saying “Boss, help?” with a bit of money passed behind an Identity Card and fines are literally waved away by the policeman. It is more or less the norm to bribe driving instructors around RM200 in order to ensure a pass in driving tests (short of someone crashing the car). And that’s just at the street level.
Road rules are more like guidelines, and it’s a common sight to see motorbikes and cars running red lights if there isn’t any traffic around.
I don’t have many pictures of KL. The downside of bringing a digital SLR camera is that you don’t exactly want to lug it around when you’re out for drinks at night. We went to Sunway Lagoon one day, which is a combined amusement and water park. Lots of middle-easterners visit there, and it is an odd sight to see middle-eastern women in full veils (head coverings and all) running around trying to manage their kids in the water park. We also went up to Genting (again) where we got fleeced at the restaurant we had dinner at as well as on the Pontoon tables. The drive up there was interesting – with heavy fog, drizzle, steep inclines and with Justin taking racing lines through the curves in complete disregard of the lane markings. Caught up with Ananda at La Bordega, a nice joint in Bangsar with a wall full of board games which patrons can bring to their tables and play. Eight of us played a few rounds of Taboo. Despite my atrocious run at games in KL, losing badly at snooker, pool and Warcraft, this was a rare occasion of Justin, Patricia, Viv and myself triumphing over Alex, Victor, Dave and Ananda. Note to self: there is a better way of describing the word “blink” than saying “a method of cleaning your ocular sensors”.
On most nights, it was just enjoying a good chat at one of the multitude of mamak stalls around the town – something Sydney is sorely lacking when it comes to doing things at night and really the most memorable of experiences in KL.
I have uploaded a handful of photos in the album.
While we’re on the topic of photos, how’s this for a coincidence: see this, then see this.
In other news, my grandmother, of all people, actually likes my dyed hair.
Down a side alley in Chiang Mai, there are two competing used book stores. Gecko Books is owned by an American with a sharp accent and aloof demeanour glaring intently at a closed circuit TV monitor. Behind Gecko is Backstreet Books, run by a Irish ex-pat who had been living in Chiang Mai for the last ten years. Both stores have an amazing collection of English books – most genres, from the classics to the modern – all at A$10 or less. I had just purchased Arthur C Clarke’s Fountains of Paradise from Backstreet Books when it started raining heavily outside. So heavily, in fact, that the lights went out. I peered out into the alleyway and all I saw was darkness. The whole of Chiang Mai, it seemed, had been hit by a blackout.
Not willing to endure the prospect of walking back in the rain and in the dark, trying to avoid the street traffic, I walked back into the store and sat on a step. In front of me, the Thai lady behind the counter was frantically searching for a stash of candles with a cigarette lighter. Everywhere else in the store was pitch black. The Irishman came cautiously bounding down the stairs, and soon there were four candles stuck on the front counter. The candles were already half burnt down when they were lit, casting piles of books in a flickering, murky orange glow.
“Does this happen often?”
“Unfortunately, yes. You’re Australian, aren’t you?”
Most Asians had been picking us for Japanese. Must be the hair.
“Yes we are.”
“Which part? … I’ve been to Melbourne a few times.”
“Sydney.”
“Ah.”
“So how long have you been in Thailand?” Cheryl asked.
“Ten years.” He paused. “It’s nice here… like when you get booked by the cops, they don’t take it personally like in Dublin, or Melbourne. Like, you do something wrong and they’re all ‘who the fuck do you think you are?’ But here, it’s different. I was coming back from Cambodia, doing 140 when the police pulled me over. He was smiling, and after he fined me, he asked me if he’d like a cup of tea.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, people don’t lose their tempers here. Cutting in on someone on the road, ’tis perfectly legal y’know. Actually, a few months ago a friend did this…” he popped up his middle finger and waved his hand in the air, “and got shot in the head for his troubles. He lost his cool, and so the Thai guy did as well. Thai guy was carrying a gun. It was just there.”
He pointed vaguely over the shoulder, like it had happened in the next street, which it may well have. He chatted for a little while about how hard working the Irish and Chinese were. Then he talked about his trade, buying books by the hundreds overseas and shipping them back to Chiang Mai. He didn’t have the latest Harry Potter though, didn’t want to step on any toes. “There’s a few new book stores around town, let them sell it. People gotta make a living you know? Otherwise…” he held a finger to his head and flicked his thumb as though cocking a trigger.
The lights next door in Gecko flickered back on. “Oh, the lights are back for everyone except our store.” The Irishman walked to the fuse box and fiddled around. One by one the lights came back on and we bid him farewell.
It is raining. Not the kind of rain that plummets down from ominous grey clouds and attempts to punch holes in your umbrella, but a soft, steady, non-threatening sprinkle. A kind oddly fitting for Luang Prabang, the sleepy town of about 16,000 in the north-west of Laos, a town on the World Heritage List.
At 8.00am, the Joma Bakery Cafe is already pumping out fresh pastries and bread; the rich aroma of butter and coffee drifting through the air. Motorbikes occasionally putter by, ridden skilfully by locals with one hand on the handlebars and the other on an umbrella, shielding themselves from the rain. Sometimes a second passenger would be riding pinion, or balanced behind gracefully like a side-saddled equestrian competitor, long skirts making it impractical, not to mention immodest, to straddle the seat. Monks stroll down the street after the morning’s alms collection. They carry umbrellas – tattered black ones – which seem to clash with their bright, almost fluorescent orange robes. Wet tourists clutching damp, well-thumbed copies of the ubiquitous Lonely Planet scurry by, some retreating into the refuge of the bakery.
Despite its unpainted grey concrete walls, the bakery has a certain charm to it, one of the many by-products left over from the days of French colonialism. Of course, only tourists can afford to eat here. Luang Prabang is a town “revitalised” by tourism. However, unlike so many other tourist hotspots in neighbouring countries, the local Lao, for the most part, seem largely unaffected by it all. There are no throngs of scrappy children begging for money, or tuk-tuk drivers doggedly soliciting for fares, or store vendors calling out “Hello! Hello!” for passers-by to buy their wares. When we first arrived in the city centre, somewhat disorientated and struggling to don our backpacks, two men approached us. We braced for an offer of a guesthouse to go to, or a tuk-tuk to get on. Instead, they merely asked us where we needed to go and pointed us in the right direction.
The people here are used to white faced Westerners tramping around the roads, taking it all with a stoic indifference. Their smiles are genuine, with no traces of slyness or a sinister gleam in their eyes which hints at some ulterior motive.
Besides the beautiful restored French villas, now converted to expensive hotels maintained on tourist dollars, the decaying remnants of colonialism manifest themselves in crooked paving and shoddy brickwork. But beyond the uneven roads and pathways, intricate temples adorn the landscape, their entrances guarded by gilded nagas – mythical seven-headed serpents. A wat on top of Phou Si, the hill around which the town is built, stands as a golden cap upon a cloak of greenery – the lush jungle which escorts the swiftly flowing Mekong River down towards the South-West.
The previous day, we had arrived by Lao Airlines on a surprisingly well-maintained twin-propeller plane and were driving into the town centre, chatting to a kindly Thai lady in the back of the songtel. It was her fifth or sixth time in Laos and she was going trekking. We had told her that we would be leaving for Vientiane in three days and her expression suddenly darkened. “Oh, but foreigners cannot get entry into Vientiane. The ASEAN meeting is on.”
We’d heard about this meeting only a few days ago when picking up our air tickets from the Lao Airlines office in Chiang Mai. “Sorry, no entry to Vientiane on the 27th,” Mr Sittidet told us hesitantly.
This remark had caused us to sit up very straight. “Ministerial meeting. Big news.” Big news to everyone but us, it seemed. “Foreigners not allowed.”
“But you issued us with tickets, and we have a pre-issued visa.” Mr Sittidet made a few phone calls and when he issued us our tickets, we thought the problem had been avoided. But apparently not.
The first morning in Luang Prabang we headed straight for the Lao Airlines office to reschedule our flight. There was no way around the 38th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, so coincidentally timed to coincide with our one day transit through Vientiane, so we were thus forced to hold up in Luang Prabang for several days. But no matter. If there was any town to get stuck in for a few extra days, this was a good one.
The rain has now eased. Soon it will be hot again, the streets being brightly lit by a strong, glaring sun. But for now, we will head out and enjoy the cool, damp air while it lasts.
See also
– LA Times article
Luang Prabang was the location of the Lao Royal Palace for much of the 20th century. However, Laos hasn’t been a monarchy since 1975, when the Communists took over, and the palace was accordingly converted into a museum. For US$2, you get to see the place where royalty used to dine, sleep (the King and Queen had separate bedrooms) and receive foreign dignitaries. Most interesting though, was the gifts room, where various displays laid out gifts bestowed to past Lao Kings from visiting foreigners.
The majority of Asian nations had presented ornaments of incredible craftsmanship and intricacy. France gave a lot of crockery – Limoges porcelain and the like. The United States gave nothing of artistic value, instead delivering a gift that no other nation could replicate – a small piece of fabric portraying the Lao flag, brought to the moon by Apollo XI, and a small vial of moon rocks. There was also a model of the lunar lander and the keys to several US cities. Why Knoxville gave King Sisavangvatthana the keys to the city is a mystery to me. Australia’s gift was a small wooden boomerang, and two rather shoddy-looking gilded boxeds, encrusted with a handful of opals – delivered by none other than the Right Honourable Harold Holt. The Lonely Planet reports that the gifts are organised in the room by country – with gifts from capitalist countries on one side, and gifts from socialist/communist countries on the other – but some reorganisation must have taken place subsequently because there is no sign of such ideological division in the giftroom anymore.
Along the way, there are 16 paintings depicting the life of Prince Vessantara, purported to be one of the final reincarnations of Buddha. In an annual festival, the story of his life is related in the temples over the course of the day in celebration of it. It could be a case of cultural relativism, but I am still struggling to grasp at some thread of logic behind it all. The story goes like this. It starts off well, with the Prince donating his white elephant of “perennial prosperity” to the people of Kalinga, who happened to be starving at the time. This didn’t go down well with his contituents, who promptly banished him, his wife and two children from the kingdom. His family went into the jungle to become hermits, until one day, an “evil Brahmin” appeared, looking for slaves. The Brahmin, picked up the scent of the Prince’s family and set off after them. The Prince’s wife then had a dream of Something Bad happening to her children and warned the Prince, begging him to protect them. The Prince gave her some reassurances, but when she was off gathering food in the jungle, the Brahmin turned up and the Prince promptly sold the two children into slavery. As you do.
The wife attempted to rescue the children, but was blocked by three mythical creatures who transformed themselves into tigers to block her path. Then the Prince tried to sell his wife into slavery as well.
What happens next is a little unclear. The wife was not sold, but instead the couple were granted eight wishes by some deity. The paintings do not disclose what happened with those wishes. But anyway, the slave driving Brahmin ends up getting lost in the jungle and turns up in the wrong town. The “wrong town” happens to be one where the king is the children’s grandfather. The king buys the children back and is joyed to hear the whereabouts of his son. Soon after, the Prince is given a grand welcome back parade by the king. The king then abdicates, again for reasons unknown, and the Prince is crowned king.
End of story. Feel free to fill in the gaps with additional research, for I’m sure there must be some in a story which involves selling your family off to slavery. But for now, it’s all a mystery to me.
Photography
Although the situation concerning the availability of net access has changed dramatically in the last five years, it is still somewhat fiddly to get photos online. Internet cafes, even in Laos, are broadband connected, and time is charged out at 100 kip a minute (about A$1.10/hour). Nonetheless, uploading pictures is difficult. This is not necessarily because there is a lack of facilities for getting your files off the camera, but because it takes time to firstly sort through the hundred or so photos taken each day for the small handful that are worth posting, then to post-process the photos, and then to upload them and link them. Post-processing is time-consuming – you can’t just upload a bunch of 6 megapixel images weighing 2 to 3 megabytes each. You need to resize them, then compress them suitably with jpeg compression (I use around 7 on the Photoshop scale). Then there’s cropping and retouching work that can be done. Uploading them takes a while as well – broadband here can be unreliable. So, rest assured, I have photos, but you will have to wait a while to see them.
Currency in Laos
Laos is one of those countries, like Italy (pre-Euro) and Indonesia, whose currency comes with an extra two or three zeroes tacked on the end for good measure. (Okay, that’s being flippant for countries whose economies have gone through major turmoil in past decades.) The range of Lao banknotes is remarkably small, coming in 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000 and 20000 kip denominations. There does’t seem to be any coinage. While the currency conversion from A$ to Kip is somewhat fiddly, conversion from US$ to Kip is a kindly 1 to 10,000. So, their largest banknote is worth US$2.
On our first day, going to the bank, I handed the teller two US notes totalling $30 and received a fistful of cash in return. With so many banknotes and so many zeroes floating around me, I felt momentarily “rich”. That was until I saw the Lao woman next to me struggling to cram bricks, almost as big as cinderblocks, of 20000 kip notes into a duffel bag that would put a Hollywood gangster’s money briefcase to shame. In order to avoid such silliness, and the death of forests whenever the local Lao decide to withdraw cash to purchase land, the economy has adapted such that virtually all vendors accept payment in Thai Baht or US Dollars, with change given in Kip, all calculated with the swiftness of routine. This system of three currencies is officially illegal, but of course the practicality of things demand it.
We finally depart Laos today. Cheryl has in the meantime fallen for Luang Prabang. That’s all for now, just stopped by a net cafe to burn a half hour.
We stayed in the Old Quarter in Hanoi, like most tourists. It’s a pretty full on place that really assaults the senses. The streets are narrow, and the metre-wide footpaths, spilling with squatting Vietnamese, merchandise and refuse are often unnavigable. The roads aren’t that much better, with a constant flow of traffic making it essential to concentrate when you’re walking about. Everyone talks about how crossing the roads is an art. There are no pedestrian crossings (even when they are marked). However, since the majority of traffic is composed of motorbikes which are fairly adept at weaving sideways, all a pedestrian has to do is walk slowly across the road and the bikes will swerve to avoid. You could almost do it blindfolded and not get hit. However, it’s the cars and the buses which pose the hazard – if they were to weave to dodge a pedestrian, they would instead end up taking out the herd of motorbikes passing alongside them. At first the experience is a bit of a novelty – it almost feels like there’s this invisible shield repelling the traffic away – but it starts to wear thin very quickly.
Like in many developing countries, the horn is used as a convenient method of signalling “I’m here!” rather than one of annoyance, which ensures a constant barrage of noise. Finally, even though the streets of the Old Quarter are narrow, the buildings are often three or more storeys high, giving the streets an even more cramped feeling. It also traps the air, which is more often than not filled with some very… peculiar, odours.
In the middle of the Old Quarter is a large lake, Hoan Kiem, where it is rumoured large turtles reside, according to traditional legend (read here). It’s only slightly less hectic around the lake, and the bright, opaque, green colour of it doesn’t lend it any large amount of attractiveness. However, by twilight it does get better. Fading light masks the algae in the water, the stifling humidity begins to cool, and the Vietnamese come out to exercise by the lakeside.
One day outside of the Old Quarter, we visited Ho Chi Minh’s masoleum complex. After he died, the revered Vietnamese leader, as with Mao, Lenin and Stalin, was preserved and placed in a glass box. The complex covers a large area, thankfully fenced off from traffic, containing the old Presidential Palace, a museum dedicated to Ho Chi Minh’s life, a few buildings where Uncle Ho used to live and of course, the masoleum itself. As with my visit to Beijing, photography was strictly forbidden. Through an intricate series of checkpoints and metal detectors, I was gradually stripped of bag, camera, and mobile phone (and not all at once) and given a few numbered tags in return. I had no other option but to surrender everything and hope that I would be seeing my gear on the other side.
The masoleum is chilly. Uncle Ho’s body is kept airconditioned, surrounded by four guards in full uniform staring straight ahead (and no doubt thankful that they weren’t on duty outside in the heat). The experience was similar to Mao’s masoleum. It’s deathly quiet inside as the procession of tourists and locals meander through the corridors and around the ghostly body of Ho Chi Minh.
On Thursday we took a 2-day tour to Ha Long Bay, with one night spent on board a boat. Although the bay was fairly crowded (we counted over twenty other ships moored around where we were for the night), and the water was polluted – the translucent shape floating through the water was a plastic bag as often as it was a jellyfish – it was a very welcome relief from the hustle and bustle of the city. We took a kayak out and rowed under a one metre high tunnel and into a small body of water encircled by limestone cliffs. There, for the first time in days, it was perfectly silent. The caves in Ha Long Bay, with their stalactites and stalagmites are a world heritage area, but to be honest, they only reminded me of Jenolan caves.
The people we have met on the trip have been somewhat varied, but mostly European, with a disturbingly high proportion of lawyers… three British lawyers who would be starting work with A&O and Eversheds in September, a Kiwi barrister reading for his second Masters at Oxford, a Dutch law student who had no intention of practising and a retired couple from Melbourne who complained that their family had “too many bloody lawyers”.
The staff at all the guesthouses we have stayed at have been terrific. The Thu Giang guesthouse in Hanoi is family-run, but most of the day-to-day operations are handled by an amazingly resourceful 21-year old lady. Unfortunately on the first night, a storm meant that tours to Ha Long Bay had been cancelled and some guests were forced to stay an extra night. Consequently, Thu Giang was still full, and we were diverted to the Wing Cafe Guesthouse. Staying at the latter guesthouse was an ordeal. Something surely must have died in there because the bathroom was filled with this unearthly stench. Fortunately, we only had to put up with it for one night.
Today we arrived in Hué on a comfortable overnight train. Hué’s much more relaxed and I can’t say that I’m going to miss Hanoi.
Hué doesn’t seem to have guesthouses, and most accommodation is in the form of hotels. We ended up in the Binh Minh 2 Hotel. The “2” signifies that their first hotel was successful enough to open up a second branch, about five minutes down the street. Some hotel “chains” even have three hotels in the same town.
Binh Minh 2 is relatively expensive, at US$15 for a twin share room (which comes with one double and one single bed), but it’s well worth it. Service is excellent. Reception was staffed by this diminuitive, yet highly energetic lady called Tu, whose smiles were so big that she had to close her eyes to fit them on her face. The room was not merely clean, it was spotless – more so than some of the 4-star hotels I’ve stayed at.
Anyway, having a bathtub at our disposal for the first time on this trip, we decided to forego the costly in-house laundry service and do it ourselves. So we pushed down on the plug, filled the bathtub up with water and mixed in some laundry powder we’d brought along. We dumped the clothes in and gave them a good scrub. The water turned an ugly shade of grey and we decided it was time to begin rinsing them. The only problem was, we couldn’t unplug the plug. It was stuck, and the grey water wasn’t going anywhere. I scampered downstairs to reception to see if we were doing anything wrong, only to be reassured, “Push plug to open, push again to close”.
Since doing our own laundry in the bathroom was in violation of the hotel’s guest regulations, we were in a bit of a fix. We couldn’t get them into our room, or they’d see the washing. So we moved the wet, soapy clothes into a basket, and decided to empty out the bathtub via the toilet. Manually. With a couple of empty water bottles.
Many, many minutes later, we’d siphoned tens of litres of water into the toilet and sink, by which time it was nearly midnight. We called a guy up who came to fix the plug. Moral of the story: make sure you can take the plug out before you fill up the tub.
Underlying everything to do with tourism, it seems, is an intricate, multi-layered system of commissions. Today’s attempt at commission grabbing was the most blatant. We took an Open Tour bus from Hué into Hoi An – a four hour air-conditioned coach ride for US$2. When we got into Hoi An, the bus stopped at the local Camel Travel office, which was fair enough, since that was the company that was running the bus service. However, before anyone could get off, the Vietnamese dude up the front said, “But first, we take you to a great hotel! Only 7 minutes from city centre. You go, look, and if you don’t like it, you can walk elsewhere.” And before anyone could object, the bus was off again, hurtling down the road and incidentally, taking us away from the hotel we’d already booked when back in Hanoi.
Eventually we arrived at the Green Field Hotel. I looked up the trust Lonely Planet. “Green Field… Green Field… ah, here it is… ‘Green Field Hotel is the furthest hotel from the city centre.’ Ah. Oh, it’s not even on the main map.” A British girl in the seat behind who had been reading over my shoulder yelled out, “This guy says the hotel’s off the map!”
Mass confusion ensued on the bus as a tired mob of caucasian backpackers complained that they already had booked at another hotel and that they wanted to get back to the city centre. The Vietnamese dude just kept repeating, “Don’t worry! Stay 10 minutes, check out the place! Don’t worry!” In the meantime, a horde of hotel staff had boarded the bus trying to get all of us to check out their new pool (“We don’t need a stinking pool!” an American was heard shouting, more than a little miffed). Some people disembarked and took motorbikes back in. The rest of us refused to disembark, and eventually they figured out we weren’t going anywhere unless they brought us back into town. As the doors shut, the Vietnamese dude tried again.
“Hey! You all must be hungry… I know a great restaurant—“
The cry of dismay on the bus was unanimous and instantaneous. Evidently, we looked like we were about to riot, because he quickly shut up about the restaurant and drove us back into town… to yet another hotel. However, in a twist of fate, it was the very hotel we had made reservations at, so it had worked out quite well for us.
Hoi An is lovely. Small, quiet, walkable and the shopping looks to be excellent. Especially if you’re after clothes, for tailoring is the town’s profession. But more on that later.
What do a cigarette lighter, Fur Elise, and Saddam Hussein have in common? Well, you can buy a cigarette lighter with Saddam’s face on it, and which plays Fur Elise when you flick it open in Hoi An. This is just one of the strange knick knacks which hawkers offer here, accompanied by the universal cry of, “You buy something!”. There are more mundane things for sale, such as English and French copies of the Vietnam News, thrust in front of tourists’ faces who are trying to enjoy their breakfast.
I haven’t felt the need to buy a copy yet, because, strangely enough, I’ve been reasonably in touch with world affairs on this trip. Not from news web sites, but through satellite TV. We had ABC Asia Pacific in Hanoi, BBC World in Hué (complete with a simultaneous audio translation in Japanese running over the top of the English which was distracting to say the least) and now CNN in Hoi An. Was disappointed to hear the result of the second Ashes test, saw the terrible pollution in Kuala Lumpur, and even managed to catch the landing of the Discovery shuttle live. And there is too much coverage on Iran’s resumption of nuclear materials conversion. For domestic affairs, e-mails from friends have kept me up to date, including the juicy Crikey scoop on Alexander Downer’s daughter’s controversial award of a Chevening scholarship even though she only obtained third class honours.
I didn’t expect to do a restaurant review for Laos and even less expected to associated “fine dining” with it. Nonetheless, there’s a reasonable facsimile of the concept in Luang Prabang. Restaurant les Trois Nagas is attached to the expensive Auberge les Trois Nagas hotel in a quiet part of town, just up the road from the night markets. It seems quite out of place because it manages to pass itself off as an upmarket western restaurants. Trilingual waiters (speaking Lao, English and French) pull out chairs for customers, the menu is typo-free (also in English, French and transliterated Lao) and tables are double tableclothed. It’s the small details that count.
On offer is a seven course set menu. Complimentary rice cakes arrive soon after you sit down, and then two entrees kick off the meal – either an egg omelette with dill or a Lao salad, and an egg sausage soup. Very tasty. The main meal comes with three dishes – generous servings of a beef, steamed chicken, and vegetables which includes some local yellow mushrooms. The beef, although still quite tough, is a little more tender than the beef elsewhere in town (I wouldn’t recommend the beef anywhere in the town). The rice is also soft, fluffy, and without the strong floury smell given off by the other restaurants. Finally, a tropical fruit salad (rambutans, longans, mango, nashi pears, etc) comes served in a Martini glass. They also have a well stocked wine list.
At US$12 per person, it’s about four times as expensive as an ordinary meal for tourists, but in terms of western dollars, it’s a real bargain. (Although the 330ml bottle of Perrier water selling for US$3 is not.) Very much recommended.
It’s never a good idea trying to upgrade Gallery while travelling… The photo gallery will probably be down until I get back to Singapore.
Update: I sort of got it working again. It’ll just have to look ugly for awhile!
By 1.00pm I was already exhausted. A tailor brandishing a measuring tape shuffled around me as I held my arms outstretched. She paused, gestured at my chest and then at my hips before pointedly inquiring, “Big and small?”
I was lost, so I just returned the question with a blank stare, hoping she’d elaborate.
“Big and small?” she said again. Despite the English, she was still speaking a language I didn’t understand, so I looked helplessly over to Cheryl and asked for a translation. Cheryl thought for a moment, then matter-of-factly stated, “Oh, she’s asking if you want the sides straight or fitted.”
Clearly, I’m not a clothes shopper.
Welcome to Hoi An, a town on the World Heritage List. However, its old buildings are perhaps overshadowed by what most tourists end up doing here – getting clothes tailored. There are literally hundreds of tailors (or “cloth shops”) in Hoi An, and it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say it is a town full of master tailors. They can make anything and everything.
The process goes like this. You find yourself ushered into one of the myriad of cloth shops. Inside they’ll have a stack of fashion magazines and the latest British mail order catalogues. It’s simply a matter of flicking through the books and pointing out a design you like. You can come prepared too, by bringing along a favourite item of your own clothing you’d like replicated, or a picture clipped out from some magazine. If they can see it, they can sew it. And even if you orally describe something and draw a rough sketch, they can do a pretty good job of things too. After you pick the design, you spend time looking through walls full of fabric – silks, cotton, wool, cashmere, synthetics and so on. Pick a fabric and pattern, negotiate a price, get measured, pay the deposit (about 50%) and your clothing will be ready for review normally within 12 hours.
As good as they are, it is quite likely you will need time to make adjustments. Although my business shirts were fine the first time I got them, I had to send a coat back for adjustments three times because the right shoulder of it wasn’t sitting correctly. Don’t be afraid to ask for adjustments. No doubt when you complain that something’s too tight they will say, “Not too tight! It looks good!” But if you insist, they will oblige without (too much) complaint.
Perhaps the biggest issue is choosing a tailor. I don’t believe this is too big a problem. People who have been to Hoi An will have found tailors they swear by, and many tailors have billboards outside displaying testimonials written in all manner of languages from satisfied customers who have bought an excessive amount of garments. Virtually any tailor you go to will do a good job. That said, there are probably two good ways to ensure you don’t end up buying from the rare bad tailor. One indicator is if there are any other tourists buying from the shop. The second way you can judge is to get one small item of clothing made – a shirt or similar – and check the quality.
We got clothing made at four tailors. We got a couple business shirts made at Mai Cloth Shop (Stall 7, Hoi An Cloth Market). Mai’s is located in the cloth market, a group of stalls in a warehouse where you can watch tailors sewing. Mai’s stall is extremely busy. A little too busy for my liking. Especially in the evening, there can be over ten people crammed around her tiny stall. With everyone talking at once, staff are easily distracted. One lady there was taking Cheryl’s measurements when she got sidetracked half-way by another customer and didn’t come back for five minutes. They have a dodgy fitting room in an alleyway which you’ll have to share with some of the fattest rats in Hoi An. Nonetheless, despite the chaos, Mai does a good job with the tailoring.
Cloth Market
Hanh Hung (39 Phan Dinh Phung St, on the corner) was the store we got most of the clothing made at. The atmosphere was a lot more relaxed and pleasant, and if you look like you’re serious about buying, they’ll give you a complimentary bottle of water (we received about 6 litres of water between us through our visits there). The store is very clean and well kept, and the staff give you a bit of breathing room (although they will still ask “you want something more?” every ten minutes or so). Workmanship was generally very good. I suspect that Hanh Hung is more expensive than other stores, but by western standards, the clothes they produce are still very well priced. Business shirts are from US$5-10 depending on material, and suits start from US$40 or so upwards. I got a suit made out of cashmere/wool for about US$85. They accept credit card (3% surcharge, but you can try and factor this in when you are negotiating price). In case you thought all tailors were women, Hanh Hung also uses male tailors.
In the end I got eight shirts, one suit and a pair of shorts for just over A$200. Cheryl made five shirts, two suits (coat, pants, skirt), one dress, and one trenchcoat for around A$320. We were also given four complimentary silk ties… though probably not so complimentary given what we paid for the other stuff. (A$1 = US$0.76 = 11000 Vietnamese Dong.)
The main problem you will have is buying too much. Weight and space are issues you must consider beforehand. Shopping for clothing here can be addictive, and it is all too easy to get much more than you initially planned.
If you ask any Vietnamese person from outside of Ho Chi Minh City what they think of it, they will inevitably mention three things: “lots of people”, “busy”, and most often of all, “noisy”. After spending a tiring few days in the stifling Old Quarter streets of Hanoi, the fact that even the residents of Hanoi – Vietnam’s second largest city – were complaining that HCMC was too crowded and noisy caused me some concern. This, combined with numerous stories of drive-by bag snatchers, pickpocketing beggars and other security concerns, did not give me a very good impression of the city before we arrived.
Three days in, and these impressions happily proved to be untrue. HCMC has a population of around 7 to 8 million, about double that of Hanoi. Luckily, the city is significantly more spacious, with the streets being a great deal wider than in Hanoi. There is far less noise than you would expect from the thousands of motorbikes, cyclos, bikes, cars and buses that rumble past every minute, horning included. Sure, it’s chaotic and crossing the road is always somewhat hazardous, but it’s not all that bad.
HCMC used to be called Saigon in the old days, and many Vietnamese, both from the North and South, still call it that. The renaming of the city is one product of Vietnam’s incredibly tumultuous history, a history which I was, regretfully, almost entirely ignorant of up until a day or two ago. (The extent of my knowledge up until then was that the Americans had waged a war there which they may or may not have lost. That and memories of Full Metal Jacket and various other Hollywood films.) Although I came across bits and pieces of information about Vietnam’s past before HCMC, it was only here that I had my first real history lesson. The interesting thing is that being the first time I heard about the Vietnam war in full (known here as “the war in Vietnam” or “the American war”), I heard it from a Vietnamese perspective.
We went on a half-day tour to the Củ Chi tunnels (where Viet Cong used to hide out near Saigon) and had the fortune of getting a fantastic tour guide. Mr Binh was a war veteran with a Filipino father and Vietnamese mother who had served in the US Navy as a 2nd Lieutenant, apparently under John Kerry. He had lived for several years in New York and California before returning permanently during the war in Vietnam. He had been shot two times during it, and he was justifiably embittered by the whole experience. The great thing about him was that he pulled no punches in talking about things. This pissed off more than a few tourists on the bus, but I liked the guy almost immediately.
After welcoming us to Vietnam, he immediately began a patriotic spiel about how great his country was, boasting about its 8% GDP growth and it being one of the largest agricultural exporters in the world (second in rice, third in coffee). He proclaimed Vietnamese cuisine as excellent and denounced American cuisine as terrible. While this may not seem out of the ordinary for a developing Asian country, it is quite significant when you consider that Vietnam has been embroiled in some sort of conflict for the greater part of the 20th century. “Because of all of you,” Mr Binh paused, eyeing everyone on the bus, “Vietnam has suffered aggression up until about 25 years ago.” An Israeli lawyer up the front of the bus puffed up his chest and vigourously shook his head. “Not all of us! Not me!”
Mr Binh ignored him and ploughed on, talking about all sorts of topic at random, including the branding of all caucasians as Big Assed Tourists (“Do you know why you don’t ride motorbikes? Because you have big asses! But don’t worry, we say in Vietnamese so you don’t know.”) Although he initially refused to talk about the war because it was upsetting for him, enough interest had been generated to persuade him otherwise. What followed was a colourful and engrossing thirty minute talk, on the bus, about how Vietnam had been effectively screwed over by one country after another: French colonialism, Japanese invasion during WW2, the splitting of the country into North and South Vietnam which led to American involvement in the Vietnam war, incursions by the Khmer Rouge and a small attack by the Chinese. In a nutshell, the Vietnam war arose when communist North Vietnam (called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) attempted to reunify with South Vietnam (called the Republic of Vietnam) which was under the control of a nepotistic government, which was really a puppet government controlled by America. Because of the fear of Communism and the Domino Effect theory floating about at the time, America saw fit to get involved and stop the Pinkos from claiming another country. America failed, and after losing tens of thousands of troops and generating significant international dissent, withdrew its forces. Today Vietnam is one of five socialist countries left in the world.
As the day progressed, Mr Binh softened a little and acknowledged that Americans weren’t that bad. He had befriended many Americans in his time in the navy and the general sentiment was that most of them were only there because they had no real choice. During the day we got to crawl through some 100 metres of a tunnel dug 8 metres into the clay ground, and some tourists coughed up cash (US$1.20 per bullet) to fire M-16s, AK-47s and a whole other array of rifles, machines guns and shotguns at the shooting range.
Visiting the War Remnants museum in HCMC was a chilling and intense experience. It used to be called the Museum of American War Crimes (or something similar) before it was decided this was not good for tourism. However, the latter title is probably more accurate. The museum exhibits the nitty-gritty of the war, and the reality is incredibly gritty. The museum is well maintained, and is split into several sections which surround a main courtyard filled with American jets, tanks, artillery and ordnance. One section is a tribute to wartime photographers, who risked life and limb to capture the truth (most of them were killed at some point on the battlefield). Another section shows the effects of the American use of dioxins (such as the infamous Agent Orange, used to defoliate large areas of Vietnam’s land), napalm, nail bombs and other nasties on the civilian population: rows and rows of photos of deformed children and disfigured victims line the wall. Another section is dedicated to imprisonment and torture. I found the pictures of torture victims and exhibits of torture methods overwhelmingly disturbing, a graphic reinforcement in my mind that there can be no justification for allowing the legal use of torture. One Viet Cong soldier was beaten and tortured for several days, before being moved – ironically to a hospital – for further torture. Four amputations, presumably without anaesthetic, were carried out on him over several weeks. Ultimately, he did not reveal any information, quite probably because he did not have any to begin with. The final section remembers the anti-war protests and efforts which occurred around the world in opposition to American involvement.
Also worth a visit is the Reunification Palace – the old seat of South Vietnam’s government, which was then called the Independence Palace and was preserved after the unconditional surrender by South Vietnam’s government to the North. (Take the free guided tour.)
Given that Vietnam has only enjoyed peace for a little over two decades, it becomes clear how much the Vietnamese are now enjoying life. The environment that the Americans devastated is now largely regrown, and Vietnamese farmers are among the wealthier people in the country. The majority of the population is now composed of youth, who have had the benefit of growing up in peacetime.
We passed by a park near central HCMC. During the evening, it is filled with people, young and old, playing badmington, chinese chess, riding skateboards, and kicking around shuttlecocks in a game similar to hackeysack. It’s not quite hackeysack (the rubber base is slightly spring loaded), but the players were the most skilful I have ever seen. Groups of two or four would kick around a shuttlecock – both feet, many times they would kick the shuttlecock as it fell behind them, without looking. As we sat down to watch, a young Vietnamese man (also called Binh) came over to talk to us. He thought we wanted to buy a shuttlecock, but in the end we just had a conversation. He explained that the players we were watching were practising for competitions. They all wore a special leather shoe, with a sole made from car tyre rubber (incidentally, the Viet Cong used to wear sandals made from tyre rubber as well). It turned out he was a recently graduated mechanical engineer taking a short break before looking for a job. He hoped to be able to get some overseas work. In socialist Vietnam, salaries are still largely moderated – teachers, doctors, lawyers, tour guides and social workers alike, all earn from US$100-500 a month. A friend of his in the IT industry got to travel to Finland for some work, but was paid at Vietnamese rates. His friend would finish work, then get a job as a waiter in the evening (which quadrupled his earnings), before returning to Vietnam six months later. Nonetheless, despite the constant flow of tourists splashing around huge amounts of Dong, Binh was quite happy with life.
“Yes, I like it here. I hope to be able to save enough to travel to Cambodia soon.” And that, not so surprisingly, seems to be the attitude of most Vietnamese these days.
I’m currently sitting in a cafe called The Blue Pumpkin. They make a great fruit shake. They also provide free WiFi net access, so I’ve availed myself of this freebie and am typing out this post on my laptop which miraculously survived the bus trip up from Ho Chi Minh City. Siem Reap is a rich city by Cambodian standards, fueled by tourist dollars stemming from Angkor and overpriced food, so the availability of wireless net access should be not all that surprising, but it is somewhat bizarre to log on to World of Warcraft for five minutes just to be able to say “I played WoW in Cambodia”.
The journey from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh was a tiring one. Getting to Bavet, the border crossing town, was fine, but once we cleared Vietnamese immigration, things went downhill from there. Things are chaotic on the Cambodian side. It appeared that we had arrived a few months too early to make use of the new immigration facility Cambodia was in the process of building. Instead, there were a few wood huts off the side of a dirt pathway in which immigration officials check off visas. As we were wondering where to line up, we were told just to stick our passports on a large pile of them and they would be processed momentarily. There were no border guards, police or security of any sort. No one asked to check my passport. In fact, it would have been quite simple to walk straight through and illegally enter the country. It wasn’t even clear at which point we had actually entered the Kingdom of Cambodia. The road to Phnom Penh is in fairly bad shape. It’s filled with potholes and bumps, which our minibus driver took at speed. Every few seconds the minibus would fly over a bump, go airborne for a split second and then return to earth with a spine-jarring jolt.
The primary reason for visiting Siem Reap for tourists is, of course, to see Angkor Wat and the other myriad of temples in the Angkor region. Impressions in a later post.
Throughout South-East Asia, vendors sell attractive lacquered wooden boards with prints of Tintin covers on them. A few days ago in Siem Reap, I spotted one entitled, “Tintin au Cambodge”. I thought that was strange, since I don’t ever remember Tintin visiting Cambodia. I looked closer and realised that, with Angkor Wat in the background, some joker had drawn Tintin hobbling around on crutches with a peg-leg, followed closely by Snowy, also missing a limb. A sign in the corner read “Danger! Landmines!”
Cambodia is perhaps most well known for the turmoil which engulfed the country at the hands of the Khmer Rouge and the notorious Pol Pot, especially for the three and a bit years they came to power from 1975 (some believe this was in part caused by the “secret bombing campaign” the US had undertaken on Cambodian soil in the antecedent years). During that time, they attempted to radically restructure Khmer society, abolishing currency, religion, families and, by some estimates, 3 million lives. Even after Vietnam “liberated” the country from Khmer Rouge rule, they continued their aggression against the government, engaging in campaign aimed at “demoralising” it. One of the ways they did this was to heavily mine areas of Cambodia, causing death to many civilians in the process. Today, the Khmer Rouge is thankfully now only a presence in history books. Although much of Cambodia is still plagued by undetonated landmines, the danger to tourists who stay on marked paths is negligible.
A visit to Angkor is expensive. A one-day pass costs US$20, and a three-day pass costs US$40. Passes bought after 4.00pm begin the next day, so most people buy after this time and catch a free sunset. We rode into Phnom Bakheng, a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside, and waited for the sun to go down. Our driver, “Jack”, came up with us and explained he couldn’t tell us about the site because he was not a licenced tour guide. He told us that the government sold licences for US$1000 (which, to the average Cambodian is about three to four years’ worth of salary) and he was saving up for one. Until then, if he talked about the temples, the police walking around would fine him.
On our first full day in Siem Reap, we hired two motos to take us around the main temple sites of Angkor, visiting Angkor Wat, the structures of Angkor Thom, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm and Banthay Kdei. Angkor was an old Khmer city, home to some one million residents and part of the six century old Angkor empire which extended significantly beyond the borders of current day Cambodia. It left behind a legacy of innumerable temples, citadels and other structures which are all roughly 1000 years old.
Everyone is familiar with the silhouette of Angkor Wat’s inner temple. The Thai Royal Palace in Bangkok even has a miniature replica of it. However, nothing quite prepares you for its sheer size. Angkor Wat covers almost 2 square kilometres and is surrounded by a very wide moat which I initially mistook for a river. In a region of the world where wats are everywhere, it is easy to see why this one is regarded as a clear standout. We woke up at 5.00am to catch the dawn at Angkor Wat, and it is quite an experience to walk up the main walkway in the pre-dawn gloom and see the temple spires loom ahead, getting larger and larger.
Unfortunately, Angkor is an extremely touristed site, and even at that hour, the temple grounds were swarming with people hoping to catch a sunrise. However, by 7.00am, most of the Japanese and Korean tourists had departed by the busload, disappointed that overcast weather had obscured the view of the sun. Luckily for us, it meant that we were able to explore the temple without the hassle of human traffic.
Originally a Hindu temple, there is an extraordinary series of stone bas-relief carvings around the outer wall of the temple esplanade that stretches on for 800 metres. While the construction of a structure of Angkor Wat’s size is not too problematic with today’s technology, the intricacy of the carvings around the temple are as complex today as they were a thousand years ago. They are not something that can be mass produced by a machine, but have to be designed and chiseled inch by inch by painstaking human labour. (Although I suspect that CAD/CAM techniques today could probably do the chiselling a lot quicker, but still, art without a human touch is often not the same.)
Angkor Thom contains several structures. We first saw the Bayon – a structure replete with spires adorned on four sides with an enigmatic smiling face. The Bathuon is a structure currently undergoing restoration, but tourists are allowed to walk around it. A local who claimed to be a university student of Khmer history approached us and, unsolicited, started talking about the temple as a tour guide would. We thought he was just using the opportunity to practise his English, but our naive assumptions of his altruism were quickly banished when, at the end of the impromptu tour, he demanded money from us to help fund his education. As far as scams go, this one was fortunately very minor.
Ta Keo is an undecorated, unfinished temple, which stands above the treeline. By the time we had reached its summit, we were well and truly tired with grabbling with Angkorian steps. Temple steps, especially near temple summits were narrow, very steep and quite treacherous. You have to turn your feet sideways in order to climb them. This was not the result of bad design, but rather symbolised the metaphorical difficulty of reaching the heavens.
It is with relief, then, we came to Ta Prohm which is pretty much a ground floor only temple. Ta Prohm has a great deal of character, stemming from the encroachment of the surrounding jungle on it. Over the centuries, large trees have wrapped their roots around and through blocks of stone. Many are now only removable at the risk of destroying sections of stonework which the roots now ironically support. This is also the location where the front cover of the Cambodia Lonely Planet was photographed. After some wandering around, we discovered the Khmer man on the LP cover sitting down under a tree, selling some miscellania. A shrink wrapped copy of the LP with him on it lay nearby, and a curator gestured to us that he was indeed the man on the cover.
On another day we hired a remorque-moto – basically a two-person carriage attached to the back of a moto – to take us to the more remote structure of Banthay Srei. It took us 90 minutes to drive out there, over some incredibly bumpy roads, but it was a nice journey overall. The remorque-moto seats are very well padded, and you get a good opportunity to see the surrounding landscape and peasants. Banthay Srei is small, but holds some very intricate bas-relief carvings. They are so intricate that it is thought that only women could have done them (though I don’t know whether this is said in jest or not). On the way back we visited Preah Khan, which has a lot of information about how restoration work was conducted on the temples. Finally, as a favour to our driver, we spent ten minutes in a large, expensive souvenir store, which entitled him to a litre of petrol.
As great as Angkor is, it is quite tiring, and after you visit the major temples, things unfortunately do become repetitive. “All watted out” is a common expression used by tourists there.
Much of Angkor has luckily survived, and in most cases the only evidence of the touch of the Khmer Rouge in the area are the multitude of statues missing their heads (they sold them off for money). Back in Phnom Penh, however, the memory of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime are preserved in several locations, and are an essential part of a visit to Cambodia’s capital.
Two main sites high on the “must visit” list are the Choeng Ek “Killing Fields” and the Tuol Sleng Museum. The former is situated about 15km out of the city, and is the site of many mass graves, from which around 9000 Khmer corpses were exhumed after being slaughtered by Khmer Rouge soldiers. A stupa filled with skulls commemorates the dead. One of the startling things is how close the actual graves were to the area in which prisoners were held when waiting to die. They were clearly within eyesight distance, and earshot. Most were bludgeoned to death (children against a tree) in order to save bullets.
Tuol Sleng is the site of where prisoners were held in Phnom Penh. The prison was originally a high school, converted with the construction of small cells with irons bars in classrooms and barbed wire draping the concrete walls. In the interrogation and torture rooms, fairly gruesome photos (thankfully in black and white) show the results of Khmer Rouge handiwork. Another cell block shows hundreds upon hundreds of photos of the victims of prison, all taken by the Khmer Rouge who had an obsession with record keeping. It all makes for sombre viewing, but a necessary one.
On trying not to fall sick in Bangkok: “Yes, you wouldn’t want to get bid-ridden in Bangkok, although the beds in the Baiyoke Hotel would be nice ones to get ridden in. Uh, wait… that didn’t come out right.”
An issue of nationality
We were eating in a restaurant in Luang Prabang when this elderly man started to make conversation with us. His opening line was: “Are you … konichiwa?”
Later on, in a Bangkok food court, I was browsing through all the stalls and paused by one selling Japanese ramen. A man turned around and looked me over before giving me a double thumbs up: “Japanese ramen! Very good!” I just smiled and nodded. He didn’t stop there, he was determined to unload his entire stock of Japanese vocabulary on me, each word bursting from him like some revelatory profundity. So I let him. “KONICHIWA!” Pause. “Uh… SUGOI! Mmm… OISHI!”
“Sorry, I’m not Japanese.” I said in as broad an Aussie accent as I could muster, and he turned slightly red. “Oh… you’re from Singapore?”
Locals in heavily touristed countries pride themselves on being able to pick what country a tourist comes from. It’s all part of a game really – especially with people selling stuff – to figure out how much money they can extract from you and to figure out what you might have a tendency to buy (not in all cases, but often). When we went to Angkor, our driver Jack had an impressive knack of being able to pick out who was Korean and who was Japanese with uncanny 100% accuracy. He’d point out someone to us and label them, then approach them to confirm. However, Asian tourists born in Western countries always mess with people.
Even after speaking in English, I have never been identified as being Australian, except by other Australians (and one Irishman in Chiang Mai). The overwhelming majority of people pick me out as Japanese, and running gauntlets of moto, tuk-tuk and cyclo drivers inevitably ends up with me creating a stream of konichiwas and ohios. In marketplaces, deft salespeople jabber off a stream of Japanese at me before quickly switching to English when I shoot back with a, “What?”
Cheryl places the blame on my hair, which is now long overdue for a cut. However, when it comes to her, people really don’t know what to make of her genetic heritage. An inordinately large number of Vietnamese thought that she was Vietnamese, and in Laos she could occasionally pass for a Laotian. Otherwise, she’s either Japanese or Korean like me.
Whenever someone asks us where we’re from, we have several choices: Australia, Singapore and Malaysia. We could easily masquerade as Japanese, but that would be asking for trouble, because some people can string together a few sentences in Japanese and I can’t. Saying Australia always raises eyebrows, and makes us have to explain where our parents come from. Saying Malaysia is a lie, but makes us less prone to being ripped off while bargaining (since it is known in the region that Malaysia is not as affluent as Singapore). Normally, we just say Singapore, and that has satisfied everyone.
It’s a small world
Over the past few weeks we’ve repeatedly run into people we’ve met earlier in the trip. However, none as often as a German, Hans, and his family whom we first met in Ha Long Bay. It’s not altogether surprising since most people in this region follow similar itineraries, but it is still quite amusing. We ran into them again while crossing a bridge in Hué and again the following day while visiting some tombs. We bumped into them again in Hoi An – Hans literally almost fell off his bike when he saw us. And just when we thought we’d seen the last of them, we ran into them after the Beatocello concert in Siem Reap.
Hotel to airport in ten minutes
The taxi drivers sure drive quickly in Bangkok. There is an “elevated expressway” that goes from central Bangkok to the international airport. Our driver was determined to break the expressway’s land speed record, posting a top speed of 180km/h and cruising at 150km/h for the rest of the way (despite a 90km/h speed limit). I think he would have gone faster if his car was able to take it. It turns out there was a cop with a speed gun standing at the expressway exit, but by that time our driver had deftly slowed down to a more pedestrian 80km/h.
My time in Singapore coincidentally coincided with this year’s Comex Computer Expo in Suntec City. It’s big, busy, and much better than the Sydney conventions, but I was disappointed because there wasn’t really anything new there. Apple is making one of its big announcements on September 7, so I’m waiting for that. The “special deals” on at the expo weren’t that cheap either as my annual pilgrimage to Sim Lim Square revealed. Didn’t buy anything this time except a polarising filter for the camera.
Anyway, on the way back from Sim Lim, this girl stopped me as I was walking on the footpath. “Uh, do you speak Chinese?” she said in English. I said no and then she asked if I spoke English. When I said yes, she moved in closer and in a quiet tone of voice said something along the lines of: “I’m from JB in Malaysia and I was wondering if you could help me. My grandmother is sick, and I’m here with my small brother and we need porridge but I don’t have a job. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She was clearly fluent in English so she was pretty easy to understand. I said yes and waited for her to continue. But she didn’t, she waited, looking at me expectantly. I stood there waiting for an actual question or request.
“Look, my grandmother is sick and I’m alone with her and my kid brother here. I can’t find a job and I need some porridge.”
“Uh, ok…”
“Do you understand me?”
At this point I was getting seriously confused. Perhaps my English skills had irretrievably deteriorated over the last six weeks from all the bargaining I had done in Vietnam using bad grammar and incomplete sentences.
“Yeah, uh… sorta. What do you want?”
She just looked at me again. Ok, think fast, think fast. She either (a) wants some money; (b) wants a job; or (c) wants to know where she can buy cheap porridge. Quite frankly, I had no earthly idea what she wanted. It could have been any of those things. Or none of them. I decided to play the safe card.
“Look, I’m not from around here. I’m from Australia.”
Now that should have covered possibilities (b) and (c), but she just said again, “No you don’t understand me.”
So I tried, “Sorry, I don’t have any cash on me.” (Which wasn’t exactly true, but I wasn’t about to give her the only thing in my wallet which was a $20 note.)
She looked increasingly exasperated. “No, you don’t understand.”
I was out of ideas. What was I missing? A faint thought crossed my mind that she may have been offering some… Special Services – you know, of the Bangkok kind – but I wasn’t about to venture into that line of inquiry. So I just apologised and walked off. I still have no clue what she was on about.
Two months in, and two months to go… a brief glimpse of the middle-east awaits.
I have a few moments left on this terminal, so just a random thought. Out of all the terms for a mobile phone – including hand phone and cell phone – I’ve grudgingly come to realise that the American “cell phone” is probably the most accurate one. Technically, a cordless phone can be loosely classified as a mobile phone. It’s not quite as mobile as a “real” mobile phone, but there’s still overlap. Hand phone is completely general because just about every phone you use fits in your hand. Cell phone is short for cellular phone, and this relates to the technology behind them – namely, when you are on the move, your phone transfers between different “cells” (zones) to keep the connection going. This is an aspect not shared by cordless phones or landlines, and accurately distinguishes cell phones from other types of phones. But I’m parochial, so I’m sticking with mobile phone, thank you.
So there I am, speeding down Sheikh Zayed road in Sanjay’s new Mercedes SLK350, watching 5-star hotels, which cost more per night than I will make in a month, go by. (I only met Sanjay a couple hours before that, but that’s another story.) The outside temperature gauge on the car has just hit 50*C and I’m glad that virtually everywhere here is airconditioned… Dubai is such a complete change in tone to this trip, and it’s really quite a remarkable place. The full story later.
I was meant to have typed up a post on Dubai by now, but I unfortunately haven’t been able to find the time… Prague is a pretty city, and although it’s regarded as being in Eastern Europe, it’s very much like a Western European country. Tomorrow Dorian and I leave for a place where no one in Berlin will find us … BRATISLAVA!
A few quick words while we wait for Cheryl to arrive from the airport. Prague was very pleasant. It’s a relatively quiet town, quite picturesque with buildings painted in warm colours. There are also plenty of cobblestone roads which are impractical for both pedestrians and vehicles, but at least they look nice. The people of Prague seem to talk with a great deal of gusto. Upon inquiring whether a money changer could break a large banknote, Dorian was gruffly chastised, “No, it is IMPOSSIBLE!” Upon inquiring whether her youth card could qualify her for a concession, Cheryl was told it was, “PERFECT!”
On another occasion, we had a sudden craving for some dessert so we ducked into a delicatessen to inquire if they had any strudel. All we got in response was a confused look and a quizzical, “What?” With more bravado and persistence than I could dare to muster, Cheryl kept repeating “Strudel?” in various intonations to an increasingly puzzled shopkeeper. Finally, after about the fifth “Strudel?” he snapped as if we had insulted his mother’s honour and, with arms outstretched, he boomed, “Strudel? WHAT IS THIS?” Cue our hasty exit.
It was about 8.00am when this Jamaican train conductor sticks his head into our compartment. “Sighisoara? It’s the next stop. 9.30am.” There was at least one more hour of sleep left in the journey, so I just rolled over and shut my eyes.
We woke up at about 9.00am to the sight of Romania rolling by through the window. Romania is much more like the Eastern Europe I envisioned it to be. Cornfields dotted the landscape, occasionally punctuated by small villages which were composed of a group of dilapidated buildings with cracked walls, broken windows and little old gypsy women sweeping pathways with brooms made of sticks. Transylvania was misted over and the hills in the distance took on a hazy, dreamy and soothing complexion as we neared our destination.
The train chugged to an abrupt stop at 9.35am. At this time Dorian and I were still struggling with our backpacks in our cabin, so we had to make haste. We stumbled into the impossibly narrow train corridor where another train conductor inquired, “Sighisoara?” and pointed towards the exit on the other side of the carriage. I just nodded and made a beeline for the door. In the way were pieces of luggage and passengers bound for Bucharest, puffing on early morning ciggies. I can only assume they were still half-asleep because most of them inconsiderately refused to move out of the way, so we just brushed unapologetically past them and if our backpacks maimed them along the way, so be it.
When we got to the vestibule area, the train door was shut. “What the hell do we do?” Dorian asked. I managed to open the door, and just as I did so, the train started chugging forward again. “Shit! Jump!” Dorian yelled, and I readily obliged.
“Ah, nothing like a drama to start the day. At least we made it. Ok, let’s find our hostel.” Oblivious to the lack of signs identifying the train station, I forged onwards, not noticing Dorian becoming increasingly bewildered. I must have been distracted by the small gypsy boy who was after my bottle of peach iced tea. Sighisoara looked like it was in bad shape, with deserted streets and the same dilapidated buildings we’d seen on the train.
Out on the main street, the road signs weren’t quite matching up with what was in the Lonely Planet. The hostel was only meant to be 50m from the train station, but nothing resembling accommodation was in eyesight. Dorian observed that we had passed several buildings along the way marked with “Medias”.
“Uh, I think we might be in the wrong city.”
“Can’t be!” I replied. A few seconds later, we decided to head back to the train station information office to ask, somewhat sheepishly, “Where are we?”
The answer came back as dreaded, “Medias.”
Turns out we had jumped off the train about 35km too early and were in the village of Medias, a village which was noticeably absent from the Lonely Planet.
Luckily, there was an old regional train bound for Sighisoara only half an hour afterwards, and we finally reached our destination, slightly shaken, but otherwise fine.
Romanian Currency
One of the reasons why I refused to believe that we had got off at the wrong stop even though the streets weren’t matching those in the LP’s map was that sometimes the LP is out of date. We bought a copy of the Eastern European LP which was published in February of this year. When we got into Sighisoara for real, we went to the ATM. I was all ready to withdraw 10 million lei but I grew suspicious when the highest preset amount offered to me on screen was only 400 lei. I got cold feet and cancelled the transaction.
Turns out, as we discovered on a nearby poster, that only in July the Romanian government had decided to slash four zeroes off their currency. Had I not cancelled, I would have been attempting to withdraw about A$400,000.
Prague, Bratislava and Budapest are all old bastions of the Hapsburg empire. Each city has a hill overlooking the town and the Danube with a castle of some description sitting on the hilltop. So, that’s what I’ll start with in a brief roundup of each city.
The dominating feature of Prague Castle is St Vitus’ cathedral, a large cathedral with a impressive set of stained glass windows and chapels. We climbed the three hundred or so stairs to the top and were rewarded with a fantastic view of Prague and all its warmly coloured buildings and cobblestone footpaths. We caught the sunset on the famous Charles bridge at the bottom of the hill, a pedestrian-only bridge perpetually milling with tourists, portraiture artists and a variety of buskers. (Incidentally, the scene in the movie Eurotrip, where the group is sitting on the bridge in Amsterdam was actually filmed in Prague, very near the Charles Bridge.)
In the evening we listened to a performance of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Vivaldi’s Quattro Staggioni by the Prague Chamber Strings at the National Museum at Wenceslas Square. A bit of a tourist trap, but a good recital nonetheless. Wenceslas Square is currently hosting a variety of contemporary art sculptures which are somewhat questionable in their artistic merit. Among the works of art were a model of Superman flying straight into a block of concrete (his head is actually embedded in it), an anatomically exaggerated abstract representation of the “relationship between men and women” (the man is actually balanced on his oversized appendage) and a row of men built out of metal and with balls of steel (literally).
The only disappointment about Prague was that the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town was under a three month long restoration when we visited. It was all covered up with scaffolding, but that didn’t stop a crowd from gathering under it and bitching about how unlucky they all were to have come at such an inopportune time.
L: Cheryl and a guard at Prague Castle
M: View from St Vitus’ Cathedral
R: Near the Charles Bridge
Bratislava stands in contrast to Prague. Once part of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia peacefully became independent from the Czech Republic in 1993. Its capital, Bratislava, is the poorer cousin of Prague, being more compact and less visited. Bratislava Castle is a very plain building and seems to have been stripped bare and partially converted into offices. However, it does offer a picturesque view of the city. There is also a small museum in the castle which displays various objects found in the region from Roman times in nicely lit glass cases.
Bratislava’s city centre is a network of cosy pedestrian walkways, overflowing with cafes and restaurants and shares the same warmth of colours of Prague. Again, we had unfortunately visited during a period of heavy restoration – the town hall square had been uprooted, leaving an ugly hole and dysfunctional fountain in the middle of town.
L: Bratislavan street
R: City centre
L: Park
R: Bratislava Castle
Budapest’s castle is more like a small town. It contains a variety of museums, churches, hotels, restaurants, a palace and the Fisherman’s Bastion. The Fisherman’s Bastion is a distinctive structure built of white stone a hundred years ago. It overlooks the Danube and was used as a checkpoint on The Amazing Race (where Gus and Hera were eliminated, if memory serves).
Reminiscent of Prague, after visiting the castle we made our way down the hill on foot and crossed the Chain Bridge, one of the bridges connecting Buda and Pest – respectively the Western and Eastern halves of the city. Rumour has it that the Chain Bridge’s designer was so assured that his bridge was perfect, he had resolved to commit suicide if it was proven otherwise. After the bridge was opened, it was discovered that the lions standing on the bridge corners lacked tongues and consequently the creator took his own life. This rumour was summarily dismissed during a boat tour we took on the Danube at night, when all the major buildings are lit up with floodlights. The boat tour’s pre-recorded commentary offered a surprisingly frank overview of the city’s history, including an appraisal of the Marriott Hotel complaining that it was “too big, the angles are bad and it looks like a fortress”.
L: View over the Danube to Pest
M: Us at the Fisherman’s Bastion
R: Chain Bridge and Budapest Castle at night
Throughout these countries, the food was great. Hearty garlic and onion soups filled with melted cheese and served with a wide variety of fresh breads normally kick off meals. Main courses heavily focus on meat and gravy (with dumplings to mop up the sauce in Prague). Vegetables are normally ordered as side dishes because mains normally won’t come with them, maybe except for potatoes or sauerkraut. Beer is the standard drink during meals and is cheaper than soft drinks which come in ridiculously small quantities (200mL bottles!).
Interestingly, it is the custom to specify the weight of dishes on the menu. It is also customary to clear plates from the table as soon as possible, which means that you have barely taken your last bite when your dish is whisked out from under you.
From a travelling perspective, the three countries reminded me of Western Europe and all felt quite safe. Romania and Bulgaria proved to be an interesting counterpoint to the “Westernised vibe”…
Sighişoara is small Romanian town of about 35000 people nestled in among the hills of Transylvania. It features a typical European castle-on-a-hill overlooking the town. Sighişoara’s is notable for being the birthplace of Vlad Ţepeş, otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad’s house has since been converted into an overpriced restaurant where tourists can enjoy a steak (cooked rare, of course). A clock tower from the 17th century stands next to Vlad’s birthhouse. Unfortunately, the clock was not operation when we were there, but climbing the tower provides a great vantage point. At the top of the tower, the railings – on which is marked the reassuring words, “Do not lean” – have little plaques stuck on them noting the distance and direction of major world cities. Sydney is the most distant at over 15,000 kilometres. Down near the base of the tower is a piaţa where they used to, among other things, hold public executions. Today, it is filled with a variety of souvenir stalls selling everything from Romanian handicrafts to ultra-tacky Dracula memorabilia.
Sighişoara is not heavily touristed and although that made for a peaceful day, it seemed like most of the inhabitants had never seen an Asian before. I was stared at by a Roma boy all through lunch, which was quite disconcerting. Of course, the staring was mutual at times – especially when a bunch of Gypsies in a horse-drawn buggy went by on the highway (the horse conveniently defecating all over the road as it trotted past). However, later in the day, I passed by a bunch of youths who started making mocking Chinese-sounds – something I haven’t experienced in many years.
The next day, the weather had turned cold and overcast. We hopped on the train to Bucharest. At first, it was only wheat fields and hills – layered in different shades of grey by haze and distance. Poor light gave everything a moody, muted colour. As we moved out of Transylvania and closer to Bucharest, things got depressing. Agriculture and countryside slowly gave way to industry, and great rusted, stained hulks of factories and abandoned vehicles lined the railway side. Cottages were replaced by monolithic, dirty and overwhelmingly grey apartment blocks. When we finally rolled into Bucharest, the rain clouds had rolled in as well.
The rain was here to stay. It rained for four days straight, so heavily on the first two days that we were mainly stuck indoors. By the third day, the rains had resulted in some minor flooding around Bucharest, but were beginning to ease up and we headed into the city.
Grey, drab, and dreary, Bucharest really felt like the Eastern Europe of old. Bucharest felt like it was still mired in the past. Boulevardes link a series of piaţas through the city, but unlike the piazzas of Italy, most of them are voluminous cobblestoned areas which would be empty if the Romanians weren’t using them as ad hoc car parks.
Bucharest is not a city frequented by tourists, lacking information booths, English signs and any central tourist attractions. All the sights we saw were conspicuously devoid of tourists, including a decent replica of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, called the Arcul de Triumf in Romanian (a lot better than the ugly four-sided replica in Vientiane, at any rate). We only visited one museum – the large Taranului Roman Museum which was mostly filled with unremarkable wooden artifacts, glass paintings, stone crosses and embroidered clothing. Overall, the feel was quite depressing, though the city was certainly interesting.
Romania only recently emerged from the shadow of a communist dictator’s rule in 1989. During the reign of Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romania was afflicted with economic turmoil, famine, torture and forced relocation as thousands of villages were uprooted in a program of rural urbanisation. Also during this time, Ceauşescu tore up the churches and booted some 70,000 citizens off their properties in order to use the land for his own dubious and ultimately failed land development projects. His incongruously named “House of the People” (now the Palace of Parliament) is one of the largest buildings in Europe, but it is a mammoth concrete monstrosity. Although impressive in size, it is devoid of any colour whatsoever. It stands on a stark piece of land with ill-kept gardens and next to parkland which is overgrown with weeds and polluted by rubbish. Bordering the park and palace is the B-dul Unirii. An entire suburb was destroyed in order to make way for what was intended to be Bucharest’s Champs Elysées. Ceauşescu even went so far as to make his boulevarde six metres longer than its Parisian counterpart, but his vision never really took fruition and B-dul Unirii is now aptly described as an “urban wasteland” by the Lonely Planet.
Ceauşescu was finally executed after an uprising in 1989. In the Piaţa Revoluţiei you can see the balcony where he made his final address to a hostile crowd. When you see how close the balcony is to street level, it becomes clearer why he left the building in a hurry via an airlift from the roof. The piaţa now has a memorial dedicated to those involved in the 1989 Revolution. Wikipedia has a good account of the Revolution.
Bucharest is really quite bleak by any city’s standards and compared to the Romanian countryside. It was not until several days later on the train that we got to talk with a local and confirm that Bucharest really was bleak and it wasn’t just because we weren’t visiting the right places.
The other thing about Romania is the high population of Roma, an ethnic minority facing much discrimination in the region. Roma are better known for being associated with the term “Gypsy”. Gypsies are much maligned all through Europe. In a store in Prague, I noticed that Cheryl’s backpack was not zipped up properly, and the shopkeeper did not hesitate to point out that “maybe the gypsies opened it up”. Officially the Roma population in Romania is about 400,000 out of the country’s 20 million, but it is reckoned that actual numbers are closer to 2 million. Romania certainly had a lot of them. In Bucharest, I had ducked into a bookstore and bought some postcards. As I was putting them in my bag, I noticed a group of gypsy boys staring at me intently through the window. I got spooked and decided to stick around the store for a little while longer. Half an hour later, they appeared to have left, but when I walked out, they suddenly emerged from behind a bunch of pillars. There is little that is more traumatising than a group of four gypsy children surrounding you and demanding money, hands roving all over the place. Luckily, my backpack was locked, so I shoved my hands in my pockets, blindly ran onto the road and into oncoming traffic, and made my escape.
L: The monstrous Palace of Parliament
M: Piaţa Revoluţiei
R: Central Committee Balcony where Ceauşescu made his final speech
Train journeys can be a great way to travel and our path through Eastern Europe required several overnight journeys. As long as you have a reservation for a couchette or sleeper car, sleeping is normally not a problem. I find the rocking motion of the train quite soothing, actually. The only inconvenience is when you have to deal with border crossings. This involves a train stop in the middle of the night – once before reaching the border to get your passport stamped with an exit stamp, and once after crossing the border to get an entry visa. So, a typical scenario is getting woken up at 2.00am by one border guard, then later at 3.30am by the second. This can get quite annoying if something delays the process.
We visited Sofia after Bucharest. The trains we took into and out of Sofia were routes sufficiently obscure such that only backpackers seemed to frequent them. Going into Sofia we shared a compartment with Takeshi, a Japanese guy travelling solo (there seem to be a lot of solo Japanese travellers). A more unusual sight was a pair of girls from Hong Kong in the compartment next to us.
Bulgaria is probably at about the same level of economic development as Romania. However, not having gone through the same sort of turmoil Bucharest had gone through, Sofia is an attractive city. Many of its streets are paved with faded yellow cobblestones and in contrast to Bucharest, it has a large number of Orthodox churches scattered around the town. We also managed to see the changing of the guard, which features a ridiculous performance of goose-stepping, only outdone by the preposterous display the Greek soldiers put on in Athens. Although we were only in Sofia for one day, we quickly got a sense that Bulgarians were a warm and friendly bunch. In hindsight, it would probably have been better to spend more time in Sofia and less in Bucharest.
The Bulgarian language uses Cyrillic characters so the country felt very Russian (which is a little peculiar since it is almost like saying Hungary uses Roman characters so it felt very English). Interestingly, the Lonely Planet notes that Bulgarians nod to signal “no” and shake their heads to signal “yes”. Although this could produce some rather amusing opportunities for miscommunication, we never ran into any problems with this.
L: Foreign dignitaries arriving at the National Assembly
M: Alexander Nevski Church
R: Changing of the guard in Sofia
It was on the train from Sofia to Thessalonica that we met Ionut and his friend, whose name I won’t even attempt to spell. The two of them were both Romanian engineers who worked for Romanian Railways. As a perk of their jobs, they got to travel on the entire European train network for free. Utilising this deal, they had managed to visit a great deal of Europe – something which would not normally be feasible on a salary of about 300-400 Euro a month. To cut down on accommodation costs in Western Europe, they would arrive on an overnight train in the morning and leave on another overnight train in the night, taking a one-day whirlwind tour of a city.
Ionut’s English wasn’t very fluent and he had a habit of exclaiming something was “very fine” if it was to his liking. He wanted to visit Australia to see our crocodiles which were “very fine”, and our kangaroos, which were also “very fine”. However, on his salary – which was “not very fine” – getting to Australia just wasn’t possible.
On the other hand, Ionut’s friend, fed on a steady diet of movies on the TCM channel on pay TV, was fluent in English and very talkative. He was a great teller of anecdotes and jokes and seemed to have an endless supply of them, especially stories of his time in the Romanian army.
When we told him we’d recently been to Bucharest he immediately expressed his distaste. “I don’t like Bucharest. It’s very grey and boring. Ceauşescu destroyed everything. I come from the North, it’s much better up there.” He then told us another joke:
The Japanese built a car entirely out of gold and invited George H W Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev and Nicolae Ceauşescu to take a look at it. They came and had a look, but before they were allowed to leave, were searched by the Japanese police. Bush was searched first and when a gold screw was found in his pocket, he was summarily thrown in prison. Gorbachev was then found with a spark plug stuck down his pants, and he too was thrown into prison. Finally, Ceauşescu was frisked, but nothing was found and he was praised for his honesty. The next day Ceauşescu visited Bush and Gorbachev in prison.
“Why did they arrest you?” he asked them.
“I took a screw from the car as a souvenir,” Bush replied.
“And I took a spark plug,” Gorbachev said.
“Oh, fuck you!” Ceauşescu exclaimed. “No wonder why I couldn’t start the damn car!”
At around 3.00am we were woken up by the Bulgarian border guard. As we lay there bleary eyed, Ionut had in the meantime taken to pacing up and down the train carriage with a pack of cigarettes. He was nice enough to duck back in to let us know that he understood it was a non-smoking compartment, so that was why he was smoking outside. Unfortunately, while he was explaining this, he was waving his cigarette around, filling the compartment with a rather noxious smoke which lingered and made it very difficult to get back to sleep.
By 4.00am, the train still wasn’t moving. The border guard had discovered to their annoyance that someone in the next compartment didn’t have a Bulgarian visa in their passport. After a few tense moments of trying to figure out what to do, the unfortunate man was tossed off the train in the dead of night and we were off again.
One thing about travelling is how sudden changes of environment can be from one day and the next. By late that morning we had left behind the gloomy weather and foggy hills and emerged into bright sunshine, accompanied by the vivid Greek countryside with its stony cliffs, rolling plains and fields of olive trees, cotton plants and vineyards. We were back in the “West”.
Fully sick scooters
Wrexes with basketball-sized mufflers and boot-sized sub-woofers with Greeks at the wheel going oonce-oonce-oonce up the street are a fairly common sight back in Sydney. It’s no surprise they’re around in Greece, either, but not everyone can afford a car. So they fall back on the next available thing: scooters. And since you can’t fit a sub-woofer on a scooter (or at least they haven’t tried yet), they tune these things up to deafen as many people as possible. These things make a helluva lotta noise.
But it’s a scooter. I’m sorry. You just can’t look cool on a scooter. Even Vin Diesel can’t make it look cool. And when you’re toting a peroxide blonde mullet and are going farting down the street on your pissy little shitmobile every night at 2am waking the neighbourhood up, you’re just retarded.
Restaurant touts
The great thing about eating in Athens is that there are so many outdoor eating places, and the weather is great for it. Fresh bread, large blocks of feta cheese atop crisp salads, copious quantities of olive oil and desserts dripping in honey. Yum. Part of the ritual of finding a place to eat is running the gauntlet of taverna owners who stand by the roadside demanding that passers-by sit down at their establishment for a meal. An example of one such invitation (spoken all in Greek) as Dorian and I walked by:
Restaurant owner: Come in and have lunch!
Dorian: We’ve already eaten.
Restaurant owner: Already eaten? Your friend doesn’t look like he’s eaten anything in his entire life!
Dorian: (Laughs)
Restaurant owner: Is he Japanese?
Dorian: (Laughs again)
Me: What? What’s so funny?
Sights around town
The central focus of Athens is… you guessed it, another citadel-on-a-hill-overlooking-town. Pretty much par for the course for Europe, but Athens’ Acropolis is unique in that its buildings are about two and a half millennia old. It goes without saying that it’s a world heritage site, and although most of it is covered in scaffolding, it really is a pretty impressive sight. The Acropolis also provides a 360 degree view of the sprawling metropolis of Athens, which is mostly homogeneous. A museum at the Acropolis houses some excellently preserved statues and friezes, all created centuries before the birth of Christ.
The sheer age of artifacts is what makes Athens interesting. Marble was used a lot in Grecian art. After such works have been restored they – apart from the odd missing limb or head – look much younger than the 5th century BC dating they have. Athens is full of such stuff and they keep discovering more. Locals are afraid to knock down and replace buildings because when they dig up foundations, they also keep digging up artifacts. When this happens, no further development is allowed on the land until everything’s been excavated. Understandbly, locals aren’t in a hurry to find out whether they’ve been living on top of an archaeological goldmine and so are quite content to live in aging apartments.
When the government laid new Metro lines, they too ran into the same problem. Near Syntagma station, they unearthed the remains of Roman bathhouse . So they dug a large hole to the surface, stuck a glass roof over it and turned it into a roadside exhibit. The Metro track had to be diverted. The smaller artifacts were moved into glass cases inside the Metro station. I don’t think anywhere else in the world has 2500 year old trinkets displayed in a train station.
Changing of the guard
I’ve seen the changing of the guard in several countries, and I thought the goose-stepping in Sofia was ridiculous, but the Greek soldiers stationed outside the tomb of the unknown soldier really take the cake. I present this:
The Islands
History aside, Athens really isn’t all that pretty. However, the Greek islands are another story. We took a high speed ferry to Mykonos which was about four hours away. As you approach it, the island makes its character instantly known – buildings dot the landscape with whitewashed walls and bright blue windows and doors. Mykonos hosts more than twenty beaches and in high season it gets absolutely packed. Being September, it was the shoulder season and we were lucky not enough to have to deal with crowds… especially as Mykonos is notorious for being a “gay island” hangout. The beaches are pleasant enough, but they can’t really be compared to Aussie beaches. The sand is not fine grained, but consists of small grey pebbles. The Aegean Sea, although a beautiful deep aquamarine colour, is as flat as a tack, and there are no waves to speak of on the beaches. Apparently the Greeks like it that way, but to me it’s a bit like sitting in a cold bath. But it’s a terrific place to chill out nonetheless, and that is what we did…
At the Apple Soho store. Dorian looks around and goes, “The trendiness here is sickening!” Haha!
Perhaps it’s the temperate weather on this visit, as opposed to the biting winter coldness, but I’ve enjoyed New York a little more on each subsequent visit. It hasn’t visibly changed much since I came here almost five years ago. Lots of WiFi hotspots and other superficial modifications, but apart from that it’s pretty much the same city.
Of course, except for the WTC. The WTC site is a gaping hole in the city, demarcated by a chain link fence with boards commemorating September 11 dotted around the site. Constructions on a new subway station are underway, but the building of an appropriate memorial site and skyscraper is proving to be much more controversial. The site is nothing much to look at, but it’s still worth a visit.
Yesterday a terrorism alert hit the media about a possible attack on the New York subway system. We went into a bank to change some traveller’s cheques and it was disconcerting to see on CNN terrorism reports pertaining to the city we were currently in, although I imagine New Yorkers are getting increasingly used to it. In response to the terrorism alert, the subways were swarming with cops (I had my bag randomly searched once) but with 4.5 million depending on the subs daily, the terror alerts weren’t deterring anyone from using them – least of all backpackers with no other means of transport. Meanwhile there was one guy selling newspapers outside a station who appeared to be getting quite frustrated by the lack of sales. At one point he was crying out, “Terrorism alert! Read all about it! … Hey, those cheap shoes are tickin’. I’m callin’ the po-lice!”
U2 is in town playing at the Madison Square Garden. We queued up for about three hours yesterday waiting for cancellation tickets. In the line we had the somewhat painful experience of listening to a local man who was some leftover remnant of the hippie era. His ramblings covered things like the time he smoked pot on the Great Wall, how everyone in the world is ignorant or stupid, how no one talks about “important” issues in the world anymore (including moving towards a four day work week), and most disturbingly, how Australia should cut down its Asian migrant intake to avoid dilution of its “culture”. It was a relief when we got to the ticket booth and parted company. Unfortunately, we found out that the only tickets left were US$170 ones and left empty handed.
Boston was a good change from the rush and bustle of New York. It’s a quiet city, which I guess means less distractions for the students at Harvard and MIT which are across the river in Cambridge! The highlight for me was the Mapparium, a 10 metre high globe made of stained glass windows with the map of the world as it was circa 1935. There’s a bridge suspended through the middle of the globe through the Indian and Pacific Oceans and you get to pore over the world as it was when colonialism was still very much in fashion. The globe reveals many things which show how much has changed over the last 70 years: the full scale of the Soviet empire, the carving up of vast tracts of Africa between the European powers, a united India (before Pakistan and Bangladesh were separated out), the complete absence of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia from the map (all come under the label of French Indochina), a China without Manchuria and so on.
The other interesting aspect of the Mapparium is its acoustic qualities. A “whispering gallery” consists of a circular wall which reflects sound waves along its surface such that sound travels a full circle back to the speaker. A whisper along the wall can be clearly heard by anyone listening along the wall’s circumference. There are many whispering galleries around the world, such as in St Paul’s Cathedral in London, or the Echo Wall in Beijing’s Temple of Heaven. However, the Mapparium is different in that speaking in any direction, since it is a full sphere, will result in the same effect. Furthermore, standing in the middle of the sphere and speaking produces the unnerving effect of hearing yourself in surround sound with startling clarity.
We also had the chance to catch up with Danny, who is on exchange at Boston College, for an enjoyable dinner. We concluded that European men seem to have a peculiar (and somewhat unsettling) habit of walking around bedrooms in underwear and socks and nothing else.
Currently enjoying a restful stopover in Montréal with the wonderfully hospitable Frances and Frances. Unfortunately the clouds have decided to follow us around and since we left New York every day has been overcast and rainy. It’s a pity really, because Montréal would otherwise be a very nice city to walk in. It really doesn’t have any “grand sights” like a castle on a hill (though it does have a chalet on a hill, which the locals call “the mountain”), but nonetheless has a certain charm to it. One aspect of this city that I find particularly charming and somewhat unique is the bilingual aspect of it (though something which I’m sure is shared by various European countries). Montréal belongs to the French-speaking province of Québec, but most locals are completely fluent in English as well (incidentally, this also means that many migrants to this city are trilingual). Signs are all in French, mostly with English written beneath in italics. Unlike France, however, locals don’t mind whether you make an attempt to talk in French or not. Anyway, hopefully the weather improves over the week. Apparently the progression of Autumn (or “Fall”, rather) means that the leaves on the deciduous trees are changing colour and thus the forests are quite a beautiful sight, but I haven’t been able to see this yet due to the constant rain.
While browsing Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile” – a long section of Michigan Avenue lined with boutiques and other expensive stores – I stumbled across Chicago’s Apple store. I went in to use the free net access there (or here, rather) and overheard a lady complaining to a staff member about her damaged iPod. I glanced over and it was a older generation iPod with a disturbing amount of sand stuck behind the click-wheel surface and behind the display glass. I couldn’t quite catch the whole conversation between the staff member and the woman, but at one point he blurted out rather loudly, “So you want us to print an advisory warning saying not to rub sand on your iPod?!“
Firstly, the four and a half hour flight from Chicago to San Fran did not come with a meal – United wanted us to pay $5 for a snack box. Secondly, when we got into San Fran at around noon, our bags did not appear on the baggage carousel. Turns out that United screwed up with the handling of our baggage. Our backpacks ended up on some other flight. We were promised the bags would be delivered by 8.00pm that day. However, that was yesterday…
Went to Alcatraz today and had a nice dinner at Chez Panisse in Berkeley (review to come).
Tomorrow, a closer look at the Golden Gate Bridge…
Spent an interesting night watching the Halloween festivities in Castro – it really is a Huge event in America. Anyway, this is the final 24 hour period of the trip. As they say, all good things must come to an end. It’s been an extraordinary four months and I’m sure I’ll suffer a bit of that period of surreal depression you get after returning from a prolonged period of travelling and falling back in to the relative routine of everyday life. As always, I’ve learnt a lot about the world around me, about myself, and probably more than I wanted to know about my travelling companions (for better or worse…).
See you all back in Sydney!
So everyone’s sitting in their seats at 10.00pm and the 14 hour United Airways flight to Sydney is due to depart San Fran at 10.15pm. The captain gets on the PA system and says, “Good evening, we’ve just done our pre-flight check walkaround and noticed that there’s fuel leaking from one of our engines.” Big groans all around. He continued. “Obviously that’s not a good thing. So what we’re going to have to do is disassemble the engine, have a look around to find out where the leak is coming from and then put everything back together again. United apologises for the inconvenience, and we will keep you posted.”
One minute later he gets back on the PA and adds, “On second thought, it’s probably going to be quicker if we just swap planes so we’re going to have to get you to deplane in a moment.” Pause. “Uh, you might also want to bring your pillow and blanket with you to the new plane.”
“Quicker” meant several hours while we waited for the crew, food, luggage and 360,000 pounds of fuel to be transferred across. But at least it’s nice to be home in one piece.
Al Muntaha, Arabic for “The Highest”, is the restaurant at the top of the Burj Al Arab, offering “contemporary European cuisine”. The food is made under the guidance of michelin-starred chef John Wood. After spending some time gawking at the ornate hotel atrium and staring at all the multi-millionaires walking around the lobby, I stepped into an glass-walled express lift which took me swiftly to the top floor.
The staff were very welcoming, and if there was any distaste at ushering a sweaty, scruffy backpacker into their establishment, it was well-hidden. Like the rest of the Burj, the interior of the restaurant was colourful in a slightly gaudy way, but otherwise the decor was very pleasant.
The views are naturally spectacular, though the ocean aspect is a little boring even though the sea is a rich, pale blue. (At night, the view would probably be non-existent because there are no lights on the water.) On the other hand, the views through the side windows to the north-east and south-west show the shoreline and cityscape of Dubai. To the south-west you can make out a section of The Palm, the gigantic property development built from reclaimed line. It’s huge.
Service is excellent and the waitstaff are well-drilled, always addressing people by surname. They could perhaps smile and relax a little more, but that’s probably my Aussie preference for some informality.
The food is solid, although perhaps not the most innovative. I ordered scallops for an entree and got the fattest damn scallops I’ve ever seen – terrific. The main of “Rossini vs Wellington” beef was accompanied by generous servings of foie gras and relatively large slices of black truffle but was otherwise unremarkable. For dessert they served up a fantasticly fluffy lemon souffle (thankfully for me, alcohol free) and sorbet. Petit fours and some lovely little raspberry maccarones to round everything off were complimentary. I was incredibly stuffed after the meal and, unfortunately not having any company to share the meal with and pass the time, was content to just sit and stare out the window until I could walk again.
The damage to my budget was significant, eradicating a good deal of the money saved from coming under budget in South-East Asia. Lunch was 600 dirhams (A$220), including tip and an exorbitant A$10 bottle of Evian water (only to be beaten by the A$11 bottle of Santa Vittoria water at Est. back in Sydney). Tea and coffee is not complimentary. Yes, it is horribly expensive, but if you’re only going to be in Dubai once and you don’t earn telephone numbers, splurging here is a great way to see the Burj.
Reserve and turn up early to get a window seat. Meals are à la carte and I was not aware of any degustation menu. Al Muntaha serves a cheaper seafood buffet lunch on Fridays, but apparently this is mass produced fare which, while good, is not great.
U2 Vertigo Tour Concert (Madison Square Garden, New York)
After almost getting arrested by the NYPD (that’s a story for another time), I went to the October 8 U2 concert in New York. It was awesome. Keane supported. Here’s the set list. I don’t have any photos unfortunately, but there was one moment when they switched off the lights and Bono asked everyone to bring out their mobiles and the stadium lit up like a night sky.
U2 will be touring Australia in March next year.
Wicked (Oriental Theatre, Chicago)
When we tried to see Wicked in New York, we were told tickets were sold out over a month in advance. Luckily, the Chicago production wasn’t so overbooked. Wicked is based on a book which recounts the “real” story behind the Wicked Witch of the West. It’s a lovely take on the Wizard of Oz which amusingly relegates the role of Dorothy to historic irrelevancy and explains how the “Wicked Witch”… wasn’t wicked after all, being a victim of a malicious propaganda campaign undertaken by the xenophobic Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Very entertaining (I liked the Loathing and Wonderful pieces), but to me not as memorable as other classic musicals which have made it big on Broadway.
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway, New York)
Spelling Bee was an excellent small scale production about a group of kids and their involvement a Spelling Bee competition. It’s hard to explain beyond that what it’s about, but it’s entertaining and very funny all the way. They even had audience participation, pulling up several members to join in the competition – including one Mr Tejani who appeared to have won a few spelling bees in his time because he kept spelling words correctly where he should have got them wrong. I’m not entirely convinced that he wasn’t planted in the audience. There’s some improvisation thrown in as well. Highly recommended.
Second City Reloaded (Second City, Toronto)
I’ve never been to a comedy club before, but it’s pretty fun. Toronto’s branch of Second City is famed for being the place where Canadian actors like Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Mike Myers and Eugene Levy honed their comedy skills before making it big. A lot of the skits are hit and miss, but happily most of them are hits. The two hour show is followed by a free half hour session of improv, and it’s fascinating how people can think on their feet so rapidly.
Since most of the fine dining restaurants in New York seem to have some sort of dress code requirement (“jacket required, tie recommended”), scruffy backpackers like myself are relegated to some of the less stuffy joints around the city. As the name suggests, the restaurant is located in the Gramercy district in Manhattan. After arriving on time at 9.00pm, we had to wait about 15 minutes for our table to be vacated by the previous seating.
Gramercy is split up into two sections – a noisy, bustling tavern section at the front serving drinks and lighter meals, and an only slightly less noisy dining section at the back. Gramercy seems to cater for a lot of larger groups of people. The lighting is dim – a little too dim for my tastes – but not so dim that I couldn’t see that despite the lack of dress code we were definitely slumming it in the clothing department … not that I really cared. (If you see the Chez Panisse review, you can see I’m even wearing the same shirt!)
Perhaps it was because everything was really busy, but service was somewhat patchy. We had to request certain things twice before they followed through, and the timing between courses was erratic (at one point we caught the head waiter, who was hovering behind our table, angrily and frantically gesticulating at his staff to clear our table with a horrified look on his face that said, “these plates should have been cleared hours ago!”). They also tend to serve courses to their own schedule. I’m not sure if this is an American custom, but if people were absent from the table (in the bathroom or wherever), they didn’t wait for them to return. They go ahead and serve and put a silver serving cover over the plates.
On the other hand, the food at Gramercy was fantastic with creative combinations that mostly worked. We had their 7 course seasonal tasting menu. The appetizers were light dishes of seafood, followed by heavier mains of bacon and really succulent lamb, and two dessert courses laden with chocolate. The meal was USD95, but keep in mind that this doesn’t include an annoying state tax nor the standard minimum 15% US tip which, all told, adds about 25% to the bill.
Michelin recently started rating New York restaurants using its famed, and sometimes controversial, three-star system. Gramercy received one star. It was also chosen as the surveyors’ favourite restaurant in Zagat’s 2006 NYC Survey.
Berkeley’s across the bay from San Francisco, but it’s worth the hike out to this quaint restaurant. Similar to Gramercy Tavern, it’s split into a cafe downstairs and a restaurant upstairs. The ambience is a lot more intimate than Gramercy, with bright but warm lighting, smaller tables and much less noise. It’s a good choice for a date.
Service was largely flawless, but in a clinical sort of way.
Chez Panisse runs a different tasting menu each day of the week and on the Saturday we were served with a 5 course one. It was pretty good, but by way of comparison, I found Gramercy’s to be better. It’d slot into the one or two hat category back in Sydney quite nicely. Damage was USD75 per person, plus a mandatory 17% service charge (which is effectively the tip) and an 8% state sales tax.
Asking if the tea and coffee is free
When the desserts are cleared, normally a waiter comes around and asks if anyone wants tea or coffee. The thing is, at some of these types of restaurants it’s free, and sometimes it’s in excess of $20. Being more than a little cash strapped by this stage of the trip, it was important to figure this out. However, it didn’t seem quite appropriate to ask, “Mate, is that free?” One alternative was, “Does that incur a supplement?” but I would have choked on the pretentiousness. I settled on asking, “Is that complimentary?” (It wasn’t.)
I wake up to an SMS from an aunt in Singapore. It was only yesterday that she discovered I was going to Dubai alone and decided to send me the contact details of a friend she has there called Sanjay. “He’s abt 25. Met him in New Orleans in June. Nice guy. 1 of us insurance pple. doin VERY well,” says the message.
I grab a quick breakfast at the buffet restaurant downstairs and give Sanjay a call. He is all too accommodating and after a brief discussion about my plans over the next three days, we decide to meet up for lunch since I’ll be near his workplace in the Bur Dubai region.
My first destination is the Dubai museum, built in the two-century old al Fahidi fort. There are a few artifacts lying around the courtyard, including a cannon, a model of a dhow, musical instruments, old weapons and a nifty windtower structure called an al Barajeel. Windtowers were an ancient form of air-conditioning in which a tower several metres high channelled air down to a room via four openings. As the air moves down it speeds up which has a cooling effect. By convection, this cooler air pulls in the hotter outside air, which is in turn cooled as well. The effect is a refreshing, light breeze wafting from the tower base even when there is no detectable wind outside.
However, the real show is downstairs, where well maintained displays detail the history and development of Dubai, and the various aspects of its rich cultural heritage. There are exhibits about the Bedouins, Dubai’s relationship with the sea and fishing, Islam, camels and so on. Particularly uncanny was the use of holograms combined with models – in one, detailing the composition of an old grave, the grave’s dome cover faded from opaqueness to invisibility to reveal its contents, and then back again.
Around the corner from the museum is the old Bastakia Quarter. But even old Dubai doesn’t look that old anymore and extensive restoration work has produced a block of freshly painted and well-maintained historical buildings. Still, it is an interesting site where you can see both the crescent topped minarets of mosques as well as modern skyscrapers framed between narrow alleys lined with centuries-old windtowers.
I get in contact with Sanjay again. He tells me he’ll pick me up on a nearby corner and to be on the lookout for a white Mercedes. Apart from this and knowing from his name that he’s Indian, I have no idea who to expect. A gleaming new Mercedes 350SLK pulls around the corner driven by a man in sharp business suit. It has to be him. I’m more than a little sweaty after walking in the humid streets for an hour and I apologetically climb into the car, sinking into the convertible’s low seats as Sanjay gives me a hearty handshake.
I have lunch with his family at their apartment. Two “helpers” – otherwise known as maids in Asia, but male – serve a mixture of Indian and Chinese cuisine and I learn that Sanjay and his father operate an insurance brokerage business. It turns out that Sanjay’s specialty is life insurance – the same field as my aunt. As with most successful salespeople, Sanjay’s personality makes him instantly likeable and he offers to take me for a bit of a drive through Dubai after lunch, since actual lunchtime in Dubai extends for several hours in the afternoon, much like for the European countries bordering the Mediterranean.
Minutes later we’re cruising down Sheikh Zayed Road, an eight, sometimes ten, laned highway forming the backbone down the Gulf coast on which the “suburb” of Jumeirah hangs. Replete with its expensive condominiums, plush office towers and horde of cranes working on the next big, ambitious property development project, Sheikh Zayed Road hosts Dubai’s modern, dynamic, and constantly growing skyline. The exciting thing is that none of this existed just two decades ago.
Going back several centuries to the time when the colonial powers of Portugal, France, the Netherlands and Britain were present in the region seeking to control the trade routes, Dubai was a sleepy fishing village on the south-west shore of Dubai Creek in the part of town which is today called Bur Dubai. By the time Dubai had expanded across the Creek in 1841 (today’s Deira district), the British East India Company had finally established a presence in the region. These links to Britain, combined with a tax exemption for foreign traders instituted in 1894 started the growth of Dubai as a trading port. Free trade is still an aspect of Dubai which remains today. With the arrival of the Great Depression in the 1930s, Dubai’s pearl diving industry collapsed and the focus moved more or less solely to trade.
Dubai engaged in a lot of re-exporting the importation of goods for the purpose of exporting them again. In 1947, India, in an attempt to stabilise its volatile currency, banned the importation of gold. Consequently, Dubai became infamous for being a gold smuggler’s staging point. Gold prices in Dubai were half as much as in India and smugglers, operating legally in Dubai (but obviously not in India) pocketed some hefty profits. The construction of new ports and trading facilities saw Dubai eventually surpass neighbouring ports as the trading centre of choice.
In 1971, after Britain departed from the region, the United Arab Emirates was formed the only federation of Arab states to date. Dubai took its place within the federation as the largest emirate apart from Abu Dhabi. Under the federation, emirates are left largely autonomous and Dubai remains a free economic zone.
Sanjay dismisses the old part of town, Deira, as quaint but mostly irrelevant. Jumeirah is where it’s at today. In fact, he tells me he hasn’t been across the Creek for several months. As we drive further down the coast, business and commerce give way to pleasure and entertainment as the first of a crop of five star hotels and beach resorts begin to materialise on the skyline. Sanjay inquires if I’d like to see the new house that his family will be moving into soon. Of course I do, so we turn into a residential suburb filled with nothing less than streets upon streets of mansions.
There are Indian construction workers crawling all over the house we arrive at. Sanjay has a quick chat to one of them to see how work is progressing and invites me upstairs for a better look. From the balcony, the famous gigantic sail silhouette of the Burj al Arab looms in the distance. Although the Emrati nationals own virtually all the actual land in Dubai, that hasn’t stopped affluent expats from renting out land for their own needs. That’s the case with Sanjay’s family and despite having only a five year lease, they’ve decided to make extensive renovations to the house, including installing a pool, pool house, jacuzzi and snooker room.
The Middle East is a part of the world long plagued with instability. Together with the recent focus on terrorism and Muslim extremists, people tend to paint the entire region with a broad brush. This brush normally colours Arab governments as theocratic, stringently conservative and severely strict, in line with a restricted interpretation of Islam. Friends back in Australia even went so far as to query whether I would be targeted in Dubai as an infidel and treated accordingly. While it may be true that certain parts of the region are more “traditional” than others, it would erroneous to brand everything Arabian as such.
I remark that Dubai, even from the short time I had been here, seemed quite progressive and relatively liberal. “Oh yes, it’s very liberal here. As long as you maintain a respect for certain aspects of Muslim culture, people are pretty much free to do what they want. For one, alcohol is allowed, though it is quite expensive.”
As we exit the residential estate, Sanjay points out a particularly large mansion to me. It’s the Sheikh’s house, or at least, one of his houses. It is the leadership of the Al-Maktoum ruling family that has made Dubai the place it is today.
In 1966, Dubai struck oil. Sheikh Rashid, the emir at the time and regarded as the “father of modern Dubai”, put the oil to good use. Oil revenue was poured into infrastructure and development. It also enabled the elimination of personal income tax, free health care and free education for citizens. Sheikh Rashid’s work has been continued by his son, Sheikh Maktoum and the current Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed. This rapid development has earnt Dubai the moniker of “Dubai Inc.” by some and even The Economist has remarked that “Dubai is run like a family business by a benign autocrat”. Sometimes it’s referred to as the Hong Kong or Singapore of the Middle East.
Only about 6% of Dubai’s income comes from oil. Oil supplies are forecasted to run out within a decade so it is not all that surprising that Dubai is not fuelled by oil, but by services, trade and increasingly tourism. The royal family-owned and profitable Emirates Airlines, combined with events such as the Dubai Fashion Week, Dubai Shopping Festival, Dubai Desert Classic golf tournament and Dubai International Racing Carnival have all helped to put Dubai on the international map.
Accompanying this capitalism success story is an extraordinary level of multiculturalism in Dubai. Sanjay’s father arrived in Dubai shortly after the UAE was formed and slowly built up the family business from there. At some point during lunch, I mentioned that I’d booked myself in for a desert safari. Sanjay’s father interrogates me about who I’ve booked with and how much it will cost me. He turns to Sanjay and after a quick exchange in Hindi, he tells me to cancel the booking because he could net me at least a 50% discount. I ask if he also knows how to speak Arabic and am surprised to discover that he didn’t. “There are so many expats here, the Arabs better learn how to speak something else if they want to do business!” he says.
Emrati nationals only comprise 20% of Dubai’s population, the rest being expats. The majority of expats hail from India, with a sizeable chunk coming from Iran, Pakistan, and, strangely enough, the Philippines. It is the expats that provide a cheap labour force and fill Dubai with a rich mix of religion, dress and language. As is so often the case where people speak different languages, English has become the de facto language of commerce and Dubai is no exception.
As multicultural as things were, there didn’t seem to be much blending between the different peoples, with communities seeming to mix predominantly among themselves.
Unfortunately Sanjay has to head back to work to close off a deal with an international client. I bid him farewell and he drops me off at Mercato Mall to check out the shopping scene. Shopping is a big pastime in Dubai, and the shopping malls are certainly impressive. Even though the rest of Dubai has shut down for the afternoon (for a Mediterranean-style siesta), the malls are one of the few places that remain open. It’s buzzing despite being a Wednesday. Mercato Mall is relatively small, but it has some wonderful architecture modelled on an Italian style. I also manage to visit Wafi City Mall and Deira City Centre that afternoon. Wafi has a fair amount of affluence flowing through it and I was strongly advised by Sanjay to only look, and if the temptation to buy should arise, I should strongly think it over. Boutiques line the corridors of Wafi and the price tags dangling off the little bits of cloth and stones displayed in the storefront windows had an impossible number of digits written on them. On the other hand, Deira City Centre is more a mall for the masses. It’s pretty darn big. Despite being only three levels, it encompasses a fair chunk of real estate. Carrefour has built one of its “Hypermarkets” inside which features over fifty checkout counters… all of which were in use when I visited.
Multiculturalism is especially evident in the shopping malls. Sitting in one of the rest-stop cafes, I found it fascinating to observe Arab men in traditional white robes and Muslim women swathed entirely in black burqa and hijab walk alongside caucasian girls with miniskirts and low cut tops. Stores are staffed by a multitude of Indians and a liberal sprinkling of Asians – mostly from the Philippines. One thing I found particularly noteworthy was the quality of talent in those malls. I’m sad to say that while in Singapore it was a tough task finding the attractive people, in Dubai it was a tough task finding unattractive people. Maybe I was just there on the right day, but it was quite a sight nonetheless.
On the way back to the hotel, I pass by a bus station where a crowd of Indians had gathered around a small television set which was screening the fourth Ashes test. I inquire about the score and am disappointed to learn that England, batting first in the first innings, was in the middle of a sizeable partnership. “You’re Australian? That Shane Warne is really something,” one Indian remarks to me. “He is, isn’t he?” I replied. (Unfortunately, despite the heroic efforts of Warney, Australia later went on to lose the Ashes series 2-1 and British news featured nothing but the victory for the next few days.)
The next day I arrive at Jumeirah Mosque for their 11.00am “Open doors, open minds, mosque visit program,” a Sheikh Mohammed initiative. I arrive early to find the mosque doors shut. There’s only a handful of other tourists milling around, similarly wondering where to go. However, as 11.00am draws nearer, a sizeable crowd has formed at the mosque entrance. Finally, a decorous woman emerges from behind the door and welcomes us. There’s a little delay while everyone removes their shoes and the more immodestly attired among us get additional clothing distributed to them. Then we are ushered into the thankfully air-conditioned mosque. Like any typical mosque, its floor is empty, save for several pillars. There is no central point of worship, like a Buddhist shrine or Christian altar, with only a marker (mihrab) on one wall indicating the direction to Mecca. An electronic board listing the day’s prayer times, a stack of books, a couple of microphones and a seat for the Imam are all that fill the mosque apart from the fifty or so tourists which have invaded and are now scampering around taking photos of themselves in their new burqas.
Our tour guide introduces herself and explains the tour is not so much a tour as it is a lecture with a Q&A session. She decides not to use a microphone because the group is smaller than the one or two hundred visitors that normally attend. A quick survey via a show of hands reveals that there are two North Americans, a couple of South Africans, some Asians and a rather sizeable contingent of Australians comprising the crowd. The remaining half are European. This included our tour guide, who explained that she was originally a Swiss born in Lausanne who was raised as a Catholic before she converted to Islam. She moved to Dubai several years ago.
The talk is aimed at clearing up the misconceptions commonly held about Islam. Our guide quickly explains that shoes are not allowed in mosques for the practical reason that Muslims pray with their faces to the floor, and who wants to do that with a dirty floor?
Some time is spent explaining the five pillars of Islam: the Shahada an expression affirming the monotheistic nature of God and the prophethood of Mohammed; the Zakat, essentially the necessity for charity; fasting during Ramadan; the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca for those able to go; and the Salaah, or the five daily prayers.
Our guide explains that praying towards Mecca acts as a focal point. Interestingly, because I had not visualised it in this way before, Muslims take heart in knowing that everyone else praying around the world at the same time as them are all facing towards one central location.
Prayers are performed five times a day, the first being at dawn. An Azan, or call to prayer, is sung out from loudspeakers on mosque minarets to remind people that they have to pray soon (that is, they don’t have to drop everything immediately). A muezzin (person who performs the Azan) comes out and gives us a demonstration and the Arabic is translated into English for us.
“What if dawn comes at 5.00am?” one woman asks. “A bit early to get out of bed, isn’t it?”
Our guide agrees, but notes that there is nothing to stop someone from crawling back into bed after dawn prayers. However, getting out of bed for the few minutes of the prayer is a sign of dedication to the faith. She adds with a smile that the Azan is slightly modified at dawn: the sentence, “prayer is better than sleep” (repeated twice) is added to it.
When the floor is opened to questions, they come in thick and fast and all seem to be probing at the status of women in Islam. Most people are concerned. Most of these things are explained away as merely cultural developments, as opposed to religious ones. Traditionally, there is Muslim men and women (presumably outside of the same family) do not mingle. Veils and full-length garb are all about hiding women’s features, helping them feel comfortable while walking down the street and not being stared at. Similarly, separation of genders during prayer is not a matter of segregation (women are not disallowed from using the main prayer room) but comfort. In terms of why all women’s clothing in the region is black, black is chosen due to its neutral status as a colour, but other cultures do wear other colours for example, the colourful abbeyas of Malay women.
Perhaps unfortunately there is little discussion about the beliefs of Islam, with the focus mainly on rituals and customs. It comes as a surprise to many that Islam and Christianity share many commonalities acknowledgement of Abraham and Moses as prophets, acknowledgment that the Old and New Testaments are relevations from God (although Islam believes the Qur’an replaces the Holy Bible) and so on.
I do discover, however, the answer to a question I have had for a long time, and that is that “Allah” is used as the Arabic word for God by Christian Arabs too.
It is certainly an interesting morning, but I still have reservations that other States in the region employ a view as permissive as Dubai’s. Nonetheless, the Jumeirah Mosque visit program is an excellent thing to have, especially in this day and age. I remain a steadfast Christian, but found the talk very instructive.
Nearby the mosque is a public beach where the brilliant azure waters of the Gulf lap gently onto the shore. The peak of summer had past about a month ago, but Dubai was still incredibly hot and humid. I test the water and find it to be surprisingly warm. Unfortunately I have brought no clothes to swim with and besides, I have a lunchtime reservation at a restaurant to keep, so I find alternative relief from the heat in the comfort of an air-conditioned taxi.
“It’s a hot day isn’t it!” my Iranian cab driver observes with a chuckle as I wipe my face down with a tissue. For some cruel reason, all the taxis in Dubai seem to be equipped with outside temperature gauges, and the one in this taxi is reading in the mid-40s. “But don’t worry,” he reassures, “if you came one month earlier, it is over 50 degrees.”
My next destination is the Burj Al Arab. Modelled after a billowing sail, the Burj is a central icon of Dubai. Although debate continues on whether the hotel is, on the official scale, a 7 star hotel, or merely a “5 star deluxe” one, with rack rates for its suites (there are no regular “rooms”) starting at around US$2000, it’s probably beyond debate that it’s the world’s finest, and tallest, hotel. (Incidentally, I had stayed at the world’s second highest hotel the Baiyoke Sky, which is 13 metres shorter in Bangkok only a week earlier. It was much less extravagant.) So rarified is the Burj’s air, that it is built on an artificial island several hundred metres off the coast “to protect the privacy of guests”. Entry is usually restricted to hotel guests, unless you pay a US$55 entry fee. It’s rumoured to have cost so much money to build that the hotel will have to run at full occupancy for several centuries in order to be paid off. This would make the building an Emrati landmark rather than a viable commercial venture.
After a while my driver asks if I am staying at the hotel, to which I promptly answer, “I wish!” This multi-billion dollar structure was a must-visit, but since the rates for a night’s stay would fund my backpacking trip for about a month, I was visiting via a lunchtime restaurant reservation, which was only a marginally cheaper proposition.
“She’s beautiful isn’t she?” he rhetorically asks as we drive up the driveway. I can’t stop staring. It actually looks that much better in real life. We are stopped at the front gate by a security guard, who lets us through after satisfying himself that I am on the restaurant reservation list.
Inside, I feel very out of place, expecting someone to rush out and toss me back onto the street. An African bellhop approaches me. “Are you staying here, sir?” he asks.
This time, I resist the urge to blurt out “I wish!” and tell him I’m headed for the restaurant. He directs me up the escalators which are flanked by two gigantic tropical aquariums and an elaborate fountain with a mesmerising jumping water display. At the top of the escalators, the roof opens up into an opulent, soaring triangular atrium. Each level is painted in a different colour, and the result is a gradient of rainbow colours stretching up towards the top of the building. It’s actually all quite gaudy, but everything in this part of the city is so ostentatious it looks perfectly acceptable.
Al Muntaha is the restaurant at the top of the Burj and in addition to serving food it offers great views of the city. Through one window you can see The Palm, a famed property development built on reclaimed land in the shape of a palm tree. The Palm is just one example of the myriad of large-scale property developments in progress. (Sanjay had joked the previous day that the national bird of Dubai was the crane.) Another, larger Palm is scheduled to be built soon after, and yet another reclaimed land project called The World will also open. (Locals joke that when The World is completed, you can live in Paris without leaving Dubai.)
The foundations are already in place for the Burj Dubai, a skyscraper slated to be the world’s tallest upon completion. Developers are keeping the building’s final height a secret, but it is expected to reach over 700 metres and possess 160 floors. A deal being financed by the Chinese government will see a 2 kilometre long shopping mall called the Dragon Mart being constructed as a foothold for Chinese exports into the Middle Eastern market. There is also Dubailand, a massive US$5 billion “tourist city” covering 45,900 acres, aimed at tripling the number of people visiting Dubai by the end of the decade. Almost ludicrous in scale, it will contain 45 theme parks, sports centres and discovery zones, including an indoor ski-slope, an equestrian centre, three sports stadiums, a zoo, and an artifical rainforest. All this being built in the middle of a desert, mind you.
Later in the afternoon, I make my way over to the souks which have begun to reopen. I take an abra across the Creek for the measly fee of 50 fils and hit the perfume, spice and gold souks. Expecting the open air markets of Asia, I am somewhat disappointed to see that the layouts of souks have been modernised. They are all basically covered walkways, lined by merchants hawking their wares in air-conditioned shops. Nonetheless, the gold souk is amazing. By tradition, weddings in the region require brides be given gold which is new, so this ensures a fresh supply of gold flowing through the market. And there is a lot of it. Most of the gold on sale is 24 carat, which is a very deep yellow-orange colour. Window front displays are laden with copious amounts of gold chains, bracelets, rings, pendants and countless other trinkets in a bewildering array of designs and the light reflecting off them radiates a bright, warm glow.
Interestingly, I do not notice any visible security around the gold souk a testament to the low crime rates in the emirate. It is soon twilight, and I decide it is time to leave the glow behind and take a stroll along the creekside and past the dhow wharfage. Thousands upon thousands of boxes sit on the wharfage. They are filled with goods of all descriptions and from all manner of places. Some sit on the wharf unguarded for weeks.
On my final morning in Dubai I have a stroke of good luck. I had only been able to book my hotel for two nights and was without accommodation for my final night. It is low season, but mysteriously all the hotels in the area seem to be booked out. So, just as I am in the process of checking out, backpack in hand and wondering where on earth I am going to go, I decide to ask if any vacancies have opened up overnight. After a bit of tapping on the computer, the receptionist hands my key straight back to me and tells me that I can stay for another night.
When the afternoon comes, it is time to go on the desert safari. A four wheel drive picks me up at the hotel, shared by a British Indian mother-son pair, two Irishmen and a South African living in Zambia with a particularly wry sense of humour. The first activity is sand-duning. We drive about an hour out of the city, past a Sheikh’s compound surrounded by a 2 kilometre wall, and into the desert where we meet up with a convoy of at least ten other four wheel drives all run by the same safari company. Our driver gets out of the car to have a chat with a friend but leaves the engine running. All of us are nervously eyeing the fuel gauge, which is sitting on empty. We had stopped at a service station earlier, but it was only to let some air out of the tires (a lower tire pressure helps when driving on sand).
Five minutes later, our driver is still chatting and the car stalls and dies. Hopefully, it’s not due to the lack of fuel. Meanwhile, the first vehicles in the convoy have started to leave. We look over to our driver, who is chatting with another driver whose car’s bonnet is open. The South African remarks, “They’ve got to be concerned. Their bonnet is open and no one’s fixing it!”
By the time our driver finishes socialising, we are one of only two cars left. Our car refuses to start, but after a few attempts, the engine splutters back to life and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Then it’s off to the dunes.
“Ok everyone, you might want to buckle up!” our driver tells everyone as we leave the dirt road. There is a barrage of clicks as everyone dons their belts. Then Dave, one of the Irishmen sitting in the backseat calls out, somewhat frantically, “Um, my belt’s broken it won’t clip in!”
Seconds later we hit the first sand dune and Dave goes flying.
“Well, unfortunately you’re just going to have to hang on tight!” our driver replies, only half-apologetically.
Sand-duning is fun. Really, really fun. Basically it involves going for a hoon around the sand dunes at high speed. It’s like an hour long roller coaster ride in first gear. The cars wrench violently in the sand as they mount a dune and then dive sharply down the other side. Sometimes they decide to drive along the side of a dune and we’re all trying to grab a hold of whatever we can as the car shudders along, tilted at some unnatural angle. The wheels spin rapidly as the car attempts to cling to the dune, throwing up large masses of sand and the engine roars between the creaks and crunches of the car’s suspension.
Then in the middle of it all, our driver gets a phone call on his mobile. And answers it. So there he is, one hand holding a phone, and one hand alternating between the stick and steering wheel, with his knees occasionally helping out with the steering. This guy’s a real pro the rest of us are hanging on for dear life (especially Dave) and he’s handling it all like it’s some Sunday afternoon drive through the neighbourhood.
The cars take quite a beating and I learn that the average lifespan of them is only three years. Ours is fairly new, but apart from Dave’s broken seatbelt, the speedometre has already ceased to function.
The convoy pauses for a while so we can catch the sunset, and all the bonnets are popped open so the cars have a chance to cool down. Then we’re back to sandduning again.
Eventually we arrive at a campsite which is where dinner is being served. Dozens of candlelit tables surround a large carpet in the middle. To the side, there are several tents. One allows people to try on some local clothing. Another demonstrates henna painting for women. A rich, fruity smell wafts from a third tent inside this one tourists get to sample sheesha, a water pipe used for smoking flavoured tobacco. Outside, a bored looking Arab leads two camels around in circles while tourists clamber on and off them for their minute-long camel ride.
The campsite is meant to emulate a typical Bedouin desert encampment, but the whole thing is so touristy and tacky that any resemblance with a genuine Bedouin campsite must be purely coincidental. The food is pretty decent, though, with a mix of regional cuisines.
As dinner begins to wrap up, a large group of men start to congregate on the carpet in the middle of the camp, reclining on some large cushions. I didn’t know what was happening next, but I could guess. And I was right.
Enter a belly-dancer.
She is pretty good at belly-dancing, but nothing particularly special. More interesting is the exhibition of what I can only describe as enthralled lasciviousness by the horde of men encircling her (with their wives sitting a short distance away at the tables, mind you).
Mandeep, the Sikh in our four wheel drive, turned to me and said, “This is like the biggest sausage-fest ever, dude.”
“Yeah man, I was just about to say that,” I agreed.
She calls someone from the crowd and Mandeep and I are amused to see it’s Dave. She rolls up Dave’s shirt and ties it in a knot. Now that his gut is exposed, she gestures him to imitate what she does. He makes a good effort, but is no match for her supple, undulating tummy. We’re all in stiches.
After the show is over, she invites everyone to take the floor and join in with the dancing. About fifty men immediately leap to their feet, all jostling to get beside her. Luckily she is used to the attention and knows how to take control. Then it’s a case of monkey-see, monkey-do as the men try to mimic her moves and fail horribly. It’s morbidly fascinating.
Finally it’s all over, and it’s back to the car. We all take the piss out of Dave for his sterling belly-dancing performance. He can only plead, “Hey guys, whatever happens in Dubai stays in Dubai.”
Our driver finally stops to fill up the petrol tank, and an hour later I am at Dubai International Airport for my 2.00am flight to Europe.
At 11:51pm (GMT +10.00) 
