Going Rogue in 'Nam

That's right. So really, now bad can malaria be?

I am turning into a pink sow out of nowhere, a blotchy one at that. Apparently the malaria meds I am on, doxycycline, decided after two weeks of being uncomplicated, to act up and demand attention. Through last night's tinted bus window I have received enough sun to acquired the skin color so prominantly displayed on Spanish beaches once the Welsh and the Germans go on their first holiday of the year. I am essentially glow in the dark and I don't like it. We have been giving the big M the finger all through India and Nepal but had every intention on being responsible citizen through Cambodia, Laos and thus by default also Vietnam but responsibility has just come to an end. There is much resistence in the area against Lariam and Malarone, whose $800 price tag so deterred us in London, is unavailable in the region. Go figure. Where are knock off meds when you need them?

I COULD totally sit in my little hotel room, watch American TV, eat those wonderful baguettes with cheese and ask to be put into self imposed purdah, being transported around in a nice black box carried on newly aquired husband's back, BUT instead we are going to Halong Bay tomorrow to climb and beach ourselves and guess what, the doxycycline has to go. Don't tell my Mom.

Also, who wants to have condomed up teenage sex? On vacation? I mean that is why I got married in the first place. Right?

Bejewled Pigs and Tigers

double hats, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

This is the second day in a row that I am sitting in my hotel room using wireless internet. Vietnam rocks. Also, I have a SIT DOWN toilet complete with a seat and a lid in the bathroom, I have a shower that is contained in it's own boundaries and does not spill into the whole abode, I have clean sheets, yes, they are white, they are starched, I have pillows and I cannot see the moldy, nasty matress and there are no cigarette butts nor gum, nor insects, nor grime stains in my room. In fact the floor is not made out of bumpy half concrete, half dirt, instead we are looking at white tiles, we have electricity at all times, we even have AC! AND hot water which really we only need because we have AC. It is a perk of the sweaty hole in the ground hotel room that does not have AC that also makes it redundant to have a hot shower because that is the last thing you want.

It's amazing. And already the second time in a row.

Cruising north from Saigon we made blissful contact with an ocean and a beach hut in Mui Ne, where beach strolls and big waves are the major attractions. I would once again have ended the trip right there, confirming what I already know: we are beach bums and no glorified temple tours or museum trip will hide that truth.

Further north, Hoi An was quaint, peaceful and beautiful, there our main preoccupation shifted from strolling and bathing to strolling and eating: A gorgeous small town full of old architecture and restaurants by a river walk, complete with Chinese lanterns and humble fishing rigs.

Today we continued on to Hue where it seems everything is named something something DMZ although the DMZ is rather empty these days. Everyone is playing old Vietnam era tunes such as sweet home alabama and a lot of creedence clearwater revival. Our lives are pretty much filled with the Forest Gump sound track.

And to make things too good to be true: Vietnam is getting prettier as we go north. Furthermore, upon our recent evaluations, the backpacker scene has changed too. No more cheese cloth pants and nasty attitudes, more smiles, more Danes, less pretentiousness, more tans: generally speaking SE Asia attracts the happy crowd.

Surely everyone takes a vacation to get away from it all but around here people seem to have a place to go back to; they don't seem such unhappy souls marching along as if on their way to jail, viewing their vacation as punishment and just maybe that is why they don't seem like such a stingy, nasty bunch and we make friends at last. Maybe people in Vietnam are better at disguising their dislike at the stomping herds of tourists which just maybe makes the stomping herds kinder and easier to like.

And on a final note, don't think I am trashing India. India in my humble opinion is complex; India is amazing. Amazing in every way: the good, the bad, the ugly. SE Asia is wonderful, it's kind, it's gently, it's polite, it has a dark past, it could maybe be dangerous but it's contained and it's not prissy. One is a holy bejewled pig, the other a graceful tiger. You know just because you like tigers does not mean you don't love bacon too.

Saigon on Crack

Looking Back, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

Vietnam is Cambodia on crack. Traffic is a clusterfuck of motor scooters. Red lights seem like starting blocks for a 100 man deep field in a marathon race. It's daunting to be in the intersection when Saigon turns green and wizzes by.

Nobody we had met so far seemed very enthusiastic about Vietnam. It was sort of the Luxemburg of the region, people did not tell you not to go, but the place got a lot of shrugs and then conversation turned back to the Krabi's of the world. Saigon is not a tourist trap but a booming city, slam packed with extremely cute and curious kids who all sport American accents including when they pronounce the world Vietnam. I love it. Also sugary drinks are abound and tomorrow we will head to the old war era tunnels that were used to hide out in and smuggle arms to Cambodia back in the good old days of American carpet bombings.

A lot of older American gentlemen in pairs (not couples) in spiffy sunglasses and Nikes are running around the place as well trying to converse in Vietnamese with the shoe polishers who try desperately to convince them to get their sneakers polished for the third time before breakfast. War vets I am assuming.

Oh and do I love pho with beef or pho with chicken or pho with duck and do I love baguettes with everything under the sun but mostly bacon on them? Yes, I do!

Tonight holds a special treat: A Vietnamese country cover band. I am hoping for Johnny Cash interpretations.

Torture Prison - Tuol Sleng

Torture Prison - Tuol Sleng, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

Amazingly now I understand what everyone arond me said when the Berlin wall fell: what it would change the world. As a matter of fact, so much has changed that it took me a good while to even remember and piece together the geopolitical strategies that used to dominate this region and that have helped create the amazing cockup of the Kemer Rouge revolution.

The UN supported the Kemer Rouge's seat in its midst until 1990. The somewhat legitimate and certainly less murderous, yet Vietnam backed, government was shoved aside from the 1979 invasion until that date. Even until now there is no closure, there are no trials and only slowly are details of personal misfortunes coming to light. All in all there are 2 million corpses and relatives of those victims are still living in the same villages as the perpetrators while the former glorious kingdom that brought us Angkor Wat is returned to the Stone Age. A population decimated and missing the brightest and most educated in its ranks, a country that is collectively suffering from PTSD and mistrust. A country that is slam packed with phat SUVs driven by NGO workers, UN personal and the kids of those guys who bought their way back into power, who once in a blue moon seem to take fancy to crashing those vehicles into ancient ruins. The foreign correspondence is jam packed with NGO ladies drinking lychee martinis and guys in polo shirts trying to give the impression they were the ones who shot some cutting edge footage back in 1978. All this in a country that brought us Angkor Wat a thousand years ago. Corruption is the name of the game and there is a tension oozing out from under the laughs that are used to cover up anything from shame to a feeling of having gotten caught to general unhappiness. It seems the giggles, the unexplicible giggles that followed us from a hotel concierge not understanding to the rickshaw man overcharging to the prison guard in the Kemer Rouge video re-telling how he used to club prisoners but never, ever was the one cutting their throats. There is a denial as powerful as I have ever seen it, a smile the way to cover any feeling that is not a smile.

Coming from a country with a history that is generous to those craving a feeling of guilt and equally generous to the printing of text books, novels and biographies retelling and working through the horrors of the holocaust, I am perplexed at the complete absence of remorse and guilt let alone reconciliation and punishment of perpetrators of the Kemer Rouge years. The only people in the museums and holding virgil next to the killing fields are foreigners. Land mine victims linger in the parking lot to milk a bit of our guilt, but other than that, no Cambodian in sight.

Happy Campers

Boating Lady, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

We have been having some fabulous days. We left Siam Reap on a river boat for a small town called Battambang yesterday. We sat on the sunny roof on all our luggage along with a mix of Spanish engineers and a brigade of Dutch girls for eight hours as the little boat slowly crept up the river through small fishing towns, which are really bamboo huts on stilts right in the river. Lots of expert canoe ladies rowed on up to sell things or collect husbands off the boat and kids, naked and unashamedly so, were jumping into the water from their little "houses". It felt just like a vacation should. In the end I had built myself a tent out of the various scarf purchases and was sincerely understanding the usefulness of a nice burka, albeit maybe in white. It was hot! And we loved it.

Today, in an attempt to recreate my new favorite dish, Amok, we took a Cambodian cooking class. The class included a trip the market - nothing for weak stomachs. We watched a fish loose his or her life life on a bloody wood chopping board and a variety of people poking their finger in some chunks of beef selecting the most tender parts before fondling salad leafs, handling money, shaking hands...no washing hands involved.

As we were chopping our lemongrass leaves, grinding curry garlic ginger pastes and chugging Angkor beer in the heat I overheard a group of 30-something Americans on a table in the restaurant discuss their travels and their dreams, as one does. It suddenly occurred to me why we have had such a hard time connecting with long term travelers which there are so many off in India: We are simply too happy. Unlike say your normal 21 day European vacation troop, or unlike us say, or our average gap year kid, these people are some truly pained souls, running away from their lives, trying to find balance in Ashrams, discussing pressure points, inner silence, the benefits of no sugar diets, meditation, light and auras while their slightly worn faces show that they are not running towards anything, they are not trying to see the world they are running away from something trying to find somewhere that will give them answers. Very different crowd from the rowdy South American booze and beach stampede that I am so used to.

Fighting the Cambodian Jungle

Tree vs. Temple, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

We left BKK with much left undone. Most prominantly featured on the outstanding items list is the vagina ping pong, an event I will like to take part in as a spectator rather than a participant, because oouch.

Our time was mostly taken up by
a) trying to get up in time to see some tourist attraction involving gold domes or temples or buddhas, which was largely unsuccessful
b) trying to eat at least a few bits of every meat group for every meal such as maybe beef satay, chicken coconut soup and then some nice pork balls to round things off, which was very successful
c) sitting in AC rooms
d) eating drinks with ice cubes in them

All in all I am disappointed at our wholesomeness when BKK is just oozing raunchy raunchness according to everyone and their mother and all I could think of how clean and wonderful it was. But we will be back.

Crossing the border into Cambodia was like going to East Germany in 1989. Baaam, you hit pot holes large enough to house entire villages, the road is one solid mud bath the color of pumpkin soup, the ride knocks your brain against your skull and the motor rickshaws are once again abound and lawless. The major difference to India is that here a bike rickshaw really is a motorbike that has a fancy plywood carriage strapped onto the seat where the second person would sit or the seventh person really. In India the vehicle has been permanently fused but here one can take the carriage part off much like small scale white trash caravan can be disconnected from a 1959 el camono. I will try to demonstrate the difference photographically as soon as I can. The skill of balancing large items, entire families, ice blocks, pigs in crates, infants and rice sacks stacked high into the sky on motobikes is perfected in Cambodia as well. And maybe because they are piled so high with stuff there is something colonial and decadent in sitting in that plywood rickshaw fanning oneself gently whiel passing those heavy burdened motor beasts.

The vendors are communists I must say. It is almost insulting how half heartedly they are trying to sell you a t-shirt. They cannot really be bothered to raise their voices, let alone chase us around the block with their flutes and guide books. It makes me want to buy something. I think the bangles ear is over and I must expand into the sarong market.

The border crossing itself was littered with dark souls wanting our dollars as it is notorious to be, but I have heavily invested in the local snack foods industry which churns out brilliant homemade snacks that are sold on every corner so that I can outwait even the laziest commi to get his price right and then hop into this vehicle and demand he peddal faster. As I was lucky enough to get the front seat for the second half of our four hour journey from the border, along the blvd of broken backsides to Siem Reap, I even had the pleasure of starting the car for the douche commi who decided that he did not want to take us to our hotel. In unimpressive passive agressive manner he pulled over and tried to pawn us off to a bike rickshaw but I did not spend seven weeks in India and Nepal for nothing, so no way was I getting out of his car. Especially not because it was airconditioned. So I turn the key in his ignition, he shrieks, turns it back off and explains he has to go back to the border now and varies excuses from the road is closed to he does not understand English to he does not know where the hotel is. I shriek and turn the key again and so it continues until he drives us the three minutes to our hotel, which apparently does not give him a commission. Poor bastard.

Now in Siem Reap I am loving Cambodia. The food and is devine, or shall we say, amok: the best concoction of coconut, chicken, egg, tomato, various spices and then some more. The Angkor Wat temple ruins are amazing and there is nothing much to do other than eat amazing food, fan oneself in plywood rickshaws, wander around temples and call it a day.

Stingy, Angry and Haughty

As the plane touched down in BKK I was struck by the lack of grazing cows, lack of dirt and amazingly ordered driving behaviour as well as mild manered touts. They are the kind of touts one can easilty tune out, ignore and shake off without feeling how one's face turns into a bright red, angry mask and fuck becomes an adjective, verb, name and surname.

To make things even better, after six weeks of not eating anything meat, I started the day with some filthy, filthy bacon and oh, how wonderful those little shit rooting creatures taste. The day took on epic proportions as, for the first time in this millenium, probably for the first time since freshmen year dining hall dollars, I settled for a burder at MacDonalds in a snazzy shopping mall filled with healthy, blond expat kids and their daddies in relaxed tennis gear. The experience filled a void inside me. As I was chowing down on mother Goodess I started trying to put India into perspective.

I am approaching the big 50 on the country count but I don't think I have been to a place that is as difficult to categorize, describe, package and sell as India. India is everything that it's also not: poor and rich, inclusive yet prejudiced, amazing and revolting, cruel and kind, spiritual and lacking soul, repulsive and attractive and everything in between. My understanding of India as a soft, quiet spiritual place of tranquility and hushed words in air conditioned Yoga studios is the farthest from the truth. India at best is a chaotic whirlwind of praying, eating, shitting and the spiritual aspects are mostly displayed via the worship of everything ranging from plastic elephants, Maria and Jesus for good measure, cows, giant Buddha statues and the obvious major Hindi Gods. None of it is quiet and none of it feels serene. None of it takes place in an ashram and "namste" is a battle cry not a demure hush. India's spirituality is loud, obnoxious, practical, overcrowded, screeching like a banshee, sacrilegious looking, involving neon lights, inflatable plastic figures and a lot of diesel exhaust.

What I don't comprehend are the other travelers in India who somehow do not seem to see that. Never in my life have I met so many people who on one hand try to pretend to be "natives" and dress in rags to lower themselves presumably to fit in but put on airs of superiority when something costs more than 50 cents, mistreat every waiter, rickshaw driver and shop keeper and generally act like little spoilt fuckers. India is a country kissing the feet of movie stars, wearing Levis, desiring Prada and gold bangles while holding on to family honor and values at every level of society. Yoga is reserved for American girls wanting to find their sexual center which some soft eyed Indian boy will only too gladly help them find.

Despite that, it appears that most travelers we met seem to think they have found a way to assimilate and be "Indian" by wearing potato sack trousers not washed since the obligatory trip and dip in the holy shit filled Ganges and sporting hemp tank tops exposing a curry fattened mid rift and tattooed shoulders sporting the ever so original cluster of stars in various colors. Their look insults the beautifully, clean ladies in their ever fresh saris, their Moms who eye the excessive flesh, and the entire population in general by being angry and ugly. Angry and ugly is the way not to be. They seem to have created a caste for themselves: stingy, angry and haughty.

I think we left just in time before we too joined that angry and filthy club. Many happy returns I hope but only after some coconut curry in the land of smiles.

Camelz rule,...

...roar like lions and fart up a storm.

As promised, we spend the past two days camel safarying, sleeping in sand dunes during a sandstorm, huddling together with the camels while lightening crashes down in the distance, seeing lots of stars and spending the hot mid day in the shade of some bushes, drinking water that had reached boiling temperatures simply by being in a bottle. My attempt to try to ride in Pakistan was met with resistance by the guide unfortunately. The long ride back this afternoon had us fantasising about the amount, timing and refrigeration status of the mangoes we will eat just as soon as we get to a Thai beach. I am thinking this camel safari was my happiest moment on this trip so far, but we are ready for the beaches. So I am thinking as soon as we get to some beach, the first chilled mangoes will be administered at around ten, after a dip in the water, then continue the same dose in hourly intervals until evening. After a siesta around three maybe some frozen mangoes to mix it up.

Hardcore backpackers we are.