Land of One Thousand Tailors

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Vietnamese cuisine doesn't seem to activate a tryptophan power-nap like back home. But we did our best to feast on the local specialty, cao lao (wide noodle soup with water from an ancient well), and our new favorite dish, dau phu xao xa ot (fried lemongrass tofu with chili). Delish. We are also sampling fried vegetarian spring rolls at pretty much every meal.

Today's spring rolls: lots of mushrooms, yum

Of course, nobody here in Hoi An cares about Thanksgiving. Instead, along the sidewalks tonight, families are putting out shrines and burning incense and fake money to honor ancestors and bring good luck in the month ahead.

Today we rented kayaks from a little shop run by a vegan New Zealander and his wife. Paddling here is decidedly mellower than back home, where the waves on Tomales Bay have occasionally nearly capsized the "divorce boats" (aka double kayaks) we've rented.

These boats have eyes

We were able to noodle around some interesting palm trees that grow partly submerged along the coast (much like mangroves), and paddle through some back channels -- probably irrigation canals -- much to the amusement of the people living along them. Guess it isn't everyday that farang come paddling up their way to practice the limbo under a rickety bridge.



We've also been patronizing a local tailor, getting some snazzy duds made to measure. For some reason, Hoi An is home to myriad tailors, and just about anything can be custom made or copied. It's an indulgence we can't afford back home but here it's within reason, plus we've had a chance to actually meet the folks making our clothes.

Vietnam is fast turning into one of the highlights of our journey. Next we bus up to Hue, then across the border back into Laos. Stay tuned!

I'll leave you with the arresting moped model we came across the other day:

This beach goes to 11

Cat Ba cove at sunset

Today just might go down as one of the five best days in the history of the species. Yeah, building the pyramids must've been rad and David Lee Roth pushed the fun meter well into the red. But can you beat a lazy day at the beach, an amazing massage for under $3.00, a sweet sunset and an even sweeter glass of fresh-squeezed sugar cane? I think not. Caligula didn't even have it this good. From here on out when things go pear-shaped back home and I begin to lose the plot, I'm going to the Cat Ba Island of the mind.


Ca phe sua (drip coffee with condensed milk) and a mystery in hand, Ms. Hawai'i is firmly in control of the afternoon


Cooking in the cove


The People's laundry has been hung out to dry


Naughty locals keeping their distance


The sugar cane master at work


Is it possible to have it too good?

Salty dogs of Halong Bay

My sea legs won't go away. As I sit in this Internet cafe, I feel I'm rocking gently, side to side. Maybe I'm wishing I were still on the boat.



We arrived on Cat Ba Island two days ago. The island is mostly steep forested rock, but there's a small town here consisting of sidewalk cafes and tallish, ugly hotels, ranged along one of the most beautiful waterfronts I've ever seen. We found a hotel of minimal ugliness whose $10 room offered quite a view.



Early the next morning we loaded ourselves and our bags onto a small boat and set off to explore Halong Bay for two days.


Disembarking at our first stop, via high-tech gangplank

There were eight of us on board -- four San Franciscans and two Norwegians and a crew of two -- charting a course for aesthetic overload.




A sail in stone

For two days, we motored gently around the bay, gazing at huge pillars of limestone rising out of a green sea. Sometimes it all became too much for us and we had to abandon ship.





The Bay is full of fishing boats and little coracle-like rowboats, made of woven fiber covered with tar. At one point, we'd kayaked through a cave out to a small cove and were gliding along when we heard an echo. A man was singing as he and his wife rowed toward us, and the sound bounced off the rock walls around us, mixing with the splash of oars. His little girl waved, and then the three of them disappeared through the cave and out to the wider bay.


The gondolier and his family

These families live on floating houses with "yards" around them of planks that surround submerged nets. In these, they keep the seafood on the hoof, as it were, with a different net for each type of fish -- one net for the big blue crabs, one for eels, one for squid, and so on. (Our boat-mates got to eat some extremely fresh seafood.)



All the houses seemed to have dogs, as well. Most seemed to be guard dogs, barking loudly as our boat went by. One dog really went crazy when another fell in. That must happen a lot. Maybe it was laughing.

Some were a little calmer.


Off duty


Fish dog: a noble calling


Fish cat, too

The sun goes down very early here. We ate dinner, sat around and talked, drank Beer Hanois, and surreptitiously looked at our watches: it was about 7. We made it to an honorable 9:00 and conked out.

In the morning, it felt like we were camping, brushing our teeth off the sides of the boat and jumping in the water in lieu of a shower.



We had another day of kayaking, swimming, and mostly just gazing. We also visited an enormous cave full of stalagmites, stalactites, and rock formations that I suspect would entertain the folks over at Linga.





By the time we put-putted our way back to Cat Ba, we were so relaxed it was all we could do to sit up for a picture.



We had to sit up a little more when we were dropped off outside of town, and we each had to get on the back of a motorbike for the short but exciting drive back. This for me was made especially exciting by a big backpack on my back, a small one on my front, a bag of food in one hand, and a driver who decided it would be fun to pass everyone ahead of us.

Fortunately we made it back to our hotel in one piece, just in time for another rather nice sunset.

Facebook blackout

I would be posting about Phnom Penh, but I'm on a computer that can't see any of the files on our camera, so rather than doing an image-free post about a place with a lot of things to look at, I thought I'd just note this: Facebook appears to be blocked in Vietnam. I've been unable to get on at various computers in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, but couldn't find any news about it until today.

Interesting, no?

In travel news, we're in Hanoi now and tomorrow take a morning train to Haiphong, en route to Halong Bay, which we're very excited to visit; I've had a crush on it ever since seeing Indochine at an impressionable age. We'll have to hearken back to Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hanoi in future posts.

We've enjoyed the surprisingly cold weather here in Hanoi but will be happy to escape the homicidal motorbikes.

Travel hazards

On the minivan from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, they gave us each a bottle of water and, surprisingly, a donut. They also laid out a few ground rules.



Got that? No golden retrievers, guns, or durians.

It was still a hair-raising trip -- we spent about a third of our five-hour trip in the left lane playing chicken with oncoming traffic -- but at least we were safe from firearms and fruit. And slobbery tennis balls.

The splendors of Angkor

Angkor Wat is massive.


The moat, the causeway, and the powerful sun

It represents the five peaks of Mount Meru and the oceans of existence. It's home to the impressive "Churning of the Sea of Milk" carvings and seems to glow at sunset. As we approached, the heat wilted us all, but we soldiered on and are happy to report that it does indeed live up to its billing as one of the wonders of the world.


The turtle acting as pivot for churning the Sea of Milk


Apsara and windows with lathed stone posts

We seem not to have taken the classic Angkor Wat photo but here's a nice one (coincidentally from someone at U of Hawai'i).


Mighty Vishnu

Angkor Wat hails from pre-Buddhist times and was built to honor Vishnu, but when later leaders converted to Buddhism, the structure did as well. Many of its Buddhas have been vandalized, though, and it's not uncommon to come across figures in poses of peaceful contemplation minus their heads and hands.

Among other things, Angkor Wat is famous for its bas reliefs illustrating episodes from the Ramayana and the many trials and tribulations of 37 hells and 32 heavens. (The 37 hells get quite specific and intriguing. Heaven, on the other hand, seems a little dull.)

It's also home to many charming apsaras, or dancing girls, many of whom have quite remarkable hairstyles.


Engineering feats: forget not having cranes or bulldozers, they didn't even have hair gel


Hands on the (dharma) wheel


Monks in repose

We got a seven-day pass and visited several temples in the week we spent in Siem Reap. Sometimes we went by tuk-tuk, sometimes by bike, and sometimes (when Elizabeth's chain broke) both.


Tuk-tuk to the rescue

One of the most striking temples was probably the Bayon. Its walls are covered with detailed bas-reliefs, beneath the towering repeated countenances of King Jayavarman VII.


Smiling down... comforting or ominous?

The bas-reliefs depict some of the usual Ramayana stories, but apparently the umpteenth repetition of the tale got old, so they also include a big battle with the Cham people and -- the most interesting part -- Khmer domestic scenes. As the men did big important things like shoot each other, the women took care of everyone.


Riding into battle


Cooking up some fish amok


Birthin' babies

Ta Prohm is the temple they left to the jungle, at least partly. There are plenty of tourists wandering around, but with parrots squawking from the trees and the biggest spiders we've ever seen weaving webs just overhead, it still feels wild.


Ta Prohm: trees 1, temples 0


Probably shouldn't sit there too long, with those trees nearby


Lichen paint job

We also enjoyed Prasat Kravan, a small, early temple that is unusual for its brick bas-reliefs. These were the subject of our friend Megan's thesis. (Megan, feel free to comment learnedly.)


Prasat Kravan


Not all the brick bas-reliefs were apparently finished...

And we couldn't help taking lots of pictures of the critters, mythological and otherwise:


Garuda -- a half-bird divinity


Monkeys who have been pumping some iron


We told you not to make monkeys angry


No idea what this is -- half lizard, half rabbit?


A fierce (mostly) kala, or guardian


A gelfling


The little-known Cambodian rhinoceros

[NB: contrary to Blogger's claim, Elizabeth took this post over from Marty and so is mostly responsible, for better or worse, for its content]