Sunday, May 25, 2014

Thailand: Halfway Between Here and Heaven


Thailand in April delivers a mixed bag.  You get, on the one hand, the splendor of magical beauty, like Heaven on Earth, and on the other hand, the insufferable burning heat of an unquenchable Hell-fire. 

Our introduction to Thailand began with a trek to the Palace of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok.  Though Buddha was a prophet, in Cambodia and Thailand he is revered and worshiped like a god.  Buddha worship "pit-stops" pop up like Tim Horton's on every street corner.  Small and unassuming shrines on posts, they provide an opportunity for Buddhists to light an incense stick, leave an offering and pay quick homage on their way to the market or work.

Palaces and temples rise above the streets in opulent splendor, the beating sun dancing along the gilded roofs and twinkling from a myriad of bejewelled walls and minarets shaped like an emporer's crown.


It's breathtaking...



and it's sad at the same time.  One can't help but stand in complete awe of the brilliant architecture, artistic display and elaborate mosaics requiring millions of man-hours to create.

Okay, so I'm not "standing in awe" but I'm trying to blend.

This country is in an economic struggle for survival.  There is no middle class.  Rich and poor visit the elaborate temples, the rich offering up prayers shrouded in hope for health and luck, the poor for food for another day and a better life.  Call me cynical but from what I can see Buddha is hogging all the gold!


I paid dearly for my irreverence!  Day 2 of our Bangkok experience resulted in a respiratory tract infection, fever and 2 solid days of confinement to our hotel room.  Thank goodness for Global Doctors and antibiotics but it wouldn't come in time for the tour we looked forward to the most - a boat trip through the amazing floating markets and villages of rural Thailand.  

So we booked a cruise.  Isn't that what you do when you're feeling pallid, queasy and generally cadaverous?


A genuine Thai dancing, Thai food kinda cruise.  We picked graciously at the fishy, seaweed encrusted, lemongrass infused morsels set before us secretly longing for a Big Mac and fries.  But the music and dancing...it was restorative.


I'd need to be nearly dead to sit out the dancing!

All really great month-long vacations require some down-time ...a little R & R so you don't go home feeling like you need to take a holiday after your holiday.  That's what brought us here...



Ko Phangan Island, Thailand.  A place seductively disguised as Heaven - no funeral required.    For one solid week we would enjoy an air-conditioned bungalow with a hammock and an ocean view at the Sea Flower Bungalow resort.  


With the thermometer mercilessly pushing 40 celcius every day and a humidex level driving our sweat glands into overdrive we sought refuge under giant palm branches on the beach.  Or we'd mount the common island steed (rented scooter) touring the island's hilly terrain.  This place is home to the most glorious, white sand beaches on earth, Full Moon festivals, fabulous open-air markets and wildlife reserves for elephants.  

By night we'd bask in the glow of the coconut lanterns of the Sea Flower with a frosty drink, watching the squid boats lighting up the horizon and a myriad of unencumbered stars lighting up the sky.  


This is where we'd meet the proprietors of Sea Flower, Chai and Lise.  Chai, a native Thai (picture Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid) and Lise, a native Winnipeger, married in the early '80's and built this mecca up from a plot of wild palms and underbrush.  Their 2 daughters, now grown, live in Winnipeg...say what??

We dined at the beach bar nightly getting to know Chai and Lise, a few Aussies, Swiss and French.  Together we were the Sea Flower family of the week.  The food was simply amazing, the menu comprised of foods reflecting all of these nationalities, including a twist on Lise's French Canadian roots: curry poutine.  

Or, if you were feeling especially amorous, you could enjoy a beach barbecue alone, by a low table on a woven mat right on the sand, the tide tickling your feet.  A local, shirtless staffer flipped fresh red snapper, prawns, duck and garlic potatos over hot coals to practiced perfection.

But from all really good dreams one must finally awake.  The staff sent us off with Chinese lanterns loosed over the Gulf of Thailand and hugs.  

Sigh!

We're home now, post-jetlag and back into routines.  We were glad to return to Manitoba soil, though...


and glad to see certain cherubic faces again.




Glad also for HOME!  There's nothing quite like springtime in Manitoba.






























   





Monday, May 19, 2014

Cambodia or Bust!


From the moment we disembarked the plane in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, it was evident that the Khmer (pronounced Kmai) people were preparing for something BIG!

According to the Buddhist calendar, they were about to embark on the year 2556 and we were just in time to witness it first hand.  

In full traditional regalia they greeted us in the airport, offering gifts of dried tea in woven boxes and live flower wreaths for luck.  A gentle head bow with palms of the hands placed together indicates greeting and respect - the sampeah.  We, too, would learn to sampeah in return.  It was a gesture so steeped in ancient tradition and yet so full of graceful respect - so unlike the handshake or "Hey, how are ya?"


Meeting up with our long-lost wayfarer with a penchant for orphans and a do-good spirit, we hopped the country's most prolific taxi, the tuk tuk (an open air motorcycle taxi).  By now, she could haggle with the best of them and every tuk tuk ride began with a well-practiced negotiation.

We toured the orphanage where she spent so many hours, started by Mother Teresa and run by a harem of motherly nuns. These children were a sad reminder of the extreme poverty left by Pol Pot and the Khmer regime of the 1970's.  In just 3 short years a massive genocide of 3 million Cambodians left the country destitute, impoverished and struggling with a sense of identity.  Today there are over 500 orphanages in Cambodia, many of which are fronts for child prosititution rings.  

By day 2 we were headed to Siem Reap, an arduous 8 hour drive, to experience the Khmer New Year at the Buddhist temples that made this country famous.  The "highways" and streets were clogged with buses, scooters and vans filled to the brimming with revellers and their celebretory provisions.

  

Our transfer driver moved through the chaotic vehicular madness with skill and the regular use of his horn, leaving us simultaneously rattled and relieved.  It was good to stop and stretch our legs at the first major market along the way.  Opening the door of our air conditioned van we were first hit with a wave of oppressive heat and then excitable children.  For them, we were like the circus that just rolled into town. 


Like adorable salesmen with commission on their breath they worked their magic, surrounding us in a tightly spun caccoon, shoving tropical fruits in our faces as they plied us with questions.

My appetite for it all soon waned at the sight of stools laden with platters of vermin...AGAIN!  


Quail egg, squid, cockroach, tarantula, piled high and freshly cooked.  By the poker-faced tone of the sellers, and the creatures piled high, I had to surmise that there must be a market for this stuff.



Of course, where there's dead tarantulas there will also be live ones.  This realization no sooner took hold of me when I turned to witness a little girl of about 6, tarantula attached snugly to her shirt.  Her pet.  She attached herself to my arm and, upon seeing my curiosity over the furry black spot on her shirt, thrust it toward me with eager anticipation.  "No!"  I squealed, as I leapt for cover behind a cherub-faced 3 year old (in my estimation, furry arachnids and women were never intended to co-exist).  To the children's delight they had found a way to make this white-faced lady buckle under pressure.  We bought their fruit and high-tailed it out of there.

Siem Reap, to us, was the jewel of the Orient.  After driving miles and miles of garbage-laden, dusty countryside, we arrived!  Music played, people danced and the party was getting started.  For the next 4 days we hit the Temples of Anghor Wat, Anghor Tom and Ta Phrom with the zeal of young archeologists on a new dig.  38 Celcius be damned, this is what we'd come here for!








Can you tell we're having fun yet?





The site where Tomb Raider was filmed


And then at dusk we flocked back to start all over again.





We lit candles and made Khmer wishes...



sending them off into the temple moat.


Then danced traditional dances till we dropped.  They dragged us in, taught us the moves and laughed with us as we fumbled our way around the circle of joy.


This country, Cambodia, stands out for me.  I don't know why, exactly.  Perhaps it was the reunion with our amazing, all-growed-up-and-ready-to-take-on-the-world daughter.  Perhaps it was the lovely sampeah gesture of respect.  Perhaps it was the people.  Yeah, that's it.  They pulled us into their culture from the start, held us rapt with wonderful tradition, beautiful music and brilliant smiles and waves.  We were so welcome here and it exuded from these people of little means and little hope. 
And where there's joy and wonder like that...I'd like to believe there's hope! 


























Vietman: Yes, They Warned Us...

I did not actually grow a giant left Elven ear, it only looks that way.  Just sayin'.

Touching down in Vietnam, just hours south of Beijing, was like being transported around the world again.  Gone was the clean, crisp, colorful feel of Beijing.  We traded skyscrapers for patchwork hovels, cars for scooters.  The distinct disparity was at first disheartening.  But we were soon caught up in a culture that seemed to find joy in mere existance.   Yes, they warned us it's a beautiful country, and they were right!


Life here is simple, slow moving and uncomplicated  (apart from the political system which the average tourist is not immediately aware of).   

Our first night in Hanoi, North Vietnam, we wandered the streets, getting a feel for this place.  Between potholes, garbage and dog poop, one learns quickly not to take your eyes too far from the sidewalk you walk along.  Like gullible law-abiding Canadians we stopped at the street corner waiting for the light to turn.  We never did figure out what the traffic lights were for.  Duck and dodge became the only way to cross the street, through hordes of scooters that stopped and started randomly with no apparent regard for traffic signals or pedestrians.  There is an art to surviving here, we'd discover.

The scooters themselves were multi-functional, multi-family modes of getting around.  Anything you can put in a half-ton pickup they can load on the back of a scooter.  Cows, crates of chickens, plate glass windows and furniture - we saw it all.  And minivans?  Whatever!  Six people and the family pet fits easily on the sleek seat of this two-wheeler.  There's no room for obesity in this country.

There was a sense of community here, though, that was unmistakable.  The sidewalks were littered with tables and chairs filled with locals, women cooking soup up by the vat-load, young ladies washing dishes in tubs...all along the street fronts.  Why take it indoors when the action's outside?  They ate together, they smoked together, they laughed together and they peed together at the tree beside the soup pot.  


The countryside is riddled with stilt-houses and water buffalo (they look like cows only whiter, bonier and lacking restrictive fences).  A 4 hour drive brought us here...Halong Bay...one of the most picturesque places on earth!


We jumped a Junk and headed into the impossibly emerald waters of the enormous bay...


to see lots of these...


and these...


and these. 


We ate lots of this...


and chatted with a few of these...until our overnight cruise brought us here...
                                                                     

to a tiny floating fishing village...


where the child's playground is a bamboo boat...


and 3 generaions take up a 12' x 12' square.


They are a proud people who take care of their elderly and live from day to day with seemingly no hang ups over world wealth distribution or lack of satellite TV service.

Onward to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), South Vietnam.  Add about 10 degrees to the daily temperature and a much greater respect for clean streets.  Here we checked out a University of Confuscianism.  It was graduation day.



A round of hacky sack with the boys
We boarded a Sampan and chugged up the Mekong Delta,


destination...


a small island of fruit farming, coconut plantations and coconut candy factories where the candy is produced under the shade of palm trees in giant vats.


They entertained while we sampled the amazing fresh fruit


Then dared us to show some true Canadian grit...


sampling the cobra & scorpion whiskey...


and wrestling with a python.


We met a few less threatening friends along the way too.

How does one begin to describe Vietnam in a nutshell?  You can't!  We can put a price on the cost of the adventure but the experience and the memories are PRICELESS!