back from Halong Bay

Oh, now it is really difficult for me to remember what day it is! I will start form the day before we left for Halong Bay. We revved up and took care of the business at the Embassy that Eli needed to do, mailed off the paperwork to the University in Korea where he hopes to be teaching soon. Ahh, yes, it is all coming back to me. We went to lunch at a restaurant called Koto, short for Know One Teach One. This is a restaurant and school started by an Australian man for underpriviledged kids. Basically the program trains them to become waiters, waitresses, managers, chefs or bartenders, and I am not sure, but I think they take a full 24 months of training in hotels or reataurants….The food was superb. A bit more “expensive” but quite good, and the decor and the kids..great. I had a lime marinated beef salad with chilipeppers…a sort of sweet sour, light thing…even though it was beef.
That afternoon we continued on to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. this is where Uncle Ho lived, worked, had a bunker and where his body lies in state..still. A little startling as he looks younger than I do! Lots of stiff military soldiers there…signs and directions to keep your hands out of your pockets…not quite sure if it is because they belive this is a sign of respect or because they think one might do something to the body……
His house on the grounds is a beautiful simple three rooms, the upper two raised on “stilts”,(that is what the signs call it…”the Stilt House”) and it emanates a sense of a man who had one goal an pursued it with all of his being. We went through the museum that explained the history behind what his vision and life were about…..but because we started a little late and had to leave our packs locked up and behind and the place that had the lockers that held them was closing, we did not read all the information…literally books of it in the museum. Great displays though, of the mechanics of the fight, the photos of his early days and in general it gives one an idea of why he became such a “cult” hero to some and not to others.
We went on to the Temple of Literature which had beautiful grounds, and buildings that are almost a thousand years old. Here the ideas of Confucious were made solid…where they trained Mandarins…the literate people….who had to take the civil servant exams to run the country. Eli says that it put into writing the philosophy where fathers are head of household, teachers have power, that one should not question authority.
And in this temple is a statue of Confucious where people now pray, light incense, and put offerings of money…literally everywhere,such as throwing it on the tile roof of the first story from the second story balcony. I noticed one confused,or thrifty westerner find a bill on the steps below him and simply picked it up whereas the Vietnamese before him did not. I wonder if Confucious will appear before him in a dream and admonish him.
The next day we left for Halong Bay by bus, about four hours away. We went with a group that was recommended by friends, boarded a “junk” type of boat…a floating hotel really, but made of teak..something out of an old Charlie Chan movie. We had lunch on board as we made out way east out into the fantasmagorical landscape of thousands of limestone rocky promontories sticking out into the sea. Here was the refreshing discovery of birds and bird song which is sadly absent from the mainland. This is a World Heritage Site.
I am not sure that its designation is what keeps the people from eating every living thing there, or the topography. As we drove up to Halong Bay, the guide tried to explain how many invasions the country has been through…and how people came to eat everything..because they had to or perish.
We disembarked at one of the many caves, this one large enough for a thousand or two people to hide out from the Chinese. After a tour of the huge caverns that water had formed, both carving and depositing the limestone into lovely liquid forms, we got to go Kayaking! This was my favorite part. I have never been before and Eli and I took off like a shot….We went out among these mountains in the water, through a cave and into a perfect lagoon. It was breathtaking. And I found a pair of glassless frames in the water, scooped them out for Eli who promptly put them on and declared them to be the perfect prescription. Now I am forcing him to wear them for most pictures I take of him. And he is making me wear them in reciprocation.Only fair, I guess. And for a bonus we saw a troop of monkeys…being…monkeys! Eli noticed them because the trees shake as they leap from top to top, some falling out of the trees, only to catch the next branch, a second from a steep plunge off the cliff face happily racing around posing on a favorite tree that is larger than the rest….the largest of them taking the prime position in the middle….displaying his….manhood. Very fun to see, in the wild. Just what I wanted.
I read there is snow or the possibility of it around the area back home. I am sorry! Remember that it snowed in April last year? I will have to pick up some mukluks on the way home…..
We spent the night and part of today on board. Our fellow passengers were from France, Australia, Germany, the US and Brunai. And the couple from Brunai were our table mates….We have made friends, of course,(anyone want to visit Brunai with me?) and learned a lot about this fascinating country.
For one thing…no taxes. For another, free health care for those who are born and stay there, and just a few dollars for those who have left and come back. The country is run by a Sultan who is about sixty-five. His son will become sultan in his place but my Brunese friend said that he is too closely related to the father,the mother is the first cousin to the father, so there is some worry about how the son will do.
The country takes two hours to travel from North to South, is rich in gas and oil from which the Sultan gains his fortunes.
And the Sultan is very generous…built an amusement park for his subjects that is free to visit, though old now…has brought in entertainers for his people….and has done things like take care of the expenses of a man who had lukemia but was not even a subject of the country…for many years worth of treatment even out of the country. He had simply read about the appeal put out by the man’s family.
The sultan is Muslim. So no alcohol within the country but one can just by it at the border apparently.
These people were the happiest I have met on any trip, anywhere! I told them I would come to visitand we would all go to some fabulous caves in Borneo that they had talked about…..why not?

hanoi….live!

It is a great feat, negotiating the streets here, crossing and criss-crossing, avoiding every ,obstacle in your way,every few feet. All while concentrating on the pavement, cobblestones, which seem to be heaving out from the soil beneath, dancing to the din from the streets. and to add to that, one must constantly wag your head back and forth to say no,good naturedly of course, to the hundreds of smiling requests,”Ride, Madam?” or “You buy,Madam?” or the saddest,”Please,Madam..” a shriveled hand held out.
Eli went to the USEmbassy this am to somply get a stamp on his background check that is the third one we have had to send from the US. It is all a part of the protocol of getting a work visa for Korea and it is the University’s fault that the last one was sent in too late.
Eli is used to these delays and bureaucratic logjams, and just makes plans with backup plans and backup plans for the backup plans.
While he was gone to the embassy, I wandered around the area, counting how many times I turned right or left, still managing to end up not where I started but found me way back to the hotel anyway. Every street, w have discovered, has a “theme” of the same kinds of shops. There is the Hardware Street,(our favorite), the western clothes street, the cloth street, the oriental kitcsh street, the basket street, the porcelain street, the watch street….etc. If we get fired up tomorrow after taking care of the embassy and visa stuff, and booking our tickets for Halong Bay, we will try to do some picture taking of each of these and Eli can help me finally post them.
We also decided that this city is exhausting, but fascinating. There is a lovely lake nearby, park like surround and Islands in the center. The French influence is woven into many of the older buildings…and the daily habits such as coffee and baguettes every morning.
I have looked up HoChiMinh to better understand the waves of conflict that have swept across this lovely country. what i thought was so simple is much more complex, crossing decades of time, political agendas with the people the greatest losers as usual.
HoChiMinh lived a very complex life, traveling extensively, living in France and Englnd, the US and Russia. To read that he appealed to our government for help in making Vietnam an independent country, twice, I believe, then to find out he was ignored for the attempt, informs me again that what is political is not what is necessarily good government and hence not really for the people’s benefit….even under the most ideal sentiments.
Perhaps like the perpetual motion machine, a sustainable,healthy government that works in the people’s best interests, is not possible.
I hope I am wrong.

Day after tomorrow, we go to Halong Bay. I love the salt water for swimming. It helps me feel light, though if where I swim is too close to the open ocean and there are swells, I am discovering I always get sick!
Just before we left Nha Trang, I went out with Eli’s crew again, snorkeled in the surf, got sick, tried again in a more protected area and loved it. Fish schools swam around me in clusters of sparkle and flash. Others went about their day, eating from the tops of the coral, or snortling their way on the sea bottom throwing up clouds of sand. every conceivable color and size and shape was represented.
On the first Island we stopped at, madonna Rocks, there is a tiny shack where men stay, protecting the swallows nests from thieves with rifles, as the nests fetch a pretty penny,(or dong, as the currency is called). these shacks sit precariously perched on the side of cliffs above seething seas and the men go about their lives fishing,( illegal as this is a national park!), and travelling back and forth between islands by a pefectly round basket boat or corricle. It is big enough to hold two, is covered n the outside with some sort of resin, and the oarsman is literally just that…using just one paddle to make it go. And they move quickly and expertly, by just swishing the paddle back and forth from the front. An amazing sight.
So, here are these men, entrusted with the protection of swallows nests, in a national park, fishing…..but I doubt they would have much to eat otherwise.
hope you all are well.

hanoi….live!

It is a great feat, negotiating the streets here, crossing and criss-crossing, avoiding every ,obstacle in your way,every few feet. All while concentrating on the pavement, cobblestones, which seem to be heaving out from the soil beneath, dancing to the din from the streets. and to add to that, one must constantly wag your head back and forth to say no,good naturedly of course, to the hundreds of smiling requests,”Ride, Madam?” or “You buy,Madam?” or the saddest,”Please,Madam..” a shriveled hand held out.
Eli went to the USEmbassy this am to somply get a stamp on his background check that is the third one we have had to send from the US. It is all a part of the protocol of getting a work visa for Korea and it is the University’s fault that the last one was sent in too late.
Eli is used to these delays and bureaucratic logjams, and just makes plans with backup plans and backup plans for the backup plans.
While he was gone to the embassy, I wandered around the area, counting how many times I turned right or left, still managing to end up not where I started but found me way back to the hotel anyway. Every street, w have discovered, has a “theme” of the same kinds of shops. There is the Hardware Street,(our favorite), the western clothes street, the cloth street, the oriental kitcsh street, the basket street, the porcelain street, the watch street….etc. If we get fired up tomorrow after taking care of the embassy and visa stuff, and booking our tickets for Halong Bay, we will try to do some picture taking of each of these and Eli can help me finally post them.
We also decided that this city is exhausting, but fascinating. There is a lovely lake nearby, park like surround and Islands in the center. The French influence is woven into many of the older buildings…and the daily habits such as coffee and baguettes every morning.
I have looked up HoChiMinh to better understand the waves of conflict that have swept across this lovely country. what i thought was so simple is much more complex, crossing decades of time, political agendas with the people the greatest losers as usual.
HoChiMinh lived a very complex life, traveling extensively, living in France and Englnd, the US and Russia. To read that he appealed to our government for help in making Vietnam an independent country, twice, I believe, then to find out he was ignored for the attempt, informs me again that what is political is not what is necessarily good government and hence not really for the people’s benefit….even under the most ideal sentiments.
Perhaps like the perpetual motion machine, a sustainable,healthy government that works in the people’s best interests, is not possible.
I hope I am wrong.

Day after tomorrow, we go to Halong Bay. I love the salt water for swimming. It helps me feel light, though if where I swim is too close to the open ocean and there are swells, I am discovering I always get sick!
Just before we left Nha Trang, I went out with Eli’s crew again, snorkeled in the surf, got sick, tried again in a more protected area and loved it. Fish schools swam around me in clusters of sparkle and flash. Others went about their day, eating from the tops of the coral, or snortling their way on the sea bottom throwing up clouds of sand. every conceivable color and size and shape was represented.
On the first Island we stopped at, madonna Rocks, there is a tiny shack where men stay, protecting the swallows nests from thieves with rifles, as the nests fetch a pretty penny,(or dong, as the currency is called). these shacks sit precariously perched on the side of cliffs above seething seas and the men go about their lives fishing,( illegal as this is a national park!), and travelling back and forth between islands by a pefectly round basket boat or corricle. It is big enough to hold two, is covered n the outside with some sort of resin, and the oarsman is literally just that…using just one paddle to make it go. And they move quickly and expertly, by just swishing the paddle back and forth from the front. An amazing sight.
So, here are these men, entrusted with the protection of swallows nests, in a national park, fishing…..but I doubt they would have much to eat otherwise.
hope you all are well.

Eli and I arrived in Hanoi yesterday, and have seemed to be stuck in a cycle of sleeping or laying about like the seals do on the rocks between Orcas and Shaw. I think we rather feel like being sluggish while we both have the chance. last night I dreamed of work, and Eli will be plunging in as well, soon enough. It is an odd thing, letting go of the patterns of thought that are built around routine and conditioning.
I don’t know about other people, but I find it a puzzle, to get the mind and body to let go and really relax. That, in itself becomes a practice.
We are in the very old part of the city. Streets are impossibly narrow and with all the motorcycles parked on the tiny sidewalk, you have to walk in the street with the taxis, bicycles, motorcycles, women with bamboo poles over their shoulders with huge basket full of fish or fruit or fresh flowers. There is the constant noise level taken to a high pitch as more sidewalk construction happens and on the street that I call the “Hardware Street” vendors are suing hammers to make every conceivable item one can make of metal. it looks to be sheet aluminum but some is stainless stell, and i have no idea how it is done.
Each shop, no matter what it sells, is just ten to twelve feet wide and their good are usually spilling out into the street to add to the general mayhem and beauty of the place. there are deep dark alleys that penetrate the block of shops but we haven’t gone down one yet.
In Nha Trang, these alleys became shortcuts to various guesthouses going by little tiny flats where people live crammed into a space the size of a bedroom, by out standards….whole families, their bikes, their chickens, their children and dogs, grannies and grandpas.
All of this makes me grateful for where I live. we take so much for granted.
There is a little temple down the street where a tree has completely grown into the front of it.
Telephone and electric lines hang on poles, literally hundreds tangled together in such a cluster that I wonder how the pole can support such weight.
Around every corner is intrigue. one could write a novel out of an afternoon’s walk. even the hotel we are staying in is built so narrowly and so crookedly that the building itself holds its own story.
Not far from here is a building that is full of bullet holes. A reminder of either the French/ VietMinh or the “American War” as the Vietnamese name what we know as the Vietnamese War.
Old Vietnamese Veterans, many legless, stand and salute you if they think you are American. It is a rather visceral reminder of a time that changed how I thought of my country forever.
After exploring this area, going to the US Consulate to get a stamp for a piece of paperwork essential for a work visa for Eli to go teach again in Korea, we will head out to Halong Bay in a few days. Or perhaps change our minds and go to Sappo near the border with China. If we go to Halong Bay, we will board a boat for a few days, and be taken around the mountains that rise from the sea, maybe kayak, which I have never done. What a great place to begin!
I am not sure I have written about this detail in this blog, but one of the charming and funny details of this country is that of the “Backup Songs”. Each truck, when backing up has the regular beep, beep beep but then goes into a song. some play, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”…some “Jingle Bells”…some “Happy Birthday”……I just like it though I am not sure it makes anyone more aware. with traffic the way it is…everyman for himself, I don’t thik it makes much difference. Everywhere I have been here, everyone drives as fast as they can, laying on their horns as though the noise will clear the way,nearly hitting everything in the way, narrowly averting disaster every few seconds. Riding in a cab is like experiencing a cleverly choreographed chase scene only it happens all day long every day. When i become blase’ about that, I will know I need to go home!

back to sea level…..

arrived back in Nha Trang to find that Sarah and Tracy’s flat had been robbed in a very unusual way. The two Irish girls rented this place, a tiny two level flat, without knowing anything much about it. Eventually it came out that the place had been a house where prostitutes lived and were hired out from there to go off with thier customers to a hotel room. they scrubbed harder after that.. Back to yesterday…Ethan, a friend who sleeps on the couch, was asleep in the “livingroom” under the only window that has bars on it….and he had left the window open but the house was locked. He awoke at about four in the morning because there was a bamboo stick poking through the window bars just above him. Whoever was holding it was gone, I think, by then, hving already used the bamboo pole to pick up Tracys purse, rmove the money, return the purse, and take the keys to the flat. After that, Tracey and ethan took turns staying in the flat as one or the other went for food or for work. Now they are going to move out. they were going to any way as the place is a dive but…you know, one of those great subjects for stories and embellishments. They paid the grand price of $60 US permonth. so each of them paid just $20. Only the young, I say to myself…..
The trip back down the mountain was longer, the bus driver riding the brakes and really trying to take it easy, as it was so foggy. Less than half way down I began to smell that unmistakable smell of burning brakes.
the Pine forest gave way to jungle where the heat rose up to meet us like a wall. One moment you are bathed in cool and damp and the nest in sheets of sweat.
My favorite thing is watching out the window, waving to the children, seeing the beautiful cattle, healthy beige or brown cows with sleek coats and soft silky large ears that hang forward towards their eyes, perfect for flicking the flies away. They are either in groups by themselves or have a matching egret as company, in the fields, or they are gracefully walking along the road with or without their human “keeper” behind them. They are the essence of calm, unhurried movement. Relaxing to watch.
There are also a few of those great Brahmin bulls, most likely the patriarchs of all the progeny. It did my heart good to see this…healthy animals, even among the poorest. they are the family’s “bank account” I imagine.
Oh, and the great swaybacked pot-bellied pigs that makeup such great pork dishes….comically swinging their girth along, flicking thier tails, happy as only pigs can be.
And poverty….shack that seem made out of nothing…wood or tarps….children everywhere, lines of hand scrubbed clothes, yards of gardens or of dirt…many swept incredibly clean.
This morning I go to a French restaurant…not that I care for the owner so much but just that there is a breakfast dish of cooked vegetables and eggs that, with the baguette, makes me swoon.
These little shops crammed shoulder to shoulder, selling coffee, food or laundry coffee, or hair dressing and coffee, or barbershops and prostitutes, and probably coffee…they all have tables that spill out on onto the sidewalks.
so as I am sitting there enjoying my favorite breakfast the police pull up….jeep first then the green truck and the tables are summarily picked up, cutlery and dishes crashing to the sidewalk, tourists who had been having the meal at those tables standing up with big eyes…French owner argueing and yelling and draggin as many tables and chairs as he can inside…which is impossible because there is no room.
I finally get information from Eli, later, that makes some sense….that the tables on the sidewalks are illegal, as are the street hawkers…who scatter like birds under attack from hawks.
Pretty soon, the waitresses have swept up the broken crokery, brought out the tables, on go the tableclothes and the condiments, up go the umbrellas, the displaced tourists get a free meal and all is well. A brief tsunami of “law and order” having swept through the street. all the pigeons come back to roost.
In the meantime I have found my favorite and only street vendor that I like…the one who does not want to sell me anything. We have talked before. of her family back in Hanoi, of mine, back in the US. I invite her to sit for iced coffee, and we do the best we can telling of our lives…of our mutual stories of being woman. The story is almost universal…..
And I give her my address, email and phone number. She gives me a packet of postcards of Halong Bay…saying that they will be expensive up there. she works from 7am to 10 pm everyday trying to make some money to send back home. Her children live with her parents…her mother is seventy. Her husband is a drunk and she will divorce him.
She is too quiet to be a street hawker. She laughs because I tell her to be more forward….the very thing I hate about the tourist district. She warns me about the cyclo drivers, the motor taxis…something I know well having been grabbed by the arm by one. She tries to teach me to say no thank you…I am hopeless. I remember something that Sarah told me to say..sounds like “DEE-dee” which means “Go away!”….
Today we lazily make our tickets for Hanoi and Halong Bay. We will come back through here by train. Then Eli will find out if, indeed his job is waiting for him in Korea. If not, he will teach in Saigon.
If he actually gets the job at the university in Korea, it is very unusual to do as he just has a BA. It will give him the time he needs while working, to go for his Master’s by doing the Distance Learning program. he would go for a degree in Englich with the emphasise on Teaching English to NonEnglish Speakers. Yep, I thin that is what it is called. Then he would be set to teach whereever at better jobs with decent hours and time off. And he finished his dive master’s exams and could also work that kind of job though he does it just for the pleasure of diving. A friend of his has borrowed a camera with underwater case and takend phenomenal pictures of Lionfish, Morays, Scorpion fish, clown fish. it is still possible to see these here though Eli says that sometimes while he is diving he feels the compression of blasting which kills hundreds of fish at a time, wreaking havoc with the coral.
Time for a walk or a swim or a siesta. So many choices, so little time!

Dalat

After a stomach turning, and hairraising bus ride up switchback somewhat narrow roads,(only two passengers got sick which eli said is “nothing”), we ariv in this odd place…this beautiful but noisy and usy city up in the highlands of South Central Vietnam. Here there are coffee plantations, vegetables that are impossibly perfect, fruits and flowrs of every kind and variety. The forests up here are of pine, the soil red with iron, which is true of every soil I have seen on the plains below too. The air is cooler here andthis place is where the vietnamese come to honeymoon or vacation. the nice thing for us is that here are very few western tourists, and the hawkers are not as persistent as in the area of Nha Trang we were in.
We have spent much tine in the market which is huge, coming back to our rooms with bags of candied mulberries and strawverries, lemons and whatever else…all of us like children as we eat too muchof it and get tummy aches.
We ran across a sild place and Sarah being a fashion graduate and seamstress, and I being an uncured shopaholic, fall into our cup of cream, oohing and aweing over the delicious and exquisite silks of every hue and every design….and i succumb to wanting a traditional outfit of silk tp with split side and trousers which, of course there are none in stock large enough for my farm woman shoulders. so…we iquire and sure enough they will make me one. And not only that but I choose and fabric, get measured , a fitting hours later and it is finished perfecly the next morning. It is embarassingly cheap. I buy fabric and ant to go back and get more. i could bathe in the stuff, it is that sensuous.
We also visited the famouse “Crazy House” made by a woman whos’ father succeeded Ho Chi Minh as head of this country until he died in 98. This woman had tudied architecture in Moscow, came back here and designed a place straight out of disney world….not a straght line in it, one of those bizarre, surreal places that one just has to se ino order to believe that any one whould expend so much energy building. i would call it the height of kitch. And the only reason she was allowed to do it or keep it, was that her father was in the position he was in. I think the Vietnamese are rather proud of her and indeed her place brings in a lot of sightseers who spenda lot of money.
today wewent to garcens in the city that display the orchids, bonsai and acres of the wide variety of flowers that can be grown here. A rather commercial hing for tourists butjust to see the size and qualit of the bonsai and orchids was worth it.
An amusing observation…..that trucks have a backup beep that turns into a tinkly tun of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” or “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or “Happy Birthday To You”. I could not figure out where these little tunes were coming from for the longest time.
I see that I am getting used to the odd sounds of the Vietnamese language. It really can sound rather jarring and argumentative. Even Chinese sounds soft by comparison.
And I have had some great conversations with our hotel owner, who uses laughter to charmingly cover his spotty English. We make great stabs at understanding each other, and using a map is most helpful. he givs me his personal well used mapof Vietnam to take with me. Even this, as small a gesture as it seems, is done so sweetly.
And eat and eat. Sarah tells me to forget trying to dietwhile here. Everything is so inexpensive and delicious that I agree….though I took a sip of a bowl of something I thought was tea aftr having a delicious barbequed chicken…and it turned out to be what I was supposed to wash my fingers in. Eli and Sarah had a great laugh at my expense over this.
They buy cds like crazy to view on elis laptop…the latest movies show up instantly here in shops. I am not surprised that they are pirated, but I am surprised at the speed in which this takes place.
Time to go have another iced toungue curlingly sweet iced coffee and head bak into the fray of the market…..courage, Gretchen! Onward shopper! Bargains await,(but how to get allthis stuff home?) All my resolve to have just a back pack has melted under this irresistable tug of CHEAP STUFF!

again and again

I am losing my own blog…haven’t learned and maybe all the entries will go in here three or more times…..I have labeled them brain infarctions. anyway eli and I excaped the orphans down a back road, passing shacks of tin and bamboo and an old lady with a cast onher foot gathering weeds beside the road which turned out to be mint. then further down by a little place where young monks were playing a rousing game of table hockey..boisterous and loud…no photos though. Then found the gallery of Long Thanh…..incredible black and white photos. He has been doing this since the 60s,mixes his own chemicals in the kitchen in the back… exquisite use of light. He is justifyably famous the world over. And then we wandered through a small market selling quails eggs, bras of intricate colors and embroidery,fruits and by bird shops where I was able to leave the whole shop of birds whistling or attempting towhistle what i just had whistled. My niecewould come homewith the lot of them! and the biggest treat of all was no beggin cajoing street vendors nor a tourist to be seen! the best day yet.
Eli is off with his mates diving one last time before we try again to get out of here.
Oh and this morning….swallows arguing across the sky, bird chatter and mating on the roofs…souncs of people chopping up meats or vegetables for the day…i must be getting into the rhythms of this place. breakfast spent talking with the young waiter, Tan, wh studies at University here. what does he study? His own culture. I ask what he will do after University…he doesn’t know. sounds familiar. Sweet fellow. Curious about where one comes from, names, children anything one whishes to share. I do like the eye contact, the politeness of the Vietnamesse whowish to learn english, what I feel is genuine warmth….
so yes, today maybe we leave for Dalat. I nixed the monkey island because it sounds too touristy. I would rather see monkeys by accident, not by design. later

A week in

Yesterday eli and I took a taxi to the white Buddha, a h that resides on a very tall hill almost on the edge of the city. the view was fantastic but the temple below required putting up with insistent orphans, or so they said they were, sho expertly guide one to buy incense to light “for good luck” at the feet of one of the many temple buddhas. then you are expertly guided,(and I use that word with tongue in cheek) to a set of very steep stone steps upon which sit a battery of orphans, sellers of postcards, “Pleese Madam for the orphanage” and other beggarswith various limb deformities….until we finally got to the actual white Buddha wh sits in his great implacability above a square filled with filth and tin shacks… the nicest thing about it was around the back of it and slightly below, sit neat concentric arcs of crypts of the dead. Most have photos of the deceased …set somehow into the marble face, faces, which had tthe curious affect upon me of simple curiosity. And I felt more peaceful there, among these sweet symbols of people,of memories and daydreamed a dream of what their lives were like and what their country was like when they were alive. there is a tile roof that extends over the beautifully curved structures, and conveniently and permanently placed little vases for the families of these deposited family ashes, to leave the yellow chrysanthemums, that are everywhere in Se Asia. And we wandered around this quiet place finding great views to the west of where the city abruptly ends and rice paddys take over

bigworld, small world

This is the third time i have written this piece. the computer internet place here has computers fromthe the beginning of computers and the keys are glued to the keyboad by years of grease and sweat….. so i keeplosing my hard worked over words.
leads me up to saying that when i travel, my world expands and becomes large. my consciousness expands. After being here for awhile, my conscousness contracts again atoinclude just the three block area i stay in, making it into ‘my’ neighborhood. Familiar, safe. interesting. We travel away from home to experience the differences in the world but quite often choose to find familiarity within the foreign place.
Eli has taught me a few important things about being here. one is how to cross the street .There is an art to it, making eye contact with the flow and then plunging in seamlessly, making a warp to the weave and arriving whole cloth on the other side.
the other is how to meet the Vietnamese. one should extend the arm fully, as it shows respect, and even better to extend both for the twohanded handshake. he has been here long enough to take these things in and to make great use of them. he has both made great friends with the Vietnamese, and managed to stay safe. For this i am most grateful.
There is the other thing though….that the Vietnamses, just as in other countries, have a deep prejudice against dark skin. All the lotions and sunblocks have skin whitener in them. now why is this so universal, this prejudice? iknow the old arguments about how money determines whether you work in the fields or stay in the shade of a home. but where does it really come from….we all share the darkest of ancestors, from the darkest of Africa. Being white confers no special knowledge nor skills but is now shaping who gets an education and who does not. it is very strange to think about. If I went to the jungles of Borneo, i would not know the first thing about surviving, yet my dark skinned brethren would….And yes i realoze there is danger too from others….but isn’t that true of both light and dark?
so now Igo to do my routine..the beloved glass of iced coffee. Perhaps later i will tell of the embarrassing diving or so-called diving i did with Eli.

The world on the streets

I don’t know if this is a big world or a small world. i think that is what travel does for me. it takes my tiny consciousness and expands it. then i arrive at a place and the consciousness conracts again…for comfort. So now i am comfortable with a three block areathdd