Most Memorable Moments: Vietnam

•Adding Singapore—one more country added to our trip
•Waking up on overnight train to see lush green Northern Vietnam with a rich grey sky and fog low over the fields
•Vietnamese couples showing actual public affection in the parks (what would have otherwise gone unnoted was particularly welcomed after five weeks in India)
•All of the parks, period: beautifully kept parks in both Hanoi and Sapa
•My favorite porter on the trek offering me his hand on steep terrain (a roughly 65 year old tiny man with two gold teeth, hiking circles around the rest of us, carrying our food, making our food, throwing back rice wine, and taking more hits of tobacco on the water bong than any of the other hilltribe men combined.)
(That same porter showing Zack how to use the bamboo water bong)



•Trekking through fields and fields of rice paddies…with nothing in view but fields and fields of rice paddies.
•Mid-hike jumping in the stream

•Crossing Indiana Jones-like bridges
•Vietnamese lady at train station selling “sexy lady lighters”
•Playing Frisbee in the park in Sapa with Mike, Tate, and four Vietnamese school boys


•Vietnamese faces
•Vietnamese children: hands down, the cutest children in the world
•Cave spelunking

•Eating phoo with chopsticks on tiny, wobbly plastic stools on the street with Vietnamese instead of in restaurants with tourists for a quarter the price
.Walking through the market



•Watching Vietnamese exercise at sunrise in the park and the next day joining in for aerobics
•My birthday! -balloons, seven dollar hair cut with twenty minute head massage, water puppet show, birthday gifts, birthday pig, and the “Funky Monkey” nightclub
•Being given a pair of earrings from a woman in a shop because it was my birthday
•Asiana Airlines (always a pleasure with Asiana—not to be confused with Air Asia which is atrocious)



•The glory that is the Korean airport: comfortable for sleeping, pristinely clean, free internet, showers, food vouchers for long layover, complimentary musical performances and cultural museum with free crafts

Memories of Thailand

-Eating a fried chicken foot
-Eating meat, period (who has the heart to tell a host mom that "vegetarian" means chicken, too, after she has already cooked it?)
-Eating a live bamboo worm (and then more bamboo worms later mashed into a pasty dip)
-Fried bananas!
-Mixing mud with our bare feet for building adobe house
Laughing hysterically as Pee Noi (our host mom) tried to explain something to us with body language…and then realizing that she was describing the village woman who had just died and the arrangements for her funeral
-Trek in Northern Vietnam with Mirror Art Group and our machete wielding tour guides (“Are you Reaaddyy?!”)
-On last day of Thai trek, panorama of descending on the two foot wide path along the side of a cliff with a vast, crisp and clear sky of blue and white, and then later tramping through the jungle with bamboo walking sticks as our tour guides tried to remember the way
-The fresh, delicious vegetables that we ate with Thai and hilltribe families: pumpkin, broccoli rabe, kale, bamboo, spinach, garlic, tomato, hot pepper…
-Celebrations/ rituals in Ahka village during very first night of our trek and being dressed up in Ahka traditional garb…and then realizing that the rituals would continue all night long
-Watching our hilltribe leaders do anything with a machete, from finding bamboo worms to fashioning a pot out of bamboo to cook rice for lunch
-Biking around the ruins in the city of Ayuthaya


-Bowling with American dance music and flashing lights and then Karaoke in the “erotic” room atop a Thai mall in Bangkok
During trek, going to waterfall and eating pad thai out of banana leaf packaging (now that is biodegradable, Hofstra Food Services; don’t give me “we still need to use styrofoam!”)


-The Bangkok food market smells. The Bangkok food market, period.
-Eating durian fruit (it smells like armpit)
-Peer (aliases: Tornado of Destruction, Disap-Peer) jumping out of boat in Ko Lao, missing the landing by a longshot, and after he had climbed out to drip dry realizing that his camera had been in his pocket
-The drunk Moken village chief. Pee Now (the woman who really was what held the village together and did all of the duties a chief should have done) slapping him back into order

-Lifting the first Moken kid with such good intentions…and realizing what we had started. Then for the rest of the week having a constant line of tireless Moken kids lined up, ready to be airplaned around again and again
-Going to Burma (Myanmar). When we arrived, them turning the big screen television to a channel with 60’s disco music videos playing as soon as we arrived. A man with six fingers who called himself “Lucky” trying to exchange 1000’s of Burmese money with us for about 30 Baht (which is like exchanging a few cents for a dollar)
-Naked kids everywhere in Moken village
-Final group meal in Ko Payam, buffet style. Watching Peer eat mounds (plural) of food during final meal
-Cooking class in Chiang Mai
-Our cross-dressing train attendant on our very first Thai train. Who sang to us.
-Fishing and swimming off of boat with Moken men
-Margot acquiring the name, “Barbie”
-Street smoothies
-Going to a pharmacy to get medicines and supplies for Moken village, and being given it all for free when the pharmacist realized for what it was
-Snorkling in Ko Payam
-Enjoying afternoons at “You Sabai” (organic café with delicious coconut, banana, and passion fruit smoothies) and in the resevoir
-Playing and/or watching tecraw (game played by Thais; a volleyball with the feet, of sorts)
-In hilltribe villages, bamboo home on stilts, watching adults push food scraps through the bamboo floor (instead of using a trash) down to the pigs and chickens beneath the house
-Watching the pigs and chickens.
-Figuring out strategy to squat toilets
-Painting walls with mud at Pun Pun
-Breaking open coconuts to eat whenever we pleased
-In Mae Joo, shampooing our hair with eight year olds in the resevoir
-in Mae Joo, continuously watching Nong Ti (approx. 3 years old) get into all sorts of dangers that would be unthinkable in the states but that do not even register there (playing alone on tractor, playing with hammer, being put on a motorcycle standing up and wet, playing with giant bugs)
-Boxing with a professional Muay Thai trainer in Mae Joo
-Attending a formal cremation ceremony in Mae Joo. Also attending the visitation and constantly being fed, with a particular memory of a dessert of cold condensed milk soup filled with potato, kidney beans, jelly worms, toffee, tomato and only the gods knows what else and laughing uncontrollably (in a completely inappropriate environment) as we tried to swallow it down
-Constantly being fed.
-Elephant ride with Nong (Dianna from MI.) Our non-English speaking elephant driver/ guide taking us off of the course to his house so that he could get something…and temporarily sending us into panic driven hysterics that we may never leave again.

December 6, 2008...My 21st Birthday!

I celebrated my 21st birthday in Hanoi, Vietnam!

It was an awesome day, full to the brim with excitement and surprises.
It was also long.
It began at five a.m., when our overnight train arrived two hours early to Hanoi from Sapa (where we began the trek.) Four of the other girls came bursting through the train compartment door throwing in colorful balloons and yelling “Surprise!” and “Happy Birthday!” As unappreciated as I’m sure it was at 5:00 am by the other passengers, for me the day could not have started better. We spent the next 45 minutes walking to our hotel (rather than pay for six taxis we put all of our stuff into two and walked—Vietnam is significantly more expensive than India or Thailand.)

So at 5:30 a.m. on my 21st birthday, I was to be found wandering the streets of Hanoi, a balloon in one hand. It could not have been better, though, because I never would have experienced the pre-dawn life of Vietnam otherwise. This culture wakes up early! The market was booming, people were already perched on the little, wobbly plastic stools at noodle stands, and the park was alive with energy. People of all ages wake up early for mass exercising in the parks around the lake. Jogging, stretching, bouncing awkwardly, in groups listening to a tape recording of Tai Chi or aerobics, lifting weights that are brought out everyday apparently by someone, playing badminton mid-sidewalk, and doing any other sort of movement imaginable. It was beautiful! There was no embarrassment; everyone had amnesty to do whatever exercise or stretch they liked without feeling silly. We passed a group of about six women in a close circle, each giving the woman to the right a fast, karate-chopping back muscle massage. Abby and I went out the following morning at 6:00 to jog around the lake and stopped to do aerobics with a group of at least sixty women who were following an instructor and a tape. There is nothing like bouncing around to pop music remixes, throwing arms in the air, and doing pelvic thrusts in a public park with a bunch of old Vietnamese women and without a concern in the world. I love it all. Rather than run on a treadmill alone in front of a television or run alone with an ipod, you can be with an entire community of people every morning, life and fellow motivators all around. You do not feel alone, nor do you feel self-conscious (trust me: they do not.) Mattie said that this is left over from more overtly communist times when the government organized community exercise in the main parks and squares. (google it: I don’t know her source.)

When the sixteen of us arrived to the hotel, there naturally were not enough rooms open for us yet (standard check out usually is not before five a.m., even in Vietnam) so we stashed bags and were left to wander until noon.

I went with several of the girls to a salon; we had decided that we would have ourselves tweaked and polished back to normal society’s standards after our three months of no mirrors, no real homes, no real showers, no good laundry detergent, and no cares. Between the lot of us, there was hair to be cut, nails to be polished, feet to be pumiced, and hair to be waxed. For seven dollars, I had my hair washed with a half dozen products and massaged, blow-dried as if it were an art form, and cut. The Vietnamese girl who washed my hair spent at least a half an hour washing my hair, massaging my head, tugging on my roots, pulling my hair taught and flicking it (stimulates hair growth??) and then over another half an hour blow-drying my hair, more time accumulatively than I spend on my hair in a month.

As she finished, out of nowhere, appeared this glorious figure with a popped collar and a pristinely fashioned hairstyle with highlights. His name was, “my gorgeous Vietnamese hair man” and I spent the next half an hour awing over his glowing skin and eyes and welcoming smile as he cut my hair. He does good work, too.

I left my birthday balloon for the toddlers waiting in the salon and spent the afternoon wandering the city with Jordan, Emma and Nong (Dianna, but forever known as the Thai word for “little one” to me.) I stepped off the curb in my tennis shoes into a ditch one foot deep of putrid, I-don’t-even-want-to-know-what-is-in-it water, but not even that could rain on my birthday parade. I gave a big smile to all of the shocked and whispering Vietnamese who had seen, and carried on in my slushy shoe.

We met the group in the evening to see a performance of Vietnamese water puppets, and I was surprised with a big, pink, helium filled pig by Zac and John (my excited squeals of joy every time I see pigs must have cued them to something) and with Milano cookies, Vietnamese coffee, and a Vietnamese coffee maker by Mattie.

Vietnamese water puppets were traditionally used during flood time as a form of entertainment. When the rice paddies flooded peasants were unable to tend to the fields and were left with nothing to do, so they would dance puppets—people, dragons, dogs, water snakes, fish, etc.—on top of the water with long poles to tell stories of everyday life, from a drunk fisherman to a dog chasing the ducks. All of the animals were made with dragon-like interpretations, and they along with the rest of the scenery were of red, gold, and bright colors. The architecture reminded me very much of our idea of Eastern architecture that I saw in Thai temples or architecture in China—I do not know how much of this is from cross-over influence or just due to my untrained western eye. Live music, utilizing many unfamiliar eastern instruments such as the danbo, was accompanying the slapstick puppet humor.


We enjoyed the evening by walking around the lake and trying on black coats in a store—for me a sequiny Dolce and Gabana coat and for Abby a stylin’ leather one—but unfortunately as we have come to learn our sizes often are not even carried here. An entire store can run successfully here and only carry XS and S. So we walked away empty-handed (as if we were going to purchase Dolce & Gabana coats anyway) and we went out to the Funky Monkey so I could get in my birthday dancing.
Not to worry, as I said, I was up again the next morning at six to run!

Readjusting to US Life

It is not usually too exciting to return to the States after traveling, no matter how long we are away. At the airport everyone has the same, boring accent again and faces, dress, and the writing on signs are all too familiar. However, it seems that there is always that American character who makes me glad to be home. About the United States, I can say that many of us are extraordinarily friendly to strangers. I walked up to the customs official dragging my luggage and he beamed me a great big smile, "Good morning! How are you today?" "You weren't near Mumbai, were you?" making conversation the whole time. "Have a great day!" This uber-congenial, treat-everyone-as-a-friend American type I hope I never grow weary of.


Aside from that, there are some cultural adjustments that I still need to make.

-On the flights and in the American airports, I kept looking for a trash for my toilet paper. We have septic systems in this country, Alex.
-Once home, while brushing my teeth the first several times an internal alarm went off in my head telling me not to use the faucet but to get my filtered water. Here, Alex, they are one and the same.
-Along those lines, when I rinsed out a bowl to use, the same internal alarm told me to be sure to wipe out ALL of the water so as to prevent giardia again. No giardia here, Alex.
-Jet lag. Now that I am home, my internal clock is faulty and having trouble catching up.

Home again!

I've made it safely home! I am back to cold, dreary Ohio, four different planes and about 40 hours later. Now that I have a shiny, healthy computer, good internet, and time to spare, I will continue writing on and adding pictures even though this journey is finished. It will be out of order as I backtrack, but late and out of order is better than not included at all. I will also go back and add pictures to articles where I was not able to add them before, so keep that in mind and maybe scroll and peruse a bit.

Sa Pa Trek

We exited the overnight train just South of the Chinese border for our stay in Sapa and our trek in the surrounding mountains. We spent a day in Sapa before leaving on our four-day trek. Sapa is another lovely Vietnamese city with a lively market, quite a few tourists, and wonderfully planned community spaces such as a large square and a park with a man-made lake.































The trek was through the hills and valleys of the Sapa region, passing many unique hill tribe groups along the way with the trekking company Topas Tours. It was uniquely different from the Thai trek in that the villages did not seem that they were putting on any sort of show for us. They all still wear their traditional clothing regularly; there was not the sense that they were dressing up merely because we were there.

We began our trek Monday morning with our group, three guides, and several porters. The porters were hill tribe men that carried food for us and cooked our meals--I know: we had pristine treatment. On our first day, we stopped before lunch at a quiet little lagoon below a waterfall. "Swim, if you like!" they said with a smile, knowing that as beautiful and clear as it was it was far from pleasantly swimmable water. This water makes 55 degree Lake Michigan seem like a hot spring. So naturally, I jumped in all the way and swam around. In a sense it wasn't so bad: it was beyond a cold that the body could register, but getting out the feeling of acute stabbing pains lingered. Thank goodness for the hot, midday Vietnamese sun! Day two and day three were both six to seven hours of solid trekking, and these Vietnamese keep a monster pace. It was worth it though; in four days my eyes have rarely before been blasted with such beauty.



--Much of the trek we spent walking through mountains of wet rice paddies. They scale the mountains and hills in every direction, appearing as Aztec pyramids, staired like the ruins at Teotihuacan. We would walk along the ledge of a level or paddy, looking down out at the mountains and green all around and at the reflection of the sky in the perfectly channeled water sitting around the rice on all of the levels.


--We also spent much time walking through rain forest. Think Vietnam movies or Jurassic Park minus the fear. Shades of greens were all around, rich and varied, the forest was thick, and there were always streams of water to be seen or heard. While walking to keep our minds busy we tried to play "I Spy," but quickly learned there was not much more than the one color from which to choose, and it's difficult to guess shades. Now into December, it is much drier than it was during our trek in Thailand. So although much of the walking in the jungle is either steep up or down as in Thailand, it hasn't been quite as much of a slip-and-slide experience. All the same, at times the path becomes pretty thin and if the person in front of you gets more than 15 feet ahead you may have to play "Marco, Polo" to find your way.








Memorable moments:
--Sporadically, walking through tiny villages, sometimes of literally only a few houses, and see the smiling, waving children, the staring adults, and--my favorite--the piggies. I have a peculiar, unexplainable fascination for pigs that I have for no other animal. Perhaps it is because as a child it was one of the only animals that did not send me into an allergic asthma attack.



--Walking past grazing water buffalo (give me pigs, water buffalo, and monkeys and I will be contented for life) who stare with their enormous eyes until you completely pass, shuddering intermittently and slowly eating grass.

--Walking back and forth up a winding mountain, pushing forest out of the way to pass.

--Lying on a boulder in the middle of a big, flowing river waiting for our Vietnamese guides and porters to make us our lunch. As I was taking in the sun lying back with my eyes closed, I lifted my head to look up and realized how absolutely awesome this all is. There were rocks and boulders all around with water flowing through them--water clear and fast with reflections of the sun and the sky--a mini waterfall right in front of me. Layers of mountains spread straight ahead beyond them, and green trees framed the picture on both sides. To top it all off, while I was taking it all in, one of the cooks hopped rock to rock to carry a plate of food out to me with hot sauce and limes, all followed by fresh dragon fruit. Life is sweet.
**All of this was good build up for what was to come: treacherous, steep, never ending incline.

--Immaculate meals! I expected noodle soup and eggs. Instead we got apples, bananas, pears, dragon fruit, spinach, mushrooms, tomato, corn, pumpkin, red pepper, tofu...the list is endless. We trekked like refugees but we ate like kings!

--My favorite Vietnamese porter, a tiny bald man who must have been at least sixty five, offering me his hand on the steep and slick declines. He had a big smile, two gold teeth, and more stamina on these hikes than any of us prime young adults. He did the entire trek carrying our food on his back in a wicker basket, made all of our meals and the meals for the porters, and took more hits of tobacco in the huge water bong than any of the other porters combined.

--On day three, toward the end of the hike we came to where a dam was being built. First there was a noticeable change from barely-there paths to freshly bulldozed roads, and then we came upon the immense valley of machines and workers. They used big "CAT" ground movers and big power tools. There were fresh electric lines and simple, new complexes for offices, storage, and likely living spaces. It was strange coming from jungle, not having seen other people or man made elements for hours, to this. The sounds of the work and machinery shocked the ear after the previous six hours of hearing nothing but water flowing, leaves rustling, and the sound of my own breathing.

--That night, we camped out! The previous nights we had stayed in community centers in villages, but here we were in a huge valley in tents. We spent the evening--which pretty much began at 4:15 after the sun went behind the mountains--by the fire escaping the cold. We had another great meal that your typical American baked beans, grilled cheese and s'mores campers could not even imagine. I suppose that for these hill tribe men, cooking at a fire outside while camping is little different than cooking at the fire at their homes. They have lots of rice wine every night to fight the cold, but unfortunately I am on giardia meds again so cannot partake in the group warming traditions of throwing back shots. Luckily, though, it took me a while to remember that alcohol does not mix well with parasite blasting medications, so at least I got to try it before the connection occurred to me. The nights here are freezing cold, but surprisingly the tents kept us warmer inside than the drafty hill-tribe wood houses had where we had stayed the previous nights. Before entering my tent I took one last look up into the immense sky saturated with starlight, smiled, and slept well in my wool layers and sleeping bag.




--We hiked 60 km in four days, in total! I feel tired, well-exercised, and wonderful. But in spite of the extreme exercise, I ate like a hound to counterbalance, and then some, all of the calories burned.

My Vietnamese Good News

I am acquiring great agility with chopsticks.

Most Memorable India Moments

-Walking onto Air India to see Indian air hostesses in saris, bindis, and henna and realizing that I was on my way to India.

-Not being able to leave! Trapped in Delhi airport.

-Waking up in Galder village outside to sunrise, rooster, and baby goats.

-Halloween pagan ritual in Galder with dancing, music, pumpkins, and Indian children. And Dianna's halloween mustache.

-Hiking in the Himalaya mountains above Mcleod Ganj. And doing it with Australians who were seeing snow for the first time.

-Hiking down the Himalayas alone, in complete solitude and exercise, serotonin induced bliss.

-Molly being proposed to on overnight train.

-Seeing Bollywood movies: Golmaal Returns and Om Shanti Om.

-Watching Diwali celebrations from rooftop restaurant in Udaipur.

-Choki Dhani, the make believe village outside of Jaipur. Sitting on the floor, eating off of dishes made from banana leaves, seeing traditional performances, and getting unforgettable five minute Indian upper body and head massage.

-Being woken on overnight train to ragged beggers with a young girl patting my arm, saying shamelessly with her hand outstretched, "200. 200. 500. 800. 800 Rupees. 600? 600. " while the rest smirked and stared.

-Vomitting on overnight train, running back and forth to bathroom alternating with the six sick, unfortunate others, and hanging my head over the Indian train bathroom hole in the ground watching the ground pass below.

-In one day, having my ass grabbed in the subway and a man telling me, "you are very beautiful. I would like to f**k you."

-Roadside romeos. All of them.

-Girls getting noses pierced in Udaipur: being led upstairs from shop into what was clearly someone's bedroom, having nose rings cleaned in what was quite probably beer, and having noses pierced by hand by a woman who claims to have pierced Melanie B.'s nose (one of the Spice Girls.)

-In Udaipur, after nose piercings, being told pick-up lines by Indian boy and being invited on his motorcycle--all three of us--for tea. "If I could I would rearrange the alphbet and put U and I together." "Oh, you look tired. It must be because you've been running through my mind all night."

-Indian Thalis with endless food. Indian food, period.

-Not having to jump through hoops to find vegetarian food and instead watching the carnivore men in our group jump through hoops just to find food with meat.

-Indian buses. Full of people, no shocks, game-of-chicken like driving, and driving with passengers on the roof.

-Indian rickshaws. Pushy, mad drivers who weave through traffic and risk your life to make better time...and for their own sick pleasure.

-An audience of men watching us sit and read on an Indian train that were then shooed away by armed military guards.

-India's ability to make anything out of dairy (chai tea, every existing dessert, palak paneer and many curries) and India's complete lack of any sort of lactose intolerance enzymes at any pharmacies. Anywhere.

-Last dinner in India with Abby. After a stressful day, a cheap meal in a hole in the wall restaraunt that made both a perfect last meal in India and Thanksgiving dinner.

-Volunteering in Rogpa shop in Mcleod Ganj and dancing with Richie behind the counter while making sandwiches.

-Making a mural for a charity shop in the Dali Lama's home in exile!

-Getting my ear cleaned (only one) in Delhi on the street.

-Being called "didi" (sister) by six sisters in Galder village.

-Giardia!

-Paying less than $2 USD for a doctor visit and three differents medications combined.

-Indians staring.

-Feeding monkeys with Ama La in Mcleod Ganj as a dozen closed in on me.

My past week: Mcleod Ganj-->Delhi--> Vietnam

I woke up, went out to buy milk with my Ama La, and as we talked I watched her make breakfast and her amazing fresh Tibetan brown bread to send with me on our long journey to Delhi. Apparently, everyday she takes old chapatis to the monkeys while she walks her dog. She announced this before she left, and naturally I wanted to go with. The monkeys already hang out along the side of the road going up the mountain, and when they saw her approach they knew. She gave me some chapatis and told me to break them into smaller pieces and throw them. These monkeys kept getting closer and closer; they seemed to know and respect Ama La but because I was a newbee they had no such respect for me. The biggest male, the one Ama La knows to be the leader, came over to one side of me and while I was absorbed in worry of the other monkeys closing in on me, grabbed my pant leg and yanked to get my attention and chapatis. Of course, this only made me want to teach this monkey a lesson so I gave him no chapatis at all. He was not going to have it. So while I was feeding the others he strategically walked around behind me and when the moment was right, literally grabbed the rest out of my hand. I love their miniature, hairy human hands--I could sit and watch in awe at our similarities for hours. All the same, I'm lucky that is all the more he did because I would not want to carry the rabies cooler around during our trek.

My Last Day in Mcleod Ganj

In the afternoon, I finished the Rogpa mural! Even David (the wishy washy, procrastinating English hippy) finished which turned out to be quite the feat. We carried it down to the shop and had its final unveiling and placed it in its rightful place in front of the giant hole in the wall.



Our bus departed at four and my host Ama La walked me to the station. She put a traditional Tibetan prayer scarf around my neck and gave me a traditional Tibetan bracelet that she made herself. It is black and white woven wool and has nine eyes that represent…something that she could not translate. Bugger. Many of my traveler friends came to the bus station to see me off and I said my goodbyes while my Ama La bought me time and entered the bus with my daypack to save me a "good seat" in the front like a true loving mom.

After a four hour bumpy bus ride much like the one before, we transferred to rickshaws to reach the train station. This particular rickshaw ride--even more so than others in the past-- was a laugh out loud experience (a motor rickshaw is almost like a motorcycle engine pulling a two wheeled cart comfortably for two, or uncomfortably for up to seven as we or most Indians do.) Perhaps this particular ride seemed more intense because it was dark outside and roads were relatively clear so headlights made swerving more noticeable and fewer cars on the road meant we could go faster. The rickshaws were taking all of us from one, same location to another, same location, all for the same price. Yet they each felt the need to race, overtaking one another in front of oncoming traffic again and again, speeding over pothole and through intersections. One would swerve out around our rickshaw, swerving back in to avoid an oncoming truck on one side and a bicyclist on the other, and moments later our rickshaw would be passing the first. It was again--like on the bus--like racking up points on a video game. Fun as long as we make it safely, I guess. Done all for their personal enjoyment at our exclamations, I am sure. At the train station we had several hours to wait and so played travel Scrabble and chess. As we were sitting on our bags playing, we attracted a crowd of at least 20 Indians in a semi circle close around us watching, talking to each other about us and staring, or crouching to get a better view. Inhibitionless, these Indians.

Delhi

Big cities again…gahh! I can barely stomach foreign big cities. There is too much to take in and you often end up leaving without having understood anything. In Jaipur (also very large and the capital of Rajastan) we had Rishi Gi, Reka Gi and our host families to give us direction so we got a slight glimpse of the inside, but with no direction in a city as big as Delhi you gain little from the experience. I do not think that I dislike big cities--I loved living in Manhattan--but unless you spend enough time to find a nook, you risk gaining next to nothing. The second day I felt was more successful because I went out with Mike, our group leader.

We went into Old Delhi on the subway. The Delhi subway is very new and very nice. Much of it is less than two years old; I cannot imagine streets and time needed to get from point "a" to point "b" in this city before subway transportation (see later description of streets.) I have never seen a New York Subway become as packed as this one did at times; it was awe-inspiring. Just when I thought that it was against the laws of physics to fit one more person inside a man came up and threw his weight against us to fit in. I also received a significant ass grab when the subway became this packed (again, see later description for explanation) to which I grabbed the hand and squeezed with all my might and gave dagger eyes to whom I thought was the perpetrator (lucky for him it was too packed to tell.) Overall, the Delhi subway is a grand, fast, shiny experience and at about 20 cents compared with $2.00 USD in New York, it is a significant gain.

Streets
The terms busy, crowded, or even teaming do not even begin to apply here. The streets of Dehli make NYC seem like a Port Clinton, Ohio in the winter (meaning desolate, if you are not from Ohio.) Streets are shared equally by cars, buses, rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles, bicycle drawn carriages, walkers, dogs and cows. And the vehicles in the beginning of the list are packed compared to what one from the west would expect, with a bus carrying about three times the Greyhound average. If you choose to walk across the street, the responsibility is on you not to get hit. It is unlike many seemingly chaotic European cities where the key is to walk across steadily and confidently and cars will slow. Here, no such luck. They will not change their speed at all, will possibly speed up to discourage you, and will not always necessarily stop at red lights for pedestrian crossings, either. There are no lanes, either (or when there are there might as well not be.) Traffic is finely tuned chaos weaving in and out with priority given based on size of vehicle.

Dogs are everywhere, sleeping on sidewalks and under cars. They survive because people throw trash everywhere so they, along with city cows and goats, find sufficient food. Looking for lunch, we walked through narrow back allies with live chickens overpacked in cages ready to be purchased and fresh fish in wooden crates on display or being cut into more manageable pieces for customers. We passed many sketchy small hole-in-the-wall places to eat but with fish guts around and questionable sanitation we forewent them all (giardia still fresh in our minds.) This is the area frequented by Indians alone and not tourists; there is an immense difference in catering to natives and catering to tourists. In this same ally we found a hostel used by Indians clearly rather than tourists. It was packed with people with no space or privacy and when we walked in they were hosing down the floor from the inside, pushing out grime and grit. It was a very unpleasant looking place to stay, but nonetheless I am glad that we saw it because it reminds me that we are not always immersed in Indian culture but instead often have a nice cushion around us from the real India and from how the average Indian lives. Our guesthouse was clean, they offered breakfast, and it was in a quiet lane rather than at the end of a narrow, sketchy, fish smelling ally. Our guesthouse owner wore a solid grey sweatsuit and looked just like the old man in Jerry Seinfeld's father's Florida community gym who challenged Jerry to a contest of strength, making our guesthouse even better.

The streets are lined with street sellers. Food stands, sellers of belts, wallets, pirated cds and dvds, jeans with "cool" but unfortunately non-sensical English, scarves, lunghis, peanuts, popcorn, chapattis, crackers and chai tea...and even a bicycle with two telephones attached in case you need to make a phone call mid-intersection. If you can imagine it, there is someone here to sell it. I don't see any unemployment offices here or safety nets for those who fall through the cracks. This is the unaccounted for sector of business here, the outside of mainstream work force searching for inventive ways to make a living in this pitiless country. There is no way to escape seeing the suffering here (unless you stay in posh, five star hotels, but after this past week at the Taj Mahal in Mumbai it has become clear that even there suffering becomes a harsh reality.) Children with matted hair grab your arm and ask for money, adult lepers with their amputations displayed and adult men with completely atrophied, unusable legs (I'm not sure why; they appear atrophied prisoner-of-war style) hope that their pain will merit pity and pocket change, women with babies ask for money and point to their young ones or beg, "No money: milk. Milk," and people sleep openly in the daytime on busy sidewalks just narrowly escaping being trodden on by the shoes of the masses.



I am struck by the honesty of India. The concept of "dirty laundry" does not seem to exist; you see all and are sheltered from nothing. The people lack any sort of embarrassment or shame in the culture as a whole; there is no room for it when you are sharing precious resources in a country with 1.2 billion others. People beg aggressively, stare openly, follow, question you intensely, and get into your idea of "personal space" as much as suits them. Everyone is aggressive, from homeless to rickshaw drivers to money exchangers to hashish sellers to shop owners. Everyone wants you to give to "them", buy "their" product, use "their" service. In the night, at 2 am after failing to leave the country while returning from the airport to a hotel, we were unloading the taxi of all of our bags and immediately two bicycle rickshaw drivers began prodding us to give us rides. "Yes. We are unloading all of our luggage from the trunks and roofs of these taxis at 2 am because we dislike the convenience and would prefer less space and no storage on your bicycle rickshaws. Thank you." They prod you to "come into my shop" "Hello! Hello! perhaps you would like some fine scarves? Oh--just looking. These handbags are very good quality. Jewelry, perhaps? You have good earrings?" When you walk into a store and ask for something specific that they do not have, they seem to find themselves in a mad frenzy listing off other items that perhaps you will like instead. Tibetans were the far opposite; in Mcleod Ganj on the same street while Indians were beckoning you to "come have a look" the Tibetans seemed uncomfortable crossing that barrier and sat back smiling and waited until you had a question.





A boy walking next to me with his friend began to try to make conversation. "You are very beautiful. I would like to f**k you," (at which point I called out "husband!" ran ahead, and grabbed Tate's arm lovingly.) Again, no shame. Indians have such a sad image of western women. From their perspective this was a perfectly acceptable exchange, as our culture portrays us as completely loose whores, not completely unrealistic when they see our movies and advertising in contrast to their own. They think that they can get away with worlds more than they can with their own women, thus the ass grab and the sex invitation.

Being in Delhi is in a sense like smoking one pack a day. There is an immense amount of pollution, the air always seems foggy, inhaling deeply feels unhealthy, and you have dark pollution snot after only one day.

After our last group meal and our last meal in India, we began our four day travel bonanza of airport to hotel to airport to Singapore to Malaysia to airport to airport to Vietnam. We are quite the spectacle while traveling, what will all of the extra bags we have acquired for carrying Christmas gifts, four sitars, one guitar, one Tibetan guitar, and two tablas (instruments are cheaper in Asia.) A group of sixteen whities carrying enough luggage for a traveling orchestra tends to merit a lot of gazes.

Singapore

Singapore is a nation/ city-state/ island all in one attached to the Malay peninsula by a bridge. It is the next smallest independent nation (in land mass) to the Vatican city, I was informed. It is definitely a booming, developed country, full of wealth, tourist traps and accommodations, and very clean. With a total population of only about 4.8 million, it is one of the Four Asian Tigers and has one of the busiest ports in the world. The airport is immaculate. Bathrooms are Korean airport bathroom clean (a scale that we now use after travelling through the fabulous Korean airport) and I would not be opposed to eating off of the floor. Everything is new and shiny. When we stepped outside, it was like stepping into the tropics (it is only 85 miles north of the equator) or stepping into Miami, Florida: hot, humid air, vast, beautiful blue sky, fresh lawns with flowers and palm trees, and every car in the parking lot apparently new and clean. Even the taxis are impressive; some were electric. And, to top it off, people are pleasant and peaceful. Singapore is a far cry from crowded India. We had to take the airtrain from the airport to the bus station and saw all of the immense differences. First, everything is on a smaller, more manageable scale. Looking out the windows, we saw both towering apartment complexes and smaller two and three story shops and housing, but all were either shiny metal and glass or brightly, freshly painted. All of the green that you see looks intentional, planned, and taken care of: greener grass than is probably always natural in this heat, evenly spaced trees, primly trimmed bushes, and palm trees. I cannot decide whether I like the beauty or dislike the unnaturalness. The streets are all well maintained: litterless, smooth, and freshly painted, and drivers, believe it or not, drive within the lines with little honking or passing and complete rhyme and reason! (Much of this would seem more spectacular if you were coming from a month in India.) Both on the subway and on the roads, people seem to have such patience and seem to have a more placid "I'll get there when I get there" mentality. People neither push nor stare, and even when the subways were full, the pushing seemed to be polite. On two occasions people began conversations with me, so neither are they impersonal or very shy. Keep in mind that I was only out in Singapore for about eight hours, so my expert cultural annotations are very surface. With that said, I also did not see much poverty. It seems that economically the society is all around much better off. Everyone's clothes and shoes seem new, clean, crisp, and fashionable, styles are very western, and there are girls walking around in tank tops, short shorts, and I even saw a strapless top (none of which you will see in India.) While this more western image may be true, this country also seems to have some particularly stifling laws, such as no gum chewing whatsoever or no holding hands in public.




Malaysia
We experienced relatively nothing of Malaysia, so I will spare you my grand cultural assumptions and deductions, except to tell you that they poorly planned two separate airports with the exact same name in Kuala Lampur with no form of mass transit between the two. This made for yet another glitch in our four day journey to Vietnam getting five taxis at three in the morning to take us between the two.

Hanoi, Vietnam

So far, this country is fabulous! I have quickly become enamoured.
First perceptions of Hanoi:
-It is clean. You do not see trash, everything is well kept, and in the park there were not only trash cans (apparently non-existent in public in India) but also recycling!
-It has many public spaces. There is a small lake in the center of the city surrounded by a park with paths, benches, greenery, and loads of happy people. In the little time I spent wandering I came upon another beautiful little park and a nice public square, both great public spaces.
-Cars slow for pedestrians. It is again like Europe: they will not slow unless you walk out, but walk out and they will slow and swerve to avoid you, much in contrast to India.
-Shop owners are at least slightly less pushy than in India.
-There are public displays of affection! All around the park, foreigners but mostly natives, are holding hands, kissing, and courting. It makes me so happy to see after being in India where holding hands or hugging would be an improper public display of affection. Leave it to the 200 some years of French rule to annihilate any of the sexual repression of this Asian society.
-Much tourist shopping. This is definitely a tourist friendly city.
-The calm of this city relaxes me. In actuality the traffic IS quite heavy, but somehow it seems lighter because it is mostly small motorbikes and bicycle rickshaws and because the traffic is so much more polite with patience and little honking.
-The sky is blue and the weather is nice! (but granted, it is nearly December so in June it could be quite miserable.)
-Fashion is prime here. This is not the majority and is a stark contrast to the peasants in their Vietnamese hats and two baskets balancing on a pole over their shoulder, but there are girls walking around in stilettos and tight pants, with well made up faces and fashionable hairstyles. There are also men in trendy shoes and designer jeans like Dolce and Gabana (a VERY expensive brand that I became all too familiar with living in Italy.) This is likely one more influence that the French left on Vietnamese society, along with PDA, french coffee, baguettes, and Laughing Cow cheese.