Bangkok, Thailand

Karen
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The Temple of Dawn, viewed from a Chao Phraya River taxi. Click here for more Bangkok photos

June 1-4, 2009

Bangkok, alas, is not one of my favorite cities. Our trip thus far had come off without a hitch, but at four weeks in we were due for difficulties. And Bangkok brought them in spades. We baked in our airless oven of a hostel room, had endless trouble making our way around the city, I had begun coughing all night due to a bout of bronchitis I somehow picked up but would not be diagnosed until a week later, and to top it all off, I broke my shoe. Basically anything that could go wrong did go wrong, to the point where we eventually gave up in defeat.


Thai flags fluttering near Khaosan Road

Due to all our troubles I have very few fond memories of Bangkok, but one stands out: riding a river taxi. Known as the "Venice of the East," the older section of Bangkok is criss-crossed by rivers and canals, and the extremely efficient river taxis are an excellent way to navigate the wide Chao Phraya River. The long, low boats are crewed by a pilot forward and a deckhand aft. Loading and unloading passengers has been honed to a fine art: the boat comes charging up to the floating dock, looking like it's going to blow right by, the pilot swings the stern toward the dock and the crew jumps off, secures a line, everyone scampers on and off the high stern, the crew grabs the line and jumps back on and the whole process takes literally 10 seconds. The deckhand communicates everything to the pilot with piercing whistle tweets. The midsection a few steps down from the stern is full of bolted plastic seats and everyone coolly sits in them just like they're on a bus, paying their fares to a ticket lady who makes her rounds after every stop. You have to be careful where you sit, however: some Thai schoolgirls too close to the front of our boat were doused with spray.

We went quite a ways down the river, from Rama VIII Bridge to Oriental Pier, and got great views of the Bangkok waterfront and the Temple of Dawn, perhaps the most distinctive and recognizable landmark in the city. Much more exciting than an ordinary cab ride.

Phuket, Thailand

Karen
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Coconut in the rain, Karon Beach. More photos from Phuket can be found here.

May 27-31, 2009

Knowing that traveling for a solid seven weeks would be exhausting, we built a vacation into our vacation: a week on the famous beaches of Phuket, Thailand. While planning our trip, however, we hadn’t paid attention to the fact that May heralds the beginning of the rainy season in SE Asia. Our first full day in Phuket, it poured. With very impressive thunder and lightning. Armed with umbrellas, we wandered the beach despondently in the rain.

The thunderstorms didn’t return, however, and the rest of our time in Phuket provided fine beach weather, if frequently overcast. Instead of busy, crowded Patong Beach, we opted to stay a little further down the coast off much quieter Karon Beach. The small cluster of rather run-down hotels, restaurants and shops were nearly empty, it being the start of the low season – another fact we hadn’t been aware of. After three weeks of bustling, frequently polluted cities, however, I was relieved to no longer be dodging people and traffic at every turn.

Phuket was absolutely devastated by the 2004 tsunami only four and a half years ago, but the beach resort communities have made a remarkable recovery. The only overt reminders of the disaster are the “tsunami evacuation route” signs scattered along the beach and in town, pointing toward the inland mountains.




Not every day was spent lounging under a beach umbrella. This being Thailand, we were determined to ride an elephant. At the teeny Karon tourist office we found a reasonable day package to the mainland that included elephant riding, a visit to the “Monkey Cave” surrounded by hundreds of (very hungry) long-tailed macaques we first saw in Singapore, and, believe it or not, white-water rafting. Rafting is . . . really not what I associate with Thailand, but it turned out to be ridiculously fun. With some French tourists, we “rafted” (only in the merest sense as the guides did pretty much all the work) an icy, tumbling mountain river lined with boulders. The guides got the biggest kick out of steering us directly into these boulders, and there was much shrieking in French, English, and Thai. Good times!




Riding an Asian elephant was the highlight of my time in Phuket, however. Shoes must be left behind, and warm, bristly elephant hide feels deliciously strange to bare feet. Fifteen feet off the ground, we clung to our simple seat (no safety restraints here) for over half an hour as we dipped and swayed along a jungle trail. Our young guide, nicknamed “Ladyboy” by another driver, lounged negligently directly on top of the elephant’s head and shared such useful phrases in his English repertoire as “How old are you?” and “Do you have boyfriend?” and “Give me your cameras, I’ll take picture!” “Okay,” we said, handing them over - only to have him slip right off to the jungle floor, taking photo after photo, while our elephant, driverless, kept ambling along.


“Oh. Oh my,” we said, and clutched tighter.


“You!” our grounded driver said, gesturing to Monica. “Elephant head! Go! Get on!” (Snapping more photos.)


And she did. To this day both of us are still rather amazed at how she managed to scooch up the neck of a moving elephant and by some miracle not fall off, but she did it. “Karen!” she hissed. “If I start to fall will you catch me??” “Um,” I replied, eyeing the distance from my own unsteady seat. “Maybe . . . ?”


“Smile!” our guide cheerfully called out, and we dutifully grinned back, half in delight, half in terror. Eventually he scampered back up our elephant to take the seat beside me, and Monica rode just behind the elephant’s ears all the way back to the dismounting station. It should be noted that none of the other tourists got to experience such a hilariously thrilling ride. There are distinct advantages to being two girls with a Ladyboy guide.

Vietnam - Saigon

Karen
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Red banners line many of the streets of Saigon. Click here for more photos from Vietnam

May 20-26, 2009

When planning our trip around SE Asia and considering which cities and countries we should visit, Vietnam wasn’t even on the list. I’m not quite sure why; we were juggling so many countries already, and I think it was a combination of Vietnam requiring a visa when other countries didn’t, and perhaps having a slight sense that Americans wouldn’t be, well, entirely welcome in the country. When talking with two well-traveled friends about our trip, however, they said plainly: “You MUST go to Vietnam.” For them it wasn’t even a question; if one was traveling to SE Asia, Vietnam was a must-see. I am so thankful for our friends’ insistence, for Vietnam turned out to be our favorite destination by far and I emphatically second their recommendation.

The country’s largest city was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976 but is still commonly known as Saigon, and indeed all of the Vietnamese residents we spoke to referred to it by its former name. My first and most enduring impression of the city can be summed up in one word: traffic. Oh lord, the traffic – specifically the motorcycle traffic. It is unlike anything I have ever seen in my life. It is so staggering, so frenzied, so chaotic, that as we drove in from the airport I literally thought to myself: My god, we are never going to be able to cross the street.



Cars and trucks are too expensive for most Vietnamese and really don’t make sense in the city, with virtually no parking and so many people living in a maze of narrow alleyways. Most, therefore, turn to motorcycles – and I don’t mean dainty European Vespas (though we did see a few): I mean loud, growling, old-school Hondas and Yamahas and Suzukis. I heard conflicting figures as to the number of vehicles in the city; a Vietnamese tour guide said Saigon had a population of 8 million people with 10 million motorcycles, while a Western ex-pat living in Cambodia said 6 million. Either number is staggering, but I believe it: the proof is right there in the streets, zipping along at breakneck speeds, going in every direction with little regard for lanes, as many as five people crammed onto one vehicle. It is dazzling and (as a pedestrian) terrifying at the same time.

It took a great deal of courage on our first attempt to cross a busy street, but we quickly picked up on the rhythm and indeed it’s far easier to navigate the traffic than it looks. The motorcyclists are so maneuverable and so used to dodging pedestrians that, so long as you don’t stop short or deviate from your course, they easily zip around you. It’s the cars and buses you have to look out for, which herald their arrival by massive blasts of the horn that can be heard far down the street. Even once you make it to the other side, however, you’re not in the clear: when traffic gets too backed up, when construction gets in the way, or just whenever riders feel like it, they routinely jump the curb and cruise down the sidewalks. That is, when the sidewalks themselves aren’t impassable from thickly packed rows of parked motorcycles.

Amusingly, despite their audacious driving, all drivers dutifully wear helmets – it’s the law. (It’s also the law that no more than 2 riders are allowed on a motorcycle, but the authorities “Eh, look the other way,” according to our hostel family.) I got the biggest kick out of seeing young girls cruising through the city. In the US motorcycles are very much a male-dominated sector: very tough, very macho, very much the single guy seeking an adrenaline rush or showing off his bad-boy wheels. In Vietnam, they’re not a bold and daring alternative form of transportation; they’re the main form of transportation and nothing special. Skirts don’t figure into the uniform for motorbike-riding Saigon schoolgirls: they wear billowy, knee-length, gaucho-style pants. And I can’t count how many smart young women I saw, dressed in the latest fashion, fancy heels, purse slung over a shoulder, their long hair streaming in the wind beneath their helmets as they coolly handled their temperamental Hondas.


Riding a cyclo in Saigon

With so much excitement in the streets it is fitting, then, that our two most thrilling experiences in Saigon centered around the traffic: riding cyclos and later riding motorcycles themselves. Cyclos are largely a tourist novelty, but the experience is well worth it. As they are so much slower than the surrounding traffic the government is banning cyclos on many roads, and may in fact be trying to do away with them completely. That’s a shame, as they are very, very fun to ride, and are an excellent way to experience the traffic madness up close. I will never forget my intrepid driver starting off and fearlessly steering us directly into oncoming traffic. Seeing me shrink back from the dozens of motorcycles that surged around us with inches to spare, my driver had these reassuring words: “Don’t worry! I’ve been working for ten years, and no accidents . . . yet!”

Emboldened by the success of the cyclos, we next sought to join the company of motorcyclists themselves. All around Pham Ngu Lao and the Backpackers District (so named for the high number of tourists and ex-pats who live in the area), drivers with a set of wheels and a spare helmet peddle the Honda om – easy transportation about the city on their bikes. As we had with the cyclos, we asked our lovely hostel family (of the fantastic Ngoc Thao Guest House, which I highly recommend) what a reasonable price would be, so we’d know what to bargain toward. Happily, they ended up calling a couple family friends who drove us around the city, visiting a couple Buddhist temples and the sprawling Ben Thanh Market, for only 50,000VND (about $2.80) per hour.

I had never been on a motorcycle before in my life, and to ride one in Saigon of all places, the city with the wildest traffic I’d ever seen, was literally out of this world. The motorcyclists speed through the city streets, weaving around and through cars and buses, other cyclists, bicyclists, vegetable and souvenir carts, construction, stray animals, pedestrians – the list is endless. When the inevitable summer rains hit, everyone whips out plastic ponchos and keeps on driving. At the occasional stoplight all the drivers crowd in as close as possible, some taking to the sidewalks to get closer to the head of the pack or cut down the cross street, and the instant the light changes they all charge forward through the vehicles still crossing the intersection. It’s madness, and it still somewhat baffles me how anyone can dare try to navigate such bedlam, but in our full week in Saigon I never witnessed a single accident. If only American drivers could be so alert.