markandnoa

Our return to the US was something of a travel odyssey by itself- it took three full days. Awaking on Sunday in Hue, we flew to Saigon for the day, which was great because due to a missed connection we weren't able to see it at all on the way in. We headed off from the airport to see the Museum of War Remnants (former 'of American and French War Crimes'). It was a bit anti-American, but not inaccurate, which is unsettling, I suppose. They have lots of displays of photos of Vietnamese peasants hit by shrapnel or bullets, deformed folks born as the result of Agent Orange, a full exhibit of the My Lai massacre, and photos of kids maimed in the past 30 years from mines and unexploded ordinance. Cheery. The history part was ... read more

Our next three days on tour in Vietnam were quite diverse. It began as we left Siem Reap for Hanoi; a late flight got us in at 9 PM, and it seemed to be a bad sign that no cab drivers would take us into town. One said 'There is big celebration, traffic is very bad.' But the mini-bus was going, so we hopped on, and, just like on our many trips to Israel, waited, and waited, and waited some more, until every last seat was full. After we paid, we noticed that subsequent riders were not forking over as many bills as we had for the 30 minute ride. Huh. We got ripped again? Shocking. (It was only $5 bucks each. But, oh, the humanity!) We get close to the center of town, and things ... read more

The facts of Cambodia are on Noa's 'Shabbat in the Wat' post, but I'll give my additional commentary and thoughts. Noa made mention of the stark contrast between the tourist hotels and the locals here in Cambodia. It's pretty mind blowing to come into a beautiful new airport, catch a tuktuk, cruise in on a big main highway with luxury hotels and resorts and advertisments for a Nick Faldo-designed golf course (I sh#t you not), and also see grubby shoe-less children hawking trinkets, thatched huts on stilts, and school classrooms with 60 students in them. Per capita GDP is $606 a year. Stickers everywhere proclaim the local vendors against child prostitution. Ick. It's a weird place, a sad place if you let it be. Noa and I discussed how tourism is the only game in town, ... read more

We arrived into Siem Reap and we could tell that this would be a different kind of place. The airport architecture is like that of a Khmer temple. There are Buddha sculptures greeting you at Custums. Mark found our name (or my name, since I was the one who made the reservation) on a print-out waving in the air. We followed a man who would drive us to the hotel. I thought a car, a pick-up truck, or a van would take us to our hotel. But no, it was a motorcycle tuk-tuk. I had seen these before in Thailand where I refused to take one because it seemed too touristy. Instead I took the subway, taxi, or hopped on the back of a motorbike. But here in Siem Reap, tuk-tuks are the way white people ... read more

My earlier observations were broad strokes, so let me now take some time to give the basic details of what the last few days were actually like. I'll warn you, this will be a bit rambling. So what else is new? Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, Noa and I took a bike tour with our guide, Toong (Tung?), through the Mekong Delta, Vietnam's rice basket. Each day, we awoke in a new, strange town, ate a breakfast that certainly contained rice noodles, rice porride, rice pancakes, and rice sweets (plus fruit and coffee), and either rode out of town or hopped on our tour van for a ride to a good spot. First day, 40km. Second day, 65 km. Third day, 45 km. The first day was the prettiest. After taking the van two hours out of ... read more