Experiences

Hanoi Visa Run

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Having flown into Thailand without getting a visa beforehand, I only had a 30 day tourist visa. So I flew to Hanoi using the convenient online Viet Nam visa application and stayed at the Paradise Boutique Hotel in the Old Quarter for a week. For $40 for a visa stamp they met me at the airport and scooted me through immigration. For an extra fee they even met me at baggage claim and took me to my hotel in a van. So different than the old days!

My old haunt, the Classic Street Guesthouse nearby had tripled in price since I stayed there last. And the Tamarind Cafe is no longer there…replaced by another. To my surprise I found a new Mexican Coffee Shop and Cafe…the name of the shop is Xupito! Pretty close to chupa pito!!…!!!!! (which means suck dick!) Jajaja…really…change the Xu to sh/chup pito. Or Xupito could just be referring to a drunkard who drinks a lot.

Paul, a former couchsurfer in Oaxaca, is in Hanoi where he started The Bamboo School to teach music to young kids in the countryside and is playing gigs with his sax and electronic boards around the city. This is the second time we’ve run into each other in SE Asia…the other time on the street in Bangkok. I love it!

The streets are much busier than before…especially in the Old Quarter where sidewalks are taken up by people selling and cooking and eating where there aren’t parked motorcycles so that you have to walk in the congested street.

Look What I found!

Busy Street

Paul..Former Couchsurfer in Oaxaca

The Germans in Hanoi

Coincidence In Bangkok!

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I love coincidences!

A couple days ago I was walking on the flyway across Ratchipidisek Rd in Bangkok when I happened to look down to the street far below. I was sure I saw one of my favorite Couchsurfers who I hosted several years ago in Oaxaca while he was bicycling from the U.S. to Venezuela…pulling his little wagon with his sax behind him. From Boston, he has been living in Hanoi where he developed a music program for country children. I have been following him on FB so I came back to my hotel and messaged him. Sure enough! I got the best hug! And company for lunch and the Star Wars movie! The best Christmas present ever!

Mr. CANNOT and Mrs. NOHAVE

Posted on by Laughingnomad

OMG, it’s almost been a year since my last RTW! I am planning my next trip back to Thailand to get some teeth in November and to see my sons in Thailand and Hong Kong. I am beginning to anticipate…and remember…

An expat took his laptop battery to the computer shop opposite Makro in Samui to see if they had one or could order one from Bangkok. He approached the guy at the counter with his carrier bag. (There was no one else in the shop, and the guy was not busy doing anything)

“Sawasdee Krap”

(Silence)

“can you help me?”

(Silence)

“I have a laptop battery” (reaching into carrier bag)

“NO HAVE!”
(At this point the battery was still concealed in the bag)

“Can you….?.”

“CANNOT!”

“cannot what?”

“CANNOT!”

“Do you have……?” (producing said battery. He didn’t even look at it)

“CANNOT”

” I see…..Can you order from Bangkok?”

“CANNOT ORDER!”

“Are you saying that there is no shop in the whole of Bangkok where you can get a laptop battery?”

“CANNOT ORDER!”

Another expat:
“In Banphai there is a pharmacy, each time I go in, without looking up the man says NO HAVE. Hello I can see what I want on that shelf… NO HAVE…I go outside and get the [Thai] wife and she asks for the same item. He goes to the shelf and passes item to my wife 80 baht please. WTF.”

You may also encounter Mr. NONO and Mrs. SHOO-SHOO

I think there may be several things going on here.

Mrs. NOHAVE may not understand the request and don’t want to admit it to save face. Also may apply to MR. CANNOT, MR. NONO and MRS SHOO-SHOO.
Mr. CANNOT can not speak English in order to answer the request.
This may be followed up by Mrs. SHOO-SHOO
Mr. CANNOT and Mrs. NO HAVE, Mr. NONO and Mrs. SHOO-SHOO may be tired.
Thais are sick of dealing with farangs who don’t speak Thai
Thais are sick of dealing with farangs

Of course it may be true that they really CANNOT or NO HAVE.

Video Skype Mishap

Posted on by Laughingnomad

You can just imagine the look on my son Josh’s face in Hong Kong today as my chair collapsed out from under me in Las Vegas as I disappeared from view in his skype video frame! He he. Fell on my bum as he kept helplessly asking “are you alright?” Are you alright?”

Why We Don’t Like Some Places We Travel

Posted on by Laughingnomad

On couchsurfing.com there is a thread on a forum with people talking about places they didn’t like and why.  After reading a few posts, a very funny couchsurfing friend who I shall call the “Green Lady of England” finally let loose with this rant.

O gawd lets all moan. I’ll join in. Trouble with the world is that it’s so damn cluttered with all these bloody poor people. Some of them steal. Some of them stare. Some of them just don’t know how to behave around tourists. And they seem to hang around and clutter up the most beautiful places, ie precisely the places we want to visit and where we like to spend our money how we want (mine, typically, on copious amounts of ice cream, chips and rugs). Damn the lot of them. I’m staying home from now on where I only have to do daily battle with the bloody neighbours and the surly staff on the trains and in the shops. You know where you stand in England – we all keep our expectations low in anticipation of disappointment. Works for us.

Karrrrggghhhh

The Green Lady really made me laugh! One person can love a place and the next person can’t stand it…usually for an isolated experience that is specific to that person. I think many of what we term bad experiences are largely due to attitude. If we are traveling to truly experience the reality of another country then we have to accept that these experiences are just part of the learning how other people live… inconveniences and all. In 10 years of constant travel, having my computer stolen on the Prague subway was the only experience I would call bad…mainly because of the trouble in replacing it because it was a MAC.

And a WHOLE lot of other things happened too..a teacher strike in Oaxaca that paralyzed the city for months…and I just returned from Thailand where the entire shopping area and business districts were paralyzed for 6 weeks with up to 100,000 demonstrators that ended in 3 days of rioting that burned down the second largest shopping mall in Asia and at least 25 other buildings and the burning of thousands of tires that turned the city black…and the deaths of 80+ people including 2 journalists…one Italian and one Japanese. And others critically wounded. And a curfew that is still in place. Imagine having to be in your hotel from 9pm until 6am. When one up-country demonstrator asked why they burned down Central World he answered that he has no sympathy for the store owners. We have no money, he said. “Do you understand?”

This is the reality of the poor up-country farmers in Thailand in the face of institutional corruption. Not that I support all the violence. And some backpackers are grousing in the CS Bangkok Group! I remember a couple with 2 small children in Oaxaca City who stopped me to ask what was going on. They were quite angry as they were stepping around burned tires in the intersections. Knowing what the lives of the poor mountain people were like, I had no sympathy for them.

But I just choose to not consider these bad experiences. I am a guest in these countries. They are not there to accommodate me. Although the one thing that does irritate me are the topless women on the beach in Thailand because it is so disrespectful of the locals who really don’t like it but would never say anything.

Happy Travels Everyone!

Last Days In Jinghong

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Joe, a gregarious Dai tour guide who hangs out at the tourist haunts looking for business invited me to join him and his family and friends, including a young French couple, at the new BBQ restaurants on the road along the river…the ones we couldn’t find before. His English was great and we shared many ideas. “My heart is breaking with the pollution in the environment,” he said. I told him about Amy’s International School and it’s mission to bring east and west together. Not against each other, he asked? No I said, entwining my fingers. Together. He liked that, as he entwined his own fingers. I told him he had one foot in each culture. He liked that too. Then he wrote a C on one shoe and a W on the other shoe as we laughed.

It is the Spring Festival here and fireworks are going off everywhere. Over 20-40 small dishes (river snails, cow’s skin, river moss and the like) we raised small glasses of beer too many times to shouted toasts…first among ourselves (we women toasted to our beauty…!) and then with a group of about 20 Anhi teachers sitting at the next table.

The next day a German woman and her son, who is getting an advanced degree in business in Hangzhou (SW of Shanghai), invited me to go with them to a small village on the other side of the Mekong River by ferry and then tuk tuk. She is here, like me, visiting her progeny. Her son has been here three years and is fluent in Mandarin…as are many of the Westerners I’ve met here. A group of American high school girls here in Jinghong on break from on a one year exchange program in Beijing to learn Mandarin amazed me with their ability to speak the language…their futures will be bright with opportunities.

I will be glad to leave the An Ya Jiu Dian Hotel, however. It is newer…clean and very nice with satellite TV and a hot and cold water cooler for about $7…and friendly owners. It’s just up the street from the western-oriented Mei Mei Restaurant on Man Lan Lu. But there is a restaurant down an ally behind the hotel…outside my window…that starts up about midnight…with many shouted toasts…and finally subsides about 3am. Ear plugs only take the edge off.

No lack of internet cafes on this street!

And I won’t miss the Asian toilet, if you know what I mean. The shower head is above the open-hole toilet in the floor so one must be very careful where one steps.

Almost Lost On The Subway

Posted on by Laughingnomad

This week Josh and I went to the Beijing Exhibition which is a miniature replica of the city in a huge building. Josh says they have one of these in every major city. Very well done! Then we walked through Tiananmen Square. It was full of tourists as we are still in the Chinese New Year season…one family asked to have our pictures taken with them. You know…we were a curiosity! I have had that happen before in rural China and other out-of-the-way places.

Then we were going to take the subway back to Lido…the neighborhood where Josh lives. The subway was packed of course. Josh says, “get on!” Which I did. Only there was no room for Josh! The doors closed and the train took off with Josh standing on the platform! As he receded from sight I hollered Josh! Josh! with my nose pressed against the door window! The Chinese on the train thought that was pretty funny! Stupid Laowi (foreigners)! I had just been following Josh around and had no idea where to get off. So I got off at the next stop and called Josh on the cell phone and told him where I was. What did we do before cell phones! So along comes the next train with Josh’s sweet face in the window!

International Driving

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Don’t know if it’s just Oaxaca or maybe it’s the whole of Mexico. However, my dentist says that drivers in Oaxaca are worse than in Mexico City! But in Xalapa they were ever so polite…big fines meted out if they are not.

But you are taking your life in your hands in Oaxaca. The taxis and buses are the worst…speeding, honoring no lanes…forcing you over. No stop signs, lights, when there are lights and when they are working, are suggestions only. And then there are the “topes” or speed bumps everywhere. Never know when one is coming up unless you watch the cars ahead and hope they slow down…however, one, with drivers from Veracruz, didn’t slow down until they got to the tope. Then they stopped. Bam. Their little car could do it. My big Toyota Land Cruiser couldn’t. So I slammed right into the back of their car. Good thing no one was hurt. Good thing for insurance.

Actually I expected this…but thought I’d get side-swiped by a bus. Now I know why Mexican immigrants in the north get into so much trouble! A couple years ago in my home town in Oregon I was T-boned by an immigrant going through a red light at about 60 miles an hour…she had no insurance. No one has insurance here except the expats.

There are rules here…just not the posted ones. And heaven help you if you don’t obey them! Boils down to buses and taxis and very small cars do what they want…and that includes just about everyone. Except the gringa with the Toyota with a US license plate. Yes, I know I should have put more space between me and car in front. You get conditioned to keep close…cars, buses and taxis will try to edge into even a sliver of space forcing you over. If you leave a lot of room…say a couple car lengths you never get to where you are going because the whole city will move in front of you.

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Thailand is no better. Was rear-ended by a motorcycle there once. Today got an email from Bob who is living in Thailand: “Now if I could only learn to control my mini-rage reactions at Thai drivers,” he says.

“Earlier this week I was driving in a line of autos and a bus tried to pass the whole line of 5-6 cars. He encountered oncoming traffic and cut in front of me–not really in front more like forced me onto the shoulder.

I offered selected auditory and visual feedback. (Had to laugh because the same thing happens here in Mexico!)

But the curious cultural phenomena is that I was the heavy in that I lost my cool. But driving is very unsafe here–most trips (even to the market) produce an anxiety or at least an edge of apprehension. And the Thais cannot park. It is humerous to watch them attempt a parallel park, most often most of the car is left somewhere out on the street. And I have two significant dings being clipped me while I was parked. Oh well…..” 

I think I detect a note of Thai-speak in that syntax.

Luang Prabang Lao

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Luang Prabang is an outstanding example of the fusion of traditional architecture and Lao urban structures with those built by the European colonial authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its unique, remarkably well-preserved townscape illustrates a key stage in the blending of these two distinct cultural traditions. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The last time I was here was in 2002. There are few changes and not as many tourists as I expected but then this is the off season. I’m in the Jaliya Guest House on the Pha Mahapatsaman…about three blocks from the tourist center along the Mekong River…a lovely cottage in a nice garden in the back with air con and TV for $12.

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A few doors down this woman was peeking out the door of her shophouse…just as I saw her doing two years ago!

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Yesterday, renting a bicycle for a dollar to scope out the village left me with sore legs. There are few tourists here now as this is the beginning of the hot season. It’s a relief to be out of Thailand…girls here are very different…no 70 year old farangs hand in hand with 19 year old “children” and besides such a thing is illegal here. Thailand ought to take a lesson.

I notice there are many more guesthouses and restaurants cropping up everywhere. The Red Cross up the street used to offer the only massage in town and now I see signs for massage all over. Chucking my bike for an hour, I enjoyed a “refillable” cup of coffee in front of the Scandinavian Bakery while visiting with a guy from Seattle Washington who has been living in Phuket Thailand for three years and is on a two-day “visa run.” He is planning on moving to Bend.

Typical Building From French Era
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It is getting close to the time for the water festival and the children have already started throwing water…giggling at startled pedestrians, taxi and tuk tuk drivers. It is best to keep a watch out!

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Every evening, near the night market, the Hmong people from the mountains set up their racks of woven fabric and other goods to sell in the middle of the street through town. I am learning prices.

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While having early morning coffee this morning I visited with a young woman from Eugene who knows Boni, a friend of mine from Salem! Susan has been living in Manhattan…but is planning on moving back to the northwest…and maybe even to Mexico to visit me!

Fireside In The Delta

Posted on by Laughingnomad

In Maun, Botswana, the overland truck had arranged for a makoro (canoe) safari out in the middle of the Ocavanda Delta. It included a four hour animal walk and swim in a swimming hole but I stay at camp. We discuss the use of the word “togs.” New Zealanders use it meaning a swim suit and the English use it to refer to any clothing.

That night we sit around the fire and the makoro polers entertain us with Hippo stories and magic tricks.

Then I thought of that one dark rainy day in Lisbon, Portugal, months before, when we had been walking through the Columbus plaza. It was empty except for a small group of Black vendors selling dark glasses out in the middle. Curious…because who would want dark glasses on a day like that, I walked up to them. Duh!

“Hashish?” they asked. “What the hell,” I had figured, and bought some. Then forgot about it…until we were sitting around that campfire that night in the ocavanga Delta in Botswana. So I brought it out and offered it to the kids…mostly Brits but also an Aussie and Kiwi couple (Bob and I were the only ones older than 25 on the truck). The look on Rod’s face-Rod the South African trip leader-was horrified. “You had that on you as we crossed all those borders?!” he yelled. The borders only having been Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Botswana. 😉 “Yes,” I sheepishly answered. Then he made the kids smoke the whole bag before he would let us leave the campfire!

I crawl into the tent this night because I am tired of sleeping in dirt and wouldn’t you know it-that’s when the animals all came through the camp during the night-lions, jackals, elephants, zebras and hyenas bringing all their different voices with them. I now realize the polers all sleep around the campfire for a reason…