Quick Note

Hello, all. Yesterday's blog entry was a real update. Today I just want to let everyone know that I'm heading out tomorrow to return to the States. It will be sad to leave a country I've come to love, but I'm ready to get back home and see family and friends. And to work a bit--too much time on the beach would probably ruin me, haha. I will post again to let ya'll know I'm back safe and sound.

I'm a livin' for the weekend...

Hello, all. I have taken a couple of excellent trips the last two weekends, and thought I'd share, though I have no way to upload pictures at this point. So a less interresting, yet more informative post.

Last weekend I went to a beach called Pattaya. It is often called, deservedly, the "Armpit of Asia." It's only about an hour from Bangkok and is on the mainland, so the water suffers from being much to close to the city. I arrived Saturday afternoon (and checked into the Best Western--in Pattaya, Thialand!) and immediately set out looking for lunch. The whole city is like a giant crescent up against the Gulf of Thailand and the whole northern half of the cresecent--where I went for lunch--is completely Russian. Now I'm told that Nice, France is also highly Russian in nature, but let me assure you, this is no Nice. Though lots of large LARGE Russians without proper swimming attire. It was really a cool site to see all the official signs in Thai first and Russian underneath. Of course, I can't read either of those languages, so I spent a lot of time being lost. But they sure did look cool. That night I sat on the beach (I had to rent a chair for 30baht--about a dollar) and watched the sun set. It was a great sight, but I missed the tide rising. So all of a sudden my feet got a bit wet--and started to burn. I dried off, but my feet itched the rest of the day. So moral of the story: Place known for being really sketchy and dirty generally are dirty and sketchy. Still, it's a very popular part of Thailand and I had to experience the city.

This weekend, however, could not have been a less likely story. I just finished one of the best weekends of my life. I went with a friend from work, his Thai girlfriend, and two of his friends from college in California. My friend and his girlfriend had both been the island before, so they knew their way around and knew where to find great accomodations. They had all gone down on Thursday but I couldn't go until Friday. So I took a bus, and then hopped a ferry and then hiked across the island to find they had already booked bungalows right on the beach. Seriously 15 feet from the ocean. Of course, no air con or real running water, but who cares? It was the perfect version of camping. On the ocean, with solid housing. And hundreds of other tourists, Thai and farang, all just chlliing in the ocean all day and hanging out on the beach at night. We saw a show of firethrowers. It's really a big part of island culture, firethrowing, and is a very respectable occupation. And we met up with some other American and British tourists and taught them the game BeerPong, which was great until they started winning... We also explored the town, though I use "town" rather loosely. Rather than attempting imagery or description, which I've never quite mastered, I'll just wait and post pictures of most of these places.

So life in Thailand had been pretty great lately. And only a few days left!

Vietnam: Part Saung (Thai for two)

Be forewarned, this post will be long. Even for me. So maybe make popcorn.

Before finishing my update on Hanoi, I figured I would share a bit about my more recent goings-on. I have moved downtown to stay with a very generous friend-of-a-friend from work, so no more hour and a half commute each way. Amazing. Work is giving me a chance to meet lots of very interesting people. I've taken to asking everyone I meet how they arrived to work in Asia--it's always fascinating. Many came over for short contracts, to visit friends, or on vacation, and just never left. They found a way to stay--often for decades.

Work is also letting me follow some of my nerdier pursuits. Large masses of survey data keep pouring in (three in the last two weeks), and I get to compile the data, run the basic math, and write up summary reports that go out to the different committees or to the Thai government. And as everyone knows executive summaries of survey data from non-profits are usually critical to all public policy decision, I feel quite influential (ha!). Really though, I do like the work. Just to give an idea of one of my days (those of you not related to me might find this boring, but I know my mom cares...):

Tuesday, July 15. Had a 7:30am meeting with the ICT committee (Bringing 3G technology--bascially iPhones) to Thailand. Left immediatley after to tour Klong Toei (the biggest slum in Thailand) schools. We went through three: the foundation is donating new e-learning centers and we had to figure out which schools were the most in need. Raced back to the office to trend survey data that had just come in. At 2:00pm we held a press conference of a new Thai/US art exhibit. Got back to the office at 5 and wrote up a summary of the now-trended data. At 6:30 had a meeting at another hotel, this time Marketing. Back home at 9:30 and crashed, b/c 7:30am the next day was another meeting. To summarize: I feel like I have a real job.

Tomorrow begin Asarnha Bucha--a Thai holiday sort of like Lent. So no work for two days. A four day weekend is great, but of course the whole country is shutting down--even the bars. I think I might go to a rather sketchy beach with some friends from work. Not yet sure.

Anyway, some more information on Hanoi. I'll attempt brevity. The center of Hanoi, at least the historic section, is a big lake with islands and temples in the middle. (Incidentally, it's where John McCain's plane crashed--and they then dragged him out, with something like two broken legs and a broken arm.) At night, the whole city congregates there. So I went out by myself and, dodging the thousands of motor scooters, got myself ice-cream and walked around the lake. I swear the whole city was there, doing the same. So peaceful and still once I got around the other side. And in the night air, actually cool weatherwise--for southeast Asia, anyway. I repeated this walk every night, and would gladly make a tradition out of it if I lived there. The temples are all lit up in the middle of the lake--just very cool. I wish I had pictures, but I purposefully didn't take a camera. Just immersed myself in the whole feel of the city.

As for touristy sites, we visited the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, or Uncle Ho to the Vietnamese. Unfortunately, we got there at 11:30, and it closed at 11 (weird times, honestly). So we did not see his preserved body, which used to be annually shipped to the USSR for fresh embalming. It's now done in-house. To be honest, I was less than dissapointed. From a distance, it looks strikingly like the monument to Ataturk.

We visited Le Maison Centrale, which was a French political prison full of Vietnamese. After the revolution, it was emptied. And then filled with American POWs. John McCain was there for years. The Vietnamese really really love McCain right now. I know it seems ironic, but they have his name and picture everywhere and always mention the campaign. The head of the prison back when McCain was there gave an interview endorsing the leader and calling him a friend--one I don't know that he'll publicize. They have his jumpsuit from when they pulled him out of the lake:

I don't want to give the wrong impression. A very small wing of the prison is dedicated to the American POWs. Most of it is about the French. And the Vietnamese hero/patriots suffering under the French. There are pictures, statues, movies, and even a full-scale reproduction of a guillotine. Another irony: the courtyard had been dedicated as a memorial to those Vietnamese who suffered there. I don't know if this picture does it any justice, but it looks REALLY similar to the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. Eerily similar. Same rock at an angle with the shine finish and engraved information.

That's all for sites. Vietnamese traditional building are quite recognizeable: ridiculously skinny and tall. It's like they took me, and made a building. All over. I don't know how these things stand. They must have zero seismic activity. Ironically, this building sells Thai silk. "K" and "T" are pretty close.

The street that had my hotel was only a block from the city center (the lake) and was great. Email me if you want the information--a whopping $30 a night--for their nicest room. This is the street looking away from my hotel. It's so cliche Asian/Vietnamese that I had to include this photo. Note how the building do have a slightly European feel.

That's all for now. Really, without the pictures, this post wouldn't be that long... I'll be home rather soon and miss you all, Mike.

Hanoi: Who'd have thought?

Hello, all. I have finally been able to load a few pictures from Hanoi, though not all of them, so consider this Hanoi, Part I.

I guess a bit of an introduction is in order. I got to spend the last weekend in June in Hanoi, Vietnam. Though the trip was just a weekend and began as a visa run (my original visa in Thailand was only for 30 days, so I had to leave the country), I fell in love with the city. Really. Hanoi is now one of my all-time favorite cities. I would recommend it anyone and would love to live there one day.

It would be untrue to say I felt no trepidation on first planning my trip. How would the Vietnamese, especially those in the north, react to me? Politics aside, we didn't re-establish diplomatic connection until the mid 1990s. But the man who gave me most of my information about Vietnam has lived in SE Asia for 30 years and told me not to worry. He told me they view us as just another invader, following the Chinese, the Japanese, the British, and the French--so no specific hard feelings. And he mentioned the many American business connections now in Vietnam, and said the two countries are truly becoming close. Besides, in the south, he said, many of the older men fought alongside Americans. They are always eager to re-engage with the culture they spent so much time around.

I certainly wasn't expecting much--capital of a Socialist Republic, former American bombing target and all that. But the appeal of Hanoi is its blend. It was built mainly during the French colonial period and hence feels both European and Asian. So European architecture, but with Asian politeness and service. A perfect mix. It is a major city, but feels rural, with rice farms literally touching the borders of the urban centers. Ancient Chinese temples sit next to modern skyscrapers (since the mid-1990s, the Vietnamese borders have opened and the economy has been thriving).

So, we left Bangkok around 6am Saturday morning, landed in Hanoi at 8, and had our luggage and were through customs by 8:30am. (Air Asia is...interesting. Their motto: Now everyone can fly. And by everyone, they mean 5 feet tall Asians. Not 6.5 foot tall Americans.) We dropped off the luggage and began the sightseeing. First was the Temple of Literature, which is the first temple (and university) in Vietnam dedicated to Confuscious (I've seen five ways to spell that, so I'm assuming nothing can be wrong) and his teachings and dates back to the 1000s. Today it functions as a park/historic site in the middle of the city's large historic section. This might be the most amazing spot I have ever been. Completely serene. The weather was in the lower seventies and slightly grey. You could just imagine the students sitting and studying in the shade of the trees. Here is the front gate, leading into the Temple garden.
Here is the gateway from the front garden into the second garden.
The second garden is flanked by two large pools, overgrown with lilypads.

Once you cross another gate to exit the second garden, you enter the main university complex. A large pool stands in the middle, and is surrounded by what look like giant tombstones on turtles. The large stones are actually lists of every doctoral candidate to have passed the royal exams (literally standing in front of the king while he grills you on history, philosophy, religion, etc.) over the centuries. So back in the 1000s, they had the comps! The turtles are one of the traditional sacred animals to the Vietnamese. Proof I was there:


I know this was a lot of information on the Temple of Literature, but it was a fantastic spot.

A bit more on Vietnam. It is a rather cheap place--the currency is 17,000 to 1. So I withdrew 800,000 dong ($49) and it lasted the whole weekend. Also, American money was accepted everywhere, as it's just easier to handle. The entrance fee to the Temple was 5000 dong for 2 of us--about 15 cents a person.

As for the people, they are rather quiet. I've had multiple ex-pat men tell me Vietnamese women are the strongest, hardest working people on earth. They had to be; generations of men were lost. The population is also quite young, for the same reason, and so is quite dynamic--another reason why American companies are investing at rates comparable to China. (Interesting commentary on Americans investing in Communist countries aside, it really is a great investment environment as the government is following China's example, for better or for worse.) Back to the story: to summarize transportation in Vietnam:


Now imagine that times a million. Yamaha's greatest market is Vietnam. EVERYONE drives a scooter (they have replaced the bicycle). The streets are just unreal. Road lines are useless, as the scooters outnumber the cars easily 100 to 1. And everyone honks constantly. I gave up on not getting hit and had a decent amount of scratches half-way up my calves by visit's end.

One more thing stop I'd like to mention on the first day: After the Temple, we stopped off at a cafe/restaurant called Koto. It was started by a Vietnamese man to help orphans. It is totally non-profit, and staffed by the orphans. They choose between training in back-house or serving, and are provided housing, food, education, English lessons, and healthcare for their two year training program, at the end of which a job is found for them in the service industry somewhere in the city. So the orphans gain careers, the restaurant is self-sustaining, and the hotels and restaurants have well-trained staff. All of the tour busses make a point of stopping by. I got some kind of fruit drink--I wouldn't be able to say the name, let alone spell it. If anyone is ever going to Hanoi, send me an email and I can give directions and details. It really is a must see.

More later, Mike.

I feel so old...

Note: This post should be about last weekend, when I visited Hanoi, Vietnam, which is now one of my favorite cities in the world. But I took a thousand pictures and have no way to upload them, so that post will have to wait. For now, my birthday:

Hello, all. I'm writing now as a twenty year old. Two decades. No longer a teenager. I feel so responsible and mature. HA! It's actually been a lot of fun, teasing my bosses about feeling old, as they're all 35 and older. For my birthday, Friday the fourth, I left work at 3 to meet up with Ted. He took me to get measured to have a few shirts made. Bangkok tailors are apparently very detail oriented--and they picked out fabrics they swear will look good in London. A good thing, too, as when they handed me four books, each with about a hundred fabrics, I just started laughing. So then they showed me just four and I chose three--a much better system. I go back tomorrow (Monday) for a fitting.

After the tailor's shop, we hit a few sports bars, and then tried to meet Meg for a traditional American meal at the Great American Rib Company, but unfortuneately, in addition to being my birthday, apparently the Fourth of July has some bigger meaning and everyone American in the city had already reserved the restaurant. Who'd have thought? haha. So we went towards another rib place, but the traffic was so bad, we though we'd ditch the driver and just walk to the Sky Train. Great idea, until two feet of water fell in 30 minutes. Not exeagerration. Well, maybe a little. I have never been so soaked. But it actually was great fun. And when we finally arrived at the restaurant, I had a big rack of ribs, a full corn on the cob, and a bacon-loaded baked potato. All-in-all, delicious Fourth of July Feast.

Went to bed early, as I had to be up at early the next morning to be at the fair grounds at 8am for the American Independence Day Picnic. I was decently excited, as about 3/4 for my internship thus far has been the organization of this event. Lets just say 16 hours later, I was hot, sweaty, muddy, and tired as ever, but very satisfied with the 2500 person attendence record, the sale of all 6000 of the booth prizes I gathered the last month, and the fireworks display coordinated with a Blues band.

Thanks to all that sent Birthday wishes. They are much appreciated. I have about 3 1/2 weeks left in Thailand, and will hopefully have many more adventures, or at least stories, to share.