50/50

The Old Dusty Trail...

2008-03-03T00:52:00.032-05:00

Our trip has ended. As you may or may not have noticed, we never made it to Laos, Cambodia or Thailand; Vietnam kept us plenty busy. Those other countries will be part 3 of our Fifty Fifty Takes Over Asia Trilogy, or as I like to call it, 50/50: 3 Fast, 3 Furious. OR 50/50: Continental Drift.

P.S. Check out Part 1 from Japan!

During our 3 weeks traveling, we took 2,000 photos, ate ridiculous, stellar food, and got diarrhea, amazingly, nonce (new word. it means "sort of" but also "never!") Below are some more fun times.

Our room at the Kowloon Hotel in Hong Kong.
Front Desk: "Would you like 2 small beds or one big one?"
Us: "How about both?"

An unsuccessful East-Meets-West breakfast in HK. Listed in the menu only as "Breakfast."

As seen in every train station in China: A boiling water spout and a rubbish can overflowing with instant noodle containers.

Our first meal in Vietnam: Hanoi's famous Bun Cha. Cold noodles, pork soup, a mountain of leafy, some crunchy white things, crab spring rolls, and on the right, an entire cereal bowl of garlic and orange peppers. The magic of Vietnamese cuisine, we found, is in the texture. And flavor. Doye.

In Hanoi with our hostel's night manager, Flower. She took us to where she likes to eat dinner which was a garage literally next door where a dude made pork dumplings. I could not identify any pork. Look how suspicious I am. My verdict: "Still tight."

Flower also took us to her favorite Pho joint. Look at those colors! Despite being made mostly out of cow heart, I think it's the most beautiful soup in the world. I kissed it with my belly. Thanks, Flower.

And thank you Mom, for the money belts. By our last day, Chris got really good at lifting his shirt, reaching into his crotch, unzipping the pouch and producing dong. I got really good at hiding mine in my backpack.

We flew over a massive glacier on the way home. Both ways, actually. Or maybe it was Antarctica. Or Krypton. Or New York.

The Handshake: Saigon

2008-02-27T05:19:00.002-05:00

The Blind Massage aka The Painful Lesson

2008-02-26T07:12:00.006-05:00

For no real reason, I associate blindness with mystical power. Backflips, telepathy and such. Maybe it's because every martial arts movie made between 1971 and Infinity features a sightless old guy that can regulate on everyone. Actually, that's exactly why. There.

ANYWAY, when Chris and I came upon a school-for-the-blind-slash-massage-spa in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, I imagined the perfect massage: precise, powerful and just a little bit magic. Plus, if your masseuse is blind, how shady can the massage be? "Two, please."

What did 3 dollars buy us? An hour of painful, horribly off-the-mark back torture. I kept thinking, "it's supposed to be like this right?" He pounded my spine. He slapped my head. Was that a noogie? I think he punched my kidney!! Wait a minute. Did we just get conned?

"No," said Chris. "We just let blind guys give us massages."

I Drank Snake Today

2008-02-25T08:44:00.016-05:00

My only admission: "I fell."

Chris calls this an "automocycle." China has the one-child-per-family rule, Vietnam has the two-wheels-per-duder rule. You can push it to three wheels but you'll need an extra guy and like 400 more pounds of shit to haul.

At least once a day one of us says, "Now what?" And the answer is almost always white coffee (black-as-hell coffee with condensed milk) and Chris drawing the shit out of some shit.

Outside Binh Tay Market, where the world's souvenirs are amassed and distributed. Millions of hats, nested pots, flip flops. You can find a knock-off of yourself here. We got shopper's fatigue just by looking at the piles of stuff. Video on the way.

Oh, you want to see my passport? Here it is. Don't Bullshit Me.

Two Wheels and a Can-Do Attitude

2008-02-23T03:01:00.002-05:00

They flout the laws of physics. They stack on, pack in, and pile up. They never say die; only "more straps."

This animal, by the way, was still alive and trying like hell to kick its way off.

Addendum

2008-02-22T19:50:00.002-05:00

My last post was less about my opinion of Vietnam than it was about my disgust with consumer culture infecting every last inch of the world. My point was that tourism (people like us) are the reasons that my perception of modern Vietnam is more about westerners than about the Vietnamese or Vietnam itself. And I didn't quite expect that.

I think what is interesting is there are some enterprising young people in Ho Chi Minh City who have developed an 'in the know' proposition. Today we're hooking up with some locals from a new company called Connections Vietnam, who I read about months ago. They provide a friend for the day and accompany you around town, filling you in on the real deal, being your local knowledge. I think it's quite an interesting idea. You don't go see sights, you don't go on tours. You hang out, go to their homes, you cook with them, they tell you stories, you learn about what being a 20 something or 30 something in today's Ho Chi Minh City is like.

Not sure what to expect but I asked if we could learn how to make Bun cha.

Modern Vietnam

2008-02-21T21:08:00.004-05:00

I'm gonna keep it real.

Vietnam is not about pretty beaches and lush rainforest, picturesque villages with artisans and craftspeople, developing cities with bustling neighborhoods full of individual personality and charm. It's about toil and grime and staying off the streets by hawking worthless knock-off shit to westerners.

It's about catering to all the fat, white tourists stumbling off their tour busses as they chug from town to town. It's about "Good Morning, Vietnam" t-shirts and authentic vietnamese lacquer "art" galleries and those rice paddy bamboo hats. It's a caricature of the worst kind because the Vietnamese in these villages don't care about their national image, they're trying to make a buck. And the tourists are promoting this fucked up cycle of what Vietnam "is".

We've quietly mentioned these observations to each other and have tried not to let it affect our overall perception of the place but it is creeping in. It's depressing really. We've tried to make light of the fun/scary things that have happened, like the bus incident (which really was both fun and scary simultaneously) or to focus on the food, which is the real reason we came. But it's hard when you're constantly face to face with misguided cultural supply and demand every second of the day.

Vietnam, we hardly knew ye.

Food Coma

2008-02-21T20:05:00.008-05:00

My digital camera liked sea kayaking so much it decided to give its life to the mythical dragons that live in the icy waters of Halong Bay. But the good thing is that it's forced me to start using my fancy camera. I "think" I'm finally getting the hang of it. I've been practicing my f-stops and shutter speeds on Patrick and the food we've been eating. Have I mentioned how good the food is?

This is a sampling of what we ate today.

Below are shots from this small market on the river in Hoi An. Everything is in round baskets or tubs which gives the pictures a nice uniformity that wasn't planned (but which I like a lot).

Buses

2008-02-21T06:01:00.013-05:00

We took two buses from Hanoi to Hoi An. Each had its own special quirk. One bus had beds instead of seats. The other bus didn't work.

Hoi An is an ocean city packed with textile shops. You can pretty much walk into any building and demand a custom suit that fits better than your skin, all for about 70 bucks. Also, the show China Beach took place right around here. The only real interesting thing about our time here was the food we ate. Total stomach boner. But we had to work at finding the good stuff.

This brings me to something Chris and I call the "Don't Bullshit Me." If you prove you're hardcore, people won't try to hard sell you on Oakleys, Zippos, and T-shirts that say "Good Morning, Vietnam!" (seriously, pretty f'd). We've been flexing the Don't Bullshit Me by chewing on super hot chilis, sporting authentic, painful sunburns, and eating food we can't recognize in dodgy, poorly lit places. It seems to work.

Confession: I did buy some Dolce & Grabana [sic] shades. Couldn't help myself. I think they actually amplify sunlight. My pupils are sunburnt. I can see the future.

Internet refuses to work in Hoi An

2008-02-20T02:12:00.004-05:00

We have good stuff to report but the Internets won't let us access to view the site properly. Maybe at the next destination we'll have better luck. Da Nang, then Ho Chi Minh City.

Patrick-Beer-Boats

2008-02-18T01:10:00.005-05:00

It's been a long, exhausting, cold couple of days. But Patrick and Tiger beer have kept me company on the fake Junk boats.

Licking the street

2008-02-18T00:45:00.004-05:00

My version of heaven goes like this: sitting on small plastic stools at a small fiberboard table covered with ripped plastic looking at little bowls full of chopped cilantro, sliced orange chiles, garlic in vinegar and a huge bowl of beef noodle soup.

In 2002 I decided to start traveling to cities and countries that I consider the tastiest – and Hanoi, Vietnam is right up there. Eating street food is dirty, smelly, uncomfortable and totally rewarding. Taking the first bite makes the grunge recede a little. The second bite makes you sort of “get it.” The third mouthful and you forget that you are not Vietnamese.

Looking for food on the streets in Vietnam is tricky. Most of it is cooked on the ground, on plastic stools, and it isn’t immediately obvious what it is that’s being served. And while that hasn’t ever really stopped us before, I know that Vietnam serves lots of stuff that even I’d be hesitant to eat: cock testicles, scorpions, cobra hearts, pig brain – I’ll be honest here, the only reason I’m not being more adventurous is because I know we have two more weeks of street eats and I don’t want to risk my immune system before we get to Saigon, where the real flavor starts.

Last night, the proprietor of our hotel, Flower, took us to get beef Pho, the staple in Vietnam. Mine had half a cow heart in it, ventricles and all. It was tasty, but not super appetizing to look at. So I didn’t take pictures. The memory resides in my stomach.

This was more shareable so I’m putting it out there for you to be jealous of. You know who you are. (Apologies to the vegetarians - there are pictures of animals that we ate)

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily...

2008-02-17T10:40:00.014-05:00

We're trying pretty hard to circumvent the Vietnam tourist stuff, but sometimes it's unavoidable if you want to see some of the awesome things. We took a bus to Ha Long Bay where over 3,000 limestone cliffs stick out of the water like giant overgrown tombstones. Mortal Kombat 1 took place right here. Or maybe it didn't, but it should've. We spent two days on a ferry that was decorated with a dragon motif and had fake junk sails. It was amazing!

The bay was surreal, thanks in part, to the terrible hazy weather. It made all the islands float in midair. We went INSIDE one of these archipelago cliff-caves and found, along with all the tacky lighting and souvenir shit (sea shells. belts.) the scariest looking rock formations ever. Nature is nuts. Rocks rock.

It's also like, 40 degrees (Sub Zero Wins). Seriously! It's cold. There's no birds. I have a backpack full of shorts and so does Chris. Tomorrow night we head South. Please.

Over The Line!

2008-02-17T07:03:00.009-05:00

As scary as Chinese officials are, it was still a pretty funny because they didn't know what to do with us. They put us in a guarded room with 10 couches. The border guards from China and Vietnam don't directly communicate, and they wouldn't let us leave the building and walk 200 meters to the border (painted line in the road) to ask ourselves, so we had to have two other tourists cross over with our passports and ask for us.

Vietnam's answer: "Whatevs."
China's subsequent answer: "Whatevs on our end, too."
Us: "You guys should hang out more. Peace!"

To the people who ever said Chris and I look alike... no we don't. The Chinese government says so.

The race to develop

2008-02-15T08:14:00.005-05:00

Train travel in developing areas affords a perspective that's hard to come by in the US and the EU. You get to see the interstitial parts of a country, the hard living, quasi-developed farms and villages, the agrarian economies of scale, the landfills next to fields of cabbage and the buildings that look anything but optimistic. And train travel always makes me think about the pace of development. Probably because trains go slow. We've been talking a lot about our observations like how brand names mean nothing in China. Absolutely nothing. They hold no consumer appeal or status, they're not indicators of quality, they're just visual nostalgia or maybe aspiration. I saw a guy at the station who had a Ferrari hand bag. It was plastic. He also had no shoes on and it's really cold here. The age of the impotent brand isn't new to me since I spent a lot of my time thinking about the impact really well developed brands have on consumers, who are, well, really developed. We're trained by the brands themselves to value certain attributes and qualities that are evident in the products. That relationship doesn't exist in China. And we'll see about Vietnam. So what happens when a billion people start buying stuff en masse? If I was an American or European brand I'd be really scared right now because quality and status are the only two levers brands have to ensure consumer loyalty. When neither quality nor status really matter, how do you retain customers?

I know it's really screwed up that I'm thinking so much about what I USED to do on our VACATION blog but China is really really bonkers at this particular moment in history. Maybe it's also because a lot of my colleagues have traveled to Guangzhou for work because all those western brands that we work for have factories here. I bet you guys never thought about going to Guangzhou for vaca did you?

Also, all the train travel has given me lots of downtime to draw. Finally.

Shit Gets Real

2008-02-15T07:02:00.011-05:00

We could've taken a plane to Vietnam; it would've saved us a lot of time and headaches and all that, but I've never been to China and this trip is about keepin' it real! So instead of taking a 30 minute flight, Chris and I embarked on a 48-hour scramble that put us on 3 trains, 2 cars, a 17-person van, and a scooter. Broken down, it goes a little something like this:

Hong Kong > Guang Zhou > Nanning > Pingxiang > Random Village Border Crossing - Friendship Pass (China Side) > 12,000 Random Villages (Vietnam Side) > Hanoi > Beers

Shit got real. How real? We got held prisoner on the China side of the border due to our Shady Ass Visas. We saw a scooter-related fatality on the road to Hanoi. Lots of peeing and pooping in the street. Blood. But check it out: Hazelnut Snickers! The Bomb!

Eat, Walk, Laugh, Eat, Walk, Laugh

2008-02-13T18:47:00.016-05:00

Yesterday in Hong Kong:

Patrick burned his mouth on soup dumplings. We took a ferry to Hong Kong Island where we met Liz, a great friend from home and our tour guide for the day. She took us to an alien dessert bar where, against our better judgement, we tried durian cake. It smells and tastes like hot piss. To us, anyway. Then we went to the mid-level / Soho area where Liz lives. There, we hit up a temple, met the God of Kung Fu, lit some incense and prayed for a future filled with good trips, good projects and good... us. Liz bought us egg tarts, we went to a sweet Pro-Voting Power design store (Goods of Desire), and she bought the largest ginger root I've ever seen. She went off to watch horse racing and we finished the day drinking in a fake pub, hating on American dress shoes. Oh and drinking in another place and hating on cancer. Liz rules! Good bye, Hong Kong.

P.S. You know what's funny about the train from Hong Kong to Vietnam? There aint one. Today, we journey on many trains through China and potentially elsewhere to get there. Today, we march. Maybe no internet.

Garlic

2008-02-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

Our first meal in Hong Kong.

Shady Ass Visas

2008-02-09T23:21:00.003-05:00

So the passports finally came and this is how they do things at the Vietnam Embassy in NYC: badly.

Take a close look at the names and the pictures on our Vietnamese visas. They're legit so I'm not worried (?)

The Plan

2008-02-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

This is the tentative route for our trip. Pretty much everything is subject to change.

No Passports - No Joke

2008-01-29T09:57:00.000-05:00

So, we're (I'm) still waiting for our passports with shiny new visas to arrive. They were supposed to arrive last Friday. It's Tuesday. I'm getting a little nervous. I'm calling embassies. I'm pacing in my apartment.

Vaccines and The Funny Doctor

2008-01-28T16:54:00.000-05:00

"I'm going to give you vaccines for Typhoid, Diphtheria / Tetanus, Hep A and Malaria."
"Yes, please."

"I also have these pills for painful diarrhea."

"Thank you."

"We also have an HIV vaccine."

"Excellent."

"I was only kidding about the last one."

When a doctor makes a joke, it never feels right to laugh. You just sit there, apologetic for no good reason. I got all my shots today for my trip to Southeast Asia. Chris is a seasoned world traveller, so he's already immune to everything (including bullets). I, on the other hand, needed fortification. I got four shots in the arm, each one as sharp as a fist. I also got some semi-hallucinogenic Malaria pills.

"Take one every 3 minutes for the rest of your life."

"Can do. Is that a joke?"

"Yes."

So now I'm vaccinated! Well, I will be in a week and a half when most of the shots actually kick in. Probably four days after I get stabbed with a railroad spike.

50/50 Game: Find a funny word in "Tetanus."