northern philippines

from manila we took a night bus to the town of banaue...the bus ride wasn't much fun at all...too air conditioned, everyone was covered up in blankets, wearing long sleeves, etc...except me, because i forgot to take my malong out of my pack...i was miserable most of the night, and wasn't able to sleep...and because i wasn't able to sleep, i was aware of all the weaving back and forth the bus was doing...i was soooo car sick...i went up front just in case i needed to ask the bus driver to pull over, and ended up sitting up there for quite a while...i ended up feeling better and got to watch a beautiful sunrise...while i was sitting up there i looked over at the driver a few times, i couldn't tell how awake he was...and i also realized that the bus didn't have a working speedometer!! sometimes it felt like we were going pretty fast, but who knows...
banaue is known for the rice terraces surrounding the town...they're beautiful...filipinos call them the eighth wonder of the world, and they are pretty impressive...i think layna and i would have appreciated them even more if we hadn't trekked through (and up and down) farming terraces in nepal...the rice terraces in the philippines were built 2000 years ago, (by hand obviously) and produce once a year...rice is a really labour intensive crop, if i haven't mentioned that already...we walked along the road leading out of town, there is a series of viewpoints along the way...at one of the viewpoints we played with some local kids for a while...we even had a handstand contest with them...i lost, miserably...they were super cute, entertaining us by showing us how they could do cartwheels and handsprings over each other...banaue reminded us a lot of several of the villages in which we stayed while trekking in nepal...it's a cute little town...lots of great hiking in the area as well...
from banaue we went to sagada, another mountain town...to get from one to the other, we rode two jeepneys...the first was a 3 hour ride, the second only one hour...normally i wouldn't mention this, but it was great because we got to ride on top of both jeepneys!! a lot of fun, AND great views the whole time...the roads weren't always great though, and several times we were tilted at an angle that could've sent us straight down the mountains...every year the philippines has problems with landslides, (particularly during rainy season) and we saw evidence of several recent slides...the slides sometimes wipe out entire villages...even with the constant fear of a landslide, riding on top of the jeepneys was amazing...being able to look out over the mountain range was amazing...absolutely beautiful...it's a good thing i was sitting on my pack the whole time, as the ride was pretty bumpy!!
there are rice terraces around sagada as well, though that's not the primary reason to visit sagada...the main reason to visit sagada is for the coffins...first, there's a burial cave on the way out of town...the first time i tried to find it, i missed the turnoff, and ended up walking way too far...which was okay, because the view of the valley was gorgeous...when i did get down to the cave, i got to see over 100 coffins stacked up in the entrance...some are said to be over 500 years old...the other coffins to see are the so called "hanging coffins" of echo valley...they're not really hanging, i don't know where that name came from...i couldn't tell for sure, but it looked as though there were steel rods hammered into the cliffs, and the coffins were perched on those...howeva they are up there, they've been up there for a while...the original colour has gone away from most of the coffins...most of them are that grayish, non colour...the coffins in the cave were that way as well...next to two of the hanging coffins i saw chairs tied up...just in case, i guess...another coffin had fallen at an angle, and the lid come off...underneath the coffin was the pile of bones that had originally been in the coffin...kinda creepy!! i read that some elders are still put in coffins for the cave or cliffs, but apparently this is rather expensive...it requires the sacrifice of quite a few animals, to appease the gods...sagada is on the top of one side of echo valley, it's a really small town...there is a lot of hiking around the area, people don't stay in town because of the town itself...the weather was absolutely fabulous while we were there, and i took one afternoon to just walk to the next town down the road...it was only 7km each way, not very long...along the way (which was really really quiet,) i saw several more panoramic valley views...AWESOME!!!
from sagada we went to baguio...baguio is home to camp john hay, which used to be an R&R camp for US military personnel...now it's a park, golf course, hotel, etc...baguio was the total opposite of sagada...it's busy and crowded and a whole lot bigger...that being said, it was still fun to walk around...there were lots of people selling stuff on the street...i can't get enough of the battered and fried hard boiled eggs!! one of the few specific things we saw in town was the cathedral...our lady of atonement cathedral? something like that...anywho, it wasn't the cathedral itself that impressed me so much as its schedule of masses...there are multiple masses, every day of the week...sunday and wednesday there are at least 8 services!!! after baguio we knew we were going south, so we checked the ferry schedule from manila, and figured out that we had an extra day to kill...since baguio was cheaper, we decided to stay there an extra night...i took the opportunity to eat more eggs...hee hee...

vietnam 2

after mui ne, we took a bus up to the hill station of dalat...originally "discovered" by a frenchmen, it was an escape from the heat, especially during the summer...before the advent of air conditioning, it was a favourite place for vietnamese students to attend uni, as you don't need air con in dalat...since it was another holiday, it was difficult for us to find a room, and those we did find were ridiculously expensive...the room we finally went with was huge, and under the eaves...awesome...
the last ruler of vietnam was a guy named bao dai, and in dalat alone he had three palaces...you can see all three of them, but the most popular to visit is his "summer palace"...i don't know what i was expecting, but it wasn't much...he was so influenced by western culture that it was the same as seeing a house in the states...not very exciting...about 3km from the summer palace are the waterfalls of cam ly...not very exciting either...man made i think...if not, they certainly look it...i saw a zebra available for riding there, but opted to skip that...the most interesting thing in dalat is probably a place called the crazy house...created by a woman called hang nga (i think) who is the daughter of the guy who took over after ho chi minh died, it's a combination of alice in wonderland meets gaudi...strangest architecture ever...
dalat is built around a man made lake, the book says it's 7km to walk around...a nice walk, i did it three times in three days:)...a very easy walk...there were people running around the lake at all hours of the day...
the second full day we were in dalat i did a lot of walking...more than a half marathon, at least...one of the reasons was that i walked out to more waterfalls, 5km out of town...the falls at datanla were much better than cam ly...still not the greatest, but they looked awesome in comparison...plus, they've built a bobsled rail, soooo much fun...i rode down and up twice...i'm such a scaredy cat when it comes to going fast, i never catch up with anyone on those sorts of things...i loved it...
while we were in dalat, nalayna read her guidebook and realized there was an area in south vietnam she wanted to go see...since i wanted to keep going north, we split up again...she went down to the mekong delta, i went up to nha trang...
nha trang is another beach town...in the states the name is probably known because it was a popular R&R spot for US military personnel during the war in vietnam...it was super overcast while i was there, so i didn't spend time on the beach...(shocking, i know)...i went to see cham ruins, which weren't very interesting because they had been renovated...they just didn't look very authentic anymore, if that makes any sense...while walking to and from the towers i saw a fishing village, which was nifty...some of the fishing boats (we saw them in mui ne too) are circular...they're like big woven baskets...people get in them off the boats, and they only have one paddle...i wonder how long they stay out in those "boats"? i also wandered around in a photo gallery for a while...the guy whose name is on the gallery has apparently won several awards...some of the photos definitely caught my attention, but others didn't seem all that special...all the photos were black and white...he doesn't use a digital camera, and develops all his own work...the people pictures were what caught my eyes the most...the last thing i saw in nha trang was another wat...the wat wasn't anything exciting, but there was a giant buddha 150 steps up the hill behind the wat...he just sits up there, as if to look out over the city...the city views were awesome...i would've liked it even more if the kids hadn't kept pestering me to buy postcards...
after nha trang i kept going north, to a town called quang ngai...(pronounced hwang nai)...most people in the states have never heard of it, it's not a popular spot on the tourist trail...the only reason anyone goes there is to see the memorial at son my...most of you probably don't know that name either...but i bet all of you (or at least many of you) have heard the name my lai...son my is the name of the area where the massacre by US soldiers took place...somehow, they got information that led them to believe that vietcong were hiding in the area, and that the area in general was supporting the vietcong...what ended up happening was awful...US soldiers helicoptered in, and went through the hamlets in the area, and destroyed them...while destroying them, they also massacred many of the inhabitants of the hamlets...at least four hamlets were completely destroyed...many old men and women, younger women, and children were brutally murdered...and the whole operation was photographed by a US photojournalist...my lai is the name of one of the hamlets, though i don't know why that is the name so well known...it's not even the name of the hamlet where the most people were killed...the total number of people killed was in the hundreds...the US military knew it had screwed up badly, and in an effort to cover up what happened, swore all the soldiers to secrecy...that obviously didn't work...a year later, the US military also went back to the area with huge bulldozers, and ploughed up the entire area, so there was nothing left...when you visit now, you wouldn't know that anything had happened there...it's about 12km outside quang ngai, a very peaceful little area...there is a musuem showing many of the pictures taken that day...in the museum is a comment book, and some of the comments left by visitors over the years are pretty emotional...many of them have been left by vietnam vets...even though the US destroyed the whole area, the vietnamese government went back and rebuilt some of the ruins to memorialize what happened...now you can see exactly where all the houses stood...and next to where each house was, there is a sign listing the name of the family that lived there as well as the family members who were killed...there are cement walkways between the houses, with footprints in them...bootprints representing the soldiers, and bare feet representing the villagers...
after quang nai my next stop was a town called hoi an...they call it an ancient city, and it's certainly been around a long time...originally, it was an important port for all of southeast asia...it's still very commercial, but now everything is catered to tourists...there are LOTS of tailor and shoe shops...you can have any clothes or shoes you want made in hoi an...you can barely walk 5 meters w/out someone trying to get you into their shop...the town itself is another UNESCO world heritage sight, so there are no cars or buses downtown...yay...of course, that doesnt stop the motorbikes, and some of those drivers are pretty aggressive...the beach in hoi an, about 5km down the road is great...i wish i had had time to lay out there!!
my second full day in hoi an i took a bus out to more cham ruins...these were a LOT better than those in nha trang...this area is called my son (not to be confused with the memorial place of son my that i just mentioned)...archeologists have divided my son into groups lettered A-K...the best ruins to see are groups a, b, c, and d...the ruins are a similar to khmer ruins, and the ruins at sukhothai and ayuthaya...which isn't all that surprising, considering the groups had been invading and conquering each other for centuries before the modern states existed...

india part 8

darjeeling is a hill station...originally created by the brits, there isn't much evidence of them anymore...some of you have probably heard the name, but in reference to tea...something like 25% of india's tea is grown in this area...darjeeling is part of west bengal, india's most populated state...it's a wierdly shaped state, and i'm surprised that it's all one state...kinda like creating one state out of washington, oregon and california...with alaska in there as well...the people at the top are nothing like the people at the bottom...darjeeling is in the himalayas, and it's totally different from the main part of the subcontinent...different clothes, languages, scenery, food, traditions, etc...the people look different too, as many weren't descended from the same ethnic groups as in the rest of india...they're much more closely related to nepalis, tibetans and burmese...it's a buddhist area...we felt completely at home, as it is quite similar to many of the areas we saw while trekking in nepal...i'm not sure why, but darjeeling wasn't at all what i expected...before arriving, i expected a smaller town, and a quiet town...it was far bigger than i had imagined, louder (though not at night, as darjeeling gets quiet not too long after the sun goes down...it's definitely NOT a party town) and had a lot more people...for travelers, it's a tea town, and an area in which to organize trekking...layna and i wanted the tea...we learned quite a bit about tea, and i learned that i have lower class taste in tea...i don't taste the difference between a good tea and a bad tea...each day we went to a tea house and tried a different tea, and i could only barely taste a difference...had i not known what i was drinking, i wouldn't have thought them that much different from lipton...(yes, i know, you tea people are shrieking that i could say such a thing)...
we didnt do a lot in darjeeling except enjoy tea...we saw another movie, called billu barber...again, despite it not being in english, it was relatively easy to understand...and of course, there was a happy ending...
after darjeeling we took the toy train to siliguri...the toy train has been designated a UNESCO world heritage sight...it was originally built between the two towns as a way to move potatoes around...it goes slowly, of course, and around rather tight corners...13 times it has a z crossing...that is, the train goes forward, stops and goes backward onto a diagonal track, then stops again, and switches again onto a new track, this one lower than the first track...it took 8 hours to go 80km...from siliguri we rode our last train in india, to kolkata...
the 2nd biggest city in india, and most often known as a poor city...mother theresa's motherhouse is there...so is a huge cathedral, st paul's...so is the victoria memorial, which is like a cross between the US capital building in washington DC, and i don't know what...you're not allowed to take pictures inside, which seems a little silly to me...i took a picture of a quote by queen victoria before finding out about the photography prohibition, and 30 minutes later as i was leaving, someone chased me down and had me delete it!!! i liked the quote, so i walked back over and wrote it down...why are pictures not allowed of inscriptions?
kolkata is built on either side of a dirty river, and there is a busy, well known (to some people anywho, definitely not to me) bridge over it...the howrah bridge, i think? anywho, for yet another unknown reason (to me) photography of the bridge is strictly prohibited...but they do sell postcards of it...so of course i did my best to figure out how to get such a picture...i did, though it involved walking through slums, and dealing with the very pervalent smell of urine, and EVERY SINGLE GUY i passed calling out something along the lines of sexy mother, or worse...(for the record, the slums in mumbai weren't nearly as uncomfortable)...
layna and i had some tailoring done in kolkata, which was fun...i had one of the traditional salwar suits made...i've never had clothes made especially for me...i loved the way it turned out...it's probably a good thing we usually stick to our budget, because i was tempted to have several more made...they're colourful, and very very comfortable...
our last adventure before leaving kolkata was as a result of a mistake i made...i have no idea how i did it, but i thought our departure time was really really really early in the morning, so i thought we'd just go to the airport late evening...but i was off by ten hours...our flight left at 1145, not 0145...fortunately, we were able to stay with a local family, which was a fantastic experience...by far the best biryani i've ever eaten...they were incredibly friendly, and i had a good time getting to know them in the little time we had...
it's a good thing we stayed with the family, and didn't just spend the whole night at the airport...the international terminal of the kolkata airport is small, and has VERY few facilities...the ONLY duty free was alcohol, and a few chocolates...just one room...we were whisked to the premier check in line at our airline though, which was great...
goodbye to india...i miss it a lot...everything else will be so easy...