A Nice Change

I am sitting poolside in the heart of Chiang Mai. Yesterday, we woke up in Bangkok. The difference is bigger than the one-hour, very turbulent flight would suggest. Chiang Mai has a beach-town feel and a nice, slow pace. Bangkok pulsed like the ten million person city that it is. We were all ready for the change.

We have heard the advice that for the most part a city is a city and that most of the real exploration lies outside of their limits. This has been true in some ways and false in others. It is foolish to say that Saigon and Singapore are anything alike. Saigon has its third-world feel and character while Singapore's futuristic nature and impeccable streets have a vibe all their own. But they are both crowded and busy and move with the speed and anonymity of a metropolis.

Aiding my overall desire for a change was our last night in Bangkok where I got desperately lost only ten minutes from our room. It took me three hours, four taxi drivers and countless tut tuts to find my way, all the while being grabbed by transexual prostitutes.

So now I sit, very much not lost and feel the tension ease. Uwey is lying by the pool reading her kindle and Danny is dozing next to me. Half a dozen travelers blanket the poolside. There is an energy here, an open and hopeful wind that dries my skin and beckons another dip in the pool.

The Places We Find Ourselves

There is nothing like this particular point in a trip. Jason, if you are there, we have talked about it countless times. It's the moment when the end is so far it is totally out of sight and the beginning is so close you can remember the events of each day. When you think back only one week it seems like three and five months to the future appears impossibly open. The promise of a pefect trip is still up for grabs.
At home with the foreign, small differences have become pedestrian and I dream of telling stories of the extraordinary. The act of traveling, of course, is often occupied by the newly mundane, when the romanticism of a new text on the ads has run its course and we have adjusted. But this state too is to be celebrated, if not as a testament to the human condition then as a triumph over it.

We have been led by the hand until now-a blessing and a curse- a fine introduction and an easy transition to be sure but the time has finally come for the true exploration we had in mind. Early this afternoon we said our goodbyes to the family, a bittersweet moment, and took a taxi to the first hotel we arranged on our own.

As I sit at this cafe I am still wrapping my head around the fact that our trip has truly and undeniably begun in earnest. This is the type of freedom that makes my head dizzy. All of our planning and saving has brought us to this moment in Bangkok, a city we leave tomorrow. From here on out our pace will be self-determined and our route our own, No matter what happens in the next five-plus months it will be our making and I have no doubt that what we will make will be beautiful.

A Few More Pictures

Still having difficulty finding time to write anything substantial. You may find this hard to believe considereing we are still in the first month of what really amounts to a six month vacation. We have been moving at a ridiculous pace though, having been afixed to a few tours. It turns out that the people here want the absolute most for their money so any tour that they sign up for must squeeze the most out of every day. We have been waking before 7 am each day and hitting sites until dark. Those of you that know our travel habits may find this difficult to understand, but this has all been a paid-for tour with family. We never even had Singapore on our radar yet we spent a few days there with the group, a real bonus.
 I have a feeling that the style in which we have been rolling will be in direct contradiction to that that we find ourselves in once we separate from the family. I have to admit that while tours may not be my method of choice we have been treated to some great sites we would have missed anew d the convenience cannot be overstated. I am ready to go out on our own but will miss a part of this easy life. When waking up as early as you would have for work is your biggest problem, it's safe to say that life is pretty good.
We are in Pattaya, Thailand at the moment but heading to Bangkok at 7am tomorrow morning. After a few days there, we will be on our own. The trip will take a turn there though the direction cannot be clear. Like this trip in general we will just have to see how it plays out.

A few more pictures:

A tour-mate parasailing mere minutes before she puked in a bag on a boat.

Temple in Singapore.

Guess which ones are transexuals.

If you said all of them, you are correct.



Animal shows seem to be a lot of what the tourist industry in Thailand is about. At least these animals aren't trying to seduce 60 year-old white men.

 Random burnt building in Malaysia.

.



A Few Visual Highlights

In lieu of a written account - which we haven't had much time to put together- here are a few visual highlights of our trip thus far.

We have spent a good amount of time at the villages of Uwey's grandmothers. Each is roughly an hour from Saigon.

We took a trip to the Mekong River and delta. We had an amazing few days on the water exploring.

A few days ago we boarded a flight for Kuala Lumpur, where I am writing from now. We stopped at a beautiful Hindu temple tucked into large, limestone caverns.

Hope to update soon with more detailed accounts.

The First Days

I woke to the whirling of two fans. Both swivel and turn and blanket me with a warm breeze that keeps the mosquitos at bay. I lay on a thin matress on the rickety second floor of a small house in the outskirts of Ho Chih Minh City. Having concluded an elaborate lunch in honor of the day of Uwey's grandfather's death 26 years ago, I took my beer buzz next door to rest.

I had just been introduced to dozens of aunts, uncles and cousins and had felt my way through the ceremony. I have been eating and drinking whatever has been put in front of me to the absolute delight of the family but had felt sick this morning and had thrown up out the window of the small tour bus and onto the impossibly crowded streets.  I sat at the table smiling broadly as people talked about me, Uwey translating what she could.  "He's bragging about how you like fish sauce." she explained. This was not the first time I had heard this. My willingness to try any food had endeared me to the family and there I sat, hoping that the deep-fried shapes in front of me were not chicken feet.  The truth is that I had enjoyed all of the food and enjoyed people's reactions even more.
This has been a whirlwind family adventure so far and one that has taken me from a fairly well-off home in downtown Saigon to a small village over an hour away and finally to those outskirts. Each place has been very different and each has had it's charms.
We were greeted at the airport by Uwey's aunt and uncle from Saigon. They own a small tourism business and showed up with a small tour van for our transport which we have been fortunate enough to have access to every day that we have been in the country. After a delicious meal, we were taken to a hotel where we promptly fell asleep. The next morning a driver came for us to take us back to the airport to retrieve Uwey's parents. With barely a moment to rest we headed out to the village where Uwey's mother was born and raised.

I wasn't sure what to expect and have to admit that the idea of a village was difficult to fathom after seeing the beehive of the city. We arrived and made our introductions with special care taken for Uwey's grandmother who could not seem to make any sense of me. Her memory has started to fail and meeting a new grandson appeared difficult. She is a tiny woman at about four and a half feet but you can tell that her importance to those in the village is much larger.
We ate dinner on the floor as our wedding DVD made its first appearance of the trip. At this we stepped outside to take in the life on the street. With hot food being sold by cousins on the sidewalk in front of the house, there was plenty of people watching. I found it amazingly easy to feel at ease with my surroundings and we talked and drank beer before a few younger cousins offered to take us to a club. We accepted and hopped in a cab for what turned out to be a three minute ride. We got out in front of a building that looked like it had been bombed. The front was rubble and we had to step over bent rebar and walk up planks of wood to reach the door. Once inside it was a cheesy posh club, far too loud and dark. We sat with the cousins, unable to hear each other over the music, and watched a few dancers that we soon realized were trannys. We left shortly after.
 I woke up in the middle of the night and walked the length of the house to the bathroom and passed three cousins huddled on the floor where we had eaten dinner. They had given up their bed.

The next day we piled back in the van and headed towards Saigon. Uwey's other grandmother lives on the outskirts of the city and we were on our way to a death anniversary ceremony. This involved a trip to the cemetary with gifts and decorations for the tomb. After a fairly short dedication we were back to the house.
The streets were dirty and poorly maintained. I imagine I was one of few foreigners that come around the area. We entered the house through an alley off of the road and once again said our hellos. We sat to eat and drink and I smiled my smile, looking confused when appropriate. After lunch we took a short walk and returned to the house where we went in search of a place to rest.