Iceland is like no place I’ve been before. The isolation is palpable. You feel it in the cold wind, see it in the enormity of the sky—it’s like the ends of the earth, and in many ways, it is. I can’t imagine what the first settlers thought when they left their homes in Denmark, set sail for the North Atlantic, found the harsh island of fire and ice, and decided to call it home. What compelled these Viking forbearers to leave with the intentions of never returning? According to the Icelandic Sagas, it was a political clash which caused a rift in the Viking community. It’s remarkable that they were guided there of all places, and even more remarkable that they stayed—for more than one thousand years. Most of the population of Iceland still derives from those first expeditions of courageous Vikings. As you can imagine, understanding your family history is not just a pastime in Iceland, it is necessity, because no one wants to marry a cousin.
I really can’t explain how amazing this country is. It has an undeniable mystique that my words cannot fully capture.
The highlight of my trip took place when I rented a Toyota Yaris with two girls from Adelaide. We drove as far as we could in two days and saw some of Iceland’s most impressive sights. We really pushed that Yaris to its limits too. We left with a vague notion of where we were going, and a tourist map with even vaguer details. We drove through remote fishing villages along the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, crossed frozen lunar-like mountain passes, basked in the beauty of abandoned seaside farmhouses, stood and beheld the magnificent force of the Golden falls , the beauty of the Geyser and witnessed the primeval strength of Eyjafjallajokull volcano—whose fiery, lightning strewn ash-plumes have landlocked aircrafts across Western Europe.
Wherever my travels take me in this world, I will take my memories of Iceland. It is a traveler’s dream come true.
After Iceland, I flew to London, luckily for me, with little to no trouble or delays. The airport was a little frantic, but considering the circumstances, everything seemed to be running quite smoothly. I explored London for a day, took a bus to Portsmouth, just to find it as lively as a ghost town. I camped overnight in a golf course and spent the morning of the next day hitching to Wootten Bassett, where my British family calls home. I met some very interesting people along the way, and I was received with a really warm welcome from my family, who drove me all over the country-side and stuffed me full of traditional English meals. After indulging me with everything British, they drove me to Bristol where I boarded a bus from Birmingham, where I slept overnight in a train station, to wake up and take a train to Holyhead, Wales. Here I hopped aboard a ferry headed for Dublin, where I am currently. I haven’t explored any of the city yet, mostly because I’ve been in this internet café trying to write this overdue post. It’s about time I get out there and enjoy this charming-looking city…and the weather. It’s a balmy 26 degrees, in Ireland of all places.
By no stretch of the imagination can this be considered a long geographical distance, but after living here for the last two months, it feels likes its oceans away from the banality of Whitby. Don’t get me wrong, Whitby has been good to me, and I am especially grateful to have been reared in such an beautiful area of the city, but Montreal just oozes character and charm like few to no other Canadian cities can. I can’t help but feel like I’m in Europe already, with the different languages, different foods, architecture, fashion, music and lifestyles. Montreal is just a delightful city and it has far surpassed my expectations. I don’t foresee myself living in Canada for extended periods of time in the next 5 or more years, but if I do, I know where I’ll be. Montreal has entranced me with her siren song. She’s got me hooked.
I’m working out the final details for my next excursion. I can’t help feeling giddy with anticipation. My job is not the greatest, but I can’t complain too much, I have a job, and I was employed within a week of setting foot in this city by nothing more than luck. I’ve heard innumerable stories from Anglophones who moved to Montreal looking for work and after 4 or more years found nothing or little more than part-time work for minimum wage. My job isn’t flattering, but the hours are constant and the tips are decent. Besides, every time I need to bus a sticky table for an ungrateful server, or listen to the grotesquely rich and arrogant brag about the fortunes while devouring their medium rare sirloins, I just think about the twisted corridors and alleyways, winding canals of a medieval city that I’m soon to explore, or the forgotten shorelines hidden on the Mediterranean or the ice cold beers to be served to me in the same fashion as has been the custom for hundreds of years. I think of festivals and fireworks. Fjords and siestas. Glaciers and open-air markers. No matter what stresses my job or school bring me, if I let my mind wander the path my legs will soon walk I can’t stay bitter very long. Daydreaming has a way at alleviating my every worry.
I’m also getting the knack of this kooky language called French. I even won a certificate the other day for my studious nature. It a far-cry from my elementary school days when my French teachers were lucky to get a word of comprehensible French from my lips. I did a good job squandering my language education once, but I’m making up for it now. It also helps that Priya is pretty much a French savant. She is also pretty ruthless with her corrections, which deflate my pride but helps my pronunciation. I guess it’s a decent trade-off.
Also, one another note...
My blog has a analystical stats recording feature. It tells me the traffic on my site. What search engines and keywords people use to find my website. This is what the top three are…
RED LIGHT DISTRICT GWANGJU
KOREAN RED LIGHT DISTRICT
KOREAN SEXY BARBERSHOP MASSAGE
Man, there must be a lot of really lonely and perverted guys hanging in an around Gwangju. Let me be clear about this…I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RED LIGHT DISTRICTS IN KOREA. I posted one lousy thing about how strangely translucent the sex trade was in Korea and now my website appears on the headlines of google searches by sex-crazed foreigners. Hey fellas, from now on, search elsewhere for your jollies.
On yet another note…check out this beautiful video below.
My Wordpress has stopped working correctly. I can no longer post pictures until I figure out what’s gone wrong or I reload everything, which worries me because I just got this site how I liked it and I’d hate to mess things up now.
I have lots of pictures to post and stories to tell, but until I devote the hours to fix the problem with my website’s script, I’m afraid these video links will have to suffice.
I had the highest of expectations for Tokyo, and despite this, my trip there last week still managed to exceed my hopes. I was only there for 5 days, which isn’t nearly enough to do Japan or even Tokyo any justice, but nonetheless, my short time there was fulfilling; jam-packed with sight-seeing, train adventures and window-shopping. I also ate some of the best food I’ve has thus far on my trip. I need to venture to Japan again. I’ve just skimmed the surface and now I need to cannonball into the culture sometime in the not-too-distant future.
Also, I cannot convey my gratitude to Sachiko Kon for hosting me in her house and showing me around her fine city. She made Japan just that much better for me.
Sachiko, thanks again. I am in your debt.
I have other news, rather important news, but I’ll save it for a later post.
Now that I have my laptop and a movie editing program, I hope to make a lot more videos to post up here. Stay tuned to see what antics I’ll get myself into next.
It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.
Jon Krakauer – Into The Wild
So, I might have neglected to mention to you, my readers, that I am now a teacher of English Literature at Two Months Academy in Gwangju City, Jeollanam-do province, in the great Republic of Korea.
All my paperwork is yet to be completely finalized, but tomorrow I’m going in to do a demo class to get accustomed to standing at the front of a class room teaching Korean children the finer points of the English language. I’m experiencing a mixture of excitement and nervousness…mostly excitement, especially after waiting so long to get my documents in order to be granted a working visa within South Korea’s incredibly archaic application process.
The pictures above came from this weekend. Brad and I met some British teachers who just started teaching in the Gwangju area. Vikki is the blond-haired young woman and Bradley is the sharply-dressed bloke beside me in the pictures. They are a lot of fun. Gwangju is a great little city and I’m happy to finally settle down and have a bed to call my own–I’m looking forward to anything softer than a hardwood floor, which is all I’ve know as a bed for the last two weeks.
Funny story; Brad’s apartment is down the street from two of Korea’s most prevalent yet contradictory establishments. There is at least ten churches stationed beside or nearby a very active red-light district. This is not uncommon to anyone who has visited South Korea before. Almost every city in Korea has a skyline dotted with neon signs flashing advertisements for sex-motels, “VIP business clubs” and sexy-massage parlours. For those who are planning on visiting South Korea, a little pointer–if you need a haircut, make sure you go to a shop has a single spinning barber shop pole, not a shop with two spinning poles, because from what I gather, the “service” at a double pole shops doesn’t extend to anything above the waste.
Below is a video of Brad and I doing a walking tour of his entertaining neighbourhood…
Right now I’m in the ancient capital of Thailand, a place called Sukhothai. There isn’t a whole lot to do here except explore the ruins of the ancient city. So thats exactly what I did today. Here’s the pictures.
I’m updating the video blogs. Here’s some videos from weeks ago that I’ve had numerous problems uploading before now.
My trip in Laos has only lasted eight days, and to be honest, I’m a little sorry to leave. Laos was an amazing place to travel. |It hasn’t been corrupted by the evils of tourism. |The merchants don’t try to scam you, the people are genuinely friendly, and you aren’t harassed every second of every day with someone trying to sell you weed, moto-rides, women, tailored-suits, massages, sun-glasses and postcards. Obviously, there are some double-handed sneaks, but they are fewer and further between. Generally, the travel is easier, more laid back.
I wanted to travel south on the River Mekong, into Cambodia. However, as it turns out, this isn’t possible. There isn’t a demand to travel that far south on the Mekong so the route was canceled. I was truly dreading the twenty hours or more of switch-backing, overcrowded and sweaty bus rides to get to the Cambodia border, so I decided to travel north on the Mekong towards Thailand. This way, I don’t backtrack and I still end up traveling with the Irish lads, who are in serious pain today (they are all sunburned like only and Irish get sunburned). I am in Chiang Mai, Thailand, right now. We will stay here a few days, recovering from a hellish two days of traveling. Before I talk about Northern Thailand, I should talk some more about Laos, and particularly Vang Vieng.
If you mention the word “Vang Vieng” to a traveler who has adventured in Laos they will most likely shoot you a sly grin and begin eagerly reminiscing their times spent here, doing what this sleepy little riverside town has become famous for—TUBING. It might sound like a tacky way to spend your days in Laos, but I ensure you, it is a lot of fun and needs to be experienced at least once. The premise goes as follows; you rent a run-of-the-mill black tube, you get a tuck-tuck ride upriver, you float down river, you are pulled into riverside bars, you drink Beer Laos and whiskey buckets, you jump, zip-line, and rope swing into the river, you play soccer and volley-ball at the bars, you dance in the daylight, and you return your tube when it gets dark outside. I can’t think of many places where this would be allowed…maybe only Mexico. Either way, this is an absurd and extremely dangerous idea of a good time, but it is just that, a good time. I went two days in a row, and my feet might never be the same. I tore them to shreds playing bare-foot soccer in a pitch made of sand and mud. When I say that it is dangerous, I’m not exaggerating. Last week, tubing was shut down for four days because the river was particularly fast and two tourists died. Supposedly, one was Canadian. As the story goes, she was drunk, couldn’t swim and she decided to do a rope swing. She held onto the rope for too long, was brought back into the rocks hit them and drown in the water’s murky depths. According to some Expat we were talking to in a restaurant, about ten people die doing this each year, but considering there is a daily average of four to five hundred drunk foreigners tubing down the river each day, I’m surprised the death-toll isn’t much higher. I have a respect for these rivers, they are a force of their own.
Yesterday, me and the lads took a eight hour speed boat ride up the river, in the most uncomfortable boat ever built. It was fun, minus the irreversible neck and back damage. We crossed into Thailand and took a harrowing 4 hour minibus ride down country roads in a rainstorm to get to Chiang Mai. After more than fifteen hours of painful travel, I slept like a baby on Nyquil.
I needed to get my Laotian Visa, and luckily there was an office in Danang.I originally thought I had to travel back to Hanoi just to get this little piece of paper.This wouldn’t be the worst thing ever, but it would be an expensive trip just to get access to Laos.I talked to my hotel receptionist and asked her about Danang.I suggested that I bike from Hoi An to Danang.On the map it looked pretty close and I’ve biked long distances before.The hotel receptionist laughed in my face.She didn’t tell me that Danang was 35 kilometers away, she just showed me on the map the best road to take.So I jumped on this crappy old one-speed and I began peddling towards Danang.I started my journey at 7 in the morning and it was a nice temperature, maybe 25 degrees Celsius.Nice temperature is relative term, of course, because my leisurely bicycle ride was still making me sweat profusely, but it wasn’t devastatingly hot and it was a nice comfortable flat ride.I biked for an hour an a half and I came to Marble Mountain, this strange group of five forest-covered marble hills that abruptly protrude from the flat sandy landscape on the coast.I could see pagodas on the largest hill and decided to check it out.I climbed the steep steps and explored a few cave temples and quickly left as soon as the influx of camera-wielding, trigger-happy tourists began storming in.I kept peddling towards Danang, all the time enjoying the empty coastal road.I finally made it to Danang, got some excellent directions from a resort security guard and I found the Laos consulate with absolutely no difficulty.I handed over my passport and decided I needed some food before I started my journey home.I found a café, ordered a ice coffee, and this Vietnamese guy started talking to me in English.I thought he was trying to stretch his English muscles, because a lot of Vietnamese people like speaking and practicing their English in casual conversation.I obliged and we started casually talking about travel and Vietnam.This harmless conversation degraded quickly to him trying to sell me prostitutes at 11:30 in the morning.Let’s just say it was an entertaining conversation.
After finding some pho I started cycling home.After thirty minutes of peddling I was exhausted.The sun was at full height and intensity and it completely drained me of my energy.I took a swim and tried to keep going.I peddled for another 45 minutes in the 35 degree heat into a strong head-wind and collapsed in the shade of a building.The owner of the building invited me in and I sat with him and his wife and we practiced English for an hour or so.They fed me lots of ice tea and I thanked them and tried the last stretch of my journey.As it turned out, near Hoi An, the road is hilly, something I didn’t even notice in the early morning, something I didn’t notice until I was on my bicycle in the worst heat of the day, biking against a head-wind, hating my life.I was back in Hoi An by 5:30, legs wobbly, shirt-soaked, sun-baked, and starving.I went to my tailor’s shop to pick up shirts and she invited me to stay for dinner and eat a traditional Vietnamese meal with her Family.Lan is the tailor to end all tailors.Her shop is called B’Lan, located at 23 Tran Phu Street, Hoi An, Vietnam.She is a gracious woman and she runs an excellent business. The food was delicious ant the shirts were perfect.I went back to my hotel, found some other worn out travelers and enjoyed their company.Everyone who heard about my grueling bike-ride to Danang immediately laughed. Several Vietnamese people told me I was the first person they knew to attempt this journey for “fun”.It was one of the most physically exhausting trials of my life, only rivaled by a 30 km canyoneering hike I did with my family in Keet Seal, Arizona.
I rented another moto for the next morning so I could go to My Son, a ancient Champa Palace an hour from Hoi An, for the sunrise.Easier said than done.The directions to My Son weren’t that easy.There were few signs, I was driving at dark, and the directions I asked from Vietnamese people included really questionable details and misinformation.For instance, the Vietnamese kilometer, minute, left and right are different than those of North America.I think people just got a kick out of sending me down random roads that lead to absolutely nothing.I eventually found it, I missed the sunrise by an hour, and my attempt to miss the tourists was also foiled.The place was overrun by lobster-red Germans, families of Australians, sun-screen smeared Brits and unfriendly Franks.I stayed, did my best to avoid photographing the many tourists and then quickly left.The history of the Champas is interesting.They were excellent merchants and traded with far-flung empires in India, Arabia, Africa, China and the Philippines, but they made a strong empire through their piracy.They were eventually absorbed by the Vietnamese empire, but this is after centuries of merciless control over the region.
I took a bus to Hue and have been exploring ever since.Hue is the capital of the Nguyen monarchy and the site of a great citadel that takes up a large portion of the city.It has some impressive architecture, and the buildings that weren’t absolutely destroyed by years of America bombs look quite stunning.I explored the citadel yesterday, on my Birthday, and then found a restaurant that served cheese.I miss cheese.I love cheese.Oh, if you knew the things, the unspeakable lengths I would cross so could enjoy a nice slab of cheese, or better yet, a good rye grilled cheese sandwich.Would I kill a man? Yes, yes I would. I’ve digressed from my story.I got a cheese burger and a side order of bruscetta.It was delicious.The cheese was sub par but, as my dad has always said, “beggars can’t be choosers”.
My last day in Ho Chi Minh City was spent with Thanh and his friends as we took a road-trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, an hour’s moto from the city. I rode on Cuong’s moto as he drove more than 90 km an hour down the conjested streets towards Cu Chi. He was an excellent driver, but it was still a nerve-racking, yet exciting adventure. To no ones’ surprise, our moto got a flat tire and everyone, except me, helped try and fix the problem. I stood and watched the process and took pictures of their efforts, laughing the entire time, of course. In the end, the tire was still leaking so Cuong drove it to some experts to have it patched up while everyone else continued on towards the tunnels.
Once we finally arrived, I was shocked to find out that I had to pay five times the rate of admission compared to everyone else I was with because I wasn’t Vietnamese. Frankly, this was bullshit, but I couldn’t convince the government-appointed staff to give me a better rate. We walked the grounds taking pictures while waiting for Cuong to return. Then we watched a Vietnamese propaganda video about the heroism of the Cu Chi soldiers in their resistance against the evil American imperialists. The video was pretty funny, but all jokes aside, I actually do find the lengths the Vietnamese fighters went to resist the Americans quite astonishing. Here’s a little country in Southeast Asia with fewer people, a lot less military might, that was able to defeat the world’s superpower. The Vietnamese are extremely proud of their victory, and I think they have all the reason in the world—however, after walking through the War Reminant’s Museum and going to the Cu Chi Tunnels and seeing the effect the war has had and continues to have on the Vietnamese people (most notably through the lingering birth-defects and miscarriages brought on by the American Army’s use of Agent Orange), the Vietnam war was a victory, but one came with an enormous human toll. The Cu Chi soldiers, most of which were farmers and villages of the small town fo Cu Chi, constructed an extremely technical and elaborate, multi-level tunnel system that stretched across an enormous plot of land. Cu Chi is regarded by many historians as the most heavily bombed, gased, and napalmed area of land to ever exist in military history. The forest that grows around these tunnels is a new growth because the old vegetation was destroyed by years of warfare. The land is still pockmarked with craters, some the size of suburban swimming pools, attesting to the amount of military might used to inhiliate this division of the Vietnamese army. We were lead, crawling through the tunnels (most of which have been made taller and wider to cater to foreign tourists) and when our guide asked, can everyone now choose between a 30 meter tunnel or a 2 meter tunnel, everyone eagerly agreed to crawl the 30 meter tunnel. Boy, was that a bad idea. I was too tall to walk through bent over, like most of my Vietnamese friends, so I had to squat-walk. Thirty meters doesn’t sound that far but in the pitch-black, humid, cramped tunnels of Cu Chi, thirty meters seems like an eternity. By the time I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, my legs were wobbling like strawberry jello and burning like fire. I could hardly stand up, I was drenched in sweat, and my heart was beating like a heavy-metal drummer. I gained a new respect for the Cu Chi soldiers, especially when I learned that the longest tunnel is 120 meters long and half the height. I won’t be voluneteering to explore that tunnel anytime soon. As much as I hurt after crawling through the tunnels, I’m still glad I did so, so I can never ever ever explore the Cu Chi Tunnels again.
I enjoyed Hanoi, and I appreciate the welcome I recieved and the time I spent with Thanh, his parents and cousin, Nhu, but I was also glad to leave. I can’t stay still for too long and six days in Saigon was more than enough.
The next day, bright and early, Thanh, Nhu and I, travelled to the sea-side city of Vung Tau via a river boat. I didn’t really feel like staying in this polluted and tacky town, so I found out when busses ran to Muine. The three of us explored the sights of Vung Tau for a few hours before my bus left. We went to a Budhist Temple/garbage dump (literally), and then climbed a pretty big hill to see a Rio-esque Hill-top Jesus. We got to climb up to Jesus’ shoulder blades to take in a damn good few of the city and coastline below and beyond. The staircase going up was too small and only allowed for one-way traffic. Thanh yelled down to Nhu and I at the bottom of monument and got reamed out by the rude and craggly staff member who explicitly told us to be quiet. Good times.
I then took my bus to Muine, a trip which took two hours longer than I was told it would take. Muine was impressive at first glance, but because I arrived at nightfal l was was unable to properly explore the city. In fact, Muinewas awful. It’s spread out along one street that runs for several kilometers with virtually nothing to do at night if you aren’t older than 35 and Russian or Austrailian. I decided to go to sleep early to wake up at a decent hour to explore the famous Muine sand dunes. Sure enough, the next morning I went off with a vague plan in my mind and a stomach full of pho. I went to the “fairy springs” a surreal-looking creek-bed, died rust-red by the nearby cliffs of red sand. I walked up the riverbed without seeing a soul, except a woman carrying provision to her house up stream. I turns out that most tourists sleep well past noon, so if you can wake up early, you can see many things while avoiding a constant barage of tour groups. After seeing the falls at the end of the fairy springs, I stopped to have a coconut at family’s house/shop. There was this cute and threatening little girl who kept poking my leg with this twenty inch metal stick. She was watching Power Rangers at the time so I blamed this aggression on her being desensitzed to violence because of pointless american television violence—that and I sorta look like Lord Zed in the right light.
Everywhere I went in Muine I saw advertisements or was offered motorbike rentals. After inquiring, I decided for five dollars, it couldn’t hurt to give it a go. Let’s just say, I’ve found my true love. I liked riding on the back of a moto in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, but I really love driving one myself. For 24 hours the moto was mine, and I took full advantage of this. I saw everything Muine had to offer, between the Red Sand Dunes, the White Sand Dunes, the Canyon, Star Lake, the fishing villages and the Cham Towers. The funny thing is, each of these attractions has a myriad of 10-15 year-old kids, usually speaking perfect English and offering to lead tours, rent out crazy carpets for the dunes, or find any other way to get tourists’ money. These kids are the next generation of venture captialists of Vietnam. And if you refuse their offers they make sure to let you know, calling you names and flipping you off…seriously. The next morning, at 5 AM, I drove to a cemetary and took some cool pictures in the early morning light, and then took the moto down a dirt path in a watermellon field for no reason, and was given fruit by farmers. I got lost in a small village and did a prayer in a make-shift buddhist temple for some appreciative onlookers. I ate pho and fruit with some people beneath a big tree in little red and blue pre-school, kid chairs. And less than an hour before my moto was due back to its owner, the keylock became jammed, probably on account of the dust and sand that I had driven it through all day. Worried I wouldn’t be able to get it back in time and I’d be forced to pay for a second day of motoing, the villagers helped be smash the lock open with a screw driver and a rock. The moto was a piece of crap in the first place so I really didn’t feel bad. I drove it down some winding mountain pass and guessed the dirt roads that would lead me back to Muine. I guessed right and I had the moto back with about twelve minutes to spare. The owner offered to drive me to my hotel and I told him the name of a different hotel, he dropped me off outside and as I walked towards the back of the hotel, I heard him yell, “hey!”, and I ran away down the beach, assuming he had noticed the damage from the screwdriver. I don’t really feel bad because from everything I’ve heard about the rentals of motos in Vietnam, the moto owners rent out the cheapest motos possible, hoping the tourists get injured and the motos get damaged so they can charge exorbitant prices to have them fixed, pocketing the extra money. I just conned him before he could con me.
I left Muine and headed for Dalat. I took a cramped bus up the switch-back roads and saw some great vistas and an awful moto accident. I honestly don’t know if the people involved are okay, but our driver didn’t stop so we just passed the road-side carnage.
Dalat is a beautiful fairy tale city in the South Vietnamese highlands. It is a popular destination for both Vietnamese and foreign tourists because of its unquie vegetation, its delicious cuisine and its cold climate. People go all out when they come to Dalat, buying scarves and touques and wearing parkas so as to survive the terribly cold, 18 degrees celsius. Naturally, I walked around in jeans and a T-shirt the whole time. Although, at around 11pm it did get cool enough to wear a sweatshirt. It was an amazing place. The next day I walked the city’s lake, a man-made crescent-shaped body of water surrounded by pretty interesting landscapes and cultural attractions. I had one of the most memorable times of my life, and it was all to be found by chance, never to be written down in a Lonely Planet guidebook. In a local park, hundreds of Vietnamese people, young and old, flew hundreds of kites (well, more like 120…yeah, that’s right, I counted). The sky looked so bizarre—the kites fluttered like a school of fish suspended in this amazingly dramatic and dangerous sky. The clouds that formed were ominous and breathtaking, and despite my best efforts to photograph the scene, my pictures really don’t do what I witnessed any justice. I met some girls from Jolly Olde England and we had some drinks at the local watering hole. It was a good time. The next morning I took a 15 hours bus ride to Hoi An, with a 5 hour stop-off in Nha Trang, and from what I saw of Nha Trang, am I ever glad I didn’t stay. It looked like a Miami beach smack dab on the Vietnamese coast.
But now I’m in Hoi An. I have a nice room with a good view and I’m going to go explore some more.
I’m in the process of updating my “Vlogs”. I have a Youtube account and some videos to come. Here’s some old ones I’ve just uploaded. There will be more to come, eventually.
is the hilarious expression that every Vietnamese person uses in negotiation of price. They will compare anything, simply adding “Same same,” afterwards, while smiling.
Someone wise once said to me, “you never know colours exist until you’re travelling.” I understand what she meant, but I would argue that colour exists wherever someone is at any given time, except each place a person travels gives each colour a new definition. This is the case in Vietnam. From my experiences so far, Vietnam is a surrealist oil painting—the canvas is covered with wisps of colour, the foreground vital and vibrant, while the background is obscured by the smoggy smears of diesel-smoke blue. In fact, each colour I see has a different meaning than the one of which I am accustomed. Green has become eternal-rice-field-green. Gray has become crooked-alley-way-gray. Red has become presidential-flag-flutter-red. Yellow is now pealing-paint-off-plaster-yellow. Black has become twisted-tangled-overhead-wire-black. But calling Vietnam a painting doesn’t do the other senses any justice.
Smell—The streets have a toxic, sweet/sour kind of smell, like fruit left out in the sun, mixed with tobacco smoke, sulphur, flamed-kissed chicken, and the waft of a nearby blooming flower bush.
Sound—Every hour of every day I hear the putter of idling motorbike engines, accented by the holler and howl of car horns, the thudding bass from a local disco-bar, the plead or persuasion of prostitutes, the chear of children after a street-soccer-game-goal, and the banter and barter in the after-hour bizarres.
Touch—a painting couldn’t describe the feelings of touch while moto’ing through the night. The damp heat of sweat that runs down your forehead and wells on your brow and above your upper lip, the tightness of sunburn on your shoulder-blades, the wind that teases you with a cool carass and the sting of dust in your eye. There’s the rush that follows a rapid flight through a labrynth of fruit stalls and shirt stores, or the hot blast of smoke from a flared-up pan that passes across the face like the silouette of a ghost. There’s also the instantaneous downpour and the futile and frantic run for shelter, or the relief of entering an air-condition store and hestitation that one encounters with leaving.
Taste—well, there’s the taste of food. Vietnamese food is good, ’nuff said.
I guess that’s all. Unless, I get these goddurn videos to work.
