The Book of Jones

So, lot’s of people have been asking me about traveling around SE Asia (Vietnam / Cambodia / Laos). I guess I might as well post up some general advice / feelings I have on the subject. Here it goes: The question:

“My new friends and I are hoping to do a 10 day trip to southeast Asia. We were targeting the three countries of your trip last winter break. Do you have any advice for me as far as where to go or what to do? I think we want a good blend of city and beach life. I also am wondering if we only have ten days if it is worth it to go to all three countries or if Laos could be skipped without regret.”

My response:

“I would say skip Laos. It’s really cool, lots of Buddhism, very undeveloped (like completely undeveloped). Lots of drugs, which means lots of narco-tourists, so can be a little sketchy. But also lots of rich older tourists, so its an interesting blend (heroin junkies and fortune-500 ceo’s in the same guesthouse). I would also say skip phnom penh - it’s really fucking sketchy. Lot’s of sex tourists and narco tourists, which is a little scary.

Angkor wat is awesome (near Siem Reap), and I would recommend that above anything else. Try to spend 3 days there, if possible. It’s absolutely incredible. And make sure to go at sunrise to Angkor Wat (the most famous temple) - it’s totally empty except for monks, and is one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had.

Vietnam was cool. I’d really encourage you to go to Hoi An, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city. All are really cool - Hanoi is an ancient city, pretty well preserved old quarter. Stay in a guesthouse in the old quarter - the rest is a pretty bland 3rd world city, although there are cool places to go (the opera quarter is really cool). Hoi An is in the middle of Vietnam, and is totally amazing. It’s an old trading port, and is absolutely beautiful (preserved french buildings, all crazy bright colors). If you go, bring designs for clothes you like, or even just pictures of anything you see that is crazy expensive but really cool - they can make it for basically nothing (and probably better quality).

Ho chi minh city is cool also - very developed and modern, in comparison, but still maintains a french flair in places.With vietnam, definitely check out the weather forecast beforehand - it’s always warm somewhere and rainy somewhere else. If it’s supposed to be nice, definitely go to Phu Quoc (about a 45 minute flight from Ho Chi Minh City). Its a really gorgeous island off the coast of Cambodia (but part of vietnam). Not much to do there, but its a nice relaxing beach-type trip.”

Some other thoughts / comments: I really liked Phnom Phen. It was grungy and sketchy, but it kind of reminded me of Cloyne, if Cloyne was a full city. Dirty, run down, definitely had seen much better and much worse days, but still had a charm about it.

My remarks about the people are in reference to the backpackers there - too many people lusting after some anarchic paradise on earth. I guess that’s some people’s deal, but it can be a little creepy if that kind of thing scares you.

The only thing that really disturbed me about the particular area I was staying in were the few older Australian / American men I saw with young Khmer girls (like 13 young). That was kind of frightening, in a really jarring sense. Definitely the one memory of my trip I would rather forget, although it made the issue of sex trafficking that people like Nicholas Kristof talk about much more meaningful. I have no idea what I could personally do to help on the issue (I attempted to take a picture of one of the people I saw, but my camera took to long to start up -> the US/Australian and maybe other embassies will accept photos of these guys and arrest them when they land back in their home countries).

On the topic of narco-tourists, I was pretty shocked by the openness of drugs in Cambodia and Laos. Not in the sense of walking the street and buying stuff, but having random restaurants, bars or taxi/moto drivers try to push stuff on you. I can’t even count the number of times I was offered something, ranging from heroin/opium to cocaine, mushrooms and marijuana. For example - there was a chain of restaurants in Cambodia called “Happy Pizza,” whose claim to fame was pizza made with weed butter. The really amusing part about it is that they looked like one of the most corporate shops around - one of the few chains I noticed in the country (they unsurprisingly had an outlet in every backpacker locale).

On a somewhat related note, Laos had some absolutely amazing art / artifacts on sale at the night market in Luang Prabang. Example: a 2 foot long elephant tusk, carved with an intricate city scene all along both sides. The purpose? It was an elaborate antique opium pipe. I definitely was tempted to buy one, except for the two slightly small problems that it was (a) a drug accessory (b) ivory. I was pretty sure it was very old (so whatever elephant it belonged to was long gone, and the purchase wouldn’t support killing more elephants), but nonetheless purchasing it would have been very illegal (or, at least, importing it). I can’t really emphasize how beautiful this thing was, though. It was so above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen in a museum, and yet it was sitting on a piece of cloth, beside maybe 10 others like it (although all unique), in the middle of a night market on the main street.

Laos and Cambodia, and Vietnam to a lesser degree, had such an incredible feeling of being unspoiled by the tourist trade. Which was really what I was craving, beyond anything else. I really can’t wait to travel again, but I’m not sure when I’ll be able to take a month off and just wander around in the near future.

Mango Sorbet:

• 7 mangos (~ 2L of puree)
• Juice of 4 lemons
• 1000 ml water
• 1000 g sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 4.5 tsp egg replacer + 4.5 tbsp water (equivalent of 3 eggs)

Recipe: Peel & pit mangos. Puree resulting flesh until it resembles pudding (about 1 minutes per blender-full). Mix water and sugar to form enough sugar syrup to equal half the volume of the mango puree (sugar syrup is approx. 1 gram sugar per 1 mL water). Add the sugar syrup to the mango puree. Juice the lemons and add the juice. Add a pinch of salt. Mix well.

Place this mixture in the freezer and let sit until ice starts to form. You should stir the mixture approximately every 30 minutes - the goal is to keep large ice crystals from forming, thus maintaining a smooth consistency.

Once the mixture resembles a slushee, add in the egg replacer mixed with warm water. You’ll want to make sure the egg replacer is mixed very well and that there are no chunks floating around - I found that it was easiest to mix thoroughly by shaking in a jar. Otherwise it would still have a chunk or two on the bottom. Add this fake egg gunk into the sorbet slushee and stir until mixed. Place this concoction back into the freezer and let freeze overnight.

Yield: ~3 L (~ 3 quarts)

Active Time: 1 hr labor + 2 hours of hanging around

Ready after: ~12 hrs after you put it in the freezer

Comments: Turned out well. Froze a bit hard, but that might have been the placement in the upper right part of the freezer. I keep forgetting that that part is way too cold. Also, a tad sweet. The mangoes were super ripe, so I’m guessing this had something to do with it. Next time I’ll reduce the sugar a bit and add more egg replacer - so the sorbet is smoother and less sweet. I might try making a non-vegan batch with real egg whites to see if that helps. My vegan sorbets thus far have been somewhat disappointing texture-wise.

Cherry-Lime Sorbet:

• 12 limes (~600 ml of juice)
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 900 ml pureed cherries (~2 lbs fresh)
• 1800 ml water
• 800 ml sugar
• 4.5 tsp egg replacer + 4.5 tbsp water (equivalent of 3 eggs)

Recipe: Zest 2 limes in a bowl. Wash, de-stem & puree the cherries in a blender. Juice the limes and combine the juice & puree with the lime zest. Mix the water & sugar to form a sugar syrup & add to the lime/cherry concoction.

Place this mixture in the freezer and let sit until ice starts to form. You should stir the mixture approximately every 30 minutes - the goal is to keep large ice crystals from forming, thus maintaining a smooth consistency.

Once the mixture resembles a slushee, add in the egg replacer mixed with warm water. You’ll want to make sure the egg replacer is mixed very well and that there are no chunks floating around - I found that it was easiest to mix thoroughly by shaking in a jar. Otherwise it would still have a chunk or two on the bottom. Add this fake egg gunk into the sorbet slushee and stir until mixed. Place this concoction back into the freezer and let freeze overnight.

Yield: ~6 quarts

Active Time: 1 hr labor + 2 hours of hanging around

Ready after: ~12 hrs after you put it in the freezer

Comments: I didn’t mix the egg replacer super well for some of this, so there are a few stray chunks. Real egg whites are definitely easier to use, but I’d rather keep things vegan (except for the white sugar, but we’ll ignore that). This might be better with more cherries and less limes, but keeping the ratios of water-sugar-solids consistent is kind of a pain. I need to write a program to handle this for me (perhaps a dashboard widget? that would be kind of cool).

Non-Vegan Lime Sorbet:

• 20 limes
• 1 lemon
• 5 cups water
• 6 cups sugar syrup (5 cups sugar mixed into 4 cups water)
• Whites from 4 eggs

Recipe: Zest 4 limes into a bowl. Add the juice of all 20 limes and the 1 lemon. Add the 5 cups water and 6 cups sugar syrup. Stir for a bit (until everything is mixed well). Place this in a plastic container (the 6 qt buckets work well), and put in the freezer (if you leave it uncovered and in the top right where the freezer vents cold air it freezes faster).

Remove & stir approximately every 30 minutes. Once the mixter has turned pale white and slushy, crack the 4 eggs & remove the whites, then beat the whites until they are smooth and a tiny bit frothy and stir them into the sorbet. You’ll want to get them mixed in really well, as they stop the sorbet from freezing too hard.

Put this back into the freezer. Let freeze overnight. If you stir occasionally the sorbet will be smoother, but it should be ok at this point either way.

Yield: ~4 quarts

Active Time: 1 hr labor + 2 hours of hanging around

Ready after: ~12 hrs after you put it in the freezer

Comments: This tastes like frozen limeade. I’m tempted to cut back on the sugar or add more lime zest. I’m planning on making a cherry-lime sorbet next week, so I’ll see if this offsets the sweetness to the right degree.

Alternatively, maybe I should try a more raw sugar to give it a less overpowering sweet taste (sucanat & lime might result in a whiskey-sour tasting sorbet, although the proportions for the sucanat might be a bit weird. Not to mention the prohibitive price of 5 cups of sucanat).

Wow. So, if you’ve ever read / watched The Beach, you’re probably familiar with the notion of finding the last undiscovered / unspoiled beach in se asia. I’ve spoken to a lot of backpackers who’ve been in se asia for the last 20 years or so, and they rave about how thailand was “before all the fucking tourists.” They all spend time on the beaches of cambodia (but “not that tourist hive sihanoukville” - although it is supposed to be nice, just not up to the avant-backpacker level), but a few have mentioned phu quoc.

And, oh man, phu quoc is amazing. Its like what hawaii might have been 60 years ago - white sandy beaches, reefs 20 feet off the beach, cheap as fuck bungalows everywhere (right on the water). Next winter I’m seriously considering just spending it here - getting dive certified sometime this spring / summer, then getting a moto & a bungalow for a month. It would probably cost around $20-$30 a day ($12 for the bungalow, $4 for the moto, the rest for food & drinks). Seriously - I’m glad I didn’t come here in the beginning as I was originally planning - I wouldn’t have left.

So… The weather sucks. I think this is part of some vast conspiracy throughout my life to deny me a single sunny day on a beach. I think I’ve spent at least 2 months on a beach in my life, of which maybe 1 week it has been sunny. Hopefully it will clear up by the time I get to Phu Quoc. Looking back, I should have gone to phu quoc straight off, then sihanoukville (southern cambodia), then phnom phen etc.

Nha Trang is on the verge of becoming south beach - the beach is being overrun by 30 floor hotel/condos, although the streets still feel like anywhere else in vietnam (vendors, motos, open sewage etc.). I think it would be an awesome city in the sun, but not really in the rain.

Some other thoughts -

Shwarzenegger’s stuff - sounds kind of interesting. I admire the fact that kids would be eligible for state healthcare regardless of immigration status, but this really should extend to adults as well. Its all well and nice for xenophobic / racist conservatives to talk about how their money shouldn’t pay for illegals to get health care, but the argument is based in stupidity. If you don’t have healthcare, you get sick. When you get sick, you go to the emergency room. Guess who pays that bill? Guess how much more it costs to treat someone at the emergency room then via a regular doctor? Either way you pay the bill, but if you ensure everyone, you spend much less money. Frankly, I could care less what your viewpoint is, but if you make the argument not to provide care for illegals, you’re advocated spending more money. So you’re taxing Californians so your xenophobic fantasy can be realized.

iPhone - Looks cool. I’m probably going to have a hard time not buying one. But there is one sticking point - cingular. Specifically, their data rates. If I pay $500 for a phone, I should be able to use the internet anywhere. That’s the killer feature - dashboard weather / maps / whatever everywhere I am. Not just where there is wifi. But I’ll have to pay another $10-$40 a month for this. My cell bill right now is $30 (+ taxes) a month. I don’t want to pay $50 a month, +$500 for the phone, +$200 to buy out my contract from tmobile. If it was $30 a month, I would do it. But $50 is just plain stupid.

Cell phones have always had two major problems - the phones suck and the service sucks. Now there is (what looks to be) a great phone. But the service still sucks. And, honestly, even if the phone is great, the service would still limit how I used the phone. If I can’t surf the web, download songs / movies / tv / whatever, then why am I going to pay a premium for that?

Hue

Hue was a nice if boring city. It was very, very quiet, not much going on, and it started raining the night I got there. Which was kind of a killjoy. I took the train in (a night train - 7pm to 8am), and got about 3 hours of sleep. Once I got into the city, I headed for a hotel, rested a bit, and wandered around the citadel. Interesting place, if very damaged. Hue was captured by the NVA (north vietnamese army) during the Tet offensive and held for about a month, so most of the city was destroyed (which you can tell, especially in the area of the royal palace, which is mostly just bullet scarred skeletons of buildings).

 You can also tell from talking to people around that the people were greatly affected by the war. The first (and only, so far) time I’ve had someone mention the American war to me was in Hue - a moto driver asked the usual “where are you from?”, to which i replied america. He acquired a somewhat dour face and mumbled “my father died because of america.” Needless to say, it was one of the most awkward moto rides I’ve had since then - just kind of silence. I couldn’t really say anything - saying something about my own pacifism would just be me trying to trivialize what we did.

Hoi An

Hoi An makes me wish I owned a much better camera. I regret not bringing an SLR of some type - the lighting here isn’t amazing, so high speed film / good light sensors would be nice. The colors / light here is really beautiful - the pouring rain reflects light all over everything.

It’s funny - the government, as part of the restoration / preservation of the old town, strongly encourages painting everything this orangeish yellow color. Which looks nice enough, but its very clear there were other cool colors as well. Any paint that’s chipping exposes irradescent blues, reds, and other bright / colorful tones. The only comparison I can think of for this city is the city in Chocolat. Its all narrow streets, kind of winding, with very old houses on all sides.

Also, Hoi An is known for its tailors, and every other shop seems to be a tailoring place. I’m considering ordering a suit to be made- its around $100, and the suits are as good as any you’d get in the states (for 5 times the price).

So… haven’t posted in a while. Spent 3 days in Luang Prabang, and now on the 3rd(ish) day in Hanoi. Luang prabang was interesting - very well preserved city, but a bit too yuppified. Every random street had a high-end interior design store specializing in something random. Like Lao silk duvet covers. Or Lao silk window covers. Or Lao silk vase covers. Lots of Lao silk was the general theme, in case you haven’t guessed.

As one person put it, the sandals-and-backpacks set has been replaced by the loafers-and-briefcase set.

None-the-less, I stayed in a nice guest house - wood floors etc etc. The only problem was that Laos has some sort of national midnight curfew. For everyone in the country. Like bars kick people out at 11:45 and at midnight you get a ticket for not being in your hotel room. And, as the official government bulletin in every hotel room stated, “Prostitution is not only illegal, it is also extremeley dangerous”.

Couple this midnight curfew with the fact that everyone wakes up at 6 am daily to give alms to buddhist monks, and you get a very interesting night life. I think there were 3 bars in the city, with a net nightly attendance of maybe 30. Also, I was offered opium a couple of times - by a toothless old man on the street, by a moto driver, etc..

None-the-less, Laos seemed like a very nice place, especially if you’re planning on spending a long time there. Definitely not for the party set, but still very nice.

I arrived in Hanoi on new years eve, and had an interesting New Years. First me and 2 guys i was sharing a hotel with got turned away from a club for being westerners (although the bouncers refused to admit that was the reason). Then, we go to another club, filled with the children of the nouveau rich. Which was interesting. Imagine everything bad about a club in the US - snobbiness, bad music, extreme frat vibe, and then couple this with a clientele that feels like it owns the town (and probably does, for that matter). Oh, and there were some interesting rules. Security guards enforced the informal code that men can’t dance. So you just kind of stand on the dance floor watching women dance.

Hanoi itself is intersesting - very loud after Laos. I’m still getting used to all the street noise, but I enjoy it. It will be nice to get to the south and relax on the beach for a while. Right now, my itenerary for the next couple of days looks like a few days in Hue & Hoi An (historic towns right in the middle), then a few days in Nha Trang (white sandy beaches etc. - staying in a beach bungalow), then a few days in Saigon, then a few days in Phu Quoc Island (like Nha Trang, but supposedly excellent diving/snorkelling). Should be a fun 2 weeks.

I’m currently using the computer from hell, so this post is going to be bit rough. Phnom Penh wasn’t actuall all that bad. The new guesthouse was marginally better. Although, it was on a main backpacker road, which led to some interesting sites. Namely, being offered all kinds of drugs every 3 seconds (chasing the dragon is more like being chased by a 1000 dragons here - i was offered everything from weed to coke to - in one case - “the good stuff, my friend!” - heroin). Also, I got to witness some wonderful child prostitution. There were a couple of older white men staying the guesthouse with clearly unrelated young khmer girls. Like 10 years old young. You could tell every other guest was disgusted by these men, but the owners of the guesthouse could have cared less. I’m not sure if i was scared or disgusted more, but it really made me sad inside for most of the rest of my time there.

I arrived in Siem Reap yesterday, and have been touring the temples. Absolutely amazing. Pictures do them no justice. Even the smallest ones are completely breathtaking. Every wall and surface is full of bas reliefs of scenes from Hindu and Buddhist mythology, every courtyard has a 100 buddha statues, and every statue has a monk burning incense. I never quite got how big Angkor is - Angkor wat is absolutely massive. It’s like the grand canyon - from a picture, you’d think its big, but not that big. But it’s absolutely massive. Angkor Wat itself is atleast the size of the berkeley campus, and that’s one structure and i’t’s surrounding layer of walls, all covered in statues and reliefs.

Siem Reap itself is very touristy - everything is for tourists, and the khmer who live here are mostly in bamboo huts. The government has sponsored many huge projects here for tourism, so clearly a lot of money is coming in, but very little seems to have filtered down to the local people.

I wrote this a few days ago, but for some reason it got saved as a draft. So here it goes:

Just arrived in PP last night. It’s, needless to say, quite interesting. I compared Saigon favorably to India - plenty of street life, vibrant culture, lots of people everywhere. PP is probably a better match. Arriving at night, the closest comparison would be to LA in Blade Runner - dark, lit only by cheap flourescents coming out of store fronts selling random stuff, tons of street vendors, etc. etc.. Prostitution is kind of a big deal here - I’ve been propositioned several times, including by the hotel receptionist (”your room is very big for one person, perhaps i find you friend? i have many friendly lady friends!”).

Lonely Planet keeps referencing PP as once being effectively the wild west (10 years ago or so, when UNTAC ran the country after 10 years of no government post khmer rouge). It still seems to be now. I would love to see what the city was like 10 years ago.

For example, I was asked if I wanted to go to an army base outside the city to fire an rpg (rocket propelled grenade). When I said no, that I wasn’t interested (it was $50. maybe for like $10 i’d consider it), they upped the ante by throwing in a cow I could shoot the rpg at. I don’t think they realized that was really more of a dissuader than a bonus.

My guesthouse is the oldest in the city (1991, right after the UN came in). It definitely looks it - as ifa shell hit it a couple of years ago, and guests repared the rooms as needed. I’m going to move to a different place (a converted shanty on the lake) tonight, so hopefully that will be better.

Other than that, it seems like a pleasant enough city - very vibrant. Cambodia is a very beautiful country - much less developed than Vietnam. Agriculture (esp rice paddies and banana groves / plantations) is everywhere.