Halfway Home Part I

Note: because of the accumulated backlog, I'm updating The Great Escape in two installments. This time, it's less about my travels and more about the unique country, it's problems and virtues I'm currently travelling in. The next installment will be in a couple of days. Enjoy the read!

For once, I am not to blame for the lack of updates on this weblog. Ever since I set foot in China, I haven't been able access certain websites such as youtube, facebook and even this site, blogspot. This is not a new phenomena and I'm not the only one who has this problem. I'm currently being denied access by the Chinese government thanks to the so-called “Great Firewall” a pun on that famous Chinese feat of engineering The Great Wall.


It's internet censorship and technology in it's greatest form. Not only normal websites, such as facebook.com or blogspot.com which enables your average netizen to start a blog, get blocked, but also websites the Chinese government deems offensive (such as pornography), the Chinese version of BBC, websites that belong to outlawed groups like Falong Gong and even individual search strings.

It doesn't matter if I'm on Google or Wikipedia looking for “subversive” material. For example, if I would look for Tianamen Square (Plein van de Hemelse Vrede) or Tibet or the Daila Lama, the search result will automatically get blocked.

There are ways to get around the Great Firewall. Using proxy servers, little software tools, or in my case, hopping over to “that other” China: Hong Kong. Because, even though this magnificent, former city state is nominally a part of China, it's still independent in many ways. And one is internet access. And Hong Kong is where I'm currently at.

The Chinese government calls it “monitoring and control” to safeguard the social security (whatever that means) and to keep all those evils and propaganda spawned by the Western cultural world away from the pure and innocent Chinese. For all intents and purposes, it means that China (with it's 360 million internet users) is outside “the internet” and using it's own, domestic version.


A lot of the blocked sites are renowned English digital domains, which is for the average Chinese internet user no big concern. According to some sources an astonishing amount of ten million Chinese speak English. Sounds alot? That's 0.77 percent of the total population (of 1.3 billion people – 1.3 miljard voor de Nederlanders). Everything in China's version of the internet gets replicated – in Chinese. So Google becomes Baidu, Youtube Tudou and the copycat of Facebook is Xiaonei.

This is just to show that China is big. Very big. I've spent the last month in the southwestern most province, Yunnan, and even now I've only scratched the surface of this magnificent province with it's diverse landscapes and people. And that's only one region. Travelling through Yunnan made me realize, maybe really for the first time, how big China actually is and the ridiculous amount of people that live here.

The last couple of weeks I have travelled and stayed with a Dutch friend from the old days. Together with another Dutch guy, he lives, works and enjoys himself in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan. The so-called “City of Eternal Spring” has a population of six million. That's as big as Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam. It was a great base for exploring the province.

Frank, (check his excellent Dutch blog here, and his English blog here) speaks the language, immerses himself into the culture and country and has plenty of Chinese friends. Chinese people don´t really talk about politics and I actually haven´t had any discussions about censorship or democracy. He was an invaluable help showing me the “real” China. Going south, to small cities, talking with the people from the street, going to karaoke bars and sauna's, tasting genuine Chinese food. Without him I wouldn't have had such an valuable experience.

The Chinese have a feeling that they are going somewhere for the first time in recent history. The big question is: are they going forward , to being a respected, international player, into the future or are they going to go inwards, closed off, unwilling to deal with the big, bad (Western) world, much like previous incarnations of the Chinese empires in the days of yore.

Like I said before, I am in Hong Kong staying with the family of a friend from previous travels (remember Wai from Vietnam?). Chinese New Year is just a couple of days away. It's been a while since I've been in Hong Kong, but this place is magical.
Don't worry, I'm back from the internet void. Expect Halfway Home Part II in the next couple of days.

Year's End

Lời chúc tết (Greetings from New Year!), or well, that's what the Vietnamese dictionary says. Best of wishes for 2010 to everybody who's reading this blog, back home and abroad. My time is almost up in Vietnam. I'll be leaving in a week's time, up north towards the mountains and that great big country yonder: China.


Christmas and New Year's aren't really celebrated in Vietnam. Though that's not really true. On Christmas Eve, we had a great night with colleagues and students doing “Vietnamese” stuff: a lot of drinking, cheering and eating dog. That's right, I ate a dog. Morally repulsive but by that stage my taste buds weren't objecting and didn't get tickled negatively.


The big festivities happen around Tết-holidays. For the non-Asians here, Tết is the Vietnamese equivalent of Chinese (Lunar) New Year and, depending on the lunar calendar, falls in the end of January or early February. This year it will happen on the 13th February, when I'll hopefully be in Hong Kong.


The month of December has been quite uneventful. Working took a great deal of my time. Watching the Vietnamese football team lose against Singapore in the SEA-games (Olympic Games for South-East Asia) and a couple of hours later finding all the Vietnamese celebrating their second place position by racing down the street and waving flags was quite amusing.


I grudgingly had to accept three little kittens into our house and found them violating my room, computer and bed on more than one occasion. I threatened my flatmates multiple times that I would eat one of them. But hearts and minds – and I these damn felines won over mine.


After working for almost six months I can honestly say that I enjoyed my time here – with some ups and downs. Almost everybody that I meet that lives and works in the capital of Vietnam has the same experience: the good days are great and plentiful, but the bad times suck monkey balls. Traffic starts annoying you or maybe the people. Rolling blackouts, corrupt cops or the government blocking websites (such as Facebook!). It could be the language barrier, the culture or the smog and pollution, the irresponsible behavior of some or just simple boredom.


Living in Hanoi is easy, until you want to get stuff done. Sometimes I started doubting myself: I lived in South Africa before, I have been to some difficult countries and area's of the world, why do I have troubles in Vietnam? It's safe, plenty of stuff to do, other Western people to meet and mingle with. Not all is what it seems to be.


The American magazine Business Week published a list of “Hardship Posts” in 2009: places in the world where living is difficult because of climate, crime, pollution or other things. Apart from the usual suspects (Lagos, Nigera; Jakarta, Nairobi, Mumbai) surprisingly Hanoi and Saigon also make the list ranked 11th and 9th respectively. Read the article.


So it's not all in my head. But then you have the days that the sun is shining, the people are smiling and traffic just eases along. There is so much to be found in this city, so much history. Little temples, parks or lakes tucked away behind huge hotels and apartment buildings, alleyways that lead to cozy and beautiful courtyards, crooked houses and broad tree-lined boulevards. Many times it felt I was discovering new things everyday. Like somebody once told me: this city is all about the details.

I'm going to miss Hanoi and Vietnam, I'm going to miss the friends that I made here, both tourists, expats, students and colleagues But it feels good leaving when the feeling is still good.

Thanks for the great times and a big hug to everybody!

Tourist

My time in Hanoi is slowly coming to an end. It was a good stretch but I'm starting to look forward to travel a bit again. I managed to break the monotony of working and to inject some excitement into my life, apart from the daily motorbike trip to work and back again. It was time for me to be a tourist again.


Two weeks back, together with some of my flat mates and friends, I went to a magical place called Snake Village. The purpose of Snake Village? To eat snakes of course! Now, as some of you may know, I'm not that big on food. I see it as fuel, to keep me going, and if I like something, why change? But on the other hand, I do try new things and though the idea of eating bugs, spiders or other creepy crawlers didn't really excite me, indulging myself on a snake did have a certain manly appeal.


So off we went, to Snake Village, on the outskirts of Hanoi. It's not really a village, more a neighborhood where you can find a large variety of restaurants specializing in cooking snakes. Like everywhere else in Vietnam, shops specializing in certain goods or services tend to concentrate in one area or street. Their thinking: if your shop is not on “the street” it's not good enough.


This concept is taken to the extreme though; say for instance you want to buy a alarm clock, you go to alarm clock street, you want to buy toys, go to toy street. The school where I'm teaching is located in the small water pump and generator street. You've got scrap metal alley, 24-hour food road, bamboo furniture avenue and second hand leather jacket street. This also means that sometimes you have drive for at least an hour in a heavily congested city to acquire something.

Anyway, back to Snake Village. There all the restaurants serving tasty snakes are conveniently located in a very small area. When you enter the restaurant the owner will offer you and your group a choice of several different snakes. The bigger, or more dangerous (and more endangered), the more expensive. Then, after selecting one, the owner / cook will beat the snake senseless on the ground, take a knife, cut open the snake along the belly, drain the blood and take the (beating) heart out together with some other vital organs.


Two things happen next. The blood, mixed with rice wine, is offered as a drink, the (still beating) heart and other organs such as lungs or bile have to be eaten (or drunk, in my case) raw. Different organs will bestow different powers or strengths. The rest of the snake is used in a large variety of dishes, from soup, to meatballs, a kind of fried rice dish with snake meat and spring rolls. It's amazing that they use every part of the body, nothing goes to waste. Even the scales and spine are used. Snake meat tastes a bit like chicken or beef, but a lot more “chewy”.


After Snake Village I took a couple of days off. With a slightly upset stomach I took my motorbike and drove two and half hours south to a town called Ninh Bihn. I never realized that I actually didn't venture out of Hanoi for the last least three months. Being in the countryside was a great change from the chaotic, noisy and polluted streets of Hanoi. No more sunglasses or face mask to protect my eyes and senstive lungs against exhaust fumes, dirt and other toxins.


Close by to Nihn Bihn is Tam Coc and famous for it's karst mountains. In appearance Tam Coc is very similar to Halong Bay of UNESCO Heritage fame, but instead of the mountains rising out of the sea, the sometimes bizarre formations jut out of endless fields of rice paddies. The motorbike is great to get off the beaten track and you've got a couple of great little roads snaking through the countryside. The scenery is amazing. I met a couple of cool backpackers and I spent a blissful Sunday driving around, climbing mountain tops and taking pictures.


That was two weeks ago. But, rest assured, I haven't only been a slave to my students. I also had a great time with friends and flatmates. Sadly enough a couple of friends had to leave, but not before we had a good send off.


I've got one month left of work. Afterwards I'll travel a bit through northern Vietnam before heading of to my next destination: China! That was all for today. Good luck, take care and have a great weekend!

In the City

Dark clouds are forming over the city of Hanoi. Thank god, I say! The weather has been changing ever so slightly the last couple of weeks. It's still quite warm sometimes, but the rain showers start coming more and more. It's definitely becoming more chilly; autumn is on it's way in the north of Vietnam. Apparently it gets so cold here in the winter that you have to wear a jacket. The insanity!

All is well. I moved into a new house with a couple of friends. It's across the Red River from the main city in an area called Lon Bien. You have to traverse an old, rickety railway bridge to get here. Funny enough, this bridge was designed by Eiffel - you know the guy - and is still standing to this day.


It's a completely different area where I'm living now. Every morning I wake up and it feels I'm in the countryside. Instead of the always present rumble of motorbikes and cars, the beeping and the hustle and bustle of a big city, I hear roosters, dogs, birds and the wind. From the roof terrace (yes, we have one) I look out onto of field of some kind with corn or wheat. Quite nice.


We got our little headquarters because everybody was looking for a new place to stay. The task was quite daunting: cheap, for seven people, for a short time and available immediately. But it worked (and the rent is ridiculously cheap) after a couple of days searching. That's the big advantage of living in Lon Bien: its relatively close to the city, cheap, but still not that popular to rent a house or place. Disadvantages: it's out of the way, internet is crappy and the house was very basic with no furniture or kitchen present (though not anymore).


What makes it cool is that my new flatmate's (7 in total) are all awesome people and we get along really good. Everybody is quite creative: some paint, others make music and two of the guys are into fixing up motorbikes. Some teach, other volunteer. Funny enough, everybody here has got a similar attitude to their stay in Hanoi.

For the time being living is good. In a month or two we'll see where winds of change will take me.

After Hours

Well hello there, have you been waiting long? Have no despair, it's time for another update. The sun is shining outside - instead of what you people may think, it's not only mayhem, death and chaos here in Asia. There's been a couple of earthquakes and tsunami's (in the following order: Samoa, Sumatra, Sumatra, Tonga) and one typhoon that skirted Hanoi and made landfall a good deal south, but all is peachy perfect here.


We had a little bit of rain the last couple of days, but nothing serious; no torrential downpours, or streets turned into rivers, just a little drizzle that sucks monkey balls if your driving around on a motorbike.


But life here, though mistakingly Vietnamese and interesting, is quite mundane. I go to work, teach (getting better at it, if I might say so), go back and hook up with one of the many new friends I made the last couple of weeks. One beer leads to many and before you know it you wake up again, very late into the next morning. Damn those after hours! One more day relegated from the present to the past, from an is to a was.


Now to say that I didn't have any free time would be a lie, but fair enough, I'm getting a bit complacent with the blog and taking pictures. Lugging around a big photo camera is not something I do every day. But, yes, I do go out once in a while and shoot some photographic evidence of my stay here (including drinking buddies and friends).


But life is good here. Big city, bright lights and every day there's something new to do or to see. The Vietnamese are funny people; the crazy things you see. I was thinking about doing some short "Observations of Hanoi" the next time, but I guess I can't leave you with one as a teaser:

Little human kids abound on the streets and like their grown-up counterparts they need to do their "thing" every now and then: pee and poo. But the youngest ones get a little help from their mothers in quite an unusual way (from our viewpoint of course).

When the baby needs to go for a number one, the mothers hold the kid up, at least at chest height, take their pants (or whatever) off, hold their legs apart but supporting the butt and let them pee like that. And they do this facing the street. I think they like the spectacle it presents. It's quite a sight when you round a corner walking or driving and you have a split second to dodge a little arch of yellowish liquid emanating from a kid-devil aiming at your face.


Signing off on a happy note: I have become an uncle again! My sister Janina didn't give birth to one, but to a twin, a baby boy and girl! As long as she's not going to bring the kids up the Vietnamese way, pee-ing wise, I'll be happy. ;-)

Here We Go Again

It's been a while since I last updated The Great Escape. There's no real excuse, I guess. Although I have been a bit busy. Not too much, but enough to keep me occupied. Also, there’s no real escape possible from my own duty to write a bit every once and a while. Should try to do it more often. Laziness is my favourite sin.



Anyway, good news. I found a job! Yup, that's right, as we speak, I'm working as a – drumbeat – English teacher in the beautiful capital of Vietnam, Hanoi. Have to dress up nicely everyday, go into a private language school, stand in front of a dozen or more eager, yet awfully shy Vietnamese and listen to myself speak for a hour or and a half or more. I have been doing this for a week.



It’s actually pretty good fun. Different students respond to different approaches, but one always works and that’s fear. It feels good to be feared. Just kidding. Some kids do the darnest things, but most of the time they’re pretty cool. I’m teaching different proficiency levels and to different ages. Some classes are 11-year olds that require a lot of work, others are mid twenties to thirties and quite eager to learn.



Normal questions I get are: what is aims? How do you spell probably? Where are you from? Do you have girlfriend? We talk about modal verbs, pronouns, articles, pronunciation, gerunds, some stuff I never heard of. Pretty impressive learning material. They don’t know that sometimes I don’t know what the hell I am talking about. But hey, you have to learn quick isn’t? And you can always say: how do you think you spell that word?

It's a great way to earn money. It's a fun, though tiring job – it's been a while since I was working properly, heh.



Anyway, just a quick recap of my previous travels. After slowly heading northwards, and stopping in such magical places such as Dalat, Danang and Hue, we (me and my Dutch friend Wai) arrived in Hanoi. Wai soon had to leave for back home. After a quick visit to that fantastic place called Halong Bay I checked into a cheap guesthouse and locked myself in a hotel room. Hour after hour I was busy sending out resumes, job applications and cover letters. To break monotony I went out and visited one of the many museum's around town.



Luckily an old travel friend of mine helped me battle the loneliness and boredom. Biking buddy Britton showed up after doing the same Vietnam route, only a couple of days later. Many bottles of beer Hanoi later I woke up one day with a job interview.

Unfortunately my camera hasn’t been fixed. Apparently something is seriously wrong with an internal component (prisma? prism? Vietnamese accent’s are sometimes confusing) and the friendly repairman at the official Canon repair centre tried to be helpful and suggested that when I would go back home to Ha Lan (Holland) I should try to hand it in for a replacement. Warranty only works within the country that I bought it. Though, he added joyfully, picture quality has not been affected! That’s real swell pal, but that kite is not going fly for the foreseeable future.

It does mean I can take pictures; I just have to work harder to get a photo that’s showable.



I’m busy trying to settle down here for a bit. Looking for a new place to stay, meeting new people, getting my visa sorted out. Also, I rented a cheap motorbike to get around. Hanoi is not as busy as Saigon, traffic wise, but it’s still quite a challenge sometimes. There’re no road rules, the bigger the means of transportation the more right of way you have. I’ve been taught three rules to successfully navigate the narrow and cluttered streets. One, treat traffic in Vietnam like a river: it flows around obstacles at a steady pace. Second, worry about everything you can see, in front of you and in your peripheral vision; everything that happens behind is none of your concern. And the last rule, when crossing a road or an intersection use “human shields” in the form of other motorbike drivers or cars who are doing the same thing to shield you from oncoming traffic.



Some of the pictures I uploaded are courtesy of Wai, because of the problems with my camera mentioned before. That’s all for today. Hopefully I’ll be able to upload a little bit more regularly when things have quieted down. Gotta go now, classes are waiting.

We've Gotta Get Out of This Place

Hey there kids. It's been a while since my last update. Plenty of stuff happened between then and now - most of it good, some of it not so good (but nothing terribly nasty).



First the bad news: for the immediate future there's not going to be any more nice pictures. Something went wrong along the way and messed up the camera. Too much dirt, too much cleaning and now I'm stuck with a piece of shiny and complex technology that only works when it wants to. The camera is screwed, but apparently not unrepairable. I can take it to a service centre in a couple of days.



On to the good new. I'm in Vietnam! And it's absolutely amazing. The people, the country, the vibe on the street, the tsunami of motorbikes buzzing the roads. The hectic energy in Saigon is electrifying. And the Vietnam War (it's called the American War here) is still omnipresent. But there's a whole lot more to the country than just history.



At the moment I'm travelling with a Dutch friend of mine, Wai, with whom I met up in the former capital of South Vietnam. Slowly we're making our way up north to Hanoi. But time is tight and there's so much to see. That's also one of the reasons I wasn't able to update the website sooner.



We're currently in Dalat - a delightful little town that's commonly known as the "Vietnamese Alps". For the first time in five months I'm wearing long pants, shoes, long sleeve shirt and jacket. Madness! It's nice and cool here - but unfortunately enough it rains. Alot.



Anyways, I promised myself not to make this one post too long in writing and instead focus on the little gems I managed to capture on film during the first two weeks in Vietnam. It took me an awful lot of time. Lucky me though, hotels in Vietnam are pretty modern and while I'm busy uploading the latest photographs on wifi, I just finished up downloading the Tour of Duty soundtrack, Vietnam War era old school rock and roll baby. You have to keep the atmosphere right, huh?



So tomorrow I'll be on the bus listing to that sixties classic made possible by The Animals: "We've Gotta Get Out of This Place". A golden oldie, but an ironic choice, because this is the last place at this moment where I want to get out of.

Till next time.