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‹ Previous (22/05/2009) MONTH Next (2009-07-21)› ‹ Previous (2009-05-29 - Thailand) COUNTRY Next (2009-07-03 - Vietnam)› Malaysia Perhentian islands (see on map) 23/06/2009: Alexandra was feeling too well in Cameron Highlands and was impossible to be convinced to visit the Perhentian islands, although she did not manage either to convince me to stay. So, we decide to separate for a few days and meet again in KL at the house of our friends. And, even if i missed Alexandra, the visit to the islands was worth, mainly for the sea fauna that I could observe. Each of the four days that I passed in the small island of Perhentian I rented some glasses and some feet of duck and swam for the corals of the coast, observing many goldfish, some of which of a considerable measure, as different blankets (1 meter of diameter) and different families of fish Napoleón with copies of a metre and a half, which i feared when they were showing curiousity with me and approached me. I also observed different sharks every day, some of which of 2 meters long, but only they frightened with the name, for i knew that these did not attack the human beings and on the other hand they did not show much interest with my presence. One of the days I also hired a tour to visit different coralline areas far from the beach and to see a big turtle swimming in the water. Apart from the fish that lived under the water, the island was only interesting for some great lizards that from time to time crossed calmly by the path, with some of them measuring almost two meters. But leaving the fauna aside, the island was not too interesting, besides being very expensive. I found a room of hotel shared with 8 people for 3euros, facilitating me the communication with other travellers of the island, most of whom were Englishmen (and the rest of Anglo-Saxon countries) and many youngsters, with whom it was difficult to integrate, although I maintained some interesting conversations about religions with some of them. In general they were very inexperienced travellers, many of which had been robbed in the island because they did not pay attnetion: they had forgotten the door open to the room, had fallen sleeping drunk on the beach, had gone to swim leaving the possessions on the beach... So, I passed apart from maintaining some interesting conversations quite a lot of hours by myself sweating in the bed of the hotel, following the correction of my novel and being still worried about the events of Iran, although in the island i was completely disconnected. Kuala Lumpur (see on map) 29/06/2009:
As i returned from the Perhentian islands and met again with Alexandra at the house of Zaikha and Faizal, I recovered the connection of Internet and I obsessed following the post-electoral conflict of Iran again. Men, women, youngsters and old men (among whom there could be our friends) kept dying in the pacific demonstrations of Iran, killed by snipers, to knocks of felling axe or knocked merciless. I read compulsively the depositions of people who had been arrested and the tortures that they had suffered, knocking them until they broke their bones, cutting them the fingers, drowning them in water or even raping them (men as well as women). I felt impotent, powerless to help some of the populations that have treated us best during our journey, but that live under this bloody regime. I was conscious that, parallelly to this conflict, there were many other conflicts in the world where a lot other people suffered under still worse regimes, but was completely stuck emotionally on Iran. Maybe that's why, to the same day that I arrived to Kuala Lumpur, I started to feel a headache that was increased the following days with intensity. I had to lay in bed powerless and to turn off of my mind the imagenes of the demonstrations in Tehran and the people that died shot by the basiji. Finally, on the third day, the headache was so unbearable that I decided of visiting a doctor, who prescribed some tablets for me, indicating that the cause could be in my immersions in water under 3 or 4 m in the islands Perhentian. Really, the tablets that the doctor prescribed for me made the headache disappear, and the following day I was capable of reconnecting myself to Malaysia to attend the last meeting of Couchsurfing. The previous three days different meetings had been produced, one of which in the previous night that had managed to attend about forty members of couchsurfing that were talking and drinking until the dawn. Maybe by that, many people to the meeting of yesterday was not presented, although sufficient so that it was nice. Among the assistants there was Roman, our Swiss friend with whom we expect to cross paths again, and an Iranian with whom we try to do more bearable the news that arrived from his country joking on Armadinejad and the basiji. And today in the night, with the thicket of aeroplane towards Vietnam in the pocket, we have said goodbye to Zaikha and Faizal (and their daughters Aresha and Zara) that have treated us very well during the ten days that have been housing us. Really they have made us feel at home, and it has again saddened us to say goodbye to our friends. Anyway, the four of us have expectations to meet for the third time, when they travel to Europe again or when we visit Malaysia again, which for sure we will do, for we have loved the country and its people. Vietnam Ho Chi Ming City (see on map) 03/07/2009:
There were made so many films that, inevitably, when it is named Vietnam one remembers the war that the United States played the lead against the communism. It seems a little unfair to start our story of Vietnam mentioning this war, because the country seems to have forgotten the fights and the suffering of the past, but not in a complete way. We have arrived to Ho Shi Min City (HSMC), the biggest city of Vietnam (almost 7 million inhabitants), in the south, which I identify more with its old name of Saigon. HSMC was the name that received the city, when United States abandoned the war, in honour of the big national hero Ho Shi Min; the revolutionary that founded and presided over the communist Vietnam and initiated the war against the United States. But not only the names remember the last wars, in HSMC the museum of the war is exposing the suffering of the people of Vietnam . In the museum, it surprised me to observe techniques of torture and of imprisonment very similar to those of the Khmer Rouges, wondering who copied who, if the communists the CIA or the CIA to the communists. Unfortunately, observing the photographs and reading the explanations, I also remembered the tortures and repression that recently the people of Iran are suffering, reinforcing a belief of mine, that the wars and repression are unacceptable in any place and moment. Even so, I also admit that there are wars more abominable than others, and that the one in Vietnam could be an example, where the orange agent was used by the Americans, an defoliant that devastated the jungle where the guerrillas of the Vietcong were hidden but that also incorporated some toxins that were absorbed by the human beings, provoking severe deformations to the posterior generations. These consequences are a taboo for the current society of Vietnam, but there keep being as it explained us Laura (http://goodmorningsaigon.blog.free.fr/), a French girl that worked some hours as a volunteer taking care of boys and girls with mental and physical problems caused by the orange Agent. Laura and Victor are a French couple of Couchsurfing that lodged us in their big house in HSMC. The house was a pretty building of 3 or 4 floors, but of only 2.5 or 3 meters of width, a common characteristic to the majority of homes in HSMC. There were also other elements representative of HSMC, as the great quantity of cables that there were hanged by the street, as in some places of India, but tidier and clean (or as in Bucharest, as Alex reminded). The great quantity of motorcycles that circulated through the streets, which we had to keep avoiding if we wanted to pass to the other side, was also surprising. Also i was amused to observe most of the restaurants and bars having some minuscule seats and tables, equal to those for small children in the kindergarten, although they did not stop being comfortable. On the other hand, Vietnam keeps being a communist country, although it seems completely dominated by the capitalism, in fact, it has not changed only the nonexistence of democracy and the freedom of politic parties, individual or of association. During the four days that we spent in HSMC, it has rained quite a lot, remembering that we were in full rainy season, a season that fortunately we have kept avoiding in the majority of countries visited during these 3 years. Even so, the rain has not prevented us from going out with Laura and Victor to eat in different delicious and economic restaurants and to visit some of the monuments of HSMC, which includes some colonial buildings and different Pagodas or Chinese temples. Visiting the temples I reflected with the fascination that the religions produce me, although already does time that i stopped believing in God and in the dogmatic truths, and perhaps because of that they surprise me that in spite of their falseness they continue being a big fountain of inspiration for millions of people, which keep dedicating time, money and faith. Hoi An (see on map) 05/07/2009:
From HSMC we caught a nocturnal train to the North, sleeping comfortably in two beds in a shared compartment with a family that had two very noisy children. The day after at noon we arrive in Danang from where we caught a bus towards Hoi An, a pretty small town on the edge of the river Thu Bo. Hoi An is a town with narrow streets and with an architecture influenced by the Chinese, Japanese and European, due to the importance of the town as a trading port during the 16th centuries and XVII. This old charm of Hoi An, has faded away a little with the great quantity of tourists that strolls through the town and who has contributed towards changing its physiognomy, each house has converted into a tailor's shop, or a restaurant, hotel, shop of food, or exhibitions. Anyway, some of the former pagodas, which as always are interesting to visit, are still preserved. On the other hand, there were also some trades with quite a lot of charm, preserving old craft traditions of the town: creating lamps of clothe, paintings with thread of different colours and sewing nice dresses of European and oriental style. And it was the great quantity of tailor's shops that it made Alex decide to make a very pretty dress of pastel tonality that she will use for the first time at the beginning of the next year, when we have intention of getting married. Today, the second day of walking through the town, we met David casually, a Spanish traveller that after a few months on the road is also catching the taste of travelling and starts to study the possibility to continue with this type of life. Together we continued walking through the town and through the market, the most authentic part, where almost all the saleswoman women and buyers wore a hat of straw of Chinese style. There we also observed how in some places they ate eggs boiled with the chickens inside (right some days before appearing), a traditional food in Philippines according to David. Unfortunately, walking through the market we also we realised that two or three times we had to drink to a price more expensive than other places, because we were tourists. Even so, we did not become annoyed, because the price continued being economic and the deceit was not as exaggerated as in India; or with the Vietnamese it was simply more bearable. Hue (see on map) 08/07/2009:
The stretch by train from Danang to Hue was very pretty, with the line flanking the coast cut through different luxuriant and arrogant mountains. The landscape was charming, but it surprised the fascination that the Vietnamese of the train showed, getting up from their seats to contemplate the marvels of their country. Many times, the landscape was favoured by the nonexistence of trees that allowed some excellent sights. Unfortunately, i sensed that the ground floors, some of which they seemed to wrap old trunks of tree, were not originally of the area and that they only prospered when the forest disappeared under the effects of the awful orange agent. The hotels in Hue are far a little from the train station and we left ourselves convinced by a taxi driver to take us freely to a cheap hotel. Naturally we went to the hotel that the taxi driver recommended us, but the receptionist showed us an incredible room for only 120.000 dongs (7 $) and we decide to stay. The room was big, with balcony and windows, air-conditioned, fridge... It was the best hotel room where we had been and Alexandra decided to keep the following two days resting while I visited the city. But today at night, when going to pay the three nights the girl from the reception told me that the price was of 12 $ instead of the 120.000 dongs that I had understood, and the conflict has broken out. Sincerely, I do not know whether the girl tricked me with the price or I got it wrong, in any case, those of the hotel had wined because they had our passports. Finally, after quite a lot of discussion, we have decided to pay the two nights for 12 $ and to leave to look for another room of hotel for tonight, that we have found for 5 $, a too expensive price taking into account that it was one of the worst rooms where we have slept. In any case, leaving the adventures of the hotel aside, Hue is a very interesting city. Among the different attractions of the city there is a big imperial enclosure that was strongly bombarded by the Americans but that still preserves interesting pavilions and temples. Hue also account with different real tombs (which I did not visit), different Pagodas and a covered bridge that I have visited today pedalling with bicycle among different plantations of rice. During the early visit to one of the pagodas or Buddhist temples, I had the chance of attending to a long ceremony celebrated before eating, with edges, touches of gong and stone, veneration of the bowls of rice, silence... The monks were seated in the table dressing yellow tunics, the youngest were standing dressing grey tunics, and parallel to the celebration different, older women dressed in grey did genuflections. No one condemn me with the look for my presence, simply they smiled at me while they continued with that ceremony that was so special that probably was celebrated every day. It was in another temple where I had the opportunity of talking with a young monk, dressed in grey and with the head shaved except for a long lock of hair, that was falling on the forehead. The boy was called Dat and was 14 years old, explaining to me that it has been two years that he has been in the monastery, together with 30 more boys of his age. It seemed that he was feeling very well there, touching the gong when the tourists entered the temple or when the faithful ones folded and adored the images of Budha. Ha Noi (see on map) 17/07/2009:
We arrive to Hanoi on Thursday night, after a long journey by train from Hue.From the train station we caught a taxi towards the house from a couple of Romanians from Couchsurfing that Alexandra knew, where we arrive after the taxi driver made a big turn overcharging us more of the double of the normal price. But the evil humour was passed immediately when we met Sebas and Mona, which received us with a hospitality worthy to enter in the Guinness book of the good hospitality -in the same way that the previous couples that have kept lodging us-, even if they commented simply that they had opened us the door of their home. But they left it well opened, because immediately we felt as at home again, especially Alexandra that remained home many times; except for the last Friday, the following day of our arrival, that we went to the embassy of India together to make the visa. The following days that we had to return to the embassy (to pay and to collect the visa) I had to go alone, a great luck for Alexandra because both days was raining very much. The worst day was Monday, when without too much time i was pressed to find some place where they sold me dollars (in the India embassy they do not accept Vietnamese currency, which it is difficult to change for dollars) and the raincoat that i took was insufficient to isolate me from the rain. It rain so much, that the road was flooded one or two palms, through which I had to walk, leaving the collapsed traffic and me more soaked than a duck. Alexandrawas well frightened when I arrived home with the bus. Evidently, we were crossing Vietnam on one of the worst months, in full period of rains; in any case, as i had written previously we cannot complain, because until now we had travelled for half of the world always avoiding the rains. On the other hand, I could not complain either, because despite raining almost all the days, I could discover the city of Hanoi during two days without getting too wet. Hanoi is the second city most populated of Vietnam, after Ho Chi Min City, asset of the Vietnam since the 10th century, except for the 19th century that remained eclipsed in a temporary way for Hue, that the Frenchmen returned to it as the capital, which was kept by the communists. The first day of visit to Hanoi I started to walk from the market of Dong Xuan that mainly sold fabrics. Afterwards I kept walking a completely European vision towards the south for narrow alleys with pagodas protected themselves by buildings of French architecture, up to the cathedral of San José, of Gothic style, if it were not for the Christian vietnameses that visited it i would not have visited it. Next I walked on Hoan Kiem, where there is another pagoda in the centre and up to the park of Lenin, for the side of the lake where there is a big lake and hundreds of Vietnamese are doing sport: running, playing badminton, volleyball with the feet and aeróbic, a habit similar to all the other countries of the southeast Asia, where the girls and women do not seem to have any shame of showing their movements in front of the passers-by that admire them. The second day I visited the temple of the literature (entering for a lateral door without paying...), the first university of Vietnam established in 1070 and composed of different temples, classrooms and different ranks of gigantic turtles of stone that load a tombstone with the names of all the pupils that passed through the university and received a doctorate. Next I walked towards the north up to the mausoleum of Ho Chi Ming that was closed and the pagoda of a pillar that, as its name indicates it is supported by only one pillar erected next to a small lake. I also had a lot of luck that it did not rain during the tour of a day to Halong Bay, one of the icons of Vietnam, a place protected by the Unesco that is nominated as one of the 7 natural marvels of the world. And the sentence probably is worthed, although I only had a very small tasting, visiting a couple of caves and surrounding only one of the 775 islands that form the bay of the falling dragon (the translation from Halong Bay). Anyway, in spite of my short visit on board one of the 500 boats destined to load tourists, I enjoyed a lot imagining me sailing alone among these hundreds of islands of rocks sheer and covered of vegetation, which had its historical importance in some naval battles that maintained Vietnam protected from China. Separately from visiting different monuments and getting wet, i also relax and celebrated my anniversary (37 years, my third anniversary out of home), we also make use of our stay in Hanoi at the house of Sebas and Mona to play an interesting table game and to keep conversations, about Vietnam, Romanía and the life in general. Sebas and Mona told us that in Vietnam, when an owner rents a flat to a foreigner, this has to declare it to the police and to pay some higher rates. Also the costs of the water and the electricity are more high for the foreigners. This is the reason that the costs of the flats of rent in Vietnam for the foreigners are much more expensive than for the houses and to some prices that approach to those of Europe. From this information, I did not find it strange any longer that the Vietnamese want for us to always pay a special price of foreigner for the food and that often they try to cheat. Another day, we were also with Sebas and Mona to a farewell party of a Swiss girl that returns home after two years working in Vietnam. At the party I conversed with a French guy that was 2 years since he came to work in Vietnam. I asked him whether there was communism in Vietnam and the control of the society and he answered me that the economics of Vietnam is based on the capitalism, however, the politic totally is based on the communism (there are spies, complaints, denounces...). For example, he received a book by mail and when he went to collect it, the police confiscated from him and he put a fine for him because the book was forbidden in Vietnam as being anticommunism. Sapa (see on map) 19/07/2009:
Sapa is a place lost among the mountains of the north of Vietnam recommended in all the travel guides (and recommended by all the travellers who have been there). Even though it does not seem like it, Sapa is not a place discovered recently by the mild climate that has, because the Frenchmen already started to settle there from the beginning of the 20th century, in comparison with in the rest of Vietnam. Anyway, the almost 200 colonial buildings that the Frenchmen built in Sapa were destroyed during the war among the Frenchmen and the Vietnamese communists. Since then, Sapa remained forgotten up to 1993, when the Vietnamese government opened the doors to the tourism, local as well as international. In fact, 80 or 90 per cent of the tourism that we observed in Sapa was Vietnamese and that meant a problem to us, because with difficulties we found ticket of train for Friday night, from Hanoi to Lao Cai ( near Sapa and on the China border). The only available thicket was of hard seat, and really was hard, because the seats were in fact wood with a completely vertical back. Alexandra made a scandal, but could not do anything more than accept the situation and try to sleep minimally, very minimally. We arrived in the morning very tired, but in Sapa we found another problem that the weekend caused by the great quantity of Vietnamese that visit the town: there were no free rooms of hotel and those that there were were very expensive. Finally we found one for 12 euros and we locked ourselves to take a good nap. Anyway, I put on the alarm clock mid-afternoon and with many efforts I woke up to go through the surroundings of Sapa to do a hike, going down through a path surrounded with fields of rice and some of corn. More rested, today in the morning i have returned to do another hike, this much wilder, going down for margins, fields of rice and channels in order to prevent from paying the ticket that was charged to walk through the paths. But the adventure has been worth and, although at times i was muddy up to the ankles and with the ass well dirty, i did not stop repeating that there were people that paid a lot of money to be in critical situations as mine. In any case, the amusement was not in the mud, but in the landscape that surrounded me: tens of terraces of rice that went down one under the other over the pending of the mountains, as if it were a magical map in relief that showed its contour curves. On the other hand, during my descent I found myself different houses lived by barking dogs and boys and girls of the tribe of H'mong, that were, much more timid that the other ones that strolled through the town of Sapa trying to sell souvenirs. After rising through a more decent path, I showered in the hotel and we were about to go. Really Sapa deserved a much longer stay, but we had decided some days ago to do the following two thousand kilometres much more quickly to be able to view the total eclipse of sun that shortly would cross the North of India and the centre of China. Evidently we would lose ourselves some places of interest in the path, but in exchange we would have opportunity of experiencing these strange four minutes of darkness under the light of the sun. Perhaps it is an a little absurd sacrifice, but after knowing that many European tourists will visit China simply to observe the eclipse, I have thought that I also have right to a little absurdity. China Kunming (see on map) 21/07/2009:
Formerly there was a train from Hanoi (Vietnam) to Kunming (China) built by the Frenchmen at the beginning of the 20th century, but the line broke down some years ago and the Chinese authorities have not fixed it again. So, after crossing the Chinese border (we needed half an hour to cross it because it was hot and the officers said that we had fever and that we could have the flu) we had to buy a bus thicket with beds. The day after, in the morning we arrived to Kunming where we met with George and where we had to meet also another boy from Couchsufing that had to lodge us, but this boy did not send us the address of his home and tired to carry the bags, we decided to take a room in a hotel. When finally the boy sent us his address after three hours we answered him that it was not necessary any longer and the boy wrote to us again a message full of insults. Perhaps we had luck of not being hosted by him... However, we had a lot of luck of meeting with George, a Chinese of almost 50 years of age but of very young spirit that offered to show us the city. Although it was rainy, George took us to walk through a park, where there were some groups of men and women protected under different roofs that sang and danced happily in front of the sight of the fascinated passers-by. At the end of the park there was a pretty tea house where we stopped. The simple tea was not too economic, although there were other teas (of a year, two, three...) still more expensive. As for these more expensive teas, George told us that there are people who notice the difference in the taste of the tea, and others that only notice the difference in the price. In any case, our tea was very good, with a very long-lasting taste, because every time that a little water emptied a girl was in charge of filling the cup again, so we ended up going twice to the toilet. And this was another memorable experience, because these were totally open, being able to observe even the bottom of the men who were shitting. When I returned and commented this to George, he found it normal, explaining that since small, as there was no communal hot water, all the people were bathing together and naked (separated by gender). During the conversation with George, he explained to us that Kunming is the capital of the province of Yunnan, a province with many minorities, and the one that has the greatest diversity of plants of China, being called the kingdom of the diversity or of the plants. In the same way, Kunming also has a nickname assigned by its mild climate favoured by the 1900metres on the sea level of the city, the "city of the eternal spring". At personal level, George explained to us that he had converted to the Christianity when he emigrated to the States, where he had remained 20 years. He explained to us that in China there are churches of controlled by the government, and familiar churches, in theory forbidden although the government does not ban them any longer. He explained to us that in China many people convert to Christianity, a very new religion, because China is a continental country that has always remained isolated in a cultural way. On the other hand, he also told us that at present in China there is more freedom and that the government is less oppressive; also the media are more open, with less difference between the news that arrives from out of China and the ones produced in the country. Talking on the economics, George explained that the Chinese are very hard working, always wanting to gain more money; this characteristic together with a strong political system, has allowed the economics of China to grow so much. In fact, economically, China is more capitalist than the United States and that provides new problems, for the increase of wealth provokes an increase of the price of the manpower, with many Chinese factories that move to Vietnam where it is more economic to produce. Meanwhile, in China, the people have to get used to looking for work if one does not want to extend the lists of unemployment (the state provided work before for all the people). On the other hand, the secondary school, the university and the health, have stopped being free for everybody, I find it very curious that Europe has better welfare than the communist countries. ‹ Previous (22/05/2009) MONTH Next (2009-07-21)› ‹ Previous (2009-05-29 - Thailand) COUNTRY Next (2009-07-03 - Vietnam)› |
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