Sinterklaas is jarig

December 05, 2009 • Blog

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World » Zambia » Lusaka » Dutch ambassador’s residence

Sinterklaas even manages to find time to visit Lusaka on his hectic schedule. Niamh and I dropped by at the Dutch ambassador's residence in Lusaka to appreciate the arrival of the Sint, together with a few Zwarte Pieten. Drinks and typical snacks associated with the Sint's birthday were on hand.

Sinterklaas is considered to be the source of the concept of Santa Claus and is based on Saint Nicholas who lived in the 3rd and 4th centuries.

The holiday is not just limited to being celebrated in The Netherlands. It is also celebrated, though to a much lesser degree, in the traditionally Germanic parts of France, as well as in Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and small parts of Italy.

Bloody Iranians

December 02, 2009 • Blog

World » Zambia » Kafue » CIDRZ office

On December 10 at 10:30am, a court hearing is scheduled at the Palace of Justice in The Hague. The case which will be dealt with in court was brought by the “actiegroep Iraanse studenten”, a group of Iranian students in the Netherlands, against the Dutch government. The issue at hand is that since July 2008, the Dutch government has banned Iranian citizens from parts of certain university graduate programs, mostly involving nuclear or rocket propulsion studies.

This edict is not only extremely stigmatizing, it’s also ridiculous and pointless. Obviously, it’s also discriminatory.

Here are some of the locations and studies off limits to Iranians in the Netherlands.

+ The nuclear research reactor in Delft.
+ Masters degree in chemistry and physics related to studying subjects related to developing rocket fuels.
+ Masters degree in aeronautical engineering related to the study of rocket propulsion systems.

Professor Ashley Terlouw (Dutch politician Jan Terlouw has a daughter called Ashley, but I could not confirm it’s the same person), who became ‘hoogleraar’ (professor) at the Radbout University in Nijmegen in September this year, researched and presented a paper with her acceptance of her position, on fear and legislation (“angst en regelgeving”), related to the distinction the Dutch government makes on the basis of nationality, decent and religion, focusing on the sanctions against Iranian citizens mentioned above.

She found that “the study of the Sanction Regulation has not only shown that the legislator has in this case answered the question of effectiveness instrumentally, but also that the instrumental approach does not satisfy”.
Terlouw goes on to say that “the responsible ministers have ignored the stigmatising and other effects the sanction regulation has for Iranian citizens in the Netherlands and its inkblot effect towards other employers and organisations” and that “the effects of the regulation are probably also determined by the general political climate in the Netherlands, the many discussions in the media and politics on migrants, Muslims, Islam and the government’s use of the term allochthonous people for large categories of Dutch people”.

The word ‘allochthonous’ might need some explanation. In Dutch, the word ‘allochtoon’ refers to a Dutchie who was born abroad or of whom at least one of the parents was born abroad. I’m allochthonous, as will be my children. Indeed, the Dutch queen and the future King and Queen of the Netherlands are all allochthonous.
The result is that, generally, there’s a distinction between allochthonous people from the west and elsewhere, though Indonesians and Japanese are grouped together with the westerners (how’s that for logic?).

The problems with the sanction relate to the implicit consequences. Terlouw: “Because the Dutch government has made regulations aimed at citizens having the nationality of an Islamic country, this probably does feed the fear of Muslims; it gives a signal that all Muslims have terrorist aspirations.”
Terlouw defines the sanction as an example of irrational regulation: “Regulation on the basis of fear will – if this fear is not analysed and dissected into elements that can be reduced to real danger on the one hand and irrational feelings on the other hand – only be effective by accident and the chance of undesired side-effects is great.” with the crux of her research being that “categorically excluding Iranian students and scientists from certain fields of science and locations could be effective by accident, but it is not proportional and there are alternatives that result in no or less distinction”.

The obvious danger of a sanction such as this is the sliding scale which has been deployed to support a regulation which is dubious to begin with. Terlouw: “Fearful people are inclined to regard […] persons with another nationality, origin or religion as the source of […] danger. Complying regulation strengthens this effect. The results of the research of the [sanction] show that when the government lays down rules on the basis of nationality and origin, there is a risk that also other organisations than the government and the norm addressants will regard those involved as a dangerous group and treat them as such, also outside the bounds of the specific regulation. Moreover, among the members of the groups involved, such rules result in fear and uncertainty about their own identity and position and in loss of confidence in the government.” (My emphasis.)

Of course, I’m more attentive to this issue because it affects me personally. As Terlouw points out, it’s easy to suspect that I’m not to be trusted by and am stigmatized by definition. Perhaps, some day soon, Iranians, or those considered to be Iranian, will have to sow a green patch on their jackets for them to be allowed out on the street, only having access to certain shops to buy their goods.
Hell, why not start the pogroms now?

If you want to attend the court case, you are required to be present at least 30 minutes before the start of the session and should be able to present a valid ID card.

Hot springs, a country estate, kingdom halls and YUCCs

November 28, 2009 • Blog

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World » Zambia » Shiwa Ngandu

You have to entertain yourself in a country like Zambia which, to my knowledge, only has one (working?) cinema. And that, at the fairly recently built Arcades mall.
Last Thursday was Thanksgiving and because Niamh's salary is paid by those pesky Americans, she was given a long weekend off. The result was that we rented a car together with housemates Cheryl and Jessica and drove north to Shiwa Ngandu, some 700 kilometers north east of Lusaka.

Shiwa, built in the 1920s by the only whitey ever to receive a state funeral in Zambia, is a fairly typical, but now rather rundown, English country estate, currently run by one of the creator's grandsons. It's possible to stay in the house for a mere 400 USD per night, per person. The creator, Stewart Gore-Browne, fell in love with the country after working on the Anglo-Belgian Boundary Commission determining the border between Rhodesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And, though wealthy, not nearly wealthy enough to set up a similar estate in Britain, opted for the 10.000 acres at the price of six pence per acre in, what was then, Northern Rhodesia.
Gore-Browne started working in the house in the 1920s, employing hundreds of laborers, to make almost everything on the spot, then some 400 kilometers away from the nearest railway, only for the house to be considered finished in the late 1950s. The estate had its own schools, hospitals, playing fields, shops, and post office while workers lived in now fairly dilapidated brick-built cottages. The estate was ruled as a benevolent autocracy, by the man whom the locals endowed with the nickname 'Chipembere' meaning 'rhinoceros', after Gore-Browne's ferocious temper. Also very formal, he always wore black tie for dinner, at a table set with family plate and silver, whether he had guests or not.

After Gore-Browne's death in 1967, his daughter and her husband took over the management of the estate, only to be murdered by ANC members in exile in 1991. Now, the area is maintained by their children.

If the rather steep accommodation rate for one of the building's four rooms is a bit too much, you can stay at the nearby hot springs, for 50 USD per person per night, if you bring your own food, which then will be prepared by the owner's staff. Although we were interested to stay at the springs and made it that far, our pilgrimage only saw us take a dip in the hot springs.

Our first night was spent at the street-as-a-town, surrounded by lovely hills, that is Serenje, where a former Peace Corps volunteer called Steve runs a lovely little lodge with pretty little rooms at 200.000 per night, just under 30 euros. The attached restaurant serves the fair typical for Zambia outside of the capital: chips or nshima (sadza, pap, ugali, xima) with either chicken, t-bone or pork, and would be helped by a little bit of diversity.
Still, the meal we enjoyed with the friendly and talkative Steve was the best we had during our four days out, the runner up being a meal at CIMS, a restaurant which tried to pretend it was a diner in the hole that is Mpika, some two hours south of Shiwa, where it was also only cips or nshima with either chicken, t-bone or pork, even though the menu was roughly ten times as long.
On our second night in Mpika, the girls insisted on eating somewhere else, which ended up happening at Twins restaurant and decent guesthouse, where we ended up having the most horrible fries, pie and scotch egg. Imagine the worst fries you've ever eaten, then make it many times as bad. Now that, compared to what we had, would be rather decent.

Also, don't think that the few and far between gas stations here have supermarkets attached to them for your basic shopping needs. That is to say, some do, particularly in Lusaka, but out of town, on our route, the last one which actually sported a small shop was on the edge of Kapiri Mposhi, just two hours north of Lusaka, still five to six hours from Mpika.
In other words, if you can't enjoy what might just be the planet's worst cuisine, Zambia outside of Lusaka will make you rather miserable.

What's surprising is that Mark, the manager of the hot springs near Shiwa, agreed that the country is so fertile that you only have to bury a stick in the ground for it to grow. As a result, he grows his own veggies for his customers, some 4000 per year, including a host of exotic ones, meaning he only needs to go down to Lusaka for serious shopping, at one of the Shoprites, proper supermarkets, once every six months.
Indeed, for stocking up on essentials, he needs to drive some 9 hours each way. The nearest Shoprite, 'only' some three hours away, mostly stocks expired goods, apparently.

The road to Shiwa is grated, a reasonably well maintained dirt road. From Shiwa to the springs, the road is in significantly worse condition. The night of our arrival in Mpika, we considered continuing to Shiwa, but were stopped by the heavy storms we could see up north as well as the fact that it would have meant driving the dirt road in the dark.
The next day, after visiting Shiwa and driving on to the springs, part of the road was utterly impassable, where we had to take a detour through a freshly made track, straight through the woods. And that in our low to the ground Toyota Raum. Then, after lounging at the springs where we were treated to an actual percolated coffee, driving back and going through the detour again, our path was blocked by a small truck stuck in the mud. A bit of a challenge, as it had also started to rain, slowly making the remainder of the dirt road impassable.
We ended up trying to push the truck out of the way, at no avail, before we took one of the truck's passengers with us to Shiwa, where it was his intention to arrange for a truck or tractor to pull them out.

On our second day, we visited the enjoyable Kundalila falls as well as the Nsalu cave, with San paintings. The cave, quite a bit off the main road and only accessible through rather challenging backroads, isn't really worth it. The falls are nice enough and easy enough to reach.

Kingdom halls and police checks

Proselytizing has always been a popular pastime in Africa. On our drive south from Mpika to Lusaka, the Kingdom Halls of Jehova's Witnesses outnumbered medical clinics by a factor of about 3 to 1. We counted.
We also spotted over 30 broken down trucks.

We worked our way through a mere 25 police checks or so.

YUCCs

Last week, working out at my local gym, City Health and Fitness, I enjoyed a workout in the afternoon, instead of the early evening. Over a dozen rather skinny but reasonably hot, because still curvy and also quite hip, black, what seemed to be, models, were bored but working out, at least to some extent, making themselves even prettier and more hip, discussing topics like facial cream and New Moon.
The YUCCs, Young Urban Cute Chickies, seemed to be South African, judging from attitude and accent.

Free articles

Everyone with half a desire to have a popular blog is always on the lookout for free content. Not just widgets or buttons which appear in sidebars, but also actual articles related to the target audience of your website.
In the past, content was regularly recycled ad verbatim, but the copycat sniffing qualities of Google's search engine have mostly done away with this practice.

Comes in Article Alley, where you can find free articles for your own blog. They have a dedicated and quite extensive travel section with fresh content being added fairly regularly.

I'm not one for including other people's article on my site, but with my website's bias towards travel, I was curious as to what could be obtained from the site. Search results for Johannesburg return quite a few articles, with several actually quite decent as background articles and, in my opinion useful, rather neutral in tone. Copying the articles for use on your own site is surprisingly straightforward, though it isn't too clear to what extent you're expected to disclose the source or whether it's allowed to lift just bits from the articles.
Likewise, articles featuring Chiang Mai aren't nearly as few or bad as I feared and though, as said, I wouldn't be interested in copying whole articles, they can easily serve as a tool for writing your own articles. If only disclosing sources is enough for using the articles on Article Alley, the website could be a very practical tool for writing about subjects employing a tone which is slightly more personal than information obtained from sources like Wikedia.

So I put the service to the test and searched for Shiwa Ngandu, Mpika and Lusaka, but with less success. Only Lusaka returned something, and only one article at that. Though a bit generic, it's also not too bad and in itself usable as an article serving background on the city.
However, as I mentioned at the beginning, recycling content isn't appreciated by Google, making me wonder how effective a service like Article Alley can be.

We wuz skimmed!

November 13, 2009 • Blog

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World » Zambia » Siavonga » Lake Safari Lodge

Checking my online bank statements yesterday, I found that some asshole had stolen close to 2000 euros from my bank account. Apparently, somewhere, my bank card was skimmed, my PIN code reverse engineered and, on November 7 and 8, a total of 8 cash withdrawals from an ATM in, of all places, Saint Petersburg, Russia, saw me almost 2000 euros lighter.
I was surprised that the four transactions on November 7, all made within 3 minutes, didn't set any alarm bells ringing at my bank, the ABNAMRO. More so as the next day, also within minutes, another four transactions withdraw the same amount of cash. I've had the occasional follow up, by phone, after using my credit card in odd places or with companies considered dubious, even when those amounts were small. Withdrawing 2000 euros in two days, after having withdrawn money a few days before and a few days after in Zambia, thousands of kilometers away, seems to be business as usual for my bank.

Of course, the online contact form didn't work, so I had to call them. The 0900 number only works when calling from within Holland and the international access number doesn't accept Skype calls. So, I had no real choice but to call them on my cellphone. At 2 euros per minute, for 20 minutes.
I've been told I'll get my money back, though this could take months.
I was also asked to get a police statement. Trying to explain, on the phone, that that would be pointless, and very unlikely to be successful, did not work. And, indeed, visiting a police station this morning, patiently explaining the situation, I was told to go to the country's Interpol office.

Siavonga

Niamh and I spent the weekend in quiet Siavonga, right on Kariba lake, close to the dam wall. Buffet dinners at Lake Safari Lodge were reasonable; the cheese platters afterwards, unlimited classy cheeses, were spectacular. The price tag, for dinner, of 80000 Kwacha, just under 12 euros, made it quite worth it. A pity the lunches didn't come with the cheese.

From Lusaka to Kafue… and back

November 04, 2009 • Blog

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World » Zambia » Lusaka » CIDRZ residence

In Holland, I jumped through the hoops to get a 3 month double entry visa for Zambia from the country’s embassy in Brussels. Arriving at the airport in Lusaka, immigration still told me to report at one of the immigration offices after one month. Sure, I did not have to pay the 50 dollar fee at the border, but that was all I got for the 140 euros I spent on getting the visa from Brussels, which was supposed to give me a significantly easier time here. Admitted, I got a double entry visa, which would have cost me 50 dollars, twice, at the border, totaling 67 euros. However, my expense was just over twice that.
In short: There is absolutely no point in getting a Zambian visa from a Zambian embassy.

Over the last few months, when asked, I’ve been telling people that Lusaka is comparable to Nelspruit. Most of the South African fast food chains are present, while significant amounts of tourist travel through. In Nelspruit on their way to Kruger, here on their way to Vic Falls, or any of the country’s national parks.
Not so; Lusaka is significantly less worldly. Yes, quite a few of the chains are here and there are a few malls, even, but there is very little to keep one busy, resulting in any excuse being good enough for a party (which I like, no problems there). And internet access is expensive and very mediocre. There’s no 3G, though GPRS is available, at 15 euros per 100MB. In South Africa, where internet access is also expensive, data on 3G goes for 2GB at 40 euros, making Zambia about 7 times more expensive than South Africa for mobile data access. With T-Mobile currently offering unlimited mobile data access at 20 euros per month, in Holland, the digital divide is, clearly, still quite an issue.

But, hey, I’m not here for the internet, now am I?

Partay

Saturday saw a big Halloween party at the house, following a nice hash with the local hash troupe. All the girls at the house, five of them, went as euphemisms for vaginas, clams, velcro triangle, tongue magnet, pussy, meat taco. I went as a village person (think ‘YMCA’). Lots, lots of fun, while no one even ended up in the pool. Well, not naked anyway.

And to keep the spirit, Niamh and I are heading out of town the coming weekend as well. At day temperatures of 40 degrees or more, you got to keep moving to feel a breeze, now down’t you?

Kafue

In Kafue, some 60 kms out of Lusaka, where Niamh is based for three days of the week, running water isn’t always available and electricity occasionally drops. At least the cockroaches are almost funny small.
I wouldn’t have thought I’d think of driving back to Lusaka as getting back to civilization.

Jo’burg, Cape Town and finally…

October 29, 2009 • Blog

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World » Zambia » Lusaka » CIDRZ residence

With Christo having moved to the Czech republic and Stevan on a training in Maputo, there was little to occupy me in Johannesburg. Instead, I tried to get back on track with tasks left unattended over the previous few weeks.
Not easy, with a Vodacom 3G connection which is as crappy as it was six months earlier. Lack of 3G, too often only having access to GPRS, connections dropping or inconsistent at best and dead zones. And that at a mere 20 euros per Gigabyte of data transfer. In the end, I ran through 2GB in just one week.

The hostel I'm staying in, Purple Palms, now up for sale, is surprisingly enjoyable. In fact, probably the second most enjoyable guesthouse I've stayed at in Johannesburg, after a bed and breakfast in Melville. Their review page on Tripadvisor doesn't look to promising. The only 'excellent' review clearly comes from the hostel's owner and the other reviews aren't very positive
However, the self catering lodge is nice, quiet and mellow. No obnoxious backpackers, even though the place is a stop on the Baz Bus and it's fairly close to the airport, meaning it's convenient for those only staying one or two days.
Also, there are at least four adulterers staying at the hostel! On top of the that, the guy driving me to the airport on my last day at some point needed my agreement on the fact that so many of the girls we were passing were so good. And, he said, in Africa, they are all so cheap and easy. "Just talk with them for twenty minutes and they will go with you to fuck fuck, fuck." Well. "Are they cheap in your country?" he asked. Then, to top things off, he, a married man, went on to tell me, in expansive detail, how, recently, he had picked up two girls with a friend and how they had locked themselves up in a room and went at it.

In Cape Town, I hooked up with Ismail, who was so kind as to let me stay with him in his lovely house in the Bo Kaap. I managed to squeeze in a hash, bringing back Pussy Galore Shagwell to join myself, Ismail and several of his friends in La Perla, in Seapoint, where Shagwell and Snail had a pleasant moment together.

Later, I managed to get myself a Gatsby, interestingly enough from the exact same joint I got a Gatsby from five years ago.

Finally taking the last leg of my crabwalk to Zambia, groping cuddling Niamh to my heart's content, I grabbed my luggage from the conveyor belt to find that, again, something was stolen from my bag. To do this, they had to unstrap my backpack, unfasten the elastic rope closing the top, take out the toiletries bag, open said bag, rummage around and steal the expensive eau de toilette in it, leaving the cheap eau de toilette.
To compensate, or perhaps to underline the situation, the smell of woodsmoke as I stepped off the plane made it clear I had truly arrived back in Arica.

I like Kiev in October, how about you?

October 19, 2009 • Blog

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World » Ukraine » Kiev » Independence Square

Walking out of the terminal at Boryspil airport, I was welcomed by that typical Eastern European crisp autumn freshness and I felt at home immediately. The fact that it was the end of the day, the sky was overcast and a drizzle hung in the air, made the gloominess more typical of Eastern Europe of yesteryear than it did of 2009.
Later, when exploring Kiev, which Boryspil services, I had many a deja vu of Budapest, and specifically the Budapest of 1996/7 or even earlier, when I worked on my thesis there. The architecture is comparable, though perhaps Kiev’s is even more grand, and the feel of the city is still a bit exotic, with its inhabitants still seemingly having an attitude which is less European than what can now be found in most former Eastern Bloc countries. Most countries of which, of course, now are simply part of the European Union.

A few weeks back, after I had booked my recent trip to Budapest, the KLM notified me that I was going to lose my airmiles if I wasn’t going to use them. Not wanting to spend them all, I shopped around for a discount destination. A few were available, but only Kiev saw me go to a country in Europe I hadn’t been to before. As I had to throw this trip in during my short stay in Holland, I was only going to be able to fit in a long weekend, at best, meaning that I would have no choice to come back some other time, to see Odessa, Lviv and anything else which might strike my fancy.
What I did need to visit was Chernobyl, which can now be toured on daily organized trips at an unreasonable high price. The concrete hull around reactor 4 isn’t too special, if not imposing; the appeal of the tour is a visit to the village of Pripyat, the town closest to the infamous reactors, which, obviously, has been completely abandoned, though the town’s swimming pool was in use by current employees up to as late as 1998.

I stayed at one of the branches of the enjoyable Independence hostel, close to the city’s main focal point, Independence Square, which struck me as a unimaginative copy of the square, next to Okhovaya ulitsa, close to Red Square in Moscow, both having fountains and monuments on ground level and sizable shopping malls underneath.
Artur, who’s real name is Abdul and who is in fact an Arab from the Emirates, runs several hostels. The day before my departure, trying, and succeeding, to empty a bottle of Teachers with Vahid, he called me asking if I would be okay to move to his newest branch, “nicest hostel in Kiev”. Requesting him to send me updated directions, I happily obliged.

After taking a bus from the airport to the train station, I switched to the metro and got off just off Independence square to walk to the hostel. The directions were decent, though I ended up in the wrong courtyard, where a sombre gentlemen repeatedly barked ‘nyet’ in my face to make it clear that he was not exploiting any type of accommodation. A quick call to Artur saw him pick me up from the street, walking me to the proper courtyard.
The hostel is clean and enjoyable and staff is friendly. I had hoped to find a single room, but none of the hostels were offering those. The mixed dorm in which I ended up staying only had six beds and was also home to the girls working at the hostel, on and off, seemingly one day at a time. The kitchen also doubles as a common room and each morning the most delicious omelets are served, though the accompanying bread could use some improvement.

Incidentally, the Russian word for ‘station’, vokzal, interestingly, is a corruption of the English ‘Vauxhall’, referring to the London’s once opulent Vauxhall Gardens. Usage of the word vokzal seeped into the Russian language when the first train service opened between Saint Petersburg and the nearby gardens in Pavlovsk.
Russian and Ukrainian are very similar, the primary differences occurring in pronunciation.

On my last morning in the hostel after an unplanned night on the town, I was having a groggy breakfast, chatting with one of the other guests. After a few enquiries, realizing that we’re in the same sector, IT and NGOs, we also realized that David and I actually have known each other for many a year, but never actually met in person. David was in Kiev by chance for work. Seriously, what god is rolling the dice?

The night before, after spending the day at Chernobyl, I had drinks and dinner with two young Dutchies, on Interrail, a Lithuanian-Canadian journalist chick, all on the tour, and a Spanish teacher who had driven to Kiev and now was planning on driving onwards into Asia. After dinner, the Spaniard wanted to go out clubbing. I was only mildly interested, the Lithuanian had a journalistic interest and I could see the Dutchies ears go red.
The Spaniard, Raymond, in charge, took us on a ten minute walk which saw us ending up at an all night supermarket. Excellent, as the alternative to clubbing was going to be an evening at the hostel with bottles of vodka. We bought two, which I stowed away in the breast pockets of my coat.
Still on the lookout for a club, the first wanted us to pay nearly 20 euros. The second settled for just under 10. We went in.
Surprisingly classy, live lounge jazz and bossanova was being played for a well dressed crowd entertaining themselves on extremely comfortable couches. The music was so well done that when not looking at the performers, a DJ, a female singer and a trumpet player, you’d be tempted to think the music was actually pre-recorded.
After the live music, an MC announced pairs of mostly female dancers strutting their stuff in nearly their birthday suits with some in nothing but a pair of nickers. Appreciated, after a while, all the dancers came onto the stage together, all holding buckets in their hands. With those, they went quite wild on the floor, showing off their moves and their bodies for the patrons of the club, hoping to extract tips from the crowd. One of the scantily clad girls jumped on one of the Dutchies’ back and started snogging him. Understandably, this led to a sizable tip, the whole objective being to collect the most tips in order to win. Winning what was not totally clear to us. One of the Dutchies thought the winning girl was handed a set of car keys.

Having tasted desire, the boys then went and snapped as many photos as they could right in front of the stage. The Lithuanian girl, Medeine, went home and Raymond had fallen asleep. I thought it was time to go home, taking Raymond with me but leaving the Dutchies behind.
At reception, one of the bottles of vodka, which we had to leave behind in order for us to enter, here called gorilka, turned out to have disappeared. All I got for it in return were shrugs from the oversized bouncers.

The Chernobyl tour is seriously overpriced at 170 USD. You get picked up at around 830 in the morning and dropped off back in town at 6 in the evening. The drive is about two hours each way and ends with a communal meal. The visit to the reactor itself is not very interesting. In the area around the reactors, you’re only allowed to take photos at one particular location. Outside of this area, however, is where the interesting bits are. The abandoned town of Pripyat is littered with all sorts of beautiful urban ruins.
At one particular spot, where you can climb up a hotel as well as explore the palace of culture, I had barely finished with checking out the hotel when we were already herded back into the van to be shuttled to our next location.
I easily could spend a few days here when all you get on the day’s tour is barely a few hours.

Though, in places, radiation in and around Chernobyl is relatively high, radiation levels don’t approach lethal levels anywhere and worrying levels almost nowhere. Some of the almost 8000 (!) employees still working on the site work half a month on, half a month off.
Radiation collets in certain types of vegetation, such as moss, something we were told to avoid walking on. Not always an easy task, when everything is overgrown.

Michael Bulgakov, author of the superb The master and Margarita lived in Kiev for a while and his house is now a museum. Wikipedia mentions that the street his house is on also contains a relief of Behemoth, one of the characters from the book, a cat with a penchant for chess, vodka and pistols. I went in search for the relief on my last morning, but was unsuccessful.

My first day in Kiev was spent at perhaps the city’s two main tourist attractions; a statue of mother Russia, indeed something of a less effective copy of the statue in Stalingrad, and The Caves Monastery, the Kievo-Pecherska Lavra, underground dug out caves operating as churches.

The calls of the Ukrainian chain of fast food restaurants, Puzata Hata I could not withstand. Good food, cheap, though a bit crowded and bursting with energy. And serving beer and vodka too!

In total, I was mistaken for an Ukrainian some 6 times, mostly people, Ukrainians, asking for directions. I guess that here, too, I blend in. Or maybe it was just that I felt so very comfortable in Kiev.

DDR fighting

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6932347&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

TURBO from Jarrett Lee Conaway on Vimeo.

Download of difference

The video for the event in Amsterdam related to Vodacom’s World of Difference program is now online. I’m not downloading it as, at this point, the price of bandwidth is comparable to several souls for me.
I clowned around at times, so even though I didn’t win, I might be in it.

Kenya doesn’t have to lock up its daughters

October 08, 2009 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Amsterdam » MTV studio

So I had a job interview with the Red Cross, through Vodafone’s World of Difference program. The job, based in Kenya, witch required building a web-based framework from which it would be straightforward to roll out individual websites for the organization’s field offices, would start in January.

Though the interview went quite well, twice I was told the interviewers thought I was over qualified for the position and, emphasizing the possibility I might get bored after a few months and bow out, asked what I estimated the chances would be of me actually doing so. Not a totally unreasonable question, I’d think, but also not too relevant. Anyone might quit their job for any single and unpredictable reason. Just because there is one identifiable reason doesn’t mean it’s more likely I will quite before the end of the contract than anyone else would.
Also, with Kenya apparently going down the drain quickly, the Red Cross, I was told, is now comparatively restrictive as they were in Afghanistan when I was there. Back then, a few people I hung out with worked for the Red Cross, but never were able to come out at night or drive themselves anywhere because of their organization’s security restrictions. In short, they were living in gilded cages for their time in country. Back there, these employees were giving lots of R&R outside of the country, in compensation. Every few months, they were given a plane ticket to more lofty surroundings with less restrictions. However, for the Kenya gig, only one ticket, the one used to get there, would be issued, so this could indeed prove to be a rather restrictive position.

Then, to top things off, I was told of one particular line in the vacancy as well as the underlying ideology of Vodafone’s program: to give individuals who otherwise would not be able to work in the international development sector an opportunity to go out and build experience.
Indeed, judging from my CV, I hardly fit that bill. So I started kicking and screaming, throwing chairs through windows and all. Or wait, maybe I just imagined that.

To my surprise, and judging from her reaction when the ‘winner’ was called out, also to hers, it then wasn’t Marnix who got the job, but Rowena. Interestingly, Marnix would have gone south both with his wife and four children. As the Red Cross didn’t consider this vacancy a ‘family position’, that could have been unfunnily expensive for him.
For the five jobs up for grabs, four were scooped up by women. In fact, the majority of candidates (17 out of 25) were women.

MTV was hired as a production company to shoot a 3 minute video of the event. The video won’t be aired on MTV but should show up on the Vodafone site some time in the near future.

Get your Iranian films here

October 05, 2009 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Bot-Boender residence

A employee of a friend of mine asked me for a list of good, or at least interesting, Iranian movies. Happily, I obliged, assuming it’d be easy to conjure up such a list. The reason for him asking was a talk we had on the movie Persepolis which I think was enjoyable, but also fits the stereotypical image the west has of Iran.

Finding a nice collection of Iranian movies turned out to be harder than I thought. So here’s my own.

+ A House built on Water, about the clash between generations in Iran, where a son returns to Iran from abroad but also returns as a drug addict. Meanwhile, the movie also incorporates subtle gay themes.

+ Ten, about a woman taxi driver’s clients in Tehran. Though not too great as a movie, it nicely shows another side of Iran.

+ Children of Heaven, a bittersweet tale of a poor family in Tehran where the two kids somehow have to get back a pair of shoes one of them lost.

+ The Wind will Carry us, where an engineer from Tehran tries to deal with life in the provinces.

There’s a series of films I have in my collection, but still have to find the time to watch.

+ The Color of Paradise, about the relationship between a blind son and his father.

+ Baran, focussing on a relationship between a young Iranian boy and a young Afghan girl.

+ The Blackboard, about traveling Kurdish school teachers, moving around with blackboards on the backs of their bicycles.

But this is just my list. Why not try IMDB.

Back in Budapest

October 03, 2009 • Blog

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World » Hungary » Budapest » Benno’s pad

It’s excellent to be back in Budapest. The city is still beautiful and the girls are still gorgeous, contrary to some scary reports I’d started to receive over the past few years. On the downside, the city has also lost most of its exoticness (what a word!).

Recovering fairly easily from jetlag, I spent my first full day checking out a few things I’d never seen before. First, a visit to the beautiful art nouveau building that is the Magyar House of Photographers, followed by the less interesting Trafo House of contemporary Art. Afterwards, I went down south to the Wekerle telep, a housing estate built in the Transsylvanian style. Unexpectedly different from what Budapest normally has to offer. On the district’s central square, I had a strong coffee and some super sutemenyek at the local cukrazda.

The second day, I ended up being Benno’s guide. Where he normally shows his guests around, and he gets a few, I was going to be the guides guide for the day. Perhaps I should also sign up with OurExplorer.com.
We started off by heading out to Budapest’s highest point, Janos Hegy, from where the views are excellent, even though it was a bit hazy when we were there. We followed this up with a short ride on the children’s railway. Expecting the railway to be a pint sized version of a regular railway, we were surprised to find the railway was normal size, but the conductors were kids. We ended up getting a free ride, as the conductors, including their retired minder, as well as a school class of Germans all assumed we were with the Germans. Wiedergutmachung.

Walking over to Farkasreti public cemetery, we got to see some of Budapest’s upper class dwellings. Having gotten a taste for the dead, we followed this up by heading out to the Kerepesi cemetery, which is littered with grandiose mausoleums and memorials.

In the evening, alternating some responsibilities, Benno showed me a recent development in Budapest’s inner city; courtyards having been converted into hip multi level, multi room bars. Apparently, these things are set up to combat the risk of squatters.

The next day, I was on my own again, determined to visit sites new to me. Starting of by going to Csepel island, formerly the center of industrial activity in the country, but now only basking in its dilapidated glory. Then, I went up to Moskva Ter, where, at the Millenaris park, the winners of the World Press Photo were on show.
Not being perturbed by the day drawing to a close, I went down to Budafok, right across the Danube from Csepel, where I had started the day. Here, a seldom visited calvary was a surprise, as was the fact that Budafok is the home of Torley, Hungary’s answer to champagne.
A calvary commemorates Christ’s crucifixion, often with the three crosses and a way to the Cross.

My last full day was spent visiting the Ludwig and the Museum of Fine Arts. Fine museums both, the former having an extensive exhibition on the work of the Hungarian photographer Robert Capa, the latter having a nice exhibition on Joseph Mallord William Turner, as well as an extensive collection of Dutch masters.

Mapping photos

Back in Bangkok, I got myself a Holux M-241, a data logger. A data logger keeps track of where you are in the world, like a regular GPS, but much smaller. I use it to match my location with photos I take during the day. The result is quite accurately positioned photos on my Flickr map.

Framed

The nice photo blog Photojojo has finally caught on with the idea of using picture frames inside of photos.

One day in Bangkok

September 27, 2009 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Bangkok » Asha guesthouse

On my last day in Thailand, I went to what is now the obligatory but excellent Bangkok Art and Culture center. And, after watching a superb movie, shedding even more luggage and feeling sad for this being my last day, I headed out to the airport.

On the professional side, I’m a juror for FLEFF10. FLEFF is the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, the Finger Lakes being a series of lakes in upstate New York. They’re running a competition/project/exhibition called Map Open Space, which refers to the objective of mapping physical space, meatspace, using digital technologies. Indeed, not unlike Soweto Uprisings . com, the very reason why Ismail and I were asked to be jurors.

Also, I’m a finalist for Vodafone (Netherlands) its World of Difference program. Basically, it’s a competition for giving away jobs in the international development sector. The project I applied for is with the ICRC, the Red Cross, in Kenia, and is supposed to run for a year.
On October 8, after a job interview during the day, myself and the other four finalists for this job will have to attend a show at the MTV studios in Amsterdam, where the ‘winner’ of the job will be announced.
It’s not exactly Zambia, but it’s close.

Staying in

September 26, 2009 • Blog

World » Vietnam » Ho Chi Minh City » Madam Cuc’s

When I got on the plane in Chiang Mai, I turned out to lug around a total of 55 kilos. A bit over the maximum allowed weight, ahem. I would have been ok with it from Bangkok to London and then, later from London on to South Africa, but the many budget flights, both in Europe and between South Africa and Zambia, would pose a problem.
So I had to start shedding weight. I immediately gave up my nice external screen as well as the PS2 with all its peripherals and games I had just recently acquired. Now to lose books and more. Between Budapest and Eindhoven, I’m only allowed 15kg of check in luggage…
And then, as a going away present, Chai gave me a statue of a cow, in metal, weighing some 3 kilos. Hm.

The international terminal in Saigon is surprisingly quiet, drinks and food surprisingly expensive, cheapo sandwiches going for 7 dollars! And my flight is delayed.

In the morning, I considered going out to Chinatown, but with the rain which had decided to come down, I ended up staying in, enjoying the sounds of a nearby wedding, where an extended hummer and a stretch limo were proof of the money backpackers bring in to the city.

Walking around Saigon

September 25, 2009 • Blog

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World » Vietnam » Ho Chi Minh City » Reunification palace

Saigon is nice enough, though it’s also too generic, doesn’t have a specific individuality. It’s just another busy, rundown, city, with lots of construction going on, while everyone seems to want your business, walking wallets that tourists are. Also, though it’s quite energetic, it’s not very photogenic.
In the fine arts museum, I found several pieces that were identical to works in the fine arts museum in Hanoi.

Later, at the reunification palace, I had a gooey sickly sweet drink called “Bird’s Nest Drink”. Then, at the end of the day, having a drink at the rooftop bar of the Sheraton, overlooking half the city, I sipped a two-for-one cocktail. The only mildly reasonable option as beers were ten times as expensive as in most places. Now, two cocktails only cost me 9 USD. Interestingly, at proper exchange booths, the exchange rate for the dollar seems to be the same for selling and buying.
The previous night, having drinks with the two Dutchies, several ladies were trying to sell us cigars and cigarettes. Packs of ten Cafe Creme cigarettes were going for 100.000 dong, just under four euro. Not too unreasonable when compared to Thailand, but not great at all when compared to Holland. However, some haggling lowered the price to 50.000 dong, under two euros.Not only a surprise, but a very reasonable price too.

The War Remnants Museum, overly patriotic, but very painful with its documentation of war atrocities, was surprisingly busy.
Spending the day walking, many of the taxis and busses were asserting themselves around me. Many have an annoying horn that peters out instead of stopping abruptly, a bit like a train driving past and blowing its horn.

Trying to get to Saigon

September 24, 2009 • Blog

World » Vietnam » Danang » Airport

My hotel was offering 4 dollar rides to Danang, from where my flight to Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, was going to leave. Rides straight to the airport were going for 12 USD. Having the time, I decided to take public transport which, with two motorbike rides and a bus ride, from hotel to airport, came in at under 3 USD. Then, my flight turned out to delayed by five hours. Indeed, if I would have taken a train on the previous night, arrival in Saigon would have been around the same time.
On the Open Tour bus from Hue to Hoi An, the only locals where the driver and a friend of his. On the bus from Hoi An to Danang, I was the only foreigner.

In the gloomy rain, Danang, though with a nicely renovated riverfront, seems to be a wholly uninteresting city, the third largest in Vietnam, but with no tourism industry to speak of. On the other hand, that would probably mean a much more authentic experience.
I hung around a more upmarket cafe close to the airport. Matthew Broderick was in some dinosaur movie on TV, a few small rats ran around in a corner and I ordered one of the 15 different types of yoghurt on the menu.

In Danang’s departure lounge, I talked with a Dutch couple which, after listening to them for a few minutes, I suspected were from Delft. Not disappointed in my assessment, we shared a taxi from Saigon airport to the town’s backpacker’s ghetto, where I had booked my hotel. Afterwards, we ended up going out for dinner and drinks, where we had to fend off several Vietnamese, in the ghetto’s restaurants and bars, trying to scam us in every way, overcharging being the least of our worries.
Clearly, though, we were having a good enough time, as I got to bed at 4:30 in the morning. At some late point, Anne, the girl, stopped talking. This, given her track record, was serious cause for concern and probably a sign we had to call it a day.
Back in my hotel, in the bathroom, a lizard quickly scuttled away after I turned on the light, possibly trying to hide from the huge cockroach lounging in the corner. The door between my room and bathroom is so thin, if I leave the light on in the bathroom, the door glows orange.
Walking back to the hotel, the nearby market had already opened up, the first customers doing their shopping.

Rainy Hoi An

September 23, 2009 • Blog

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World » Vietnam » Hoi An » Japanese covered bridge

Arriving in Hoi An, it started to rain, badly, which didn’t really stop until my last day in Saigon.

I’m not really getting older, other tourists are getting younger and dumber, more and more treating every out of the way destination as extensions of Ibiza. In other words, spending only a good week in Vietnam, it’s hard to stay off the tourist trail. In fact, I suspect that, even when staying longer, it’s not straightforward to stay out of the tourist hotspots, possibly even harder than it is in Thailand. Unfortunately, unlike Thailand, there seems to be a strong distinction between venues visited by locals and venues visited by foreigners.
Open Tour picked me up from my hotel in Hue, driving me to Hoi An, for a mere 3 USD. If one is short on time, how can that possibly be beaten, and even then. Halfway, we stopped at the typical tourist trap restaurant. Though the drinks and food were not unreasonably priced, the icecream was too expensive. Leaving, I accidentally stepped into the wrong bus, a proper sleeper, with double beds stacked on both sides of the isle. Although looking reasonably comfortable, I still wouldn’t trade these in for a sleeper on the train. Driving styles, here, are atrocious.

In rainy Hoi An, I stayed at the Vinh Huy hotel, a bit run down, but clean and reasonable, though the second night in my room, the fan, then the aircon, then the boiler broke down, one after another. No wifi, but they have an indoor pool.
The tiny burn I sustained on Tony’s tour of Hanoi has turned into a huge scabby patch, much more typical of such burns and something that’s easy to spot on, mainly, girls in Chiang Mai. Still oozy, it wouldn’t be too great to dive into the pool with that. Then again, it might result in me having the pool to myself..,.

In the evening, in the drizzle, I walked into the old town, not too impressed by the ‘charming city’. I ended up having dinner at Streets, one of several restaurants in Vietnam with a mission, supporting disadvantaged and/or handicapped children.
The prices are a bit higher, but everything, from the setting to the food to the waiters and waitresses screams boutique. The experience was good and although at first it’s hard to verify a restaurant’s claim on its social commitments, the real downside is that the restaurant could have been anywhere in the world. The look and feel is just too generic.

The next morning, I finally discovered egg sandwiches off the street, very munchable and cheap, at only 10.000 dong, 40 eurocents. As a bonus, you get to see the traffic flow by. No girls in cute uniforms though, only cute girls on bikes and scooters in regular clothes with shorts that regularly are, really, too short.
After my sandwich, I couldn’t help but get a second one. Walking on, I discovered a lady selling xima, the name of the most typical African dish, also known as pap, sadza, ugali and posho. In Africa, it’s a maize meal porridge. Here, it’s a sweet black porridge, not totally appetizing.
After I sit down, a Vietnamese girl came and sat next to me, also ordering a cup of xima. I asked her if she likes the stuff on which she replied that she didn’t know, she’d never had it before in her life.

Hoi An’s old town is a world heritage site, with many of the buildings in the city protected by UNESCO. This means you have to buy a combined ticket at one of the ticket outlets which will then allow you to visit some, but not all, of the many sights. In case you want to see them all, you need to buy several tickets. Though I’m not that daring, quite a few of the venues don’t care for checking your ticket.
Across from the main ticket office, I sat down, at a street stall, and had a black coffee, with milk. In Vietnam, the milk is sweet and condensed and, typically, forms a plaque at the bottom of your glass of coffee, which you then have to try and stir into your drink. Here, I got the shot glass of coffee, with the milk at the bottom, inside a larger cup with hot water. I suppose to make the gooey milk easier to stir.

One corner of the old town has a large number of upmarket hotels, restaurants and cafes. One, inviting enough, made me walk in to it and check out the menu, feeling like having something sweet, a desert perhaps. The sweets went for four to six dollars. The night before, I had had fried bananas in sugar and rum for under one dollar.
I moved on and, down the road, get a coffee, a banana milkshake and a coke, all for one euro.

The parallels between Hoi An and Melaka are obvious. Touristy, with strong Chinese influences, on a bank, one a river, the other sea, with architecture obviously dating from a similar time period. However, with Melaka being significantly more mellow and its people less pushy, I prefer the latter.
Also, Hoi An could do with a few upgrades to its world heritage sites, while I’m not at all sure that the dominating tourist industry is doing the town so much good.
In the pouring rain, I did the obligatory walking tour of the city and ended up at a small bar on the An Hoi peninsula, just across from the old town. The cafe sells yummy sandwiches at just over a dollar and draft beer at 22 dollarcents. It’s surprising how the heat makes it so much easier to drink large quantities of beer, as opposed to whiskey or rum, my regular favorites.
In the evening, having dinner at Cafe 43, the mugs of beer are even cheaper, at 16 dollarcents.

Dead people

September 22, 2009 • Blog

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World » Vietnam » Hue » Imperial enclosure » Tomb of Minh Mang

In the morning, before taking the bus to Hoi An, I drove around the countryside visiting some of the tombs of the nine Nguyen emperors, the last to rule Vietnam. Several are quite impressive and quite dilapidated. Some ask for sizable entry fees, but the drive around the countryside, with its rice paddies, streams and villages, is also enjoyable.
At what is said to be the prettiest of the tombs, the tomb of Minh Manh, some 12km out of town, I sat down at the small coffee shop and order a coffee. Expecting a traditional Vietnamese drip coffee, I actually end up with hot water being poured over the contents of a Nescafe sachet. The troupe of south east Asian tourists next to me are all munching on ice cream cones, all throwing the paper wrappers carelessly on the floor. Afterwards, the proprietress picked up every scrap, one by one.

Delectable Hue

September 21, 2009 • Blog

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World » Vietnam » Hue » Imperial enclosure

I generally enjoy long distance train travel and, with Vietnam being a former communist country, I expected decent and cheap trains. And, indeed, the train felt extremely Russian, complete with a samovar, a hot water boiler, at the end of each wagon.
A major difference with Russia in 1999 being that now, here, all the employees carry around and use, constantly, their smart cellphones.

When I walked into my compartment, what seemed to be an older revolutionary couple, dressed in green safari suits, were occupying the lower bunks, the man’s complimented with a beret on his head. Both were quite friendly, with the lady trying to get a conversation going, however challenging. Then, to make things more challenging, the loudspeakers were blaring out loud Vietnamese pop music.
As in Thailand, a large percentage of the train travelers are foreign, so I was already happy I was sharing with locals. But then the fourth bed ended up being occupied by a Dutchie. Someone from… Delft.
His three Dutch travel companions were all suffering from a stomach bug, something that got to him, the morning of our arrival, sweating like a pig, him running to the bathroom every 10 minutes.

At the Hanoi train station, I first took the Lotteria for a gambling den, though it turned out to be a very decent fast food restaurant.

Hue, my destination on this train trip, turned out to be a very lovely and quiet little town, though also very spread out. With the 24 hours I planned on staying, I could only really rent a motorbike to get around. With the sights in the town being spread out, some impressive sites, burial temples of former Vietnamese emperors, are 5 to 15 kilometers out of town. With my own transport, the 24 hours were going to be enough, but only just.
Also, during the day, I found out that the 12 generic batteries I had bought in Chiang Mai were complete duds. So, with the bike, I could easily spurt back to my hotel to pick up a few decent rechargeables.

I was staying at the very nice Holiday hotel, where I had a pretty and sizable room for a mere 18 dollars and which included both breakfast and wifi.
On the tiny lift, only barely able to hold two people, someone had affixed the words “A Friendly Lift”. I asked the girl at reception why, “because they come together, like friends”, referring to the two lift doors.

Floating around town, I couldn’t help noticing the many girls (where were the boys?) in absolutely delectable dresses, which seem to be Vietnamese national dress. Loose fitting pants topped with a long flowing dress with splits on both sides that show some skin above the waistband of the pants. The material is see through, so you can seem them all wearing their panties and bras. Yet another pervert who came up with school uniforms for girls.
Vietnamese girls, at least here in Hue, seem to have softer faces than their Thai counterparts. Added to that the often long legs and larger bosoms , it seem safe to say that Vietnamese girls are ahead of the pack

In Hue, the main attraction, besides the girls, is the imperial enclosure. A citadel the size of Chiang Mai’s old town, with both a citadel-in-a-citadel and a citadel-in-a-citadel-in-a-citadel. Unfortunately, many of the buildings didn’t survive the French and American wars and a lot of the buildings are in ruins, though many are in several states of repair.
Surprisingly devoid of tourists, it was also bloody freaking hot. Furthermore, I realised that the layout of the gardens in the citadel, as well as the gardens around the tombs of the deceased emperors which I would see the next day, reminded me both of gardens in Iran and India.

Meanwhile, I’m being shadowed by a group of three Japanese tourists. They were on my trip to Halong Bay, in the compartment next to me on the train from Hanoi to Hue and I bump into them at every site in Hue.

In the evening, I had food at the veggie restaurant Bo De, on the river shore. Pretty good, though a bit bland. I followed it up with a crepe and a beer at another joint, where the ice blocks are so big, I only just get one cube into my beer mug to cool down my amber nectar.

Down to Halong Bay

September 20, 2009 • Blog

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World » Vietnam » Halong Bay » Harbour

When I booked my trip to Vietnam, I had originally planned to really only go to Hanoi and Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). However, slowly, slowly, I started to get less certain of that plan, wanting to see more than just these two cities.

Halong Bay, full of karst islands jutting out from the sea, is supposed to be a beautiful corner of the world, a three and a half hour drive out of Hanoi. As I also wanted to visit Hue and, possibly, Hoi An, a two or three day trip was really out of the question, but a one day trip to Halong Bay was possible.
However, when I came back in the evening, the seven hours I had spent on the bus was a bit much. A one day trip to Halong Bay is too much of a pain, though beautiful the islands are.
Karst mountains are soft rock which, over millennia, have withered away due to erosion, leaving slightly harder rock standing. Not at all unlike Meteora in Greece, which I visited in 2003.

I was the first to be picked up for the trip, a total of 20 people or so sharing the bus to Halong Bay, combining those that were going one, two and three days. Surprisingly many Frenchies, as well as east Asian tourists, not just on this trip, but in Hanoi in general.

The jumble of architectural styles I encountered on the way to Halong Bay is decidedly odd. Small French hamlets pop up in the middle of nowhere, alternated with Chinese kitschy villas, alternated with native bamboo huts and sheet metal dwellings. Then, it seems that extra points go to those who build the narrowest and the tallest.
Surprisingly many of the newer houses have domes on top of their rooms, not a few in Rococo style, some even gilded, others more modern, made of glass and in pyramidal shape.

Though pretty, you can have too many fluorescent green rice paddies and, when finally arriving at Halong Bay, the cool breeze coming in from the sea is a very welcome refreshment.

According to legend, the karst formations were created when a dragon, wagging his tale around during a chaotic flight from inland Vietnam, became a bit too careless, smashing up the shoreline and leaving the islands as they are now. The islands, though undoubtedly pretty, were not as impressive as I expected them to be.
Scores, perhaps hundreds, of identical junks litter the harbor of Halong Bay and its waters and most are part of organized tours. We have lunch, on the boat, in between the islands, rock formations towering over us. The lunch is had mored to one of the floating houses in the bay, where the local families will try to sell you the freshest fish and shrimps possible, still alive in their pens. I found the fish a bit too pricey, the bargaining starting at 200.000 dong per kilo, some 11 dollars, but the huge and, as I found out, extremely delicious shrimps, came in at 60 dollarcents each. A bargain, and only requiring a little bargaining. Lunch is included with most trips, but purchasing a few extra fishies or shrimps is definitely worth it.

Also part of the tour is a visit to one of the caves inside one of the islands. Yet another collection of stalagmites and stalactites. The dustbins in the busy cave, in the shapes of dolphins and penguins, felt a bit out of place. As did the gentleman who, in the middle of the cave, was manning a desk labeled “Desk for appraises”.

On the boat trip, they’ll try to sell you pearl necklaces in all shapes and sizes, but wait with buying until you’re back on land. Competition there will be fierce.

Touring through Hanoi

September 19, 2009 • Blog

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World » Vietnam » Hanoi » Hoan Kiem lake

A few weeks back I was offered a free tour guide from OurExplorer.com, at a location of my choice. The website allows you to book local guides for your travel destination and though the concept is sound, I found the website left a few things to be desired, though that, in turn, might be in part because I primarily use Safari, not IE or Firefox.
Obviously, OurExplorer.com offered me the guide in the hope that I would write about it glowingly.

Anyway, with my upcoming trip to Vietnam, I figured that getting a guide in either Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City would be the obvious solution. I suggested a few dates, and I ended up with Tony, a native Vietnamese who was going to show me around in Hanoi for a day. I suggested starting at 10am, wanting to not rush myself too much, but Tony preferred starting earlier. We ended up meeting at 830 in the morning.
I presume Tony was getting paid through OurExplorer.com, meaning that, for him, there was no compelling reason to make himself look better, besides the usual ones. On top of that, Tony isn’t a full time guide, running an outfit called indochinaguides.com. So, not having all his eggs in one basket, I’d think that what I was going to get was pretty much a typical day of guiding through Hanoi.

The day of my arrival, I found out that Ho Chi Minh (Ho the bright and intelligent one, I was told by Tony) his mausoleum closes in the late morning, making the early start which Tony suggested a very practical one. Notwithstanding the fact that for unclear reasons, the mausoleum was in fact closed when we arrived. For the day, yes, but it seemed to be more structural. Perhaps the body was sent to Moscow for renovation early this year.
On the flight from BKK to Hanoi, I met a Slovenian guy, who asked to join my tour of the city. I agreed, though eventually this resulted in Tony acting as a personal interpreter for the Slovenian on some of his errands. Kudos to Tony for helping out, but it also inflicted our touring schedule.
After a quick breakfast, Tony and the Slovenian went off to get a second bike to drive around town with. By the time we left, it was 10am. A good thing we started at 830. Tony, good man, arrived more than in time, but had a hard time finding my hotel too, like I had the previous day. Though for different reasons. Turns out that down the road, there’s another Especen owned by the same family and, just a tad further, yet another Especen, but a total copycat. That’s one for the intellectual property lobby.

Besides the mausoleum, the Ho Chi Minh museum has rather extensive and not unattractive exhibits on Uncle Ho’s life. Though Ho never married, there are unsubstantiated reports that he, while being a chef on transatlantic ships, might have had relationships and kids in one or more ports of call, meaning that there might be a few Nephew Ho’s running around the globe somewhere.

The nearby one pillar pagoda is a bit of a downer. It’s a small pagoda on a big and not too high pillar. Tony agreed, as he forgot to walk past the pillar, which is close to both Ho’s mausoleum and his museum.

After Ho’s legacy, we drove past Ho Tay lake and drove up to cross the Red River using a bridge constructed by the French in the early 1900s. As this was the only bridge crossing the river until after the reunification, the Americans often tried bombing the bridge into oblivion, but the locals were always quick enough to restore any of the broken parts. The bridge is rather long and looks rickety, only giving access to bikes with an added train track in the middle. Cars are not allowed on this bridge, but up to the early 1990s, cars were still exceptions on the roads of Hanoi.
Ha Noi actually got its name because of the river. Ha Noi means the ‘land between the river’, that is, the Red River.

Following the bridge, Tony brought us to a typical Vietnamese eatery because it 1. Served typical Vietnamese food, 2. Was good, 3. Was cheap. Hard to argue with that.
When asking what we wanted to eat, I replied that he should choose, but he initially had a hard time doing so. The only thing he wanted to be sure of was wether we were interested in drinking beer. The restaurant served tankards of nondescript beer which kept on coming. The place itself, a huge one room stable, while rather efficient, clean and hectic, was packed with customers, locals only.
The food was indeed quite good, particularly one tofu dish with mashed up tomato and peppers, and not too dissimilar from Thai food. Surprisingly, not only was the food significantly less spicy than Thai food, we also didn’t order rice to accompany the lunch. And though Vietnam is one of the three largest exporters of rice, and rice is more common than air, well almost, Tony looked at me quite funnily when I suggested ordering rice.
Then again, with our evening meal, rice was apparently back in fashion again.

I had actually wanted to eat dog but, we were told, as today was the first day of the new lunar month, eating dog was considered unlucky. Sadly enough, without the local knowledge of where to get it, I was unable to eat dog for the rest of my stay in Vietnam.

We took our time for lunch, as many places, shops and museums, close down between roughly twelve and two in the afternoon. The southern Viet, as that is what Viet Nam, from a Chinese perspective refers to, go for a two hour lunch and siesta break. Given the freaking heat, this is not unreasonable.

After lunch, Jona drove off, eventually taking an hour to find his way back to his hotel, and Tony and I went to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, after having an excellently bitter ice coffee in some tucked away coffee shop, which describes many of the no less then 55 individual ethnic groups in Vietnam.
At the museum, a water puppet theatre was also being staged but though the water puppet theatre in town was packed to the brim with tourists, the showings at the Ethnology museum were sparsely attended.
Though ethnology isn’t the most sexy subject, the museum is put together quite well, with excellent explanations in both French and English as well as Vietnamese.

Sipping coffee, I reflected on the handsome maidens, deciding that the girls on the street are surprisingly pretty and seem to be more curvy than many Thais. Many also seem to have Chinese ethnic influences.

Following the museum, we drove around town, starting at one of the city’s universities, where Tony had learnt for teaching English, which surprised me a bit since although his English is quite decent, his pronunciation left some things to be desired, for example him struggling with the difference between a ‘p’ and ‘f’. Then again, this is a classic issue for quite a few peoples, not the least native Arabic speakers, to name but one group. Perhaps the Vietnamese have no letter f?
We followed this up with a visit to the New Urban City in the My Dinh area, where huge skyscrapers, including a future 80+ story monolith are in various stages of completion.

Afterwards, driving through the French quarter, we finished with a drink on a rooftop bar overlooking Hoan Kiem lake, watching the sun set over the city, following it up with dinner at Little Hanoi, a small restaurant in the old town, where I had licorice chicken with french fries…
As in several places, I’ve now noticed, beer is only marginally more expensive than sodas and cheap in general. At Little Hanoi, beers started at 12000 Dong, just under 50 eurocents.

The day was good, though perhaps a bit chaotic, primarily due to the errands my Slovenian friend wanted to run. However, Tony is quite a knowledgeable guide, clearly not only knowing his stuff about Hanoi, but also other places in Vietnam. I suppose not too surprising, for someone who runs a travel agency. However, I’m a sucker for good stories, and could have done with more anecdotes and unprompted background information.

Near the end of the day, watching a newly married couple having their picture taken near the Hanoi opera house, I finally suffered from scooter burn, a nice hole in my leg due to touching the exhaust pipe while riding on the back of someone’s bike. In Chiang Mai, it’s not hard to see scores of, primarily, girls, with these nasty patches on their legs. Luckily, most more expensive bikes have insulation around the exhaust. Though, not the one Tony and I were riding today.
There are surprisingly large amounts of scooters on the road. Though I thought it nice and quiet in the morning, it was heavily packed with crazy drivers from the early evening onwards. And with so many chickies in little but the shortest hotpants. All properly wearing helmets, apparently since half a year or so, when the government started enforcing this particular law.

The city feels more like a crowded and upsized version of Phnom Penh than something like BKK, Chiang Mai or even Vientiane. The city is rather chaotic and has clearly grown without proper restrictions and regulations. However, I could see that the introduction of the New Urban City could work as a long term plan for alleviating the old quarter, potentially luring inhabitants of that area to the posher and nicely managed suburbs, leaving room for the potentially booming tourist industry downtown.

While waiting for Jona at his hostel, the Hanoi Backpackers, I noticed something I’ve now noticed in several backpackers joints around the world: the tours and services sold there on top of the cheap and noisy rooms were significantly more expensive than the same tours and services sold at my more upmarket hotel.

Tony reminded me of my Chinese friend Wong, sharing a series of physical traits, including his table manners. When I subtly suggested to Tony that I suspect a stronger Chinese influence, here in the north, as compared to either Laos or Cambodia, Tony categorically denied the possibility.
The Vietnamese are not too fond of the Chinese, primarily due to the thousand years of occupation which roughly ran through the whole first millennium. Nevertheless, the temples and many of the memorials are, at least to my eye, indistinguishable from Chinese counterparts.

An excellent day out. Tony’s regular fee is 50 dollars for a day. I’m not normally one for taking on tour guides as I’m quite convinced I can arrange my own sightseeing, but when you’re with a small group and short on time, this could actually be worth it. Perhaps not so much for visiting the standard tourist sites, but more so for visiting more offbeat locations and local restaurants and bars.

The crabwalk starts

September 18, 2009 • Blog

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World » Vietnam » Hanoi » Especen hotel

It is annoying that the Vietnamese drive harder bargains, are more annoying, more in your face, run more scams and are generally bigger pains in the proverbial ass. On top of that, Hanoi is supposedly a scammers haven in Vietnam. Then, the odd mix of fading communism and cutthroat capitalism results in strange mixes, visually, architecturally and professionally.

So, imagine my surprise, when coming out of the airport, the absence of taxi touts straining for my attention. One boy wanted to sell me his taxi, but he didn’t even try very hard. In fact, walking out of the airport building, I immediately stumbled upon the airport minivan transfer service, which takes you from the airport to the downtown area for a mere 2 USD, or to your hotel for 4. The drop off being quite a way from my hotel, according to my map, I decided to put my trust in the transfer service and ponied up the 4 bucks.
All the peeps in the van were Vietnamese and Thai, except for myself and a Slovenian called Jona and the two of us were the only ones going to be dropped off at our respective hotels.

Driving away from the drop off, within one minute Jona was already told to get off, and was pointed into a general direction to walk in, in order to find his hotel. As, as a traveler, you’re at your most vulnerable just after arriving in a new location, I try to make a point to keep track of where a transfer service like this actually takes me. I was keeping track of our location on my map, and I could see that we were not going towards my hotel, and were driving around in a few circles before, minutes after dropping of Jona, I was told to get off.
“Especen hotel?”, I asked.
“Yeah, yeah, this Especen hotel.”
“No it isn’t, look at the sign, this is another hotel.”
“No no, this Especen hotel, sign inside!”
“This is not my hotel. We are here [I pointed on the map], my hotel is here.”
“No no, this your hotel.”
“Especen?”
“Yes yes, this Especen hotel.”

This went on for a bit longer until I decided this wasn’t going anywhere, so I got out. The hotel tout started talking to me.
“You wanna see room?”
“You’ve got my reservation, I would like to see my reservation.”
“What hotel?”
“Especen.”
“Oh that other hotel. Not here.”

The van had already left, but the boy telling me this was the Especen had also stepped off. Annoyed, I told him that this was not the hotel he claimed it was.
“You told me [something resembling Especen].”
“No, I did not, I told you several times.”
“No, you told me something else.”

I gave up and started walking. The map showed my hotel a good walk away, but I didn’t feel like picking up public transport at all, expecting having to deal with more of the same. On the way, I stopped at the very decent Papa Joe’s Cafe, for a panini and a coffee. Sitting at the corner of Hoan Kiem Lake, watching the world go by, I realised that Hanoi is more a Phnom Penh than either a Bangkok or Chiang Mai.
Then, arriving at where the hotel was supposed to be, I couldn’t find anything that resembled the hotel. Turned out that my Lonely Planet guide had another one of its regular hiccups, the location of the map being horribly wrong, my hotel actually being very close to Jona’s, not far from the central drop off point. And that’s when my hotel is even one of Lonely Planet’s “Our pick”. “100% researched and updated”…
I gave up and climbed on the back of a motorcycle taxi. Interestingly, virtually everyone, both drivers and passengers, wears a helmet.

The houses in Hanoi, and in many places beyond, are tall and narrow, a leftover from times were taxes were to be paid based on the width of your building’s facade. In my hotel, there’s just enough room for two rooms, side by side, lengthwise, with a staircase in between.
The room is so narrow, the wide single bed, judging from the towels and toothbrushes, is actually a narrow double bed, with a bit of walking space on the side. Then, the streets are so narrow that if I would hang out of my window, I could shake hands with someone on the other side of the street, doing the same.

It’s easy to notice that, where in Thailand, smoking is something almost exclusively done by foreigners, here, it seems to be the opposite; almost all Vietnamese men seem to smoke. Also, there seems to be a structural absence of small supermarkets. Both Chiang Mai and Bangkok are littered in 7/11 supermarkets. Here, there are none. Later, I found a K opposite the Sheraton in Ho Chi Minh City, but that was the only time I found a proper minimart, though there are some Big Cs around.

In the evening, I visited the Water Puppet Theatre. Typical Vietnamese and, possibly, the result of the common folk still in need of entertainment even during the wet season, when the rice paddies were flooded, accompanied by a typical Vietnamese one string musical instrument together with a small orchestra of classical Vietnamese musicians. Both interesting and at times funny, though the short nights had taken its toll. I had a hard time staying awake.

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