Right. That's it. I am so going to start a religion.
I am utterly inspired.by Chocin civil servant Ngo Van Chieu, who upon receiving messages from God via a spirit called Duc Cao Dai went on to "share his spiritual discoveries with others in Saigon". This intrigues me beyond comprehension. Not only did the guy have the chutzpah to actually admit that spirit/god creatures were speaking to him on behalf of God, but then he managed to convince dozens of others in 1920s Vietnam that it was for real. I am humbled.
Anyhow, Cao Dai passed on instructions to the first group of believers (henceforth known as mediums) to found a new religion. Lucky Le Van Trung was anointed acting Giao Tong (Pope) and Caodaism was formally founded on September 26, 1926 by a group of 247 disciples. And, lo, it's gone on to being the second religion (after Catholicism) in the country (although, in another North-South divide thing, it's found almost exclusively in South Vietnam).
And a real Life of Pi kind of religion it is, too (I plan to ask Yann Martel if he has ever been to Tay Ninh). By combining Catholicism, Buddhism, the more mystical writings of Judaism and Taoism with – and I am not making this up – the sacred texts of Saint Victor Hugo, the church is sure to cover all it's bases.
But t's not just the pick-and-mix approach to other belief systems that I love about Cao Dai: really I love it because it's like the great drag queen of religions. The Holy See at Tay Nihn (just like Rome!) with it's massive mostly pink Cathedral (that they are at pains to say is larger than St. Peter's) has to be seen to be believed.
The place is simply awash with ritual, symbolism and colour...There's the vibrant red, blue and yellow coloured robes for the various upper echelons of the psychic mediums that guide (but never lead) the congregation by Ouija-board like predictions, set off by the brilliant white robes of the disciples. The wildly discordant choir and instruments are audio cues used throughout the daily noon service to order the precise and ritualized movement of the ranks of people in an elaborate dance-like mass. And all this set in a razzmatazz and totally over the top Sacred See with divine eyes, checkerboards, pink and gold and gild and gilt everywhere, topped by a roof with both a giant cow and a globe. Fabulous.
I dunno, why not. Who the hell knows, maybe gods want some fabulousness for once. Predictions on wooden mystic markers might have as much weight as Revelations. Victor Hugo may be a Prophet. And maybe gods do like to mess with the heads of civil servants. This would explain an awful lot in public service, no?
http://www.religioustolerance.org/caodaism.htm
It's hard to believe the incredible number of landmines still around in Cambodia. Vast regions of the countryside - dozens of square kilometres at a time - are still off-limits thanks to the frenetic mine programs of both the Khmer Rouge and the government during the 80s and 90s.
The KR were laying mines right up to 1998, which goggles me, and they really liked using them, really really alot. Firstly, land and personnel mines were a dime a dozen on the arms markets at the time as other nations moved on to laserguided missiles and left the antiquated stuff for the crazy people. Peaceful little Thailand were especially generous with funding land mine dispersal along the mutual border, as it served the dual purpose of helping keep refugees out. And mines were good value for the Khmer Rouge especially, as they had very few soldiers to hand to maintain their occupied areas. But for the government, the mines helped contain the KR to the said occupied areas, so it seemed both sides did nothing but lob literally millions of the things into this country's sad soil.
Cambodia remains the most mined land in the world - according to non-Cambodian sources. The currrent government, you see, has had huge influxes of donations and foreign currency to supposedly fund the military clearing the mines. So they vehemently dispute the figures, and point to successful regions which they have cleared.
Unfortunately for the average prole, these tend to be high-profile or tourist areas. A prime example is the way the military famously cleared a huge farming area on the Thai border, relocated the locals to a non-cleared area, and built a massive casino. It seems the easiest, and cheapest, way for them to clear the mines is simply to let the people desperate for farmland into a region and shrug when the bombs go off.
Everywhere we see limbless people, and far too many limbless kids..Meanwhile, we tread softly, and follow very well-worn paths.
This might not come as news, but Cambodia is really, really, really hot. And in the rainy season it must be muggy as all get out (if my experience in Vietnam and Bali is any indication).
The French, in their quest for a little light relieft, built the Bokor Hill Station (or 'station climatique') in the 1920s - to provide relief on many levels. Up in the looming 1000m high hills, surrounded by naught but jungle (now a nature reserve) and away from the heat and plebs, they dotted their lovely villas and houses around the plateau, overlooking the distant Cambodian coastline. And now, it's all a most glorious ruin.
We made the trip up on a hilariously bad road, with eight of us dumb tourists packed into the open back of a seriously butch 4X4 that - literally - has been through the wars. Fortunately, it had a metal bar down the middle and we were entertained immensely by having to cling on it as well as duck the whipping trees and vines. It was really fun, if hot, treacherous, dusty and hugely masochistic.
At the top, we first viewed the ruins of the King's palace, because of course the local nobs had to have a joint near the French. Then it was to the Hill Station itself, with the ruined villas and houses bracketed by The Church and The Casino. How Catholic is that.
It was a small and simple church perched above the road, glaring down on the resident sinners and gamblers. Inside, it was even smaller as the back of the building housed the priest, with a wee kitchen and bathroom. Only the front half of the church served a religious purpose with a small altar, now badly damaged by smoke, vandalism and gunfire. I was especially struck by the ghostly shroud-of-turin like crucifix over the door. It'd been used by target practise by the Khmer Rouge, and though it's long gone, it's shape is now etched on the wall in smoke and bullets.
Ah, but the Casino "Le Grand Coloniale", this was a beauty. This huge, rambling building with room after room over several floors is quickly losing it's battle with the damp and the creeping jungle. But you can still easily imagine drinking champagne and dancing on the open terraces. But somehow only in black and white. Now it's all blackened concrete and thick orange lichen - quite striking really. And everywhere are the gouges where the locals tore out all the wiring, copper and anything else, really.
During the Khmer Rouge occupation, which lasted right up to the 1990s in this area, the Casino was government and the Church was the KR stronghold. Each of the buildings (or remnants of same) were on little knolls, and you could see how they would have a good line to shoot across at each other.
It's now a ghostly, and most atmospheric place. My only regret is that we belatedly found out we could have stayed overnight. Shoot. But after a really, really good lunch, they poured us back in the trucks, trotted us through the jungle - we heard gibbons and i almost saw a spider - then to top it off they stuck on a fabulous boat down the river past stilt houses and floating fish farms back to Kampot, where we arrived like twelve hours and ten bucks poorer later. What a deal, what a place.
So here we are in the ass end of January, already, and we find ourselves in the ass end of Cambodia.
Glorious Battambang, Cambodia, to be precise. This was one of the places I was determined to go to. I would like to say I wanted to come here because as a politicized savant, I knew Battambang was the gathering place for refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge into Thailand, but I have to be honest. I just really like the way it rolls off the tongue.
And it is a nice place. Very dusty and very friendly and with very, very little to do. Sadly, Chris is not well, so we are hiding out in our lovely $5 room with cable tv, and great $2 meals and riding out his cold. We have had a terrible start to the year, actually, as I was ill in Kuala Lumpur, so I pressed Chris to abandon me. He went off to Thailand on his own, I recovered, and we hooked up in Phnom Pehn - which is quickly becoming to feel very, very home-like to us both.
So we have both had a decidedly feeble launch into 2008, both choking down penicillin and anti-histamines, but I reckon leaving homely but stinky Phnom Pehn was a good start to our renewed lung health. The Tonle Sap river on the beautiful PP river front was shockingly low - probably eight or ten feet lower than last seen six weeks earlier - and the mud is quite aromatic, i must say.
We had a brilliant bus ride (scheduled 4, actual 6) from Phnom Pehn to Battambang. Frequent mini-breakdowns, mechanical bemusement, pee stops in the bushes, miles of barren, dry -season land with herds of the skinniest cows (almost enough to put you off ordering beef, the poor things) and patient, friendly fellow passengers.
Eventually we arrived in Cambodia's second largest city, glorious Battambang. And, well, there ain't much to see or do. It's got a few crumbling French colonial buildings and dusty cobbled together buildings clustered along a much dried river. But it's sweet and laid back and we like it despite it's real lack of any particular charms.
We are anxiously eyeballing said river, however, as this is our intended route to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. Tales abound of the 3 hour boat trip taking 14, so when we finally go, wish us luck....
Travel certainly affects your perspective. It’s the American War here. And it’s very much “here” in Vietnam. Which is strange, really, because it’s such a remarkably young country. After China – the country that rests literally and metaphorically on on the indomitable shoulders of little old ladies - it was notable to be in a country without old people. I would double-take if I saw white hair - just like in Sarajevo.
I had Graham Greene's Quiet American on my mind here. That great, wry, ironic title makes me grin, of course, but it makes me think about the real quiet people, the Vietnamese themselves, and how they quietly went about their way through the myriad wars in their land.
So maybe I have been too hard on the place. It's really been through the meat grinder over the years. Finally freed of France, split in half by the UN, invaded clandestinely and then overtly by the US, and winning all these relentless brutal battles pretty much through sheer bloody-mindedness. And once they get free, having to rebuild a country devastated by a bitter civil war and the harshest economic sanctions ever seen. Even North Korea, today, has more freedom to trade than Vietnam did post the American withdrawal. So then this hardened battle weary but still battle ready people decide to wade in to kick the dictators out of Cambodia, for which they still get no thanks.
I stick by it not being the prettiest, or most lovable place in the world. And I wish that some of the younger people would let the bitter go (like their elders seem to have). But mostly I wish things, finally, go well.
"1 – 2 – 3
What are we fighting for?
You know, I don’t give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam…."
I have rarely been as curious and expectant about a country as I was crossing into Vietnam. For which I blame Hollywood - I can't believe how much I knew about the place through music, movies, books, TV and the news of my childhood. The Doors, Hanoi Jane, CCR, Guthrie, Platoon, Oliver Stone, Baez, Guthrie (see above),Kubrick, Coppola, Coming Home, the DMZ, Alice, the Rockpile, My Lai, China Beach - Vietnam's recent history is so weirdly familiar to this Saskatchewn farmgirl. And the songs and scenes kept following me all the way of the nine weeks it took Chris and I to work our way across the country, from top to bottom.
Then there's the incredible influence of all those cool draft dodgers who ended up so completely imbibing Canadian culture (and particularly my Art Department at University). with an anti-war, anti-authority, free-living, psychedelic kind of vibe that is still percolating around. Thank you, Sam the Record Man, Waffle Party founders and gay marriage advocates that crossed North instead of fighting, I salute you.
So, crossing the Chinese-Vietnamese border was fraught with big expectations for me. And it was also, for me, the biggest transition at a border I have seen for ages!
Borders are usually bogus, really. In an artifical construct of nationhood, defined by invisible lines drawn in the sand, you pass over a line, and things somehow change, just on the other side. Of course, really, they rarely actually do.
But this time, I thought it was radical. Maybe it is not the best idea of try to compare China and Vietnam, but of course we couldn't avoid it, crossing that border. One side, frenetic buzzy, loud, chaotic, bustling China. The other, a desolate wasteland with streets that are suddenly wide, dusty….and empty. Vietnamese women in those iconic palm hats, bringing in impossible loads of cheap consumer goods on their backs, with absolutely no curiousity in the big white backpackers. The silence was shocking...as was the immediate, blatant and indiscriminate overcharging.
China made me crazy in many ways, but I can count on one hand the times we were blatantly ripped off without any shame on the part of the ripper offer. That ain't the story in Vietnam, man. I could count on two hands the number of times people would try - or would succeed - in taking us, in one day. They make ripping off tourists a national sport and have absolutely no guilt or problem with it at all. It's really fukken tiring and was really a shock to the system.
Every single traveller I talked felt the same: they liked the country but got tired of the incessant gouging. The locals have completely taken to Party condoned entrepeneurial capitalism, but most don't get the big picture - the concept of service, or encouraging return trade or word of mouth. Across the land, they just don't seem to give a sh*t about the tourists.
We spent over nine weeks - really taking our time and seeing the sights (we only cut Sapa out of the itinerary because we were rice terraced out after China) but, well, I just never fell for it. I mean, Halong Bay is beautiful – even if they weren’t actually from the James Bond film. Hanoi is great, a fun buzzy city - my favourite place. Ninh Binh was cool, and Dalat pretty but Vietnam is not - heresy!! - that beautiful really.
People used to rave about the beaches, and some were pretty damn nice (and empty). But too often the water is a floating mass of plastic and garbage (in the locals defense, usually washed over from the big neighbour up North). Or they are ‘living’ beaches, used by the villages for both latrine and landfill. In many countries I have been, that are a lot more ‘developing’ than Vietnam, I have never seen that level of just plain lack of care.
Off the coast are some of the last great dive sites on the South China Sea, a mecca for tourists and a money spinner for locals. But this is Vietnam, the last country on the coast to allow commercial dynamite fishing and reef trawling. Greenpeace reckons more coral, marine habitat and reef has been destroyed in Vietnam in the last 3 years than in the last 30 prior.
So, yeah, it’s developing, but it’s developing stupid.
The food was fabulous, the level of comfort and sanitation was great (thanks to the rebuilding in the 70s), the people were often super sweet and just lovely, and it's pretty enough, but....I don't know. There's a very thin layer of bad history there, there's a big dose of sad and a bigger dose of bitter. Maybe it's just too thin a Thin Red Line between today and recent history....
I suddenly find myself with a sexy little laptop to play with, recuperating in Kuala Lumpur, inflicting myself on the unwitting hospitality of my First Niece, Tricia, getting over the worst bitch of a cold ever.
Or maybe I am just getting over travel fatigue. It’s sheer delight to be in a private home, with these wondrous things like a fridge, a hammock, family, a kitty and a poodle. Big burly Yorkshire Chris taking Zukie the Wonder Poodle out for walkies is truly something to see. Maybe a bit of home living is just what I need at this point in my life and travels.
Christmas in Asia was about as odd as I thought it would be. My sister Christine and her husband Rex flew out from wintry Saskatchewan to spend xmas with their daughter (aforementioned First Niece) Tricia in steamy, muggy Kuala Lumpur. And with Chris and I only a couple hours away via sexy budget airline Air Asia, well, we couldn’t miss the chance to join the family adventure. So, I find myself in this city that was a complete unknown for me. And as I never had much interest in the place, so I fully expected it to remain unknown. And, it's great. A real British Empire gem without the cultural baggage of some colonial outposts (like, say, Canada).
We did all the sights in KL - went an elephant sanctuary, the Batu Caves with the crazy monkeys and psychedelic shrines and ooh’ed and aah’ed at the Petronas Towers.
But for me, really, it’s all about One Utama. This huge mega-mall about a block from Tricia’s place has it all, and I love it. Free wireless, cheap cinema and every chain store or restaurant I have ever heard of from Canada and the UK mixed up with great Asian food and junk. It’s a weird shopping synthesis for me. TGIFridays. Marks & Spencer. Cinnabon, Dorothy Perkins, Roots, Boots. Dunkin’ Donuts. Pukka Pies. A&W. And after eight months of backpacking, serious consumer overload for me.
And, hurrah, it’s even where we spent New Year’s Eve. Yup, we went to the mall. Big-to-Malaysians pop bands. Silly String areas (buy a can for 10p and spray away). Dance mat contests. And not a drop of booze. You 'could' buy beer, but this being Malaysia there wasn't a drunk or puking yob in sight.
So it was the sweetest little NYE ever. And we wish you all the sweetest new year ever.
The thing about blogs, right, is that once you fall behind, it's a bitch to try to catch up.
Anyhow, it's a new year in some parts of the world, so here goes. I am going to upload news of our travels in some semblance of order even if it is a bit late in the day.
Enjoy, let me know what you think, and apologies in advance for the random chaos of my life and times.
