Category: travel

I’ve been to Ho Chi Minh City before [confusion.cc] but didn’t get good many good photos. This time I was on a business trip and had less than 6 hours to wander around and take photos. However, I think I have better shots this time. Funny.

Since I only had a few hours of free time when it was not raining and since my hotel was right downtown by the opera house I could walk to the central market and to the Saigon River ferry terminal. Most of the shots were taken on those walks—and in the central market. The remaining shots were taken in and around the Chinatown Market across town. I did not visit Chinatown on my previous trip so I took a cab there and back this time. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to find any of the many temples and such near Chinatown. Oh well next time.

I also managed to find the same Bia Hoi place that Candice and I drank at on the last trip. I took the guys I was working with there for an ‘authentic Vietnamese experience’ and again it did not disappoint. At least this time I was not the only white guy there—all three of the people I was with were in the same boat.

Anyway. Even though I did not take a lot of photos I am quite happy with the quality of the ones I did take. Next time though I hope I get to go to Hanoi. HCMC is interesting but I’d rather spent my time exploring new places than revisiting the old… at least for now.

You can see the rest of the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, June 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

Hong Kong has always been a surreal place in my mind. Associated with all that was the British Empire, filled with the shadows of the Triads, and overflowing with commercialism. The opium dens are long gone but after spending a weekend in Hong Kong I’m happy to say it has not lost all it’s mystical status in my mind.

I didn’t spend a lot of time in Hong Kong so the parts are saw were limited to the big sites: Ngong Ping on Lantau island and it’s Giant Buddha [wikipedia.org] as well as Victoria Peak [wikipedia.org]. Rode the Star Ferry [wikipedia.org] across the harbor and wondered the streets of Mong Kok looking for bargain and good photos.

Victoria Peak was fun, the view is wonderful—though the constant smog kept it from being beautiful—but the trip up on the Peak Tram [wikipedia.org] with it’s 45 degree upward climb was the best part. The buildings seem to grow out of the slope at a 45 degree angle. A bit scary on the way down as you plummet slowly down the same 45 degree slope—backwards!

The big Buddha on Lantau also suffered from the problem of smog. Up on the Ngong Ping Plateau you can’t tell where the smog ends and the clouds begin.

In the end the best part was wondering around the many street markets near the hotel in Mong Kok. The Lady’s market, Goldfish market, Flower Market and Bird Garden were all within a few minutes walk. I really enjoyed the Bird Garden with it’s wall-to-wall bamboo bird cages and the constant cacophony of songs. On the other hand I really don’t like the fact that these hundreds of birds are caged for their song. And while the owners and shop keepers seem to dote on them I can’t help but feel sad that the caged bird must sing.

And then there’s the food. Most of the famous Hong Kong street food is outside the realm of my menu being a vegetarian but there seem to be a decent number of vegetarian restaurants and those that I tried were good. The most adventurous I got with food was chòu dòufu [wikipedia.org] or stinky tofu… an offensive smelling lump of deep fried soybean goodness. Smells like rotting vegetables, tastes.. ok. I’ve even gone out and had some here in Singapore since I got back. If you get it fresh out of the oil and hold your nose it’s not half bad. Now how long till someone makes a durian stinky tofu puff?

You can see the rest of the Hong Kong SAR, China, May 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

What can I say about Moscow that I have not already said [confusion.cc]? Well I really only had a few days to look around, the rest of my time was spent working. The main attraction, the must see, was Saint Basil’s CathedralRed Square [wikipedia.org] and the Kremlin [wikipedia.org]. These sites are the first things that come to mind when one things of Moscow, or indeed of Russia.

The first stop was the Kremlin, no bags allowed so only take the camera lenses you think you will really use. Ah… the once (an future?) beating heart of communism and home of the Tsars. Of the 5 churches or cathedrals on my ticket 4 were open the day I visited — the fifth seemed to be under renovation. Unfortunately you cannot take photos inside any of them. A pity as they are beautiful. Covered floor to ceiling with portraits of saints and martyrs in vivid or faded colors. Giant iconostases [wikipedia.org] gleaming in gold and silver. In the Cathedral of the Archangel [wikipedia.org] I listened to a quartet sing classical Russian Orthodox hymns, I should have picked up the CD.

Outside the walls of the Kremlin is of course Red Square. It’s easy to imagine the giant square echoing with the stomping of the Red Army’s soldiers and the rumbling of it’s missile trucks as they pass Lenin’s Mausoleum [wikipedia.org]. It’s a strange feeling standing in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum where Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and the other leaders of the Communist Party surveyed Red Army during the Cold War. I was in middle school when the Berlin Wall fell and Gorbachev’s glasnost [wikipedia.org] and perestroika took hold so I guess I am in the last generation to see the Soviet Union as the Cold War foe and standing at it’s heart was surreal.

One of the things I remember most about the last year of the USSR is a political cartoon in an insert to my 8th grade yearbook showing a Russian babushka lady picking up the last potato in an otherwise empty grocery store and wondering why she waited in line for days. One of the symbols of that era forms the eastern side of Red Square: The GUM department store or State Universal Store [wikipedia.org] was, according to my Lonely Planet guide, once the epitome of all that the political cartoon in my year book was poking fun at. However today the long lines and empty shelves of this gigantic Victorian building built between 1890 and 1893 are long gone. The windows of the Moscow St. Pancas are filled with Louis Louis Vuitton and other brand names. Capitalism has won…

Much more famous than the GUM however are the colorful onion domes of Saint Basil’s Cathedral, more properly called the Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat. The Cathedral dominates the psyche when one thinks of Russia, at least for me, more so than any other one thing. The inside of the cathedral is a bit of a let down, the rooms are all small and sparse. A few iconostases reside in the larger halls and some icons in other rooms but the inside is no match for the colorful and exuberant outside. Saint Basil’s is without doubt the one thing I wanted a good photo of. And I am disappointed with those that I took, perhaps one day I will travel back. Hopefully in the summer.

After a day in and around Red Square I spent a day at the Izmaylovo or Vernisazh Market just near my hotel (which by the way was massive with 5 buildings, I was in Alpha, and was build for the 1980’s Olympics). This market is somewhat of a tourist trap and is not a locals market, though there were a number of Russians there most of the real shoppers were tourists and the goods on sale are typical tourist goods: matryoshka dolls [wikipedia.org], Lenin and Stalin watches, Soviet Army uniforms, and the like—and a lot of old antiques. All that aside it was a fun day and I got a lot of presents of others; including a 20 piece matryoshka doll for home.

The rest of my weekend wanderings in Moscow are not worth writing about. Most of my weekday time was spent in the low rise semi-industrial outskirts of the city dominated by sullen communist era boxes of apartment buildings.

You can see the whole Moscow, Russia, March/April 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

I was supposed to be in Israel for 4 weeks. Candice was supposed to come and join me for a week—and we would spend a few days in Istanbul, Turkey on the way home. Instead I spent 8 days in Israel before having to head back to Singapore to meet with a customer.

However, I did manage to spend a weekend in Jerusalem. I could have flown home on Friday but the flights were a mess and besides, I didn’t know when I would have a chance to come back to Israel (more on that later).

Two days walking in the Old City of Jerusalem is enough time to see everything. Maybe not enough time to visit all the museums but all the big sites: the Western Wall [wikipedia.org], the Church of the Holy Sepulchre [wikipedia.org] and the Dome of the Rock [wikipedia.org]. As well as spend time walking around the bazaars of the Old City.

The bazaars of the Old City are quite interesting—once you get away from the tourist kitsch shops along the mail roads and near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at least. many of the streets are filled with shops and hawkers selling all manner of goods from food to cloths to toys. Around Damascus Gate especially there is a lively daily market. The Old City really feels like a functioning ancient city.

Juxtaposed against this is the new city. As soon as you leave ancient or medieval or Ottoman or whatever period they are all, walls of the Old City everything changes. The new city of Jerusalem is like any other modern city with Hotels, gas stations, super markets and traffic.

In the title of this post, and the photo set on Flickr I noted the dual nature of the Old City—and I’ve already been given crap by a guy from Israel, but I think most of world realises that Palestine will be a state one day and whatever happens the Old City is as much a part of that land as it is a part of Israel… History is history but peace will have to mean both sides can clam the city. They should let the Tibetans run the city and neither Israel or Palestine should have sovereignty over the Old City.

The best part about all of this is I am in Israel again as I write this, to finish what I did not get to do the first trip! This time I am supposed to be here two weeks. We’ll see. The El Al security staff in Bangkok recognised me… but this time it was different things that ‘set off alarms’ and had to be repacked, all things that passed inspection the first trip two weeks ago!

You can see my whole Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine, March 2007 photoset on Flickr.