Category: travel

I realized today that I have a number more photo sets uploaded to flickr [flickr.com] than I do here on my own site. (n.b. my flickr account is here [flickr.com]) So now I will attempt to fix that.

I’ll start by posting my oldest set of digital picture goodness—Japan! Japan, was the first place I went to with my 10D, in fact it was the reason for getting the 10D in the first place. J███████, S██████ and I made the 15 day… I mean hour trip back in March of 2004. There we joined J██ for two weeks of early mornings, late nights, temples, shrines, more temples, more shrines, Nijojojojojojojo jo, sake, more sake and ‘oh my god Jim, they’re all Japanese!

Needless to say it was fun. So much fun in fact that I hope to do it again before J██ is no longer J██-in-Japan. We traveled around Tokyo with J██, and sometimes N██████ — J██’s personal guide (if you catch my drift) to Japan for some time. After that we ventured out and explored Kyoto, Nagano, Matsumoto, Nara, Neko and Yokohama before finally departing Tokyo for what turned into a nightmare 30 hours of delayed and missed flights before returning to the world that is not Japan—NoVa.

I just realized that even though I have posted the pictures of Japan before, and taken them down and posted them again, and taken them down again, I have never actually written about the Japan trip. The closest I got to it was this entry [confusion.cc] make just after returning from Japan. I guess I must have had some sort of premonition or something when I wrote:

When I get a chance to catch my breath and collect my thoughts I will attempt to distill two weeks of Gai-jin fumbling into a coherent narrative. Or maybe I’ll just try to make it interesting rather than dull and lifeless. Yes that’s what I’ll do. I’ll attempt to entertain rather than just report. Maybe it’ll never happen. I may start and never finish—like most things in this journal

as I never did do a proper write up, though I refer to it several times. I guess it doesn’t matter the only people who read this site already know the details, and anyone who does not can email me and demand a full accounting of the (mis)adventures J███████, S██████, J██ and I had in the island nation. Anyway, enjoy the pictures, hopefully this will be the last time I post them.

I went over to Pulau Ubin for a few hours and wondered around. It’s the second time I’ve been there and it’s really not much. It’s got two beaches but they are very small and the sand is, or at least was, very rocky and filled with broken shells. There were only a few people using the beaches, most of them for fishing. One group of teens was camped out and had buried themselves in gray mud when I was at Noorden Beach.

I wanted to head to Chek Jawa and wonder around the mud flats at low tide looking for creepy-crawly things to take Macro shots of. Alas, it was raining and I did not want to make the hour and a half walk in the rain (most of the roads to Chek Jawa are dirt.) So I stuck mostly to the paved roads and wondered to the two beaches.

On my previous trip I went (with Candice that time) to the Buddhist temple, so that means I’ve now done three of the four main attractions according to the tourist info: Noorden Beach, Mamam Beach, Chek Jawa and Wat Siam, or the Thai Buddhist Temple). Next time I will have to wait for better weather and do Chek Jawa.

I didn’t get to see much nature because of the constant light drizzle (and a short downpour.) So the birds and such stayed out of camera sight. I did see a rather large monitor lizard, crossing the road. I didn’t get a chance to ask him why he crossed the road—I didn’t even get a chance to take a photo of him because by the time my camera was powered up he was long gone.

Candice and I spent a few days in New York City. Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty, Flugie, Bagels, 5th Avenue… :)

Vietnam was an interesting experience. Candice and I were not there for long enough to see much outside the city center—still called Saigon—which encompasses the old French city. We stayed at a French colonial era restored hotel a few blocks from the Hotel de Ville, and just beside the old Opera house.

Ho Chi Minh itself is a view into the birth of a noisy Southeast Asian city, like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur must have been 20 years ago. Ho Chi Minh has started in the mid 1990’s two decades behind it’s neighbors because of Vietnams self imposed isolation after the American Vietnam War. Today the city streets are overrun with motor bikes, countless motor bikes that outnumber the cars in an inverse proportion to the way cars outnumber bikes in the US.

Everything in Vietnam is ‘one dollar US’ or ‘ten dollar US’ and if it’s more you can bargain them down. Get in a taxi to go down the street—one dollar, across town: one dollar (Well sometimes five.) And the greatest thing is that if you try to pay in Dong, it’ll cost you 50% more than in dollars not the other way around.

I got offered the most famous ten dollar commodity in Vietnam one night. I was sitting on a sidewalk waiting for a good chance to photograph something. Candice was sitting in the coffee shop behind me (they have amazing coffee in Vietnam—just beware the ‘weasel coffee’. While I was sitting there a girl came up and sat next to me and stated talking to me. Very quickly she asked where I was staying and if I needed company. Unfortunately Candice paid the bill and came out before the young lady could offer ‘ten dollar, love you long time.’

We didn’t get out of the city very far. One trip to Chu Chi tunnels (it’s not worth it) and a trip to the Mangrove swamps, which are all young growth trees. They were all planted in the late 70’s after Agent Orange defoliated and killed all the old growth mangroves, some of which were more than a meter in diameter. The one place I really wanted to go, the Mekong Delta area, we didn’t make. The problem was I didn’t want to take a pre-packaged tour, both the other trips were with a local tour company and I thought they were a bit lame. I guess I am too used to setting my own schedule and doing what I want. I don’t like itineraries and schedules. So I looked online and found a travel report by some people that said to use a hydrofoil boat service that left Ho Chi Minh at 7 AM. That way you would make it to Mytho before the tour groups and see more ‘authentic’ life in the delta.

So on our last full day we dragged ourselves out of bed at o’dark hundred hours and make our way down to the pier. There were three hydrofoils at the pier but no ticket counters no captain, no crew, no nothing. After wondering around for an hour and trying to understand the broken English of the crew who apparently sleep on the boat (they opened the doors and were brushing their teeth while we were trying to figure out what was going on) we met the captain of one of the boats. He told us that while they used to run the service I had read about they were recently bought out by the same tour company that we had used to see the mangroves and Chu Chi. Apparently these guys don’t like competition and had shut the service down, turning the boat trip into part of yet another pre-packaged tour.

So I didn’t get to see the Mekong Delta but I did get to try Bia Hoi!. Bia Hoi is the local ‘fresh beer.’ You have to go a bit off the beaten tourist path to find it but it’s worth it. Served, at least in the place I found, in one liter plastic jugs, Bia Hoi is a social event. Candice and I went to Sai Gon Bia Hoi several times and it was always crowded. I was the only westerner we ever saw in the place and there was much staring but it was great. The girls who work—and live—there were fascinated with us. They only spoke a little English but they hovered around our tables quite a bit to speak with us, look at the camera and laugh when we tried to say something. Of the things we did and saw in Ho Chi Minh Bia Hoi was the most memorable.

Good Friday was a holiday here in S’pore—why? I don’t know no one here really celebrates Easter but hey it was a three day weekend: who am I to question. Since it was a long weekend Candice and I went to Malaysia [wikipedia.org]. Or, more precisely we went to Genting [wikipedia.org] and Kuala Lumpur [wikipedia.org].

First stop: Genting… After a long (eight hours! Someone lied then they said it only took four!) and very uncomfortable ride on a bus that bounced so much on it’s shocks that it could have stared in a Dr. Dre video, we got to Genting. Now, Genting is nothing more than a miniature Lost Wages in the highlands near Kuala Lumpur. There are some really great views of the mountains but other than that if you’re not placing bets or riding on cheesy miniature thrill rides then you’re eating or sleeping. But we only spent a day there so it was all good.

Kuala Lumpur was kind of a disappointment though. The only thing to really do is shop or drink. There is a severe lack of cultural things to see. You can go to Chinatown and by RM10 Rolexes but then, you can do that in most major cities in Southeast Asia. But what do KL have that no one else has? The Petronas Twin Towers [wikipedia.org] of course. The world’s tallest building—or it was… Maybe, see here [wikipedia.org] and here [straightdope.com]. The towers are a bit of a let down actually because there is no real bulk to them. I mean the World Trade Center had and the Sears Tower has bulk taking up city blocks and being basically beefy all the way up. The Petronas Towers are kind or skimpy by comparison. But they do make for cool pictures.

That was about it for the photo ops in KL, but on Sunday we headed a bit north of the city to Batu Caves [wikipedia.org]. There was no body mutilating Thaipusam [wikipedia.org] religious festival (think masochistic circus side show involving hooks,) but there were monkeys! I took lots of pictures of the monkeys even though I just took pictures of the monkeys in Singapore, which Candice did not understand. The conversation went something like this:

Candice: “Why are you taking so many pictures of the monkeys?”
Beggs: “Cause monkeys are cool!”
Candice: “Why are monkeys cool?
Beggs: “Umm… I don’t understand the question?”

Anyway, it was a relaxing weekend. The pictures are a bit disappointing—mostly due to the lack of a tripod. Most of the night shots of the Petronas Towers are blurry since I was holding the camera. Same holds for most of the monkey shots as it was dark in the cave and the flash would have scared them all away. C’est la vie… that’ll teach me to travel without a tripod!