Moments

Journeys are full of small events and incidents, which pass by almost unnoticed and may soon be forgotten. Still I think, they are the essence of travelling... visiting monuments and museums is what everyone does, be it on an organized tour or as an independent traveller. But the countless short moments of surprises, encounters and occurrances are giving sense to a journey. Some I would not like to forget...


When I was standing on the veranda of my guesthouse in Savannakhet, a man on a bicycle pulled up on the other side of the street. I first could not see what was on the back part of his bike, but I soon understood... Within seconds he was surrounded by younger children and, how to say, children who were not so young any more. After paying I don't know how much, they got three shots with some sort of plastic gun, from a distance of less than a meter. If the gun's arrows would pass through a ring that was mounted behind his seat, they would get a price. The game was accompanied by the laughter, yelling and cheers of everyone around. After a few minutes all had done their shots. The man got on his bicycle, waved his hand and left...


In Quang Ngai I went to the main road to catch a minibus to Hoi An. When I arrived, there was already one waiting. The minibus was almost full, which meant that they definitely would press in half a dozen more. But they were not grabbing me and pulling me inside, as I expected... Looking at me, a man and a woman were discussing the affair. A tiny man of about 50 years stood next to me. "They don't want to take you, because you are to big...", he explained me in a very good English. First I thought he made a joke, but he - and the others - were serious. They left without me. I didn't have to wait long for the next one, where I got on board without discussions. Since then, in bad moments and a bad mood I call myself "fatty"...


A cloudy day in Hue... I was walking around the old citadel, the Emperor's residence. I did not enter, because admission was quite expensive, and I wanted to enjoy it with sunshine (which never happened...). On my way back, on one of the big bridges, an open lorry came in the opposite direction, two loudspeakers announcing something which must have been heard through half the city. On the cargo space there was something big and grey, the replica of an elephant, as I soon recognized. But strangely the head moved from one side to another... it was a true, living elephant... I don't know what they made publicity for, but I wonder how the poor animal felt on the back of this truck. In my imagination he must have gone mad, having to listen to the blaring loudspeakers close to his head for maybe several hours...


On the Bolaven plateau, close to Tad Lo, I was walking through the forest. Going uphill on a wide path, I suddenly heard some birds singing. It was the most beautiful (bird's) melody I have ever heard. There were eight or nine of them, brown, with a white head. I don't know whether they were fighting over food or a female, or just chasing themselves through the forest. As I approached, they were flying away a few meters, but stayed next to the path. This way it went on for several minutes, until they disappeared finally in the forest, their singing becoming lower and lower.
In Vietnam I met Lisa, a Swiss woman, who had travelled with a digital recorder. She was recording all kinds of voices and noises, and this was what I wished I would have had with me then...
Unfortunately Lisa couldn't present me what she had recorded, because the device got lost, probably stolen, a short while ago...


Saigon was terrible... noisy and rainy, an unpleasant combination. There was not much I liked to do. For some days I just was wandering around the two blocks, where my guesthouse was located. A small store was selling some sweets, drinks, and serving coffee, outside on the sidewalk... a tiny man with a hunchback apparently was the owner, and soon we sort of got to know each other, without speaking each other's language. I sat down on these very small plastic chairs, sipped my coffee and watched the streetlife, which was, in spite of the many guesthouses and tourist restaurants, pure Vietnamese...
I always was the only foreigner there and don't know what the others were expecting in all these touristy restaurants and bars. I found a small corner of Vietnam just a few meters away from my guesthouse, in the middle of this tourist area... and again I was glad that I was travelling alone...


Close to Pakse in southern Laos there's a huge fair trade store, selling Laotian products. It's a beautiful wooden building, very bright with a lot of glass, a veranda and some more areas to sit outside, take a rest, and have a drink. Inside they sell tee, coffee, marmalade, clothes, handicrafts, honey, and I have forgotten what else. The problem is that this store is 8 kms out of town... apparently hardly anyone makes his way out there. When I arrived, the 3 persons at the store were simply sleeping and then kind of surprised that a visitor showed up. I drank two bottles of Laotian palm beer, it was late noon, I was sweating, and the cold beer really tasted terrific. When I wanted to pay, they first had to look around to find enough change, although I gave them a small bill...
I don't know who put this building out there in this no man's land. It's such a pity, such a waste of energy and good intentions... We are in the low season right now, but I think that even in the best months not many people make it out there...

Phnom Penh

After an almost day-long river and bus journey I arrived in Phnom Penh. It's much hotter here then in Vietnam the last weeks, where the constant rain brought lower temperatures. Phnom Penh itself is rather pleasant, compared to Saigon. It's got some wide, tree-lined avenues and boulevards, the traffic is less intense than in Vietnam in general, and distances within the city are not really long and easily covered by bicycle.
I was and I am surprised by the amount of cars on the streets. There are very few to be seen in Vietnam, the whole world is moving around on small motorcycles. Here in Phnom Penh a car seems to be much more affordable, although the country is - generally speaking - "poorer" than Vietnam. Cambodia and Phnom Penh are full of NGOs and international organisations, though, but this cannot be that important to explain the difference... well, maybe I shouldn't spend that much time on such an issue...

Things to visit in Phnom Penh: the Royal Palace, for example, the Historical Museum, one or the other Wat (Buddhist Monastery). And Tuol Sleng, the former prison and Cambodian pendant to Auschwitz, as one could call it. A brief summary about the history of Tuol Sleng and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge you find at www.tuolsleng.com , together with lots of photos and links...
I didn't go to visit the Killing Fields. They are some 13 kms outside of Phnom Penh, I have read quite enough about the recent history of Cambodia and know what it is all about, and it's simply damned hot...
By the way, the Cambodian government sort of "privatized" the Killing Fields some years ago. It sold the rights to "exploit" (or let's say "administer") the site to a Japanese company, for an amount of money that was never made public...
(Can anyone imagine Dachau or Auschwitz in the hands of a private company? For more information on Cambodia and corruption take a look at www.transparency.org)

I still wait to get my visa for Laos processed.... the border crossing from Cambodia to Laos is the only one where you don't get the visa on arrival. And as I came to Phnom Penh friday afternoon... I said, the city is quite pleasant, but two days are nevertheless enough, now I'm four days here. It's not that I'm bored, but... I stay at a guesthouse with a terrace overlooking lake Boeung Kak. It could be great to just hang around there, reading, doing nothing, enjoying the tranquillity... if there wasn't TV and music, almost always running, at my own guesthouse and the ones next door, at a level that you can't really miss or ignore it. At least in the morning it's quiet. All others are still sleeping and I sit alone on the terrace, sipping my coffee... 6.30, just the perfect time, because one hour later it's already really hot again...

The Mekong-Delta

I went on an organized 3-day-tour through the Mekong-Delta... I didn't do something similar since I started traveling in 1981. But it was a fairly interesting and cheap offer, so I didn't really hesitate...
A large time we spent on boats, going from one place to the next. We visited a rice noodle "factory" (a family business), a fish farm (also family run, there are hundreds of them one after the other), floating houses, one of the biggest floating markets, some more tourist traps where souvenirs and other junk was sold, pagodas, minority villages and some more things I've already forgotten. Still, it was fairly okay. As I pointed out, a long time we spend on boats, and this is the most interesting way to see the Mekong-Delta. Life here is determined by the water, people live at the river or right above it... floating houses are necessary due to the rising of the water level, up to 3 or 4 meters at the end of the rainy season. They feed on the river, they wash in it, they get their water from it (unfiltered in many more remote places)... and they trade on it and with its products...
There are several floating markets, of course a great attraction for tourists... together with our boat many more were closing in on the biggest market, it felt a little bit like the helicopter attack in "Apocalypse Now"... yet we came in peace and left some money there, because they also were waiting for us: selling cold drinks, fruits and sweeties... and taking us around in small rowing boats, because our motor boat was too big to navigate through the narrow spaces between the hundreds of local boats...

The most beautiful part was the tour upriver to Chau Doc, close to the Cambodian border. In the afternoon of the second day we got on a large cruise boat, large enough to take 70 or 80 people, but we were only 13... it's off-season, fortunately... it was a three-hour trip and among the most fascinating things I will ever remember. The afternoon sun threw a terrific light over the river and its banks. The sky was a threating dark, behind us, announcing some heavy monsoon rain. Large carpets of water hyacinths and the palm forests on the banks shone in shades of green of an incredible intensity. The wide river was full of life, small and large boats going in either direction, ferrys crossing, rowing boats with a handful of people fishing... and the banks full of children taking their evening bath and yelling and shouting and greeting us...
A remarkable thing were my fellow travellers. Either they knew all that already (hardly imaginable) or were going there again within a short time (probably not), I don't know... half of them were reading, the other half of them pulled out their ipods, sun glasses, and whatever is necessary to distract yourself and get away - mentally - from where you are at the moment. I again wondered about who the strange one is: is it me or is it a good part of the rest of the world? Anyway, I enjoyed this colorfull and lively atmosphere on the river and was glad that no one talked to me... Would be a great thing to come back, with much more time, and organize your own trip through this delta, with its hundreds of channels and river arms... but that's a nice dream, and at least I had the opportunity to glance for some short moments at the life on this fascinating river...