Obsessions of Asia

We are woefully behind on posting since we came back to the United States. Despite having almost constant access to computers and the Internet, we have focused our time on seeing family and friends. Even for me, it is hard to say, "Mom, I know you haven't seen me for two years, but I just have to get those Obsessions posts done..."

So, without anymore excuses, here come Asia's obsessions:

India- Spitting. An easy one. The average Indian might spit 1200 times per day. And we aren't talking about small little bits of spittle. We're talking about pieces of lung the size of a fist. Sure, lots of Indians also have a paan habit (think chewing tobacco, but different ingredients that also happen to make one's spit Kool-Aid red), but even those that don't chew still spit. And before the spitting comes a noise that sounds like the regurgitation of a cow. Wait, most Indians don't eat cow, so a goat. Like hawking up a goat.

Sri Lanka- Water tanks. What is a water tank you ask? Well, I'm going to tell you even if you didn't ask. A water tank is a man made lake. Sri Lanka has a lot of areas that are at altitude and are very wet for part of the year, but very dry for the rest of the year. So, starting a thousand years ago or more, digging giant water pits became the prerequisite for growing any large city that wasn't on the sea. And they did it with gusto. Some of the cities have dozens of lakes that are far larger than many dammed lakes in the US, and they were all dug out by hand. Or maybe with hands and a rock and maybe a chisel, but you get the point. Good job, ancient Sri Lankans!

Malaysia- Tourism posters. If all the Asian countries were elementary school students, Malaysia would get the "Tries Hardest" certificate at the end of the year. Not only are tourism posters in nearly every window of Malaysia, they are in nearly every hotel and vaguely related travel business everywhere in Asia. They must have printed millions of them. And that makes it even sadder that more people don't visit Malaysia, which really is a spectacular country.

Singapore- Rules. Singapore has rules for everything. And fines for not following most of them. The list of fines in the subway cars was as long as my arm. (We especially appreciated that one of the highest fines was for bringing the smelly durian fruit on the train.) If you like to conform, consider moving to Singapore. If you have ever voted Libertarian or are a card carrying member of the Tea Party, consider vacationing somewhere other than Singapore.

Indonesia- Cats without tails. Didn't see that one coming, did you? We saw hundreds of cats in Indonesia and every one of them had some or all of its tail missing. We can only assume that people think they should not have tails and take it upon themselves to cut off the tails with whatever sharp instrument is laying around when they see a cat with tail intact. We thought that we might see this in other countries, but it was really just Indonesia.

Thailand- 7-Eleven. Think of all the 7-Elevens you have ever seen. Multiply that number by 100. That is how many 7-Elevens are on the average block in Thailand. It used to be a joke in New York that Starbucks would often have locations right across the street from one another. 7-Eleven in Thailand might regularly have three stores on a block. I don't understand how they stay in business, especially since they are more expensive than most Thai businesses, but they all seem the thrive. Since I love Slurpees, I thank the Thai people for making cheap Slurpees available everywhere.

Burma (Myanmar)- Gold leaf. I had never heard of someone's job being to hammer gold until it was gold leaf. In Burma, that ranks as one of the most popular jobs. Where does all that gold leaf go? Buddhists in Burma buy the gold leaf and then rub it onto the Buddha statues (or anything else that they believe should be gold) at the Buddhist temples. This keeps everything bright and shiny. Oh, I should point out that only men are allowed to do this. Women aren't allowed to touch the Buddha statues, but can buy some gold leaf and have a manly man rub it onto the Buddha.

Cambodia- Angkor Wat. It seems sort of lame to be obsessed with your biggest tourist attraction, but Cambodia unquestionably is. It adorns the flag, half the stores in the country are named for it, and it inspired enough awe that even Pol Pot didn't destroy it. And Pol Pot destroyed just about everything in Cambodia.

Vietnam- Motor scooters. The average person in Vietnam has 3.2 motor scooters. Approximately. Through a quantum trick, they ride all of them simultaneously. So, while Vietnam has only 80 million people, 250 million people ply the roads on motor scooters at any given time. And most of those 250 million are going down the road that you want to cross. The streets of the large cities look like a moped convention.

Laos- Fruit shakes. I try to find something deeper than a food for country obsessions, but fruit shakes made with fruit, condensed milk, sugar, and ice are what hold the country of Laos together and makes the whole country so friendly. That's pure speculation, but locals and tourists alike can be found drinking delicious and cheap shakes all over the country, and we were certainly fans. For those who are not feeling happy enough after a regular shake, many places seem to offer "happy" shakes, which come with whatever drugs they happen to have in stock (pot in most places).

China- Crotchless pants. No, China isn't turning into 1980s New York. Any child under the age of three in China wears pants with a giant slit down the crotch and no underwear underneath. This allows them to go to the bathroom anytime and anywhere they like. And I do mean anytime and anywhere. Let's say the kid is waiting in a busy ticket line inside the train station with the parent and needs to go to the bathroom--that's what those pants are for. Number one or number two? Doesn't matter. Does the parent clean it up? No. It stays there for others to step in. While China seems likely to take over the world one day, we hope they get rid of crotchless pants prior to that.

Mongolia- Chengis Khan. Yeah, I thought it was Genghis Khan, too, but not in Mongolia. This founder of the Mongol Empire is known for uniting the nomads of Mongolia, declaring war on anything that moved, killing about a bajillion people, and creating the beginning of the largest empire the world has ever known. That, of course, makes him the hero of Mongolia. Based on our experience, I don't see the second coming of the Mongol Empire anytime soon.

There you have it: the obsessions of Asia. Disagree with us? Too bad. Write your own blog. Or leave us nasty comments about how we disparaged your country. That's why our home address isn't on the blog. Well, that and we don't have a home yet...

From Rupees to Rupiah: Financing Asia

All through our travels, people told us how cheap Asia would be...and, looking forward to bringing down our average daily budget, we hoped that they were right. Luckily, they were!

Here are the numbers by country. In case you forgot how we do this, these numbers are for two people, including visa costs and all costs on the ground (and in the air if we took internal flights). Sometimes we also include the cost of a flight into the country if that was the only way to get there.

India: $53 per day. Visas cost $74 each at the embassy in Istanbul. India is one of the cheapest countries we've been to, so staying there for five weeks did wonders for our financial (if not gastrointestinal) health. Hotel rooms ranged from $10-$25 depending on level of comfort (except in Mumbai, where it's hard to find a double for less than $50); restaurant meals could usually be had for a buck or two, and street food for pennies; and train transport in sleeper class cost less than a hotel. Not getting ripped off on cabs and tourist excursions required some negotiating.

Sri Lanka: $80 per day (including flight from Chennai, India, which costs about $120 per ticket; $53 per day without flight). No visa fees. Sri Lanka's hotels and food were a little more expensive than India's, but it made up for it with what is possibly the world's cheapest public transport on a $-per-hour basis. If you plan to visit more than two historic sites in the "Cultural Triangle" area, getting a pass can save you $25 or more.

Malaysia: $47 per day. No visas. Some travelers complain about Malaysia being pricey, but as it turns out, the only traveler item that is really expensive in (Muslim-majority) Malaysia is beer! As long as you don't drink much, the country is terrific value, especially considering how developed it is. Air-con double rooms with shared (but very clean, hot-water) bathrooms cost $10-$15, and delicious, cheap street food abounds. Transport is a little pricier than some Asian countries, but you usually get comfortable, AC buses on smooth roads. We stuck to the peninsula this time and didn't do any fancy tourist excursions, but our memories of our previous trip to Borneo are that prices were very reasonable there, too.

Singapore: $111 per day. No visas. We only spent two days in Singapore, so this is kind of skewed, but it's certainly one of the most developed and expensive countries in Southeast Asia. Most of the cheaper hotels are in the red light district, where we found a decent private room for $35 a night. Public transport, museums, and restaurants are comparable to Western prices, but taxis (which are metered, hallelujah!) and street or food court foods are relatively cheap.

Indonesia: $102 per day. One-month visas on arrival at the airport cost $25 each. Indonesia was surprisingly expensive, though that's largely because we did a lot of pricey activities like SCUBA diving, chartering a boat to Krakatau volcano, and a few other organized tours. No-frills internal flights between the islands were a pretty good deal, usually less than $50 one-way and could be booked just a day or two before. Buses and trains on the ground varied a lot in price and quality. Hotel rooms for $10-$15 could be found, but were usually pretty disgusting; if we wanted cleanliness and AC, we usually had to pay at least $25. Cheap street food could be found in most places, though not so much in touristy Bali, where we usually had to shell out for real restaurants.

Thailand: $83 per day. No visa fees. Considering how many touristy activities we did in Thailand (diving, elephant training camp, etc.), this is a great average. Hotel and transport standards are pretty high, but competition for the tourist buck keeps prices low. Markets selling cheap local food are pretty easy to find, and even fancy restaurants are probably cheaper than the Thai restaurants you find at home. Just try not to get robbed, which could certainly send your costs soaring!

Myanmar: $77 per day. Visas cost $27 each in Bangkok. This average includes flights into and out of Yangon from Bangkok ($130 each roundtrip), which accounted for one-third of our expenditures there. Once you're on the ground, Myanmar (Burma) is super cheap in all categories, though its rough roads, ancient vehicles, and power cuts often made it feel more like traveling in sub-Saharan Africa than Southeast Asia.

Cambodia: $53 per day. Visas cost $20 each at the border. Cambodia is excellent value. $11 a night got us rooms with bathroom, AC, and sat TV in both Siem Riep and Phnom Penn, the two most touristed cities in the country. Markets and restaurants offer cheap food; bus transport and tourist site admissions are pretty reasonable. If we had stayed longer, or ventured out to less touristy places, it probably would have been even cheaper, but even so, Cambodia was one of the cheapest destinations on our trip.

Vietnam: $66 per day. Visas cost $45 each in Phnom Penn, Cambodia. Vietnam's one of those countries that feels more expensive than it is, probably because people are trying to rip you off almost continuously. But we did manage to stay in some pretty nice hotel rooms and eat decent food for not a lot of money. Trains cost more than buses but are much nicer (which isn't the same as saying that they're actually nice!), especially for overnight travel. Halong Bay overnight cruises can be an especially good deal for a decently swanky experience...provided your boat doesn't sink in the night, of course.

Laos: $57 per day. Visas cost $40 each at the border. Laos is pretty poor, so the roads and buses aren't always the nicest, but hotels were quite comfortable, food was inexpensive, activities like kayaking were very reasonable, and prices overall about as cheap as could be.

China: $92 per day. Visas cost $160 each in Vientiane, Laos--the most expensive of our entire trip. (They are about $100 less expensive for non-Americans, though.) Yunnan province, in southwestern China, was incredibly inexpensive; with $10 hotel rooms and cheap bus rides, it cost no more than Laos, where we had just come from. As we moved east and to the bigger cities, things got more expensive, though you could always find cheap and tasty food, even in Beijing. In general, China didn't feel overpriced considering the good quality of rooms, trains, and food that we got, and some tourist attractions, like the Forbidden City, were surprisingly reasonable.

Mongolia: $121 per day. No visas needed for Americans, though most nationalities need one. This number is high because we spent 6 of our 8 days in the country on a private jeep tour of the Gobi. If we'd managed to find a couple of other travelers to share the tour with, costs would have been halved. Otherwise, the country's pretty budget-friendly: In Ulaan Bataar, the capital, a hostel room with breakfast, Internet, and shared bath cost $15; there were expensive restaurants and cheap local-food canteens to choose from; and the 15-hour train from the China border cost around $9 for seats, or $25 for sleeper berths.

So, Asia had a few expensive countries, but was mostly pretty cheap for us. Hope that this post was slightly helpful to you if you're planning to backpack through Asia. If you have any questions, leave a comment and we'll do our best to get back to you!

Crickets and other Cambodian snacks

First sign you're in a new country: New Fanta flavors! We bought this can right on the Thailand-Cambodia border. My aversion to all things lychee didn't allow me to sample it, but Andy says it tasted pretty authentic. Luckily, there were better beverages to try. Dragonfruit shake, anyone?

Cambodia has many Thailand-influenced curries, but pumpkin curry seems to be its own delicious concoction. Next Halloween, I plan to turn my jack-o-lantern's innards into this dish!

On the road to the Angkor Temples, outside of Siem Reap, Andy bought some UFOs (unidentified fried objects) from a lady with a cart. They had sesame seeds on the outside and...nothing on the inside. Ah, well. At least they were still fried.

Speaking of fried, here are some nice fried noodles. Except, look again--those aren't noodles, they are strips of ginger! Chicken with ginger, Cambodian-style...i.e., insanely heavy on the ginger. Not that we're complaining.

A fruit vendor outside of one of the Angkor temples lured us over with songs of sweet, cheap pineapples...but was also selling this fruit that we had never seen before. As soon as we showed the slightest bit of interest in it, she was cutting one up for us to taste. It's called a "milk fruit," and it didn't taste like milk to us, but it was a sweet and tasty little fruit all the same. I mean, how could something so purple be bad?

These scallion-filled dumplings, steamed and lightly fried, then bathed in a sweet sauce and topped with a chili sauce, were perhaps our favorite street food in Siem Reap. The cart selling them was so mobile, though, that the guy had packed up and moved two blocks away before we even finished eating these two dumplings. I guess Andy smelled particularly bad that day.

Another Cambodian specialty is fish "amok," likely so-called because the fish all swim amok trying to avoid being made into it. In the tourist hotspot of Siem Reap, they'll make it with any meat you like (or make it vegetarian), so Andy got the chicken version. Coconut milk and lemongrass are its main features, and the banana-leaf bowl is traditional.

Picture menus are popular in Siem Reap, and by picture menu, I don't mean a laminated card with little thumbnails of each dish. I mean an enormous photo album with 4x6 photographs stuck in and hand-written labels for every one. Which one is prettier, the banana shake, or the pineapple one?Also popular in Siem Reap is Cambodia barbecue--kind of like Korean barbecue if you've had that before. Thin slices of raw meat are delivered to your table, then you cook them yourself on a gas-powered hot pot...after you've lubricated said pot with a huge slice of pork fat, of course. You also spread greens and noodles around the edges and pour on hot broth to boil them while your meat is cooking. I kind of overcooked my squid, but it was a fun experience.

Far funner, though, were our many visits to the Blue Pumpkin ice cream chain, which has several branches in Siem Reap and Phnom Penn. If their cinnamon-speculos isn't the best ice cream flavors in Asia, I'll eat my foot...after dipping it in a tub of cinnamon-speculos, of course. Their tropical fruit flavors and peanut ice cream are also awesome...but not the caramel-cashew! It is bitter and nasty. Also, you can eat their ice cream in a bed, adding to the fun.

The Blue Pumpkin was a little too chi-chi and expensive for Andy's taste. I guess he'd rather eat fried bugs out on the street. Crickets, to be exact. You know, everyone's favorite bus snack! Andy says they tasted like corn nuts--slightly oily from the frying and with a bit of salt added to enhance that, um, crickety flavor. But he drew the line at eating beetles. Not because that would be too gross or anything--just because they were too expensive. (Sneak preview: They're cheaper in Laos!)

Only slightly less frightening to me than the vermin snacks was Cambodia's other indigenous Fanta flavor, "sarsi"...which turned out to be root beer, my other least favorite soda flavor! Andy enjoyed it, though. And in our quest to try novel flavors of ice cream as well as soda, we also bought a tub of "sugar palm" ice cream which tasted like...sugar.

Here's a dinner that Andy ordered at a little local place in Phnom Penh. I forget what the main course was, something chickeny, but I'll just point out that it came with an entire pot of rice! Cambodians love their rice, and would never think of making you pay extra for it, like restaurants sometimes do in Thailand.

Here's another interesting flavor of ice cream that you find a lot in Southeast Asia--taro, or yam. I like it mostly because it is purple, but also because it is a vegetable, and how many vegetable ice creams do you know?

Another sweet item that you can find in many places in Asia is bubble tea, which is fun to drink because it has huge tapioca pearls that you suck up through a big straw. I think it's most popular in Taiwan, but we're not going to Taiwan, so I got some in a mall in Cambodia. The "tea" itself is basically just sugar and food coloring--you drink it mainly for the texture and the sugar rush, I think.

French-bread-based sandwiches are popular throughout the former French colonies of Southeast Asia. Vietnam's banh mi is probably the most famous, but the version I got in Phnom Penh, filled with ground pork, was pretty good. Less good was the bonus sliced, Spam-like processed ham product I got served on the side...

Back to Andy's favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant, the one that gives you a pot of rice with your meal...even if that meal is a noodle dish!

The bagful of random fried things in Phnom Penh turned out to be tastier than its cousin in Siem Reap. Some of these shapes were hollow, but others had vegetables in them.

I'll wrap things up with a shot of me at the riverfront in Phnom Penh enjoying a 50-cent Angkor beer. I thought this was the cheapest beer ever, but clearly I hadn't been to Vietnam yet... So, I guess I was less adventurous than Andy was when it came to the critter-munching and exotic-Fanta-flavor appreciation, but good curries and ice creams and smoothies and beer kept me nourished well enough in Cambodia. Bottom line: Cambodia--at least in its tourist hotspots--has enough chic restaurants AND cheap street markets to ensure that every traveler finds plenty of food to his liking.

Cambodia: What's Wat at Angkor Wat

Before going to Cambodia, we knew that Angkor Wat is there (though I can't really pretend that I knew what Angkor Wat is--just that it is big) and that the country was somehow involved with the Khmer Rouge, who were bad people in some way. We got some details on those two points, but you understand most of Cambodia once you know more about those things.

Angkor Wat is actually a single temple--the largest temple--in a huge complex of temples and religious buildings that stretches many miles. The temple is apparently the world's largest religious building (take that, St. Peter's). It is well preserved, but has also had tons of work done on it during the 900 years of its existence, so it is best photographed when you can only see the silhouette without the repair work being done.
Right after the sun started to rise, we ran inside while the crowds were blinding themselves staring at the sun. We were rewarded by being the only ones inside for a few minutes. The lobby (I'm not really up on proper temple terminology) has a bunch of pools that are now empty. And Tara was all ready to go for a swim.
A lot of Angkor looks like this--restored to a point that you don't expect the building to fall down, but missing a lot of the fine detail that you can see it once had. Fairly certain that you could get a nice discount by pointing out this wear and tear to the realtor if you wanted to buy the place.
Each of the four sides has massive bas relief carvings. The most famous is this one: The Churning of the Oceans. To make a very, very long story short, the good guys and the bad guys make the waves of the ocean by pulling back and forth on a giant snake in a huge tug of war match. This theme appears a lot in Hindu (and, therefore, Buddhist) mythology.
All the tourists get driven around in the nice moto-rickshaws that get attached to motorcycles. Because the drivers just sit there for hours waiting on their passengers at many sites, this driver wins my respect for stringing up a hammock and sleeping anytime he thought it would be more than 10 minutes before his passengers returned.
One of the temples in the complex had scenes from everyday life in the 1200s. Our favorite had a line of animals that they ate at the time and a giant tapir was part of that line. Right between the pig and the duck. Who doesn't enjoy a bit of giant tapir?
One of the kings wanted his subjects to know that he was always watching, so he erected a huge temple with his staring gaze peering out everywhere. Several other buildings have just a few of his face, but what remains of Bayon has faces everywhere. I plan to start putting up huge stone pillars of my face just as soon as we have a house.
The "Elephant Terrace" is like a long, giant porch without a house. It is decorated mostly by elephants, such as these. You can imagine how much more amazing they would have been before the erosion.
The steps all have carved elephants as well. We have never seen an elephant trunk more than a couple of hundred years old, so these have certainly been restored. Really, never use elephant trunks to decorate something that you want to last. It is one of our key takeaways from our travels.
Much of Angkor Wat has not been restored at all. At those temples, the views out the remaining windows look something like this. Makes me realize that being an archeologist ranks as one of the most boring jobs on earth.
Many temples have trees like this one growing from them. This one is nicely placed right over the door. If I bought a castle, could I get a tree like this installed over the door? Who would I call to do that?
This lizard looks like he is praying to me. He must be a Buddhist who wasn't very good in the last life and got reincarnated as a lizard. Now he comes to pray at Angkor Wat every day.
A lot of the ruins look like this one. The structure has been restored, but none of the artwork, so it still looks a lot like a heap of bricks. On the plus side, you can climb all over them without worry. And the government can easily hide nuclear missiles inside for easy launch. Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks it looks like missile silos.
This is Tara in our chariot for the day. We love that the back part just attaches to the driver's motorcycle. This is the most common form of taxi in Cambodia, but we haven't seen a contraption quite like it anywhere else. This driver ranks as one of the most honest transportation providers in the entire world. I don't know his name, but look for the guy who looks like him if you are at Angkor Wat and need a driver...
Angkor Wat is very nice in the morning, but becomes a sauna by late morning. Even this lizard seems to have gotten a terrible sunburn.
For every kid who loves to toss the helicopter seeds from a sugar maple into the air, a trip to Cambodia is in order. They have trees everywhere that produce these massive toys. You toss it into the air and it whirls down like a helicopter. It's not an exaggeration to say that we threw hundreds of them.
This is supposedly the most famous tree at Angkor Wat. I surmised this mostly from the line of about 50 people who wanted their picture next to this tree. This temple is sometimes called the Indiana Jones Temple. If Indiana Jones had hundreds of tourists meandering around when he went into the Temple of Doom...
Angkor Wat, the temple, is surrounded by a massive moat and outer walls. The worlds of religion and defense are almost always related in Southeast Asia. Luckily, Buddhist and Hindus seem quite happy to conquer each other and just use the temples for their own peace-seeking religious beliefs.
Siem Reap, the tourist city next to Angkor Wat that has about 15 tourists for ever Cambodian, is filled with fish spas. You pay a dollar or two, then stick your feet into a pool of ferocious fish that try to eat your feet. Apparently, one person started this in the city and it was popular, so now every store seems to have one.
The one we visited had your choice of ravenous fish or killer fish. Tara went with just the ravenous ones while I went straight to the killer fish. For a dollar, we sat for 20 minutes as they ripped dead flesh from our feet. Sometimes it tickles, sometimes it hurts. Our feet were very soft for at least the next couple of hours. Value to my feet: none. Value of the experience: way more than a dollar.
Tara really appreciated all the Fish Massage signs, which are all something like this one. Because the idea is copied, the signs are also nearly exact replicas of the place next door. Tara's favorite part is that it is funny and happy, though a few of the signs actually say it will make you funny and happy, which is better.
Queue depressing music. In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge came to power, led by Pol Pot. He proceeded to kill 2 million people in four years, which was a huge percentage of the population. He killed anyone. Essentially a death lottery. Another few years in power and he would have surely killed everyone but himself. Not surprisingly, the US supported him. Good job, us. Here is the inside of a cell at the notorious S-21 prison. Something like four people survived of the thousands who went through. This cell was mostly used for high ranking officials while they tortured them on the never-ending witch hunt that was the Khmer Rouge regime.
Standard prisoners got something more along the lines of these hastily constructed boxes. Oh, and I forgot to mention that this prison was a school before. They got rid of all the schools, though, so it isn't like it was being used. Pol Pot's great plan was that if Cambodia returned to an illiterate, agricultural society, it would rule the world. A shame that he never knew Kim Jong-Il, as it sounds like they could have been friends.
Cambodia has a lot of skulls. If you need a cheap human skull for some reason, I suggest trying Cambodia first.
Yet, Phnom Penh has a very nice Independence Monument. Most of the country seems in much better shape now.
Most of the S-21 prisoners, along with many others, were killed in the now famous Killing Fields. They have erected a memorial there.
Filled with human skulls.
You think that's depressing? Here's the tree where the guards would taking turns swinging kids and babies by their feet and bashing their heads open against the tree. It's a fair question to ask who could do such a thing, but most have said that their entire families would have been tortured and killed in various ways had they not. They may be right.
On a happier note, the country seems to be on a slightly better path now and many expats now call Phnom Pehn home. Lots of new buildings and parks seem to line the river. Let's hope that genocide does not reappear soon. And that if it does, the US intervenes on the right side this time.
Cambodia does supposedly have some attractions that aren't Angkor Wat or genocide-related, but I can't really name them. The people are generally very friendly, and we had a nice stay. We just hope the country continues to recover from years of misery.