Temple Tour Extraordinaire

Luana has asked me to give the details of our tour of Anger What, or was that Angkor Wat? Whatever.

We spent an afternoon touring Wat and then the next day toured seven other temples, all within about a half-hour drive of one another. Luana even got up at o'dark thirty for the sunrise at Angkor Wat. And there were many temples we didn’t even see. (We flew to Cambodia from Vietnam -- about an hour’s flight.)

Temples are the big business in Siem Reap, a town now of about 200,000 in north-central Cambodia. About 2 million tourists a year visit the area, so the town has many nice hotels and no McDonald’s or other American fast food except one Dairy Queen in the local airport. The largest number of tourists come from Japan, followed by South Korea, France, Germany and the U.S.

The temples are of both Hindu and Buddhist origins and most were built in the 11th or 12th centuries by a variety of kings and Wall Street financiers.

The temples were mainly built of sandstone and have a variety of fantastic carvings in them, although many are in a state of some disrepair from centuries of neglect, war, etc. They virtually disappeared into the jungle for about 400 years, with the French beginning to uncover them in the 1800s. There are bullet holes all over the Angkor Wat temple from the civil war in the 1970s, and we also heard that many families hid out in the temples when they were fleeing the genocide.

We could just show you some of our cool pictures of the temples, but I think it is also important that I describe in some detail the Hindu myths that underlay all the carvings. HEY, WAKE UP OUT THERE!!

OK, as I understand there were these three important Hindu gods: Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, and at the creation of the world they fought over this sea of milk. Brahma won by destroying the other two in the Worlds of Warcraft video game, but the Sea of Milk was drained in the process, so Brahma wandered the world saying, “Got Milk?” However, I may have misunderstood some of what our guide was explaining to us, but you get the general idea.

So on one afternoon we toured Wat, which is about a mile square. The next morning we went to Angkor Thom temple, which is Cambodian for “Luana rode the elephant here.”

Then we went to Ta Prohm, which has a lot of trees growing out of it and is the place where the movie “Tomb Raider” with Angelina Jolie was shot. Considering the artistic merits of that movie I kept suggesting to our guide that Cambodia should tear down that temple. For some strange reason, he thought I was joking.

It was a little hot for our tour -- about 98 degrees with 90 percent humidity. The guide said we were lucky since it gets hot in April and May.

After our morning, Luana offered some cogent and profound analysis of our tour: “It’s too damn hot; I’m going back to our air-conditioned hotel room.”

I went on because I thought our guide said we were going to the Big Boob temple. I guess I misunderstood, or perhaps he was talking about me. Anyway, we who stayed for the afternoon toured the Hot temple, Hotter temple and Hottest temple before concluding at the “Hurry Up Through This So We Can Get Back on the Air Conditioned Bus” temple.

It was all quite spectacular; there were a lot of elephants and lions and monkeys and snakes and gods and goddesses. Our guide was very informative about it all. And I especially liked the little kids selling cold cheap Cokes. They should have their own temple. I would worship there.

I Get Around

It was hot as Asian chili peppers in Cambodia. About 100 degrees with 90 percent humidity. People walked around with damp butterfly patterns spread across their shirts as we trudged up and down stairs and around corridors and walkways of the many lovely ruins of the Angkor complex of temples. Fortunately, the sights more than made up for the intense heat (more on that elsewhere), and I found two delightful ways to cool off and enjoy the scenery--an elephant ride, and a tuk-tuk ride.

The elephant ride happened at the Bayon Temple at Angkor. I was one of the last in our group to decide to go for it, and couldn’t talk Bob into joining me, so I got an elephant all to myself (and of course my driver). My pachyderm lumbered all the way around the temple and knew just where to stop for the best pictures. Afterward I bought the tiny bananas that tourists are encouraged to purchase as an elephant reward, and it was really fun to feed them to my elephant and some of his (her?) coworkers. Kind of like putting a coin in the vending machine slot.

Now for the tuk-tuk. That’s what the folks in Siem Reap call the little motorcycle-driven carts that are used as cabs. They’re named for the sound the little motor makes. A ride costs $2, no matter where you want to go (and we found it interesting that the Cambodians definitely preferred dollars, not reals). Tuk-tuks are fast, fun, and the breeze they create is delicious. I had decided to skip an afternoon of more temples, since we’d already spent a day and a half doing temples in the heat... Instead, I strolled through a wonderful market, did some shopping, and took the tuk-tuk back to the hotel for a nice rest. Great fun!

Good Morning, Vietnam!

(Luana:) Couldn't resist the opportunity to use that cheesy heading. Everyone was saying it this morning as we traveled up the murky Saigon river to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), even the person who makes the announcements.

We had a lovely but very hot and humid day in the city and will write more later, but right now we're packing to fly to Cambodia to see the Angkor Wat temple complex. In the meantime, enjoy the picture of "Uncle Ho" and then scroll down to see our Great Wall posting. It's finally up, but it's backdated, so look below the China wrap-up.

More about Vietnam later -- we have another day and half here after we return on Monday.

You Will Travel to a Land Without Fortune Cookies

Did you know that fortune cookies are as American as apple pie and the Fourth of July? Seriously, they don’t exist in China. For that matter, we never saw a single serving of General Tso’s Chicken or Happy Family. Not to worry. We never went hungry as we criss-crossed the country from Shanghai to Xi’an to Beijing to Hong Kong. In fact, over the course of at least eight lunches or dinners served at as many different restaurants, I don’t think we ever had a dish repeated, except rice. The most consistent element in each restaurant was the giant table with the giant lazy susan center, and for the duration of our visit, nine hungry adults with an occasional student or two. It was all fantastic, and even Bob, who is not known for his love of Chinese food, was wielding chopsticks pretty well.

The variety of food was amazing. Since it was New Year’s, we had one meal that was nothing but a succession of 18 different dumplings, since dumplings are a traditional holiday dish. We had a Peking duck dinner, which is a somewhat ritualized and special occasion meal involving little wrappers and hoisin sauce. It's similar to moo shu pork but using duck. There were memorable fish dishes. Unusual soups, mostly variations on egg drop. Some wonderful kernels of corn that had been fried to a delicate and memorable stage of crispy perfection. And our memorable home-cooked hutong meal (see separate post). A few restaurants poured complimentary glasses of sweet red wine, almost like a sherry, but in our crowd of nine "old folks," the beverage of choice was beer--Tiger, Tsing Tao, or whatever local beer was made in each city.

People, People Everywhere

(Bob:) We’re back in the blog world after eight very busy days in China, including five nights in Xi'an (pronounced she-on) and Beijing. Including time spent in Shanghai and Hong Kong, we visited four Chinese cities with a combined population of 52 million, but that’s only 4 percent of the Chinese population of 1.3 billion. It's hard to draw conclusions from such a limited perspective, but we’ll do it anyway, because that’s the way Americans are.

The tourism sites were definitely fantastic and should be seen by everyone: Terra Cotta Warriors, Great Wall, Forbidden City. But it’s definitely a land of contrasts. There are so many people. We were in a crush of people that went on for blocks in Shanghai on a New Year’s holiday. Fortunately I was tall enough to see over it, but for Luana it was a bit scary. Imagine what it would be like if the one-child policy hadn’t been enacted in 1979 and China had 400 million more people. The policy is still strictly enforced in big cities, but in the countryside it is now more permissible to have two kids if the first one is a girl, and minority groups (around 8 percent of the population, including Tibetans) can have more than two. If you violate the one-child policy, you face possible big fines and a loss of your job.

If you’re flying over eastern China’s flat lands outside of the big cities (about 60 percent of the country is mountainous) and you mentally divide the land into one-mile squares, there are sizable villages at all four corners of each square, and that goes on for mile after mile. This is overpopulation on top of overpopulation. The biggest Chinese City, Chungking, has 31 million people.

Shanghai has amazing modern architecture with many, many new buildings. We were told 4,500 buildings taller than 20 stories had been built in that city in the last 25 years! A number are 80-story to 100-story skyscrapers or even taller. One 2,000-plus-foot building is under construction. Just tear down the old and build the new as fast as you can. Beijing also has many buildings under construction, but many are completely empty in both cities. We’re told the government is propping up the real estate market, which is good, because if it goes, the Chinese economy might go down, and our economy probably goes with it, since China owns much of our debt. The average middle class family probably lives in a 1,000-square-foot apartment and shares it with the grandparents.

As a city, Beijing is rather ugly, and the air pollution is bad. Architecture is much more pedestrian than in Shanghai. Beijing has 18 million people (Shanghai has 19 million), 4 million cars, 12 million bicycles, and traffic is bad. But it has a good network of wide streets and freeways, plus a subway system.

Hong Kong is one big shopping mall and bank, but it’s a very beautiful city. Saw two Ferraris in our first 30 minutes in the city. Mao would not be pleased. But Hong Kong residents don’t care, one of our guides told us; they don’t like the mainland or its money (only Hong Kong dollars are accepted even though China rules the city now). Hong Kong residents consider the quality of goods made on the mainland as shoddy.

Education is another big push in the PRC, with new colleges, many of them technical schools, springing up everywhere. Our children had better learn Chinese, because their boss could be speaking that language in a couple of decades. The Chinese seem much more entrepreneurial than the Japanese, and they are definitely hard-working. The question remains whether the government can manage such a complex economy.

On a visit to Tiananmen Square, you don’t see any military presence, but experts told us there are plainclothes police/military everywhere ready to spring on any protester. But most Chinese seem more intent on shopping, buying a car and getting a piece of the good life. One student onboard went to visit a temple and found that all the monks were next door at the local Starbucks. We were told there are 124 McDonald’s in Beijing. We know there were 3 KFCs within a couple blocks of our hotel, and the Pizza Hut nearby had a line out the door. Pizza Hut is a sitdown restaurant in Beijing. We didn’t try it, but I was tempted. My hand was becoming permanently crooked in a weird shape from using chopsticks so much. Instruments of the devil, I call them.

Now, on to more touristy entries, because we really enjoyed that aspect of our visit, and luckily hit perfect weather.

True Greatness

(Bob:) At last we arrived at the Great Wall, and it turned out to be as advertised. We had feared it might just be above-average, but it was indeed great. It was one of those places that everyone should visit, and at the rate the Chinese are going on promoting tourism, that could soon be accomplished.

We arrived at the portion of the wall chosen by our great guide after a great bus ride and a great lunch. The weather on the day of our visit was surprisingly great. We had all worn layers of clothing after hearing tales that it is almost always cold and windy and often cloudy at the wall in the winter and spring. But it was sunny and clear and almost shirtsleeve weather.

Our portion of the wall, at Mutianyu, is about 85 kilometers from downtown Beijing, slightly farther than the portion 50 k from Beijing that receives the most tourists. That doesn’t mean we went to an “undiscovered” portion of the wall. Mongol hordes of shopkeepers lined the road we had to walk from our bus. They were intent on arming us for our wall assault with great postcards, great tee shirts, great walking sticks, and great bunion pads with the little words “I got this great bunion climbing the Great Wall.” But on the day of our visit, since it was winter, our group of 98 people (three busloads) made up most of the people on our wall section. Not so great for the shopkeepers.

At one point in Chinese history, the wall was 4,500 miles long. About a third of it remains, some in poor repair. Our portion had been restored courtesy of a German corporation from Dusseldorf, according to a plaque we saw. That company probably ended up building a bunch of high-rises in Beijing, but then I just may be a cynic.

I had a great idea which I suggested to our guide. Since this is the year of the tiger, the Chinese government could sell long portions of the wall to Kellogg, which could maintain it and put neon Tony the Tigers along the wall every quarter mile or so, with loudspeakers that blare out, “Yes folks, it’s really Grrrreeeaaatt!” I think we’re looking at potentially one of the world’s great advertising success stories here. And little guys wearing Tony suits could walk along the wall, offering to have pictures taken with tourists. The cross-merchandising possibilities are almost endless, especially with the movie Wall-e character.

Anyway, to get back to our visit, any of our blog readers who are military strategists will know that a great defensive wall, to be effective, has to be built along the summits of hills and mountains, not in the valleys, which makes getting to the wall a little difficult. So we faced the Great Climb just to reach the transport up to the Great Wall. Up we went for about a steep half mile through the hordes of hawkers. We made it with our wallet unscathed, although the cold beer stall was tempting. Then we took the cable car on about a 10-minute ride up to the base of the wall.

We climbed some steps and there we were on the wall. About a thousand photos later we had walked to a couple of the guard houses, which you can see in our photos. Then we began to realize that walking on the Great Wall usually involves either walking up or down some fairly steep slopes, which really wasn’t so great. So after 90 minutes or so we walked back to the cable car and went down to catch our bus before it left. Almost all of the students in our group walked to a point where they could ride wheeled toboggan sleds down to shopkeeper heaven. We decided in our case that suicide was not an option so we would ride the cable car down.

When we got to the bottom of the cable car we were ready for the hawkers. We ran down the mountain, shouting lines from “Pork Chop Hill” and pretending we had bayonets at the ready. Gregory Peck couldn’t have done it any better, although I was wishing I had a real hand grenade. That would have been great.

The Naked City

There are eight million stories in the naked city -- if you remember the line from the old TV series -- and most of them are about concubines.

When Tiger Woods heard the Forbidden City had rooms for 3,000 concubines, he offered to buy it.

I’ve got a million Forbidden City jokes, but have been forbidden to tell them by Luana. I told her all my concubines thought my jokes were funny, but she didn’t laugh at that either.

On our first day in Beijing, we visited Tiananmen Square, (which is Chinese for big, ugly square) and the Forbidden City, which fronts on one side of the square. The best entertainment in the square is trying to identify the plainclothes police put there to immediately quell any demonstration, but the Forbidden City (FC) is magnificent.

It has some 20 courtyards, more than 8,000 rooms, and was used by 24 emperors, ending in 1911. To really get the best feeling for the place, you should rent “The Last Emperor” movie, which was filmed there and was the only movie to ever be allowed there by the Chinese government. It’s a generally true story. We watched it again on the ship before we arrived in China, which was a great refresher course on the history of the time.

You just walk through courtyard after courtyard, past building after building. Simple photographs don’t do the place justice, but we include some of ours anyway.

At Tiananmen, we also saw Mao’s mausoleum. Did someone mention Mao? Well that brings to mind a joke. (How’s that for a transition?) It’s a joke told by a history professor on board, who said Chinese people really laugh at the following -- if there are no plainclothes police around. It seems Chairman Mao got up one morning, went outside and said, “Good morning rising sun. You look wonderful today.” The sun replied, “Oh great Chairman Mao, my beauty pales beside your great leadership abilities. The Chinese people are so lucky to have you.” At noon, Chairman Mao went outside, looked up and said, “Good afternoon, sun. I really appreciate your warmth.” The sun replied, “My warmth is pitiful compared to the many benefits your great leadership and bravery bring to China, handsome Chairman Mao.” As the sun was setting, Mao went outside and said, “Oh sun, your sunset is glorious tonight.” The sun replied, “You are a dumb little bastard, and now that I’m in the West I don’t have to listen to your bull any longer.”