In the fall of 1985, my friend Dan and I started a trip across West Africa. We had no particular plan in mind, not all that much money, and at that point we had never heard of mobile phones, HIV or the internet. We sort of hitchhiked, sort of wandered around, and mostly woke up each day and figured out what we were doing for the next 24 hours. Without really planning it out, our goal, in retrospect, was to be sure to be some place each evening where we could find cold beer and women who spoke English, French or Pulaar. This plan worked pretty well in Dakar, Bamako, Ouagadougou, Abidjan, Lome and Cotonou. It did not get us into Nigeria or Cameroon, a destination we picked for no other reason than we had heard about tropical rain forests and pygmies.
travel
Quang Ngai
east meets west, international development, travel, vietnamCommentThere are some areas of Vietnam where development is exploding, and then there is Quang Ngai. A beautiful province with mountains to the west and the East Sea to the (you guessed it) east, Quang Ngai is still over 80% rural, quite poor and with no tourism to speak of. There are a few industrial projects, and downtown Quang Ngai is bustling, but for most people in the province, life goes on much as it did ten or twenty years ago.
Quang Ngai, located south of Hoi An in central Vietnam, is best known as the site of the My Lai massacre, a particularly nasty example of American soldiers out of control and killing every person they could find. These days, according to the members of the provincial People’s Committee I spent a few days with this week, My Lai is a local symbol of how to turn hatred into something positive, an example of how evil can be transformed over time into inspiration for peace.
Hidden in Plain Sight
east meets west, international development, travel, vietnam, familyCommentMy wife and I stopped the other day at some hole-in-the-wall near our house for breakfast, a nice hot bowl of pho bo chin (beef soup with soft flat rice noodles, served with brisket). We sat on small plastic chairs at plastic tables; at the next table were three white-bearded men eating, laughing, smoking and drinking rice vodka. They might stay there for a couple of hours, the food long since gone, but there is plenty more rice booze in re-used plastic bottles stacked along the walls, and the water pipe sits next to a big box of lung-searing tobacco.
While waiting, I had my motorbike filled up with gas and washed until it gleamed. The total for all this activity was $4.60. Had we wanted, we could have continued down the road a bit, put the motorbike into a full-service garage, enjoyed breakfast at the Intercontinental and spent more like $75, plus plus (i.e. paying the value-added tax, or VAT).
Voyage to Sapa
travel, vietnamCommentMany tourist pilgrims make the trip to Sapa, in the northwest of Vietnam. Nestled in steep mountains, the town is full of wandering trekkers and backpackers, with a smattering of higher-end tourists, all of whom stay at the 4-star Victoria Hotel.
Can I digress for a moment and say how much I prefer 3-star to 4-star hotels? The 4-stars offer important amenities like clean beds and bathrooms, and that’s perfect for most people.
Give A Man A Fish
east meets west, international development, travel, vietnamCommentA few months ago, massive rains hit Hanoi and flooded most of the city. In my neighborhood, the streets were not flooded but West Lake had risen nearly over its banks, threatening to submerge the whole area. Everyone was a bit nervous, except for the fisherman. On every pole on the fence lining the lake near my house was perched a fisherman with a long bamboo pole, line attached to a multi-prong fish hook. The hook had no bait; these guys were jigging for carp, a fish that won’t bite on a baited hook.
Due to the floods, the lake was suddenly full of big, fat carp. Where did they come from? I don’t know for sure, but the best I can figure is that they escaped from nearby fishponds that had overflowed their banks. As I walked along Lane 12 one day when the rain was merely heavy and not torrential, the street was full of fish recently caught by the fishermen. On a normal day, each of these guys might pull in one or two tough urban fish – street fish, I think. That day, each cast seemed to reel in a nice, juicy fresh-off-the farm carp.