Hoi An 'Airstrip' Family

Hoi An, Vietnam, March 24 2006

I've now done a full tour of the 14th Century City of Hoi An and a tour of 'My Son'. I've been traveling since 10am this morning and now we're heading to my driver's home town.
Bonsoon takes me through some beautiful countryside. It's amazing what you can do with a simple camera on the back of a motor bike.
I see many women out in the rice paddies, and lots of water buffalo. I also keep seeing these plastic bags on sticks. I think they are used like scare-crows, to keep birds away but I'm not sure.
Finally we came to this wide deteriorating tar mack surface. Bonsoon explained that this was a U.S. Military Air strip that was used during the 'American War' by the B-52 bombers, to conduct their bombing raids on North Vietnam. Now it's just a big deserted road used by the local villagers.
Bonsoon took me to meet his family. Bonsoon is on the right. Next to him is his little sister, then his father, his mother, his aunt and his brother. My driver helps to support his family with money he makes in Hoi An. He is a qualified Civil Engineer but is out of work right now. That's why he is driving me around. The family offered me dinner and some beer to drink.
When we were finished eating, I walked outside to find many of the villagers standing around to get a glimpse of their foreign guest. The children were especially excited to meet me and made a point of playing and running around in front of me so they could have their pictures taken.
These are the neighbors up the street. Bonsoon wanted them to meet his new Canadian friend. bonsoon's dad and I had a great talk about the War. He was an aircraft mechanic for the American army. He told me it was an amazing time in his life. He enjoyed working on the huge bombers but he said the village was constantly afraid of being targeted by North Vietnam aircraft. He said the village was actually bombed many times but his family was never harmed. He said the village became almost a ghost town after the war but that it has recovered quite a bit in recent years. As I drove through the village on my way back to Hoi Ann, everyone kept waving and smiling as if I was a celebrity. Here, as in so many places in Vietnam, I feel so welcome. Finally my very long day is drawing to a close. My butt is sore after nine of intensive touring. So here we are, speeding out of town, waving good bye to the wonderful people of his village when he turns to me and says: "So how about some Karaoke..."

Nha Trang Boat Trip

March 22 2006

Nha Trang is my first stop on the Bus Tour. It's the place to get pampered. It's a sexy vacation place with lots of spas, great beaches and wonderful sights to see. I booked a boat tour the first day I arrived.
We were all shuttled to the pier where there were many boats just like this one filling up with tourists.
Our guide welcomed us to the boat and away we went, out to Sea. There are many Islands off the Coast of Nha Trang, and many beautiful resorts.
The thing I notice about Vietnam is that there are many people from Vietnam who are on these tours. In Thailand it was rare to see a Thai on board as a visitor. I think you guys are 'Tuanah and Haianh Pham from Hanoi.
And you two are newlyweds right? Dinh and Minh Chau? Work with me people.
And I hope you two are 'Anh and Thuy' from Hanoi. I think this woman has a beautiful face. Of all the people on the boat, for some reason I just gravitated to these three couples. I find the Vietnamese people very approachable. I find that because of my age and the fact that I'm a bit of a geek, I tend to get along with the local cultures better than the younger travelers from my own heritage. Go figure...
These are traditional Vietnamese boats for fishing and moving supplies around. A few of our bunch went for a ride to try one out.
Meanwhile, the cooks on the boat prepared a feast for us..We were served rice, fruit, French bread and a few Vietnamese dishes that looked like spring rolls. This culture borrows from the many countries who have occupied their land throughout the last thousand years. The result is a wonderful culinary diversity. (Wow, I think all that reading is helping my vocabulary).
After lunch we had a surprise. The crew brought out some instruments and we all got song sheets. We got to try some karaoke and sang the company song. By the end of the session a bunch of us were dancing on the table.
And yes, those coconuts are real. This is our Tour guide. He will do anything for the morale of the boat. These guys were here for a fun day and we were were very pleasantly surprised to see how much they did to make the day memorable. I think I'm going to need therapy before I'll be willing to drink cocoa nut milk again though.
The water is wonderful here. It's clean and warm and very refreshing. Our boat stopped for an hour while we did some snorkeling. There is a coral reef right near by where I saw a rainbow of colors and some fantastic fish. The only question you have to ask yourself is: am I jumping into the water here or coming up?

I swam for a long time, just enjoying the warm sunny day here in March. Sorry to hear about the snow in Canada. Life's all about choices, eh?
We stopped off at an Island resort for a couple of hours. This mermaid is the symbol of this particular place.

Some of our crew went para sailing ($12 a ride). Others went swimming. I just went for a walk down the beach until I met up with the manager of this resort. He invited me to sit down and have a whiskey with him. We sat and talked for a while and he asked me about Canada. This is such a nice way to spend a day. This seems like a dream. A few of us took this round boat to a floating fishing village. These people live on the water and have a marine farm. They catch undersized creatures and keep them in netted holding tanks until they are a better size to sell.

It's a bit hard to see but this is a squid the size of my foot. If you look carefully you can see her eyes. I kept thinking of the Jules Verne book: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. I can understand why he chose this creature to grab the submarine. It's a powerful animal.
One of the women who took us here made a motion in the water which attracted the squid to us the way you would attract a dog to come and see you. This squid is very tame. Unfortunately she will be very delicious very soon.

She may not speak much English but she decided I was pretty interesting. I think it's because I look like a Buddhist Monk. We had a great time joking around and they were very proud of their fishing village. By the end of the boat trip today I was happy and feeling very relaxed.

Monkey's Birthday Celebration: Mar28

It was Toi's Birthday on March 27th. My travelling buddy, Dennis nicknamed her 'Monkey' because she is always getting into monkey business, so now that's what a lot of us call her.

Toi is a top Sales Representative for Panasonic, here in Bangkok. She is originally from Khon Kaen, in Northern Thailand where her mother and father live. You can see 'Nu' and 'Sit' in the stories I did last week in that City. She is fluent in Thai, Japanese and English and is rapidly learning Turkish and a few other languages.

I asked Toi if there was something she would like me to pass on to the many readers of this Blog. She said: "no matter if you're having a tough day or a good one, it's important to smile every day." She is a shining example of this philosophy. Monkey always has a smile on her face and she makes everyone feel good just being around her. She also wants you to know that if you've written her and she hasn't replied, "please forgive me. I am swamped with work in my new job but am looking forward to writing you back".

Jook and her good friend 'Boi' invited me to come along for the celebration so we all headed to the Central Plaza for some Sukiyaki cooking at the MK Restaurant. We went out a day late because Monkey was out of town working on her birthday.

Then it was off to a karaoke studio to sing and dance to some of our favorite songs. And yes, they made me sing: "When I go out with the girls I dress a little too sexy..." (See Khon Kaen Karaoke for the entire humiliation).

When the evening was over we gave Monkey a special birthday present. She squealed with excitement to have her own stuffed monkey and he has been her constant companion ever since. Happy Birthday Monkey! Sawadee Cup from all of us!

Khon Kaen Karaoke 2: Women

Kohn Kaen, Thailand, March 23, 2005
9:30pm Karaoke Bar: Sit motions me to suddenly get up and before I know it we are heading to another bar down the dirt road. Two minutes later, he stops the Pickup truck and the five of us go into a bar that has a brightly lit stage in Day glow colors and a table of several women in their 20s and 30s all dressed in tight disco outfits that look like something from the 80s. A woman who introduces herself as Nuan comes up to me and asks me: "Do you like breasts?" I shrug and say: "Chai". Nuan gives the nod to the other people with me and we all take our seats. 'Sit' orders our 4th bottle of whiskey for the night and the show begins. The first dancer comes on stage wearing a very tight, K-Mart Blue dress and starts lip sinking to a song as she dances. I keep thinking she is about to begin taking her clothes off but she never does.

Sit (pictured here) motions for me to follow him and we head to the dance floor in front of the stage and begin Thai dancing. Then the Dancer on stage starts doing different moves which I imitate. At the end of the song she yells out 'Canada' and everyone smiles and nods their heads. The flash on my camera isn't working tonight but I have a photo of a woman very similar to the dancers here. I think it's a shame when lovely Thai woman try to imitate the way Farangs dress. It's like being trapped in a time warp from the Seventies.

While five other dancers take turns on the stage, Nuan plants herself on the chair next to me and talks to me in reasonable English. She says she is a hair dresser and says she can give me a ride to Khon Kaen in the morning if I wish. I say: "Chai krup, Cup-khun-cup" because Uncle can only take me in the afternoon. I suggest she just pick me up at Sit's home in the morning but she glances over to them and says to me: "You should come to my salon in the morning if you are still interested." I think she is also trying to say that she is interested in coming to Ubon Ratchithani the next day as well, but it's so loud in the bar I just can't be sure. I'm confused by that offer and I say I will call her the next day from Sit's.

At midnight, the five of us (Nuan stays there) head back home to Sit and Nu's place where we have a late meal of leftovers from the picnic earlier that day and we polish off the 4th bottle of Whiskey. We finally head to bed at 1:30am.

Maybe it's just as well my camera flash wasn't working that night. It was so surreal; but so fun.

Khon Kaen Karaoke

Sunday Night:
Monkey left me with 'Uncle', 'Sit' and 'Nu' to take me back to Khon Kaen while she, Dennis and Jook went back home to Bangkok. Dennis will be resuming his Cycling trip on Wednesday the 23rd, into Laos. As we parted for the final time he shook my hand and said "See you Ugly." and left in Monkey's car with Jook, Monkey, and my new best friend 'Kow' who I now refer to as 'Kato' after the Green Hornet's side kick, Bruce Lee.

Now keep in mind that I speak 12 words of Thai and Monkey's parents speak as many in English so all we knew was whatever Monkey told them when we parted. An hour into the trip Nu turns to me and says something that I take to mean that we are going to their place tonight and Khon Kaen tommorrow afternoon. All I know, is when a Police Commissioner and a Tank Commander say to stay, I stay.

So now it's two hours later and we're sitting outside Sit's place polishing off the second bottle of Seagram's whiskey when I said the one word that transformed our sleepy drinking party into a frenzy of activity. I said 'Karaoke' and suddenly Sit is animated and everyone is shouting and nodding and before I know it I'm having a shower and getting ready to go out. Another woman arrives and seems to be a friend of Uncle's and we all pile into Uncle's Police Truck and head out. I can't help wondering why it was not possible to drive me to Khon Kaen and yet here we are driving to a Karaoke Bar. But then we arrive there only five minutes later.

The place is a throwback from the Seventies with Neon lights and a 32 inch TV on mounted on each opposing wall. I'm not able to take pictures because my flash doesn't work. I tell them I'm buying, and I'm just getting ready to say: "please feel free to order something to eat as well..." when a stack of plates and cutlery suddenly arrive at the table. Then a bottle of Whiskey is brought out along with ice, mixer and some wine coolers.

Sit pours everyone a drink and after a few quick gulps, motions me up to the dance floor. The TV screen is showing two transvestites dancing and singing in a front of beautiful Thai show girls dressed in red feathers.

As the two men in drag are singing, Sit is showing me how to dance as a Thai. The hand gestures are very much like harem dancing except the men keep their fingers straight. I feel embarrassed at first but people start clapping and giving me the thumb's up so I just relax and have fun.

Then a group of teenagers arrive and two of the guys stand up and start doing a dance where they stand side by side and do a lot of hand motions as if they are pushing and pulling the air. The rest of my table are ignoring them but I finally get up and join them. Now there are three of us dancing and the people at their booth are all laughing and clapping. When I'm done, all 10 of them excitedly shake my hand and talk a mile a minute in Thai. All I can say is "Cup-khun-Cup" and they get really excited. For some reason I am starting to understand intuitively what Thais are saying so I tell them I'm from Canada and they all welcome me to Thailand.

I rejoin my own party and Sit goes up and talks to the DJ about finding a song in English for me to sing. Suddenly they hand me a mike and Sit and Nu drag me up to the dance floor to sing the song that is being put up on the TV screens. At first I keep saying "Mai, mai" (no, no) and shaking my head. They think I'm just being modest and insist I start singing. So I finally give in and begin to sing the words projected on the screen: "When I go out with the girls, I get a little bit bitchy. When I go and buy my dresses, they're all a little too sexy..." I do the Thai dance with the song and the crowd goes wild. I just keep praying there are no people in the place who understand English.

Bangkok Karaoke

You may remember my good friend Sanga, who I met when I was last in Bangkok a couple of weeks ago. I phoned him today and he set a place for me to meet him.

I think Sanga has figured out my navigational skills are not of the highest calibre so he asked me to meet him in front of the 'Standing Buddha', a monument as tall as the Space Shuttle. I only got lost twice getting there...

Sanga, invited me to meet him and his girl fiend at their local Haunt, a Thai restaurant in the north part of the city. Finally, I was going to have a chance to really experience the Thai culture, uncensored and happening!

When I got there I learned the truth. A British soccer match on the big screen TV, and American music blaring from the speakers in this quaint Thai restaurant. The food was authentic though. We had another of those fish that Vivyan identified for me from My Dinner With Sanga. They leave the head on and I swear it was looking at me.

When we arrived, a woman took us to our table and Sanga mumbled something about it being his girlfriend. I was confused for a few minutes until I finally pieced together that she was his girlfriend but she was also our waitress, because she works at this place part time. I would have taken a picture of Poony and Sanga together but she was too shy. They made a lovely couple though. Poony is studying to be a computer tech, I think, but that night she was trying to translate an English scientific paper into Thai, which talked about the refraction properties of light. I told her that I had trouble reading it too and it was all in English. My dad used to make a lot of money translating this kind of stuff into English that regular people could read. When I told her it wasn't her, it was those scientists who couldn't communicate, she seemed relieved.

This is Ni (pronounced like n+it but without the 't'. She is one of the other 5 waitresses at the restaurant. She is also in charge of the Karaoke machine. It wasn't long before she had dragged me up to the stage and away we went.

I asked Ni to sing a popular Thai song and I agreed to try to sing along. This is us singing...wait for it... Hey Jude.

Then it was Sanga's turn. He sung some haunting Thai songs to his sweetie. She got up next and sung a song that Ni told me was about a woman who loves a man but he doesn't know it. After that it was a rampage as the various patrons jumped up for their chance to sing.

I don't mean to brag, but it's my blog so I'm going to anyway. I did a rendition of Love me Tender that brought down the House. Everyone in Thailand seems to know who Elvis is and I was the closest they were going to get tonight. I had never even tried Karaoke before, but I think I'm onto something. Ni thought I was great.

See Dennis, you're not the only one who can get chicks!

Chiang Mai: Tai Boxing

A few of us met last night in the SP Hotel outdoor patio, just in from where I'm staying. My two Friends from Massage were there along with the, now world famous, Dennis (Yes Angie, he's still here).

After a little while we were joined by the resident entertainer, A Thai guitarist who loves to play Beatles songs.

Steven, from Laval Quebec, Canada, (treated us) to some Karaoke as we drank our Singha beers. He wanted to send this message home to his family:
"Allo, Caro et William (his year-and-a-half-old son), Je pense a vous, je vous aime. Jespere que vous tirez se message...bye, Steven"

Then there was Patrice who says that he hasn't had a really good shower to sing in for a while, so he sang the ever present, 'Hey Jude'. Some of you out there might want to sing along. I know I did. Patrice wanted to send this message to his sweetie: "Cherie mon coeur est avec toi, comme tu peux voir je parles de toi a' toute lemande!"

Someone suggested that we had Kenny Rogers with us, so quite a stir was created when this famous Country singer graced our gathering with a song as well. (I hope I don't have to pay royalties for this.)

Sensing that some strange Thai animal was squealing in pain in the lobby, Kevin and Carol joined us. They are brother and sister from Brisbane Australia. I know that Carol is 22 years old and is studying Eco biology. I told her that she would enjoy meeting you Sarah since you both have such passion for life. I forgot to ask Kevin what he does but I assume he is ex-CIA and just left it at that.
Steven (sitting next to the Aussies) suddenly started chanting 'Thai Boxing' and so off we went. When we arrived at the match, the really chincy amongst us (Dennis and me) almost had a heart attack (just a figure of speech Angie, I promise) when we found out it cost 400 baht each. I know that is only $12 Canadian but when you can get a whole Massage for $6 it has a new meaning.

I was thinking maybe we should just stay a short time but then Patrice reminded us that he was pretty good at Karate and he wanted to stay, so it sounded like a good idea to do what he said.
The sound of Thai Boxing is clashing symbols, bells and a snake charmer's recorder gone terribly wrong. Within this monotonous cacophony of noise, the boxers kick and punch each other and mostly just hold on to each other to keep from being kicked harder. Meanwhile, the onlookers eat Styrofoam dishes of rice with tomatoes and balls of deep fried pork and chicken on wooden skewers. These meals are bought from vendors outside the arena at a cost of 20 baht a meal.
The serendipity of this situation was that we were sitting up on the wood slat bleachers right beside the keynote fighter of the night: Leam Phet. I motioned to his trainer to ask if I could take a picture as he got ready for his fight. Leam was delighted and let me take this picture.

That fight took place at midnight, against an American Kick Boxer; Jack Jai. Jai's body was covered by tattoos including one across his chest that read "Loved+Lost". My expectation was that Jai would be the stereotypical Ugly American but he was anything but. I stood at ringside and I saw the force of the kicks as each man punished the other with bone jarring blows. Jai certainly had the advantage size-wise, but Leam Phet was all muscle too.

The match was short lived though, when Phet started to bleed above the eye.

The ref declared it a technical knock out, but instead of the American putting his gloves up in victory, he immediately ran to Phet and threw himself onto the mat in a bow of respect. Then after a few moments Jai jumped back up and the two hugged as friends. I had never seen such a display of sportsmanship in my life.

I took this picture of Jai as he stood for photos a few minutes later.

My favorite sight that night though, was Leam Phet's son, who was given a blanket when he just couldn't stay up any longer to watch his dad. Phet's trainer took tender care of the boy as he slept quietly in the stands, amongst the cheering and clashing symbols and bells down below.

Such a beautiful scene.