We’re back!

And once again I’m way behind on the blog… which means I have a lot of territory to cover since we visited about six countries since I last wrote. But I won’t be writing much this time since by the time you read this we will have spoken with most of you.

So here’s the run-down…

Malaysia: In Malaysia, I (Anne-Claire) hopped off the boat and flew to Thailand (after just one day exploring Penang) to meet my little brother Guillaume for a ten day backpacking trip. This meant that Simon sailed from Malaysia to our next port of call, Vietnam without me. So I’m not too sure what he got up to while I was gone… it was some combination of teaching, grading and barely sleeping, I would guess… I’m sure he had more fun than he let on, but he has certainly been a very busy boy.

Thailand, Cambodia: Guillaume and I, in the meantime, had an exciting few days exploring the northern part of Thailand – the area around Chiang Mai, the cultural center of the country.

We hired a private guide and went on a three-day trek through hill tribe areas, sleeping in the homes of Karen people (a tribe that originated from Burma). Our guide, Pot, was fantastic and we had an absolutely fabulous time hiking, eating amazing food that Pot cooked for us, playing with the children of the villages where we stayed, and helping (very unhelpfully) with various village chores like separating rice grains from whatever it needs separating from – I don’t have the vocabulary to even describe this process.

From Chiang Mai we flew to Phnom Penh in Cambodia where we stayed just one day and night. And rather than seeing some of Cambodia’s amazing sites like Angor Wat (which is hours away in Siem Reap) or the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, we spent the little time we had visiting memorials of the Khmer Rouge period – the mass graves or “killing fields” just outside of Phnom Penh and Tuol Sleng, the prison in the city where eventual killing fields victims were held before they were slaughtered. It was a sobering reminder of how horrifying humanity can be – and it makes me wonder what it takes to get to that point. Is it much easier than I think?

If you’d like to hear how someone who really cares about their blog describes their own experience in Cambodia (a few years ago), check out this great account: http://www.edwebproject.org/susanne/phnompenh.html

Vietnam: Guillaume and I then traveled by bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City to meet Simon the day he arrived in port. We then had a few days in Ho Chi Minh City with Guillaume before he took off for the beach. I had been to Vietnam in 2001 with a friend of mine – we had backpacked through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam for five weeks. So it was really interesting to see how things had changed. The last time I had traveled overland between Cambodia and Vietnam, the main road between the two cities was basically a dotted line – a little bit of road, a ten-foot wide three-foot deep crater the result of a bomb 25 years earlier, another little bit of road, another massive crater, and so on. Half the time spent driving down this road was spent off the road, trying to navigate around the holes. And this was during the dry season – in the rainy season the road became completely un-navigable, I imagine.

Anyway, seven years later, the road is now fully re-paved. And Vietnam is booming. It’s been growing at around 7.5% for the last five years or so and Ho Chi Minh City is at the center of all this economic growth. The streets are swarming with motorbikes, some with entire families on the backs of them. Crossing the street is an interesting experience. Anyone who has traveled to Southeast Asia will know what I’m talking about. The protocol for crossing the street is this: you step out (whether or not there is a gap in the traffic) and start walking at a steady slow pace across the street as the swarm of bikes navigate around you without slowing down one bit. It works beautifully, although it can be a little scary. When in large groups, it’s best to pair off in twos and be sure to be walking exactly side by side to create the smallest obstacle in the road possible.

In Ho Chi Minh, Simon, Guillaume, our good friend Reina (who had been working in Vietnam the week we arrived and stayed on to spend some time with us) and I took a little time viewing some of the war memorials and museums including the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Cu Chi Tunnels are a network of more than 150 miles of tunnels that were constructed over a 10 year period, creating an underground complex for 16,000 guerilla fighters just 22 miles outside of Ho Chi Minh City (I got some of this information from someone else’s blog, so don’t hold me to these facts). The tunnels are more than just tunnels – everything was taken underground from hospitals to kitchens to sleeping chambers and air raid shelters. Some of the tunnels go as deep as 23 feet. It was originally constructed for the war against the French, then later used in the war against the Americans – “the American War” as they call it. The place was a death trap to any American going in, which the US military soon understood, so they eventually tried to bomb it out of existence, but this strategy was quickly discovered to be futile. The bomb craters on the land above the tunnels stand testament to the B-52’s vain attempts.

We all went down into a section of the tunnels enlarged for Western tourists and traveled a short distance of maybe 100 yards or so (so five-ten minutes underground). And we all came out feeling very relieved to stand up and breathe fresh air, sweating profusely, our legs shaking from scampering along with our knees by our shoulders, having bumped our head and scraped our backs a few times along the way. I can’t imagine having had to live like that for several years. It’s an amazing testament to the Viet Cong’s ingenuity, courage, and determination.

China

This port was certainly interesting, but I can’t say it was fun. Part of the reason it was a little less enjoyable than the others is that we went on a 70-person monument-filled bus tour and Simon was trip leader – meaning lots of headaches and conflict mediation.

We’ve learned (what we already would have guessed) that this is decidedly not our preferred way of travel. Nevertheless we saw some amazing sites, from the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City , and ajaw-dropping Chinese acrobatics show in Beijing to the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an. I think I’ll just stop here on China and let you enjoy the photos.

Japan – Our final foreign port

Japan was fascinating. For such an advanced industrial country it is amazingly insular. We had an easier time withdrawing money from an ATM in India than we did in Japan because their banking system does not take international cards. You must have a Japanese bank account to use 99% of their ATMs. Very little, too, is written in our alphabet, although there’s apparently a lot more English writing than there used to be. Walking around in Japan gives you some idea of what it must be like to be illiterate. You see that there’s tons of information available all around you (there are a million signs on every building) but you can’t read any of it. Even if someone kindly writes down the name of a place you are looking for in Japanese characters, it’s hardly helpful since it takes a tremendous amount of concentration and an exceedingly careful eye to identify a matching character among the optical chaos in front of you. Perhaps if we had more than five days it would have gotten easier…

We had a wonderful time though, visiting a former employee of Simon’s dad who lives in Kyoto. She took us to see the Nijo Castle among other things which is famous for its ‘Nightingale Floors,’ cleverly designed wooden floorboards that creak with the slightest pressure. They sing like nightingales so that no one could sneak up on the shogun in his own home. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside so we have nothing to show…

We also went to Gion, Kyoto’s most famous Geisha district and saw a number of Geisha’s walking down the street, in a hurry I’m sure, to get away from the gawking tourists. (It’s probably difficult for a geisha not to appear in a hurry, as they can only step forward a few inches at a time in their narrow kimonos, so to walk at a normal pace they must take many tiny steps.) The whole experience was quite bizarre, though. Tourists treated the women like they were animals in a zoo – pointing at them and loudly exclaiming “there’s one!” and then jumping out in front of them to take a photo so that the geisha was forced to walk around them.

We also spent one day in Hiroshima, and walked by the “Atomic Bomb Dome” – the closest surviving building to the location of the bomb's detonation and now the center of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Only the skeleton of this beautiful building remained. Near the park is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum which was truly powerful. Students in one of Simon’s courses were asked to gather “peace artifacts” in each of the ports on the voyage – embodiments of peace in the countries and among the peoples we visited. A snapshot of the whole city of Hiroshima would have qualified. The city, after enduring and reemerging from the horrors of the first atomic bomb dropped in warfare, is now a beacon for world peace – at once a potent reminder of the appalling effects of large-scale nuclear-age warfare, and a glowing representation of the power of the human spirit to overcome the worst atrocities. (I had Simon write this last bit.)

Going Home

After a one day stop in Hawaii (where we rented a Mustang Convertible for 12 hours with Mike Maniates, our fabulous academic Dean for the voyage, and Gene Hammond, a good friend and English professor), we headed for San Diego where we arrived last Tuesday (May 14). Simon and I are now back in Washington, DC where we plan to stay for the next two years. Simon will be teaching as an adjunct professor at American University for at least one year after he graduates this summer. And I have been awarded a two-year fellowship called the Mickey Leland Congressional Hunger Fellowship. I’ll be based in DC but will be traveling from time to time to various countries in Africa doing research on African organizations working in agriculture and rural development. We’re expecting exciting times ahead!

I think this may be my last blog update in a little while because I’ve discovered through this process that I strongly dislike blogging. I’m sure you’re all really sorry to hear this. You won’t get to read our pages and pages of outdated news anymore…