Destination Da Lat

I decided to do something really different this year, I decided to quit my job and move across the world to live on top of a mountain. The reasons for doing so, I'll explain later in a story. But on top of a moutain, in the city of Da Lat is where I find myself. It is an adventure that I understand very few people will ever have, or are ever willing to take. To highlight some of the raw rarest of this next year, I have decided to...[insert drumroll] start a blog.

y not? right?

I have on many occasions quivered on the mere sight of a personal blog. The idea of writing news about yourself just felt so self-centered to me. The whole approach of not even disguising the news as a fictional story about somebody else, that felt even more wrong. Well, let me be the first to warn everybody who share similiar sentiments, that this is going to be exactly like one of those self-promoting blogs. I won't promise good writing, or even grammatically correct writing (I'm here to teach English, not blog), but I will promise short sentences, lots of pictures, and a more interesting life comparatively to the one I was living before as a corporate time waster. For those that know me, this is a departure from my rambling ways, but to keep it interesting, to not waste your time nor mine, I'll keep the blogs short. Not this one though, this one is going to be long. So get your dried squid ready.

I stepped off US soil for almost two months now. For two months now, pretty much everywhere I have been, I have been a tourist. It's been fun. It always is to absorb in the newest of cultures, food, geography, everything. It's strangely comforting to find that there exist similiarities in this newest: the inebriation, the comradery, the need to survive and thrive. And it's truly humbling to know that there are places on this earth, I'll never get to see before my time is done. It's not that the earth is big, it isn't, it's small in the universal perspective, but we're so much more microscopic than we're willing to accept. Traveling allows me to see this.

First stop:

I visited Japan, and abused their rail system, and basked ontop their technologically advanced toilets. I watched an anime through a bookstore window and was able to catch a clip of two maids in a death match. Who won? They both lost when caught in eachother's fatal bear hug, their bosoms grew so large it eventually blew up the earth itself. I sat on a train and traveled so fast that the cities in my view seem collectively tilted in one direction. Most importantly, I ate some of the best sushi ever with close friends.

(Note: I don't think this song is the appropriate pace for how fast Japan moves, I was going to use Kyu Sakamoto's verison of Hound Dog but I lost that song when I blew out my harddrive in Chiang Mai.)

Second stop: Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai was just awesome. Even though, I had two weeks in Chiang Mai, I didn't have much time to record any thoughts. I joined my fellow volunteers here, and we kept ourselves busy. We explored the city on our free time and were in class the rest, training for our upcoming roles as teachers. There was much to learn, but the basic lessons which I'll take with me: "Don't panic, be prepare, pump up the AC, and talk like a British." It was necessary and comforting to meet friends who will have similiar stories of adventure and mishaps for the upcoming year.

I do remember that Chiang Mai had some of the most spectacular temples I have seen. All the temples sparkle with gold, and there are temples within walking distances almost everywhere you go.

One very cool thing about some of the temples are the offerings of trinkets you can buy and leave as permanent fixtures of the temple. You can buy these golden bells inside of most temples (cheaper to buy outside on the streets), write anything you want on them, and hang it around the temples. I hung this one at Doi Suthep:

One more thing to mention about Chiang Mai, the roti. It's truly a piece of oily, cracked-out heaven.

Third stop: Hanoi, Vietnam

Stayed in Hanoi for another two weeks. It was hot. If you're planning to do anything that requires movement, do it early. Being caught in the afternoon heat is like being in a sauna with your only refuge being a mall or a fancy hotel. The city buses will not cool you down. Besides for the heat, Hanoi has a certain charm you can't deny. The city is large and is estimated to grow larger territorially than Saigon in the next few years. There are numerous lakes that are used as cool-down spots, exercise areas, and make-out alleys for the locals. We stayed near the legendary Hoan Kiem Lake. Translated it means Lake of the Returned Sword and is the centerpiece of the country's most lengendary forklore, Emperor Le Loi. This lake was the location where the king was given a sacred sword to defend the country from Chinese invaders. Very much like the story of Excaliber and King Arthur, this is the lake where history and fable interwine. This much is true, there was a Emperor named Le Loi, there were Chinese invaders, and there still is a lake.

Interesting side note, during a radio interview I was involved with years back, a caller asked why it seems to him that the Vietnamese people as a whole were forgiving of foreigners, in particular foreigners like Americans who bombed the country and poisoned the land. I couldn't answer him. I really didn't know. I understood that his observation held some truth to it, but nothing in my study of Vietnam prepared me for that question. All wars have lingering effects, and hatred for the enemy has been passed down to subsequent generations through teachings in classroom and fairytales at home. Gruesome landmarks like bomb craters, mine fields, burial sites and prisons still make up part of the landscape in which people walk by everyday to live their lives. Even with time, war is not something that can be easily forgotten, but there is a sesne of forgiveness that permenates through Vietnam.

It was the retelling and explanation of the Le Loi folklore by our Hanoian teacher, Cho Hoa, that helped better my understanding of that question. "Forgiveness is the nature of our people, "she said. The sword that was given to Le Loi to engage in war, was given not in the name of aggression, but defense. Once the country was defended and the war was over, it [the sword] had to be returned. Our people rise to defend and fight for our country, but once the fight is over, we must seek out peace.

Steve, if you're out there, and somehow are reading this blog, there you go. That's your answer. Forgiveness is the nature of our people.

Although, it was hot, and crowded, and noisy. I do find myself missing Hanoi. It was a city full of life and history. There were a variety of delicious food. (My favorite being the Kaiser Kafe on Ba Trieu, just love the food, and the owner remembers my name after five years.) Oh. And the people there are nice. Despite what I have been told by people in the south, northerns are not evil. And lastly, another reason for missing Hanoi, Ha Long.

Destination: Da Lat

From Hanoi to Saigon via Jetstar, the cheapest way to wait five extra hours for a flight in Vietnam. You would think that flying would be different than the normal chaos of other Vietnam modes of transportation, but it's not that much different. I think we actually made a traditional Vietnamese pass of another airplane while in the sky:

After a quick stay in Saigon, where I drank too much to remember anything, it was off to Da Lat. I can't begin to describe how nice it feels, after lugging a year's supply of luggage from Kyoto to Saigon for six weeks, to finally unpack my suitcase and say: home.

Well that's all for now. The following blogs will be shorter. Whatever I feel like really, might include stories and poems, updates, and the such. Much more to come from Da Lat, as I settle down, start teaching, and start soaking in my new home. By soaking in, I mean, soaking in. Here's a video of my first moments in Da Lat after being dropped off in the middle of an afternoon storm.