Epilogue

In July 2007 we decided to take a break and "decompress" - so for the following 9 months we traveled throughout Europe and Asia.

What was initially meant to be a real-time blog of our trip, ended up as a set of delayed snapshots and an excuse to share our pictures. We quickly resigned ourselves to the fact that we can’t be truly immersed in the moment, and share the experience at the same time.

So, with a few months’ delay, here it is. Because we started it as a blog, postings are chronological, so please read them from the bottom up. Each picture leads to an album – just click on it.

Ko Samui

The last 10 days of the trip - in paradise. On Ko Samui, in a just opened new resort where we happened to be the only guests - the sea, the beach, the gardens, the swimming poll, the restaurant….just for us….and this is how we started a new chapter…

San Diego

A little change in scenery:

Phnom Penh – Bangkok - Taipei- L.A.- San Diego- a total of 24 hours, than two packed conference days at a very expensive and luxurious hotel with way too many towels, soaps and pillows and than back to L.A.- Taipei – Bangkok - Ko Samui.

Cambodia

The legacy of the Khmer Rouge and the civil war is still everywhere: countless beggars, many of them maimed by landmines (much of the country is still dangerous territory), orphanages everywhere, still ruined downtown, or the hair-raising Tuol Sleng Genocide museum.

Phnomh Penh would be a rather depressing ending to our Cambodian visit, but the timing is lucky: it’s late October, time of the Water festival, when over a million Cambodians descend on the capital.

Kompong Phhluk

Every year, around May, as the level of Mekong River raises, it overflows into Tonle Sap lake, increasing its size sixfold. In October, the process is reversed, and the lake starts draining back into the Mekong.

Kompong Phhluk village sits somewhere along the shifting border of this amazing natural phenomenon. For most of the year, it’s a flooded village, with life revolving around fishing and crocodile farming. As the water recedes, its houses turn into a forest of bamboo skyscrapers.

Tipped by Kali, we timed our visit to the sunset. Check out the video too.

Angkor

It’s easy to get excited and start throwing out superlatives when describing Angkor. Truth is, the place is so vast, the scale so enormous and the clash of stone and jungle so overwhelming that Angkor should be on anyone’s must-see-before-I-die list. So better let the pictures speak.

Vientiane

The capital of Laos preserves the country’s general non-aggressive, compromising, very calm spirit. You can see on the streets Buddhist and communist flags hanging together and police women dressed in a top straight from a Soviet movie and a silk Laotian dress. As a bonus we learned here about the self-deprecating Laotian sense of humor - check their own posting on the Patuxai Arch.

Night Market in Luang Prabang

Every evening, traders from all around the region gather here, around the Royal Palace. They set up their tents illuminated by many little light bulbs and all sorts of handcrafts are displayed: silk scarves, clothing, shoes, umbrellas, silver, paper and many more. Prices are very cheap but what’s most astonishing is the market’s silence. Yes, silence and calm in an Asian market; no hard selling, just shy welcoming smiles.
To make the experience even more unusual, all of the sudden a blackout leaves the whole market in complete dark. A general collective sigh and than no panic, no more sounds, just candles lighting one by one in perfect peace to let you see again the same inviting smiles.

Luang Prabang

Relax, close you eyes, focus on your breathing and than imagine:

Blue shiny sky, mountains all around, and as your gaze descends, golden temple roofs and French colonial architecture lost in a sea of overgrown trees with white and pink flowers; as your gaze descends even more you notice narrow cobblestone streets, peppered with orange monk’s robes and silent bicycles covered by multicolor umbrellas; there is no noise, just calm.
No wonder we spent there four days in a blissful trance!

Halong Bay

Every travel agent booking a boat tour of Halong Bay starts by pointing out that it has been shortlisted for the 7 Natural World Wonders. And indeed, the green rocks jutting out of the sea are every bit as spectacular as any pictures in the travel brochures.

Problem is, like everywhere else in Vietnam today, beauty has to be turned into $ - as many and as fast as possible.

So every morning busloads of tourists are brought to the same narrow boarding area, crammed onto “junks” that sail in a compact line to the same little bay, where hundreds queue to see the same cave before all the junks anchor together in the same lagoon to spend the night.

You have a moment to take in the spirit of the place, the formidable geology, the sound of the sea and the starry sky before the first boat turns up the music, followed by another, then another.

It’s mass tourism at its worst, trapped on a boat in the middle of the South China Sea.

Vietnam

We had great expectations before the trip to Vietnam. Our imagination had been shaped by Catherine Deneuve’s “Indochina”, by “The Scent of Green papaya” or “The quiet American”.

We expected some sort of sedate tropical backwater, where the aromas of pho bo and fresh French baguettes mix intriguingly and where erotic Asian girls glide by, on bicycles, dressed in ao-dais.

Well, Vietnam has all that, but like in the Radio Yerevan jokes: bicycles are motorcycles – about 6 million in Saigon only. Which makes for an altogether different eroticism.

Vietnam today is a post/ still /not-quite communist/capitalist wild-East, where everybody’s out to get you – or at least to get your money.

Everything’s fast, loud, pragmatic, cheap, dizzying or in construction – a bit like I imagine New York of a century ago. Certainly full of vitality, but not really a vacation paradise – at least not after three weeks of Bhutan.

Thunderbolts

Since we couldn’t photograph the treasure dance, we settled for the closest thing: the spectacular phalluses painted on most Bhutanese houses. Protection against evil spirits, they say.

Jambay Lhachang Drup Festival

Every year at the end of October, large numbers of Bhutanese and most foreign tourists gather to Bumthang valley, the cultural and religious heart of the country, for the Jambay Lhachang Drup Festival. From Paro (where we landed) to Bumthang it’s over 300 km (almost 200 miles). The road, only 3-4 m wide, has an average of 20 curves per km; it hugs every twist and turn of the breathtaking topography, so the going is very, very slow, no more than 25 km/h (15mph) on average.

Along the way, we stopped for a night in Trongsa, one of the most spectacular towns in Bhutan, with its dzong suspended on a rock above a deep ravine. Because of its strategic location, in the center of Bhutan, through history whoever held Trongsa controlled the trade routes of Bhutan.

The festival includes three days of festivities, starting with a purification ceremony on the first night (with hundreds running under a burning arch) and continuing with dancing and religious services for two more days. The highlight is the midnight “treasure” dance – twelve completely naked and masked men dancing for an hour - photographing is completely forbidden though.

Jhomolhari Trek

We trekked for 8 days, starting and ending in Paro (alt 2500m, about 7000 ft) and going to Jomolhari base camp (4100m) and then over two passes: Bhonte-La (4900m – about 16000 ft) and Takhung La (4520m).

At first, we were somewhat embarrassed by the entire logistics deployed for only to the two of us: the guide (Ugyen), a cook (Sonam), an assistant cook (Sharub), a horsemen (Dodo) and 9 horses. Every night, they would set up a camp which included our sleeping tent, a dining tent, a kitchen tent and (most importantly) the toilet tent. Used as we are with roughing it up when hiking, we thought that’s way too pampered. But that was only for the first two nights, until we passed 4000m. From there, everything becomes much more difficult – so we were more than happy to accept pampering.

We were incredibly lucky to get perfectly clear weather; something - we were told – that only happens for 10-15 days a year. So here are the pictures.

Bhutan

As the Druk Air plane enters Bhutanese airspace, soft Himalayan flute music is played on the loudspeakers. The plane descends through the deep valleys – above the wingtips , on both sides, on ridges and hilltops, you can see monasteries, white little houses here and there and groups of white flags. The plane jumps over one last ridge and we’re in Paro, on the country’s only airport, in a broad, terraced, yellow-green valley.

Bhutan is from another time: traditional architecture - white houses with intricate, painted roof woodwork are perfectly preserved; most everybody still wears traditional dress (gho for men and kira for women); the national pastime is archery; the pace of life is slow, punctuated by religious festivals, fabulous displays of masks and costumed dancing. The last Shangri-la.

Barcelona

Everything is relative. Ten years ago, coming from the north, Barcelona seemed a relaxed and bohemian big city. This time, after almost a month in Andalucia, it showed us its neurotic side. The neurosis of a beauty queen, though.

Patios

They leave a little window open in their gates, so we can peep and admire their gardens. Us the voyeurists, or them the exhibitionists?

“Qui no ha vi Grana no ha vi na'”

Granada’s history revolves around water. The melting snows of the Sierra Nevada, create a green oasis in the middle of what is otherwise a dry, barren and tough land. And over almost three centuries, the rulers of the Granada Emirate have turned this water into an art form, and their palace into a temple of hedonism. Too bad we can’t also post here the smells and sounds of the Generalife gardens.

Gibraltar

Hard to believe you’re at the Mediterranean when shops close at 6PM, dinner is fish and chips and the best entertainment is visiting tunnels and military installations. Built for war, Gibraltar is close to Costa del Sol, but far from its spirit. Thank God they kept the monkeys.

La Herradura

And here we crashed for two weeks…

Andalucia - on the road

Cordoba

A forest of 900 columns, red and white arches stretching as far as you can see, delicate filtered light falling on intricate mosaics. Built in the 10th century, the Cordoba Mesquita is considered one of the most beautiful mosques ever built. After the Reconquista, it was turned into a Catholic church, with the center demolished to make way for a cathedral.

Around the same time, at the other end of Europe, Hagia Sophia was having the reverse faith…

Flamenco

We were wary of a tourist-trap experience when it comes to flamenco in Sevilla. Every hotel advertises “true Andalusian experiences” but many can be overpriced, tourist-only shows, lacking in atmosphere and authenticity.
At 10.30 PM, there was almost no one inside Carboneria, a huge old coal deposit turned into flamenco bar, but we were told to come back in half an hour for the show. Somewhat skeptical, we left for dinner. When we came back, at 11.15, the whole place was packed. And for good reason.

From England to Sevilla

First thing we did arriving in Sevilla from Cambridge was a long and enjoyable shower – such a simple definition of pleasure. Separate faucets for cold and hot water in England and the impossibility to enjoy a shower as a result, seemed at the time to deserve some funny philosophical interpretation on the blog.

But that entry melted away into the warm Andalucian nights, tapas, sangria and flamenco. Salud!

Sighisoara

Sighisoara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sighisoara ) is generally considered the best-preserved fortified medieval city in Transylvania. It is also (in)famous for being the birthplace of Vlad Tepes (aka. The Impaler, aka. Dracula). With such a pedigree, in recent years it has become a must see on any Dracula-themed tour.

For over 15 years now, a medieval festival is organized every July. Initially, the festival was supposed to revive the medieval traditions (music, theatre, costumes, parades) and to promote the town heritage. But it had gradually evolved into a rather noisy and messy combination of rock music, beer and late night partying.

The town council is trying to regain control and this year it has banned any music other than classical, and has pushed the alcohol sellers outside the walled citadel. Yet the audience hasn’t changed much: still young people looking for a good party.

We were partying here 10 years ago. With us on this trip, Ruxandra, a highschool friend, keeps us in the present.