Global (Mis)Adventures

Gallery: China

realeyes — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 19:10:00 GMT

Gallery: Hong Kong

realeyes — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:28:00 GMT

Big City

Gallery: Vietnam Again

realeyes — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:13:00 GMT

Mekong Delta, Hoi An, Hanoi, Halong Bay

Gallery: Cambodia

realeyes — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:01:00 GMT

Temples

Lucky Girl

realeyes — Sat, 26 May 2007 13:31:00 GMT

Here's what not to do while travelling in Cambodia: Put everything important, including all your money and identification, into a bag, go out drinking at a local pub, then go walking alone down a dark road back to your hotel. Yeaahhh... that would be very dumb, indeed. Call me dumb.

So, I went out the other night with a few friends and since my hotel was only a few blocks away, I figured I'd save myself a dollar and just walk. About 20 steps away from my hotel, a guy on a motorbike drove past me. He reached over and tried to snatch my bag from me. I guess he didn't realize that I had my arms all wrapped up in the straps, so, although he had a really good grip, my grip was better. And actually, my natural reaction to him grabbing my bag was to clamp down even tighter on it. What he ended up doing, then, was spinning me around and throwing me violently down to the ground. I got up right away and screamed obscenities at him at the top of my lungs as he sped away. The words from my mouth didn't form well since I was still trying figure out what had just happened. I managed to get out a 'Fwluck Yewww!' and some other gibberish, which despite not being very effective, felt good to get out. My yelling also brought out a crowd of people from the nearby guesthouses (none from my own) who ran to see if I was alright. My primary concern at that moment was my bag... if he had managed to get it, he would have acquired a wealth of valuable things- my passport, all my other identification, a decent amount of cash in several different currencies, my traveller's cheques, my credit card, my debit card, my digital voice recorder, my digital camera (without all it's necessary parts, which really would have been a waste, because he wouldn't have been able to ever use the camera), and my journal. He also would have taken my treasured medicine bag... the object that I thought I had lost a week ago which caused me to wander around the streets of Chiang Mai at night in the rain, bawling my eyes out (but then I found it after some detective work). To the theif, it would just be an ugly withered little leather sack, but to me, it's irreplacable. That's all my bravery wrapped up in that little sack.

When the people came out to see if I was okay, I was many things... in shock, in pain, relieved, angry, scared, and actually, embarassed. I was embarassed, because I had been so stupid. I'm not naive. I know these sort of robberies are fairly common here. I know how to avoid them. Yet, I ignored my common sense and put myself at risk anyways. I gave a desperate man an opportunity. I immediately dismissed everyone's assistance and told them I was okay in a calm sighing Charlie Brown sort of way. I dusted myself off, picked up my water bottle, and completed the steps to my hotel. The staff at the hotel smiled and asked how I was, and I just smiled back and said, "I'm fine".

When I got into my room, I was able to assess the damage... some blood, some insane bruises... my whole left hip is black. I showered the blood and dust off, disinfected and bandanged the scrapes, and felt much better. I'm very lucky. It could have been much worse. Lesson learned... don't get lazy about being careful!

Pompeii the Elephant

realeyes — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:49:00 GMT

"What's his name?" I asked the mahout who was riding between the elephant's head and myself.

The mahout was not impressed. "It's Pompeii, and she's a lady."

"Oh," I giggled. For a female, this elephant was huge!!! I was much higher up in the air that any of the other tourists I saw on their elephants. And I'm not actually sure her name was Pompeii... that's just what I heard and repeated, and the mahout didn't correct me, so for the rest of my life, I will remember my elephant friend as being named after a lava-buried village.

The half-hour ride was a bit costly, but the money goes towards taking care of the elephants and their mahouts, and it was obvious to me that this guy really cared about Pompeii, so I was happy. When we departed from the center, there were several professional photographers who tried to sell me on paying a steep price for a photo of myself on the elephant. I declined (-I'm cheap), but wondered afterward if I would regret it. But alas, when we were out of the view of the photographers, the mahout climbed off of Pompeii, and offered to take pictures of me with my camera for free! Yes! He took some excellent shots. Pompeii was content because I had brought along a bunch of bananas for the ride and during the photo shoot, she reached her long truck backwards towards me and sucked air through her nose (it really is just like a vaccuum cleaner) until I put a banana there for her to pluck and pop into her mouth.

Awwwhh. How adorable.

I also saw an elephant show while at the center, which was excellent. I was a bit worried at first that I would feel the animals were being exploited by being made to act like humans for entertainment purposes, but it really seemed as though the animals are well taken care of and at least they are not at risk of being poached while they are at the center. The show actually put tears into my eyes and a lump in my throat, because I was just so amazed and so proud... as if they were my kindergarten students putting on a Christmas performance. The elephants played soccer, played harmonicas and danced, performed massage on the mahouts (scary!), threw darts (also scary!) and, most amazingly, painted pictures! Not just squiggles on a canvas, but actually pictures... a bouquet of flowers, a tree... one elephant even did a self-portrait! And they did it with very little help from their mahouts. It was a spectacle to be had.

Gallery: Thailand

realeyes — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:26:00 GMT

Hot & Humid

Wet Turkey

realeyes — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:46:00 GMT

Thailand is awesome! Of course, I really haven't seen much, but yesterday I was lying in a hut on a big comfortable mat with a Thai woman wrapped around my leg, and with the ocean air wafting in through the windows, and the sounds of the beach and the jungle serenading us, and I thought, there really can't be anywhere better than this, can there? By the way, the woman was a massaseur, and she was divine. Thai massage really is as great as they say it is.

I'm on the island of Ko Tao. I came to dive, but I'm not sure I'll actually make it into the depths of the ocean... I have a wicked cough and honestly, I'm just plain scared. I don't have Shawna to protect me this time and I went snorkelling and felt like I was going to drown the entire time, so I think for now, I'll just relax on the beach, or in the massage hut, or at my awesome bungalow. That suits me just fine, for now.

I've made some cool friends... each of them from Germany. I've also acquired a couple of pets: at my last bungalow, there was 'Sweetpea', the cat, who believes with all her heart that the bungalow is her home. Today I changed bungalows and pets. Now I have 'Frankie', the dog... who enjoys use of my patio.

I decided to splurge and stay one night in a resort bungalow at Sensi Paradise Resort- it looks just like the kind of beach bungalows you see in magazines for the rich and famous... well, sort of... that might be a stretch... but it's got the hardwood floors and big plush beds with white linen and dramatic mosquito nets hovering over the beds. The resort is all about environmental friendliness... guests are forbidden to bring plastic bottles onto the resort property and they provide you with a hemp shopping bag. There is a shipwreck right out front of the hotel and guests are provided with snorkelling equipment to go check it out... that is where I almost drowned. Cool shipwreck, though. Lots of fish and other marine animals looking at me as though I was a complete fool coughing and paddling around like a drowning turkey.

Airport Fiasco

realeyes — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:19:00 GMT

So, since last I wrote, things changed... I never did go paragliding much to my chagrin, because the guy who I was going tandem with (don't get any dirty ideas) was suddenly sick in the morning (read: hungover), so it was cancelled.

I flew back to Kathmandu, had one last breakfast at Helena's restaurant in Thamel (try their egg and cheese crossiants- they're my new favorite food), and sent home all the souvenirs I accumulated over a two week period- which was a LOT! I'm usually not a souvenir-buyer, but there are some amazingly unique things here, and I found myself more than once handing over money for things I don't really need, but damn it, I wanted.

On Monday morning, I headed over to the international airport to catch my flight to Bangkok. I arrived 3 hours early (at 11 a.m.) and found that the part of the airport that I needed was still locked! When the doors finally opened, I rushed to the counter to pay the departure tax and convert my leftover rupees to dollars, so that I could get to the check-in counter before the crowds arrived. The rush turned out to be completely unnecessary, since the computers were down, and we had to wait another hour and a half before the check-in counter attendants decided to start checking people in manually. Each attendant had a long list of passenger names and was handwriting tickets. By the time I got to the front of the line, the attendant at the counter was obviously stressed and flustered. To put him at ease, I was as sweet and smiley as I could be, and I made sure I had everything in order for him. He looked at my name in my passport, he looked over the list, and then he shook his head.

"Not on the list," he said, shoving my papers back at me and waving me away. He was already nodding at the person next-in-line. I wedged myself in between the counter and the person next-in-line, and said, very calmly, while inside I was panicking, "What do you mean I'm not on the list? I paid a lot of money for this flight. I called to reconfirm it."

He didn't even look at me. "Not on the list," he repeated, this time more forcibly. He reached over me to grab the next person's papers. "Let me see this," I growled, snatching the list from his hands. I found my name within a second. "I'm right there," I said, pointing out my name on the list and then showing him my name in my passport one more time. He didn't apologize, or say anything for that matter. He quietly wrote me a ticket, still visibly stressed by the ever-growing line of impatient people and his task at hand.

I was just happy to get on the flight.

The gates at the international airport in Kathmandu are interesting. There are no speaker annoucements, no boards that say what flight departs when and from what gate, and no airport staff to answer questions. All the foreigners that were waiting for flights were walking around saying, "I don't know. Do you know? Nobody knows. What's going on?" I was sitting beside a friendly (aren't they all?) Nepalese man who explained that when it was time for me to walk out to the plane, I would just know. Alright, then... no need to stress. I tried not to. It would have been really nice to know where to wait or what time to expect boarding to begin.

I was lucky enough to see the Australian bikers that I had met in Pokhara, and whom were on the same flight as me. I went over to them, and realized I was really lucky that I did so, because my flight was halfway through boarding from the place that they were standing.

Again, I was just happy to get on the flight.

When I got on the flight, I was pleased to notice that I would have a window seat- my favorite of all seats... or so I thought.

When I got to my seat, 32A, there was a crowd accumulated around it. Turns out 2 other people also had a ticket clearly saying that they were seated in 32A, and three people also had a ticket for 32B. I sat down in the closest empty seat, which was in the middle of the plane. Luckily no one ever came to claim it--- strange, since the plane was completely full.

Thailand, here I come!

Flying Wild

realeyes — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:38:00 GMT

I spent three nights in the Tibetan area of Kathmandu, Bodhnath, which was a lovely place- probably one of the only places in the world where Tibetan culture is uninhibited and so, therefore, one can see the real thing, mixed with modernity, of course. Bodhnath is structured around a huge stupa that has Buddha's all-seeing eyes on all four sides of it. Tibetans and other pilgrims make a nightly walk in worship around the stupa, some wearing saffron robes, some wearing traditional Tibetan dress, and others wearing modern clothes. Some people twirl prayer wheels as they walk, other chant. Some chat on their cell phones.

Although there are many shops and restaurants, I found Bodhnath to be a much more relaxing area than Thamel, the main tourist district of Kathmandu, with few touts and not really anyone shouting "Namaste!You look here!" when you walk past their place. I spent most of my time there walking around the stupa with the pilgrims and reading a book called "The Good Heart" by the Dalai Lama, in which he comments on a selection from the Christian gospels! It was really quite interesting and a perfectly suited book to the environment I was in.

If you are heading here, instead of walking through the main entrance to the Stupa and the main Bodhnath area, keep walking 20 metres to the right. There is a small alleyway that leads to the Stupa, and if you go this way, you don't have to pay. If you go in the main way, it costs 100 rupees or so to buy an entrance ticket. I found the second entrance because I had my heavy pack on and I wasn't keen on walking around the Stupa until I was settled into a hotel. I looked for an alternative route and didn't have to go far. Then, once I was in, I saw a sign on the stupa that said it was free for all to enter- therefore, the ticket booth at the main gate is sort of a scam!

While I was in the mellow area of Bodhnath, I reached a decision that it was time that I did something that caused a little more adrenaline to flow through me, so I booked a plane to Pokhara- a city in Nepal that is famous for all the adventure activities based out of it. The plane ride in itself was an adventure- I flew with Buddha Air on a plane that seats less than 20 passengers. It was so small that to get to our seats, we had to crouch as if we were crawling through a cave. The feeling that I was riding in a coffin was not the best for my nerves, as I was already nervous since I was told that all domestic carriers in Nepal should be avoided... but I decided to take my chances on the plane since the guidebook says one is 30 times more likely to die in a bus crash in Nepal than in most other developing countries! At least the plane ride was only 20 minutes long. (How appropriate is it that one of the cafes in Pokhara was screening the movie, Alive, last night? Ummm...)

Pokhara is like Banff, only a bit grungier and at a higher altitude. I went to a restaurant on the lake front last night to have dinner and see a cultural show- and possibly it's just my imagination (likely), but it appears that the stars are much closer to the Earth here. It's almost as if you climbed the hills, you could pluck the stars right out of the sky.

Anyways, I've signed on to do a tandem paragliding ride tomorrow. Check back later to see how that goes.

Time Travel

realeyes — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 23:53:00 GMT

It would appear from this photograph that somewhere on my travels I have encountered an eccentric old scientist, likely with unruly white fuzzy hair and a tendency to mumble to himself, and that this strange mumbling character has invented a time machine and recruited me to test it out.

That is true. But that's not the story that goes along with this picture.

In fact, it is Nepali New Year's Day, making this the fourth distinct New Year's that I have celebrated since December 31st: the Western New Year's, Korean New Year's, Indian New Year's, and now, Nepal's. And in fact, I have not catapulted myself into the future (that is indeed how time travel is done), but the Nepali calendar is just a little bit faster than ours. So, it's year 2064.

And in truth, the only time travel I have done in Nepal has been back through time, not forward. I've spent most of my time in the medieval city of Bhaktapur. The streets and buildings evoke images of antiquity... and in many parts of town, you can see those images of antiquity being played out right before your eyes. People in traditional dress worship their deities or carry pujas to the temples, craftspeople and tradesmen carry on the same work their ancestors did, and people walk to the market carrying heavy loads of their wares to sell just like they did way back when.

Also medieval-feeling were the New Year's celebrations which last for 5 days each year. Part of the celebration is a tug-of-war contest in which hundreds of people on each side of an giant colorful wooden chariot hold onto a long rope and pull the chariot along. It gets violent when one side wins, no doubt because liqour is involved, and the losers throw stones at the winners. (Who's the winner now, hey?) Several of my chaperones (those young men with ulterior motives) warned me not to get too close to the event, and I was glad for their advice. 15 people were arrested and many were injured from the stone throwing (I don't believe anyone was seriously hurt, however, but still... yikes!)

Gallery: Nepal

realeyes — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 23:08:00 GMT

Reverie

Cooking in India

realeyes — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:41:00 GMT

One of the best things about traveling through India is the food. After 14 months of living in Korea where vegetarianism is a strange, foreign concept, it is so good to be able to go into any restaurant and have often more options than the meat-eaters. Besides that, Indian food is probably my most favorite of all cuisines. I decided to bring a little of that joy home with me by learning how to cook some of my favorite dishes. In Udaipur, I signed up for a cooking class with the sister of a friendly man who owns an internet cafe. It turned out to be one of the best experiences I've had in India. At 6 pm, I met the man, Yash, at his internet place. Then I hopped up onto the back of his motorcycle, side-saddling it like I have seen so many of the women in Asia do, because I was wearing a long skirt. We weaved in and out of traffic (cars, bikes, rickshaws, and cows) and drove into the outskirts of the city. When we arrived at his home, his sister greeted me. She was sitting in front of a small table, on which were dozens of small bowls containing various chopped, sliced, and diced vegetables and a tray of spices. She explained to me what she had prepared. I also met her son, who is 9 years old and a very sweet young boy. He was delighted when I told him that I had been an English teacher. He pranced and danced around the room while asking me questions, practicing the language. After watching my hostess cut, slice, and dice for awhile, I asked if I could help. She pointed to a dish of onions and asked if I could chop onions. I told her yes, but that I would probably cry. She handed me a knife and left the room. I assumed she wanted me to chop up the onion pieces that were in the bowl she had pointed to, so taking charge, I grabbed the bowl and started chopping. I realized then that I should probably wait for her to return to tell me how finely to chop the onions. I stopped and waited for more direction. She came in and I asked, "Is this alright?" pointing to my pile. She kind of half-smiled, and said reluctantly, "Yes". Then she took the bowl away from me and handed me two full onions. Oh, I see. I had chopped the wrong onions. I decided to observe a bit more and participate a bit less... after chopping the onions that she wanted me to (and yes, I cried).

During the lesson, my hostess caught me off guard with a question, "What caste are you from?" "What?" I asked, although I had heard her. She repeated her question. "There is only one caste in Canada and everyone is in it", I explained, "Everyone is equal" (Or so the theory goes...). Then she explained that she was from the Brahmin caste (the highest priestly caste or the "intellectuals"), and because of that, her family does not drink alcohol, smoke, or eat meat or eggs. No wonder she was wondering what caste I was from... it dictates so much of her life that I'm sure she finds it hard to imagine a society without a caste system. I told her that I basically abide by the same restrictions of my own free will, with the exception of the occasional drink or egg. I also mentioned that I did not eat anything sweet, sugar or fruit, because I hate the taste. I always have. She looked skeptical, so I said, "It's very strange." "Very, very strange," she agreed, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes with lowered eyebrows. Then she made Indian tea (chai) for me- without the sugar- and it was delicious.

Then we started. I stood in the corner of the kitchen taking notes as she dictated her recipes to me. I learned how to make Malai Kofta, Alu Palak, Chappati and Paratha. During the lessons, the issue of water came up. I didn't even ask... she decided I was thirsty- and she was right. Her son came in and said he'd run to the store for me to get bottled water. His mother looked cross and said to me, "Our water is fine. It's clean. I filter is everyday. You can drink our water, but if you want, my son will go." I decided to trust her and drink their water. And again, she was right. Her water was fine.

After we finished everything, my hostess asked me to sit at a small table in the next room. She brought out the dishes that we had made (really, that she had made)and I ate. I ate alone. I asked if she would eat too, and she told me that they would eat after I left. Across from me, she sat watching me. Her mother, who was laying on a bed and picking bay leaves off the plant stems, was also watching me. They stared. I chewed. They stared. I swallowed. Occasionally she would ask how it was. "So good", I would say politely. More staring. Slightly awkward...

Everything was delicious and I can't wait to experiment and try to concoct the same food in my own home. Something tells me it's harder than it looks.

At the end of the meal, Yash drove me back to my hotel on his bike. He asked if I would move in with them. I could stay and teach English, he said. I declined, although I wonder what it would have been like. Tasty, at the very least.

Gallery: India

realeyes — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 01:05:00 GMT

Gallery: DMZ, Korea

realeyes — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:46:00 GMT

pictures from the USO tour

A Million Roman Candles

realeyes — Mon, 1 Jan 2007 20:09:00 GMT

A party's not a party unless it threatens your life...

Huddled together, a million people and I clutched roman candles and danced as we waited for the moment we had all come for. We counted down to midnight, and everyone lit their fireworks. The light from the candles made it nearly as bright as day, the smoke erased the high-rise buildings from the skyline, and the noise was terrifying. As I fumbled with my camera and the ash in my eye, I watched rather helplessly as drifting sparks floated down onto my jacket like falling snowflakes and burned holes through it. When it was all over, we wiped the layer of ash from our heads and shoulders, and dispersed, careful to avoid stepping on any of the stray fireworks that lay on the ground and randomly exploded beneath people's feet.

Happy New Years!

What is going on?

realeyes — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 22:24:00 GMT

The ultimate mystery of the universe? Time. I'm fascinated. How come the older I get, the faster the speed of time seems to be? My last entry was at the beginning of September and all of the sudden it's December. I have no idea how that happened.

I'm still in Korea. I survived the 'Nuclear North Korea Crisis', the FTA protest riots in Seoul, and the Bird Flu outbreak. Coincidently, I've also survived several hysterical media mindgames (about nukes, riots, and bird flu). Right now, I'm trying to survive the cold. How is it that a Canadian girl can be so terribly afraid of the slightest chill? (Another mystery.) It's 2 degrees Celsius and I feel like my fingers are going to fall off, even with my mitts on. If it wasn't for the heated floor in my apartment, I swear I'd be frozen stiff by now.

I have three months left in Korea- strange how that sounds so terminal- three more months to live, in Korea. And then my backpacking life begins. Rebirth. Already I'm feeling nostalgia for this place. Once I leave, I don't intend to come back, so I've been trying to squeeze as many memories as I can into this head of mine by wandering around Bundang and Seoul every chance I get.

Central Square of Nowhere

realeyes — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:43:00 GMT

To visit North Korea as a tourist is to visit a fictional place, not unlike Neverland. In one place, Peter never grows old and in the other, the Great Leader never dies... or rather, he dies, but then he goes on to rule from beyond the grave- his power manifested through his heir, Kim Jung-Il. North Korea is the only country in the world whose official head of state is deceased- he is the ‘eternal president’... a fact that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to describing the peculiarity of the place.

Let me go back to my first statement and explain a little further. North Korea certainly is a real place with real landscapes and real people... several hundred people really did die a few months ago in floods... millions more really did die of starvation over the past decade... dissidents and other poor souls really were (and still are?) put into gulag-style camps... at least that is the truth as far as humanitarian organizations can tell from the little information they’re privy to. As a tourist, you don't gain any access to the realities of North Korea. What you get is a bubble of perfection that follows you wherever you go. I couldn’t help but wonder what lay in the distance just beyond my scope of vision. Permeating the propaganda is tricky or impossible and the extent to which the regime goes in order to protect its privacy fringes on absurdity.

To cross from South Korea into North Korea is not permitted unless with a tour group that goes directly to and from the village of Onjunggak and the Geumganasan Diamond Mountain in Southeastern North Korea. I’m not sure what the deal entails exactly, but the South Korean Government owns at least part of the area as well as one of the hotels and half of the restaurants and stores. South Korean tour companies have been running scores of tourists across the DMZ into this Northern Territory for several years. It’s a pricey go, but the idea of traversing even a little corner of North Korea was too exhilarating for my friend and I to pass up.

They call it a 3 day-trip, but in actuality, the first day lasts about 15 minutes. Our tour group met at a subway station in Seoul at 11:45 pm on Friday night. I believe there were 87 of us in total- two bus loads full of English Teachers. Oh, and one Canadian journalist. We drove throughout the night towards the DMZ in Eastern Korea. I got about 7 winks and 4 nods worth of sleep. After we slipped through South Korean immigration, our tour guide warned us about North Korean immigration. Essentially, he said that the immigration officers would search for and fine us for any little mistake- a spelling mistake, a bent passport, a wet passport, etc. He also told us, “You’d better not use any Korean words, even words you know like annyeong haseyo (hello) and kamsa hamnida (thank you), because you are foreigners and you speak English. Your Korean is not good. They will be angry if you are speaking Korean.” (Once again, my will to learn the language is shot down.)

Immigration turned out to be easy enough- the toughest part was the wait. Besides our 90-person party (including guides), there were 800 or so South Koreans who were also making their way to the Diamond mountain on that day. And because of the elaborate show of normalcy that North Korea must display along the highway on the way to our destination in order to keep up its image, all the tour buses of the day must roll at the same time. (You can’t make your actors work 24/7.) I believe there were 30 buses in our convoy- which was fronted and backed by North Korean vehicles that were monitoring us to ensure that all the buses kept to the approved route.

The rules:

1. No taking pictures of North Korean soldiers, military equipment, or civilians. Also, no taking any photographs from the bus, towards any checkpoint, in the DMZ, or at the North Korean immigration office.

2. You must wear your ID tag around your neck at all times. Do not bend it, tear it, get it wet, or lose it or you will be fined.

3. You may walk around the village during the day to get a glimpse into the daily lives of North Koreans, but you must be back in

Central Square

by 10 p.m.

4. Do not wash your hands, feet, or face in the mountain streams, or you will be fined.

The drive in and out of our resort was my favorite part of the trip. I had heard stories, but I didn’t actually think it was true until I saw it with my own eyes: North Korean soldiers are lined up beside the highway and roads. They stand at attention with red flags in their hands which they will raise if they see anyone taking a picture from any of the buses, in which case ALL of the buses in the convoy will be stopped. They will find the person who took the picture and they will erase that person’s memory card or confiscate their film. Fortunately for all the tourists that weekend, but unfortunately for my curiosity, nobody was caught taking any pictures (although I do know that some sneaky people got some good shots).

Hiking was great. The mountain scenery was beautiful. The mountains were much bigger than I’ve seen elsewhere in Korea, the rock formations were interesting, and the water was as clear as the glacier water in the Canadian Rockies. I was tempted to splash my face with the cold water as the ritual normally goes during hikes in the Rockies, but I had to remind myself that I was being watched and I would be fined. Along the pathways were inscriptions carved into the rocks which I was told were mostly about the Great Leader (Kim Il-Sung) and/or the Dear Leader (Kim Jung-Il). I took a lot of pictures of them so that my Korean friends can translate them for me at a later date.

We had free time later that day and I was looking forward to catching a glimpse of typical North Korean life on a mid-day jaunt around the village like our guide had mentioned while announcing the rules. The problem was that

Central Square

turned out to be the center of Nowhere. The center of a void of human life. There were some roads that we could walk down that were surrounded by empty fields, had fences on either side of them, and led to checkpoints manned by scowling soldiers with red flags. Back behind one of the checkpoints there was a gaggle of small houses, all the same dreary color, but we could not reach it without some serious secret agent skills (which I may or may not possess).

Early in the evening, we attended an acrobatic show by the Pyeongyang Moranbong Circus. The performers carried out the craziest stunts I’ve ever seen… Have you ever seen someone juggle 5 balls and spin a ring on one foot while upside down (hanging from one flexed foot) on a swinging trapeze bar simultaneously holding a dagger’s handle in his or her mouth… AND on the tip of the dagger there was balanced a sword that on the handle of which was balanced a glass platter on which balanced four full wine glasses? And not a drop spilled! It’s a bit impressive, isn’t it?

We stayed the night in an opulent South Korean hotel, Hotel Oekumgang. Kelly and I were exhausted so I don’t have much to say about the hotel other than it was huge and staffed by very smiley people which caught me off guard a bit, since I’ve acquired a taste for staying in somewhat sleazy love motels since they are everywhere in Korea and are cheap compared to regular hotels. Actually, the staff extended their customer service beyond the hotel. Every time the tour group convoy left Central Square on an excursion, something quite bizarre would happen: ALL of the hotel staff, the restaurant staff, and the gift shop staff--- essentially every person who worked in Central Square- would come out and line up along the sidewalk when all of the buses were ready to go and they would stand there and wave goodbye to us with big smiles on their faces. It seemed a little robotic- like I was on the “It’s a Small World After All” ride in Disneyland. To be honest, it creeped me out a bit.

The next morning we went on hikes at Samilpo Lake and along the cliffs by the ocean at Haegeumgang. They were beautiful places, of course. They were located in an area that is not accessible to North Koreans because of its proximity to the DMZ.

The best part of our second day excursions was the tour guide that joined us on that day. She explained that the civilians that we had seen along the highways are asked to come out of their homes and be active during the times that the tour buses drive by. She said that all the people that we saw working- raking, weeding, collecting water, riding bikes, et cetera, would only do so until we were out of sight and then they would return to their homes! Other tidbits: 12 years of school are paid for by the government, all the farm animals are communal and therefore, roam free within the community and all workers are retired at age 50. Also, if any North Korean would like to travel beyond a 40 km radius around their home, they must get special permission from the government. I asked her why the government was so adamant that tourists not take pictures of the countryside. Her response was that firstly, they don’t know what we’ll use the pictures for and secondly, because North Korea is poorer than what we are used to and they are embarrassed, so they don’t want there to be pictures of their poverty circulating around the world.

We spent our free time on Sunday taking pictures of the mural of the Great and Dear Leaders and then drinking the Democratic People’s Republic’s beer… and then it was back to Seoul.

Gallery: North Korea

realeyes — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:11:00 GMT

The Pictures I Could Get

Gallery: Vietnam

realeyes — Wed, 2 Aug 2006 23:23:00 GMT

Saigon, Nha Trang, Hanoi