ye-travels

Buying Useless Items in Xi'an

ye-travels — Thu, 1 Nov 2007 04:53:00 GMT

My dad had only been in China five days when we were briefly separated from him in the backstreets of Xi'an Muslim Quarter. Separated long enough for him to get his hands on a tiny terracotta warrior for 10 yuan. We forgave him his indiscretion and warmed him to consult us before future purchases.

The Muslim Quarter hadn't changed much since Yann and I had visited two years earlier, although a large sign now hung over the main entrance you "Welcome to Islamic Food Street" and way more vendors and waitresses seemed to be sporting the Hui Muslim caps, part of the new Islamic-themed tourist uniform? Along the backstreets are rows and rows of souvenir shops selling mesmerizing quantities of similar knick-knacks, including the ubiquitous terracotta warriors in various colours and sizes. I personally find it quite difficult to walk through the lanes without buying anything. So what if they're brand new, mass produced items that the vendors carefully antiquified with a bit of scraping and dirtying? They do a good job of making them look like unique little treasures...until you see them a thousand times. Despite ridiculous opening offers, you can still come away with a good deal, with a lot of haggling and the mandatory "I'm walking away now, I'm not interested" technique.

On our first afternoon in Xi'an my dad and I hit Xi'an's most famed tourist attraction, The Army of Terracotta Warriors (or as the Chinese like to call them The Terracotta Warrios).

In about 200 BC, Emperor Qin, terrified of the afterlife has thousands of life sized soldiers built to escort his soul into heaven. Wooden roofs housing the army eventually collapse and the tomb of now crumbled soldiers is lost for over two thousand years. Until, in 1976, when farmers stumble upon them while digging a well. Now, thirty years later, you can visit the three pits of warriors, most still in pieces, some having been painstakingly reassembled (an amazing work, still in progress). Or, better yet, you can get the autograph of one of the farmer discoverers. As long as you buy the 20$ souvenir book.

I was more impressed by the site the second time around, the first time I had thought that the entire 5000-strong army was still intact, and was shocked by the pits full of crushed body parts. This time I was ready, as I was ready for the army of terracotta warrior salespeople waiting for us when we left the site. All armed with the 5-piece set; horse, archer, general, foot soldier and Emperor Qin himself. Here's how to buy a set (if you really must):

salesman: Hallo 10 yuan, 10 yuan, very cheapa, hallo hallo (holding box)
Emilie: 10 yuan? You mean 10 yuan for a piece, how much for the whole box?
salesman: 12 dolla
Emilie: 12 dollars?
salesman: ok ok 12 euros
Emilie: huh?
salesman: ok ok 100 yuan
Emilie: 10 yuan
salesman: 50 yuan
Emilie: 10 yuan
salesman: 20 yuan, last price
Emilie (walking away): 10 yuan
salesman: ok ok
Emilie takes out 10 yuan from wallet
salesman: ok ok 50 yuan for horse
Emilie hands over 10 yuan, salesman smiles and hands over box.

I actually bought the set on my dad's behalf who had concluded that he really needed a box of terracotta warriors, since it only cost 10 yuan, and he had already paid 10 yuan for a single, smaller warrior without the complimentary box. As with all purchasers of terracotta warriors, the minute he had it in his hands, he wondered why the hell he had bought it in the first place. Moments after the first purchase we were besieged by another groups of salespeople, these ones even more persistent. One of them latched on to my dad, he tried to explain to her that he already had a set. Then she whipped out her secret weapon: the bronze coloured warriors. As she negotiated incoherently "10 yuan, 10 yuan, 12 euros...", my dad became more and more attracted to this lovely bronze set, as I could only stand back and watch in horror. For 6 yuan, he was now the proud owner of a second set of terracotta warriors, and was now averaging a respectable 8 yuan/box. Being of superior quality, if packed at the bottom of your bag, these warriors will end up looking exactly as they do in real life (pre-reconstruction).

Although my dad seemed somewhat perplexed and discouraged that a sizable portion of his bag was now being occupied by terracotta warriors, he had nothing on Yann and I. The first time we hit Xi'an we left with a large quilt, half a dozen little red books, 5 cloisonnes boxes, two fake coral necklaces, four mao caps, two mao suits (one black, one blue) and a whole lot more crap that we didn't need (but only one box of terracotta warriors). We sent my dad off to visit some of Xi'an's sites on his own and he managed well, finding both the big and small wild goose pagodas, despite asking around for the big bird palaces (or something like that). On our last day in Xi'an the three of us hit the city walls. I finally got Yann on a tandem bicycle and we raced my dad around the 13 kilometers of wall.

Xi'an's large Hui Muslim community offers great food alternatives, especially for rookies to Chinese cooking. At breakfast we replaced our pork dumplings with lamb or beef ones. We dined on roasted lamb covered in cumin and chilli two nights in a row, accompanied by naan bread, also covered in cumin and toasted on the outdoor grill. Sadly, we couldn't get any beer with that. The Muslim Quarter is a lively nighttime dining spot and is packed with people even on weekdays. Most of the restaurants have piles of roasted lamb from which you select a piece and pay for it by weight, it is grilled in front of you.

One night we decided to attempt a hotpot dinner at an outdoor restaurant. Hotpots are a Chinese fondue, you sit around a big bowl of boiling broth, select various vegetable and meat skewers, cook them in the broth, dip them in sauce and enjoy. Unfortunately, they are problematic for tourists, due to the sheer number of items you can be overcharged for. The price of every item; broth, sauce, skewers, napkins, fuel, skewers, has to be asked in advance to avoid ridiculous final bills. The manager of this hotpot restaurant seemed to follow the usual pattern and it was difficult to get him to tell us any prices at all. At the end of the meal when a waitress added up the bill, he flew across the restaurant, trying to get her to add something to our bill. Thankfully she wasn't too quick and stood there looking confused (we had already worked our the price of our meal anyways). The usual friendly exchange ensued (my dad had no problems getting into the spirit of things), and we stormed away, having paid the original price quoted by the waitress.

The mood was sombre, until we heard it in the distance, the happy birthday song. The song used by Chinese street cleaners to announce the impending havoc they are about to wreak on innocent street vendors and restaurants. In another triumph of Chinese planning, the street cleaner is scheduled to pass down "Islamic Food Street" at the height of dinner time. The meat is roasting on the outdoor grills, the vendors have their items carefully lined up along the sidewalk, diners pack the streets picking out the perfect lamb leg, and the street cleaner blasts every last one of them with water. But not, without a happy birthday warning. As we watched the cooks and vendors literally diving out of the way, barbecues being soaked (along with the meat cooking on them), we couldn't help but cheer up a bit. Too bad the street cleaner wasn't passing in front of the hotpot restaurant.

From Sikh Serenity to Pakistani Pomp

ye-travels — Sun, 1 Jul 2007 05:06:00 GMT

There is only one legal international border crossing between Pakistan and India and it sits in the Punjab province of each country (at partition Punjab was split in two). Its an easy trip from Delhi on a speedy day train or a slow night train at less than half the price (we took the night train). The train brings you as far as the holy city of Amritsar and we arrived there early in the day.

We spent all morning taking in the city and its calm, welcoming atmosphere. We knew we were suprised when we asked a rickshaw driver the cost of a ride to the Golden Temple and he directed us to the free shuttle bus. Being home to the Sikh's foremost pilgrimage sight, the Golden Temple, Amritsar is set up for accomodating loads of visitors. There are free shuttle buses connecting the main transport hubs to the Golden Temple. At the temple itself there are free dormitories and free meal. The temple's community kitchen serves hot meals to hundreds every day, with charity enshrined into Sikhism by the motto "Service to humanity is service to God". Noticeably absent from the temple grounds is the usual crowd of begging destitute children and elderly. The grounds, including the huge pool with bathers surrounding the temple (that is actually golden) hum with activity but seem to retain a certain calmness and serenity. After our visit we took advantage of the free beds and slept for a few hours before begining the journey to Pakistan.

The bus ride to the Indian border town of Attari took a little over an hour, and we split a rickshaw drive to customs with the only other tourist crossing into Pakistan. We filled out lots of forms and passed through lots of different buildings before finally entering no-man's land. Here porters shuttle bags back and forth, Indian and Pakistani porters each wearing distinct uniforms to make sure each remain on the correct side of the border. Entering the Pakistani side we had to fill out more forms and then we headed to the bag checking area. The guards brought Yann into a room where he had to answer lots of questions mostly pertaining to the amount of money he made. I got to wait outside with our bags and another guard who also chatted me up in a friendly manner and a crazy old man who got me a glass of water. When Yann exited the room the bag checking guard asked to see all his money, when he saw the American money he offered an exchange to Pakistani rupees, which we didn't need as our American money is just an emergency reserve. He insisted, whispering that he wouldn't open our bags if we just changed 20$ with him. Yann was friendly but persistently refused to change money. The guard smiled, didn't check our bags and let us go.

We then had a long wait until the the border closure at sunset, and we tried to decide whether or not we should stay for the big show or move onwards to Lahore. We weren't especially keen on travelling at night into the big city (we usually avoid night travel) but when three other tourists crossed the border the six of us decided to stick around for the ceremony. At about 5:30 busloads of Pakistanis began arriving at the border stadium, so we joined the crowds to get good seats. This wasn't necessary because foreigners are ushered to the "VIP section" right at the front, men on one side, women and children on the other.

As people file in to their seats, a few rabble rousers entered the stadium dressed in green and white outfits carrying huge Pakistani flags. Loud roars emerged from the men's side of the stadium while the women clapped furiously. I was sandwiched amongst a crowd of happy children that were cheering their hearts out and I couldn't resist yelling along with them. The only cheer that that I understood was the popular "Pakistan Zindabad" (long live Pakistan). I refrained from shouting when the cheers mentioned Allah, (my guess at the translation, something along the lines of: Who's the best? Allah!), while Yann refrained from all chanting (party pooper, thats right!). The atmosphere in the crowd was awesome with the two rabble rousers taunting the equally loud Indian crowd on the other side of the gate, waving their Pakistani flags like they hadn't been doing it every day for years, or for one, judging by his age, probably since partition.

When the soldiers arrived on the scene the crowd went crazy, with a respectable looking man next to Yann shouting at the top of his lungs "there go the Tigers, roooaaaaaaaarrrrr!". The guards chosen for the ceremony are probably the ten largest men in Pakistan, and are made even larger by their huge boots and foot high accordion-like helmets. They are dressed in black with red trim and are seriously the toughest looking guys I've ever seen. The don't march, they fly, covering unbelivable distance with their monster strides. And when the crowd isn't cheering, the only sound in the place is the stomping of their gigantic boots. After some preliminary marching they brought out the big guns, the hugest meanest looking soldier of them all. He criss-crossed the pavement, stomping and kicking his leg all the way up to his nose as he stomped.

The ceremony ends with the soldiers lining up at the border, opening the gates and shaking hands with the Indian soldiers on the other side. Each team of soldiers then pulls down their respective flags in a complicated routine. Quite frankly, the Indian Army didn't seem to have recruited for size or intimidation factor, the Pakistanis tower over the khaki-clad Indians. The stadium on the Indian side was definetely more full than the Pakistani one, but what the Pakistanis lack in numbers they make up in passion. The children next to me beamed with excitement and pride and when I asked them if it was their first time at the ceremony they exclaimed :"No! of course not!".

Getting to Lahore was easier than we thought, we just followed the crowds into the public buses waiting nearby. I was quickly shooed away, and was feeling a little bit confused until I realised that each bus is divided into two compartments (separated by a metal wall), one for ladies and one for men. So I left Yann and boarded the separate door at the front to join the other women. I was berated by friendly smiles, handshakes and offers of seating. One woman bought me an ice cream at a stop on the way to Lahore, and two teenage girls requested that I become their sister. They called through the grill to their father in the back of the bus. He handed them a camera and shouted instructions at them as they attempted to take my photo. It had been a long time since I had felt so welcomed and comfortable.

After transfering buses we arrived at a popular hostel in Lahore, dropped our bags and made it to the grocery store just before closing time. I got a loaf of bread, peanut butter and a ginger ale meanwhile Yann was outside at the busy chicken shawarma stand. We ate, then collapsed in bed after a long, amazing day.

It's Thursday Sufi Night in Lahore

ye-travels — Sun, 1 Jul 2007 04:59:00 GMT

Lahore is a huge, busy, modern city and when we were there it was also really hot. We decided we would stay only two nights, so we packed our days in an attempt to experience the most of the city. Our first stop was the Lahore Museum, which I only wanted to visit because of its "fasting Buddha" statue. It didn't disappoint, it sure was a skinny Buddha. I also enjoyed the moustached Buddha sculptures, up until Pakistan he was usually fat and baby-faced. There was a substantial police presence (armed) on the streets as some opposition party marches were planned around the city, we didn't see much action but were stuck in the re-routed traffic.

Back at our hostel we met up with Daniel, who we had crossed the border with. It was his second trip to Lahore and he had promised to take us to the second-hand market where we could pick up some Pakistani dress. Most men are clad in the traditional shalwar kameez, a long shirt and trousers of the same colour (usually a neutral off-white, beige or light blue). Women wear a similar outfit but usually more colourful and ornate with a matching shawl to cover both the head and chest. The second-hand market is an amazing place, with recycled goods everywhere, of course I didn't know this until AFTER I bought the men's underwear for pyjamas. For his outfit, Yann had every possible shade of off-white to choose from and settled with a beige. The women's clothing selection seemed to have an 80's feel to it and I had trouble finding something that wasn't hideous, I chose a long plain pyjama/tent that was hideous but at least wasn't a fashion faux-pas.

We got back to the hotel, changed into our new outfits and hung around swapping information and recommendations with other travellers. The "Regale Internet Inn" was another welcome change from India (and most of South East Asia). Mostly dorm beds, not very luxurious but a completely hassle-free environment. Internet on an honour system, complimentary filtered water, free use of huge refrigerator and kitchen. Adding to its popularity are the Thursday "Sufi Nights" that include an afternoon of qiwwali (Islamic devotional singing, which we missed due to our shopping) and a night of Sufi (Islamic mysticism) dancing and drumming. A guide from the hotel accompanies all the tourists, including many women who normally wouldn't be found at these male dominated venues, free of charge.

We didn't leave for the Sufi venue until well after dark, a row of rickshaws awaited us outside the hotel, pre-arranged for the tourists. We loaded in and drove off to the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal in the outskirts of town. We raced a donkey cart loaded with locals on the last stretch of the trip and arrived to a place overflowing with activity. People line the small dark alley selling drinks and snacks to the local men pouring in and out of the shrine. Rickshaws arrive by the dozen. Our guide quickly hurried us up the long flight of stairs to the upper outdoor quadrangle where the expert Sufi drummers play every week. The tourists are given a prime spot, with all women shoved to one side. But a prime spot in this ridiculously crowded place still involves a certain degree of pain and sweating.

There are people everywhere, and when I say people what I really mean is men. Just when you think its impossible to cram anyone else onto the floor another crowd of people comes up the stairs, push their way through the crowd, exchange a few words and manage to sit themselves on top of people until the crowd gives and they find themselves a seat. The locals exercised a lot of restraint when it came to the tourists, never being too harsh with us as we were jostled around, but a poor Canadian-Pakistani (first time in Pakistan) was mistakenly thrown into the main seating area and was shown no mercy, he was seated right in front of me but by the end of the night I couldn't even see him.

When we arrived the "warm-up band" was on, two men with absolutely beautiful voices devotional chanting while collecting donations. As they sang, vendors made the perilous journey back and forth through the crowd selling juice or snacks. Others spray rose-water from backpacks/tanks rigged with a hose, or cool us down with large bamboo fans, for these services they get small donations. My donation to rose water man got me a large blast to the face, thank you. As with all warm-up bands, the crowd was getting impatient and finally the two famous drumming brothers appeared and began beating away for the happy crowd. Actually it was a very happy crowd, the smell of hash permeating the outdoor theatre and the haze of smoke getting increasingly thick. It was being puffed away at an alarming speed with five joints lit and smoked at once (by one person at a time). One of the two brothers was born deaf and his father apparently taught him how to keep a beat by drumming on his back. With years of experience he keeps synchronised with his brother by feeling vibrations through his abdomen.

Members of the crowd began their week's journey towards enlightenment by spinning their heads vigourously in beat with the drums. The drumming went on for a long time and we were so sweaty that our hands and feet had wrinkled up like we had come just come out of a bathtub. By now it was close to midnight and I was getting grumpy because Yann didn't want to leave when two other girls that I was sitting with got up to leave. But for once, Yann made the right decision, what I didn't know was that the headlining act hadn't even come out yet. The drumming stopped and the "bouncers" frenetically cleared a large area around the two drummers (squeezing people into an even smaller space). The drumming quickly started up again and the dancers entered the shrine.

The dancing began to the cheering and chanting of the crowd. First some general arm waving and stomping around to the beat of the drums. Then full out head shaking, body spinning action. Most of the dancers were quite young and spun around with absolute determination and physical superiority. The oldest of the group was gigantic, stood in one spot the entire time (well over an hour) but shook his head back an forth at a concussion-inducing speed without ever taking a break. The longer and faster a dancer would spin, the rowdier the crowd would get. We were hot, we were sweaty, we were squished, we were exhausted, but we were mesmerized.

We left when the girl next to me couldn't stand the discomfort of our seats anymore, I was happy I wasn't the first to indicate my desire to leave, I was torn between the amazing spectacle before us and the unbelievable pain in my back and the pile of my own sweat that I was soaking in.

Welcome to Chitwan National Park

ye-travels — Fri, 1 Jun 2007 04:35:00 GMT

For Yann's birthday weekend, the three of us planned a trip to Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal. As one of Nepal's top three most visited sites and one of the best places in the sub-continent for wildlife viewing, we paid no attention to the warnings of heat and hopped on to a tourist bus heading for the park. Not without warning but still very annoyingly, the bus drops off all its passengers a few kilometers from Sauraha, allowing them to be mobbed by business card weilding locals trying to attract you to their hotel. It seems no one has understood that getting two inches from someone's face and yelling "hello hello where you want go, hotel very cheap" isn't exactly the best sales pitch. But in my usual boneheaded fashion I managed to single out the one seller with dilated pupils and a large quantity of marijuana in his system. Megan and Yann were kind enough to point this out to me once we had settled into his hotel.

Our first task in Sauraha was to book a jungle walking tour. What better way to go searching for tigers, bears and rhinos then to go walking unarmed through the jungle? Every other building in the small Sauraha tourist strip is a travel agent, and they all offer the notorious jungle walks. After a brief interview with our slurring hotel resident stoner, who offered his guide services, we quickly set out to find another candidate. The next guy we met claimed to be the guide described in the Lonely Planet guidebook as having fended off a tiger attack, he even had the framed letter from the tourists who were with him during the attack. We visited a third guide who gave us about the same rhetoric as tiger man. During this process Megan seemed to be the only one showing some apprehension about the safety issues, apparently she is the only one of the three of us with a brain. We booked tiger man for a four hour morning walk the next day, we each paid about 5$ for his and his assistant's animal tracking services. We celebrated our Chitwan holiday and Yann's birthday with a mound of half disentegrated chocolate (most likely ruined from the continuous melting and rehardening in the heat of Sauraha).

Our walk started at 6am but it took a while to purchase our park entry tickets as we were lined up behind hotel workers buying tickets for long lists of guests (who were probably still sleeping). We were introduced to the assistant guide, a young man who had been working for a month, both our guides were armed with a pair of flip-flops on their shoes and long wooden bamboo sticks. Feeling extra safe now.

We got ferried over the river in a long wooden boat and began our walk. We walked quietly for a few minutes, until Megan brought up the question of safety tips. Our senior guide then gave us the rundown:
Sloth bears- Stick together and act big and scary, don't climb a tree, don't run
Tigers- Don't run, fight for your life
Rhinos- If there is a big tree, hide behind it, otherwise climb a tree
Elephants- Run for your life

My idea of the jungle walk was that we would follow a trail through the park, enjoying the scenery and if we were lucky, we might see an animal from far away (if we were unlucky we would see one from close). Very quickly into the walk I realised this wasn't exactly what our guides had in mind. Our guide spotted rhino dung and rhino tracks in the ground and exclaimed "a rhino been here last 10 minutes, follow me, quiet", and cut off the path and into the forest "following the tracks". Most of this tracking business seemed like an act, and after about an hour of walking around pretty much in circles I was wondering how I was going to last 4 hours. Every once in a while our guide would squat to his knees and scan the forest with a very concerned look on his face. Megan would turn around to sneak a glimpse of the novice guide looking bored and useless, once he would notice her, he would turn on his serious "scanning for wildlife" face.

Acting on a tip from some park rangers that we crossed paths with, we took a small detour through the tall grasslands on a search for some rhinos, that didn't yield any sightings either. Back into the jungle, our guide brought us into some thicker vegetation and it started becoming more difficult to see anything ahead of us. As we walked through the quiet jungle we were all startled by the sound of an animal, it was a loud snort/puff. The novice guide was actually more than just startled, he blew past us running in fear. This is the point in the "jungle walk" that I started doubting the safety of it all. Retrospectively, this was also the point where we should have turned around and walked away from the animal sound.

Our guide on the other hand, led us closer to the source of the sound, exclaiming confidently that we had come across a rhino (one of the least agressive of the possible encounters). The next few moments are somewhat of a blur, but each of us has managed to reconstruct the events as follows:

MEGAN's Account:
All of a sudden, our guides were yelling, the junior one ran off like a bolt of lightning. It was sheer mayhem. Yann, Emilie and I were running in all directions not knowing what to do. And by running in all directions, I mean slowly trying to navigate over and under branches with our cumbersome backpacks, cameras and water bottle holders making things that much more difficult. The senior guide who stuck around was pushing us and screaming. At this point, we could hear stomping and branches snapping right behind us. I couldn’t look back – I was too focused on trying to run through the thick jungle (while contemplating my lack of tree-climbing abilities and whether or not now would be a good time to learn). This is when I tripped and fell. While splayed out on the ground, I had no idea what was about to kill me – maybe a rhino or a tiger?...but something was very near.

Emilie, who was behind me at the time, was kind enough to stop for me, while our guide looked me right in the eyes and yelled "RUNNNNN, RUNNNNN, RUNNNN". I quickly made it back onto my feet and continued the frenzied running. Eventually, the charging stopped, and our guide stopped, and we all just stood around laugh-crying. The guide was brushing off my pants and shaking my hand. We had survived being charged by a wild elephant!

The guide told me "even me too, I was sad. I thought you would be dead". Umm, thank you junior guide, who ran off – dropping his stick and a shoe – but making sure to hold onto his lunch.

EMILIE's Account:
Novice guide starts running as fast as he can, Yann who is right next to him, takes his cue and starts running too. Meanwhile Megan and I are at the back of the pack not yet reacting. Senior guide begins to scream "Run! Run!", we are now running through thick brush with the senior guide shouting and pushing. Megan falls flat on her face in the scramble and the senior guide is yelling at me (and her) to run, but I'm not moving since I am stuck behind Megan who is still on the ground. At this point I look behind me to see a huge elephant coming towards us (I suppose all elephants qualify as huge however). Megan is now back up, with some help from the senior guide (who I maintain put her there in the first place) and we continue running together. The whole time this is going on, we can hear the elephant trampling through the forest, but the sound finally stops. The senior guide rushes back towards the elephant to make sure the stampede is over.

We quickly continued walking through the brush until we felt we were at a safe distance at which point we stopped to compose ourselves. The young guide was shaking, he had lost one shoe and dropped his bamboo stick, but was still holding on firmly to his lunch. Senior guide was trying to cover up his panicked behavior, pointing out how he was "very sad and sorry" when Megan fell, but luckily he was there to help her. Megan and Yann still didn't know what was chasing them, neither of them had looked back (am I the only one with such morbid curiosity?). However, if they had listened properly to the safety instructions they should have known what kind of beast we had encountered (run from an elephant). None of us were too shook up because we were never really aware of the danger that was facing us. It didn't stop us, however, from cutting our jungle walk short.

YANN's Account:
I run quicker than all the elephants in all the jungles of the world. Proven by Fact!

Back in Sauraha, I took a bath in the river with the elephants (trained ones) and their handlers, we got stuck in a torrential downpour complete with lightning storm and we drank a bottle of wine, toasting to the beginning of our new lives.
We wouldn't arrive back in Kathmandu until late the next evening stuck in Sauraha by a local roadblock/strike for hours. But of all the passengers on the tourist bus, we were confident that we had had the most intense brush with nature. "Oh you saw a wild peacock? How nice.... we got attacked by an angry wild elephant... but peacocks.. amazing...really amazing."

An afterthought: although our guides were pretty much useless (they did prove to be good trackers though), they seemed somewhat embarassed by their cowardly behavior. At one point, the senior guide made a comment about it being his responsibility to protect the tourists. Really that's a complete load of rhino dung. We come to a poor country and pay peanuts for a jungle walk, in which anyone in their right mind should know they are exposing themselves to certain dangers. Seriously, what can the poor village guides really do with a bamboo stick? They can't very well stop a charging elephant, though they might be able to wack a tourist in the head and save themselves. For five bucks I certainly wouldn't risk my life for a tourist, and we let him know that, hopefully his expressions of guilt were part of his act.
A second afterthought: For Seinfeld fans, think of our senior guide as George Castanza in the fire at the children's birthday party.

It's a Man Eats Dog World

ye-travels — Tue, 6 Feb 2007 03:37:00 GMT

Yann and I have spent a whole week in Ho Chi Minh City. We arrived a few days before Margaux did, mainly so that we could rest before starting a full three weeks of tourist activities. Since our pace has been so slow, we knew we should pick it up when Margaux arrived, so that she got to maximize her sight-seeing time.

Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), has already lived through thirty years of American presence, unsurprisingly, the backpacker district is fully equipped with anything a homesick westerner could possibly desire. Here in the sinful south, the skirts are shorter, the nails are longer and the hair is blonder. Although, that doesn't prevent Margaux's pale white skin from being a major attraction for the locals. Since she has arrived, the amount of attention we have recieved has augmented tenfold. We are always greeted with "Hello", and Margaux has even gotten a "Hello, you are beautiful, I love you" from a passing moto. Margaux even inquired if it was normal for people to rub your arm as they walk by. Sorry, our arms have never garnered such attention.

With only two nights left in the city, we had already agreed on our final two meals, one seafood dinner (a treat offered to us cheapies by Margaux) and a dog meat dinner. Since we wanted to end our time in the city with seafood, this left us with only one option, and we were now starting to regret having agreed on this adventurous meal. Dog meat eating in Ho Chi Minh city is not really out in the open for tourists to see. The restaurants, with good reason, do not set up in the tourist areas. With no dog restaurant listed in our Lonely Planet we sought out the directions from a small tourist office, who led us to a dark alley about 15 minutes walk away.

According to our Vietnamese friends in Hanoi, dog meat eating is a "guy thing". Typically men eat dog meet with their male friends and wash it down with lots of hard liquor, its kind of a wings and beer night equivalent. So when Margaux and I walked in with Yann, armed with our notepad on which our friends had written four dog meat dishes, we were greeted with a look of curiosity and mostly surprise. I crossed off the "dog stomach" and "dog soup" items from the list and pointed at the "fried dog meat" and "steamed dog meat". For a little bit more than 3$ we would get both dishes. They seemed to arrive very quickly and for once the portions appeared to be very generous.

Fried dog meat looks like any other fried meat, marinated in some sauce with a few sesame seeds. We very soon wished we had not ordered the steamed dog meat: thin slices of meat complete with large strips of fat and veins. The meat is served with a basket of greens and a purple coloured dipping sauce. The three of us sat staring at the meat, no sign of movement, until Yann reached for a piece of steamed meat and stuck the whole thing in his mouth. Margaux made the first move for a fried piece. I however seemed, against my will, to be frozen. Luckily for me, our neighbor at the table beside us stood up, grabbed a piece of steamed meat, wrapped it in a leaf and dunked it in the purple sauce handing it to me. I held it in my hand. Margaux and Yann might have eaten a few pieces in the meantime, I hadn't moved yet. Our neighbor came back to our table again, this time with a couple of shot glasses, what a relief. Feeling a little bit embarassed about still sitting there with the meat in my hand, I put it in my mouth. It only took me two bites to finish it. The shots of hard liquor were much appreciated.

We looked around and realised that the bottles of whisky and vodka were being consumed at all tables, Yann got up to find a convenience store and returned shortly with a 500mL bottle of Vietnamese vodka. During his departure, Margaux and I consumed quite a bit of the fried meat and we had made one very important discovery. Contrary to our original belief, it wasn't the dog meat that smelled and tasted awful, it was the mysterious purple sauce. Margaux and I concluded, with much certainty, that it smelled like a certain part of the female anatomy (Yann disagreed, thank God). Once the liquor started flowing, the meat seemed to go down much easier, we now understood the whole process of dog meat eating.

Men started getting up from their tables to share more shots of alcohol with us, and we returned the favour. By the end of the evening, men at a nearby table were getting up and feeding Yann random pieces of meat. Yes, actually feeding him, coming over with their chopsticks and sticking them right in Yann's mouth. Margaux and I were very thankful to be women. But our luck changed when they came over with gifts of random dog meat for both Margaux and I. I got a nice slice of steamed meat dunked in purple sauce and Margaux got a chunk of dark brown sausage. I am embarassed to say that I couldn't get mine down, and when the opportunity arose I discreetly got rid of it. Margaux got her chunk down, but she followed it up with a swig of vodka straight from the bottle. The men around could not believe it, first the white skin, then then swigging from the bottle, a dream woman.

What turned into a "small sampling of dog meat before dinner" turned into an entire evening activity. We finished the bottle of vodka, the two plates of meat and waved goodbye to the men at the restaurant who had witnessed something they had most likely never witnessed before.