South Africa Itinerary

South African Airways

12 Nov, 17:20: #0204, JFK to Johannesburg

Arrive: 13 Nov, 17:45

13 Nov, 19:40: #0425, Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth

Arrive: 21:25

15 Nov, 09:55: #1382, Port Elizabeth to Cape Town

Arrive: 11:15

Protea Hotel Sea Point: Arthurs Road, Sea Point, Cape Town

+27 (21) 434 3344

16 Nov, 16:00: #1827, Cape Town to Port Elizabeth

Arrive: 17:10

25 Nov, 12:30: #0410, Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg

Arrive: 14:10

19:30: #0203, Johannesbur

Arrive: 26 Nov, 07:05

g to JFK

Coming Home

So the plan is that I will leave Hanoi tomorrow in the morning and arrive in Brooklyn late Sunday night. And then go to work on Monday morning...well, we'll see about that. I've had a great trip, but I also miss my Brooklyn home, with my Brooklyn cat, and my Brooklyn man.

I'm in love (part whatever)

This is one love I am glad I did not discover until the last day of my visit--Vietnamese French pastry. I don't really have a problem with French French pastry, but the pastry here isn't quite as sweet, not quite as rich, so you don't have a terrible sugar-fat hangover right afterwards. Instead, you just feel a little indulgent, a little choc0late-drunk, and very satisfied.

Water Puppets!

I was under the impression that water puppet shows were performed in natural bodies of water and that the Hanoi water puppet shows were performed in Hoan Kiem Lake. It turns out that they are performed in a pool in a theatre across the street from the lake. Which, um, okay. I guess that's cool too. I'm not sure really what to say about it, except that it's a puppet show in which the puppets bob on the water and the puppeteers manipulate them behind a screen. They act out legends and fables. There is a sparks-breathing dragon in one of the sections, which is really cool, but makes the theatre smoky for the rest of the performance. The photos I took do not do the performance justice, but it's a taste, I guess.

Beckymania!

As I walked in the gates to the History Museum today, there was a large group of Vietnamese teenagers and a couple of buses were parked outside. As I walked through the crowd, there were shy smiles, whispers, and giggles; as I entered the museum, they surrounded me like locusts. Hello, where was I from, did I speak Vietnamese, how do I like Vietnam, how many days am I staying here, where is my husband. There were, no joke, at least twenty kids surrounding me. Most of them were girls, but there were a few boys thrown in, trying to act unimpressed. Eventually, the crowd dissipated a little bit and the few girls who stuck around, said that they wanted to practice their English with me. So I said sure (again), somewhat flattered by all the attention. However, they had pretty much exhausted their vocabularies, and when I tried to show off my winning pronunciation of "thank you" in Vietnamese, I just got confused stares and one girl loudly squawked, "What?!"

English Lessons

Long story short, my schedule went a bit wonky today. But I had an hour or two to kill, so I ducked into a cafe not too far from the Vietnamese Women's museum. I wrote a little, read a little, enjoyed my last ca phe sua (coffee with condensed milk). The owner, who seemed thrilled with me the moment I walked in, struck up a converstaion and asked me to help out her waiter with his English. He's in University and was struggling because he didn't have any native speakers to talk to. So I said, sure, I'd help. But he was struggling so much, that we had trouble with the very basics. When he left to wait on a few tables, the owner talked about her husband, who was an ambassador or economic consulate (whatever, something fancier than you or I will ever be) all over the world, including Iran. She talked about her travels, all the people she had met. When I left, both she and the waiter thanked me and insisted I come right back to the cafe the next time I am in Hanoi.

Humidity

The downside of Hanoi is the humidity. It is muggy (although not hot) and overcast all day, then finely misty in the evening. While this doesn't generally bother ME, it does bother my hair. It reminds me why I shouldn't have bangs no matter how cute Barbara Stanwyk looked in that one movie. Because they feel gross on my forehead, I sweep them across, but they aren't quite long enough to "sweep." They end up doing a bizarre duck tail off the left side of my head and the rest of my hair becomes the consistency of cotton candy. It makes me very glad that I don't know anyone in Hanoi.

Vietnamese Women's Museum

The Vietnamese history museums always go out of their way to mention how involved women were in the Revolution. So I expected that the Vietnamese Women's Museum would be a puff-piece monument of a similar vein--still, I was excited to see it. i nearly skipped there this morning. After all, the U.S. doesn't have a women's museum. We only remember Betsy Ross' sewing needle as women's contribution to Independence. Wee, how nice to be in a feminist country!

Yeah well, the museum has been reduced to a third floor, one-room exhibit about one woman (decidedly more kick-ass than Betsy Ross stories, but still). I have two pictures that are just the English plaque translations to school all of you on your history.

Temple of Literature

Finally, a religious site I can understand!

The Temple was founded in 1070 and the first university in Viet Nam was founded there a few years later. Despite Vietnamese culture's relative appreciation of women, only men (sons of mandarins) were allowed to study there. There are stelae erected in one of the courtyards that list the doctoral graduates for a certain span of years; each stelae is mounted on the back of a huge stone tortoise. And that's all very well and good, but the reason to come here is that it's peaceful and pretty to look at.

Fine Arts Museum

Unfortunately, my camera's battery died before I got to the Fine Arts Museum, so you'll have to take my word on all the great stuff that can be found here. In the basement, behind a large ceramic pot, there was evidence of a fire of some sort coming from the air-conditioning knob. Then in the next room, a worker was whistling and waiting for someone before he started making repairs to a wall. And in the next room, I stepped closer to examine something, and felt the tile under my foot slip a bit and heard water bubbling up. I guess you can do that if your country isn't lawsuit-happy.

Ho Chi Minh Complex

So if I want to see Ho Chi Minh in his Mausoleum, I have to show up at 7 am to wait in a line. The last group is shown in at 10:15 am. So, needless to say, I will have to forgo this pleasure. Also, you aren't allowed to put your hands in your pockets, a restriction that guarantees that all I will want to do in the Mausoleum is put my hands in my pockets.

I did go to the Complex today, which includes a Museum about Ho, his old house, the Presidential Palace, and the Mausoleum. The grounds were really beautiful, soldiers were everywhere (like the guards at Buckingham with less ridiculous hats). Before I even paid my admission to the Museum, I was being asked if I wanted a tour guide. I really didn't. I knew that I would understand little of what was going on, but I hate being a one-person tour group. So I respectfully declined. And then I was approached again. And again, by three students. Luckily, the museum closed before anyone else had a chance to ask me.

Vietnam loves me!

So besides male students and motorbike drivers who want to practice their English and debate Obama vs. Hillary, today I was showered in love by giggling Vietnamese teenage girls. I'm usually trepiditious around giggling teens (experience has proven that they tend to be laughing at me), but even if they were Mean Girls, how much does that really matter? Anyway, they all wanted to take pictures with me. Alone, with their friends, arms around me, holding hands. Being a semi-seasoned NY-er I felt the need to check for my wallet after each encounter, but it was perfectly innocent. I'm clearly too jaded for Hanoi.

Photos

So, as you can see, I haven't been taking a whole lot of photos on the street. Generally, it's because I think it's weird. Also, my regular day in midtown Manhattan is constantly interrupted by jerks on the street trying to get the perfect shot of Grand Central. And yet, the streets (the buildings, the people, the everday life) is exactly what I want to share with y'all. I tried drawing again in Dalat--those who have seen my drawings (or paid for lessons hoping that I would improve) can guess how well that turned out. So I guess I'll have to continue to rely on words instead of images.

Hanoi: Day 1

Well, I'm not in love with anything in Hanoi because my allergies prevent me from tasting anything. Except for my "Hue-style beef" tonight, which is what I call "Sunita-hot," because it is just spicy enough that my boss might opt not to add more pepper flakes.

Mostly I just wandered around today. I'd say I got lost half-a-dozen times except that that would imply that I ever had an actual direction. But I love Hanoi. It's beautiful and chaotic and friendly in a nonchalant kind of way. I may not come back.

I'm in Love (Part 4)

I don't know what they do to oranges in Dalat, but they are freaking good. I swear, there's vanilla in there somehow. My only regret is that I pigged out on pomelos while I was in Dalat and didn't try my lone orange until after I arrived in Hanoi.

Minor crises

Now, those of you who know me well, know that I have pretty severe grass and tree pollen allergies. Spring and summer are generally toxic seasons for me. So you'd think that I might be trepiditious about visiting a place known as "the city of eternal spring." You might also suppose that, with my vampiric complexion and no regular access to the sun, I would think to slather on some SPF, even on a cloudy day. You, my friend, are giving me much more credit than I deserve, which is why I spent my second day in Dalat wrapped up like an Italian widow in a scarf, cardigan, and long pants, wheezing and popping Benadryl.

Flower Garden

My first day in Dalat, I just wandered around the city, then decided to walk the perimiter of Xuan Huong Lake. I ran into the Dalat Flower Gardens and decided to go in. But as soon as I did, I noticed some ominous clouds off in the distance. So I stuck near all the covered areas. And then I saw a few cracks of lightning and heard thunder. Still, I wasn't going to panic (although I was surrounded by trees and metal poles and other things lightning tends to like) until I felt rain and then I'd just take a taxi back to the hotel or something. I hung around, waiting, for 2 hours. And I never felt one drop of rain.

What I did feel, however, was a passionate need to have a garden and/or grow orchids (as you can probably tell from my pictures).

Xuan Huong Lake

Dalat is known for being a lovely mountain city with fresh air, trees, and all that crap. One of the main attractions in the city is Xuan Huong Lake, which is named after an eighteenth century lady-poet. I spent most of my time in Dalat on the shore of the lake, being totally feminist. Ho Xuan Huong was, in some ways, the Chaucer of her time and culture--she wrote in the venacular language, based her form on folk culture, and was really, really sexually explicit. The book of and about her poetry (oh, don't act like you didn't already guess that I researched this woman the moment I heard about her) points out that since Vietnamese is a tonal language, you can make really dirty stuff seem high-minded, which is what she does. A translation of least dirty poem is below:

Spring-Watching Pavilion

A gentle spring evening arrives
airily, unclouded by worldly dust.

Three times the bell echoes like a wave.
We see heaven upside down in sad puddles.

Love's vast sea cannot be emptied.
And springs of grace flow easily everywhere.

Where is nirvana?
Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten.

Finally, photos!

Click here for the main page for all my albums (I made one for each city). The Hanoi album only has photos from the hotel thus far, but I will update, edit, and create captions soon, I swear.

Technical Difficulties

I'm trying to post more pictures, but the computer in Dalat does not like me using Picasa Basic Uploader. Will get them up when I can.