Day 39 - Saturday, Nov. 23 - Agra

After a good night’s sleep - still recovering from the Cambodia-Shanghai-India trip plus the ride down to Agra - I’m up at 6 a.m., ready for the Taj Mahal, even if I still can’t see it from the window, as advertised.

       My guide Mohinsha arrives soon after breakfast and we drive through not-yet-ridiculous traffic to the Taj Mahal’s East Gate.  Warned by a friend before I left for Asia that Indians dress with respect at this monument, I’ve donned my one skirt and brought my scarf for the mosque part.

It took 20,000 Persian workers 22 years (1631-1653) to build the Taj Mahal, designed by a Persian architect... all at a cost of the equivalent of $4 million.  Why Persians?  Because the Moghuls ruled India then and they were Persians.  

       Shah Jahan built it for his beloved second wife, Arjumand Banu, renamed Mumtaz Mahal.  Although he’d loved her since childhood, she was the daughter of a servant, and therefore not worthy in the eyes of Shah Jahan’s father.  So he had to marry a noble, but never had children with her.  When his father died, he married his always-love.  They had 14 children; only 6 of them survived.  

       And when she died, he had this monument built to her.  When the foundations were ready, he moved her tomb onto the site and the building was constructed over her.  The tomb you see is not hers, just a monument.  He planned to build a black marble replica on the opposite side of the Yamuna River for himself.  It would have cost three times more, so his son arrested him and emprisoned him - in majestic quarters - in Agra Fort, from where he could see his beloved’s mausoleum.  Eight years later, he died of natural causes and was buried next to her “tomb” in the Taj Mahal.

       So much for the history.  Now we visit; no photos allowed and no writing in the inner sanctum.  But I have images in my memory and they are amazing.

First around the courtyard, there are 210 “rooms” - niches - for visitors because there were no inns at that time.  Around the gates are verses from the Koran in black onyx from Belgium, which was very far away at that time; inside that are red flowers and green leaves of precious stones inset in the sandstone.  Mohinsha tells me they glow in the moonlight, a fact demonstrated by the gemsmith we visit later.  The red sandstone of the other buildings comes from here in the region, but white marble was conveyed, by elephant, from Rajastan almost 300 miles (400 km) away.  To one side of the Taj Mahal is the mosque (Persians were Muslims), and we go in - thus the shawl - so I can say a prayer for baby grandson Ibrahim, who died at premature birth.  On the opposite side of the Taj is the guesthouse, where I will obviously be staying on my next visit.

       The Taj itself is breath-taking.  Looking so white from afar, even in the haze, darker details become visible as we approach.  And the many panels inside, with no joints, are like lacework.  How many were ruined before one was completed?  What craftsmanship!

Mosque of Taj Mahal

The visit is over too soon and we head back through the gardens, along the reflecting pool.  Back to the hotel for lunch and a change to shorts, then Mohinsha is back and we’re off to Agra Fort.  The red sandstone walls look high and forbidding, running 2.5 km around (1½ mi).

Agra Fort

Walls of Agra Fort

This is more than just a fort.  Part is the residence of Shah Jahan’s two daughters, who were not allowed to marry, ever.  (You wonder how they felt about that.)  One part of each daughter’s palace is a white marble palanquin that looks like the one they would have been carried in on their wedding day, just in case they forgot they were doomed to be old maids.  I kind of felt like that’s adding insult to injury, but...

       Past the two daughters’ palace is the palace that served as a cell for Shah Jahan after his son arrested him.  Jailed in splendor, he spent his days looking out the lace-like white marble window at his beloved Mumtaz’s mausoleum in the semi-distance.

       We exit through the gardens, where chipmunks chase each other and a mama dog nurses her six pups.  We exit down the long ramp where troops could pour boiling oil down on any invaders, should they manage to cross the raised drawbridge.  This fort is far more than I’d expected.

Daughters' palace, in the shape of a bridal palanquin

Last on the list, the Khas Mahal, a park across the Yamuna River from the Taj, where you can walk to the bank and see the Taj Mahal reflected in its waters.  This is the spot where Shah Jahan was planning to build his own black marble mausoleum.  I think he’s better off closer to her.  (N.B.  Entrance price for Indians to this park:  25 rupees (35 cents).  Price for foreigners:  300 ($4).)

       On the return to the hotel, Mohinsha drags me to a rug merchant, the usual routine for guides in some places, but which I’ve been spared until now.  I don’t need a rug, even if they’re willing to send it to me.  (After all, I bought that silk comforter in Shanghai, which I’ll find on my doorstep a day after my return home.)  I do give in and buy a Black Star of India necklace, a gemstone black star diopside gemstone with needle-like inclusions that create a unique four-pointed cross star in the right light.

       Back at the hotel, I’m just in time for the end of lunch (3:00).  My “friend” waiter Ram, who served me Indian wine at lunch yesterday, jokingly chides me for not coming down to dinner last night; I tell him I doubt if I’ll be down tonight either.  He reappears with some lovely garlic naan again, like yesterday, the best I’ve ever tasted... all because he remembers I liked them.

       With a full stomach and a head full of the wonders I’ve seen, I retreat to my room, where I can just make out the silhouette of the Taj Mahal from my window.  Maybe tomorrow, before I head back to Delhi, it will be the view I was promised.

From across the Yamuna River, the site of Shah Jahan's never-built tomb

Day 38 - Friday, Nov. 22 - Delhi to Agra

On the sly, Lobby Manager Gaurav, my guardian angel from yesterday, has arranged a driver for me, and for half the price quoted by the hotel.  But shhhh, it’s a secret.  Agra, Gaurav’s hometown, is four hours away by road, about 250 km (155 miles).  We take off after breakfast, where I have a nice conversation with a business man from Colombia.
       During the 4+ hours it takes to reach Agra, my young driver receives numerous phone calls.  Between that and his English being very limited, I have ample time to look out the window.  Conclusion:  do not drive in India.  Driving on the left à la England is the least of your worries.  Cars, bikes, motorcycles, motorbikes and tuk-tuks pay no attention to the right-of-way, one-way streets, lanes or anything.  There are five lanes on a four-lane road, three lanes on a two-way.  Vehicles come at you from all sides.  The name on one big sign says it all:  Shiva (the Destroyer god)!  People have to change cars here, not because of engine wear, but because their horn wears out!  Another highway sign warns drivers:  “maintain your discipline”.... but to no avail.

       After an hour just getting around Delhi, we hit open patchy roads.  At one point I see a child in front of his driver dad on a motorcycle... on the highway at almost 100 km/hr (60 mph).  Not to mention saris billowing on other cycles.  One cyclist has no helmet because of his turban.  Buses stop at many exits, entrances and overpasses to let riders on or off.  We pass fields of some yellow crop, maybe colza/rapeseed.  From time to time there are groups of high, thin smokestacks; no idea what they’re for.  Sometimes a small temple in the middle of a field.  People living in tents under underpasses.  It’s a patchwork of life in India, and very different from life in the other countries I’ve visited.

       The haze makes it impossible to see far.  It’ll last until Agra.  (My guide says it’s been this way since Diwali (Oct. 27, a full month ago) and it’s the fault of the firecrackers, but my money’s on pollution and no wind.  Plus the burning of crop stubble after harvesting.)

The unfinished but occupied building across the way

And with Agra comes gridlock.  One instance of it caused by a man on a bike carrying long pipes blocking trucks as he cuts across traffic.  Bad Indian driving habits (see above) plus roadwork plus pedestrians and cows in the roads do not make for fluid traffic.  It’s like a video game.  Overwhelming.

       I have time to see the city, including people napping on walls by the river, before we finally reach the hotel around 3 o’clock, just before the buffet lunch closes.  I eat so much and am so tired that, after arranging for a guide for tomorrow, all I have the strength for is spending a while at my window watching life across the street... where, in spite of the specification “Taj Mahal view”, there is no Taj Mahal in view.  What is in view is cows grazing in the vacant lot between two unfinished buildings over open shops, a lady hanging wash out to dry on the roof of one of those unfinished buildings while her children play, a man dumping rubbish off a truck into that lot while, further in, workers dump construction trash off the roof of a building... all trumped by a tuk-tuk driver taking a dump in that same lot.  Pristine no-litter China this is definitely not.

       Night falls before six o’clock, local time.  I don’t last more than an hour.  Big day tomorrow.

The "Taj Mahal view" advertised

Day 37 - Thursday, Nov. 21 - In transit

Shanghai International Airport

An entire day getting from Point A (Siem Reap) to Point B (Delhi).
       Looking at a map, it would have been more logical - and much shorter - to go through, perhaps, Bangkok in Thailand.  Or even via Bangladesh.
       But no, I’m routed through Shanghai, waaaaay back 2700 km (1678 miles) to the northeast!  Then another 4250 km (2640 m) on to Delhi.  That’s almost 8000 km (5000 m) in all.  Whereas a direct flight would have been only 3240 km (2013 miles).  I hope I’m getting miles for this!



The death ride to the airport in the tuk-tuk on dark roads in Cambodian traffic was an experience; I think the driver had a hot date he didn’t want to miss.
       I leave behind Cambodia, which I thought had changed its name to Kampuchea, but I haven’t heard that word used at all.  (Turns out that name ended in 1989, and especially after the monarchy was restored in 1993.)  I leave without learning what the Cambodian currency is called because all prices in Siem Reap are quoted in U.S. dollars.  (It’s the riel - 4,065 to the dollar!)  I paid for a bottle of water at the airport with several big riel bills and got $1 back in change.  All the bills have the image of Norodom Sihanouk on them, at different ages.  His son is now king, but is unmarried and has no descendants.  I hope Cambodia isn’t headed for more trouble when he dies, but he’s just a figurehead and not the head of the government; the prime minister is.  The national economy is booming, having grown at an average 8% for the past twenty years.  Cambodia is a wonderful country, gentle in many ways, and ecologically conscious with trash bins at the airport sorted by cans, plastic, paper and “general”... although by the roadside there’s much refuse tossed and not picked up.


Two hours waiting at Siem Reap airport and a slightly early departure because all of the few passengers are there.  (That's never happened to me before, ever!)  I have a whole row to myself, as we all do, and catch about an hour of sleep.  It will prove a precious commodity.  Then ten hours - count ‘em: ten! - at Shanghai airport.  (Garry Collins, be sure to thank Delta for me for that!)  I have no Chinese currency and they won’t change my Cambodian money, although I have 31,500 riels in my wallet (under $8).  So after I finish off the last of my Snickers (thank you, Stanley), I’m tired, hungry and thirsty but nothing in the airport opens until 6 a.m.  Even then, I have no Chinese money.  Finally Starbucks saves me because they accept credit cards, so I get a tea, a chocolate croissant, a bottle of water and some cashews for later.  Just in case.

        Traveling makes for interesting exchanges.  I spend a lot of my waiting hours talking with a Filipino man who’s in transit from a wedding in Manila back to his home in Vancouver.  His is the flight before mine.  On my plane I’m seated next to a Sikh returning to India from his home in Los Angeles with his wife, father-in-law and ten-month-old daughter.  A vegetarian, he has great trouble getting truly vegetarian food from the China Eastern staff, generally very lackadaisical about their job description on this seven-hour flight.
       We take off at an elevation of 11 feet (Pudong Airport is built on tidal flats on the coast) and will have to climb high to fly over part of the Himalayas.  That’s only part of the change from the Far Eastern countries I’ve visited (Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia) to the Asian subcontinent (India and Nepal).  Another change is in time; as with Hiva Oa, Delhi is a half-hour off of the countries around it - a strange time zone.  When it’s 2:30 in Shanghai at take-off, it’s 12 noon in Delhi.

Then I have my first - and I hope my last - negative experience on this trip.  There is no sign with my name on it at the airport on arrival.  A man offers his services and I think he’s showing me to a shuttle bus.  But it’s a taxi he takes me to.  Then he jumps in the front.  Hmmm. Once underway, the driver says the short drive to my airport hotel will be... $60!  (Shades of the $15,000 in bogus charges from India on my credit card last May.)  We haggle.  I’m not at my best with only a half-hour nap in a chair at the Shanghai airport, and a transit of 21 hours total.  I just want a bed.  I get off with my life, my suitcase, and only a $30 fare, but the hotel staff is furious with them.  The lobby manager Gaurav becomes my guardian angel and I’m soon safe in bed instead of sold into slavery.

Day 36 - Wednesday, Nov 20 - Tonlé Sap and Raffles

My flight to Delhi via Shanghai (sigh!) is almost at midnight, so Bella has arranged for me to use a room at the hotel for the day, for free.  I signed up for a half-day tour of the floating village “then chill on the Queen Tara” on the Great Lake, or so they say.  (Where did they learn “chill”?)  For someone who has lived in the Great Lakes region of America, I’m curious about this.  As for “chilling” when it’s 30°C outside...
       Luckily, it’s a wee bit cooler today and not quite as humid.  My guide Va picks me up and we’re off with a charming couple from Wales and five Czechs.  Our destination is Tonlé Sap (“lake of freshwater”), the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, fed by the Mekong River... and by rain.  (The lake doubles in size in the wet season.)  15,000 years ago, this lake was an ocean bay, totally flat.  Since then, the coast has receded, thanks to silt from the Mekong, whose headwaters are on the Tibetan Plateau.
       80,000 people live in four villages on and around Tonlé Sap, which is only about 10 miles (12 km) outside Siem Reap.  They have their own churches, police stations, schools and shops.  Villagers live 90% from fishing in the wet season and 10% from rice in the “dry” season, with three crops a year, each crop taking 2½ months, start to finish.  Some residents stay in place, in houses on stilts to accommodate a 23 foot (7 m) difference in annual water level.  Others live in floating homes that are towed from place to place by their boats, each boat with eyes painted on the bow to ward off evil spirits.

Lotus cutter

       There are plans to build three dams on the Mekong in Cambodia, for hydroelectric power, and others upstream, mostly along the Chinese section but also some in Laos.  The existing dams are already lowering the river’s level in the delta in Vietnam, with seawater infiltration killing the rice crops there.  Also silt is being trapped, making downriver land less fertile, as with the Nile, and some fish species are menaced, which is why locks are planned.  Va is worried “bad people” will go steal the fish from them.


The first two stops on our tour are to a lotus farm and to a workshop where the lotus is made into lots of products, including cutting the fiber from the stems and forming it into a long strands, like silk from the silkworms.  Tedious work.  One woman at a loom weaves the fiber into a linen-like fabric used to make suits and jackets.
      Then it’s onto our water tuk-tuk (with its noisy outboard) and off down the river past homes with no electricity; the rich have generators...  and TV antennas and wifi.  We stop by a crocodile farm where skins are sold for luxury shoes and such.  You can taste crocodile and snake jerky if you want, and I do.
       But just a taste; our lunch is farther along, on the Queen Tara anchored in the lake.  Simple fare - I have the sweet and sour chicken, my new Welsh friends choose the fried rice, and one of the Czechs the fish and chips (!).
       After lunch, we get back on our water tuk-tuk, accompanied by the bartender who we drop off on-shore.  Then off we head, by bus, on awful roads back to the hotel.  It’s been a pleasant half-day, and something very different from Angkor Wat, something I never would have seen otherwise.

First a shower (to wash off dirty lake water), then a short nap, I decide to treat myself.  I dress up - as much as that’s possible with my limited wardrobe - and tuk-tuk over to the Raffles Hotel for tea.  Raffles opened in 1932, in full Indochina splendor.  Photos scattered on the walls are of Jackie Kennedy, Charlie Chaplin (him again!) and Somerset Maugham, plus other celebrities who stayed here; I’m just an intruder.  Over tea and cakes, I ask the older woman in charge, “What happened to Raffles in the bad days?” (meaning Pol Pot’s reign), trying to be diplomatic.  She replies that it closed and Pol Pot’s men left it alone, except for ripping up the parquet floor, probably for firewood.  Her uncle, she says, fled to Thailand, as did my Cambodian friend in Paris, who fled as a child, all alone.
       After a delicious moment of luxury, I walk back to my hotel, to my borrowed room to repack.  Read a bit.  Have a Last Supper at the restaurant:  their lovely shrimp pad thai.  Then off to the airport, in the dark, by tuk-tuk.  And the long voyage begins:  Siem Reap to Shanghai to Delhi - what a detour!  22+ hours in all.
       I’m dreading it!

Raffles Hotel - Siem Reap

Day 35 - Tuesday, Nov. 19 - Siem Reap

A free day.  And I’ll be meeting up with a German woman I first met on Easter Island.  Karin visited me in Paris and in Ann Arbor and now, amazingly, she’s randomly in Siem Reap at the same time I am!  We spend a long time catching up, then head off on two errands in a tuk-tuk.  First to the “library” Channy told me about to find a small Cambodian flag for my prayer flag line; the one he bought was way too big, so I’ll give it to my Cambodian friend in Paris.  But I’m mystified why both Channy and Bella said the library would have them.  Turns out it’s a “librairie”, meaning "bookshop", a hold-over from French Indochina days.  Mystery solved.  On to the second errand:  an optician, who resets the lens in its wire frame from which it escaped... and he won’t accept any payment, no matter how much I insist.  Another example of Cambodian politeness.
       After a light lunch at the hotel, we set out to visit the Angkor National Museum kitty-corner from the hotel.  With a stop first at a shop to find Karin a cushion cover.  She finds one she likes but the price is too high and the shopkeeper won’t come down enough.  Karin is a good bargainer; I’m not.  (She writes me later, from back in Germany, that she returned to the shop, the owner brought the price down even more, and she bought more than one cushion cover.)

From the shop, we cross the street to the museum.  A beautiful, large building opened in late 2007, its treasures are admirably sequenced and lighted.  You start with a video presentation, then proceed to the Gallery of 1000 Buddhas.  As I tell Karin, I’m all Buddha-ed out, but the room is amazing, with the smaller statues all in golden niches, floor to ceiling, and the bigger pieces scattered throughout the room on pedestals.  One interests me in particular because this Buddha is lying on his stomach, face down.  Turns out he’s making a bridge so the other monks can cross the waters on his back.  The next three rooms concentrate on all things Khmer:  its civilization, its religion and beliefs, its kings listed on a great wall panel.  So much information, such lovely artifacts.
        Then it’s down to the ground level for the rest of the
collection, where emphasis is on the ruins she and I saw yesterday, separately, but who knows... maybe we were even there at the same time, given the number of visitors.  The first large room is for artifacts from Angkor Wat (called Heaven on Earth) and a video (to rest our legs).  Here in this museum is where some of the things taken from the ruins landed; many were spirited out of the country though by black market art thieves.  After this comes a room dedicated to Angkor Thom, the great capital with the churning of the ocean of milk legend spotlighted.  Two more rooms, one for stone stelae and one focusing on ancient costumes, with one row for women’s dress - from the apsara statues - and one row opposite for men’s - from statues of male gods.
       Somehow it’s 5 o’clock when we exit.  We spent three hours here and it didn’t seem like it.  All that for $12.  We bid each other a hug-ful good bye, wondering what continent we’ll see each other on the next time.
       After a short cool-down in the pool, I have some nem for dinner and fall asleep early.  But it’s a fitful night.  Tomorrow’s my flying nightmare.

Day 34 - Monday, Nov. 18 - Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

After almost three weeks - since Las Marquesas - of not understanding a single sign, it was nice in Vietnam to be able to recognize the letters, even if I didn’t understand the words.  Now I’m in a new country - Cambodia - where they don’t use the Roman alphabet.  Their language is written in flowing lines with lots of curlicues, rather than the squarish ideograms of Japanese and Chinese.
  Luckily for me, I won’t have to find my way among those curlicues because I have a guide for Angkor Wat:  Channy, who otherwise could have been a teacher like his father or a farmer like the rest of his family.  But he studied and now works with tourists and speaks great English with not much of an accent.  We take off in a tuk-tuk with a driver who will be at our disposal all day.  (Addendum: an English-speaking guide is the cheapest at $45, then Japanese at $55, French at $60, Chinese at $65, Spanish at $70 and Italian at $80... for all day, 8:30 a.m. to sunset.

Angkor Wat, looking back to entrance

Apsara with bullet mark

We start with Angkor Wat.  Legend says it was created in a single night by a divine architect, but in fact it was built in the early 12th century.  Originally a Hindu temple, it was dedicated to three gods, the Hindu Trinity:  Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Remover of Obstacles, aka the Creator-and-Destroyer (destroying what’s bad).  The temple is an embodiment of Mount Merou, the Heaven of the Gods.  Later, Hinduism was replaced by Buddhism and the name became Angkor Wat, the City of the Temple.  In the 16th century it became neglected but not abandoned, and both nature and man caused damage.  Trees and other plants grew up in and between its buildings and Pol Pot’s army did its share of wreckage as well.
        The foundations are made of lava, the walls of laterite and the sculptures of sandstone brought from 65 miles (100+ km) away at Waterfall Mountain.  Oriented east/west, with a moat surrounding it to symbolize the ocean, there are three different levels to the 65-meter (213 ft) tall temple:  the first for the people, the second for the king, the third for the gods.  Channy convinces me to climb to the king’s level.  And I say “convince” because the steps are very steep and by the time we get to them it’s very hot (max today 30°C/86°F), and humid.  I’m reminded of Noël Coward’s song lyrics “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon-day sun”.
       Channy explains the artwork on the bas-reliefs to me that are found throughout the temple, on all the walls.  As with Abu Simbel in Egypt, there are war scenes, including the king leading the army to Vietnam to fight the Champa.  There are also details of the Monkey King, and apsaras everywhere, especially around the doorways.  During the Pol Pot years, bored soldiers used the lovely apsara dancers for target practice.  (Channy shows me some of the bullet holes.)  I can’t help but wonder what kind of person could do that.  But then again, in the three years of Pol Pot’s reign, they killed 1 million of their own people, 13% of the entire population.
       In one courtyard, a saffron-robed monk sits cross-legged.  He ties a red and orange braided thread around my left wrist (left for the gods, right for the demons), then proceeds to splash me with holy water, smiling and chuckling as he goes.  And he takes longer with me than he has with the others before me, maybe because I smile and laugh also.  It’s fun.  And the water on my boiling head cools me down.
       We walk out after two hours of these wonders, past two of the site’s libraries, where the stone stela books were kept; there were three other libraries in the king’s quarters for his use only.  As in the Forbidden City of Beijing, there was a central gate for the king, two gates on either side for nobles and monks, and two even farther along for the people.  For 300 years, this temple stood empty when the Thai took over the country and evicted the king.  This period gave the nearby town its name:  Siem (for Siam, the old name of Thailand) and Reap, “defeat”.

As seen from the King's Level

Ferried by our loyal driver, our next stop if the even bigger Angkor Thom:  3 km long (almost 2 miles) on each side.  Like Angkor Wat, it’s encircled by a moat and a wall.  This was the country’s capital city from the 10th to the 15th century.  As we tuk-tuk through now-green areas, I try to imagine all this with houses and people other than tourists. 

Bayon Temple

       On the bridge into the city proper is the Hindu story of the churning of the ocean, with the demons pulling on the right side and the gods on the left.  But in spite of this Hindu myth, and unlike Angkor Wat, the Bayon Temple at the center here was always Buddhist.  Angkor Thom has 48 towers in all and, before being abandoned around 1600, it once had a population of 1 million!  As in Angkor Wat, the walls tell stories, all of which Channy knows in depth.  He points out fish and crocodiles and turtles (the symbol of long life in Cambodia) and monkey kings.  So much history, legend and art!
       After our visit, a pause at a stand under the trees for a cold coconut.  The vendor woman machetes it open and we drink the milk inside with a straw.  Channy asks for a spoon to eat the soft coconut inside; I ask the woman to give mine to the boy who has followed us, trying to sell me ten postcards for $1.  (That’s the currency they want here:  U.S. dollars.)  The boy says he wants to be a doctor some day.  “What kind?”, I ask.  “For children.”  Smart boy.  All good comments, all in English.  He adds he has eight brothers and sisters.  Says a few words in French as well, when I say I live in Paris.  I don’t know that he’ll ever become a doctor, but I hope he doesn’t spend his whole life doing this.

Ta Prohm

On to Ta Prohm east of Angkor Thom.  This is the most wild of the three ruins we see, built in the late 12th century.  And ruin is the operative word here.  Trees grow all over the site, with the roots of these silk cotton trees running down, on both sides, from the tops of the walls they ride.  They remind me of the trees I saw in the ruins of the hacienda in Uxmal, Yucatan in Mexico.  If you’ve seen the Angelina Jolie movie Tomb Raider, you’ll know what I mean because she filmed it here.
       There’s a sunset on our dance card, but I’m too tired to walk up the hill to view it.  No road for even jeeps to climb up there.  That seems to chagrin Channy, but I tell him that, with or without me, the sun will still set.
       On the way back to the hotel, we stop at a shop to buy me a Cambodian flag for my future prayer flag line.  I bid Channy and the tuk-tuk driver goodbye and slip into a shower.  My clothes are soaked with sweat; the jeans will have to be laundered but I wash my blouse in the shower, with me.  Refreshed, my body temperature lowered by about ten degrees, I go for a drink downstairs and discover it’s rained.  My decision not to slog up that hill was the right one; the rain is a sign that the gods approve.
       Pad thai for dinner on the small veranda, with two tabby kittens playing under foot.  And then bed, as much to rest my throbbing feet as to sleep.

Angkor Thom

Day 33 - Sunday, Nov. 17 - Hanoi to Siem Reap

National Museum of History

Aside from packing, this morning is for visiting the National Museum of History.  (There are two buildings but the one that interests me is the one that starts with prehistory.)  I have to be out of the room - my home for the past four days and nights - by noon, even though the cab won’t take me to the airport until 3 o’clock.
       Getting to the museum... aye, there’s the rub.  Seek and ye shall not find.  Whether because of the streets blocked for pedestrians only on the week-end or not, the taxi driver drops me off at a busy intersection and points vaguely in a direction where nothing looks museum-ish.  After a bit of foot-fumbling, I ask at a hotel reception desk but they don’t know; then someone points farther down the street.  Still no museum.  So I ask at a McDonald’s (yes, they have them in Hanoi!) and they look it up and point in another direction.
       Then and only then do I find my savior:  the red HoHo Tour Bus from two days ago.  The driver says, “It’s two minutes that way” in yet another direction... and it is!  God love ‘im!  (The whole problem could have been avoided if tourist maps didn’t say it was on Trang Tian Street, which is long, but rather at Number 1 Phan Ngu Lao at the corner, as indicated on the museum’s ticket, when I finally get it.  Much clearer.  Remember if you go.)

For 40,000 dong ($1.75) - including entry to the annex nearby (that second building) - I have more artifacts than I have time.  I had two hours before my Great March; now I have only one left.  This magnificent colonial building used to be the French School of the Far East.  The ground floor is prehistory; upstairs is more recent.  And as it’s Sunday, there are families there with their children, which makes it fun.

       One family is explaining to their children what those strange-looking dummies are:  the ages of evolution - Australopithecus, homo habilis, neanderthal, cro-magnon and homo sapiens sapiens.  But the children seem more curious about the strange pale woman in jeans with a camera:  me.
       Upstairs a group of elementary school age children is supposedly listening to the explanations of a docent.  I say supposedly because one boy, undoubtedly tipped off by my decidedly non-Asian appearance, mouths a silent English “hello” to me and I answer in kind.
       Display case after display case, I get a glimpse of Vietnam’s history.  Prehistoric vestiges are pretty much the same everywhere around the world, on the surface.  The bone and ivory jewelry from 500 BCE has its own unique style though.  Some of the figurines from the Red River Valley have different animals, perhaps; they’re pre-Dong Son, which means pre-Bronze Age.  But there’s a wood-cut stamp that looks a bit like a four-leaf clover that’s interesting because it was used to make a form of decorative “tattoo” on the skin way back in 2,000-1,500 BCE.  The funniest object comes from that same era:  a stone carving from the Dong Noi cave (near Laos) that looks like Mickey Mouse!

        From the 2nd and 3rd century there’s an amalgam of coins “melted” into a clay pot, turning it into a free-flowing object, and an oil lamp shaped like a chicken, plus a model of a fortress taken from a Han-era tomb.  Yes, Han.  Along with France, China also colonized Vietnam, and not for a hundred years but for one thousand (111 BCE-980 A.D.)  Among the other treasures, there’s a 10th century terra cotta mandarin duck, 17th-18th c bronzes and a model boat, phoenix heads and lions from the 12th century, plus a jewel-encrusted gold crown/hat from a Nguyen Dynasty emperor who ruled sometime in the 19th century.  So many, many lovely objects.
       But I have a room to free up.  And time is tight.  When I exit the museum, I’m a bit lost (see above).  A rickshaw-pedaler shouts at me from across the street.  I’m about a half-hour’s walk from the hotel, but why not.  I’ll take my life in my hands crossing the streets anyway, so why not have this experience as well?  This old man is old enough to have known the French as a boy, and he does speak French, calling me Madame when he points and says “The Opera House.  Paris” as we pass.
       Given the week-end’s pedestrian streets, he drops me off at the top of the lake and I walk back to the hotel in time for a quick shower and a slap-dash packing.  (It’s only a two-hour flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia.)  I enjoy a long talk with Rosie, my guardian angel, and give her my card to stay in touch.  Then a final nem/white wine lunch on the rooftop terrace, where by now I'm on very friendly terms with the barman, and the taxi is there.

       Given that my college years date from the Vietnam War era and that some of my friends were sent there but even fewer came back, it's strange that, of all the places I've visited so far, I feel the most free to strike out on my own in Hanoi.

High school class taking graduation photos on Opera House steps

Not much to say about the flight.  Just under two hours but Vietnam Air managed to serve us a light meal.  Customs leaving the country is every bit as icy cold as at arrival but a bit quicker... just stamped my visa “used”, no in-depth inspection of the info page on my passport or feeling of the paper it’s printed on.  Cambodian immigration isn’t much nicer, but more efficient; Americans buy a visa upon arrival and it’s a chain process.  One guy takes your passport and inspects it, passes it to Guy Two who asks for $30 - cash only, in U.S. dollars (no receipt) - passes it to Guy Three (all guys) who stamps the visa (good for one month) and staples it into your passport, then passes it to Guy Four who’s gathered up all the passports from all the lines and passes them to Guy Five who calls out your name.  Then it’s immigration.  By then my suitcase is wondering what happened to me!
       As probably did the greeter from the hotel, whom I am very glad to see.  He escorts me out to his tuk-tuk (motorized rickshaw) and off we go.  The breeze is refreshing because it’s 8 pm and it’s still 28°C (82°F) outside with a humidity of about 248%.  As it’s dark, it’s hard to get an idea of the surroundings, but they’re resolutely green, and I hear crickets for the first time since home in the States.  After 20 minutes on a path running parallel to the car street, a kind of glorified bike lane, we arrive at the hotel.  Bella, my Khmer Rosie, arranges a guided tour for tomorrow, shows me to my room and leaves me to sleep.

Cambodia