Travel Journal

Not just the views are breathtaking when you arrive in Lhasa, capital of what is now called the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China; it is also the thin air. With the area at an altitude of 3800 meters, I immediately noticed this. Walking with my backpack for a short while is an enormous effort now, with my heart pounding in my chest, taking desperate gasps of air while feeling a slight dizziness.

I found a nice though basic room in a Tibetan motel, in the old centre of Lhasa known as the Barkhor. It is where most of the Tibetans live nowadays, an enclave in the middle of what has been transformed over the past decades into a modern Chinese city. The Barkhor area is also Lhasa’s most authentic and atmospheric, its small alleys filled with stalls, the vendors selling yak butter and meat, cheese, fruit and vegetables, as well as clohing, souvenirs, gear for horses and religious artefacts. From a number of cassette- and cd-shops comes the sound of Tibetan popmusic, a quite catchy mix of traditional high-pitched singing with western beats. The houses and apartment blocks in the area are no higher than three storeys, the white brick walls are thick, and in front of the small windows are plants with colourful flowers, and at times white and blue cloths with auspicious symbols for protection, luck, prosperity. On the streets, there are the ordinary Tibetan residents, the men at times in brown suits, usually wearing cowboy-style hats, the women in dark clothing with aprons with elaborate patterns, and brightly coloured sleeves of their shirts. Then there are the pilgrims, spinning their prayer wheels, quietly saying mantras. Their dark clothes are dusty, they wear many different kinds of necklaces and armbraces, they seem oblivious to the busy life aound them as they are doing the clockwise route around the inner city, grateful to have reached Lhasa.

The first couple of days, I did nothing but acclimatise to the altitude, and I visited some of the many tea houses in Lhasa. Tibetans from all walks of life come here to socialise, to chat to eachother or to play card games. There were people of all ages, from babies with shoes that squeek when they walk, young boys and girls, ancient looking men and women, their faces very dark and weathered. For 3 jiao, the equivalent of 3 Eurocents, you can get a glass of sweet tea with milk. You leave the money on the table, and each time one of the waitresses in their white aprons refills your glass, she deducts 3 jiao from the amount on the table. In some places, you can get a whole thermos if you want, or one with butter tea, a stronger tasting variant that includes yak butter and salt. In one particular tea house near Barkhor Square, I bought a ticket for 2,5 yuan, and went into the kitchen to exchange it for a bowl of delicious putou, or Tibetan noodle soup, with yak meat. As you are eating or drinking, you sit among monks in their red robes, and pilgrims, with styles of clothing that reveal which part of Tibet they’re from, spinning their prayer wheels even when sitting down.

I visited many of Lhasa’s monasteries and temples. Having been to hundreds of Buddhist temples in many of the previous countries I visited, to step into one in Tibet is an altogether different experience. Perhaps it is because of the air of veneration, with the pilgrims quietly mumbling their prayers inside one of the many chapels. Perhaps it is because of the messy way the chapels are decorated, with so many religious artefacts and statues, candles and cloths, giving it such a cosy yet solemn feel. And then there are the beautifully elaborate thangkas, painted or embroidered religious scrolls that are displayed on the walls or hang from the ceiling, and the dozens or hundreds of katags, Tibetan scarfs made from white silk, that are wrapped around statues and objects.

In front of the Jokhang, one of Tibet’s most sacred of temples, the air is filled with juniper smoke, billowing up from large incense burners. Many pilgrims prostrate themselves in front of the doors of this holy place. They raise their hands, palms pressed together, above their head, then lower them to their forehead, and chest, before they lie flat on the floor, and once again raise their hands above their head. They stand up again, only to repeat this process many times. In fact, for many pilgrims it is the way how they travelled to Lhasa, prostrating themselves during their entire pilgrimage. For some, the journey to reach Lhasa took nine months, for others longer.

The Potala Palace, Lhasa’s most famous of sites, was built in the 7th century by King Songtsen Gampo. It has served as the country’s administrative centre, seat of government and monastery, and it was here, where the Dalai Lamas, from the Fifth to the Fourteenth, lived, until the Chinese took over. To see the Potala for the first time is something you’ll never forget. This Palace, this fortress, high up on Marpo Ri (Red Mountain), is a truly impressive sight, with its red and white walls, visible from most parts of the city. Climbing up to reach the palace is quite an effort in the thin air, and I paused occasionally to take in the stunning views of Lhasa and the surrounding mountains, and some much needed oxygen. It’s of little consolation that the Tibetan pilgrims seem to have as much trouble climbing up, their cheeks bright red from oxygen deprivation. The golden tiled roofs of the Palace are decorated with golden Tibetan umbrellas, and large cloths hang in front of the windows, decorated with auspicious patterns. Inside, corridors lead to elaborately decorated chapels, with dozens or at times hundreds of statues of the Buddha, of important scholars and their students, of Dalai Lamas. Pilgrims hurry from chapel to chapel, quickly saying their prayers, leaving a littlebit of money as an offering, or refilling one of the many lamps with a spoonfull of butter. There are huge libraries with sacred Buddhist scriptures, written on loose papers that are bound together in embroidered cloth and stored in wooden boxes. Underneath, there is a passage, and pilgrims walk crouched down underneath them, in the hope of obtaining knowledge for a next life. In some chapels, there are large chortens, traditional Tibetan Buddhist monuments, which here serve as tombs, containing the remains of previous Dalai Lamas. Some are several storeys high, golden and decorated with jewels.

After visiting the Potala, I walked through a small alley around the north side of the Palace, with hundreds of large prayer wheels along the wall. Inside each of these, there are paper rolls on which Om Mani Padme Hum is written over and over again, the Tibetan prayer that encompasses all Buddhist scriptures ever translated from Sanskrit. The pilgrims turn the prayer wheels to gain merit for a next life. Then, I came to a small park, and I followed the direction where Tibetan music was coming from. I arrived at a large stage, where a dozen actors in colourful dresses, mostly red and yellow, were performing Lhamo, or traditional Tibetan opera. It involved beautiful singing and dancing, and to keep the crowd entertained, it was occasionally interrupted by a play, at one point involving a man and a woman wrestling on stage. The crowd, around 200 people including pilgrims and monks, were delighted and even the actors couldn’t keep a straight face. The woman was victorious, and after the applause, more dancing and singing followed.

I visited the Norbulingka, the site of the summer palaces of the Dalai Lamas. The current Dalai Lama, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, had his summer palace built here, a stately mansion. Now, it is a rather sad place to visit, the richly decorated rooms fitted with CCTV cameras to keep an eye on the crowds. It was from here that His Holiness fled to India after the Chinese invasion in 1959, where he remains in exile until this day, near the town of Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh.

On a visit to the enormous monastery of Drepung, just outside Lhasa, with its beautiful views of the Kyichu Valley, I came across a group of men and women who were working on a roof of one of the buildings. They were stamping a cement-like material with poles, that had round wooden planks attached at the bottom. While doing this, they were singing beautiful Tibetan songs, while continuing to stamp as a way of keeping the rythm.

In the evenings, even in summer it can get quite chilly in Lhasa, and I would stay warm with frequent cups of sweet tea in one of the many atmospheric tea houses. One time, I found myself in an Internet cafe, sitting next to two monks who were playing a shoot-em-up game, and clearly enjoying it. But there are warning signs on the walls, as officially every foreigner needs to register with their passport before being able to use the Internet. Every e-mail in and out of Tibet, and even every text message and phone conversation, is being monitored.

After a number of days acclimatising in the capital, and trying to take everything in of this beautiful culture, I was preparing to leave Lhasa, and go on a tour to the south of Tibet.

Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan province, is a nice and laidback city. Due to anti-pollution regulations, it is quite difficult to obtain a motorcycle licence here, hence the large numbers of bicycles and the dangerously silent electric ones, seen everywhere on the streets.

Like in the rest of China, recycling is big in Chengdu, but not in the way we’re used to it in many western countries. In China, no eyebrows will be raised when people rummage through garbage bins in search of plastic bottles or aluminium cans - it has become a way to earn a living for many.

I spent a couple of days exploring the city and the fantastic Sichuan cooking, although saying it is extremely spicy is quite an understatement. I quite like spicy food, but most of the Sichuan cuisine has such an enormous amount of chillis, chilli sauce and/or chilli powder, that it takes quite a while before you regain any feeling in your mouth, tongue and lips.

One morning, I took a bus and then a motor-rikshaw, which took me through small alleys of a village, to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, close to Chengdu. Those giant pandas are beautiful, and it is impossible not to find them cute. How they lean back as if in a lazy chair, and slowly munch on bamboo, holding it with both their front paws. There are a number of baby pandas, with nine months old already quite large, playing with eachother and tumbling down from logs and trees in the process. Companies had adopted some of the pandas, providing funds for their habitats, and giving appropriate names to the pandas like “Mei Mei". The US company Microsoft has done the same, but their choice for a name boggles the mind: believe it or not, one of the giant pandas is now called “Microsoft".

South of Chengdu, there are a couple of interesting sites to explore. One of them is near the small town of Leshan. There, looking out over the Min River, is the enormous Dafo, or the Great Buddha. A monk started work on this statue in the 8th century, and it took over 90 years to complete it, hacking it out of the red sandstone cliffs. From near his head, you can descend a tiny staircase to get to his feet, and there, one can really appreciate the scale of this 71 meter tall structure. Tourists gaze at the statue, a single toe bigger than a handful of adult men, and almost fall into the river when trying to get it all onto one photo.

Closer to Chengdu, Emei Shan is one of China’s four sacred Buddhist mountains. I went for a full day of walking over the mountain’s forested ridges, the small paths leading me to hidden temples, past waterfalls and small villages where the locals were selling medicinal herbs, mushrooms and roots. The walk was arduous, through dense vegetation, but the views of the lush green mountain slopes were wonderful.

Back in Chengdu, I would soon leave the China as I knew it, and fly to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Considered by the Beijing government as part of China, it couldn’t be more different than any part of China I had visited.

Datong is not as well known as other tourist hotspots like the Great Wall or the Terracotta Army, and this is strange, as around this relatively small industrial city, there are two stunning sites that are equally impressive.

I reached one of them, the Hanging Temple, in under two hours by local bus. Its Chinese name, Xuangkong Si, literally meaning “Temple Suspended in the Void", does it justice. Surrounded by cliff walls, it is built halfway up on a steep cliff face and it seems to defy gravity. Long wooden beams anchor the structure to the cliff, and there are wooden stilts supporting it. Narrow stairs and walkways (not something for those suffering from vertigo) connect the various halls, with, uniquely, shrines for China’s three main religions: Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. There are small monks’ quarters, the beds have charcoal stoves underneath for heating in the cold winters. There has been a temple on this site since the Northern Wei dynasty, late 5th century. Over the centuries, the temple was destroyed several times due to floodings of the Heng River and each time, the structure was rebuilt higher up. Now, the temple is mostly Qing-dynasty (second half of the 17th century), and the river below has dried up after the construction of a nearby dam.

The next morning, I went to the Yungang caves, half an hour west of Datong. There are over 50 grottoes carved into the side of a sandstone cliff, dating back to the 5th century. Some of the caves have wooden facades as entrances. Stepping into some of the grottoes is a humbling experience, finding yourself suddenly at the feet of an enormous Buddha statue, the curved walls surrounding it filled with reliefs in extraordinary detail, carvings of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, images depicting the life of the Buddha, and on the ceiling, flying apsaras. Some grottoes are more stunning and elaborate than others; all are quite intruiging. What is striking is the foreign influence in the carvings. Apart from Hindu deities, there are Persian symbols and figures and even Greek motifs. Sadly, due to the presence of two large coalmines nearby, everything is covered in a fine layer of coal dust. Shanxi province is famous for coalmining, it makes Datong one of China’s most polluted cities.

The following day, I went on another train journey further south. Something you will find on all trains in China is either thermoses with boiled water, or water boilers in every carriage, with Chinese continuously topping up their flasks of tea, or adding boiled water to their instant noodles. The boilers on this train, perhaps because of the easy availability of it in this province, were charcoal heated, with little piles of the stuff next to them. The scenery along the way was again quite pretty. We would pass small villages where the houses had mud walls, or at times consisted of rocks piled on top of eachother. The train stopped at the smallest of stations. Next to a tiny house, with the name of the village in large characters above it, would stand an ancient looking attendant, holding up a red flag, while one or two passengers got on. Usually, there would be a huge pile of coal near the station, ready for transport by one of the many freight trains with their hundreds of containers.

Eventually, I reached the small town of Pingyao, just south of Shanxi’s provincial capital of Taiyuan. I arrived around midnight, and an electric powered taxi cart took me through the narrow, deserted streets in the old city, and dropped me off at one of the many hostels. After waking up the owner, I was led into the courtyard of a typical Qing-era house, and checked into a small room with thick walls, mahogany window screens, and a bed raised up on a wooden platform. Tired from the journey but excited to be in this lovely town, I went to sleep.

The following morning, I explored the town, walked on the Ming Town Wall which surrounds the old city, went through little alleys with very old houses and visited many museums and temples. Pingyao is the site of China’s first bank, the Rishengchang, established in 1824, and it’s one of the first in the world where cheques were used. Many of the museums are beautiful in terms of their architecture, the houses in elegant Qing-architecture, the rooms with authentic furniture, small courtyards outside featuring small gardens and statues. But in terms of content, the museums tend to get a bit boring after a while, because of the lack of English commentary. Although you have to give them credit for trying, the commentary in English that at times is provided, is usually fraught with a large number of errors. In fact, you will find this everywhere in China (not to mention other South East Asian countries), even on government brochures and on large billboards next to highways. In menus, it can be a little worrying, like “sheet iron pig meat", and near displays in museums, quite mystifying and unintendedly funny, like this commentary, spotted in a museum in Pingyao:

“The song Dynesty.For dead people.Hope
they have food in tomb and a good accond
life vevy beewtrfuul And big peale for
food .rice wh ich is vevy rice in the wo
rld.”

In the evenings, Pingyao becomes even more atmospheric, the throngs of tourists gone, the streets and alleys tranquil. Red lanterns are lit over the entrances of restaurants and quaint houses, a single bulb over a foodstall at the side of the road, where a young man is cooking rice for locals, huddled together on plastic chairs. From the distance comes the charactaristic sound of the erhu, the Chinese violin.

After a couple of days, I went again by train, leaving Shanxi province and entering Shaanxi province, arriving in the early morning in the city of Xi’an. Here, I visited the site of the bingma yong, or the famous Terracotta Warriors. Housed in vaults built of earth with wooden supports and roofs, they were never intended to be seen, instead serving to eternally guard the tomb of emperor Qin Shi Huang, who ordered their construction in the second century BC. Discovered by peasants digging a well in 1974, it is now one of China’s most famous sites, and excavation is still going on. Vault One is the largest, with many rows with over a thousand figures out of an estimated eight thousand, a small number of horses in their midst. Each soldier has different features, expressions and rank, said to have been modelled after each member of Qin Shi Huang’s Imperial Guard. The layout is that of a modern army, with well guarded flanks, and even including a modular setup, with archers and cavalry units. In the nearby museum, some of the metal weapons found at the site are on display, made from sophisticated alloys, still sharp when discovered, and the arrowheads contained lead to make them poisonous. Also on display are two bronze chariots, each with four horses and a driver. The attention to detail with which these chariots were made is stunning, with even the driver’s knuckles, nails and fingerprints shown. Visiting the Terracotta Warriors was a very intruiging experience, but it is also an enormous tourist circus, with vendors yelling out “Hello! Water!", or shouting at you to visit their souvenir stalls, all selling the same items.

Soon however, I would leave Xi’an, and head yet further south, to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

Due to budget considerations, I had booked a seat instead of a bed on the train departing from Shanghai, and I would later regret this, as I hardly slept during the 14-hour train journey to China’s enormous capital.

After arriving in the capital in the morning, I quickly located a nice guesthouse in what is perhaps Beijing’s most atmospheric quarter of Qianmen, with its little alleys known as hutongs. The area has the intimacy of a village, even the sounds of the busy city all around it are reduced to a barely audible hum. The residents take advantage of the warm summer evenings and sit outside their houses, chatting to their neighbours, playing games, and as you walk past the small family restaurants, you smell the many different perfumes of delicious food. In the mornings, the appeal is somewhat less, with the locals performing their disgusting spitting rituals, and you try not to slip on the small pools of phlegm found everywhere on the streets.

As there were so many sights to explore in this city, with their historical, cultural or artistical importance, I allowed myself a full week to see as much as I could. My first stop was Tian’anmen Square, with its long and controversial history. The enormous square is surrounded by a fence, and there are guards standing on platforms, guarding every entrance to the square. To the south is the large Qianmen Gate, to the north Tian’anmen Gate with the famous picture of Mao Zedong, facing his mausoleum in the centre of the square. As you walk past the mausoleum, nearly half of the west side of the square is taken up by the enormous Great Hall of the People, home of the National People’s Congress.

Past Tian’anmen Gate lies the Imperial Palace, known as the Forbidden City, home to 24 emperors during five centuries of imperial rule. As everything in Beijing, past and present, seems to have been conceived and built on a grand scale, so was this Palace, a vast complex, and although a lot of the hundreds of buildings inside were unfortunately undergoing renovations in perparation for the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing in 2008, there was still so much to explore. As you enter the south entrance, you find yourself humbled by the sight of the Wumen, or Meridian Gate. The designation “Gate” doesn’t do it justice, for it is a huge building, from which the emperor would instruct his courts or inspect his army in times of war. Behind three of these gates, divided by large squares, there are several elaborately decorated ceremonial halls, before you get to the Inner City, a maze of corridors with the famous red walls. There are beautiful gates with at times a screen directly behind them, sometimes decorated with murals or Chinese characters. As you walk around these screens, you find yourself in a courtyard, and look out over living quarters of the emperor, the empress, the concubines or the eunuchs. Some of the buildings now have exhibitions in them, collections of artifacts or imperial possessions. In some courtyards, there are statues of animals for their symbolic power. At the north side of the Inner City is the Imperial Garden, which, after hours of walking, is a nice place to rest for a while, and admire the flowers, rock gardens, pavillions. After having left the Forbidden City through its north entrance, I crossed the street and climbed to the top of the hill of Jingshan Park, where I was rewarded with a beautiful view of the Forbidden City and the rest of Beijing. Unfortunately, due to the air pollution, most of the city is shrouded in a permanent layer or smog, resulting in a very hazy view.

There are so many interesting sites in and around Beijing that it would take too much time to describe them all here, but one of the nicest places must be the Yiheyuan, or Summer Palace, located in the northwest of the city. Its collection of stunning Imperial houses, halls, temples and covered walkways with beautiful murals, together with a large lake, makes for a pleasant retreat from the busy streets of Beijing.

Later in the week, I visited one of China’s most famous of objects, The Great Wall. A couple of hours north of the capital, I walked on a reconstructed section of the Wall, and admired the views of the Wall snaking around on the top of the hills as far as the eye could see, while gasping for breath from the steep climb.

As my week in Beijing was coming to an end, I had decided to go to the nearby town of Datong, and went to the central railway station to get a ticket. Due to the sheer number of people, and an astonishing lack of social etiquette, this can actually resemble a nightmare. At the station, all of the 30 or so ticket windows were open, and each had a queue of around 20 people, waiting to buy a ticket. As you stand in line, waiting for your turn, there are dozens of people simply ignoring the queue as they head straight for the ticket window. In many of the Western countries, this would cause an uproar in the queue, but here, nobody tells them to get in line. And then there are the attendants behind the windows, at times downright rude to the customers who have been waiting for half an hour to get their ticket.

Getting on the train, which I did at the biggest railway station I’ve ever seen in my life, the gigantic Beijing Xi Zhan (West Station) is a game of push and shove, with a dozen people trying to get through a single door at the same time, and at times trying to climb over people in the carriages to get to their designated seats. But once the train was underway, this all was soon forgotten, as I watched the beautiful landscape outside Beijing, of lush mountains and valleys with lakes and rivers.

In Shanghai, I got my first taste of a truly big Chinese city. After a 26 hour train journey from Hong Kong, long but comfortable as I had a bed, I arrived at the central trainstation and made my way to the old part of the city. As a lot of the lower range of hostels and guesthouses are not allowed to accept foreigners, I had a bit of trouble finding a place to sleep. But I eventually found a guesthouse, underground in a converted bomb shelter, with walls one meter thick and solid steel doors near the entrance. The shared bathroom in the guesthouse was also used to wash clothes and cook food, and it sometimes felt like I was having a shower in a kitchen, and occasionally found myself shaving next to someone who was chopping up beef for breakfast.

Outside, the narrow streets of the old city still gave the appearance of a village, with people going around on their bicycles, eating outdoors at one of the many small family restaurants, buying fruit or snacks at stalls, and further down was a group of men playing Chinese chess. A man on a bicycle sold crickets, hundreds of them, each in tiny woven baskets, and the noise was deafening. It’s a big hit, though, with many people getting one to get a bit of the sound of the countryside into their homes.

For how long this old part of the city will exist, remains to be seen, as a lot of the small houses and buildings have been designated for demolition, and all around the area are new, towering apartment blocks, with blinking red lights to warn oncoming aircraft. At night, many people, working during the day at one of the hundreds of construction sites, sleep on the sidewalk on thin straw mats next to building materials, with the huge cranes looming overhead, their silhouettes drawn against a sky that never gets completely dark.

Shopping is big in Shanghai, with the long Nanjing Road reportedly being China’s busiest shopping street. When you get tired of the shopping, or wrestling through the crowds, you can walk along The Bund, the boulevard alongside the Huangpu river, where large colonial buildings are looking out over the river, reminiscent of China’s colonial past. Across the river, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower stands out as Shanghai’s landmark, in the district of Pudong. Only ten years ago, this was the “wrong” side of the city, but with the help of enormous investments, it has been transformed into Shanghai’s commerce centre, with an accompanying forest of skyscrapers.

Going around in a city bus is one way to appreciate the scale of Shanghai, as the distances are just too great to go around on foot. One evening, the bus driver turned off the indoor lights and LCD screens while driving over the Nanpu bridge, so the passengers could appreciate the view of the huge city, with all its floodlit colonial buildings, skyscrapers, blinking lights and neon signs.

One reason alone to visit Shanghai is the superb Shanghai museum, at the edge of Renmin Park. The collections of sculptures, paintings, calligraphy, Ming and Qing furniture and ethnic minority arts, to name a few, are very interesting, and thanks to the excellent lighting, the decoration and English commentary, it is all a very rewarding experience.

After a couple of days in Shanghai, the capital of China was going to be my next destination, and I couldn’t wait to get there.

It was an excellent way to arrive in Hong Kong for the first time, as I did, by ferry from Guangzhou. After leaving the Pearl River Delta, as we drew closer to Hong Kong Island, the buildings seemed to rise out of the water, with the green hills behind them.

Although Hong Kong is officially part of China since the end of British rule in 1997, it couldn’t be more different from the mainland. Unlike China, people from most nationalities do not need a visa for entering Hong Kong, and although similar in value, its currency is the Hong Kong Dollar instead of the Chinese Yuan. The silly British custom of driving on the wrong side of the road takes some getting used to again. There’s an armada of double decker buses to complete the extensive and hyper efficient transportation service of the metro in the entire Hong Kong area, and there is even a quaint little tramline in the centre of the city itself. The population is mixed and multi-cultural, with its main Cantonese population, immigrants from the mainland, the Indian subcontinent, the Philippines, Middle East, Europe and North America.

Hong Kong consists of a peninsula with districts like Kowloon and the New Territories. There are a number of islands, most famous being Hong Kong Island, the administrative and business centre. Lantau island is where the busy airport is located, and there are a number of smaller islands.

I had chosen to stay in Kowloon, or the area of Tsim Sha Tsui to be exact. Near the waterfront, there is a beautiful view of Victoria Harbour and the city across the water, and as you look at the hundreds of skyscrapers, freight ships and ferries go by. The first evening after my arrival, a show called “A Symphony Of Lights” was on, held every Saturday evening during the summer months. A number of harbourfront buildings in the city were lit with different colours of floodlights, and synchronised to the music, a fireworks and laser show erupted over the buildings, a magical sight.

The next morning, I took the Star Ferry across the harbour to Hong Kong Island, and went into the city. Walking around in Central for the first time is a wonderful experience. I have always been interested in the modern architecture of cities, having made several documentaries on the subject. Hong Kong is a haven for people like me, and I frequently strained my neck, looking up at the enormous structures, skyscrapers of concrete and steel and glass, while trying not to bump into too many people. On a visit to the beautiful botanical gardens, I took the Central-Mid-Levels Escalator, basically a giant series of escalators and so-called travelators. It runs 800 meters up the hill, connecting the lower streets near the harbour to the residential areas, with towering apartment complexes on impossible slopes. There is also a lovely little funicular railway, called the Peak Tram, in operation since 1888, which brings you up the Peak. It’s a residential area with lots of green, and the views over the city, Victoria Harbour and Kowloon in the distance are breathtaking.

The architecture in the city is as diverse as the people, and some of the world’s most renowned architects have designed stunning buildings here. Like in China, most buildings have been designed with feng shui as an essential part of the preparations. Meaning “wind and water", it’s a form of geomancy, and it proposes the positioning of a building and even an ideal form for a structure, according to the spiritual attributes of a landscape and its surroundings. A striking building houses the headquarters of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Designed by Sir Norman Foster, it is more than 178 meters tall, and is supported on giant pillars. It has a transparent floor, and as you walk underneath it, you can look up into the heart of the building, a colossal glass atrium. The Lippo Centre with its awkward, bulging shapes is also an eye-catcher, designed by Paul Rudolph. And then there is the more than 367 meters tall Bank of China Tower, world-renowned and it features on Hong Kong’s bank notes. It was designed by I.M. Pei. However, for this building, feng shui was bypassed, and it’s therefor disliked by a lot of Hong Kong residents.

On another day, I took a ferry to Lantau island, almost twice the size of Hong Kong Island. It features a couple of older seaside villages, and as half of the island is designated as parkland, there are lots of green valleys, lakes, and hills with waterfalls. After the ferry had docked at the small town of Mui Wo on the island, I took a bus to the Po Lin (Precious Lotus) Monastery. Near the monastery, the Tian Tan Buddha sits high up on a hilltop, surrounded by a ring of Bodhisatvas offering various gifts to the Buddha. The statue is 34 meters tall and weighs 250 tons, and it’s the largest seated bronze outdoor Buddha in the world. As you look around, there are emerald coloured hills shrouded in mist, among a serene quietness, a nice change from the busy city.

During my stay, on 1 July, known as Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day, the eighth anniversary of the region’s handover to Chinese sovereignty was celebrated. Thousands of people marched the streets, protesting for more democracy or in support of the Beijing government, and it once again showed the special privileges this part of China enjoys.

Although I couldn’t get enough of Hong Kong, and with a number of places left that I still wanted to visit, it was time for me to go back to the mainland, going on a 26-hour train journey to Shanghai.

Currently, China is experiencing severe floodings, causing over 500 deaths and leaving millions of people homeless across several provinces. What makes this tradegy even worse, is that this happens every year, with rivers incapable of transporting the huge quantities of rainfall during this rainy season. In Guanxi province, I saw some of the damage for myself, with large landslides that had destroyed roads.

Here in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, parts of this big city were flooded due to the quickly risen level of the Pearl River which intersects the city. Shops, homes, restaurants and offices located near the river were affected, and although the floodwaters have receded, sandbags are still piled up near the entrances of metro stations, ready to be used again when needed. Although neighbouring Hong Kong has seen heavy rainfall, here in Guangzhou it has been more or less dry over the past two days.

I went out to explore a small part of the city, mostly on foot, occasionally using the efficient metro. A custom of a large number of Chinese is, very unfortunately, spitting. This is done with great fervour and after a long, audible preparation that is almost as bad as the spitting itself. The Chinese government has been trying to discourage this in view of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and thankfully, there is a “no spitting” sign on Guangzhou’s metro.

I went around town, explored a beautiful Buddhist temple. Although the People’s Republic of China is officially atheist, Buddhism is one of the most followed of religions here. I walked the streets, including some of the many shopping streets with blinking neon signs, sometimes having to actually wrestle myself through the crowds.

One of the reasons I stopped in this city for a couple of days, was to try the Cantonese food, for which this province is famous. People from other provinces in China joke that the Cantonese like to eat anything with legs that isn’t a piece of furniture, and anything with wings that isn’t an airplane. And indeed, in front of many restaurants, there’s usually a small zoo with live animals, ready to be selected by the customer, as the Cantonese demand the freshest of ingredients.

Most Chinese are quite loud, shouting at eachother during normal conversations, yelling at the top of their voice into their mobile phones, and in the restaurants it can feel like you’re dining in a packed football stadium. After dinner, the tables resemble battlefields, littered with the cascasses of slewn poultry, seafood, and what not. But the food is admittedly delicious. Having gone to restaurants where nobody speaks English, and with no menus in English available, I found myself sometimes having to rely on the choice of the waiter or waitress, as they pointed to something on the menu, and exclaimed “haochi!”, meaning “delicious!". These choices have always been fantastic, wonderfully scrumptious suprise dishes.

Another famous part of Cantonese cuisine is yum cha, also known as dim sum, known in Mandarin as dianxin. Usually eaten for breakfast or lunch, it consists of dozens of small delicacies placed inside bamboo steamers, wheeled around on carts by waitresses, and you pick what you like. Most numerous are all kinds of fried or steamed dumplings, beautifully presented and absolutely delectable. Then there are the various kinds of buns, spring rolls, chicken feet, custard tarts, et cetera. For each choice, you receive a stamp on a small card, which you bring to the cashier when you’re finished.

Tomorrow, I will be trying to make my way over the Pearl River to Hong Kong. In Beijing yesterday, Donald Tsang was sworn in as new Chief Executive of this special part of China, where the so-called “one country, two systems” principle is used, to indicate it is part of China, but retains a form of democracy, self-rule, and a legal system inherited from the British. But when I enter Hong Kong, the first entry on my Chinese visa will expire, and I will have to get Hong Kong Dollars, instead of Chinese yuan.

Discovering new countries, always starting over again when visiting an unknown territory, exploring its customs and attempting to understand its language, can be both very exciting and unnerving.

And so I arrived in Nanning, provincial capital of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, exhausted after a long train journey on two different trains from Hanoi, but excited to be in China, or Zhongguo, as the people here call this enormous country.

It was early on a Saturday morning, but the square in front of Nanning’s train station was already filled with people, opening their shops, having a smoke, reading newspapers, chatting, or exercising those interestingly slow gymnastics of tai chi. After a 15 minute walk from the station, I checked into what turned out to be a 2-star hotel, using mainly handsignals in communicating with the receptionists, who spoke no English.

Then, I went out to explore Nanning. I hadn’t known what to expect of China, but it certainly wasn’t this. This city with its new high-rise buildings, its center with luxurious shopping malls and huge department stores, cinemas, nice cafes and restaurants. It was like walking in Singapore, but everything was of course in Chinese, those extremely complex characters, completely incomprehensible to me. Hardly anyone spoke any English, the Mandarin phrasebook I carry with me proved invaluable. The funny thing is, once people see that I don’t understand what they’re saying, they write it down for me, but in Chinese. Nice, but not very helpful.

In this city, I also had my first taste of true Chinese food, not the westernised versions I’ve had in restaurants back home. Even at the cheapest of restaurants or food stalls, the taste of the food is so much more refined than in the other countries I’ve visited. It is absolutely delicious, and there are so many kinds of cuisines to explore in this huge country.

After spending a couple of days in the city, frantically trying to learn at least a little Mandarin, and recovering from somewhat of a culture shock, I was about to go further north in the province. I made my way to a brand new busstation, 3 kilometers from Nanning’s center, servicing the northern lines, and got on the most luxurious coach I’ve ever been on, including during my travels in Europe and Australia. I was astonished to find, for the first time in eight months visiting other countries in Asia, seatbelts for every passenger. After checking the tickets, a coach stewardess in uniform handed out lunch packs, drinks and snacks, and while we were heading to the city of Guilin, the newest movies from Hong Kong were shown on the LCD screen in the front. After a smooth four hour journey, I arrived in Guilin, and got on another coach to the village of Yangshuo.

Located on both sides of the famous Li-river, Yangshuo is a beautiful yet very touristy village. A little relieved to find a disproportionate amount of Chinese who spoke English, I explored the village, and gazed at the surroundings consisting of karst hills and peaks. Yangshuo is completely hemmed in by them, and one even had a pagoda on top, although it is baffling to think how anyone can get up there, seen the near-90 degree angles of the rock walls of the peak.

I went on a boat tour of the Li-river, and looked at the extraordinary scenery, the most unusual mountain ranges I’ve ever seen. They consisted of bizarrely shaped karst peaks everywhere you looked, covered with lush forests and bush. It is no surprise that, over the past centuries, so many writers and painters have been inspired by this unique landscape. A week later, travelling on a bus that would bring me further east, I saw the same scenery around Yangshuo once more, and this nightly landscape was even more bizarre. Backlit by the moon, the unusual shapes of the peaks and hills were perfectly outlined. This didn’t resemble a real landscape, it almost seemed as if a painter had gone to great lengths to paint an ever changing mystical landscape on my window.

After a couple of days, I went back to Guilin, and took two buses that brought me to Ping An, a tiny village high up in the mountains. I had to walk the last kilometer to the village, as cars, motorbikes and bicycles were not allowed in, and couldn’t drive on the tiny rocky path anyway. I checked into one of the highest situated hotels, and the view from my room was the most stunning I’ve ever seen, of dozens, no hundreds of levels of rice terraces carved out of the mountain. This was done some 700 years ago during the Yuan Dynasty, and ever since, huge quantities of rice and corn are grown here by the ethnic Zhuang and the neighbouring Yao people. After a short walk to a viewpoint higher up, even more of the rice terraces were revealed, what the locals call Dragon Spine Rice Terraces, because of the shape. Some farmers, tiny figures in this vast landscape, are planting rice. There are many waterfalls and small brooks, and the locals have used bamboo to build a complex irrigation system, with water continuously flowing into the rice terraces at the top, which then cascades down to the lower levels.

The village itself is quite picturesque, with very large wooden houses connected by a small, occasionally steep rocky path, with bridges over the brooks and near waterfalls, where Zhuang women, wearing traditional clothing, are washing vegetables. A Zhuang man, carrying a knife and some other tools in a woven basket on his back, is guiding a large ox on the small path. The man is wearing the conical hat which I associate with Vietnam, although there, only women wear it. But it rains a lot here, and the hat is very effective as an umbrella. On his shoulder, he is carrying a plough, which he will attach with ropes to the ox and use it on one of the terraces, to prepare for the planting of rice.

It is very peaceful here, quiet in this village, the air fresh and cool. Sometimes buildings and landscape are suddenly enveloped in clouds, and everything is white and faded. On clear moments, I made several walks to the lookout point, and just sat there and gazed. It is a stunning and breathtaking scenery, these terraces, the deep valley, the green mountains opposite.

But it was time to move on, as I did, heading to the large city of Guangzhou, in neighbouring Guangdong province. A city of millions, I couldn’t have picked a more different environment, but such are the contrasts in China.

The last city I visited in Vietnam is its capital, Hanoi. During my first visit to Vietnam, it was the starting point of my voyage through this country, and I instantly liked the city. If you forget about the mad traffic for a moment, the city is really charming with its old center with narrow streets, just north of Hoan Kiem lake. There, a number of streets are named after the products that virtually every shop in the street sells, like Hang Bo, with Hang meaning “merchandise” and Bo stands for “baskets". There is a Hang Manh for bamboo screens, and a Hang Muoi, for salt.

There are of course many family restaurants, with delicious food, served usually within a minute after ordering. And then the many coffeeshops, where you can sit down and relax, and watch life going by on the busy street in front of you. Many women, wearing the typically Vietnamese conical hat, carrying a bamboo pole on one shoulder with two baskets attached to it. They sell fruit or carry all kinds of goods. Across some streets, there are red banners with slogans in Vietnamese, reminding you that you’re in a socialist country: “Honesty, Nobility, Solidarity!", or “Long Live President Ho Chi Minh!". Every hundred meters or so people ask you if you want their motorbike taxi services, very cheap (after bargaining) and very fast.

Hanoi is also the city where you can see Ho Chi Minh, or Uncle Ho as he is fondly known, in the mausoleum built after his death. Next to the building, two large banners proclaiming “The Socialist Republic Of Vietnam Will Live On!", and “President Ho Chi Minh Will Walk With Us Forever!", facing the large square that is crowded with people and dignitaries on special occassions. Soldiers in khaki or bright white uniforms guard the mausoleum, and inside is the body of the late Ho Chi Minh, subtly lit in a glass sarcophagus, emphasising his thin white hair, goatee and his bony hands.

The mausoleum is surrounded by large botanical gardens with enormous trees and plants from all over the country, and they were well kept by a dozen female workers with those typical straw hats again. Further on, there is Unclo Ho’s presidential palace, his residential house, and his semi-residential bungalow, completely made out of teak wood, with a carp-filled pond in front of it.

Also on the mausoleum terrain is the famous One Pillar Pagoda, originally constructed by Emperor Ly Thai Tong, who ruled from 1028-1054, destroyed by the French upon leaving Hanoi in 1954, and rebuilt by the Vietnamese government. This small pagoda on an enormous stone pillar has a buddha statue in it, surrounded by flowers and other offerings, and incense.

There are a lot of Chinese influences everywhere in Hanoi, from the Temple of Literature, dedicated to Confucius, to the many Chinese gates, temples and pagodas in this city. The Chinese / Japanese style (fat) Buddha can be seen a lot here, and sometimes statues of Confucius, Vietnamese emperors, and occasionally the more slimmed down Thai version of Buddha. In the center of Hanoi is a Catholic church, a dark grey structure resembling the Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cite in Paris.

By now, I spoke enough Vietnamese to have basic conversations, and it helps enormously with negotiating to get the right price for transportation, or for that nice t-shirt you want to buy. Usually, the asking price is about five times as high as the actual price, and if negotiating doesn’t get the price down enough, the tactic of walking away helps. The vendor shouts out the lowest price, in the hope you turn around. Some people confided in me, in Vietnamese, that the asking price would have been much higher, if I wouldn’t have spoken in Vietnamese to them.

Unfortunately, after several weeks revisiting wonderful Vietnam, it was time for me to leave. My next destination was going to be China, and I was very excited that my explorations of this huge and unfamiliar country were about to start.

Nha Trang, on Vietnam’s south-central coast, is very touristy, and like most places in Vietnam, it has changed drastically over the past decade. It now has hundreds of hotels for the large number of Vietnamese and foreign tourists who want to spend some time in this pleasant city, and it seems that every week, construction starts on a new hotel, even more luxurious than the others.

I was excited to be back in this city, to meet some of the friends I had made during previous visits, and to see all of the now very familiar places, coffeeshops and restaurants again. The long beach is wonderful, and Nha Trang could almost be mistaken for a Mediterranean town, were it not for the many pictures and paintings of Ho Chi Minh, and slogans in Vietnamese like “Nha Trang Is The City Of Heroes", referring to the resistance during the American War.

In the evenings, young couples drive on scooters or motorbikes on the main boulevard along the beach, to see and be seen, and a special section of the beach is crowded after dark with parked motorbikes, where couples are kissing, as this, or even holding hands, is unheard of during the day.

From Nha Trang, I made a short excursion to Dalat. It is a cool mountain resort in the central highlands, and is a famous honeymooning resort for Vietnamese couples because of its climate and idyllic location. There is indeed some beautiful scenery to explore around Dalat, which I did on a rented motorbike, as I drove on winding roads through mountains covered with lush forests, visiting some large waterfalls a dozen kilometers away from the town.

Back in Nha Trang, I bought a ticket for a night bus to the small town of Hoi An. It is just south of the central Vietnamese city of Danang, and it is one of my favourite places in Vietnam. A Unesco World Heritage site, it is a very picturesque riverside town with narrow streets and old houses, many beautiful pagodas and Chinese temples with nice gardens. Some of the many wooden buildings date back to early 19th century. It is very touristy, but this doesn’t diminish the feeling you get, of being in an open-air museum of historical Vietnam, when you walk through Hoi An. The town is also famous for manufacturing clothes, and the hundreds of tailors can produce basically anything you want in 24 hours, including copies of your favourite shirts or trousers, in the material of your choosing.

After a couple of days, I travelled further north to Hue, located on either side of the wide Perfume River. Around Hue, there are a number of interesting pagodas and tombs of emperors to be explored. Close to the city, the Thien Mu pagoda is where monk Thich Quang Duc used to live. Although not famous by name, photographs of him were printed on the front pages of newspapers and magazines all around the world, as he burned himself to death in Saigon on 11 June 1963, in protest of the policies of the brutal South-Vietnamese Diem regime.

The old part of the city, on the north side of the river, is situated inside a moated citadel. It is here where the Imperial Enclosure and the Forbidden Purple City are located, home to the emperors of the Nguyen dynasty, until the end of World War II, when Emperor Bao Dai abdicated to Ho Chi Minh’s Provisional Revolutionary Government. Although much of the historical buildings and temples were destroyed during the American War, some of the residences, halls, palaces and gates have been restored, and are well worth a visit.

After visiting the Imperial Enclosure, I cycled around on a rented bicycle through the old city, and stopped near Tinh Tam Lake, where I enjoyed an absolutely delicious bun bo Hue, a local specialty, consisting of rice vermicelli and vegetables with beef soup. Another of my favourite dishes, sold everywhere in Vietnam, is pho bo, or beef noodle soup, to which you add some extra flavour by using the nuoc mam, or fish sauce, and of course chillies. What you’ll probably want to give a miss is the absolutely foul smelling mam nem, a different kind of fermented fish sauce and uniquely Vietnamese, it has the strongest stench I’ve ever encountered, worse than the already very unpleasant odour of the durian fruit. Both are, not unlike those British and Australian concoctions of condiments called Marmite and Vegemite, an acquired taste (to say the least).

After a couple of days in Hue, a long busride brought me to Hanoi, my last stop before I would go to China.

After spending some time in the south of Cambodia, on the deserted beaches of Sihanoukville, or Kampong Som, with seawater with a temperature approaching that of a hot bath, I returned to Phnom Penh.

From there, I took a bus that brought me to the border with Vietnam, and after the customs formalities, I was on my way to Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, also known as Saigon.

From 1859, most of Vietnam was under French rule. During World War II, Japanese forces occupied Vietnam, frequently attacked by the largely communist Viet Minh resistance forces, led by Nguyen Tat Thanh (1890-1969), more widely known as Ho Chi Minh, or Bringer of Light. After the end of World War II, French troops tried in vain to regain control of their former colony, until their catastrophic defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

The Geneva Accords that followed allowed for a temporary division of the country along the 17th Parallel, until a possible reunification. The north of Vietnam, known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was led by Ho Chi Minh, and the south, or Republic of Vietnam, had Ngo Dinh Diem as head of state. Diem, who used nepotism and a near-tyrannical rule to remain in power, refused to implement the Geneva Accords to reunify Vietnam. What followed was a war between the north and south, during which American support to the south increased from a handful of “military advisers” to hundreds of thousands of troops. What is known everywhere else as the “Vietnam War", is referred to as the “American War” here, and its outcome is now famous.

When the war was over, Saigon was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City, and Vietnam was once again united, with Hanoi being its present day capital.

I have visited Vietnam twice before, and it is nice to be in a familiar country again. Also, the fact that the Vietnamese language uses the Roman script makes things a lot easier, although its pronunciation is very difficult.

After arriving in Ho Chi Minh City, I was again reminded of how bad the Vietnamese traffic is. Of all the countries I have visited in Asia, nowhere is the traffic as bad and seemingly suicidal as here. As usual, there are more motorbikes than cars on the streets, and none of the drivers wear helmets. Motorbikes coming from side streets hardly slow down and never look, putting their faith in their God and the drivers behind them. On the roads connecting the towns and cities, it seems that overtaking is a necessity when there is absolutely no way to know if there is any oncoming traffic. Therefor, it’s not a question if you see any accidents or their aftermath, but how many.

Ho Chi Minh City is huge, with wide boulevards connecting the different quarters. I visited the Reunification Palace, formerly the seat of the South Vietnamese government before tanks from the North Vietnamese army crushed the gates in front of the palace on 30 April 1975, signaling the liberation of Saigon. The elaborately decorated rooms are now occasionally used for government meetings, and the Palace took centre stage on 30 April of this year, during the celebrations to mark 30 years since the end of the American War.

Vietnam is the number two coffee producing country in the world, and I frequently enjoyed this delicious coffee (usually served with condensed milk) in some of the many coffeeshops in the city. Some are stunningly beautiful, with elaborate gardens, ponds filled with enormous fish, caged singing birds, and sitting here is a nice change from being in the busy, polluted streets.

After several days of exploring the city, with its striking mix of French and socialist architecture, I made my way further north, to the city of Nha Trang, with its beautiful beach, looking out over the South China Sea.

From Siem Reap, I went by bus to Cambodia’s second city, Battambang. The roads were quite bad during most of the long trip, and we stopped for lunch in a town with the intruiging sounding name of Sisophon, where young kids sold the most delicious mangos I’ve ever tasted.

Battambang means “disappearing stick", named after a powerful stick used by legendary Khmer king Ta Dambong Kranhoung, to achieve and maintain power in the Battambang area. You wouldn’t say it’s Cambodia’s second city, it has more of a small town feel about it, with the central market and small shops and cafes located near the Sanker river. In the evenings, the streets are deserted, the dark sky filled with stars.

I went for a tour around the countryside on a motorbike with a nice guide called Thon, a little over thirty years old. We drove over extremely dusty roads to Phnom Sampeou, or Boat Hill, named for its shape. As we were walking up the hill, Thon started telling me about his childhood here. How he was seperated from his parents at the age of 5, during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, and put in a large camp with 500 other children, not far from Phnom Sampeou. He told me about the famine, how they received a littlebit of rice once a day if they were lucky. His sister, age 10, was so hungry that she stole a banana. For this, she was killed by the Khmer Rouge. Less than half of the 500 children in the camp survived.

We reached the top of the hill, offering a spectacular view of the surrounding plains and the small hills in the distance. Thon explained that there are still many landmines in this area, even though a large clearing effort has been underway for quite some time now. I thought of the groups of men and women I had seen near the temples of Angkor, who had lost limbs because of those landmines, and were now performing traditional Cambodian music, asking for a small donation.

Standing at the top of Phnom Sampeou, we walked to the horrible sites of the “Killing Caves". Thon explained how, back then, he had seen groups of 20 to 30 people, men, women and children, being marched up the hill every day, never to return. They were thrown from great height into the caves, or beaten to death. There are now small shrines, with the skeletal remains of the victims, inside the caves.

During a surge in fighting, Thon, still a young child, fled the camp, aided by a couple who took him as one of their own children, as they ran through the jungle for several days, to the relative safety near the Thai border. Miraculously, he met his mother underway, and although he didn’t recognise her, she recognised her son, and took him into her arms. Although the couple wanted to take Thon into the refugee camps, and eventually to the United States, his mother wouldn’t hear of it. Now, Thon still sees the couple, who aided his escape, as his second parents, and they regularly visit him from the US.

Back in his home village, he was conscripted into the army when he was 16, to fight the remaining Khmer Rouge elements, alongside the Vietnamese army with their Russian tanks and heavy artillery. Thon imitated the sounds of bullets whizzing by and mortar shells exploding, as he told about his comrades dying around him, about how he prayed to Buddha to give him strength, how he wore his krama (traditional scarf) for protection.

Thon narrated everything with half a smile, as to indicate I shouldn’t be put off by this, as if that was then and now we live in a different age. Sometimes, he would go quiet and his smile disappeared. Then he would point some beautiful flowers out to me, growing near one of the caves. Thon still lives in his home village, and plants and harvests rice for most of the year, on several hectares of farmland in and around his village. In the dry season, he shows tourists like me around on the back of his motorbike, going through the beautiful countryside that is his home.

In the end of the afternoon, we drove on, through small villages, where people would stop what they’re doing and look at the foreigner. Children came running out of their houses and yell “hello!” or “bye bye!” to me. Most houses were simple huts, made from bamboo or wood, sometimes with small reservoirs of muddy brown water nearby. Occasionally, we would drive through herds of cows or buffaloes, being herded by a young kid. We drove alongside the wide Sangker river for a while, where people were bathing, washing clothes, or allowing their buffaloes to drink. Even then, people would look up at the sound of the motorbike, and wave.

Towards the end of our journey, we reached a small train track, now only used by a tiny bamboo train, assembled in front of your eyes within five minutes. It is used by locals to haul all kinds of goods from village to village, and for tourists who wish to experience a ride. Although the engine is tiny, the ‘train’ reaches speeds up to 80 kph, as you sit out in the open on mats on the small bamboo surface. As the landscape was whizzing by, I watched the sun set over the brown acres, and soon dusk changed everything into a dark blue colour.

Dusty, tired, but grateful, I eventually arrived at my hotel, and thanked Thon. After a shower and dinner, I spent some time on the rooftop of the hotel, where, laying in a hammock, I watched the skies filled with stars, and counted the many bright shooting stars. I thought about my experiences of this day, but inevitably thought about Thon’s personal history. It seems that every Cambodian I meet, of my age or above, has a story to tell of their own horrible experiences, of the deaths in their family or circle of friends, during Cambodia’s dark times. But going through the rebuilt villages and cities, meeting the very friendly people, seeing how babies and young children are now brought up in a country at peace, is a testament to the resiliance of the Cambodian people, and gives hope for the future.

During the long busride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, I gazed at the scenery of stretched out plains with sparse palmtrees as far as the eye could see. Underway, during the several stops we made, I enjoyed the milky white seeds of the lotus plant, which were sold as snacks.

Siem Reap is extremely touristy, and it’s probably Cambodia’s most expensive town, but it’s a base from which to explore the temples of Angkor.

“Angkor” literally means “Capital City” or “Holy City", and was indeed the capital of the Khmer empire between the 9th and 12th centuries, before Phnom Penh was established as a capital in 1432. During the Angkor era, many kings ordered the construction of temples, villages and many hospitals, as well as large water reservoirs, or barays. Most notably, king Suryavarman II ordered the construction of the famed Angkor Wat, as well as a number of surrounding temples. Several decades later, Jayavarman II launched a building campaign, during which hundreds of monuments and temples were constructed in less than a 40-year period.

The art and architecture of the temples are strongly influenced by the religion of the time. For over 350 years, Hinduism was dominant, until Mahayana Buddhism was made the state religion by Jayavarman II, followed by a Hindu resurgence, during which many Buddhist monuments, statues and carvings were vandalized.

At the entrance of the park, I purchased a three-day pass, and I spent two days going from temple to temple on the back of a motorbike with a local guide. On the last day, I rented a bicycle, and cycled through the incredible heat, revisiting some temples, and visiting some unseen ones.

Angkor Wat, the most famous temple of them all, is indeed very impressive. It’s surrounded by a moat and a large exterior wall. After going through the gate, approaching the temple along the long walkway, the five beehive-like towers seem to rise out of the structure. When you finally stand in the inner courtyard, you feel tiny indeed. The steps leading up to the towers are very, very steep, but you are rewarded with a spectacular view of the surrounding jungle once you stand at the top. The long walls of the temple complex are covered with bas-reliefs and nearly 2000 Apsara carvings, of mythological celestial nymphs. There are incredibly detailed reliefs depicting stories and characters from Hindu mythology, and historical wars.

Even more stunning than Angkor Wat was, in my opinion, Bayon. It is a massive temple, with hundreds of large smiling faces, more than 2 meters tall, carved out of big slabs of stone. Inside, there is a maze of corridors and small plazas, and bas-reliefs on the exterior walls, depicting battle scenes including the historical sea battle between the Khmer and the Cham, from a neighbouring state in the south of Vietnam. There are also extensive and intruiging carvings depicting scenes of everyday life, including market scenes, cockfighting, chess games and even childbirth.

The monastic complex of Ta Phrom is fascinating in the way how it has slowly been overtaken by the surrounding jungle. Massive fig and silk-cotton trees grow from the towers and corridors, and have knocked down walls, leaving much of the complex in ruins. Its dark corridors are quiet, standing in the open plazas you hear the sounds of the jungle, as you look at the giant trees, their roots thicker than a man’s waist.

There are too many temples to see, each with their own distinct style, religious influence and historical significance. Although three days only allowed me to see a fraction of the number of temples, it was an amazing experience. As you walk around in this old city, you cannot help but wish to be transported back in time, to see Angkor in its full glory, to experience daily life in this advanced, thriving culture.

In the center of Phnom Penh, Tuol Sleng is located, a former highschool consisting of four large buildings. In May of 1976, the Khmer Rouge established S-21 here, or Security Office 21. Although it was the most secret of offices of the Khmer Rouge, people living in close proximity to the former highschool soon knew what its function was, from the screams and the stench of death.

Then the Khmer Rouge’s premier prison and interrogation facility, it is now a genocide museum and monument for the victims. Around 18,000 people, who were deemed enemies of Democratic Kampuchea, the new name the Khmer Rouge had given to the country, were imprisoned, tortured and executed here. Of the eighteen thousand, only seven people survived.

The classrooms were converted into torture chambers or into rows of tiny holding cells, where the prisoners were shackled with chains fixed to the walls or the concrete floors. There were also mass holding cells, where the prisoners had one or both their legs shackled to the now infamous iron bars, that are also on display in the museum.

Not unlike the Nazi regime during World War II, the leadership of S-21 documented and photographed every prisoner that was brought in. The photographs are now on display, thousands of them, and are a testament to the madness and the indiscriminate killings of the Khmer Rouge. Men, boys, women, girls, babies. Their faces expressionless, as if they had resigned to their horrible fate, or frozen in fear. Women tightly holding their newborns, before their babies were taken away from them, and the women raped.

The leadership of S-21 had indoctrinated children to work as exceptionally cruel guards in the facility. After months of torture, where one would confess to basically anything the guards would accuse them of, the victims were taken away. If they hadn’t already succumbed during torture, they were executed at one of the many Killing Fields, scattered around the country.

The most infamous of these Killing Fields is the large area near the village of Choeng Ek, located just outside of Phnom Penh. A memorial stupa has been built here, containing the skulls, bones and clothing of the thousands of victims, their bodies dug up from the 88 mass graves in this area. Now large empty pits, there are signs indicating how many bodies had been found, and descriptions of the utterly horrible way they died.

If it were not for the sepia colour, it seems that the photographs of the victims at Tuol Sleng could have been taken a week ago. Indeed, it is chilling to realise that this all took place under 30 years ago, exactly 30 years after the world promised at the sight of Nazi destruction camps, never to let this happen again. In fact, the Khmer Rouge received western support and even recognition through a seat in the UN General Assembly.

Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, died in April of 1998, forever robbing Cambodians of some form of justice. Only one month ago, the green light was given by the UN to set up a special tribunal to try former leaders of the Khmer Rouge, who now live a quiet life in the small town of Pailin, close to the Thai border.

Visiting Tuol Sleng and Choeng Ek is, however horrible and depressing, a necessity to get a true impression of the events that took place here not that long ago. But I was glad to soon be able to see the other side of Cambodia’s history: it’s unequalled achievements in arts and architecture at Angkor, near the town of Siem Reap.

The Kingdom of Cambodia became independent in 1953 after nearly a century of French rule. Like Laos and Vietnam, Cambodia endured extensive carpet-bombing by the American Forces from 1969, with the aim of disrupting the arms supply to communist forces in Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and to destroy suspected communist base camps in Cambodia. Shortly after, a coup d’etat forced King Norodom Sihanouk to flee to China, after which American and South Vietnamese troops invaded the country to root out Vietnamese communist forces. This attempt failed, and Cambodia’s indigenous rebels, the Khmer Rouge, captured Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975.

What followed were four years of the most brutal and genocidal rule by the Khmer Rouge under leader Pol Pot, also known as Brother Number One. French-educated Pol Pot aimed to transform Cambodia into a Maoist, peasant-dominated, agrarian cooperative. To achieve this goal, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, including the vast majority of the country’s educated people, were relocated into the countryside, tortured to death or executed. In the chaos that followed, many more people died as a result of famine or diseases, as the country went through the darkest moments in its history. It is estimated that between one and two and a half million people died during these four years.

As the Khmer Rouge carried out frequent incursions into Vietnam, killing Vietnamese and destroying villages, the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia at the end of 1978 and managed to overthrow the Khmer Rouge. In 1991, a peace accord was signed in Paris, the Vietnamese army withdrew one year later, and in 1993, UN-administered elections were held.

Today, Cambodian politics are relatively stable, but deep scars remain from decades of war. In October of 2004, King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated, and his son, King Norodom Sihamoni became the new king of Cambodia.

From the uninteresting town of Stung Treng, located at around 50 kilometers from the border with Laos, I took a bus to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. During the first half of the 10-hour journey, we drove on the worst roads that I have come across during my 7 months of travelling. They actually don’t deserve the designation ‘roads’, just dirt tracks with lots and lots of potholes. Fortunately, after the town of Kratie, the roads improved, as we drove through small villages with wooden houses that had tiled roofs. A lot of Non-Governmental Organisations still provide relief aid and healthcare to villages in the countryside, as Cambodia, like Laos, is very poor. There were also many signs for local offices of the nation’s political parties, like the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the United Front for an Independent, Neutral and Free Cambodia (Funcinpec, a French acronym), and the only opposition party of note, the Sam Rainsy Party.

Underway, there were many new Buddhist temples, built in the past two decades. A lot of the older ones had been destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, with many monks killed. Nowadays, the monks, dressed in their bright orange robes, walk on the streets again, sometimes carrying orange umbrellas to provide some relief from the sun.

In the city of Kampong Cham, we stopped for a short toilet break, and women approached the bus, carrying large plates with the famous local specialty of this province: fried spider. They were the large, Tarantula kind, black, and dipped in soy sauce. They proved hugely popular, as all the Cambodians on our bus, including their children, ate them. Eager as I am to explore everything that the cuisine of a country I’m visiting has on offer, I thought that I’d better give this a miss. However, a Cambodian man who had just bought a whole bag with eight-legged snacks, offered me one, and as I thought it impolite to refuse (and as all the Cambodians were watching me), I accepted the snack. I ignored my inner voice that screamed I was completely mad, and ate the spider. You eat the whole thing, it’s crunchy, with a rather sweet taste from the soy sauce, not bad actually. But eating the legs and the fangs is just weird, and cracking its body open with your teeth, revealing a little bit of meaty flesh inside, requires quite some preseverance.

But we soon were on our way again, driving alongside the wide Mekhong river, and after a couple of hours reached the busy city of Phnom Penh. Mainly due to tourism, it has changed radically in the past two decades, and it’s now a modern city with traffic that makes your blood pressure rise beyond acceptable levels.

I would spend the next couple of days exploring the city, and see the evidence of the madness of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

During at least three days, the Buddhist New Year known as Songkran or Pimai, is celebrated everywhere in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. During this holiday, families visit Buddhist temples to pay respect to Buddha, by pouring perfumed water over the many Buddha statues, by praying, and by offering food and water to the monks. On the streets, it’s a wild party involving lots of water, talcum powder, and lipstick.

It was no different in Pakse, where I was walking near the central market, and I soon found myself absolutely soaked in water. A number of Laotian boys and girls, drinking beer and dancing to western music, then covered my face with talcum powder and lots of lipstick. Small kids walk around with Super Soaker squirt guns, almost twice their size, and take aim at anyone who happens to pass by. Pickup trucks drive by, and from the back, kids throw water from huge jars at anyone within their reach. It’s lots of fun, especially as it’s so hot, this is the hottest month in the region.

Further south of Pakse, the beautiful Si Phan Don, or Four Thousand Islands area is located, where islands in the Mekhong offer a beautiful view of life passing by on the river. Many small boats ferry passengers or provisions from island to island. Don Khong is the largest island, and during a walk on a small dusty road in a village on the east side of the island, I was immediately invited to drink some rice wine, and then celebrate the New Year with a group of already very cheerful Laotians.

Further south, Don Det is smaller, but quite pleasant. Near the boat landing, I went for a swim in the Mekhong river during sunset, which was great, or looked out over the river from the hammock in front of my bungalow.

Just south of Don Det, the large Khon Pha Pheng waterfalls are located, according to the signs the largest ones in South East Asia. You can hear the thunderous sound of the rapids, cascading down several levels, when you approach the area. Many tourists from Laos and its neighbouring countries were there, having picnics, or going for a swim near the waterfalls, of course fully clothed.

Further upriver, a large New Year’s party was held, with hundreds of Laotians dancing to loud music in front of two stages. Unlike in Thailand or Vietnam, the women join the men in drinking (large quantities of) beer, the faces of both men and women red and white from lipstick and talcum powder. The atmosphere was very friendly, smiles everywhere, and they just love it when a tourist joins the celebrations.

Unfortunately, my time in Laos was coming to an end, and after quite a frustrating time at the border, where the officials from both countries knew exactly how to have every tourist part with a moderate amount of dollars, I went on dusty roads into the Kingdom of Cambodia.

I started getting ill in Phonsavan, a fever accompanied a throat ache that was so bad it left me unable to eat anything for several days. My condition deteriorated during the long 10-hour busride back to Vientiane, on an ancient Korean bus that sounded more like a large Russian helicopter. Along the way, we had to stop several times for on-the-fly repairs to its engine, but eventually reached Vientiane in the evening.

In Vientiane, I went to the International Clinic, part of the Mahosot hospital. The only difference between the two is that at the Clinic, prices are higher, and the doctors and nurses speak a little French or English. I was examined first by a nurse, then by a doctor, in a room filled with mosquitos. The doctor quickly diagnosed me with tonsillitis, and then prescribed three injections and a one-week follow-up course of antibiotics to battle the infection. The intravenous antibiotics were stored in those glass vials that I only recognised from movies and reminded me of World War II and morphine. Tap-tap-tap of the finger against the top of the vial, then the breaking of the top. The beautiful, friendly Laotian nurse took the better part of a half hour to administer the drugs, while commenting on how handsome I was, which admittedly helps the recovery process quite a lot. After two more days of injections, I felt a lot better. I started eating a little bit again, and soon had completely recovered.

Through a chance meeting, I had been invited to attend a village festival, in the small village of Song Pueai, a half hour from Vientiane. Every village in Laos has such a three-day festival, although on different dates, and all the villagers work together to organise a number of parties at the homes in the village, the community hall, or the local temple. I was staying at the house of the mayor of Song Pueai, a pleasant man who spoke no English, and I was once again humbled by the friendliness and hospitality of the family and the many friends, neighbours, village officials and policemen who came to visit. The mother and daughters in the family had prepared two dozen different kinds of dishes, delicious Laotian food. One glass of beer went round and round, and in between I was offered many glasses of Lao lao, or the very strong Laotian rice whiskey.

In the evening, we all went to the local temple, where in the field behind it a stage had been set up. A band was playing Laotian pop music, which did remind me of sixties Rock & Roll, but then with Laotian singing and melody. As soon as one song started, the area in front of the stage was filled with the 100+ people, young and old, who had come to the party, dancing in that conservative Laotian style where both women and men wave their arms and hands a lot, and move a little with their feet. As soon as one song was finished, the dance area was seemingly evacuated, as everyone rushed back to their tables and chairs to enjoy some more Beerlao. Some announcements followed, another song started, and the dance area was filled again. Meanwhile, some soldiers who had assumed a policing role walked around carrying their AK-47 rifles, while their platoon commander was being offered many drinks and cigarettes.

Several times, there was a traditional opening of the dance, when the names of three women would be called out by the announcer, and they came forward to the dancefloor. Then, the names of three men, who came forward to invite the women to dance, after which the rest of the crowd filled the dancefloor. As a guest of the mayor’s family, this happened to me as well, my name announced as Mr. Pleesot from prathet Hawlen, or The Netherlands. Together with the platoon commander and a son of the mayor, I went to the dancefloor and invited one of the three women, a friend of the mayor’s family called Pheng, to dance with me, by making the traditional wai gesture, placing your palms together while bowing your head slightly.

I stayed that night in the house of the family, on the first and only floor of the house, and was awakened very early the following morning by the now familiar sound of chickens, roosters, buffaloes, dogs and cats. After breakfast and saying many thanks to the family, I went back to Vientiane by songthaew.

From Vientiane, I continued on towards the town of Savannakhet, over 450 kms southeast of Vientiane. It’s a provincial capital that functions as a trading post between Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Again the French influence, as you walk past old colonial villas that are so badly maintained that they now resemble ruins. A group of boys is playing jeu de boules in the small town center. Nearby, the Laotian red, blue with white flag is posted next to the everpresent red and yellow hammer-and-sickle flag. The Vietnamese influence is most visible nowadays, however, with signs in both Laotian and Vietnamese, and many of the locals speak both. There is a local Vietnamese school, a Mahayana Buddhist temple, and even a Catholic church. While in Savannakhet, I visited That Ing Hang, the holiest religious site for the Laotians. It’s a nine meter high tower with a traditional Lao stupa, built in the mid-16th century, and has a large collection of Buddha statues.

But soon, I was on my way again, to the town of Pakse, and the Laotian New Year was about to start.

On the way to Vang Vieng, a small town on the banks of the Mekhong, it became more clear how poor most Laotians are. The bus drove through tiny villages, with rudimentary huts, built from wood or flimsy boards of woven banana leaves, with thatched roofs. Children playing along the side of the road, a group of villagers working together to built a communal hall. Patches of ground had been set on fire, leaving the red soil bare, to prepare for the planting of rice once the rainy season starts, in a month or so.

Vang Vieng is a small, sleepy town, roughly halfway between Luang Phabang and Vientiane, and I spent several days here. From the veranda of my bungalow, I enjoyed the scenic view of the Mekhong river, and a rugged green mountain range behind it. Interestingly, a lot of the restaurants in Vang Vieng have now completely adapted to the tourists, and continuously show episodes of the US television series Friends.

Vientiane, the capital of Laos, still has somewhat of a French feel about it, with a number of wide boulevards, and Patuxay, a Laotian version of the Arc de Triomphe. Vendors on the streets sell pate, or baguettes with corned beef and vegetables, and there are many small bakeries with croissants and pain au chocolat. Many of the signs in front of government buildings, hospitals or university faculties are in both Laotian and French, and there are still a number of colonial villas, in various states of disrepair. Also here, some stunning temples, and That Luang is an impressive stupa on the east side of Vientiane, with a gilded structure that is almost too bright to look at in the sunlight.

From Vientiane, a ten hour busride on very winding roads, brought me to the town of Phonsavan, in Xieng Khuang province. For security purposes, a man sat in the back of the bus, armed with an AKS-47 assault rifle, not an unusual sight in Laos. Over the past years, there have been some occurances of robberies by bandits along the main routes leading through Laos. Along the way, I admired the stunning scenery, rugged mountains and deep valleys with palm trees and rice fields. Occasionally, the bus had to slow down for crossing buffaloes. Apart from that, traffic was minimal, with a truck or bus coming towards us every half hour or so.

In the area of Xieng Khuang province, thousands of stone jars are scattered around the plains, several thousands years old. Although their origins and purpose still are a mystery, one of the predominant theories is that they were used as funerary urns, placed on auspicious locations, so that the spirits of the dead could watch over the living. If this theory holds true, the jars in this province of Laos are the earliest remaining examples of Asian funerary customs. It is a beautiful yet strange site, seeing hundreds of jars in various sizes, some nearly two meters in diameter, some with their large lids next to them. The area had been bombed extensively by the American forces during the 1970s, causing great damage to landscape, vegetation (defoliants were used) and jars. The landscape is still quite visibly pockmarked. And then there is the invisible danger, with the paths leading to the jars clearly marked with white and red stones. White areas had been sub-surface searched, but red areas only visually searched, and therefor might still contain landmines.

Unfortunately, it was soon after my visit to Xieng Khuang province, that I found myself in need of medical attention, in one of the last countries I had hoped this would happen in.

You must have a heart of stone if you’re not charmed by this country, its spectacular scenery, and the friendly people. Although I arrived in Laos only six days ago, I immediately knew I would like this place, and I soon found out what my fellow travellers, who had visited Laos before, were raving on about.

In early history, Laos was known as Lan Xang, or Land of a Million Elephants. A former French colony, Laos gained independence in 1953, after which years of civil war followed. The US started carpet bombing eastern Laos extensively during the Vietnam war, with the aim of eliminating the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong, who were taking refuge in Laos and used the Ho Chi Minh trail, which ran partly through Laos, to supply their troops in Vietnam. It wasn’t until 1975 when Laos saw relative peace (and also the end of the monarchy), with the foundation of the communist Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Sathalanalat Pasathipatai Pasason Lao), or Lao PDR. Both tradition and language are very similar to those of Thailand, and the majority of the Lao are Theravada Buddhist, with animism and ancestral worship among the tribal minorities scattered around Laos. Sadly, it is also one of the poorest countries in the world.

I entered the country by taking a ferry (capacity: 6 people) across the Mekhong river, and spent the night at the sleepy village of Huay Xay, where I would take a long-distance ferry further into Laos the following morning.

The 16-hour trip was spread out over two days, on a boat that could seat about 60 people, mostly tourists. Traffic on the wide and murky brown Mekhong was not that busy, only a handful of cargo ships, while I watched the scenery of Laos on my left side and Thailand on my right, their different flags posted clearly visible on several buildings along the way. As we went further down south, and then east, the Mekhong brought us deeper into Laos, leaving Thailand behind. The scenery was quite pretty, the banks littered with rocks, further up thick forests and green hills, small villages with huts, an elephant carrying large logs. Buffaloes were grazing or taking a bath, fishermen waved their nets through the water, children were swimming. The boat stopped several times at tiny villages to let Laotians on or off. Meanwhile on the boat, a group of Irishmen and -women were celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day, consuming quantities of alcohol that would instantly kill people of other nationalities. Occasionally, a small speedboat would go by, most of its occupants wearing helmets, its 40 hp engine was so incredibly loud that your eardrums hurt.

I spent the night at the small village of Pakbeng, in the western province of Udomxai in Laos, where electricity was provided by generators to a handful of houses, while most of the small restaurants and shops only had candle light. Around 9 pm, it got quieter in the village as the locals prepared to go to bed, brushing their teeth by the side of the single road that led through the village. Generators were shut down, and after that, the only sound was that of the many crickets and geckos.

Early the following morning, our boat departed on the foggy Mekhong, for its second leg, to Luang Phabang. As the temperature rose in the morning, the fog soon cleared, and the terrain around us became more rugged, with hills and occasionally steep rock walls. In the late afternoon, we arrived at Luang Phabang, the former capital of Laos during the monarchy, and now a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a small town, and its old center is situated on a peninsula that is formed by the Mekhong and the Nam Kham rivers. It is a charming town. Colonial villas are next to rows of old houses, with many shops selling all kinds of souvenirs, although they seem to specialise in handmade, decorated paper, and silk. There are many restaurants and cafes with delicious Laotian coffee and French croissants or baguettes. The names of the establishments are embossed on large wooden panels, elaborately decorated, the letters painted gold, hanging above the entrance. In the center of the old town is the National Museum, once the royal palace, an impressively objective exhibit of the quarters of the former kings and queens, together with a collection of ancient Buddha statues found at ruined temples all over Laos.
The Phu Si hill in the center of the town offers a beautiful view of Luang Phabang and the Mekhong and Nam Khan rivers, especially during sunset, when the Mekhong turns to an intense red, just before the sun disappears behind the mountains. Floodlights then illuminate the golden Wat Chamsi stupa on the top of the hill, providing a beacon that can be seen anywhere in the town.

The temples in the town itself are quite different from the Thai ones, mostly wood, with large patterns on the walls and columns. Inquisitive novices ask where you are from, they want to practice English with you. They are fifteen years old, but still have five years to go before they can become monks. One of them has a girlfriend, he tells me. “I love her, but only looking", he quickly adds, while he looks shyly at the ground.

While the men wear trousers or very occasionally shorts, most of the women in Luang Phabang wear long silk skirts in the brightest of colours, with a gold embroidered band at the hem, and the uniform of the primary school girls is the same, in bright blue. Even the only woman in a group of army officers, in a visit to the National Museum, wears a similar skirt, in khaki.

A one and a half hour boatride on the Mekhong river, with its occasional treacherous currents, brought me to the Pak Ou caves, at the base of a steep rock wall, plunging into the river. The caves reminded me of the ones I had seen in Thailand’s Petchaburi, but the Buddha statues here were older and more numerous. Hundreds of them, small, large, in different shapes, postures, from different materials. Inside, it was dark and cool. It had been a site of worship and prayer for over centuries.

I have spent quite a couple of days here in Luang Phabang, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere, dinner along the Mekhong, scouring the day- and night markets. But soon I will leave, to go further south, in the direction of the capital of Laos, Vientiane.

Kanchanaburi is a small town, 130 km west of Bangkok, and most famous for the fact that the infamous bridge over the River Kwai was built here during World War II. In and around the town are large graveyards for the thousands of Allied soldiers who perished in this region during the war.

Today, it’s a touristy town, especially along the River Kwai (or Mae Nam Khwae Yai), where lots of guesthouses offer bungalows or rooms on the river itself or on its banks, next to cafes and restaurants catering to western tastes (banana pancakes for breakfast, for instance). I chose a nice bungalow in a quieter area, with a view of the bridge in the distance, and spent some time on the veranda, enjoying the silence, after loud and busy Bangkok.

I rented a motorbike for a day, and visited the Erawan waterfalls (Nam Tok Erawan), some 70 km out of town. Along a 2 km track leading up through occasional thick vegetation, there were seven waterfalls with cool, clear water cascading down rocks. Shoals of fish, clearly visible in the clear water, were swimming among the Thais and farangs who were taking a refreshing dip. Some monkeys were playing around the waterfalls and in the trees, with some begging the visitors for food.

Five kilometers north of the Erawan waterfalls, the huge Sri Nakharin Dam is located, functioning as a hydroelectric power plant. There is a small park on top of the dam, with a monument dedicated to the completion of the project, two Buddha statues in front of it, and the view of the enormous lake is stunning. Small boats ferry passengers across, a lone fishing boat navigates the lake in the distance.

After a couple of days in Kanchanaburi, I traveled further up north to Sukhothai. It was Thailand’s first capital in the 13th century, before it was superseded by Ayuthaya after a little over 100 years. The great accomplishments in art and architecture during this short period are most visible in Sukhothai’s old town, or Muang Kao, 12 km from the new town. Here, over 130 Wats are scattered in and around the area, and although some have been renovated, most are in ruins. Some striking examples of Sukhothai-era art remain though, and the intruiging Ramkamhaeng Museum provides a good and interesting introduction into this style, while explaining about the area’s early history. On display is a stunning collection of Buddha statues and images, earthenware pots, and stone tablets with inscriptions in the Pallava, Khmer and Thai languages, all in various styles and with different influences. After a visit to the museum, I went to Wat Si Chum on my rented bicycle, just outside the city walls, or the earthen mounds that are all that have remained of them. As I approached the temple, an instant feeling of deja-vu came over me, although I had never been here before. I walked quickly towards the giant seated Buddha, squeezed into an open, walled building, and the closer I approached it, the more I recognised. There, its two meter long hand, with the golden fingernails. The enormous head, high above me, the face frozen in a peaceful expression, staring forward through the slight opening in the wall. I suddenly realised the reason for my sense of deja-vu: I had recognised this temple and the Buddha statue from the many postcards on which they feature, which are sold all over Thailand.

A couple of kilometers away, Wat Saphan Hin is located on a hilltop, and steps made out of rocks and boulders lead to the top of the hill, where a large Buddha stands, facing the old city. It was quiet on top of the hill, only the sound of birds could be heard in the beginning of what was going to be a very hot afternoon. I went to have lunch nearby, a spicy green chicken curry with white rice, and when I was just about to leave, two police officers who were also having lunch, invited me to their table. After the seemingly mandatory process of mentioning my country’s most famous football stars, we talked a little about Holland and Thailand, and about their work in the police force. They weren’t particularly fond of their work, but I couldn’t ascertain why, although perhaps it had something to do with the fact that there wasn’t that much crime at all in and around new and old Sukhothai. After having consumed nearly the entire content of a 500 ml bottle of whiskey, the two policemen wished me good luck with my explorations, and stepped in their unmarked sedan, and drove off. I too took off, on my bicycle, a little merrier than before, as I had thought it impolite to refuse their offers to share the whiskey.

I visited several temples, some beautifully preserved or partially restored, with large Buddha statues, including the fascinating walking-posture Buddha, typical Sukhothai style, beautiful and graceful. One of the most interesting temples was Wat Mahathat. It was the principle Buddhist temple next to the Royal Palace, located in the centre of the old town, and it features two enormous standing Buddhas, and dozens of large, seated ones. There was so much to see, so many interesting details, such beauty in what had remained of the buildings, that I suddenly felt a little panicky about the fact I had space for only 200 photos left on the memory card of my digital camera. Rows of small Buddha statues along the walls, faded and eroded by the influences of the weather but still intruiging, the remains of pillars that used to be part of the main temple, reflections of the chedis in the pond in front of the temple, a Japanese tourist bowing in front of one of the seated Buddhas. The enormous centuries-old trees around the temple are wrapped in brightly coloured silk, in reference to the Bodhi tree, where, according to the Buddhist religion, Buddha attained enlightenment.

A 30 minute ride on a song thaew taxi (literally meaning “two rows", being the two benches found in the rear passenger area, it’s a pickup truck converted for carrying passengers and some cargo) brought me back to new Sukhothai, where I would leave the following morning for the northern city of Chiang Mai, which I have visited two years ago.

Among with many other countries in South East Asia, Thailand is currently suffering from a drought that is affecting most of its provinces, leaving communities living off agriculture struggling to get by. The effects were quite visible on the way to Chiang Mai, the landscape extremely dry, rivers now turned into dried-out river beds. The government has even gone as far as spraying chemicals on clouds to invoke rain, which hasn’t been very succesful, leaving many eagerly awaiting the start of the rain season.

Although still familiar, a lot in Chiang Mai has changed, and it can be very touristy in places. Its city walls reconstructed, the old city center is small and charming, and there are many beautiful Buddhist temples in a relatively small area. The famous night bazaar sells everything from handicraft to fake watches, cd’s and DVDs, incense, clothes and food. It’s mostly visited by tourists, however, and you need to bargain hard to get a good price. Nearby is the more authentic Warorot Day Market, selling basically everything you can think of, where especially in the weekends it can be very busy with Thais stocking up for the following week.

I will spend a couple of days here in Chiang Mai, before I will leave Thailand by crossing the Mekhong River into Laos, a country I don’t know that much about, and which I’m quite eager to explore.

Last week, King Bhumibol Adulyadej opened the first session of parliament, urging the politicians to work in harmony and according to the wishes of the Thai people, among fears that the new one-party government may become authoritarian. On special occasions such as these, the King resides in his Royal Palace, in the vicinity of two of the most famous Buddhist temples in Bangkok: Wat Pra Kaew and Wat Pho.

Wat Pho is a large temple complex featuring a 15 meter high and 46 meter long reclining Buddha, the second largest in Thailand, quite impressive. The inner and outer galleries around the temples are lined with more than 700 Buddha statues of various styles, the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand. There are tall stupas decorated with pieces of earthenware, built in honour for the first four kings of the Chakri dynasty, and tucked away are small, quiet courtyards with plants, near the monk’s quarters.

The larger Wat Pra Kaew features the famous Emerald Buddha, of significant importance to many Thais, as they visit this temple from all over the country to pray, amid curious farangs (foreigners). High up, surrounded by dozens of other Buddha statues, the Emerald Buddha almost seems to give out a green glow, and your eyes are automatically drawn to it. The entire grounds are breathtaking, with a large golden chedi against a blue sky, elaborate murals with Thailand’s history and depictions from the Buddhist religion. The many temples are grandiose, so elaborately decorated that one could spend hours studying just one. Prayer ceremonies go on everywhere, people placing flowers near Buddha statues, lighting candles, burning incense, or frozen in a wai, the traditional gesture of greeting and prayer in Thailand. Even foreign children go quiet as they enter the serene environment of a temple, they point the glittering of gold out to their parents, who stand gazing silently at the display. Hours go by as you walk through the complex in the hot weather, and when you leave the grounds, you find yourself once again in the noisy atmosphere of a busy Asian capital. It makes me realise again what I find so charming about Bangkok, most likely the most western place in the whole of Thailand, how this city can be so modern and traditional at the same time.

There are huge, modern, air-conditioned shopping malls where products are on display that the majority of the Thai people can’t afford. Yet it is nice to remain inside for a while, just browse around in the cool air, it can be extremely hot in Bangkok. And then, on the streets, the many foodstalls, with very cheap yet delicious food from all parts of the country. Isan chicken or spicy vegetable mix, southern spicy curries, sticky rice, pork marinated in red curry paste, fried chicken, satay, and of course lots of fresh fruit, sometimes dipped in sugar, sometimes in spicy chilly mix. Delicious smells of food everywhere. There are small yet wonderfully decorated cafes and restaurants, hidden away in a lush garden, where food and drinks are cheap yet delicious. Or you go to one of the hundreds of thousands of family restaurants, indoors or on the streets, where the daughters (age 7 or up) take your order, mum or dad cooks the food, where the food is cheapest and nearly always most delicious.

You’ll find the little ghosthouses everywhere, Buddha statues, Hindu shrines, on just about every corner of the street and (in the case of ghosthouses) in every building or house, sometimes decorated with lights, always with flowers and offerings. Then the many Buddhist temples, of which Wat Pho and Wat Pra Kaew are only two of hundreds located everywhere in Bangkok, grandiose, beautiful, serenely quiet. The smell of incense everywhere, so many different kinds of Buddhas, cast out of iron, made out of stone, gold, silver, bronze. Not far, the sound of monks, chanting in an adjacent building. The sound of Bangkok’s busy traffic reduced to a barely audible hum, and for a moment you forget once again you’re in a city that you would otherwise consider as very western.

People everywhere are friendly, helpful, genuinely interested, even in this western enclave of Thailand. The wai greeting performed by so many is to me the ultimate sign of being welcomed. You have an iced drink at a cafe to cool off in the scorchingly hot weather, and a pickup truck goes by, packed with construction workers, both men and women. They smile and wave at you. High above, a BTS skytrain is on its way to the next station, whizzing quietly by on its monorail. Motorbike taxi drivers with orange vests crisscross through traffic with a passenger on the back seat. And then the characteristic sound of a tuktuk tricycle, loud and polluting, even louder as it accelerates down the street.

While in this city, I experienced Makha Bucha, a national holiday celebrating the day that Buddha held a sermon in front of 1250 enlightened monks who came to listen without any prior call. Hundreds of people had gathered at the Wat I had chosen to go to, Wat Traimit, near the Hua Lamphong trainstation. A dozen monks, all holding candles, came to the entrance of the Wat, where a small Buddha statue was displayed. The abbot stood in front of a microphone, and spoke in Thai, explaining why this day was special. Then he led a prayer, which was recited by the whole crowd, it reminded me of the ‘Our Father’ in the Christian religion. What followed, was a walk around the temple, led by the monks, the large crowd behind them, every member holding a burning candle, and usually flowers and incense. The procession is called the vien tien (literally, ‘circumambulate candle’). After three rounds around the temple, people placed the flowers, candles and incense near Buddha statues or sometimes at the base of a tree near the temple, and prayed to Buddha.

After quite a while in Bangkok, it was time for me to leave, but not before I made a short excursion to Kanchanaburi, a small town two hours west of the capital.

Election Day is one of Thailand’s busiest holidays. On the evening before, hundreds of thousands of Thai try to make their way home to spend time with friends and family, and to vote in their home district.

As I had been invited to stay with a Thai family in north eastern Thailand, I too wrestled my way through thousands and thousands of other commuters in a completely packed Chatuchak Bus Station, near Mo Chit in the north of Bangkok. Outside at the bus platforms, the same sea of people and chaotic scenes as arriving buses were immediately surrounded by hundreds of people, who all tried to get on board simultaneously. My two accompanying Thai friends didn’t give up though, and we eventually reached the right bus, heading for the northeastern town of Sakhon Nakhom, and even managed to get seats.

The eleven hour journey took us to the region that is known as Isan, from the Sanskrit name for the Mon-Khmer Isana kingdom, which flourished before the 9th century AD. Lao and Khmer influences are quite apparent in Isan culture and language. It’s also the poorest region of Thailand, and it sees very little tourists.

Early in the morning of Election Day, we arrived at a deserted bus station in the small town of Sakhon Nakhom, and a two hour taxi ride brought us to our eventual destination, a small hamlet a couple of kilometers south of Nakhom Phanom, a town on the banks of the Mekhong river, bordering Laos. Dirt roads connected a handful of wooden houses and a solitary Wat (temple), as we arrived at the house of the family I had been invited to stay with. The hospitality and kindness with which I was received by every member of the family was heartwarming. Food and drinks were quickly brought out and every five minutes or so someone asked me if everything was okay for me, and soon friends and neighbours came to have a look at the foreigner.

The house of the family consists of an open ground floor, two concrete walls that surround the area where you sit during the day and which is used as a dining area. The rest of the house is made out of wood, and stairs lead up to the only room, a large one divided into three sleeping sections. During the day, it’s too hot to be upstairs, so the family sits downstairs, surrounded by the chickens and the occassional waterbuffalo. To the back, there’s a stove, and a shed serving as bathroom.

A polling station had been set up in a building adjacent to the Wat, on the ground floor underneath the monks’ quarters, and I watched as my friends voted. The outcome of the elections is now known of course, with the Thais Love Thais Party (Phak Thai Rak Thai) of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra the clear winner, with over 375 seats of the 500 seat parliament. However, Phak Thai Rak Thai lost in nearly all regions of Thailand’s troubled south, and the Prime Minister now has gone as far as calling a joint session of both houses of parliament, which has only happened twice before in Thailand’s history, during moments of national crises. The apparent aim is to get a consensus on a solution for the end of the violence that is continuing in the southern regions on a daily basis. Here in Isan, everything was quiet of course, the only indication of the importance of this day were the handful of election posters, none of which for candidates of Phak Thai Rak Thai.

In the evening, all of the daughters in my host family prepared dinner, which consisted of around four different meals, including green chicken curry, marinated pork, fish, vegetables, and of course rice. An aunt and two uncles, who live next door, had been invited, and together we ate the delicious food. Afterwards, I had a shower in the bathroom, which has a large water reservoir next to a squat toilet. You use plastic buckets to scoop up water so you can have a shower, or to flush the toilet. As everyone went to bed early (as they do most nights, around 9 or 10 pm), I did too, spending the night in the only room, falling asleep to the sound of crickets.

On the day after Election Day, we went to the market in the nearby town, using a tuktuk that seemed to service the entire hamlet, its driver frequently invited to enjoy some food or drinks, as it brought people to nearby Nakhom Phanom and back, usually arriving back in the hamlet packed with both groceries and people. We paid a visit to the monks in the nearby Wat, bringing them food and basic groceries, as so many Thai do once every month or so. In return, we were blessed by a monk who looked more than a hundred years old, who recited prayers as he sprayed holy water over us, and bound a piece of white string around our wrists, while mumbling a prayer.

Just before we left, the parents took turn in blessing us and wishing us a safe trip, by doing the same thing the monk had done earlier, binding a piece of white string around our wrist while saying a prayer. My two friends and I then took the coach back to Bangkok. A long journey back to the busy city, and I felt both grateful for the amazing hospitality with which the family had received me, and of course sad to have to say goodbye. It took me quite a while to fall asleep on the bus, and early next morning, I woke up to the sights and sounds of busy Bangkok.

One place I had not yet visited was Hua Hin, a small town four hours south of Bangkok, on Thailand’s east coast. I travelled there by train, which certainly had no shortage of on-board catering: dozens of men and women selling various food like sausages, rice crackers, fruit, sweets, drinks and complete meals, yelling their inventory and price as they walked past. “Sapparot yii-sip baht khaaaa”, emphasising the last, polite word that usually concludes every sentence. Although its script is still a mystery to me, I find myself recognising words in the Thai language as they are spoken, and sometimes I can even understand the subject of a conversation. It is such a melodic language, words can usually be pronounced in five tones, each one giving a different meaning to the otherwise same word.

Hua Hin is a touristy town, home to the royal family for most of the year. It has a wonderful beach, quite crowded in some places, and a plethora of souvenir shops. Several nightmarkets, some clearly adapted for the tourists, offer just about anything you can think of, plus food and drinks, and it is lovely to just browse around or sample some of the delicious food. South of the town is a hill overlooking the city, with beautifully old temples, and dozens of Buddha statues, alongside ponds with hundreds of catfish. Between the trees on top of the hill, monks have small and very basic wooden bungalows, with beautiful views of the sea in the distance.

Phetburi, also known as Phetchaburi, is an hour north of Hua Hin, easily explored on a short daytrip, and it features Khao Wang, a hill with a restored King Mongkut (Rama IV) palace, and several beautiful temples overlooking the city. You would think that a hill could provide some breezy relief from the heat, but no. It was just after nine in the morning, the sun scorchingly hot, no wind to speak of, yet quite a number of steps to climb, which I did bathing in sweat. What did provide some relief was a series of caves on the edge of the city, hordes of monkeys playing, grooming eachother or begging for food on the parking lot and along the path leading to the entrance of the caves. Inside the caves, hundreds of Buddha statues in all shapes and sizes. Displayed in rows along the cave wall, solitary ones in small chambers, a large reclining Buddha on the other side. The largest hall had an opening in the rock ceiling, sunlight filtered through the smoke of incense, the rays touching the Buddhas. It was cool and quiet inside the caves. You wondered how long some of the older Buddhas, carved out of stone, must have been there. Offerings had been placed in front of some of the Buddhas, including a whole collection of children’s toys in front of one.

After several days in Hua Hin, I went further south to Chumpon, where I took a boat to the tiny island of Koh Tao, in the Gulf of Thailand. I had visited this place two years ago, but lots had changed. It was much busier now, many new buildings and additions to hotels, and a new moron element: lots of young, male tourists, speeding on their rental motorbikes or trikes or even motorised skateboards on the narrow path in front of the beach. Or perhaps it’s just that I’m getting older. The beach was still wonderful, and the scuba diving still magical. I visited the same dive sites again, and was again amazed at the underwater beauty, the thousands of brightly coloured fishes, the beautiful coral.

Four days later, I found my way back to Bangkok, a couple of days before the national elections would take place. However, an unexpected trip awaited me to Isan, the northeastern region of Thailand, where I would find myself enjoying the humbling hospitality of strangers.

Hello everyone,

I have arrived in Thailand, known as Prathet Thai to its people.

As I visited this country and its capital Bangkok (Krung Thep) in January of 2003, it has got quite a familiar feel about it. The non-western script of the language, the police officers in their ultra-tight uniforms, the perfume of incense in the little alleys off the main roads, the little ghosthouses where a woman carefully places some rice and other offerings, the polluting tuk-tuk tricycle taxis crisscrossing through the busy traffic. A lot has changed, too. Some parts of the long Sukhumvit Road I barely recognise, with a lot of new office buildings and luxury shopping malls that have been built within the past two years, and much to my surprise, Bangkok now has a brand new, Singaporean style underground metro system, the MRT. Opened only four months ago, it is very useful to get around town as Bangkok’s traffic tends to be quite congested. Unfortunately, after a couple of days using the MRT, I found myself watching the news one morning, images of a now familiar underground station (Thailand Cultural Centre, just north of the city center), where wounded were being carried out on stretchers. Two trains had collided, 200 people were hurt of which 24 seriously and the MRT was now closed for several weeks for the investigation, clean-up and repairs. So now I am zooming around the city on Bangkok’s other efficient mass transportation system, the BTS skytrain, which runs mostly along the Sukhumvit road.

Legislative elections will be held in Thailand on 6 February 2005 with 500 seats at stake in the House of Representatives (Sapha Poothaen Rassadorn). There are posters with the pictures of candidates displayed everywhere in Bangkok, including the clear favourite Thais Love Thais Party (Phak Thai Rak Thai) of Chiang-Mai born Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, looking statesmanly in his elegant suit. Criticised for the deaths of Muslim protesters in southern Thailand and the handling of the bird flu outbreak, this billionaire Prime Minister has regained support, mainly due to his government’s response to the tsunami disaster and its aftermath. But inevitably, there are also posters for the protest party, the candidate displayed holding a sledgehammer.

The two most important things for the Thai people seem to be the monarchy and the Buddhist religion. Everywhere in the city, large posters of His Majesty the King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and before a movie starts in any cinema, you are requested to pay your respects to the King by standing up, as the national anthem is played, and a collage of many different photos of the King is displayed on the screen. On the streets, in the parks, people stand up and stop what they’re doing at 8 am and 6 pm, when the national anthem can be heard everywhere. Regarding the Buddhist religion, you’ll find a wat (temple) everywhere, or people on the streets selling flower offerings. When you walk past one of the many Buddha statues, it’s customary to show your respect to Buddha by making a wai, a respectful greeting with the palms of your hands pressed together, bowing your head slightly, which is also used by many Thais instead of a handshake.

The Thai food - I had forgotten how delicious the Thai food is. My favourite being Tom Yam, a soup with shrimp, sometimes chicken, mushrooms, and flavoured with lemon grass, ginger, coriander, basil, chillies and fish sauce, absolutely delicious. Then there are the dozens, no hundreds of different kinds of Thai curry. Ranging from pleasantly mild to unbelievably spicy, they have the flavours you wouldn’t find in any of our Western countries, every single one so distinctly different from the other, every taste making you want to be able to replicate it once back at home (I’ve tried, but never got it quite right).

All these things make me feel almost at home here, and I cannot wait to explore the rest of the country again, visiting sites I have been before, exploring new places, sampling more of the delicious food, and feeling welcomed by the very friendly Thai people.

After nearly two weeks on beautiful Boracay, my next destination was going to be the large island of Mindoro to the north. A large ferry brought me to the small town of Roxas, on Mindoro’s south coast, where I took a tricycle to have some lunch in the tiny town center. After some dreadful Filipino-style spaghetti, I walked out onto the street again, where I was surprised to find many people yelling at me as they came running out of their shops and houses to speak to me. Apprehensive at first, I quickly relaxed as it turned out they only wanted to know where I was from, how long I had been in the Philippines, where I was going, followed by repeated, excited instructions on how I could get to the busstation, and even though it was only 100 meters away, I was offered a lift on a motorcycle. At the busstation, basically a parking lot next to a house with a sign attached to it, people quickly gathered, smiled at me and asked me questions in their basic English. I guess they don’t get to see tourists that much in this sleepy town, and it’s quite refreshing that they are just curious and for once have no interest in getting your money, as they do in the more touristy places elsewhere.

After waiting for about a quarter of an hour, four people pointed the minivan out to me, that would take me to Calapan City, the capital of Mindoro on its northern coast. As we departed on our four hour journey, I immediately noticed how all the big leaves of the palmtrees were bent in one direction, almost as if they had been combed that way. Then, on the outskirts of the town, collapsed nipa huts, houses with their roofs torn off, and a Filipino man explained to me that this was part of the damage done by the typhoons, that raged over this area in November of 2004.

The journey led us through small villages, past military checkpoints (this province used to have rebellious activity), and we arrived in Calapan City around sunset. There, I was told that the last jeepney to the village of Sabang, my intended destination, or to Puerto Galera, the nearby town, had already left an hour ago. And as a jeepney really is the only way to travel there, I was effectively stranded in Calapan City. It’s the first time this has happened during my travels, but I’m sure it won’t be the last time. I managed to find a cheap hotel near the city center (accommodation can be quite expensive in the Philippines), and after spending the night in Calapan City, I departed on a packed jeepney, heading for the village of Sabang.

Along the way, I was once again reminded of how beautiful this country is, a landscape of hills covered with coconut trees, alongside green ricefields, thick forests with small nipa huts in the clearings. After a while, the asphalt road ended and a dirt track with potholes started, as we went over the mountains, with more gorgeous views of green valleys with the sea in the background. When we arrived in Sabang, I walked the small distance to Small La Laguna beach, a lovely stretch of sand with a handful of hotels, cottages and restaurants, and found a nice room there, where I would spend most of my last week in the Philippines.

A couple of small boats, including one yacht, had been deliberately sunk a mere 100 meters from the beach, and were now stunning diving sites. As we swam closer to the wrecks, shoals of large batfish accompanied our group of divers, swimming very close to us. The wrecks were teeming with life, home to so many different kinds of fish, including snappers, stonefish, butterfly fish, and the impressive lionfish again, looking fierce, holding still in the water. Inside the yacht, a large number of sleeping catfish, slowly crawling over eachother. In between the various wrecks, I saw some clownfish (Nemo!) in their anemones. And then there are some animals that really look like plants, or seaweed, but suddenly you see them crawling over the bottom of the sea, using their “leaves” as tentacles to move forward. A lot of nudibranches again in stunning colour, and a lone striped seasnake moving elegantly through the water. After Australia, the Philippines is really the number two country for diving in the world, but unlike the Great Barrier Reef, the dive sites here are very close to land, accessible by just wading through the surf, or taking a 10 minute boatride.

During my stay in Sabang, I met a Filipina-Australian, who was on holidays to her homeland with her son. We talked a lot about the Filipino food, about cultural differences, and also about the extreme poverty in the Philippines. She explained that most of the establishments in and around Sabang were owned by foreign investors, or foreign pensioners who had moved to this area and opened their pubs or restaurants, as it was now near to impossible for common Filipinos to start their own businesses, the costs are just too great. And I noticed again here what I had noticed in Moalboal on the island of Cebu: many older western men, with a Filipina 30 or 40 years younger by their side. A so-called Puti at Pinay ("white and Filipina") marriage therefor isn’t frowned upon, it is accepted as merely a way out of poverty for these young women. Some are quite worse off as “working girls” at one of the many bars, euphemistically called “discotheques” or “music lounges". And then there are the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Filipina women who work as nurses or maids in many countries around the world, sending back money to help their parents or other members in their family. My Filipina-Australian friend explained that this is unlikely to change, due to the high rate of unemployment in the Philippines, and the corruption and mismanagement at the higher levels of government. It is quite sad to realise this, and the seedy areas in the touristy parts of popular towns or villages do take away a lot of the charm of the Philippines.

Nonetheless, this is a wonderful country to visit, its friendly people proud of being Pinay (Filipina) or Pinoy (Filipino). The natural beauty of the country, with its paradise-like scenery, is just breathtaking. The enormous Catholic cathedrals found everywhere are such an unusual sight in an Asian county, as it is to find that the shopping just stops in the supermarkets at 6 pm, when everyone stands still to listen to the prayers, read out through the loudspeakers by the resident supermarket priest.

After a short visit to the town of Tagaytay, where I admired the beautiful view of Lake Taal, with the small dome of the volcano with the same name in the middle of the lake, I went on to Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International airport. There, a Thai Airways flight would take me to Thailand, the first country during my current travels that would be a little familiar to me.

After entering my name on a passenger list, I boarded one of the small motorbanca outrigger boats, that are great for short distances on calm seas, but should really be avoided once the waves get any higher than one meter.

The great thing about the small island of Boracay is that most of the buildings are hidden behind a line of palmtrees along the beach. When you arrive, you see just the wonderfully white beach and the lush green of the vegetation behind it. I checked into a nice room and went for a walk on the sandy path in front of all the shops, cafes, restaurants and hotels. Boracay seems to be Korea’s number one holiday destination, with many signs and menus in both English and Korean, the Korean tourists outnumbering the locals. Perhaps that is the reason why prices for about everything are higher than in the rest of the Philippines, and as the so-called holy week holiday sees the biggest number of tourists (including Filipinos) on this island, rates climb even higher. Still, compared to the western world, it’s very cheap, and once you see the wonderfully white beach with the calm see in various shades of blue, you forget about the rest and just adore this paradise-like environment.

In the evenings, the palmtrees are illuminated with lamps and the lights you usually see in Christmas trees, and a surprising number of Filipino boys are selling luminescent sticks, blinking earrings and laserpointers, which they aim on the sand near your feet to try to get your attention. Children are asking for a few Pesos for their big sandcastles, or the flower-like patterns they have created on the beach, beautifully crafted and lit by oil lamps placed inside.

Boracay, like most parts of the Philippines, suffers from frequent electricity blackouts, sometimes several times a day. For up to half and hour, everything is pitch black, apart from the more luxurious resorts that have their own generators, and candles and battery-powered lights are quickly brought out. Because not all areas are affected, they call these “brownouts” (I suppose “partial blackout” is not in their vocabulary?).

During the day, I went for frequent swims in the cool, clear blue water of the sea, or worked on my suntan. As a dark skin is considered undesirable by Filipinos (and actually by the people of most Asian countries, hence the popularity of skin-whitening creams here), the locals usually went for a swim just before sunset, and then still with most of their clothes on. The Filipino men also have another, weird way to cool off: by rolling up their t-shirts to just under their chest, exposing their bellies and lower backs. You see lots of men walking around this way, and I just hope it’s as effective as it looks silly. In the evenings, I went for cheap San Miguel beer at some of the many bars and cafes on this island, where both locals and travellers go for a good night out, or I tried some of the cocktails they have on offer.

During Christmas day on Boracay, groups of Polynesian children walked around singing English Christmas carols with beautiful voices. Unfortunately, most of the other indigenous people on the island are beggars, mothers with their children sitting in the shade on the beach, holding up their hands, as restaurants put out signs with their Christmas Day turkey or roast beef menus.

I was in my room, in the early evening of Boxing Day, Sunday 26 December 2004, as I received a text message from a family member in Holland, informing me about an earthquake near Indonesia, and a tsunami that followed. As I walked outside, quite a number of tourists and locals alike had gathered in front of the restaurants and cafes that had televisions with BBC World or CNN, and even the staff watched silently as the news was unfolding. The Philippines has had more than its share of natural disasters, like the many destructive typhoons that have raged over its land, and the deadly eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which was the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. But nobody was quite prepared for the horrible images that we were seeing, watching in disbelief, unsuccesfully trying to comprehend the enormous scale of this natural disaster. After that, and as the death toll grew exponentially in the following days, it was quite surreal to be on a tropical island with its beautiful beach, not unlike those places on the west coast of Thailand, that have now been wiped away. It sends shivers down your spine to think how it must have been for the tourists on those beaches of Thailand and India, for the people in Aceh who had already suffered so much because of years of violent conflict, for those Sri Lankan fishermen, and for the tens of thousands of children, who died or are now orphans. You count yourself lucky, as you inform worried familymembers and friends that you are okay. Six weeks ago, overlooking the lava valley and the volcanoes of the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park on Java in Indonesia, I was thinking how insignificant we humans really are in the face of the power of nature. As the death toll is still growing, and recovery of the affected areas is likely to take several decades, this catastrophic event is once again painful reminder of that insignificance.

That excited feeling when you hit the water, then a final check before you slowly descent into the dark blue depth, your equipment not heavy anymore as you’re now weightless. The only sound you hear is the hissing of air through your regulator, and then, as you exhale, the release of the many bubbles, slowly climbing to the surface. You look to see if your buddy is okay, you give eachother the okay sign by making a circle with your thumb and index finger. Then, you slowly drift past a bank of coral, there’s suddenly just too much to look at, the rock-like brain coral, which really does look like an enormous brain, rounded-bubble coral, slowly moving back and forth with the currents, small multi-coloured Christmas-tree worms, that retract into the coral quickly when you move in close, and slowly fold out again. You find nudibranches, best described as small underwater snails but in the most beautiful of colours. And then shoals of fish, quickly swimming past, their movements so synchronised, a big green turtle lazily swimming over the coral. Camouflaged scorpionfish are preying for food, a scared octopus quickly changes colour and hides. You do forget about time, but still regularly check your depth and the remaining pressure in your tank. You watch as a pair of yellow-black butterfly fish swim in front of you, and then you notice a ghostpipe fish, resembling more a cactus than an animal. Hovering in between the coral is a fierce looking lionfish, zebra striped, with its feathery pectoral fins and its venomous dorsalfin spines. Towards the end of the dive, you go shallower, golden rays of sunlight piercing the water, illuminating the coral with its many colours, every meter is a world of discovery. Then, when you get back on the boat after nearly an hour of diving, feeling tired but exhilirated, you just want to go back again, as soon as possible, to that strange and beautiful undersea world.

Moalboal (pronounced Mo-all bo-all) is a small town on Cebu’s north-west coast, and along the Panagsama beach there are a dozen of hotels and guesthouses, bars and restaurants, and many dive shops. In 1984, while still recovering from typhoon Maring the week before, the region was devastated by monster typhoon Nitang, with its 275 kph winds, nearly wiping out the entire town, leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless on the southern islands of the Philippines. A Filipino confided in me that although rebuilt, Moalboal hadn’t been the same ever since, the coastline changed, its beach now a rocky strip, a lot of the coral destroyed. It’s a quiet, sleepy town now. Some foreigners have chosen this place as their home, their enormous sea-side villas in stark contrast with the surrounding huts and shacks of the Filipinos, who earn their living as fishermen, or by taking tourists on their motorbanca outrigger boats. The locals are friendly, greeting you as you walk on the small, unpaved road, the smell of barbecued fish or meat coming from the small foodstalls. At night, the stars are bright, the sound of the crashing waves only interrupted by groups of young children, singing Christmas carols and then holding out their hand for a couple of Pesos.

After a week of diving in Moalboal, I went back on a bumpy busride to Cebu, enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way. There, I booked a flight for my next destination - the small island of Boracay, off the coast of Panay. At the check-in desk in the departure hall of Cebu’s Mactan airport, I at first thought they made a joke when the attendants asked me to step on the luggage weighing scale, but no, they were serious. I started wondering how small the aircraft would be, as I made my way to the departure lounge. It turned out to be the smallest airplane I have ever been in, a 12-seater LET, painted bright red. From the cabin, you had a view of the cockpit and the back of the heads of the pilot and co-pilot, as they started the first propellor, and then the second one. A member of the groundcrew quickly yelled the safety instructions to us, before she left the plane herself and closed the door behind her. The craft needed only a small part of the runway before it ascended steeply, leaving Cebu behind us. After an hour, flying high above the water dotted with islands, the plane descended, and just when it seemed it was flying into the mountains of Panay, it made a sharp turn. We were flying 30 meters above the surf, then fishing boats and beach, followed by houses and palm trees, and we flew so low that it seemed almost possible to grab some coconuts. Ten seconds later the plane touched down on the airstrip, followed by the sound of the screeching of brakes. The plane taxied to a tiny parking lot with one other, bigger airplane, a helicopter and a handful of ground crew, and the pilot neatly parked it next to the other airplane. He then removed his headphones, turned his head around, and personally welcomed us to Caticlan - Boracay airport. It was four days before Christmas, I was looking forward to exploring Boracay, unaware of the impending disaster that would shake the world, only five days later.

I arrived at Cebu’s airport, which is located on the Mactan island where Ferdinand Magellan introduced Christianity in the Philippines in 1521, and where he found his demise, killed by local chieftain Lapu-lapu in the Battle of Mactan.

A taxi took me over the bridge, connecting Mactan to the rest of Cebu, and we went through busy Lapu-lapu City with its many packed jeepneys. After 45 minutes, I arrived at Cebu City, where I checked into a nice budget hotel, and ventured out into the city.

The jeepneys are again the most convenient (and cheapest) way to get around town, although it is a little difficult to find out which one will get you closest to the place or street you want to go though (although everyone is very eager to help, fellow passengers erupting in a heated discussion on what is the easiest way for me reach my destination). Unlike in Manila, here in Cebu, sometimes a husband and wife operate the jeepney, with the husband driving and the wife sitting in the back, collecting the fare. My fellow passengers usually have a towel or small piece of cloth, to deal with either sweat or the pollution, as the jeepney continues its journey, stopping frequently to let passengers on or off.

Cebu City’s Colon Street is reportedly the oldest street in the Philippines, and boy, it sure shows. The buildings are dark grey, sometimes completely black from all the pollution, as the wide street is busy with traffic, many jeepneys, cars, trucks, and taxis. On the side of the road, vendors are selling fruit, watches and clothing, next to big, old-fashioned shopping malls, fast food restaurants and cinemas. In the evening, when the vendors have closed their stalls, the homeless take their place, sleeping on the concrete in front of the closed doors of the shopping malls.

The northern part of Cebu City couldn’t be more diffferent, with luxury hotels, relatively expensive bars and restaurants, and modern shopping malls. To the northeast, adjacent to slums, lies an affluent, gated area, aptly named Beverly Hills, where the rich of Cebu reside in their large villas or luxurious apartment complexes, as always with security guards present. In this part of the city, up in the hills, a Taoist temple is located, painted in white with red and green decorations, a dragon on the roof, porcelain statues of bearded men inside. In the main temple, a board provided instructions on how to get answers from God to all your questions, by throwing wooden kidney-shaped blocks on the floor. The position in which they ended up would represent a “Yes", “No", or a frustrating “Maybe". Outside, a well-kept garden, and a nice view of Cebu City in the distance, with many ships sailing to its busy port.

I met some Korean students, who were studying English for up to six months in Cebu City. Never say South Korea - there is only Korea and then that isolated country to the north, with its dictatorial regime. Explaining which country I am from is easy. “Do you know Guus Hiddink?", I ask them. Their face brightens immediately as they exclaim “Aah! Hiddinku! He’s our hero!” [ Hiddink was the Dutch football coach who led the Korean 2002 World Cup team to the best ever showing by an Asian country in the tournament’s 72-year history. He now has, for instance, a stadium named after him, the Guus Hiddink Stadium in Gwangju ] The students introduced me to Korean cuisine, pork belly (which coincidentally also is a Filipino favorite), which you cook yourself with onions and garlic on a hot plate. We had a very spicy vegetable mix called Kim Chi, and a very nice alcoholic (almost vodka-like) drink called So ju. We discussed Korean and Dutch culture, the influence of Confucianism in Korean culture, and the change in customs and values for Korea’s younger generation (with for instance, the abandonment of arranged marriages). As they had been in Cebu City for a while, they showed me around to nice places, including a lovely coffee shop called “Off Roads Coffee", where you sip your coffee on the roof, under the stars.

After a couple of days enjoying this nice city, I would continue on to another part on the island of Cebu, the small town of Moalboal, as I was looking forward to finally doing my first scuba diving in the Philippines.

I have been receiving a lot of e-mails, asking me if I am okay, as the news from the worst earthquake in recent history unfolds.

I’m on the small island of Boracay, in the Philippines, far away from the affected areas, and apart from the news, there is nothing here that would indicate that such an immense catastrophe just took place. As most of you will know by now, the epicenter was off the coast of Aceh, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which I visited a little over three weeks ago. I was planning to visit the areas in Thailand in a couple of weeks, that now have been badly hit, so naturally I will have to decide if I still go there. For now, I will stay here in the Philippines, and I’m planning on flying out to Bangkok, in Thailand, around 12 January 2005.

In some restaurants or cafes here on this tropical island, there are televisions with continuous coverage of the news by BBC World or CNN. A lot of tourists and locals are watching the horrible images in disbelief, unsuccesfully trying to comprehend the enormous scale of this natural disaster. The thought of the tens of thousands of people who have died is immensely saddening. Most of the affected areas are very poor, and it will take them years if not decades to recover, not to mention the difficulty of overcoming the grief of a lost one.

Jose Rizal - Mi Último Adiós (My Last Farewell)

Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed,
Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost,
With gladness I give you my Life, sad and repressed;
And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best,
I would still give it to you for your welfare at most.

On the fields of battle, in the fury of fight,
Others give you their lives without pain or hesitancy,
The place does not matter: cypress laurel, lily white,
Scaffold, open field, conflict or martyrdom’s site,
It is the same if asked by home and Country.

I die as I see tints on the sky b’gin to show
And at last announce the day, after a gloomy night;
If you need a hue to dye your mutational glow,
Pour my blood and at the right moment spread it so,
And gild it with a reflection of your nascent light!

My dreams, when scarcely a lad adolescent,
My dreams when already a youth, full of vigor to attain,
Were to see you, gem of the sea of the Orient,
Your dark eyes dry, smooth brow held to a high plane
Without frown, without wrinkles and of shame without stain.

My life’s fancy, my ardent, passionate desire,
Hail! Cries out the soul to you, that will soon part from thee;
Hail! How sweet ’tis to fall that fullness you may acquire;
To die to give you life, ‘neath your skies to expire,
And in your mystic land to sleep through eternity !

If over my tomb some day, you would see blow,
A simple humble flow’r amidst thick grasses,
Bring it up to your lips and kiss my soul so,
And under the cold tomb, I may feel on my brow,
Warmth of your breath, a whiff of your tenderness.

Let the moon with soft, gentle light me descry,
Let the dawn send forth its fleeting, brilliant light,
In murmurs grave allow the wind to sigh,
And should a bird descend on my cross and alight,
Let the bird intone a song of peace o’er my site.

Let the burning sun the raindrops vaporize
And with my clamor behind return pure to the sky;
Let a friend shed tears over my early demise;
And on quiet afternoons when one prays for me on high,
Pray too, oh, my Motherland, that in God may rest I.

Pray thee for all the hapless who have died,
For all those who unequalled torments have undergone;
For our poor mothers who in bitterness have cried;
For orphans, widows and captives to tortures were shied,
And pray too that you may see you own redemption.

And when the dark night wraps the cemet’ry
And only the dead to vigil there are left alone,
Don’t disturb their repose, don’t disturb the mystery:
If you hear the sounds of cithern or psaltery,
It is I, dear Country, who, a song t’you intone.

And when my grave by all is no more remembered,
With neither cross nor stone to mark its place,
Let it be plowed by man, with spade let it be scattered
And my ashes ere to nothingness are restored,
Let them turn to dust to cover your earthly space.

Then it doesn’t matter that you should forget me:
Your atmosphere, your skies, your vales I’ll sweep;
Vibrant and clear note to your ears I shall be:
Aroma, light, hues, murmur, song, moanings deep,
Constantly repeating the essence of the faith I keep.

My idolized Country, for whom I most gravely pine,
Dear Philippines, to my last goodbye, oh, harken
There I leave all: my parents, loves of mine,
I’ll go where there are no slaves, tyrants or hangmen
Where faith does not kill and where God alone does reign.

Farewell, parents, brothers, beloved by me,
Friends of my childhood, in the home distressed;
Give thanks that now I rest from the wearisome day;
Farewell, sweet stranger, my friend, who brightened my way;
Farewell, to all I love. To die is to rest.

In stark contrast with Indonesia, where they hardly celebrate this Christian holiday, Manila has an abundance of Christmas decorations everywhere. At night it’s most visible, with thousands of blinking lights that can cover entire walls of buildings, huge neon Santas, and the inevitable birth of Christ scenes, including a plastic Mary and Joseph. And of course there are lots of cheezy Christmas songs playing everywhere at cafes and restaurants.

During a hot afternoon, I went for a walk through Rizal park, with its memorial for Dr. Jose Rizal. A doctor of medicine, writer and activist, he headed the non-violent protests against the Spanish occupation, until he was executed on December 30, 1896. That turned out to be the demise of the Spanish regime in the Philippines, as Rizal’s execution caused an uproar that united the whole country, and the Spanish were defeated in the following two years. Now he is the national hero of the Philippines, and Rizal’s last poem, which he wrote in the days before his execution, is on display in three languages at the memorial. Titled “Mi Último Adiós", it’s a farewell to the country he so loved. I entered the small park, part of the memorial, where larger than life statues display the very last moment in Rizal’s life. His face frozen in a look of pain and anguish, his body bent slightly backwards as if he is about to fall down, his hands bound by his sides. Behind him, the execution squad, the soldiers aiming their rifles with one eye closed, a concentrated yet malevolant look on their face. Further to the back, Rizal’s friend and attorney, in tears, and a priest, holding a bible and small cross.

Within walking distance of the park, there is the Intramuros area, the oldest part of Manila. Like most of Manila itself, this part was almost completely destroyed by Japanese and American bombs during World War II. The large walls enclosing the area have been rebuilt, and inside there’s a busy hum of activity. Lots of students going to their medical college, little cafes putting chairs and tables out on the streets, a small orchestra playing music in a garden, and officials readying their papers for a local election, voters standing in line in front of a dull, grey government building. In the north of the Intramuros area, overlooking the Pasig river and Manila Bay, Fort Santiago is situated, the former military headquarters of the Spanish, British, American and Japanese regimes. Before it too was destroyed, by American forces in 1945, it was used as a prison by the feared and hated Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, who tortured and executed hundreds of men and women. It is now a monument and park, a memorial cross marking the common grave of approximately 600 bodies of guerillas and civilians, found inside the underground cells after the war. To the west, there is a small yet interesting museum dedicated to Dr. Jose Rizal, featuring many excerpts from his prose and poetry, artifacts, paintings inspired by his life’s story, and yet more translations of his final poem.

The following day, I took the LRT to the northern part of Manila, as I intended to visit the famous Chinese cemetery. I got off, walked on the busy street until I got to a smaller, quieter area, where jeepneys were parked with their drivers enjoying a siesta on the back bench, kids playing basketball on the streets, the walls of houses covered in ivy, their small balconies decorated with lots of plants. I walked through a large gate, marking the entrance of the Chinese cemetery. The wide, ascending two lane road led me past a row of houses, almost like villas, big and elaborately decorated, in all shapes and styles of architecture, some buildings over 15 meters in height. To my astonishment, these were actually mausoleums for the deceased. They had large windows, sometimes glass doors with gates in front, and in the middle of the house, the tomb of one person, or a husband and wife, or sometimes a whole family. Behind them, the photos of the deceased and their names, in Chinese script, together with a poem or their life’s story, engraved in marble. I was a little uneasy at first, with that dreadful feeling you get at a cemetery, but my curiosity quickly took over, as I took a peak through the window of many of these houses, - mausoleums -, a lot of which had their own toilets, and sometimes a small kitchen together with tables and chairs. A number of these mausoleums were built as churches, some with big neo-classicist paintings, with coloured glass windows featuring a picture of Mary, with giant crosses on the top of the spires. Some had their own well-kept gardens with yellow flowers, a small fountain, stone benches and tables. I walked for quite a while through this enormous town-within-a-city, it reminded me of the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but then hundreds of times bigger and more elaborate. I followed a small alley that led me past many buildings, one more expensive than the other, and I sat down in one of the gardens for a while, writing my diary, enjoying the quiet, solemn environment, before I went in another direction. I was stunned to see that a small number of the mausoleums were occupied by the living, someone cooking lunch in the kitchen, laundry hanging to dry in the garden of one of these houses of the dead, kids playing in front. I suppose that when your house is built from cardboard, these houses must be extremely luxurious, although living among the dead surely must take some getting used to.

I took the LRT back into the center of town, and had some dinner at a foodcourt of one of the big, air-conditioned shopping malls. While enjoying my Tagalog food, I thought about the following day, with a flight on my itinerary that would lead me down south, to the island of Cebu.

Unfortunately, the usually very customer-friendly Singapore Airlines company had made a mistake with my original request, in Indonesia, to postpone my flight to the Philippines. So, as I arrived at Singapore’s luxurious airport, I was told a dreaded message that no airline traveller ever wants to hear: “Sorry, Sir, your name is not in the system". After being directed from one service counter to another, and after being waitlisted on the flight I had originally booked (and subsequently being told there was no seat for me), I was finally put on a later flight, that would arrive in Manila in the evening.

So I had several hours to kill at Singapore’s airport, not the worst place to get stranded for a while, and after many coffees, newspapers, magazines and some time at the free Internet consoles in the departure lounge, I got on my flight, which took a little over three hours to reach the Philippines.

At Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport, I was personally greated by Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the President of the Philippines, albeit on a poster, and I suspect in a paintbrushed version.

After spending the night in a dingy hotel room, being kept awake by the loud music from karaoke bars in the street (I would later change hotels), I ventured out into the big city on a bright, sunny morning. Somehow, I had expected the people of the Philippines to have more Spanish features, but most are of Malay descent, with some Chinese, and only a small number of people sporting the typical Spanish facial features. Some were quite clearly the result of a mixed Filipina-Western marriage, usually their long nose or white skin giving it away. Their main language, Tagalog, has the same mixture of influences, with words derived from Sanskrit, Spanish, English and Malaysian/Indonesian.

Even though this country was ruled by the Spanish for many centuries, there is surprisingly little of that influence left, except for the enormous Catholic churches, the little courtyards you find in the quieter parts of the city, and the food (meat, meat, meat and seafood). The Asian influences are more apparent, with small foodstalls everywhere in the city, but a lot of them are serving barbeque meals, with skewers of meat or seafood.

Most visible are the American influences. Everywhere, you’ll find the American stores, cafes or restaurants like 7-Eleven, Starbucks, Wendy’s, McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts, and probably because of those, there are more obese people here than I’ve ever seen before in an Asian country. The “No Guns Allowed” signs at the entrance of many cafes and restaurants took a little getting used to (they need signs for that?), and at almost every place, your bags are searched and the guard usually has a quick feel around your belt to find out if there are any hidden guns. The banks have three or four guards at the entrance, carrying the biggest pump-shotguns I’ve ever seen, and the black and white police cars have “To Protect And To Serve - Manila’s Finest” printed in big letters on the side. The apparent gun-culture is a little intimidating at first, but so far I haven’t felt unsafe or uneasy (although I must admit I’m being more careful here than in, for instance, Indonesia), and the people seem to have the same Asian friendliness and hospitality.

I took the LRT, or above ground metro, to the south of the city. It has a seperate platform section and metro carriage for women, something I also have never seen in Asian countries before (although according to a recent poll, 64% of Japanese women said they had been groped on Tokyo’s metro. A big change in this country with its strict social etiquette, where once yelling “seku hara!” (from “sexual harassment") was enough for all men in the same carriage to raise their hands in a “I didn’t do it!” gesture). The short and cheap ride on the LRT brought me further south, where I got off at Vito Cruz station, went for a short walk, and then took a typical Philippines way of transportation - the jeepney.

The jeepneys are great, a little like the Indonesian angkots, although they look much different. Remnants from World War II, they were originally converted jeeps from the American army, but are now usually custom built, long aluminium cars, painted in the brightest of colours, with two rows of benches in the back and their destinations written on the side. They usually have slogans on the front or the back, like “Mother of Perpetual Help", “Jesus the Saviour", or a simple “God Bless Our Ride". I paid my fare, about 5 cents, and off the jeepney went, criscrossing through the busy traffic, accellerating and then stopping so quickly that you had to hang on to the handrail suspended from the ceiling, if you wanted to stay seated in the same place. As I approached my destination, I was warned by my fellow passengers, and I told the driver “Para!", which means “Stop!” in Tagalog, and I got off.

I was now near the Makati Central Business District, the most modern (and probably most expensive) part of Manila. My first place of visit was the building where the Dutch embassy was located on the ninth floor. Pictures of flowers (of course) and earmarked black-and-white cows (typically Dutch?) on the wall, but also here, something I had seen in my hotel and in many cafes and restaurants, big emergency lamps, in case of the apparently not so rare power outages. This was my first visit to any Dutch embassy, and I wanted to get some travel advice, as there are some areas that I’d better avoid due to the risk of terrorist attacks and kidnappings (this turned out to be North Luzon, north of Manila, and Mindanao in the south), and other areas in this large country that were severely affected by the recent storms and subsequent floodings (rest of Luzon and Quezon provinces). I thanked the consular officer, left the building, and felt truly ready to start exploring The Philippines.

On Sumatra, the small town of Padang and its surrounding region is home of the Minangkabau people, an ethnic group of muslims in which the mother is head of the family. Their culture is easily recognisable, not just by their brightly coloured traditional clothing, but by the pointed roofs of many houses, resembling the horns of a buffalo.

After arriving, I headed up to the nice little town of Bukittinggi, two hours north-east of Padang, up in the hills and therefor pleasantly cool. Traffic is slow-paced, many houses have the huge peaked Minangkabau roofs, and just about everything is within walking distance. It features a traditional Dutch bell tower, completely intact except for the peaked roof that was installed a couple of decades ago. To the southwest, the town is flanked by a deep canyon, providing a gorgeous view of green hills and ricefields next to small farms, deep down.

As my remaining time in Indonesia was short, I decided to stay the days I had left in Bukittinggi, to explore the town and its surroundings, and then head back to Padang, where I would take a flight to Singapore. Visiting other parts of Sumatra would involve very long bus rides, as this is a huge island, and most parts are only accessible by bus (there is no rail network to speak of).

The Merdeka guesthouse I stayed at was housed in a traditional Dutch villa, with high ceilings and long corridors, and it was with the friendly staff that I arranged a rental motorbike. I drove on winding roads with 180 degree turns, towards the enormous Maninjau crater lake, underway stopping frequently to look at the beautiful scenery. Small villages in lush valleys usually had one or more mosques, with brightly coloured roofs, adjacent to green patches of ricefields lined by palm trees. Thick forests would surround the villages, the typical leaves of banana trees were the most visible from the distance.

I went over several peaks of hills before I got to the highest one, enclosing Lake Maninjau, and I gazed in awe at the gorgeous view of the deep blue lake, in stark contrast with the green hills and mountains surrounding it. The road that led down to the lake provided even more stunning views, and in the unlikely case I got tired of looking at this beautiful display, there were the monkeys again, dozens by the side of the road. I spent some time driving around the lake, taking in the scenery, having lunch at a waterside restaurant, before I headed back.

Back in Bukittinggi, more news reached me of the devastating floods in the Philippines, which worried me as this would be my next destination. On my last evening in this lovely town, I spent quite some time in an Internet cafe with the slowest connection imaginable, to check for travel advisory and weather forecasts for the Philippines.

Sumatra was a fitting end for my travels through Indonesia, and although I didn’t get to spend a lot of time in this beautiful province, I thoroughly enjoyed its natural beauty and the very friendly people. But after nearly two months in Indonesia, it was time to move on. This nation is still struggling with its relatively new democracy, violent uprisings and their ruthless supression in parts of its vast territory, enormous corruption that is crippling the already sour economy, and the influence of the military in politics. Only a couple of months ago, Munir, one of Indonesia’s most prominent human rights activists, died of arsenic poisoning on board a flight to The Netherlands, with many suspecting the Indonesian military’s hand in his death. Fortunately, there are many Indonesians who try to turn this country around.

Despite all the negative issues, it is quite easy to fall in love with this beautiful country, its intruiging culture and its very friendly and charming people, not to mention the food which makes your mouth water just thinking about it (except curried cow brains or satay of cow’s tongue - no, I will not get used to that).

I was quite sad to leave Indonesia, and I quietly said goodbye as I boarded my Garuda Indonesia flight to Singapore, where I would, after a bit of trouble, continue my journey to the Philippines.

Jakarta is indeed an enormous capital, population now over 20 million, with a constant layer of brown smog hovering over the city. Like Surabaya, it is clearly not designed for walking (Yogyakarta being a wonderful exception to this rule), so I took many buses and angkots, and used the efficient Transjakarta express bus system, to get around town.

I explored the Pelebuhan Sunda Kelapa, the old port to the north, and went for a walk through the tiny alleys in a small village of houses built on stilts, some no more than pieces of cartboard put together. Just about everyone greeted me and wanted to know where I was from. Small wooden bridges led me over the heavily polluted, oily water, kids swimming in between the floating rubbish, small boats bringing people to other parts of the harbour. Dark clouds were already releasing rain in the distance, a far away rumble of thunder sounded, and winds were picking up force as I talked to some kids, looking out over a polluted harbour with many enormous Macassar schooners and small boats navigating in between. On my way back into town, I stopped for shelter and a hot cup of coffee at a small warung, and watched the rains wash the dust off the streets. After the downpour had ended, I went for a walk again, admiring the many old Dutch warehouses, some with the logo of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie on it, the old Dutch trading company that flourished during Dutch rule of the former East Indies. I walked past a typical Dutch hanging bridge, such an unusual sight in this Asian capital. Some of the older people I talked to spoke a lot of Dutch, some had family living in towns or villages in Holland, and many reminded me of the Dutch occupation of Indonesia, always with a smile or a laugh. In retrospect, I am amazed and quite ashamed that I have never received any education at school about this dark period in Holland’s history, which went on until the late fourties of the previous century, almost as if this taboo subject is to be forgotten as soon as possible. Only now, here in Indonesia, I’m learning about our influence and our unfathomable naivety, once claiming this land as our own, partly out of commercial gain, partly out of the wish to ‘help’ and ‘educate’ the Indonesian people, no matter how honest those intentions may have been. However, a lot of Indonesians have told me that they believe that their country wouldn’t be nearly as developed as it is now, without the Dutch influence.

They love abbreviating words here. The everpresent Wartel stands for Warung Telekom, or Telecom Shop. A Warung Internet has the more ominous sounding name of Warnet. And one day, I went to the Monas, or Monumen Nasional, the enormous, socialist-style tower in the middle of Jakarta, with a big bronze flame on top. Locals with a sense of humour refer to it as “Sukarno’s Last Erection", and the top deck provides a grand yet very smoggy view of the city. In the big, dark, airconditioned room at the base of the tower, there was a relief map of Indonesia, in its original state, before the separation of some of its territory.

I explored some of Jakarta’s enormous shopping malls, walked on the huge boulevards with 6 lanes of traffic, gazed at the many skyscrapers in the central business district, and explored some of the nicer, greener areas with old Dutch mansions, where the constant noise of traffic would die down to a distant hum, and people ate at little foodstalls. When it was raining, and this was actually quite often, sometimes for only one hour, sometimes the entire evening, I would sip coffee at a small warung or cafe, or retreat to my air-conditioned hotelroom to watch some television.

The humidity, heat and pollution of the city is quite exhausting, so I was eager to leave Jakarta, which I did on the first day of December, by flying to Padang on the enormous island of Sumatra.

The busride on the public, non-airconditioned bus to Bandung, Indonesia’s third city in the west of Java, didn’t go very smoothly. We left Yogya around 9 am, and during midday, we passed a small village with signs for Benteng (fort) Van Der Wijck, one of the Dutch legacies in the area. One of my fellow passengers told me that the road we were now traveling on had been built by the Dutch, including the nearby railway lines and the many bridges we drove over.

Then, during the hottest moment of the day, we got stuck in an enormous traffic jam, on a tiny road in the middle of nowhere. Some vendors, from the sparse houses we passed, were running outside, selling water, food, or coconut milk. People in groups stood watching this busy traffic that was whizzing past at 1 km/hr, while it was getting hotter and hotter inside the bus. As my clothes were now drenched in sweat, I was a tiny bit relieved to see that my fellow Indonesian passengers were also having lots of trouble staying cool. After almost two hours, we finally cleared the traffic jam, but not before I had witnessed (and smelled) the beginning signs of a burned-out clutch, and I said to myself that I wouldn’t be putting any money on this bus reaching its destination. I didn’t realise how foreseeing this thought was, as after about fifteen minutes, the bus actually broke down, and the driver parked it in front of a house in the middle of nowhere, letting all the 50 passengers off. There was nothing we could do but wait, while some passengers were arguing with the driver, and the person selling the tickets was trying to halt other buses, to no avail.

After five hours, during which some passengers had been able to get onto other (already full) buses, I got on a mini-van that had been called in from a nearby town, together with 16 other passengers and luggage seemingly for 100 people. We left the rest of the passengers behind, as the chauffeur quickly drove off into the dark night, heading for the town of Tasik, where I would need to change onto a night bus to Bandung. As we went over winding mountain roads, people around me started throwing up, but I was too tired to care much about that, and we reached Tasik by midnight. I had a very late dinner, before continuing my journey to Bandung, during which I fell asleep.

It was around 2:30 am when the bus conductor woke me up, and I got out into the cool night, onto the deserted ring road around Bandung. I boarded an angkot, or kind of fixed-route taxi, which took me on a one hour ride into the city center, during which we passed many busy markets, where lots of people were selling and buying fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Feeling dirty, exhausted, and a little ill because of a cold that I had caught underway, I got off in the city center and started to look for a hotel. That proved to be difficult, as most were booked solid because of the Idul Fitri holiday. It was light by the time I had found one, in that dreamy, half-awake state that, in retrospection, makes you wonder if it all really happened.

From what I heard, Bandung is a pleasant and relaxed university-city, quite cool as it is higher up than most other big cities. Unfortunately, the rain season had announced itself with unprecedented strength, flooding parts of Bandung. Combined with feeling ill from my cold, I decided to take it easy, and therefor didn’t get to see a lot of the city. One day, there was an uncharachteristically strong police presence in the city, but dressed in the unusual green, old army fatigues. I went up to some officers, who explained to me that they were “cleaning up” the city. Naturally, I asked if that involved some large action to apprehend lots of, say, pickpockets, but instead the officers made a gesture as if sweeping with a broom. They meant literally cleaning up the city and removing the rubbish (and good luck at that, boys).

At one of Bandung’s train stations, I bought a train ticket for Jakarta. They have three different classes of train travel here: the ekonomi class, which usually departs from different stations on seperate, slower trains, and then bisnis and the more luxurious eksekutif classes. A relaxed, three hour ride in the bisnis class of the Parahyangan train brought me from Bandung to Jakarta. More gorgeous landscapes underway, Java has some beautiful scenery with its green hills and valleys.

Jakarta, once named Batavia by the Dutch, is Indonesia’s capital, a huge, busy, polluted city that never sleeps, hated by most and loved by some. I’ve spent some time walking huge distances in a tiny part of the city center, gazing at the almost socialist-style (and mostly tasteless) monuments and buildings. As I was walking one evening, a slight drizzle started, which soon changed into heavy rain, and then into a tropical rainstorm, lightning illuminating everyone and everything in a fraction of a second. It was almost immediately followed by the sound of thunder, resonating off the adjacent buildings, a little like the crashing of waves but then amplified a thousand times. The bolts of lightning would follow eachother every five seconds or so, sometimes succeeding the previous one so quickly, that the roaring sounds of thunder would merge into one, big thunderous explosion. The glass in the windows would shake, car alarms went off, while the enormous downpour of rain continued. People huddled together to find shelter at bus stops or under extended roofs of buildings, while the streets were being turned into rivers. This violent display lasted for about one hour, after which the lightning and thunder stopped as suddenly as they had started, and the rains changed back into a drizzle, then to stop completely, an hour or two after they had started.

Born on the countryside, I have always been fascinated by big cities, and more about my explorations of Jakarta will follow.

During the Idul Fitri holiday, when almost everybody in Indonesia has the week off and uses it to visit family and friends, or just go on a holiday, prices for transportation and accommodation skyrocketed (tip: not a good time to visit a country with an Islamic majority). It is a little weird when everyone says to friends, and companies use the sentence as a slogan on banners in front of their office: “Mohon Maaf Lahir Dan Batin", which means so much as “Please forgive me for all my mistakes", but then the prices are still raised.

For tourists, of course, the prices can be even higher. A ‘helpful’ tourist office wanted to sell me a bus ticket to Yogyakarta, my next destination after visiting the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park, for around 20 Euros, but instead I got on a public bus, exhausted and in dire need of a good sleep, and paid as little as 3 Euros for the 8-hour journey, or the equivalent of a 30-minute busride in Holland. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my un-Indonesian long legs into account. There was so little space between my chair and the one in front of me, that despite my attempts to find a suitable position, sleeping was just impossible. The express bus stopped a couple of times to let more passengers on until it was full, and then went with reckless speed towards Yogyakarta, overtaking traffic left and right. There were several near-accidents, as the cost of a human life seemed to go down the further the bus was behind schedule. But we eventually arrived at Yogyakarta’s brand new bus terminal in the middle of the night, and I waited until early morning so I could take a bus into the center of the city, to find accommodation. Awake for 27 hours, exhausted beyond belief, sweaty and smelly, I checked into a fine wisma (guesthouse), had a shower, and the moment my head hit the pillow, I was asleep.

Yogyakarta is a nice city, it reminded me of Vietnam’s Hue in the way it has an enclosed imperial palace, called the Kraton, where currently the 10th in a succession of kings (called sultan) is presiding as governor of the greater Yogyakarta area. The sultans, and the city itself with its esteemed education of state leaders (including Soekarno) and other politicians, were instrumental in the support for revolusi, or the overthrow of Dutch rule after the second world war, and reformasi, or the change into a democratic government after Suharto’s dictatorial regime. I toured the Kraton palace area, the renovation of which had been sponsored by Dutch Queen Wilhelmina in the late twenties of the previous century, and went for long walks in the area around it, which seems to be a city within a city. A bird market with thousands of doves, singing birds, chickens and even flying foxes, is adjacent to the Taman Sari, the Water Palace, which the sultans and their families once used as their private swimming pools.

On my second day in Yogyakarta, I visited the famous Borobodur temple, a huge complex 70 kilometers northwest from the city, built in the 9th century AD. It consists of six square levels, with three circular ones on top, reached by stairs on each of the four sides. On every level, many Buddha statues in little chambers, elaborate murals and small chedis. The circular levels have the famous latticed stupas with Buddha statues in them, some incomplete, missing heads or hands, some complete, in a peaceful pose as if in deep meditation. I sat down to gaze at the stunning site and its surroundings of rugged green mountain ridges with so many palm trees. One Indonesian man came up to me, asking if he could take my picture. I thought I didn’t understand him quite well (you want to take a picture of me?), but then his friend sat down next to me, and he took a picture of his friend and me, and then the friend took another picture. Apparently emboldened by the first man, many, many others followed, including whole families with wife and daughters all wearing the muslim headscarf, sitting around me, to be on the photo with this white man. After about fifteen photos, I cracked a joke to the crowd that was now gathered around me, about photos costing lima puluh ribu rupiah, or 50,000 rupiah, and they all had a good laugh, before continuing to ask for more pictures. When I got tired of it, after about 25 photos, feeling a little too much like Tom Cruise, I got up and walked around again.

In the late afternoon on the following day, I visited the Prambanan temple complex, 50 kilometers east of Yogyakarta, the biggest Hindu temple complex on Java, also built in the 9th century AD. Instead of one big temple like Borobodur, this complex consists of several seperate ones, the largest of which stands 47 meters tall. All are elaborately decorated with murals displaying the Ramayana, stories from the Hindu religion. The temples had dark rooms, with statues of Shiva, Durga, Ganesh and Agastya, and one had a statue of the bull Nandi, affectionately touched by many Indonesians. Around the temples, the whole area is littered with thousands of fragments of other temples, now overgrown with grass. I sat down on one of the blocks of stone, and watched the sunset bathe the temples in a dark red colour.

The next day would see me driving around on a rented motorbike, feeling wonderful again to be so free, going through the beautiful countryside, stopping at little villages for food and drinks, talking to the locals (the usual topics being languages, countries, cultures and the prices of common goods). I went on a shopping spree in Kota Gede, famous for its many silver shops, and selfishly bought two presents for myself (two silver hangers with necklaces). I carefully went through Yogya’s busy traffic, exploring the modern part of the city in the north, before going back to the city center, slowly going through the tiny streets around the Kraton, stopping for some food and a coffee at a warung. It was my last evening in Yogyakarta, and I said goodbye to this nice and friendly city.

On the following day, attempting to travel to Bandung, I would have another not-so-smooth experience with public transportation, but more about that in my next post.

The flight to Surabaya took only 45 minutes, during which I had a look at a novelty for me: an invocation card in the seat pocket in front of me, asking the Gods of 5 religions in 3 languages for a safe journey. Interestingly, the Buddhist one was the shortest, one sentence basically blessing everyone and everything.

Surabaya is a big, hot and humid city, with round the clock traffic jams and its accompanying pollution. It is semi-modern in the way that it has its share of luxurious hotels with tight security and gigantic shopping malls with western prices. In between, little alleys with shabby houses, people washing themselves in the dirty water of the rivers next to heaps of rubbish, lots of homeless people asking for money.

During dinner on my first evening, I met some locals, including charming Wayan, who was born on Bali, but now runs his construction company in Surabaya, his girlfriend Tammy who is studying economics, and his employees Herman and Sugen, all a little younger than me. Their hospitality and friendliness was immense, considering me a guest in their city. They drove me around in the huge city that clearly isn’t designed for walking, and made sure, despite my attempts, that I didn’t pay for any of the drinks or food we enjoyed. Wayan’s command of English was very good, but Sugen and Herman didn’t speak any, so they taught me a little Javanese (Bahasa Jawa, pronounced Bohoso Jowoh), which like Balinese consists of 3 social levels, depending on the person you’re addressing. After several evenings enjoying their hospitality, comparing information on both our countries, playing pool and listening to music, there came the inevitable moment of saying goodbye, always a little difficult.

The following morning, I took a public bus towards Surabaya’s main bus terminal in the south of the city. Heads turning when I got on the bus, people smiling and even offering their seat for this strange white man. Buskers would get on, alone or in pairs, playing their guitars and singing Indonesian songs, and then going round with a small plastic bag, asking for a donation. Usually, when one busker got off, another would immediately get on, so during the hour long busride we were constantly provided with music. At times, a very young boy or girl would get on, singing a song with a beautiful voice, making the beat with a wooden stick with several flattened caps of bottles pinned to it. Many vendors got on, throwing little things in your lap, like pens, bags with safety pins, or even little books with law amendments and photos of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s new cabinet members. After a while, they would collect their goods again, or the money from those who had decided to buy it.

I changed buses several times, always the only tourist on board. I stayed the night in the city of Malang, before heading further east towards the tiny village of Cemorolawang, high up in the mountains, at a stone’s throw of the entrance to the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park, the reason why I visited this area. It was quite cool, almost chilly, the locals wearing thick jumpers and blankets wrapped around them, some wearing hoods, only revealing their eyes.

The following morning, it was the first day of Idul Fitri, I got up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 am, after hitting the snooze button several times, to do what I had set out to: climb Mount Bromo. I dressed in the warmest of clothes I had, a daypack with essential items on my back, and I stepped out of my very basic room into a dark night with the brightest of stars and planets above me. At the entrance of the park, a mere 100 meters from my hostel, locals had gathered, offering me rides on their ponies, which I declined by saying “Mlaku mlaku!", which means so much as “Walking!". I went down the steep descending road to the enormous valley of solidified lava and volcanic sand, now nothing more than complete darkness, the surrounding mountains outlined by the stars. Very faintly, I could see the white poles marking the “road", ending abruptly in a dry bed where once pyroclastic flows must have gone through. Closer to Mount Bromo, the terrain ascended and became much more rugged, and I had to pause a couple of times, hearing nothing but the howling of the icy cold wind and my own gasps for breath in the thin mountain air. When I got to the base of Mount Bromo, an active volcano flanked by the now dormant Mount Batok and Mount Kursi, the sky had already turned a vague red, as I walked up the long staircase leading to the top of the volcano. The smell of sulphur was now very strong, and when I reached the top, I could see the sulphurous steam evaporating from the cracks in the dark surface of the crater, some 200 meters down. Standing there, 2400 meters above sea level, shivering in the wind, I watched the sky become bright red, and the surreal landscape all around me slowly changed colour. When the sun finally appeared from behind the mountain range in the distance, it immersed the top of the mountain peaks in a bright yellow light, and I gazed at the enormous valley that resembled a moon landscape. Mount Bromo hissed a little, sometimes releasing more steam, sometimes quieting down.

Back down at the base of the crater, the grey ridges of the volcano were now clearly visible, devoid of all plant life, volcanic rocks scattered everywhere. A husband and wife had set up a table with drinks and food at the beginning of the staircase. They were Hindu, their skin dark and wrinkled, and they spoke Bahasa Tenger, which is very similar to Bahasa Jawa. While I waited for the water to boil, so I could finally warm myself to a hot cup of Javanese coffee, they told me that they had witnessed the last eruption on June 4, 2004, when all the locals had to be evacuated to the city of Malang.

When I had finished my coffee, I walked further down towards the black, desert-like valley, to find a Hindu temple, a serene yet out-of-place structure in such a surreal landscape. Flanked by the green Mount Batok, it has no roof, just consists of a walled compound with statues and gates, looking out over the valley and its surrounding mountains. When I got to the inner square, a Hindu prayer had just commenced with 30 people attending, in front of a pillar with a boma face, in the background the massive Mount Bromo.

I walked up to Cemorolawang again, pausing several times to catch my breath and to look back at the landscape. It was around 7:30 am when I got back to my hostel, and had a well-deserved breakfast. As I had decided to leave for Yogyakarta that evening, there was one more thing I still needed to do: climb Mount Pananjakan, and get to the viewpoint at 2700 meters, to get the best view of the whole area.

After regaining my strength at the hostel for about an hour, I started to walk again, through the village, past people working on the fertile land. Of course no rice fields here, but acres with sweet potatoes, spring onions and even corn. Many locals greeting me with friendly smiles, wrapped up women with wrapped up babies in blankets slung around their shoulders, men on ponies passing me. After half an hour, the asphalt road ended, and a small ascending path continued, providing me with a very arduous climb that took more than two hours and led me through the mist of clouds. The views just kept on getting better and better during my very frequent breaks, and when I finally got to the top of the mountain, the viewpoint offered me an amazing view of this incredible landscape. The small village on my left, with roads where I had walked on two hours ago now being tiny lines intersecting the small patches of farm land, and to the right, deep down, the massive black valley with its three volcanoes and the Hindu temple. Far in the background was Mount Semeru, with 3676 meters the highest volcano of Java, emitting puffs of dark smoke.

Of course, the way back down went much quicker, but I was quite exhausted when I got back to the hostel, and over coffee and lots of water, I pondered on how powerful mother nature can be and how insignificant we humans really are.

I had now been awake for 11 hours, done more than six hours of arduous walks and naturally was quite tired, but little did I realise that I would spend another 16 hours awake. But more about that in my next post.

Upon arrival in Lombok’s Lembar harbour, after five hours on the ferry with mostly Indonesian people, I had seen the coast, beaches lined with palm trees and in the background brown, arid hills, quite a difference from Bali. During the trip by tourist shuttle bus to the small coastal town of Senggigi, the landscape changed the further north we got, becoming more and more green.

On Bali, it had been difficult to penetrate the superficial layer of charming people and beautiful landscape, to understand the hardship these people must endure in their daily lives, but here on Lombok, the poverty was clearly visible. Sheds serving as houses, pony-drawn carriages, kids playing with rudimentary toys. There was rubbish everywhere, carelessly thrown alongside the road, on big landfills, or in or near the already very polluted water of the rivers. Many open sewers with their accompanying stench, and I had forgotten how big rats can become. I suppose the poorer the people, the less they care where their rubbish ends up, something I also noticed when I spent some time on the Navajo Reservation in the US state of Arizona, some seven years ago. But don’t they realise the extend to which they’re polluting their own environment, or is it out of sight, out of mind?

Senggigi is an unremarkable, desolate little town, clearly suffering from the slump in tourism. As it was now the rainy season, usually in the afternoon the heavens would open up for about an hour and streets would instantly be turned into rivers. Again, there were many hawkers in Senggigi, who are quite persistant, and the conversation always goes like this: “Hello mister, how are you? Where are you from?” After I answer, they are usually able to name a dozen Dutch football players, after which they ask me to buy some of their goods (mostly consisting of necklaces, armbraces, rings and decorated lighters), and they’re not taking no for an answer. I’ve seen some tourists get very angry at them for persisting like this, but I’m always trying to be polite and to smile, as I understand they’re very poor and see us tourists as walking dollar bills. Still, it’s quite full-on.

Following the advice of a fellow backpacker from Russia, I decided to visit Gili Meno, the quitest one of three Gili islands, just off Lombok’s coast. The husband and wife who owned the losmen I stayed at in Senggigi drove me to Bangsal, where the boat to Gili Meno would depart from. Deeper into Lombok, I finally saw some of the natural beauty Lombok is known for, wonderful green mountains and deep valleys, covered in thick unspoilt jungle. The winding road led us through Monkey Forest, where hundreds of small monkeys sat together alongside the road, eating, grooming eachother, or lazily watching the passing traffic. Bangsal harbour was merely a beach with some small boats, and after wading through the water, I got on the boat, squeezed in between the provisions, together with a dozen locals. After an hour, we arrived on Gili Meno, which is best described as a tiny tropical paradise, population 300. I checked into a newly built bungalow, less than 30 meters from the beach, and of course I directly went for a swim in the lukewarm, deep blue water. It’s magical to swim with a backdrop of the lush green mountains of Lombok in the distance. Sometimes thick, dark clouds would hover over the mountains, you could hear the thunder and see the rain coming down, but on Gili Meno, it remained dry, almost desert-like.

I rented snorkelling equipment for a day, and entered the sea just in front of my bungalow. Unfortunately, most of the coral has been destroyed by a combination of global warming, El Nino, and dynamite- and dragnet fishing by the locals. The beaches and sea bed are full of dead coral, and with the disappearance of the coral, the habitat of thousands of fish and other creatures has also vanished. Still, there were quite some fish present, like beautifully coloured butterfly fish, rabbit fish, enormous tuna, many large turtles, and flying fish, jumping great distances across the water surface. I was fascinated by a large octopus, who hid and changed colour as I got closer, and when I turned around, imagine my surprise when I saw a one and a half meter long white-tipped reef shark (Triaenodon obesus), holding still in the water, just 4 meters in front of me. It turned, and swam towards me, to reaching distance, as if it wanted to take a look at this strange, masked creature in front of it. Then suddenly, it swam past me with great speed, leaving me once again impressed at the elegance of the shark and the gracefulness with which it moves through the water.

As it is now Ramadan, the muslims are not eating, drinking or smoking from sunrise to sunset, and in this last week they are preparing for Idul Fitri (sugar festival), a two day celebration where they visit friends and families, and give eachother gifts (also consisting of sweets and dried sugared fruits, hence the name). Ramadan is a way for them to clear their mind and body, and to remind themselves that there are people less fortunate, who aren’t able to eat a meal every day. As a lot of muslims are still working, they are concentrating by quietly reciting small mantra-like prayers, of which Allahu al Akhbar (God is great) is the most (in)famous. From learning more about Islam, I can see that it is a very peaceful religion, but unfortunately it is so much abused by the extremists who call themselves muslim. And I am amazed at the polarizing influence of the media, as terrorism which is committed by for instance Christians or Hindus is simply called Terrorism, but when committed by (proclaimed) muslims, it is Islamic Terrorism.

After the sunsets, I frequently ate delicious Indonesian food at a local warung, a lovely experience to sit among the locals, who taught me some of their Sasak language (which differs not only on the three islands, but also on Lombok as well). Densi, a very friendly 38-year old muslim who owns the small warung, and spends his time taking tourists on snorkelling trips, taught me more about Islam, as I ate my nasi campur and as he smoked one cigarette after another (no surprise, after not smoking the whole day). His wife cooks the food, and he has two daughters who go to school on Lombok, and one son, who still lives with his parents.

After staying on the wonderful little island for five days, I went for my last swim around sunset, the dark blue water ending in a sky of red, with a large sun slowly sinking in the sea, seemingly passing through the clouds. On the other side, the green mountains of Lombok, enveloped in dark clouds. When it was dark, I went back to Densi’s warung again, and I said that I wanted to see a little more of Lombok. Although he had never been there, he said that Senaru was a very nice place to visit, and he asked if we perhaps could go together. I thought this was a very good idea, and we would meet up the following morning to go to Lombok together.

That morning, Densi and I took the boat back to Lombok, I stored my backpack at a friend’s of Densi’s, who allowed us to borrow his small Honda motorbike with two helmets. Off we went, I drove through Lombok’s beautiful countryside, Densi sitting on the back. Again, the environment was hot and dry, little vegetation and dry riverbeds. We passed hundreds of school children, dressed in brown-yellow uniforms, some of which said “Bule!” ("White Man!") or hello, while waving. We passed through villages, were people waved at me, said hello or “bule” again, which made Densi laugh a lot. After a while, the road went up and the landscape changed, becoming more green, and cooler, with a beautiful view of green rice fields, palm trees and those lush green mountains in the background. After almost one and a half hours, we came to the village of Senaru, where I parked the bike, and we walked on a path that led us down, to see the large waterfalls, which were amazing. The water seemed to come out of the mountain wall, covered in lush green vegetation, plunging 15 meters down with a loud noise. It was quite cool, the water crystal clear and icy cold. As this was the first visit for the both of us, we were both very impressed. We gazed at the scenery for a while, and then laboured up the path back to our motorbike, allowing for several stops as Densi was still fasting. I had lunch at a restaurant before we went back, and we stopped at a tiny village where his sister lives. I sat on the small straw mat under the thatched roof of the hut where his sister and her husband lives, very basic and poor. They were all fasting, but offered me coffee and two sweet bread rolls, which I tried to eat as quietly as possible while Densi went inside to pray.

When we got back to the place of Densi’s friends, we returned the motorbike, and I collected my bags and said goodbye to Densi. I was then ushered onto a public bus as I wanted to go to Ampenam, part of the Mataram city area, the capital of Lombok. The public bus was a mini van that could seat about 10 people, including the driver, but eventually around 18 of us, me being the only tourist, were cramped in this little bus, listening to the loud Indonesian-Arabic music. Closer to Mataram, I changed into a bemo (a converted pick-up truck serving as taxi), which brought me to Ampenam, where I checked into a hotel, while the loud readings from the Kuran of three different mosks descended on me.

The following morning, I went with a 23-year old Boeing MD-82 from Lion Air to Indonesia’s second largest city of Surabaya, on Java, which will be the starting point for my explorations of Java. But more about that in my next post.

I arrived in Lombok yesterday, taking the slow ferry from Padang Bai to Lembar, and then I travelled up to Senggigi, where I’m trying to finish these two posts on my Travel Journal before heading to one of the Gili Islands, where I suspect Internet access will be much more difficult to obtain.

My last week in Ubud, Bali, was so filled with social activities, I was invited to so many lunches, dinners and ceremonies, that I hardly had the time to write about it in this Travel Journal. So I will now try to tell you a little more, about the inspiring people I have met, on the cremation ceremony I attended, and how I ended up working a little at the ARMA Museum in Ubud.

Zanzan, my friend at the ARMA museum, took me around Ubud in the early morning, and we drove through tiny villages, past rice fields where people were planting or harvesting rice, through forests and landscapes that have inspired so many artists. Children in uniform going to school, whole families on one scooter, villagers working together to prepare for the cremation ceremonies that would be held on the auspicious day of Friday 22 October. Zanzan explained about religion and its influence on agriculture, about the layout of a village or living community, and together we admired the views that were so well captured by various painters, like Walter Spies. When we got back at ARMA, he treated me to an early lunch, and we talked about how Mr. Agung Rai had inspired Zanzan, and how this museum was set up only with the promotion and conservation of the culture of Bali in mind. In exchange for the insight into Bali life and culture that Zanzan had given me, I offered to help him a little with his laptop, and to share my ideas on how the museum could further promote Balinese culture, perhaps by applying for funding or sponsoring, and how to improve visitor attendance. That week, I ended up working quite a bit in the museum, making me realise that this might be something I would like to do when I’m not travelling, as a museum in general, and ARMA in particular, is such an inspiring place. I was invited to dance and music performances at the ARMA Open Stage, which were actually more amazing than the ones I had seen before, and I was intruiged by the jegog music, with elaborately decorated bamboo instruments. The more traditional kecak performance at ARMA’s Open Stage made the one that I had seen before at Padang Tegal, and which I have described in this journal, look tame and without passion in comparison. I had the honour of meeting Mr. Agung Rai, a very charismatic man, and his wife, during many occassions, and was invited to join them for dinner, gorgeous food at the Kafe ARMA, prepared by one of Bali’s greatest chefs, Deddy Kuswara. I was invited to join a Hindu blessing ceremony, where I too received the blessings with rose water, flowers and leaves you put behind your ears and in your head band, and the cermonial rice you place on your forehead.

Zanzan offered to show me one of the most important cremation ceremonies that would take place on Bali, near Ubud. On the morning of that Friday, I met a Mr. Khambata, a very interesting 68-year old man of Parsi-descent, who was born in Bombay and enjoyed the classical British education there, before moving to London to become a surgeon, which he practiced for almost 40 years. Upon retirement, he became a teacher to many visiting opera singers in London, on how to use their voice. He expressed jealousy of the fact that I’m doing what he had wanted to do all his life, visiting all those countries that I still have on my itinerary, which he has only been able to do in the past years or so. This again made me realise how fortunate I am, to be able to experience all this.

Together with two Taiwanese tourists, Mr. Khambata and I went to attend the cremation ceremony, or ngaben, which is central to Balinese Hinduism. It is a way for the children to pay their debt to the parent, who has nurtured and protected them during life. It is also extremely expensive, and a ceremony may be performed many months or years after someone has died. Sometimes, a whole village mounts a joint ngaben ceremony every few years, the preparations taking many months, and the remains of the people who have died in the mean time will be exhumed, cleaned, and then cremated.

To show respect, we were dressed in sarongs, wearing the traditional head band. We joined the procession, following an eight-tiered, approximately 15 meters tall ceremonial tower, or naga banda, constructed on a bamboo-pole platform, extravagantly decorated. The higher the tower, the more important the person for whom this cremation ceremony is mounted. The tower was carried by about 30 people, who were frequently sprayed with water along the way, as it was a very hot day and the tower must have been very heavy. They either moved with great speed, or stopped completely to allow for the raising of telephone cables, so the tower could pass through underneath. This wasn’t always successful, and the tower ripped many wires loose from their fixtures, depriving some homes temporarily of communication. In front of the procession, a large black bull was being carried, constructed of wood and covered with black velvet and gold, which would be used for the cremation itself. Behind us, another bull and a smaller tower followed, for a second ceremony. Everywhere, there was music, people laughed and made jokes, as in their Hindu tradition the passing of a loved one is a thing to celebrate, not to mourn. The procession turned a corner, and the tower was spun around and around several times, to confuse the evil spirits about its direction. Many onlookers including tourists gazed at this amazing display.

After a while we arrived at the temple courtyard where the cremation would take place, and the bull was placed in the center of the square. The hundreds of people installed themselves in the shade of a large community hall without walls, to look at the cremation. Vendors came selling pizza, ice-cream, drinks and other snacks, and people chatted, laughed, and met up with friends. The back of the bull was cut open, revealing the wooden frame. The remains of the deceased, wrapped in blankets, were removed from the tower and given to a family member. The tower was then discarded, and the family and close friends of the deceased formed a line, carrying the remains of the deceased wrapped in blankets, some of her favourite belongings and clothing, and many offerings, consisting of meat, flowers and fruits. They placed all this carefully inside the wooden animal, and the back was once again placed on the wooden frame. Prayers were said, and the bull was set alight. It didn’t take very long for the bull to be completely engulfed in flames, radiating an intense heat. When everything had been consumed by the fire, the ashes were collected and placed in what looked like a small chair, draped in silk, put among many elaborately decorated baskets with offerings. At a later point, the ashes would be scattered in the river, and it would take them to the sea, where the soul would be released. Having shed its body, the soul would proceed to the upper world, to wait for reincarnation, or for those who have attained spiritual purity, to be absorbed into nirvana.

Mr. Khambata had invited me to dinner, and many more would follow in the coming week, and we discussed this intruiging display of a culture and religion that is so unlike my own. Mr. Khambata is best described as a walking library of knowledge, and we discussed many issues including the differences between Balinese and Indian Hinduism, history, politics and literature.

I spent the last two nights in the luxurious ARMA Resort, courtesy of Zanzan, and marveled once again at the beauty of the gardens, the sound of water everywhere, mango and coconut trees, the smiles of the employees who all knew me by name, and in the distance a farmer working in the rice fields, a line of ducks following his every movement. My room was decorated with many hibiscus flowers, and the welcome message “To Mr Frezzo” was hand written on the petals of a white flower, placed on top of a basket with exotic fruit, which I thought was lovely.

I was quite sad to leave Ubud and my friends behind, but such is the nature of traveling. I know I will be back in Bali, who knows when, but my time there was the most inspiring I’ve had for many, many years.

As always when visiting another country, I have been trying to learn the basics of the language a little. Not just to show some common courtesy for the people who live here, but also as I enjoy it so much.

Here on Bali, they have their own language, which is very different from bahasa Indonesia. The Balinese language only exists in spoken form (and is consequently disappearing slowly), and it’s based on a 3-tier caste system. So you use different words depending on the social status of the person you’re speaking to. I thought guessing the age of someone (which you have to in, for instance, the Vietnamese language) was difficult, try to guess someone’s social status (hello, are you a royal person or someone of great nobility?). Although everyone speaks Indonesian, they adore my poor attempts at speaking Balinese, and the reaction usually consists of a deluge of Balinese, which I then cannot understand of course.

The Dutch influence on the Indonesian language is visible everywhere, ranging from dokter, apotek, notaris, bioscoop (cinema) to oom (uncle) and tante (aunt). It also worked the other way round, but usually for food, as Indonesian restaurants in Holland use the Indonesian names for the dishes on the menu. So I order pisang goreng (fried banana) for starters, followed by nasi goreng (fried rice, mixed with veggies and meat), with sambal (ground chillies) and kecap (soy sauce). I could very well have been in an Indonesian restaurant in Holland, except that it tastes so much nicer here and is so very cheap.

The most common names for people here on Bali are the ones that signify the order in which they were born. So if you’re the oldest, your name is Wayan, if you have only one older brother or sister, it’s Made, then Nyoman, and number four is Ketut. So my name would be Friso Ketut, as I was born fourth in line.

They do love their canine friends here, usually for company or protection of property, and at night they roam free on the streets (dozens if not hundreds of them, barking, howling), a lot of them being the kind of dogs you’d like to avoid, nasty, and some quite clearly ridden with wounds and flees. And they do seem to look both left and right before crossing a street, also reacting to the sound of a car horn.

To discover Bali a little more, I rented a scooter from the guy at my local losmen, and ventured out into the busy traffic of Ubud. Compared with (for instance) Thailand or Vietnam, the traffic here goes quite orderly, and it seems that most people on motorbikes or scooters wear helmets (but why do they drive on the left side of the road?).

I love that sense of freedom, when you have your own transportation, so you can decide which places to visit or how long to stay there. I came across beautiful scenery (deciding what not to photograph is usually the case), and visited some stunning places, like Gunung Kawi, a holy site for Hindus, located in a little valley, near the village of Tampaksiring. You walk down about 300 steps, and the landscape just gets more and more beautiful, those bright green rice fields, waving palm trees, flowers in every colour, the sound of waterfalls, and a little brook carrying very clear water down to another village. Gunung Kawi itself consists of 6 ancient chedi’s, carved out of the rock walls, about 20 meter in height, quite a sight. To show respect, you have to take your footwear off, so I continued barefoot on the scorching hot rocks, sweat pouring down my face, trying to find shade so I could gaze at this stunning site.

I then continued on my scooter, after spending some time talking to the villagers who maintained the site (I had my first salak there, or snakeskin fruit (Zalacca Edulis), with a thin crispy skin that looks indeed like the skin of a snake, and it has a soft yellow-white fruit, tasting almost like an apple). I stopped for some wonderful nasi goreng at a local warung (family restaurant) in a tiny village underway. I spent some time at the village of Penelokan in the north, where you have a beautiful view of Mount Batur. Now a dormant volcano, it erupted some 15 years ago. One patch of green had been spared, the trees forming a little oasis in the middle of a dark sea of black, solidified lava. On the right, by contrast the intense light blue of Lake Batur.

Passing through the little villages is so nice, there are so many temples, and community areas where people work together. In a lot of villages, the penjor is displayed, a religious symbol created during the special galunga days, once every six months. This 10-m high pole, made from bamboo, straw and banana leaves, symbolises the defeat of evil and the importance of modesty and humility.

Around dinner time I wasn’t very hungry, so I had some lovely pisang goreng and coffee, at this open-air kind of restaurant market. It was dark when I returned to Ubud, and sat on the porch in front of my room, listening to the sounds of crickets and geckos, marveling about all the beauty I had seen that day.

The day after I had witnessed the Balinese dances, I ventured out into Ubud on a rented bicycle. This eventually proved quite a challenge, as Ubud is situated in a reasonably hilly area, and of course I am a Dutchman with a fascination for hills and mountains but alas no experience with cycling over them (I remember a half day cycling in New Zealand, some six years ago, and I needed four days to recover from that). But this landscape invites you to stop and gaze at it, it is so beautiful with its green ricefields with different levels, the many coconut and banana trees, the beautiful houses with thatched roofs. The cutest little kids that wave and say “hello” about twenty times, with a proud mother smiling behind them.

In the south of Ubud, the famous ARMA is located, or Agung Rai Museum of Art, a must see for anyone visiting Ubud. Founded by Mr. Agung Rai and his wife, with the proceeds of the adjacent cafe, restaurant, and art gallery, ARMA is a complex consisting of several grand Balinese-style villas, enclosed by a stunning garden. A collection of paintings by both Indonesian and foreign painters is displayed in two of the villas. In the other buildings, classes of Balinese dance and music are taught to Ubud’s youth, as ARMA conserves and promotes Balinese culture. It is quite unusual to see an effort like this, as the Indonesian government isn’t known for its cultural stimulation. It is to the credit of Mr. Agung Rai that this gem of a museum exists in Ubud.

After having walked around for a while, I decided it was time for coffee (kopi), and I wrote a little in my analogue or paper version of this travel journal. Sitting at a table next to me, was a woman dressed in a beautiful bright purple sarong, wearing the make-up of a dancer, playing with a lovely baby boy. The woman turned out to be Mrs. Agung Rai, one of the dancers who oversee the teaching of the dances at ARMA. A man introduced himself to me as Zanzan, and he turned out to be the father of the boy, and very proud at it, radiating while he showed his son to me. Zanzan works closely with Mr. Agung Rai as Operations Manager at ARMA, and he will be accompanying the youth gamelan orchestra of ARMA on a tour of Balinese dance and music in Europe this November. We talked about history, culture, Indonesian politics (his uncle was the Minister for Culture in Megawati Sukarnoputri’s cabinet) and of course Balinese dances and music. After a while, he offered to show me the places in Ubud where tourists usually do not come, and where the environment and life more closely resemble the indiginous life of the Balinese. We made an appointment for the following Tuesday for the tour, and after saying goodbye, I continued to walk around the ARMA complex to admire the stunning gardens and guesthouses of the ARMA Resort. Little brooks, ponds with statues of animals made out of stone, waving palm trees, and in the distance those stunning green ricefields.

There are so many art galleries around here in Ubud that you could fill all the museums of the world, easily. There is some unremarkable art, and some stunning, abstract paintings, impressionist and realist. There had also been a Writer’s Festival, which would have been interesting, but it had just finished when I arrived in Ubud.

To my delight, I managed to find out where a kecak dance was going to be held, that evening at the Padang Tegal, a temple in the center of Ubud. I went there early to get a good seat, and by now it had become quite dark. The stage, inside the gated complex of the temple, was lit by a dozen oil lights. Around 50 dancers walked onstage, all men, dressed only in black and white chequered sarongs and wearing a flower behind one ear. They sat down in a large circle, and used only their voices to produce the accompanying music, a rythmic, hypnotic chant, changing rapidly as they performed their trance-like movements. Female dancers dressed in beautiful costumes appeared, and at times a male dancer, wearing the costume of a demon or ferocious animal, as they depicted great stories from their Hindu religion. They moved in between the 50 kecak dancers, they spun around eachother in what seemed to be a chase or a fight, a contest of strenght or the depiction of the sadness.

The large group of dancers alternated their trance-like movements very rapidly (during a real performance, without the tourists, they would indeed be in trance). One or two people would give the voice commands that would change the movements, or change the chants, and the movements and chants would frequently lead to a climax. Hundreds of hands in the air, waving and shaking, the whole group becoming one moving object, standing, sitting, swirling around, moving back and forth, suddenly standing up again and facing eachother, arms raised as in a contest, and suddenly they would cease their movements. The chants then changed, and they would continue along another rythmic path, that would lead to a new series of movements.

Later on in the performance, two small, delicate Balinese girls, elegantly dressed in yellow-white dresses, were literally carried onto the stage by a group of women, who then sat down behind them, singing. These two girls performed another trance-dance. They would increase their rapid movements along with the chants, during which they would exhaust themselves so much that they collapsed, and needed the support of the onlooking women to stand up again. They continued dancing, and collapsed again for several times. Although re-enacted, this was so very moving that the audience fell completely silent, the bright flashes of cameras ceased, and people just looked in awe at yet another immensely powerful display of Balinese culture.

The last performance was done by an old man, performing the fire dance. A couple of men lit a big heap of coconut shells, which radiated so much heat that I was afraid, sitting at about 10 meters from the fire, that the lens of my camera would melt. While carrying an animal on his back, made out of bamboo and straw, this man seemed oblivious to the heat and to the burning, walking in trance through the fire, over the coconut shells, kicking them around as in contempt of this force of nature.

After what had seemed 5 minutes, but was indeed more than an hour, the performance was over, and I left the Padang Tegal that evening feeling very moved, silently going back to my guesthouse.

The last image on my mind, before I finally fell asleep, was of those two delicate Balinese dancers, their movements accentuated by the light of the oil lights, their exhaustion almost too painful to witness.

Selamat malam!

The past few days were so filled with activities that I did not have time to write them down online! And already I received a worried text message from a family member.

After only a short time in Kuta, I decided I needed to leave that place, and quick. True, it’s got a lovely beach, but it is so touristy that it isn’t nice anymore, with too many hawkers and the wrong kind of loud Australians (sorry my Australian friends). So I booked a bus to Ubud, also known as the cultural capital of Bali.

Ubud is indeed a lovely village, and although still touristy, it’s pleasantly slow-paced and quiet. Upon arriving I checked myself into a nice losmen, or family guesthouse, and I have a nice room with fan and shower for around € 3. I immediately set out for a long walk to explore the village. Almost every house, like so many in Bali, seems to be a temple, with ornate walls and beautifully decorated gates. The richer families have large courtyards, with little pagodas with statues in the garden, adjourned with trees that have beautiful flowers in every colour.

In the evening, I attended an hour long performance of Balinese dances, at the courtyard of the Ancak Saji Ubud Palace, right in the center of Ubud. This was a beautiful setting, the dances were performed in front of a 15m tall gate, of course elaborately decorated with ornaments, and lit by a dozen oil lights. The gamelan orchestra was composed of two dozen men. Most of the instruments are Balinese-style xylophones, with carved wooden casings painted red and gold, and these are named according to their size, and therefor pitch. The xylophone with the lowest pitch, or ugal, is mostly used to enhance the rythm, and then going up in pitch, there are the: gangsa, kantilan, penyacah, kalung, and jegog, which produce a wonderfully enchanting melody that I cannot compare with any music I’ve heard before. There are several gongs, also named by size: gong, kempur, klentong, that produce that deep reverberating sound. One man plays a flute (suling), and then there are instruments that I can only describe as a row of bronze pots, kempli, riong. Finally, six drums (kendang) make the beat, and together this sounds amazing. And this was only to accompany the dances, a combination of classical and modern Balinese dances.

Six female dancers appeared, dressed in bright red, purple and yellow sarongs, decorated with gold, wearing golden necklaces and crowns decorated with flowers. They performed the Puspa Wresti, a modern ritual dance, bringing flower offerings to the temple. Their faces transfixed in a frozen smile, their eyes sometimes rolling from left to right, their fingers waving to the rythm of the music, the waving of their arms seemed to symbolise the shape of flowers. Other styles of dance then followed, for instance the barong dance, with a man wearing the boma mask, the face of a good demon. This face, with its bulging eyes and protruded teeth, is seen everywhere in Bali, as decoration on walls, paintings, clothing, as it brings good luck to the owner. One could not help but stare at the mask, while the dancer performed his elaborate movements to the rythm of the music.

Most of the classical dances have their base in Bali’s Hindu religion. I was thoroughly impressed with the amazing display that was put before me that evening, and I could not help but wonder how bland and boring my Dutch culture is, with its silly clog dancing. I wondered, could this be because of religion? Apparently not, as for instance the protestant minorities here in Indonesia have wonderful services with beautiful singing, much more elaborate and seemingly passionate than protestant church services in the western world. Could it be that the more modern a society gets, the more of its culture disappears? But in that case, what about Japan? Are Asians just better at preserving and promoting their culture?

I thought, as I walked back from the dance performance, feeling energised and inspired, that one more thing on my absolutely must-see list of Indonesian culture was the very intruiging kecak dance, so vividly displayed by Ron Fricke in his film Baraka, one of my favourite films ever. Little did I know that I would actually witness it the following evening. But more about that in my next post.

Sampai jumpa!

Friso

Hello everyone,

I have arrived on Bali, Indonesia. Click to view a map of Indonesia (opens in new window). You can locate Bali on this map by finding Denpasar, the capital city.

I spent my last evening in Singapore walking around the city center. It struck me again that Singapore is much more multicultural than (for instance) Holland, and I do hope the people get along as well as they seem to do on the surface. At the Chinatown night market, there were of course a lot of Chinese people and tourists, but also people from India or Bangladesh, their dresses in the most brightest of colours, their skin very dark, having a look at the night market after having said their prayers in a nearby Indian temple.

I am so fascinated by big cities. Walking around in the Central Business District between those incredibly tall skyscrapers, feeling very small, is quite something. I sat down near the water front after almost having strained my neck from looking up. The waterfront was lined with cafes and restaurants, and statues of lions, and I watched the Chinese-style boats with lanterns float by, allowing the tourists on the boat a nice view of the Singapore skyline. As I stared into the distance, I thought about my future travels, and the fact that the real exploring was about to start with my flight to Bali.

Again, that amazing friendliness you are greeted with, that I’ve also experienced in Thailand and Vietnam during previous travels, the huge smiles and people you don’t know saying hello to you. But also so many people trying to sell things to you, who try to drag you to their shop, with such persistance that I have to try hard to remain polite. I am in a hotel in Kuta, a littlebit expensive for my shoestring-style of travelling, so I might check into a cheaper guesthouse at a later point, but the pool and gardens of my hotel are wonderful. I really haven’t decided on how to explore Bali or its surrounding islands, I will have some quality pool- or beach-time and think about a possible itinerary.

On the way to this Internet cafe, I walked past the monument that was erected in honour of those who died during the bombings, two years ago, here in Kuta. Although the Balinese people don’t want to hold remembrance services as it is apparently not their custom, the families of the victims and the embassies of the countries involved clearly have. The enormous sign with the names of too many victims was adjourned with flower wreaths and very moving little notes and letters from the families, with little photos. It was very sad.

On a more brighter note, the tourists seem to have flocked back to Bali. I can’t compare it to pre-2002, as this is my first visit, but it seems very busy here.

Right now I could use a little food, so I will leave it at this and get me some pisang goreng and maybe some spring rolls. Yummm.

This will be my last evening in Singapore for a while, as I’ll fly to Bali tomorrow. It’ll be exciting to explore Indonesia!

Yesterday, it was the second anniversary of the horrific Bali bombings that left so many Australians, tourists from other nationalities and Balinese dead. I’m sure it will be on my mind when I enter Bali, I just hope the tourism industry has been restored as that’s the main source of income for the Balinese. We’ll see when I get there.

I’ve spent today not doing very much (lovely), walking around, and I went to the harbour front. Eating a sandwich while watching the big cruise ships float by was nice.

When I collected my Philippines visa yesterday, the consul had some questions, which I thought was funny She wanted to see my tickets, which I showed, and then I received my visa. Didn’t know that the consul approves every visa application? I wonder, this probably means trouble for my Chinese visa application (as I don’t have a flight in or out of China, I was planning on doing this all by land). But we’ll see when the time comes.

I already have the feeling that I’ve been away for weeks, while in fact it’s only been 4 days….

Visited the Botanical Gardens today. Although sadly there were a lot of renovations going on and a big part of the Gardens were closed, the Orchid Gardens were open, and I must say it was a stunning site. Never before have I seen so many different kinds of orchids, and the perfume everywhere was wonderful. They have created hybrids by cross-pollination, and dedicated them to various dignitaries from around the world, who came to visit Singapore. But I suppose that the Benazir Bhutto and FW De Klerk orchids, for example, have lost their popularity nowadays? There was also the Barbara Bush orchid. Hmmm.

Now we’re on the subject of Bush: when I exited the Gardens and walked back into the direction of the city centre, I walked passed this enormous building, which seemed to resemble both a medieval fortification and a modern-day prison. I actually thought it was a high-security prison, there were fences and cameras everywhere, seemingly to keep people in, and several guards with automatic rifles outside. Imagine my surprise when I saw the sign United States Embassy. I wonder when Americans will finally link their foreign policy of the past decardes to their present safety concerns and say: hey, let’s just think first before we meddle in the affairs of other countries? Or will they ever? The thing is, most (young) Americans I meet during my travels are likeminded, after all they have taken the time to travel to other countries and to learn more about their cultures. Anyway, I’m hoping for regime change in the US this November…

This city is indeed clean. It’s not true that you won’t find any litter on the streets, but still it’s the cleanest city I’ve visited.

The MRT Metro system is wonderful (and of course squeaky clean). Again the British influence, where else would you find stations with names like Sembawang, Yio Chu Kang and Somerset on one Metro line? This also must be the number one city to go shopping. I’ve never seen so many shopping centers on one street (Orchard Road).

I have arranged my visa for the Philippines, which I’ll visit from November 22 onwards, and have spent quite a while walking aimlessly around in the city, a big smile on my face with that wonderfully exciting feeling of freedom and travelling.

I might explore the old colonial centre in a minute and I’m going to get a nice Indian curry in little India tonight!

Hello everyone,

This morning, I arrived in Singapore, and I am now on the first day of my one year voyage through Asia. That is still quite difficult for me to comprehend, but right now I am adjusting to the heat (it was 29 degrees when I arrived at 6 am), feeling quite exhausted after the 12,5 hr flight, and a little dazed.

This is the richest and youngest country that I will visit during my one year travels through Asia. This tiny island gained independence in 1965, and the name means lion city (a snafu, it was probably a tiger that the namegiver sighted). Singapore has a delightful mixture of people from Chinese (majority), Malaysian and Indian descent, which became apparent when I took the ultra-modern Metro system into town. I have located a nice hotel in the picturesque Chinatown district, but as I had several hours to kill before check-in time, I have just spend some time in a nice park, listening to music on my iPod mini and reading my Lonely Planet South-East Asia guidebook.

British influences are quite apparent here, as this used to be a British colony until 1959. English is the official language, Mandarin the second one. People are driving on the wrong side of the road and of course lashes of apologies find your way when you bump into someone. But many lovely exotic things as well, for instance the perfume of fresh fruits, flowers and incense that you can smell almost everywhere, signs above shops in both English and Chinese characters, and little ghost houses with offerings for the ancestors.

Right now, I’m in the People’s Park Complex, a huge shopping mall in Chinatown. I’m going to one of the many foodcourts (could that be an Australian influence?), and get me some luvly Chinese food

Friso

Here’s a map of the region, for the perspective:

Hello all,

I’ll be reading this TIME Magazine story on the plane:

Shanghai Swings!
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501040927/story.html

I’m very curious about the big Chinese cities in general and Shanghai in particular. And apparently the city is changing so quickly that you could visit what seems to be a whole new city in a couple of years. Olympic Games in Beijing are in 2008, right? I’ll probably see loads of construction works going on everywhere then.

That’s it for now,

bye

Friso

Hello everyone,

For this one, I could really use your help. As I’ll probably be without news for long periods of time during my travels, I’d like to ask you (anyone who is reading this) if you could keep me up to date on any interesting / gripping / important news? I’m thinking current events, cyclones to dodge, presidential elections and any great new inventions involving chocolate. Click on comment, and let me know!

Ta!

Friso

Hello everyone,

Preparations are fully underway for something I have set out to do a long time ago: a voyage through Asia, for up to a year. I have dreamt a long time of this opportunity, travelling with only around 18 kilos of utterly necessary equipment in my ultra-durable backpack (though probably after two weeks I wish I had written 10 kilos here).

Underway, I will post frequent impressions as I immerse myself in such unfamiliar countries, cultures, sights and sounds. Departing on the 9th of October, I think this travel journal will really get going after I’ve acclimatised in Singapore, and once I’ve started my explorations in Indonesia (oh god, I can’t wait for the food there! yummm).

Anyway, I’d better get going!

Take care

Friso