Rainbow Wanderers

Slowboat From China

October 15, 2017 1 Comment

Part Two of our journey involved traveling across Southeast Asia as I’d never done it before: by sea on a Royal Caribbean cruise.

Our ship was set to depart Hong Kong late Sunday evening—a bit different than the standard 5pm sail time for cruises from North America. We piled into two cabs and crossed Hong Kong Island from west to east, taking in that fabulous skyline one last time. The city’s new cruise terminal was located, ironically, at the site of the old Kai Tak airport—a spot I’d never landed at, having first arrived in the city almost a decade after it closed down. Tai Tak was unique in having had one long, narrow runway jutting out into the water astride the high-rises of East Kowloon. Having been one of the first airports to welcome the 747 when it was introduced in the 1970s, one experienced a surreal landing between bunches of tall buildings.

Like much of the city, the cruise terminal was cavernous and new… but that didn’t stop check-in from manifesting the typical craziness we’d experienced on previous cruises. Part of that is expected: cruise ships hold ten times as many passengers as even the largest airliners, and with all of them vacationers, there’s no experience of business-travel efficiency.

This was especially true this go-round given the late departure time. We stood in one line to check in; another to go through security; yet another to clear Hong Kong passport control; another to drop off passports for arrival visa processing; and then a final line to actually climb onto the ship itself. The days of Jack and Fabrizio hopping aboard the Titanic moments before it set sail in the eponymous film are long gone.

Notwithstanding all that, arrival on the ship made it all worthwhile. As an independent-minded traveler, I’m occasionally put off by the highly orchestrated nature of cruising… but the part that’s always done it for me is the majesty and romance of travel by ship. It’s no surprise that so much of science fiction, given the vast cosmic distances, tends to depict space travel more like old time seafaring than like the econobox experience of jet flights. I think so many of us long for the days where much of the adventure of travel was the conveyance itself.

Made in Taiwan

After a full day’s sailing the ship arrived at its first port of call, Kaohsiung in Taiwan. I must confess, aside from knowing about Mathew’s uncle having traveled there decades ago, I knew pretty much… well, nothing about this place. When I hear the word Taiwan I think “island nation run by pre-Communist Chinese government,” and “Taipei, cool big city with one of the world’s tallest buildings.”

Oh, and one other thing: “Manufacturer of a large proportion of the world’s motor scooters, including mine.” (It’s a PGO, branded in the U.S. as the Genuine Buddy; given its accent coloring we’ve taken to calling it “Buddy Blue.”)

The last of these was immediately apparent: Kaohsiung was positively buzzing with scooters of all shapes and sizes, with anywhere from one to four passengers on board. The spectacle of an entire family out for a ride, children and babies literally in tow, remains one of my favorite moments of overseas travel.

For places that I knew next to nothing about, both Kaohsiung and neighboring Tainan impressed us during our brief visit. With populations of 3 million and 2 million, respectively, both cities would be sizable metropolises back home. It always amazes me how much some parts of the world have changed so dramatically in recent years—particularly Asian Tiger economies such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. Kaohsiung boasts a subway system that’s less than ten years old and already has ridership of 200,000 a day; Taiwan also sports high-speed rail that’s faster than anything in North America; and both cities seemed spotlessly clean and peppered with a mix of newer and older high-rises. If Mathew’s uncle were around today and could come back here, I doubt he’d recognize much of it.

Our bus ferried us to a number of historical spots in Tainan’s city core. Our amiable, accented guide explained that the island’s had a diverse history, with portions of it having been run by the Dutch, the Japanese (even well before World War II), and the mainland Chinese before the 1949 Revolution.

“We still think Taiwan different from China,” he emphasized. Relations between the two nations, even with China’s greater free-market openness, remain prickly.

Shrines and Towers and Pagodas… oh my!

Our first stop was Chikhan Tower, once a colonial Dutch outpost, now a very fetching temple-like structure with well-stocked Koi pond. Given our tremendous fortune in arriving at places over holidays… well, wouldn’t you know it, this day was Taiwan’s National Day. Shops were mostly closed, and a melodious parade wound down the street across from the Tower. Oh, and the weather: this tropical part of Taiwan normally sees a big cooling off in the fall… but not this fall. We arrived to record high temperatures and humidity, even more so than in Hong Kong. Suffice it to say the air-conditioned bus made for a nice sanctuary.

Next up, Tainan Confucian Temple, featuring a tri-shaped pagoda, some rather distinctive looking squirrels (to North American eyes, anyway), and carved dragons atop a swallowtail roof. Our last stop, Koxinga Shrine, had that telltale Disney-esque look of recent construction: as with neighboring Japan, many of Taiwan’s historic structures are made of wood, necessitating near-complete rebuilding every century or so. This spot in particular commemorates a military leader who held significant territories in both Taiwan and the mainland in the 1600s.

Cruise Turbulence

Back on board, the ship’s usual panoply of amusements awaited us… well, that is, until we bumped up against a trend Mathew and his family have been noticing in their two decades of cruising: as vessels have gotten bigger and splashier, service hasn’t quite kept up on all ships. Cruise lines constantly upsell packages for beverages, for high-speed internet access, and for other amenities. In spite of their hefty fees, however, when things don’t work out, there’s typically no compensation for any inconvenience caused. The new Voom high-speed internet, touted in some reviews as reliable high-speed browsing onboard, was spotty—offering at best entry-level early-2000s DSL speeds. Pricey beverage packages likewise offer no guarantee of availability. Food, meanwhile, which in Mathew and his family’s memory pretty top-shelf even on midrange cruise lines like Royal Caribbean, nowadays doesn’t measure up to dining options you might find in mid-range restaurants back home. Even the ship’s Johnny Rockets, an outpost of the popular burger franchise, didn’t compare to its onshore counterparts—or even to the same such spot we dined at on this ship’s sister vessel over three years ago. Oh, and the air conditioning in our cabin wasn’t operating correctly when we boarded, necessitating a wait for a service call. Ugh.

Later that night, we tried to shake off our frustrations with some dancing and karaoke. Mathew sang a Britney Spears tune, natch; I did a Beatles melody. But not long after hitting the sheets, Mathew awoke… feeling like hell. After a full day of misery, we decided to visit the ship’s medical center. It had just closed, prompting an “oh shit” moment: is this gonna be another nightmare? Happily not: the ship’s on-call nurse came out immediately and assessed Mathew’s symptoms. A shot of Odasentron (a.k.a. Zofran) and some anti-nausea pills, and he was feeling a lot better in short order. Having had these identical symptoms before even without any out-of-the-ordinary foods, we suspect he may suffer from abdominal migraines, which are analogous to the cranial migraines I know all too well. Ah, the perils of getting on in years.

In spite of that diagnosis (which likely ruled out food poisoning), the ship wasn’t taking any chances: per their protocol, they confined Mathew to our cabin until the following evening. Good thing these were quieter days at sea. One plus: the ship’s staff offered up free movies and room service to keep Mathew fed and occupied. Kudos to them there.

Good Morning Vietnam!

With Mathew back in action, we went ashore at our next port: Nha Trang, our first on this cruise’s marquee destination country.

I so wanted to go to Vietnam on my big world trip, but time and timing didn’t quite work out. I still got a good sense of that portion of Asia from travels in Thailand and Cambodia… but Vietnam has especially intrigued me for two reasons: one, the obvious, is its checkered history with the United States (and colonial powers before it) as a country that fought hard for its independence and unification; two, it’s reputed to have really come into its own over the past couple decades. As part of my research for Wander the Rainbow I read the (really excellent) memoir Catfish and Mandala by Bay Area resident Andrew X. Pham… but it was set over twenty years ago, and depicted the country as something of a challenge for the overseas visitor.

As our ship sailed into Nha Trang Bay, I beheld a theme park—yup, Vietnam’s got one too, though not of the Disney variety. Vinpearl, a resort complex, sits on Hòn Tre island, just across the bay from the city proper.

Arrival in this port offered me another new travel experience: shuttling to the mainland via tender. Nha Trang doesn’t have a full-size port, so cruise ships must moor offshore and transfer passengers via smaller boats. These are often rented from the port itself, but in this instance we were taken in on the ship’s lifeboats. These have come a long, long, long way from the rickety wooden vessels of the Titanic days: they’re neutrally buoyant, 150-person motorized mini-ships with rows of seating front to back. As we stepped ashore, a chatty, fortysomething guide reminiscent of our fellow in Taiwan ushered us onto a bus, and we rolled into town.

If I thought Kaohsiung, Taiwan sported an impressive array of scooters, it had nothing on this place: it seemed the whole city was on two wheels; cars and buses were the minority. And though Nha Trang’s metro area—itself an amalgamation of several ancient villages—numbers in the half-million range, traffic here made it feel like a much bigger city: loud, chaotic, horns honking every few seconds. A native-born Montrealer, I’m occasionally frustrated by too many unhurried, oft inconsiderate vehicles and pedestrians in California, who often traverse the road unawares, fully expecting—nay, demanding—vehicles to stop for them like Moses parting the sea; traffic in Nha Trang almost made me feel more at home than my current home.

Temples and Pagodas, Redux

Our tour started out with some historic spots… something you don’t see too often in beach towns back home. We began at Long Sơn Pagoda, a Buddhist shrine with adjoining big white Buddha statue atop a small hill. Yup, yet another Big Buddha following Po Lin in Hong Kong. We had to don robes and sarongs to enter the place, something Mathew had never done before, and, I’d say, confidently rocked as a look.

Next spot reminded us that, modern resorts notwithstanding, we’re in a part of the world that’s been settled for millennia: the Po Nagar Hindu temple, dating back to the 700s AD, built by the Champa empire that ruled what is now Vietnam for over 1500 years. Po Nagar faintly reminded me of Angkor over in Cambodia, though the structures here are built almost entirely of low-slung bricks. The buildings and carvings remain, while weathered and faded, as exquisite as anything I’d seen from Rome or Angkor in my past voyages. Vendors out front peddling prickly, odiferous durian and jackfruit added to the effect.

“No mortar!” Our guide exclaimed, noting the unique building processes used to lay the bricks. As a Hindu spot, altars to the usual deities (or their Vietnam variations) were present: Shiva, Durga, and, of course, my favorite, the elephant obstacle-remover Ganesh.

Shop to Beach

A sampling of sights made us hanker for some shopping, and that’s just what this tour served up next. We headed to the local city market, housed in a couple of gritty structures that gave us more of a local flavor. The fakes here were actually of better quality than those in the Hong Kong night markets, and we enjoyed picking up a few souvenirs and doing a bit of light haggling—far less stressful here than it had been for me in India or Egypt.

Nha Trang became something of a resort town back in the Soviet Communist days, and Russian tourists still make up a significant proportion of its visitors; we spotted almost as many signs in Russian as we did in English. Our next stop took us to an open-air eatery along the town’s main beachfront road, Trần Phú Avenue. As with when I arrived in Bangkok and wondered, “is this Asia or Los Angeles?” Nah Trang’s main beachfront drag almost felt like Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, or Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica: a broad boulevard with glorious sandy treelined beach on one side, and clusters of high-rise hotels and apartments on the other. Travel guides may say “this is not a westernized resort town,” but don’t believe them: we spotted a Sheraton, an Inter-Continental, and scores of other local chains both on and off the main strip.

For me, however, the greatest surprise was gastronomic: we made our short stop at a seafront restaurant for coconut water served out of an actual coconut. Those who know me may recall my profound dislike, nay, utterly irrational hatred of the flavors of the tropical fruit. The smell of macaroons is enough to make me retch. I’d even tried some coconut water back in Mexico but couldn’t get over that aroma. Even Malibu Rum makes me cringe.

Well… color me surprised, because the ultra-fresh coconut—Mathew’s Mom swears it’s the freshest she’s ever had—actually met with my approval. I sipped it, savored the sweet essence, and, dare I say it, actually liked it. Vietnam might make a coconut convert of me yet (though I doubt I’ll ever find a stale macaroon desirable).

Past and Future

I’d read in Vietnam travel guides not to mention the war, as Basil Fawlty might have put it. Nonetheless, our amiable guide had no trouble discussing those years.

“For first ten years after the war, north and south hate each other!” He exclaimed. “But now, we are friends, and we look to build a future Vietnam together.” He emphasized how the Vietnamese pride themselves on their friendliness. Although the country is nominally Communist, the presence of all those hotels and resorts suggests, like mainland China, that they’re a lot less hung up on ideology. As a final touch, our guide sang us a song, a lyrical little ditty about Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam. He even got a bunch of us to sing the chorus. The sight of Western tourists singing “Ho Chi Minh / Viet NAM!” was definitely one to remember.

With a fond farewell, we boarded a tender back to the mothership, setting sail for more ports on this coastal nation and beyond.

Asia, China, Hong Kong, San Francisco

Return of the Jedi Kin

October 10, 2017 1 Comment

I begin this entry at the rather fabulous 28th floor lounge of the Hotel Jen in Hong Kong. It’s become our favorite spot to watch the city light up at night.

Two years have gone by since this blog’s gone quiet and our cycle of globetrotting went on pause. Not gonna lie: it’s been a rollercoaster twenty-nine months. I’m officially a “we” now, Mathew and I having tied the knot late in 2015. We’re also homeowners, engaged in a cycle of remodeling that never seems to end. I’ve changed jobs twice; Mathew’s employment circumstances are different as well. About the only constant in our lives has been our two furry companions, who sadly are not able to accompany us on big overseas travels (much as we wish they could).

But still, the world beckons, along with its capacity to bring perspective to the hurly-burly of life back home. And so, when Mathew’s Dad stumbled upon a novel way to get from Hong Kong to Singapore by way of stops in Vietnam—with super-competitive airfares across the Pacific—we positively jumped at the chance.

Asia New and Renewed

Arriving at SFO on Sunday evening, we beheld our large, long plane readying for the transoceanic journey amid a panoply of others. The past few years have seen the big overseas carriers offer up a fourth class of service: Premium Economy, a class category that I’d say is well worth the upgrade. Straddling the divide between no-frills Coach and fabulous (but pricey) Business, Premium Economy offers many of the same comforts as, say, Business used to offer decades ago: a bigger recliner seat and moderately enhanced service. I’ve gotten better at sleeping on planes and on this thirteen hour flight I managed to sleep for almost half of it. Even Mathew, who never slumbers on flights, nodded off for about three hours.

In his case, his anticipation was justified: not only was this his longest-ever flight to date, it was also his first-ever time on this side of the globe.

“I’ve never been anywhere non-Western,” he noted.

As we looked out at the lush, craggy peaks of greater Hong Kong through our airplane windows, we were most curious to see what the city would offer. I was especially curious, since I’d spent several days in the city before and found it, coming on the heels of other trans-Asian travel, to be a bit anticlimactic. As I remarked back then, dizzying skyline notwithstanding, the city’s not all that architecturally inspiring.

Say one thing about the place, it’s got public transit figured out. Since we arrived in the morning and were determined to ward off jet lag, we piled onto the MTR, Hong Kong’s uber-efficient subway system. Having begun operations in the late 1970s, the system boasts eight lines and ridership in the millions. I sometimes feel my plaints were a bit harsh, in Wander the Rainbow, about public transit in America’s ostensibly “transit-first” cities like our hometown, San Francisco… until I come to places like Hong Kong and wonder: why can’t we do this?

We got off the train, meandered down the walkways of Central to the waterfront and clambered onto the legendary Star Ferry. It’s a quick ride across the harbor (ahem, harbour) to Kowloon, and the trip was as splendid as I remembered it from years back: a glorious, breezy crossing, with that iconic, intense panoply of skyscrapers on either side. Hong Kong boasts the most high rises of any city on Earth, almost twice as many as the next entrant in the field, New York. And the city hasn’t rested on its laurels since I was last here in 2009: the International Commerce Centre, at 108 stories on the Kowloon side, was just a construction site back then.

A big, bustling city like this offers much to visitor and resident alike… but like so many world cities, the place tends to start and end late. Consequently, there wasn’t much open on the shopping streets and malls of Tsim Sha Tsui in the earlier morning; we spent a bunch of time wandering a local park as we waited for things to open up. Still, even that random urban green space evoked the feeling that so often hits me on arrival in a new place: At last, I’m elsewhere. The cliché “all your troubles melt away” rang true as we beheld a ramble of elderly locals practicing Tai Chi amid a scattering of modern sculptures.

Peak Time

One plus of staying on the move that first day: in spite of the nine hour time difference from San Francisco (fifteen if you count the other way), we did keep jet lag to a minimum and awoke the next morning ready to hit the town. Mathew’s parents, who hadn’t been here before, opted for some more organized tours, while we hopped back on the MTR and headed back to Central for the ultimate, iconic vantage point of the city from the top of Victoria Peak.

My Hong Kong curse, I mused, as we came upon the long, long, long, long line for the Peak Tram. Last time I was here was over Lunar New Year, and the city was mobbed like Manhattan at Christmastime. Well, wouldn’t you know it, this week is again a holiday, both in Hong Kong and mainland China: Mid-Autumn Festival on October 4 and Mainland China’s National Day on October 1.

Fortunately, one of the city’s comfy (and remarkably inexpensive) taxicabs was on hand to whisk us to the top of the Peak by road. It’s a longer, winding route along the backside of the mountain, but that proved to be a plus as it granted us glorious views of the sleepier side of the territory, facing the South China Sea. Though even here, forests of slender high-rises could be seen climbing steep green hillsides. I found my prior grumbling about architecture less relevant, as I began to appreciate how the territory manages to house so many people with so little buildable land while still retaining its natural splendor.

Zip A Dee Doo Dah

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my husband is a bit of a Disney-aholic. No trouble for me, as I’ve always appreciated the studio’s artistry, though in my prior travels across the globe I tended to focus on attractions unlike those back home. But with Hong Kong Disneyland having expanded significantly since its opening in 2005, and with Disney incorporating elements of Jedi-dom into the parks since their acquisition of Lucasfilm (hint: I may be a bit of a Star Wars nut myself), we decided to give the place a try. We were a bit trepidatious, to be sure, since our experience at Disneyland Paris in 2015 was kinda so-so: the place felt worn out and unmaintained, almost as if the French took the attitude of “oh, all right, you can have your damn theme park.”

Any concerns we had evaporated almost immediately on our arrival, For starters, our arrival: not only is there direct MTR service to the park via a purpose-built rail line… the trains themselves are adorned with Disneyana inside and Mickey Mouse-shaped windows looking out. Given that a similar Disney park in Tokyo was the first such park to open outside of the United States, and given that there’s yet another such park that recently opened in Shanghai, it’s safe to say my thesis about Asian cultures embracing the Disney vibe is intact. For me, this is one of the better parts of globalization, as cultures integrate, adopt and make their own the ways of other lands. Consider sushi and Korean BBQ eateries back home.

While Hong Kong Disney is a smaller park, to be sure, it’s easily as spotless and well maintained as its counterparts back home. Best of all, many of its attractions have been tweaked and modified for the local landscape while retaining their original vibe. Best example: Mystic Manor, a variation on the Haunted Mansion with crazy trackless vehicles that incorporates Southeast Asian elements in its spookiness.

Back to the Past

Mathew had some work commitments to take care of the next day, so I did some solo exploring and hit up a spot a stone’s throw from the accommodations I’d stayed at nine years ago—making me wonder how did I miss this—the Hong Kong Museum of History.

I don’t have limitless appetite for museums, but if they’re about a locale’s history and answer that ever-interesting “how did it get that way?” question, then sign me up. This entrant is practically the Central Casting example of how to do a city history museum: cavernous and comprehensive, tracing Hong Kong’s history from the geologic epochs that formed its craggy peaks (yes, they are volcanic in origin) to the two decades following the handover from Great Britain in 1997 (the former colony has taken its place as its own pseudo-city/state with its own identity). It sports a good bit of detail on wartime Japanese occupation as well, which resonated strongly with me as my father’s family was under similar circumstances a few hundred miles to the north, in Shanghai.

The museum also answered the question that’s been nagging me ever since my grumbling about the city’s relative lack of period architecture: I knew that it had to do with the massive refugee influx from the People’s Republic during the harshest days of the Communist Revolution… but what I didn’t know is that a huge proportion of the city sits on reclaimed land. To an even greater extent than coastal California, buildable turf is super-scarce in Hong Kong. And there’s a social justice component to those high-rises as well that I likely didn’t appreciate during those pre-Occupy Wall Street days: in spite of sky-high property prices for its deluxe homes and apartments, Hong Kong also boasts a robust and extensive subsidized housing scheme that makes the place that much more affordable to a vast middle class. Coupled with high costs of private car ownership and extensive, cheap, reliable public transit, there’s a lot America—with its querulous NIMBYs and free-market-at-all-costs fundamentalists—could learn from this little territory perched on the Pearl River delta.

Above It All

The following afternoon, we made up for something I failed to see on my last sojourn: The Ngong Ping gondola to the Big Buddha at the monastery at Po Lin.

In 2009 I tried braving the lines and gave up after an hour of waiting with no end in sight. This time, we bought timed tickets… though that still didn’t stop us from queuing a spell to board the sweeping gondola ride. I must say, it was worth the nine-year and 25-minute wait! The cable cars soar astride the airport where we’d landed the other day. The cableway then makes a right turn, crosses a waterway, then climbs the steep, forested hillsides up to the monastery and adjoining (admittedly touristy) village. Still, this is one of those tourist spots that I think is a total must-do: the little village has its charms (and gift shops) and the monastery and Big Buddha are awe-inspiring at this spot up in the mountains. Oh, and my pop-culture hubbie had his reasons as well for visiting the place: the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills gave the place a spin a little while back.

We had most of a day remaining before heading out from the city… just enough to do something that’s in its own way very Hong Kong: a viewing of the new Blade Runner sequel to the 1982 film. Although set in the near-ish future in Los Angeles, both the original film and its sequel owe much of their conceptual inspiration to the Hong Kong skyline—right down to the strong Asian influence in advertising signage and local fictional patois of its future citizenry. It’s not a perfect film, but it does a great job of rendering what a dystopian urban jungle might look like if things in our real world don’t work out so well.

Fortunately, for us, Hong Kong offered none of that: though the heat was a bit oppressive, the city’s efficient management of so many of the issues that bedevil big metropolises—transit, housing, crowds, tourism, nature preserves—made for a splendid sojourn here while we prepared for the next phase of our journey.