When a person travels to a European country like France or Spain or Italy, the itinerary sort of unfolds all on its own. You do the capital cities which are incredible, you can train to most other cities and sites, it is an easy slide from place to place. Plus, we know those places. Who hasn't seen the Eiffel Tower or the Pantheon or the Bridge of Sighs in a magazine or in someones vacation photos? It is familiar in a way that even America's scenic highlights might not be. We all know these iconic symbols of a country's identity from media throughout our lives. When we finally see them in person, we nod and say something like "Oh, yes. It's so much better in person."
But traveling to an unknown country, one I personally have no attachment to, I don't have that iconic memory connection. Hanoi, Saigon, Danang, these are names I remember from the late 1960's, when I was barefoot and 18 years old and protesting the war in Vietnam. How can I reconcile the names of those places with what they really are? And why do I even want to go there? What is it about Vietnam that has compelled me to commit my short vacation time to its borders? I am not sure, can't explain it but hell, I bought the ticket so I guess I am going.
Unlike going to Europe, you have to plan your journey in Vietnam ahead of time. I suppose you can do the planning when you are there, but all the guidebooks and all the people I have talked to say do it before you leave the US. So I have dutifully followed their advice and booked some excursions.
One thing about Southeast Asia is that it is so cheap once you are there. I know, it sounds cliche, but it's true. Check out Tripadvisor for hotels in Hanoi. Just go look. Right now. I will wait....... OK, you did it, right? Amazing hotels for under $50 a night, with breakfast, bathrooms in the room, and they will pick you up at the airport! And $50 means a really, really nice hotel. A slightly less hotel would be $30 a night. I was looking at a tiny, tiny flat in Paris, about 200 square feet, not near the center of town, for $1000 a week. In Vietnam, I could stay for longer than a month for $1000. Cheaper than rent in Santa Rosa!
Blah, blah, blah, sorry for the digression. I am flying into and out of Hanoi. If you picture Vietnam as comparable to California in length, Hanoi would sort of be like Eureka because it is in the north. Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) would be the San Diego of the country. Hanoi is at a lower latitude than SF so warmer but it will be winter there so not hot. Chilly, perhaps. Who knows, right? I will be spending about 5 nights in Hanoi at the start of my trip. It is supposedly a good walking city and I like to walk and it seems to have a lot of cool things to see. But again, I am going by books and personal advice. "Cool things to see" could be boring to me or outstanding. That's the nice thing about having this kind of travel adventure: it's all new. It is will all unfold once I am there.
So, several nights in Hanoi. More on what to see there later. Then a little journey up to Halong Bay where I will get to sleep on a boat overnight (so far one night, could be two) and explore small islands. Private cabin with private bath and shower. They transport me from Hanoi to Halong Bay, onto the boat, lunch, dinner, overnight, breakfast and lunch and then transport back to Hanoi, and a lot of sailing around the many islands of Halong Bay, stopping at sandy beaches...... all of this, meals, bed, transport, for about $125 including everything. Four meals, private cabin, sailing around...... a bargain.
That's the first thing I booked. I will fill you in on the others tomorrow.
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There was a moment after I hit the "purchase" button, buying my ticket to Vietnam, that I was overcome with a great sense of serenity. I had been wrestling with the decision for a couple of weeks: should I go to a completely foreign and unknown place alone? Or should I go to an already known place where I will feel safe and comfortable? Once I made the decision to venture into unknown territory and bought the ticket, it felt right. I felt good about it. I still do.
However, there is the issue of the plane flight. I, like everyone, hate to fly, especially long distances. Going to Paris non-stop was about 12 hours and that was long enough. The flight to Vietnam, via Taiwan, is a total of 16 hours! The first leg, from SFO to Taiwan, is 14 hours! ACK! That is making me very anxious, being aloft for so long. I always thing being 30,000 feet above dirt is an unnatural act and staying there for 14 hours makes it a very scary unnatural act.
The good thing is that the plane departs at five minutes after midnight so the first 8 hours will be sort of like night-time and one can pretend that one will sleep for some of those hours. But even if 8 hours are taken up in sleep (which is highly unlikely), that leaves another 6 hours of pure, unadulterated freaky boredom. And since it is on China Airlines, I can only assume that I will be surrounded by people speaking Chinese and other Asian languages, which (not to seem racist) isn't the most melodic or pleasant of languages to my ear. French or Italian, fine. Asian sounds, not so much.
Drugs will have to be involved. Any suggestions out there? I have some Valium, and I can always drink a lot, perhaps not with the Valium but maybe so. (Me and my boys Jack, Jim, Johnny and Mark are great friends.) I also have some roasted spiced almonds with some high grade shake, which usually make me totally body-stoned and I sleep like a dead person, but I am not sure that's the way to go on an airplane. I have a month to figure out the best way to alleviate the feelings of panic that I get when trapped in a small space with lots of other people. At this point in my life, I can't even sit in the back seat of a two-door car because it causes me to hyperventilate and freak out. I can't go into wine caves, either, because of the feeling of being trapped underground. So being in a long, narrow metal tube for 14 hours with people speaking grating languages and no where to go makes my heart beat really fast right now.
Deep breaths. Visualization. Drugs. Booze. Something has got to work...... I will experiment and see what it might be. And I am serious, any advice out there would be greatly appreciated.
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Spending the evening at Gabe's house in Daly City, just me and the dogs and the TV! What an amazing invention! In my Santa Rosa home we don't have broadcast TV, just streaming stuff through my lovely little purple Roku device, which I totally love, but now and then I miss the entire television experience. (Not enough to pay for it, mind you.)
So an afternoon and an evening like this, with nothing but 200 channels and the two dogs, makes me happy. I don't have to go anywhere, I don't need to be nice to hotel strangers, I can drink and not worry about driving and I can indulge in the stupidest television watching without anyone, except the three of you who read this, knowing.
So here is what I have watched today, and feel free to not read this, but it so amuses me. Some of the following: Aliens, Ghostbusters (so good), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (ditto), Will and Grace, Modern Family, Iron Chef, Pawn Stars, Red Sox vs Cardinals, 30 Rock, Law and Order, Lydia's Kitchen, Restaurant Impossible, Zombie Apocalypse, Knocked Up, Donut Showdown, Alaska State Troupers, Chopped, and some things I blocked out of my conscious mind. I did not watch any of Sexy Adult Toy Shopper. Just that title made me gag a little bit.
So, for all those people who say there is nothing on TV, that it is a wasteland of talent and taste, that it's a total waste of time, I can easily say that they are both right and wrong. There is always something to watch, and while that something might be crap, it can still be entertaining. And if it isn't entertaining, you can turn it off and go for a walk! I honestly believe that after this almost 8 hour marathon crap-fest of television, I have had my fill and can give it up for another six months. Thankfully. Although watching some major league baseball was a treat. Thankfully.
Grab a guide book to any popular European tourist destination and I bet you find a page about what could happen to you, health-wise, in that country or city. Mosquitoes, diarrhea, maybe Hepatitis A, STD's, and lung cancer if you go to a place that still lets you smoke.
Grab a guide book to any popular Southeast Asian tourist destination and you will find pages and pages about what could not only make you sick but what could kill you. From diarrhea to dengue fever, from tetanus to typhoid and everything in between: Japanese B Encephalitis, meningitis, rabies (!), tuberculosis, dysentery, malaria, measles, Hepatitis A, B and C, insect bites. And more. There are vaccinations you have to get, or at least ones they suggest. Don't pet the dogs. Make sure you know what the translation is for "dog meat" so you don't eat any. Use mosquito repellent at all times. Don't go barefoot. (duh) Don't drink the water. Don't eat unwashed vegetables. Honestly, it's a bit scary. I will spend twelve days eating nothing but pho because it is boiled meat and broth and thus anything deadly will be killed by the heat, unless I am done in by the mint and cilantro they scatter on the top.
So I got my shots, Hep A and typhoid. With the rest of the diseases I will take my chances. But this is the first time I have had to think about these grenades thrown at my mortality. Dengue fever, who ever thinks about that? I also got some Cipro for bacterial diarrhea and asked my doctor a stupid question like "how do you know when to use Imodium instead of taking the Cipro?" Best answer: "when you are curled up on your bed, moaning, and you think you are going to die, that's Cipro time!" Oh, that sounds so great. Alone in a country where I know nothing and know no one, on my bed, moaning. Joy.
But still, I know I won't get sick. I will fight even a tiny bit upset stomach, but I am not going to get really sick. It's not on my checklist. I have too many plans already paid for. So I will take Imodium and Pepto with me along with the Cipro, and the mosquito repellent and Neosporin and bandaids and Airborne and some chocolate to eat on the plane to keep me healthy. Dengue fever be damned!
Onward.
It's so odd. When planning a trip with a friend, you both have tasks that come naturally and are not even discussed until you sit down to do some planning. Once you decide on the destination, one person scopes out flights and fares, the other starts looking for places to stay. You trade information, trade opinions, toss around ideas of what to do and when, what to see and how, where to venture off the path and why. In a few weeks you have have defined the upcoming trip, at least the beginning and the end. The middle happens when you are there, it unfolds as the two of you bring your unique perspective to the wine hour each night and train schedules are discussed and car rentals and inter-country flights.
One of my favorite moments of travel was in the early 2000 time period. Tom and I had taken the train from Rome to Capri, stayed a night, went to Napoli, didn't want to stay so we took the train across the strait to Sicily. He had been there before, I hadn't. We arrived in Palermo at night with no place to stay and started walking. A rather large hotel was in front of us, we went in and got two rooms. The two rooms were creepy, but it was late and so we stayed. The corridors of this hotel were long and narrow and all I could think of, all night long as I tossed on my twin bed cot (seriously!) was that they were exactly like the corridors in the movie "The Shining." The mantra took over: "Red Room, Red Room." Corridors of blood.
We left early the next morning and found more suitable digs, but honestly, I can still see those hallways. But that isn't what I wanted to tell you. We hung out in Palermo for a few days and decided to take the train to the airport and rent a car and drive around. We caught a bus, in the pouring rain, to the airport with grim weather forecasts looming, huge storms, hotels closed (it was either December or January, so the heart of winter) and on the bus, me sitting in one place, Tom in the seats in front of me (god forbid we sit next to each other!), Tom turns around and says the five magic words: "Want to go to Paris?" My response was instantaneous: "Fuck, yes! Let's do it." Totally spontaneous, totally unplanned. We spent hours in the airport in Sicily, I had to call my daughter who was working in SF then to get some names of hotels to call (this was before Internet, of course) and we landed in Paris around 11:00 at night, with a bottle of scotch and just enough money to pay the cab driver. We spent a week in Paris, it was one of the best weeks ever.
All that is to illustrate the need to just go. Just go. I know a lot of people can't fathom that, and that's OK because we all have different travel levels. I know people who get more pleasure (almost) in planning the trip than in actually going on the trip. (I cannot understand this mentality but I accept it.) I know people who must stay on the path and cannot deviate from it. We all know people who take three suitcases for a week stay..... in other words, there are all kinds of travel styles and all of them are OK. But this whole planning a trip ALL BY MYSELF is sort of redefining my travel style. I am planning more, which is a change for me. From what I have read, the country I will be visiting almost demands some advance preparation because the roads are crappy and renting a car isn't a great idea. So planning some itineraries is what I am doing now.
But first I had to decide where to go. South America was enticing but it's summer there in my winter. Same with Australia and New Zealand, although I gave great thought to those places. Africa, no. Egypt, sure.... duh, no. Ireland was a big contender. It still is on my list, but not this trip.
Southeast Asia never held much of a lure for me, too hot, too crowded. Thailand, Myanmar, Bali, Cambodia, Laos, they all sound vaguely interesting but not enough to get me there. But for some reason I have always wanted to go to Vietnam. Hot, crowded and crazy, perhaps. But it is to Vietnam that I am going. Alone.
Details to follow because there are many. Stick with me, and if you have any advice, I am taking all I can with me. Advice takes up no space in my tiny suitcase and is not yet prohibited by TSA. Bring it on.
More tomorrow.
It has been three years since I started this blog. It began because I was unemployed and starting off on a long road trip and I thought some of you might want to come along. Since then it has been a soap box for dozens of topics other than travel: food, books, movies, states of mind, mindless states, whining, winning, wining and dining, joy and sorrow, the profound and the mundane. Sometimes no one reads it, sometimes a few people do. That's fine. I write it because I want to.
Before the blog, when I would travel, I would send emails out to a list of people and some would read those emails. Again, I liked writing about where I was, and those travels spanned continents and countries. The other day I started making a list of the countries I have visited in my life and the count was close to 20. And I realized that the last time I got on an airplane to go somewhere foreign was in January 2009. By the end of that year I was out of a job and thus the road trip became my escape. Europe was out of the question. I also realized that travel is something I love. Lots of people like traveling, true. But for me it goes farther than just liking to travel. I love it. (Except for the airplane flights, those are not my favorite part.) I have never minded living out of a suitcase. I don't mind being an outsider and not knowing the language. I like strange and new food, as long as it isn't moving and doesn't have 8 legs that I am supposed to crunch on. As my friend Jani once explained, I don't have time for jet lag so I don't let it get in my way.
It has been far too long since I took a really good trip. Five years this January...... way too long. So I am now planning a new adventure. The small hotel I work at is closed the first two weeks of December, the perfect time for me to get out of Dodge. My bank account says otherwise but I am not listening to that stodgy old thing. It's why we have savings accounts: to provide for emergencies. This is one.
Where to go? I considered all the old favorites and started looking at air fares. It costs about $1000 now to go anywhere. Paris was calling me, it's been years since I visited my favorite European city, but I know me. I know that if I go to Paris alone I will do what I always do in Paris: see the sites, walk a lot and read a lot of books. I can do that anywhere. Rome, the same thing would happen. I love those two cities but it is time to get out of my foreign comfort zone and break the travel mold. My everyday life is so staid and so boring in so many ways that I decided to do something risky. Something that involves a new country.
Where? I'll tell you tomorrow. Tune in. And follow along.
A month ago critics were either praising or dismissing Woody Allen's latest movie, "Blue Jasmine." Lucky for me, it's still in a couple of theaters and I have to come down on the side of praising. I don't think it's a movie you can dismiss, even if you don't like it. It is one of his most powerful, most pointed movies ever, sad and bleak, yes, but that's nothing new for Woody Allen.
As critics have written, you can see "A Streetcar Named Desire" in this film, Cate Blanchett's Jasmine a perfect copy of Blanche DuBois in so many ways. But the movie is more than that, or perhaps it's because it's on a big screen and we get big close-ups and so our impressions of Jasmine are immediate and intense. Blanchett is incredible, making the most of this woman in the middle of a breakdown. I am a fan of Allen's movies so can't pretend to have approached this movie with any sort of impartiality. I know people who saw it and were exhausted by its darkness and I understand that reaction. It is dark. There is little Woody Allen humor here, very little. But if you are up for a study of the unraveling of a woman's life, watch it. If you are looking for something enjoyable, don't bother.
If "Blue Jasmine" doesn't appeal to you, maybe "Gravity" will, although it isn't a stroll down a sunny street either. Talk about edge-of-your-seat movies! Everyone has read about this movie, I'm sure, but seriously, when was the last time you saw a movie where there are only two people in the entire thing? Not another face, just Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. No one else.
I saw this in 3-D and to me this is where 3-D belongs. Zero gravity means things float, and the 3-D effects are used very well, to the extent that a couple of times I almost felt light headed, as if I was getting caught in the zero gravity wave. But even if you don't see it in 3-D, try to see it on a movie screen. I think the enormity and emptiness of space will be lost on a TV screen.
Bullock and Clooney are excellent, of course, but outer space is a huge character here. That and the vastness of our own minds. You honestly don't know if these two people are going to live or die in this movie and it almost isn't the point. You are ready for either eventuality. When the movie was over, I sat motionless in my seat. It ended perfectly, so perfectly that for some reason I almost wanted to cry. That's a first for me.
"Gravity" is very good. Very different, thought-provoking and strong. In my movie grading system I give it an A, something that is a rare occurrence for me. See it, if you can.
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It isn't often that I have left over croissants because it isn't often that I actually eat a croissant. I love them, who doesn't, but honestly, flaky goodness and butter? Do we need that? Does anyone need the shattering layers of tender yet crisp pastry infused with sweet butter, layers after layers with a tender, moist bready inside......
OK, let's move along here. Sunday I met Gabe in Novato at Rustic Bakery for what we called the "Butter Buffet." Seriously, everything we ordered was like a brick of butter wrapped in some pastry dough. It was all so, so delicious. We ate everything, shards of pastry all over our shirts. (Actually I was the only one with pastry all over my shirt, as is usually the case.) We acknowledge that the next time we will order a salad or at least something with color other than the 50 shades of tan that our pastries produced. Seriously, major thumbs up for that place.
But when we left I had a half of a croissant left over. A half. Like we couldn't have just admitted we were butter junkies and finished it off. But no, I had to bring it home. Now, we all know that a half croissant has no place in the world. It has no future. It has no point. It reheats terribly. But its original incarnation was so splendid that I hesitated to toss it into the garbage can. I kept it until today, two days after its inception. And I was so glad I did because I turned that little devil into yummy, buttery, crispy croutons for my salad!
This week I have been working the 3:00 - 9:30 shift, which I hate. The reasons I hate it will be spelled out in another post, they are not relevant here, but I had to mention the hate factor. When I work these shifts I usually bring a salad along, as I did today. I took that croissant half, chopped it up and nuked it in the microwave for a minute. That's all it took! The old yet still active butter cells mingled with the old flour pastry and all the little bits got crisp and crouton-like. Cooled for a few minutes and then tossed onto my salad they were the perfect croutons! Crisp, light yet substantial and I didn't have to feel the guilt about throwing away that half croissant!
So there it is. I suppose you could toast them in the oven if you didn't have a microwave, which I do not possess, but since most work places have such a device, you can make these tasty morsels anywhere. Pop them on your salad or just eat them like popcorn. Good stuff.
And yes, I realize this is a dumb posting but hey, who cares, right? Movies to follow.
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Damn, I hate it when I make mistakes IN PRINT! I wrote a short post yesterday about the weather and I said the air "reeked" of grapes. Today, while walking the dogs, I suddenly wondered if the word "reek" only means something that smells offensive. And yes, it does. Therefore, I changed that sentence and left out that offensive word. The smell of grapes is never offensive to me and I apologize for using a word that meant the opposite of what I was trying to convey.
Well, I apologize but perhaps no one read it anyway...... still, it was the wrong word. It has been corrected.
In January of 2009 I was in the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. I had spent a few days visiting Jenn, along with my once-husband John, getting to know NOLA in the winter. From there I was flying to Rome to meet my friend Tom, who was renting a little flat and invited me to sleep on the couch for a week. How could I turn that down? But wandering through the airport, waiting for my flight, slightly hungover from a night of Sazeracs, I found myself in a bookstore and bought a paperback copy of "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout. It's a very good book, a novel in the form of connected short stories, all held in place by the character of Olive Kitteridge, not a very likable woman but one of fierce character. If you haven't read it, do so. (It won a Pulitzer Prize for literature, not that it matters, but is of interest.)
Yesterday I just finished Strout's current novel "The Burgess Boys" and I can easily recommend that you read this one, too, but for different reasons. This one is more of a summer beach novel, easy to read, very well-defined characters that again are not endearing but who are familiar in a vague, personal way. We have all known characters like these: the bossy older sibling, the younger one that stoically takes the abuse, the absent yet present parent. A couple of twists and turns keep it lively and it ends on a good, satisfying note. Curl up with it, you will be happy you did. It's not a great novel but a good one.
A totally different novel is "Let the Great World Spin" by Colum McCann. (Winner of the National Book Award.) Dense and dark, again with characters and stories that are marginally intertwined, and each section almost seems to have been written by those separate characters, in different styles. The book isn't easy to read but it is compelling. Most of the characters are difficult but multi-layered and human. They have flaws and vices, their actions are unpredictable and often unflattering. Like all of us in real life, they deal with their own demons and are often at the mercy of those demons. Grief is present (as it is in everyday life) and the characters try and wade through this grief and its accompanying sadness with the best hope of finding something redeeming. I can't say this is an uplifting book but it isn't depressing and when it ended, I sat thinking about it for quite some time. There is hope at the end, as there is always hope in life, but it isn't easy to find. McCann makes you care about the story, about the characters, about the links between their lives. It is definitely worth reading.
And for something on the other side: "The Swerve" by Stephen Greenblatt. Non-fiction, this won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction, not for its exciting writing but for the broad view of a epic poem written in 50 BC. The poem is the philosopher Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things" and his remarkable theory that all matter is made up of tiny particles called atoms and it's the random collision of those particles that make up life. Boldly presenting this theory at a time of religious zealotry was not just brave but scandalous. The book explains how this poem was lost and then found again in the 15th century and how its ideas were so far ahead of its time. This book won't keep you up nights but it will make you marvel at the power of the written word, the power of scientific thought and the power of perseverance. You can read it for an hour, put it down and pick it up a week later and be glad you did. When you are finished you will be even happier you read it, partly because it makes you feel a little bit smarter for going the distance.
Look at this, back in print! My friend Tom loaned me a little laptop and here I am, wasting no time in spewing my blogness out over the air waves. Or the web waves, I suppose would be more accurate. I will have to solve this computer dilemma eventually, but for now this little device will suffice.
There is only one thing to talk about right now and that is the weather. It is autumn. It is autumn in the wine country which means beauty and diffused sunlight and golden vineyards and the smell of crushed grapes heavy and dense and luscious. On the way to work there is one spot along Hwy. 12 that smells of nothing but grapes, and I always roll down the windows and drink that smell in. It's no wonder why this time of year is so busy in the lodging business. Who wouldn't want to be out here now?
The nights are getting chilly, the days are cooling down a bit, the light in the sky is like a Monet painting and leaves crunch underfoot. After a long, hot summer, this is quite nice. Bring it on!
A couple of books to report on, two movies and some good eats to follow. Stay tuned.
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I have been out of touch on this blog for way too long, especially since I have things to write about! Movies! Books! Food! Travel! But, alas, I have no computer at home right now, mine having met an untimely end a little while ago. Writing personal missives from the work computer makes me nervous, so I need to keep those short, like this one right now. Just know that I will be writing more, but not as frequently as I would like until I get a new device. Today I am going to visit a Sonoma computer shop to see about getting a refurbished machine. Otherwise, the blog will be on the back burner, simmering gently. Keep checking for it.......
