Monday, June 22, 2009

The Battle against Light Pollution

Victoria Harbour after 8pm last night - when hundreds of buildings were plunged into darkness - source: South China Morning Post




Hong Kong on a very polluted day

Friday, June 19, 2009

Cartoons reflecting on the mood in HK

Swine Flu (source: SCMP)


Financial Crisis (source: SCMP)





Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Tuen-Ng Festival - Stanley International











Boy, this much awaited day has been pure pandemonium - the weather once again misbehaved badly and it was so windy the Dragon Boat Association couldn't even set up the rented booths the night before. Every team was only allowed to have 12 paddlers per boat - and this after all our hard work, arrghh!! While gathering my team and leading them to boarding I heard an announcement saying "last call for AWA before being disqualified" believe me, that made me got a move on - unfortunately half of the team didn't hear my roaring and didn't manage to squeeze through the crowds that were blocking the beach like a wall - had to wait 5 minutes until the last paddler embarked. Then one of the officials yelled at us continuously in cantonese and we realized that due to the turmoil we had 14 women on board all of a sudden and needed to loose 2 paddlers - long story short, me and my partner jumped out and swam back to shore - sunk my mobile in the process and found myself wet as a poodle with a dead cellphone back on the beach while the other 12 paddlers left. What had happened? Turned out the board indicating the race numbers wasn't up-to-date, great!


Since race #1 didn't go as expected, we decided that the best team must go out to defend our honor in race # 2 which they did.


Race #3 began with the DB Ass. cancelling it and declaring the event for the ladies as finished - went up to the marshalling booth to verify and informed my team, some hadn't even been paddling the whole day and this would have been their first race, bummer - the frustration was endless when I sent them either to the junk or home. 5 min later, another team decided to challenge the decision and we all went up to the head judge - they then decided that the Ladies would race after the very last race of the day and we needed to wait in the pouring rain. While making my way back to the beach someone behind me yelled BOARDING NOW all of a sudden and told me the decision had once again been modified - only 8 of my team who hung out on the beach were available for boarding...the rest of this race has been nothing but a blurr to me, I jumped on the boat without shoes, gloves, knee pads but with my jacket on and my cigarettes instead (I know, sounds like I am a true athlete) since I wasn't part of the line-up in race #3. Our coach managed to get 4 of his Canadian team mates to throw over yellow T's and join us - while ready to paddle out to the starting position, some of my team mates spotted that sth. must be going on and came running back from the shuttle that should bring them to our junk - Canadians out Globe Paddlers in again and off to start but without any focus - I don't even recall who was sitting in the boat - summary - we tanked badly!!

Hey, that was just part of a "typical" Dragon Boat raceday - kidding of course. All is good.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Dragon Boat Races 2009




Sorry - I know it seems like I have completely disappeared and neglected my Blog but during these past months I have once again been so busy that it's hard to keep up posting anything - hopefully I will have time to talk about some of my trips and experiences come June.



Currently everything in my life circles around Dragon Boating - once again I am leading the team of the American Women's Association - the AWA Globe Paddlers which requires a lot of work and commitment. We began practicing in early February and were often very unlucky with the weather caprices - HK experiences strong easterly winds this spring, meaning many practices had been canceled, postponed, reduced to 14paddlers who braved white caps and high waves and one time the boat was even tied on shore with ropes and we had to paddle against "dead water" which gave us a muscle ache from hell. We consider ourselves as "The Conquerors of the Winds" this year ;-)

Anyway - during the past weekend our first two races took place - the warm-up race in Stanley with a racecourse length of 250m and the Deep Water Bay Regatta with a racecourse length of 500 m - the latter one was a true challenge for which we signed up for the first time - you can't even begin to imagine how loooong the last 100m are stretching, you're in agony!!

First a video of our final Stanley race (out of 3). This was recorded in high def, so click on the HD button on the bottom right of the video for better quality. It may take a little time to buffer. AWA is wearing sunny yellow race shirts with the AWA logo on our back (a Star) and bandannas with the national flags. By the way it turned out to be an exciting day for our spectators with lots of drama - due to high winds the start was very delayed and it was hard for the steersmen to navigate the boats in a straight line - from collisions, to sinking boats, to broken rudders - nothing was left out this year.



In case anybody is wondering who the "lemony shadow" was who seemingly effortless passed us - that is the Macau Paddle Club and I heard, they're practicing nearly every day - no time to do this, there are also other exciting things to explore in this fantabulous City ;-)

Here's the 2nd video showing the Women's Plate Final in Deep Water Bay, take a look:



We came in 2nd in this race and managed to beat the HK Yachtclub Paddle Club (Royal-X) which was a huge success for our team considering the fact, that we didn't practice much for this distance and were truly expecting to trail all of our competitors by far. Passing Royal-X was our biggest goal for the Tuen Ng Races on May 28th and we did it already, yessss! Now we have to keep up torturing ourselves for 3 more weeks because for sure they want revenge and will also practice even harder for the remaining time. Way to go G-Force, watch out Buzz Ladies!!!!

By the way - in case you're interested, I joined Facebook in the meantime (never wanted to but everyone only posts pictures on FB these days, so no choice). Just type in my name and click on "view friends" and you can see all the albums out there.

I will keep you posted, ciao.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Impressions from Hong Kong

Click below to view a nice slideshow impression of HK as seen by the cousin of my friend Sonia.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bengchye_loo/tags/hongkong/show/

Sunday, January 4, 2009

A never ending tale about Vietnam










































* Hanoi

The red sun of Hanoi welcomed us through a thick layer of misty haze and pollution, much worse than in HK. Our 45 min ride to our hotel took us along side thousands of motorbikes whose drivers had covered their entire faces with masks to protect themselves against the unbearable dust clouds, a strange sight for us. Thai, our tour guide, told us there are about 20 mio motorbikes all through Vietnam - amongst them 2 1/2 mio in Hanoi and an estimated 5 mio in Ho Chi Minh. Local buses and cars were passing us way above the speed limit and are locally referred to as "mobile coffins". About 13.200 deaths in the country were caused by traffic accidents in 2007. Honking seems to be a national sport in Vietnam and although traffic ran quite smoothly it was a chaotic scene with pedestrians and bicycles crossing the streets without even looking.

We jumped right into our sightseeing program and watched the famous water puppet show, run by 10 underwater puppeteers and accompanied by folk music by a couple of traditional, local musicians. The elaborate puppets were floating gracefully over the water and although a bit kitschy for our taste, you rarely get to see such a spectacle nowadays. We chose to have dinner in the Green Tangerine, located close to the Hoan Kiem Lake in the Old Quarter. It was housed in a beautiful restored silk shop from 1928 with the usual colonial ceiling fans. The Old Quarter is dating back to the 13th century and all kinds of hawker stalls and shops are selling literally everything from shoes to silk, ceramics, antiques, lacquer ware and contemporary arts in numerous galleries.

We stayed at the Sofitel Metropole, built in 1901, which is a true "fin-de-siecle" classic, half owned by the Vietnamese government. It has a very Gallic touch and you can see the French hand at work. The architecture of Hanoi is colourful colonial charm and it was refreshing not to spot glamorous skyscrapers anywhere. Next time I travel to Hanoi, I will create a photo essay about house facades, I couldn't get enough of it! There's a saying that Hanoi is "where colonial chic meets Asian avant-garde" and that nails it. Hanoi is considered to be "The Head of Vietnam" while Saigon would be the country's "Belly". Notable is also that more than 60% of Vietnam's 82 mio inhabitants are younger than 30 years at present.

* Ha Long Bay

Early next morning we were picked up for our 4 hour transfer to Ha Long Bay which means "Descending Dragon" (Heaven sent a mother dragon and her children down to earth to defend the islands). We passed many farmers who were all still working their rice-fields with cows and water buffaloes, no agriculture machines were to be seen anywhere. Some factories of garments, footwear, electronics, tea, coffee, cement, steel & furniture (yep, I sat on the backseat with pen and notebook to document this ;-) ) were flying by and we stopped at one which was operated by orphans and handicapped young people who were mostly deaf & mute. I've read in a local magazine that "5.3 mio of Vietnamese (6.4%) have disabilities, 70% are working-age. 70% of them live in the countryside with low living standards and unstable employment. About 500 businesses have staff with disabilities, employing 25.000 disabled people. 770.000 Vietnamese a year are injured on the road, in work related accidents and through poisoning" - horrible statistic! We could watch the production of lacquer ware and observe several people hammering eggshells into tiny flat pieces to create the pattern of a plate. There was so much to see, such colourful picturesque expressions and so little time to take it all in.






















Thai also gave us an entire history lesson during the ride (which I am happy to pass on to you as you can read ;-) ) and we became dizzy from all this information. We also could hear some public announcements/propaganda via roadside installed microphones and in the cities savvy travelers advise you to wear earplugs overnight because the noise may begin as early as 5am. At noon we finally boarded a luxurious refurbished wooden sailing junk for a 24 hour cruise among the 100s of islets of Ha Long Bay. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site and the views of the famous limestone formations were breathtaking, a spectacular national wonder. We saw the most stunning cliffs soaring from the emerald water of the bay (ahhh, you can't imagine how much I felt like diving into these waters but unfortunately it was too cold) and stopped to conquer one steep rock on the tiny island of Ti Top on foot - I guess I took about 300 pictures within 1 1/2 hours in exuberance and need to delete at least 250 of it - if this obsession continues - we're only at day 2 - I might run out of memory space SOON ;-) Our next tour after a delicious seafood lunch took us through a remote fishing village called Gua Van which is located within a circle formation of limestones, very well protected. Currently there are still about 100 families with an estimated 800 people living there, a lot of them children and young adults. Sometimes we were approached by small vendor boats selling groceries, mostly by mothers and their children who surprisingly spoke some English. Despite their - for western standards very moderate - living conditions, they appeared to be happy and content. Upon return to our junk we collapsed into the chairs of our private balconies and cruised into a magnificent sunset.



























On our way back to Hanoi we tortured Thai until he made the driver stop at an average rural village giving us the chance to take a walk through it and see how people really live there - it was depressingly primitive even though people don't seem to be aware of this or suffering in any way and on the other hand it was eye opening to be welcomed cordially by villagers all over to enter their homes despite the condition of their properties. Although there were some new houses, the majority were huts made of clay or bricks along side long, narrow walled streets and it looked pretty unhygienic everywhere - the cow was housing right next to half open kitchens, garbage was laying everywhere. One family who asked us to come into their property invited us with great pride to take a look inside their home while the grandfather and his granddaughter were first pulling the teeth of of a piglet (apparently it bit its mother) and then castrating the poor animal (better meat) while the rest of the family was surrounding them having a good time looking on. I had to escape from the screams and left - I am aware of industrial countries being way over-civilized in the meantime but these living conditions were definitely under-civilized and hard to take in for us!
We were also greeted by an old lady who wanted me to take her picture - my camera nearly dropped once I saw her smiling mouth - her teeth were pitch black from chewing betel nuts and it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world for her. Then you could observe grandparents watching their grand kids, elderly ladies sitting on the street threading bamboo to create brooms, vendors on bicycles, etc. A truly enriching excursion which especially made us appreciate the high standard we are privileged to live in.




















Back in Hanoi we finished our day with a city tour through the French Quarter and visited the old One-Pillar Pagoda (Chua Mot Cot) the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the beautiful Temple of Literature (built in 1070 and dedicated to Confucius) where scholars aspiring to become Mandarins studied literature, philosophy and ancient Chinese + Vietnamese history. In the vicinity were also some Soviet-style structures spread out to which I didn't pay closer attention. One last time we ended up in the Old Quarter to sip a well earned coffee above a busy intersection from where we once again stared in disbelief at the traffic chaos below.

* Hue - The Imperial City

Saturday morning we hopped on a short flight to Hue, the former capital and most historic city of Vietnam next to the Perfume River. The river got named Song Huong (Perfume River) due to its many Frangipani trees that have been planted along its edges. Since it's monsoon season in central Vietnam, no wonder we were welcomed by rain and high humidity - at least the landscapes were dipped in deep greens which was very soothing. Of course more motorbikes kept honking their way through the streets although much less than in Hanoi since the city only has 350.000 inhabitants. Many houses here didn't reflect as much French influence as in Hanoi, seemed more basic and its inhabitants rather poor. For example - we came across a bicycle and its owner driving a scale and a measuring rule around and were told, people come to him to have their weight and height taken in public, in lack of being able to afford these things.

Our hotel "La Residence" was a beautiful colonial mansion beside the river which originated from 1930 and has accommodated various Heads of States over the years. It was completely renovated and re-opened in 2005 as "La Residence Hotel & Spa". Reflecting a rich French architectural heritage it had a very tasteful art deco interior design showing a lot of love for the according details.

In the afternoon our new guide Thinh took us to the Imperial Citadel - another World Heritage site - which had its heydays during the grand imperial epoch from 1802-1945 and stretched over an area of1/2 square kilometres. We visited the Forbidden Purple City where the emperor and his entourage once lived which was surrounded by the walled yellow Imperial City which used to be dedicated to ceremonial uses. The Citadel where mandarins and other officials used to work, surrounded the whole compound. Naturally the former glory has faded substantially and the process of reconstructing many buildings is currently taking place. Despite being exhausted after 2 hours from holding my handbag, an open umbrella and my camera while trying not to slip in the puddles of mud on slippery tiles, the whole site was very impressive.

The next day we boarded an old Dragon Boat housing a Vietnamese family and cruised on a peaceful journey upstream the valley of the Perfume River, passing the French-built Trang Thien Bridge, fishermen and several villages. We disembarked to explore the Thien Mu Pagoda which was erected in 1661.



Afterwards we continued by car to 2 mausoleums where the 4th and the 12th emperor of the former ruling Nguyen Dynasty were laid to rest. Both were located in huge, gorgeous parks and planned for in detail already during each emperors lifetime.
On our way back to the city, we crossed a village where incense sticks were produced - they're made of cinnamon powder, wood chips and glue before they are coloured - I am sure you were dying to know this...

* Da Nang - Hoi An

The next day we moved on by car to Hoi An via Da Nang which was supposed to be the highlight of Central Vietnam - we drove along China Beach which the Vietnamese have high hopes of becoming an up and coming resort area for foreigners. All major hotel chains have already claimed their ground with fenced in properties although I can't see substantial development within the next 8/10 years. Why would you choose Da Nang as a beach dream destination if all you get to see on the backside are slums and former US air bases?
We skipped the climbs over the dramatic Hai Van Mountain pass due to fog and rain, no views. Again we passed lots of rice paddies, watched "boby ducks" feeding on rice fields after the harvest (they travel from region to region and eat snails and insects off the empty fields) saw many more tombs scattered in the midst of the fields for the dead to be buried close to home, made a short stop in the region of the Marble Mountains to visit some stone cutters and moved on.







Hoi An and the Victoria Beach Resort awaited us with rather cool temperatures and more rain and mud so we decided to adjust our itinerary and only go for a rather brief walking tour through the city. Hoi An is a romantic, very charming historic small town with many restored century old shophouses offering mostly any kind of arts and crafts (paintings, lacquer ware, lanterns, garments).

















We visited some temples, old merchant's houses, the riverside market and a 400-year old Japanese covered bridge. Luckily the next morning turned out to be dry and off we drove to the ruins of My Son, another UNESCO World Heritage Site which used to be the centre of the mighty Champa Kingdom which centuries ago stretched across Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
After our return we finished the day with a satisfying meal in the lovely gardens of the Brother's Cafe right next to the river.





















* Hoi An - Da Nang

Back in the car to catch our flight from Da Nang to Saigon, about a 45 minutes drive from Hoi An.

* Saigon - Phan Thiet

Upon our delayed arrival - I love these small town airports in the middle of nowhere with their sticky atmospheres and absolutely nothing to do, arrghh - we were welcomed by our next tour guide, Hei. He would accompany us through our final leg of this trip - begining with the immediate transfer to the beach area of Phan Thiet, about 4 hours northeast of Saigon. We chose to relax at the Princess D'Annam Resort over Christmas and put sightseeing on hold for 3 days. Unfortunately this ride took us nearly 6 hours stop and go through the darkness - obviously our travel agent completly forgot that we had to pass the biggest catholic province of the country where Christians were allowed to settle down a long time ago - it was Christmas Eve and due to what appeared to be hundreds of catholic churches, one every 400 metres, thousands of worshippers were making their way to the masses - we would have probabely been faster walking alongside our car. Although all the super kitschy decorations and happy, dressed-up people on scooters kept our attention for a long time, it got pretty exhausting towards the end - we were traveling already 12 hours nearly non-stop and enough was enough. We arrived at the resort past 10pm and were delightet that the chef insisted on still serving our Gala Diner - the peaceful atmosphere, the intimate decoration of the restaurant and the great views compensated us in a heartbeat and we even managed to not fall asleep at the table. The compound itself was beautiful, lovely gardens and top notch villas, but in our opinion it's not worth the long trip because there is nothing else to explore.



* Phan Thiet - Saigon

Refreshed we were on our way to Ho Chi Minh 3 days later, curious to see more and back in the mood for further history lessons. Outside dragon fruit (fruit of a cactus) and jack fruit plantations, cashew nut and rubber trees, cassava root fields (similar to potatoes) and numerous resting areas with hammocks for exhausted drivers were flying by. Many school kids in uniforms were already on their way home at 11am in the morning and we heard that they have to use their classrooms in shifts never attending more than 3 hours a day. Teachers only work 18-20 hours a week. We even managed to reach the Park Hyatt Saigon (District #1) in 4 hours, what an improvement over our journey to P.T. - of course we had to reward ourselves with a fabulous dinner at the hotel's superb italian restaurant and then chose to take full advantage of our cozy colonial styled room. What's the purpose of a phantastic hotel if you're never in it?!
















The next day we made our 1 1/2 h way to the extraordinary Cu Chi Tunnels, a 250km labyrinth of narrow tunnels underneath the U.S. bases which were built by the Viet Cong guerillas during the war for independence. They ran 3, sometimes 4 levels deep in the soil, built with red clay and were used as hideouts during bombing raids and to stage surprise attacks. Michael could even enter one 30 m section of a tunnel and felt very claustrophobic crawling through the darkness on all fours only to find out afterwards, that the originally 80cm wide entrances had already been widened for western frames. After seeing many more deadly booby traps the Viet Cong constructed, we headed back to the City to explore a little bit more of Saigon which consists of 17 urban and 5 rural districts.






















We walked through locals slurping their Pho (the famous beef noodle soup) on miniature sidewalk chairs and tables, street vendors on bicycles praising their goods yelling through microphones, cyclo drivers trying to chat up travellers for business, galleries, antique shops, fake Zippos and new designer malls. The french presence remains in architecture although not so dominant as in Hanoi - the long streets were also lined by mostly colonial style houses and you could observe everywhere that capitalism in HCM is on the rise. Hei told us that the citizens are no fans of the communist government, it's simply being ignored and Ho Chi Minh is mostly still referred to as Saigon. By the way there are still some great colonial style hotels worth a visit - the Majestic (1925) the Grand Hotel (1930) and the Continental, which is the oldest and is also known for its appearance in the movie "the Quiet American" with Michael Caine. The Park Hyatt itself was located opposite of the old Opera House which was built in 1900, destroyed by the war, restored in 1975 and renovated in 1998 to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city.









































Our city tour also included the Reunification Palace which was opened in 1966 as the Independence Palace. 100 rooms are open to the public, one showcasing the largest lacquer painting in Vietnam. To the communists, this residence of the former french governor, later followed by the new president of South Vietnam, symbolises the decadence of the Saigon regime. Next stops were the cathedral of Notre Dame, a red brick building of neo-romanesque architecture from 1877 and the Central Post Office, the largest in Vietnam, dating back to 1891 and still operational. It's also a colonial style building, designed by Gustav Eiffel. Then we explored the Ben Thanh market, a huge indoor wholesale market which opened first in 1914 before being expanded and renovated during the mid 1980s. It's clock tower is one of Saigons landmarks and it has 4 entrance portals. Last on the list was Chinatown and its large Chinese community of about 1 million Hoas in the Cho Lon district - we felt "right at home" in this familiar scenery. We visited the impressive Chua Thien Hau (Goddess of the Sea) temple built by Cantonese buddhists at the end of the 18th century.

After this exhausting but interesting day, our thoughts were preoccupied with the longing for a strong, tall coffee to revive us. The biggest event of this evening was the Suzuki Cup where Vietnam was the host of the 2nd match within 4 days (they won their first completely unexpected with 2:1) against arch rival Thailand. After a highly dramatic match, ending 1:1 after 90 minutes, they still managed to win 3:2 in overtime and every citizen of Saigon stormed the streets waving their banners. The city went totally nuts from joy and triumph and for hours there was no taxi to be found - people, who were dining in our hotel, couldn't get home before the wee hours.


















The next morning we hopped back in the car for a 2 1/2 hour drive to the Mekong Delta. We took a boat cruise along the river and later floated on a sampan through the narrow, tree-lined canals of the Mekong. This side adventure was a bit disappointing since we didn't get to see floating markets as expected and the whole tour seemed like Disney at the Mekong Delta for the 70+ (my apologies to the readers above 70!). It was very touristic and mostly boring, not worth the trip to this specific destination. In case you still feel the urge to explore it, make sure, the driver takes you to the specific area with the markets. On our way back we visited the Vinh Trang Pagoda and - as in the past days - came across many wedding receptions - obviously it was great Feng-Shui to get married in the month of December.




















Well my friends, that's finally The End. Sorry, it took me such a long time to write this down but many unexpected events prevented me from getting to it earlier. I also shot around 1.600 pictures but still had no time to review them all and select some. I will post a link on my Blog once I am finished. As you could see, I didn't include ruins, buildings, temples, etc. so far - I assumed pics from the citizens of Vietnam will capture the dynamic of my report in a better way.