traffic & squat toilets

In Vietnam, crossing the road is like frogger. There are thousands of mopeds and some cars and trucks and no one stops. Some of the only evidence of communism here is the large number of mopeds and the small number of cars. Prices are controlled by the government and cars are very expensive while mopeds are very cheap. There are thousands and thousands of mopeds on the road. Mopeds (and cars, but not so much trucks) will swerve around you. No one will stop for you. If you wait for a break in the road, you will never get across a street. You just need to step off the curb and walk purposefully and deliberately (no hesitation, no running, no worry) and the traffic will move around you. Truly, you just have to believe. I LOVED it! Those of you who have watched me cross 29 in C-Ville or City Line in Philadelphia will understand. I am a very aggressive pedestrian. My philosophy is that cars are not allowed to run pedestrians over. They just aren’t. I kept wondering what the Vietnamese people must think when they come to the U.S. There are occasional stoplights here, though not many, and they seem to be only advice not law. If no one is coming, you go. If someone is coming, just as long as you properly judge their speed and distance, you go. When they come to the U.S. and see all of our rules and regulations, they must think we have the most oppressive, totalitarian government in the world. Somehow, the traffic pattern in Vietnam speaks much more to democracy than ours does. They don’t want to hit you just as much as you don’t want to be hit. So, if everybody just does their part, everyone will get where they are going safely. You don’t need rules, you just need some faith in human-kindness. They even put their children on mopeds, clearly no seatbelt laws let along helmet laws. It’s mind-boggling.

The night we went to the Rex Hotel and then dinner, Robin & I & a few others decided to walk back afterwards. Most of the rest of the group decided to take a taxi. It didn’t look far on the map and it was after dark and had cooled down significantly. It seemed a nice night for a walk. Michael said (before he hopped in the taxi) that he thought you had to walk through construction and it wasn’t a nice walk. The ship arranged for shuttle buses back and forth to town, but we didn’t yet appreciate why. It was a short shuttle ride. We walked down a block or two to the waterfront and then turned right. We could see the ship’s lights. We crossed the crazy busy road that separated us from the waterfront just as we had all the others -- we walked deliberately and purposefully and traffic swerved around us. Then we hit the construction to the left of us. We had to walk to the right of the barrier. We were walking into incoming traffic. There was a narrow place where we were walking, which seemed like it should have been fine. If it had actually been a sidewalk or shoulder, it would have been. But there were trucks coming towards us and there were mopeds who were trying to pass to their right and when they would do that, they would come face to face with us. With no room for either of us to go anywhere. Robin was in the lead and I kept teasing her that she was stopping traffic. Each time we would stop, Lois -- who was immediately behind me -- would put her hand on my shoulder. Like that would help in some way. The mopeds then had to merge back in with the trucks into the main lanes (which I use loosely, ‘cause it’s not like there really are lanes). There was absolutely nowhere for us to go, so the mopeds had to move back into traffic. It should have been a 3 minute walk, but it lasted much longer. When we got back to the ship, we ran into all the folks who took the taxi. They were just getting on the gangway. I was all hyped up. I LOVED it! Robin, however, looked pretty horrified and totally glared at me when I said that. She seemed mildly traumatized.

There was traffic in other countries too. Chennai was frightening as well and they seem to have their own set of unspoken rules. In Chennai, they use the horn for everything. I’m going through the stop sign, honk, honk … I’m going through the red light, honk, honk ... I’m a big bus going around a curve on a narrow mountain road and I have no idea who is coming towards me, honk, honk. It was dicey crossing the street there too, but the traffic wasn’t nearly as dense. In Vietnam, the mopeds are non-stop. And while they use the horn some, it seems the governing rule is just "go when no one else is" and "don’t hit anyone" and all else follows from that. Pretty simple when you get right down to it. Vietnam is the first place in a while where they drive on the right side of the road. I got pretty used to looking out for traffic coming the other direction, but this definitely felt more comfortable again. Walk deliberately and purposely, have faith, and all will be fine.

Squat toilets. I keep meaning to mention about them. Ever since we left South Africa, squat toilets have been the norm. Hole in the ground, with little places to guide your feet on either side. The touristy places have western-style toilets as well, but we’re not always there. Or, even it we are, in the public restrooms there will be both options and with a bus-load of Americans, if you want to jump to the front of the line, you have to be willing to squat. I’m getting very good at them. On the train in India, there were both options but the western-style were so much grosser that this is when I gave up and decided the other style had its merits. How much more do you want to know?

The Vietnam photo set is up at left. Today is April 14^th. One month from today, we’ll be pulling into San Diego.

vietnam is a country … not a war

Faculty/staff/life-long learners keep commenting that the students here are too young to really understand what it means to be sailing down the Saigon River. Truth be told, I'm a little too young also. My father served in the war here, but I really know very little. Born in 1971 … other than history books, it's not really internalized for me either.

I woke up early, mostly because I couldn’t sleep, and we had yet to start down the river. I watched on and off during the morning, taking some pictures, sitting in the faculty/staff lounge, sitting far away from everyone in attempt not to spread my cold. Dr. Matt gave me cold medicine, since I had finished what I had and Robin’s Chinese healing oil didn’t seem to do the trick. It’s a very busy waterfront here. Lots of fishing, lots of industry. I’m going to post this blog without too many photos, because it takes a long time to get them all uploaded together. I’ll let you know when the images are up, but I didn’t want to hold up the blog post.

During Global Studies this week and at last night’s pre-port, Bob -- the guitarist -- has been singing anti-war songs. Everyone in the audience knew all the words even though we weren’t born back then to protest. All those songs are American standards now.

Day 1 in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) was shopping day. In Vietnam, the thing to do is to have clothes made for you. Especially silk. You obviously need time for that, so it can’t wait until the last day. The idea was to get measured on day 1, go out of town for the trip days 2-4, and then pick it up on day 5. So, the shopping team -- David, Phoebe, Robin, and I -- headed to Tailor Row. May 4^th is the Ambassador’s Ball on the ship. Rather prom-like in more ways than one. Formal attire required. We bought tickets last week (me, under a certain amount of duress) -- it’s a charity event. So, now we were all of need in formal attire. See how this works? SAS helps to stimulate the local economy everywhere we go … 700 students in need of formal attire. Lots of men get suits made in Vietnam (several of the male students have commented that this is their first suit ever) and the women, fancy dresses. Phoebe got measured for a traditional Vietnamese dress, in amazing royal blue silk. Robin bought a fabulous silk black skirt and grey jacket off the rack (‘cause she’s smaller than the rest of us …). She’s going to look beautiful. I couldn’t find anything I liked. All the Vietnamese dresses had very high collars which always make me feel strangled. And not being able to try on a style made me nervous. Even if the cost was only $42 total for the fabric and the making, like Phoebe’s. One student said that she’s heard only about 50% of the time are people happy with how their dress turns out. So, I’m still in need of something to wear. If I buy heels somewhere, I might be able to get away with the dress I brought for the Captain’s Dinner. Otherwise I need to keep looking. I did, though, buy a silk robe and a few silk gifts. Then the four of us met a bunch of others for a drink on the rooftop of the Rex Hotel. Clearly, the hotel bore some sort of importance but I had no idea what it was. Giles told me that all the American reporters in Saigon would gather there for drinks during the war. It was a beautiful night overlooking a beautiful city, lit up and neon, and looking both totally elegant and perfectly modern. To think about my dad in Vietnam, even if he wasn’t yet a reporter back then ...

I was by far the youngest person in the group of us that night and I just sat and listened as they all exchanged stories about the war. They had so many stories even though none of them served here. I just sat and listened to them talk. Then dinner and a harrowing walk back to the ship. The traffic in Vietnam is deserving of its very own blog post, so I’ll come back to that story later.

Day 2. Got up early for a 4-hour bus ride to Phan Thiet (pronounced Fan Thee-it). I had hoped we’d see more countryside than we actually did, though we did pass through many villages which was cool. We stayed in a resort-place on the beach, about ½ hour away from the small fishing village that is actually Phan Thiet. We took a boat ride and a cyclo tour in the town, both feeling rather touristy. They gave us all the traditional Vietnamese hats, which I have to say don’t seem so practical. They kept blowing away, for one thing. One stop was a pagoda where a religious ceremony theatre performance was going on. It was packed. And we were the only non-Asians to be seen. Everybody stopped watching the performance and stared at us. They were very kind -- brought us chairs and a fan (it was stifling hot) but otherwise mostly stared. We were clearly very distracting and, despite their graciousness, we felt badly for interrupting their ceremony. The cyclos are the same as what Indians call a rickshaw and Malaysians call a tricycle. You sit, someone pushes you or pulls you (it varies, but always in blistering heat) on a bicycle. We saw a bunch of sites in town and then went to the market, where we were pounced on to buy things, t-shirts, fake Rolexes, whatever. After dinner, I sat on the beach for awhile. I had a high-school-flashback-moment (well, there was already the prom-thing) of Natasha and I hanging out at night on the lifeguard stands in Stone Harbor. Which we used to do all the time, just sit up there and talk. I love the beach at night. It might be my favorite time -- windy, listening to the waves crash and only now and then seeing the white foam. I sat on a chaise lounge for a while and jotted down notes on what I’d tell you all when I got back to the ship to post. Sitting with my feet in the sand on the other side of the world. When I was a kid, we’d also do the digging-the-hole-to-China-thing. Next week, I’m gonna be in China ...

Day 3. We woke up early and took "old Russian vans" (jeeps) along the beach and then up to some beautiful sand dunes. It was quite beautiful and peaceful.

I picked up some shells – we’ll see if they make it all the way home. After lunch, Phoebe and David and I went back into town. We found a part of the market where we noticed the sales pressure was much less intense. Food, household goods, etc. Less swarming of the white Americans. We were more mostly a curiosity. It was difficult to ascertain the level of tourism in this fishing village. Clearly the beach resort area was heavily touristy (with mostly European tourists), but the fishing village itself was a ways away and there was not much tourist infrastructure. But with the previous day’s aggressive pressure to buy t-shirts and hats and knock-off Rolexes, there is definitely a tourist market. Anyways, David & Phoebe & I were roaming around an area that was clearly more local. We were attracted to some pretty bamboo baskets for very cheap and we purchased several. After that, everybody started laughing at us and pointing as we walked by their stalls. We couldn’t figure out why our baskets were so funny. I was taking pictures here and there of the market stalls. And the people walking by selling vegetables and such. As I was standing there -- for probably the 15^th time -- looking through my viewfinder, I realized what was so funny.

The baskets we thought so pretty were to them entirely utilitarian. They were the baskets that carried the fruits and vegetables. It was kind of like tourists wanting to buy a plastic shopping basket. Or maybe worse, the clear plastic bags that you put your produce in at the grocery store. Just a thing to do work. They thought it was hilarious we wanted to buy them. Lots of people stopped us to talk about them and we finally got across our question of what they were called. Significantly fewer people spoke English here than in Saigon. Our baskets were definitely a conversation starter, though, whatever our communication difficulties!

Then I went to the beach for a bit and swam in the ocean and slept in the shade. It was breezy and pleasant. Folks were kite-surfing (surf board + kite, as might make sense) and it was both beautiful and intriguing to watch. Dinner was a barbecue where we picked out which live fish we wanted and then watched them die on the grill. I really don’t have any desire to watch my food be killed. But since Toni made me promise I’d eat everything even if it was looking at me, I considered myself grateful that I could at least identify what my options were. I had delicious grilled crab and clams and calamari. And watermelon and dragonfruit (which is red and green on the outside and white with black polka dots on the inside and really delicious all around).

Day 4. Took a long walk on the beach and napped in a chaise lounge before we checked out of the hotel. We had a nice lunch and then headed back to Saigon. On the way home (oops, I typed "home", I meant "back to the ship!"), we stopped at a lacquer factory that employs victims of Agent Orange. We saw many disabled people at work lying eggshells and gold leaf and making art. Trays and rice bowls and wooden boxes and paintings. We got a super-fast tour of the factory that of course ended in the gift shop. I might try to go back there tomorrow. Tomorrow, I have an FDP to meet with a former UPI Photographer, but my morning is free. I have all kinds of goals for tomorrow morning, we’ll see where I get. (Tried to post this blog, but the Internet seems not to be working & couldn’t post …)

Day 5. This morning, I started out at the Reunification Palace. Formally called Independence Palace, it was built by the French and completed in 1870. In 1954 after the French withdrew from Vietnam, it was handed over to the South Vietnamese as the Presidential Palace. It was bombed in 1962 and then rebuilt. It looks very 1960’s. In 1975, it became the symbol of Vietnamese reunification when the Political Consulate Conference for Reunification of the Country was held there.

"We see things not as they are but as we are" (Anais Nin) ... The tourist brochure I was given this morning says:

On 07 May 1954, the French colonialists after having suffered heavy defeat in Dien Bien Phu campaign, had to sign the Geneva Accords and withdrew from Vietnam. The US Administration looked for a way to engage in order to carry out their intention to occupy Vietnam … With the Ho Chi Minh historic campaign, on 30 Apr, 1975, the tank of Liberation Forces bearing plate 390 has hit off the main gate, tank 843 hit and inclined the auxiliary gate of Independence Palace to move forwards. At 11:30 PM of the same day, 1^st Lieutenant Bui Quang Than, Commander of tank 843 lowered the flag of 3 red stripes and raised the flag of the Liberation Front of South Vietnam. This flag has flown vividly on top of the Palace concluding 30 years of hard and heroic war of Vietnamese people, carrying out the wish of President Ho Chi Minh: People of North-South Regious have been reunited.

My Lonely Planet Vietnam (2005) says:

The building, once the symbol of South Vietnamese government, is preserved almost as it was on that day in April 1975 when the Republic of Vietnam, which hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, and 58,183 Americans died trying to save, ceased to exist.

The most interesting part of the tour was the underground bomb shelter, which had actually two stories underground and a crazy network of tunnels. There were way too many tourists in there (mostly Vietnamese) and it was hot like hell and I just feel the need to say that there is no way I could live in a bomb shelter!

After that, I decided to try and find the lacquer factory from yesterday. It seemed like it had to be in the same general area and so I wanted to walk. I had the address and at each corner I would stop and hand it to someone and ask for directions which they would pantomime for me. Everyone made it clear in pantomime that I should take a moped or a taxi. But, I was positive I was in the general area and that it was walkable. Eventually I started getting conflicting directions and, finally, I realized I really didn’t have enough time to find this place and do any shopping by the time I needed to get back to the ship. I should have just taken a taxi to begin with. I was dripping with sweat by the time I made it back to the ship and my feet were killing from walking a million miles around. I took a quick, very refreshing shower and headed out on the FDP. It went first to the home of a former UPI photographer, Hoang Van Cuong, where he showed us his work and talked about his story and answered our questions. He took famous pictures of people being airlifted off the roof of the American embassy in 1975.

Although there is some argument about whether or not it was truly the embassy building. He was imprisoned for many years after the war and has many vocal opinions about the communist government. Giles & Kate took this same tour the first day and reported that their tour guide went on a long rant about the photographer when they got back on the bus and that much of what he said was not true, etc., etc. I need to go back and ask them more now that I’ve been there also. Our tour guide said he was a "very good friend" of Hoang Van Cuong and so there was no rant. Giles teaches Politics & Memory so he is really interested in how history is told and retold in different ways. He loved it. After this stop, we went to the War Remnants Museum, formally called the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, so you might be able to guess as to its slant. It was duly horrifying -- the photos, the baby victims of Agent Orange preserved in glass jars, the reconstructed jail cells. Lots of armory, tanks, airplanes, etc.

This sign:

next to this sign:

The Vietnamese translation of the U.S. Declaration. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

It was a long, hot, intense day.

The phrase that I used for this post’s title, "Vietnam is a country … not a war" is credited to Le Van Bang, former Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States. Our interport lecturer used it in one of his Global Studies lectures. It was clear the night at the Rex Hotel, where I was sitting with folks many years older than I, that they are still very focused on the war. For me, I find myself somewhere in between. Up until this week, I was definitely seeing war first. Now, I’ve taken in those experiences, but also the beach and the 21^st century lives of the people here. For the students with us, however, they are the ones truly able to see Vietnam as a country first. It is fascinating to watch that kind of historical legacy pass through the various American generations on our ship. As befitting a voyage with Desmond Tutu, you can see truth and reconciliation before your eyes.

The Vietnamese clearly see the United States as colonizers, just like they saw the French. They talk about the war as a war of independence, not a war of communism. But they see our students now clearly as tourists and consumers. So much history and so much globalization. All smushed up together. It’s hard to figure out exactly what to do with that. How to make sense of it. And it’s causing us all to spend a lot more time talking together about Iraq than we have thus far. War and history and globalization. Violence and loss. Politics and memory. Forgiveness and peace.

i’m sick

the day before yesterday, I was in denial about possibly getting a cold. by yesterday I definitely had one. I took some DayQuil & slept some. I left Sherri in the library all afternoon and crashed. Robin gave me some Chinese Healing Oil. She’s very into all the homeopathic stuff. I have no idea, it tasted really awful is all I can say. I’m willing to try pretty much anything because I don’t want to be sick for Vietnam.

Last night was the ship’s Passover seder. There were about 200 people. There was matzo-ball soup which made us happy. But also pasta & cake … hmmm … the seder was nice, but a bit too conservative for my liking. This morning was the sunrise Easter service with the Archbishop. Fortunately we got to “retard” our clocks last night which gave us an extra hour of sleep. I got up for the service and then went back to sleep. For both events, we were given strict instructions to get dressed up. The Easter service was in the Union, which holds 300-some, and it was packed. I got there at 6:15 and was in the very back row. The service was lovely, I find the Archbishop totally mesmerizing. They did Communion and then we all processed out to deck and threw flowers overboard into the water. It was very pretty. I went back to sleep after, missing Global Studies, and I’m feeling a bit better now. I’ve been in the library all the rest of the day.

One of our professors was badly stung by a jellyfish in Malaysia. She’s on all kinds of serious pain killers and a number of faculty/staff/life-long-learners are taking turns being with her. The medical team wants her to stay awake all day so that she’ll sleep ok at night. I was supposed to do a shift this afternoon just hanging with her & keeping her awake, but I don’t want to share my cold. Seems like that’s all she needs. She came down to lunch today and is looking much better, so we’re hoping that the worst has passed.

Tomorrow is Vietnam. We should arrive in port around 10 am, but will start up the river towards Ho Chi Min City around 6:45. It’s supposed to be beautiful. I have a day free in Ho Chi Min City on either end of our stay with a 3-day trip to Phan Thiet (out in the countryside) in between. I’ll try to get a blog post out tomorrow night before I leave town.

Happy Passover & Easter to y’all out there …

pirate watch

we’ve been in the Straits of Malacca most of the day, but still up where it’s pretty wide. We couldn’t see land. The Straits run between peninsular Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Here’s a map for your edification:

All day we’ve been going crazy slow and we turned a number of times. There was a man-overboard drill for the crew this morning where they turn the ship around quickly, but the rest of the day we were just slowly turning and weaving. We’ll be bunkering tomorrow for refueling in Singapore. We are ahead of schedule for Singapore and they want to go through the narrow part of the Straits at night to avoid pirates, so basically we were just killing time. About 7 pm., we sped up. We were up to 29 knots about an hour ago, but are down to 23 now. Not sure why. They said we would go to maximum speed overnight, which we believe to be 34 knots. You can definitely feel that we are going faster, but the water is very calm. At 7 when we started to speed up, I was up on Mary & Michael’s balcony for another daughter’s birthday party (more cake). We could hear the noise as we sped up and we watched the wake get larger. But, walking around the ship, you can’t really tell the difference. And now it’s dark, so the Straits might be narrow enough to see land, but we can’t see. There are a number of boats around though … pirates, who knows?

There were crew outside in the space next to Mary & Michael’s balcony and they said they were on pirate watch (we asked). I don’t know whether or not to believe them, truly.

You can read all about the Straits of Malacca at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straits_of_malacca

From an economic and strategic perspective the Strait of Malacca is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world, an equivalent of the Suez Canal, or the Panama Canal. The Strait forms the main ship passageway between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, linking three of the world's most populous nations: India, Indonesia and China. The Strait carries 50,000 vessels per year, carrying between one-fifth and one quarter of the world's sea trade.

Piracy in the Strait has risen in recent years. There were about 25 attacks on vessels in 1994, 220 in 2000, and just over 150 in 2003 (one-third of the global total). After attacks rose again in the first half of 2004, the Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean navies stepped up their patrols of the area in July 2004.

There have been no recorded acts of piracy against passenger ships. They were all commercial ships. Good to know.

penang & pirates

today, our last day in Penang, my plan was to roam aimlessly around George Town & see what I found. I ran into David & Phoebe at breakfast. They had just returned from Kuala Lumpur and we exchanged Malaysia stories and decided to head into town together. We started at the Temple of the Reclining Buddha (Chinese Buddhist), which I’ve got to say totally challenged my notions of houses of worship. I found it hard to wrap my brain around. First off (as you might have guessed), there is a HUGE reclining Buddha. I couldn’t get it all in one photo:

The Buddha is also pictured here very female.

Other photos of the temple:

and there are many different places to pray for many different things:

And then there are walls of urns of ashes.

At UVA, we are written into the will of a faculty member at Yale who has a significant Asian collection. When he passes away, we will be receiving his collection to fill our new East Asian Reading Room. We will also be receiving his ashes. This was part of the deal, he wants his ashes in the room with the collection. Now, seeing all the urns of ashes in the Buddhist Temple, I better understand. Interesting, I had no idea.

And then we went across the street to the Burmese Buddhist Temple, where there was also a giant statue.

(that photo is not zoomed at all. I was very far away, it was so big.)

Then we went shopping (of course, last day in port …). Batik is the thing that is particularly Malaysian. There is also much Indian and Chinese dress, as would make sense.

and had lunch at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel (E&0). Like the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the E&O is an old colonial hotel. It was built in 1885 and it sits on the waterfront. According to the website: "among its more famous guests it has welcomed Noel Coward, Douglas Fairbanks, Hermann Hesse, Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham."

Lunch was delicious and the hotel was totally elegant. Walked around a bit more, did more shopping, ended up in Chinatown, and returned sweaty and exhausted back to the ship. I really loved Malaysia. I knew very little about the country before last week and had no expectations for it. But it is beautiful and multicultural and friendly and really interesting in all kinds of different ways. I would definitely like to come back someday to go to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore or some of the other islands. Ho Chi Min City is our next port. I’m really looking forward to Vietnam. Vietnam and South Africa were the two countries that had me excited about this voyage itinerary. Three days at sea and then we arrive in Vietnam. We're headed now into the Straits of Malacca. This is where there is pirate risk! Wish us safe travels ...

rice & rubber & palm oil

Due to a stupid mistake, I don’t have a lot of photos of today. Long story not worth going into ... Today, I went on a tour called “prime commodities of Malaysia” -- it is a port full of agriculture and economics for me. Yesterday, orchards & spice gardens, today palm oil plantations, rubber trees, and rice mills.

Malaysia is a very large exporter of palm oil, which goes into an amazing number of products we consume. It’s the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world. We went to a factory, where we learned how they extract the oil. Palm trees bear fruit every three weeks all year around. Harvesters knock them off the tree with huge stick-like-things and then pick them up off the ground. During the factory tour, we saw everything. There are bundles of red-fruits attached to each clump that are processed first for their nuts and then the seeds are extracted into oil. Every part of the palm fruit is used for something. The large clumps (sorry to be so unscientific & it would help if I had photos!), once shed of the red-parts, are burned for bio-fuel. In the factory, we walked all around and climbed up to the top on very steep metal stairs. Holding on to the hand-rails, you feel the oil on the rails. The platforms up there were also all slippery. This is definitely something that wouldn’t be allowed in the U.S.! Tourists climbing up oily stairs & standing on oily platforms in the middle of a factory.

Then, we saw how they tap rubber trees. The itinerary made it sound like we were going to a rubber plantation, but really we just pulled to the side of the road with our guide and he took us back through a bit of overgrowth to the rubber trees. Malaysia & Indonesia are the largest makers of condoms in the world. And latex surgical gloves. In case that’s ever a Jeopardy question, you’ll be prepared. Natural latex is tapped by cutting into the side of the rubber tree and letting the sap fall into little buckets. Latex tappers are all women -- we’re told because the cut must be gentle not to harm the tree -- and the sap must be collected every day. A tapper can tap 500 trees in a day. A man will then come by and empty all the buckets. It’s very hard work and each bucket is only 60% usable latex, the rest is water. Many rubber plantations in Malaysia are now replanting with palm trees, because palm oil only needs to be harvested every 3 weeks. Rubber is much more labor intensive. The tree’s life is 20 years, they cut diagonally one direction on one half of the tree every day for 5 years, then diagonally in the other direction on that same half every day for the next 5 years. Then the same thing on the other side of the tree for 10 more years. After 20 years, the tree is cut for wood. Furniture and such.

After the rubber, we went to a rice mill and learned all about how rice is processed. We also got to walk all around that factory in hard hats and masks. It was very dusty. The biggest thing I learned is that white rice & brown rice are exactly the same kind of rice. White rice is just “polished” -- all the nutrients, actually, are polished away to make it white. The farmer arrives to the mill with his rice paddy which is weighed. The truck + the paddy are weighed minus the weight of the empty truck. From that gross weight is then deducted the estimated water weight and the estimated weight of the impurities. The farmer is paid on the net weight. First the paddy is dried in dryers that take 24 hours to run a cycle. They have 15 dryers in the mill. They also have what they call a LSU dryer, because it was invented by a professor at Louisiana State! After drying, the paddy goes into a husking machine where the husk is removed and then a separating machine, where the husk is separated from the rice. They opened the top of the husking machine for us to see and rice was hopping all around. Then there’s a sifting process that removes the “bran”. The outer layer is called the husk, then there’s a layer called the bran, and then the rice grain. After sifting, it all goes into a machine that cleans the rice and removes the impurities. After that, you’ve got brown rice. If you want white rice, you’ve got one last step of polishing. As with the palm oil, they use everything. So, the brown/white rice gets dumped out into giant 1 ton bags of rice that go off to a wholesaler. And the bran gets sold for animal feed.

The Malaysian government heavily subsidizes rice production and they still import a huge amount of rice from other countries. Particularly Vietnam and Thailand. China is the largest producer of rice in the world but they consume most of what they produce. The company we visited (Bernas) is a former government agency (now privatized) that is the only company in the country licensed to import rice. As a result, there is also rice smuggling on the border with Indonesia, which goes up and down (down now) based on what the cost of rice is on the world market. The Malaysian government provides input subsidies to the farmers (free fertilizer), output subsidies (on the sale to Bernas), and also sets the market price. Since it is Malaysia’s staple food, they take the stockpiling of rice & goals of self-sufficiency pretty seriously. Also rice farmers are the poorest paid workers in Malaysia and there is a conscious effort to help improve their conditions.

After the trip, Dawn & I walked around George Town a bit (I misspelled it yesterday, you might have noticed). We went up to Little India, which felt a little silly since we just came from the real thing.

On a segment of the street that forms an F, we passed an Indian Hindu Temple on the bottom street, a Chinese Buddhist Temple on the left side street, and a Mosque on the top street. All a stone’s throw away from each other. We were lingering outside the mosque wondering if we could go in when a man came out to get us and told us to come in. We could hear the call to prayer as we were walking up. We took off our shoes, he walked us in, told us to sit on one of the carpets and told us to watch. He said he’d come back and get us after the prayer was over. He even said it was ok to take photos. Many of the mosques in the area won’t let non-Muslims enter at all.

After the prayer (Muslims pray 5 times a day and this was #3), he gave us a tour of the mosque. It was quite beautiful. Originally built in 1801 with some more modern renovation.

Then, he took us back to his information center and talked to us for a very long time about Islam. He was very interested to learn that I was Jewish. He said that Jews don’t very often come to Malaysia. People carrying Israeli passports are not allowed into Malaysia nor are Malaysians allowed into Israel. He said, up until a couple of years ago he "didn’t know what a Jew looked like". He was quite nice and very informative and answered all of our questions. I asked whether the Muslim community here spoke Arabic, but he said no. They can follow along and read the Arabic characters in the Qur’an, but they don’t know what they mean. I said for very many of us that is true of Hebrew as well. He asked me a number of questions too, but his command of the Old Testament was wayyy better than mine. I was only able to answer some of his questions. I’m not sure I’ve been in a functioning mosque before. I’ve been in several in Spain, but all are now historical museums or such.

Finally, we walked along the “clan jetties” by the water, where Chinese fisherman live and work. It’s like a boardwalk with homes built on top of it.

Another nice day, if very very hot. I like Malaysia very much. I’d add it to the list of places I could totally see myself living in … if it weren’t so !@%$#%@ bloody HOT! One more hot country (Vietnam) and then we should hit more temperate climates. I can’t wait! …

I’ve finally created flickr sets for each country’s photos. I’ve linked to them at left, in case you like that better than using the map’s navigation. There are more photos on flickr than I’ve included in each blog post, so go there if you want more. I’ll put up new sets as we leave each country.

fruit & spices

today, we went to an orchard and spice garden. We saw so many plants & flowers and I have so many pictures and no ability now to identify them all. Penang is know for durian, a fruit that "smells like hell but tastes like heaven." Smells so much that hotels have signs in the lobby telling guests they are not allowed to bring durian inside. We were all a little relieved to find that it is not currently in season! Our guide told us we must return to Malaysia in June or July to taste the famous durian. Will do ... It is referred to as "King of the Fruits". Mangosteen is "Queen of the Fruits" and Rambutan is "Prince of the Fruits", but they are also currently out of season.

We saw bananas:

pineapple:

nutmeg:

(did you know that you can poison someone with nutmeg?)

some weird kind of apple:

asian figs:

ginger:

and lots of pretty flowers:

At the spice garden, there were also lots of beautiful plants, again most of which I can’t remember to identify:

some kind of endangered palm, maybe?:

There was also a tsunami memorial. Our guide yesterday told us that 47 people perished in Penang in the tsunami, the guide today said 68. Low, by all comparison but very sad nonetheless. There are many hotels along the beach here too, but they had time to be warned. Hotel managers in Bande Ache had notified folks here and they were able to clear the beaches. The people who perished were all fisherman. Like the stories of other areas, here in Penang, the water receded before the tsunami arrived. Fisherman went further in to catch the fish that were hopping around on dry land. They were not warned. When the wave hit, they were dragged out into the sea. A lot of fisherman here are still living in temporary government housing over two years later.