Can I Write Oklahoma?

GREAT BOOK, BAD OKLAHOMA

If you've not seen it yet, editors Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey put together a fine new hardcover book State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, with essays by 50 writers of the 50 states. It's fashioned -- with its neat cover and concept -- as a reprisal of the WPA Guides, a Federal Writers' Project during FDR's administration. Some pieces are great -- Dave Eggers' spirited case for why Illinois is the best state (because of skyscrapers, Lincoln, license plates, friendliness) is hilarious, and rather convincing.

Others are misfires. Anthony Bourdain reinforces the image of Jersey suburbia -- a slave to New York City -- in his ultra-personal history of New Jersey, and misses an opportunity to talk of its actual rural heart (unseen from the turnpikes). His call, I guess. Meanwhile, Said Sayrafiezadeh from New York's Lower East Side stumbles through the most obvious South Dakota sites, akin to 'City Slickers,' without saying anything meaningful of a state with pink highways or touching on anything beyond the obvious. OK, maybe, in another venue, but unsatisfying for the purposes of this book.

The worst, so far (I'm not finished reading), is Oklahoma's chapter, written by Tulsan SE Hinton, who remains Oklahoma's turn-to writer though she's only known for a handful of teen books written three to four decades ago.

Of course I'm an Okie, so I take it the most personally.

In her four-page entry (the briefest in the book), she explains why she still lives in Oklahoma. She quotes Will Rogers a few times, talks about how meteorologists are 'demi gods' there, throws an offhand note that 'no state is prouder of its Native American heritage'. That's fine enough, but it all comes off a bit like back-cover blurbs, designed to sell a guidebook ('Oklahoma has all kinds of terrain...'). That she wrote it (in a day?) while being iced in her Tulsa home during the December 2007 ice storm makes it feel more like a break from her boredom. A crossword puzzle for her to pass the time.

Other writers bother to return to their homes for the story, talk with locals to give life or other perspective.

Suggestions for what SE Hinton could have talked about:

* Oklahoma has the best state shape in the country. And the reason is because Texas wanted slaves. After the Missouri Compromise forbid slavery over the 36-30 parallel, so they just sliced off the top of their panhandle.

* Oklahoma has the best state flag in the country. And the only one devoted to Native American themes.

* Rand McNally once famously forgot to include Oklahoma in a road atlas.

* John Steinbeck immortalized Dust Bowl Okies' move west in The Grapes of Wrath, but didn't bother to check much about the setting. He described a dusty flat plains for the Joads' hometown, but placed it in the hilly, green east of the state.

* Oklahoma is named for the Choctaw word for 'red man,' has more Native Americans than any other state (per capita), is planning a huge Native American museum in downtown OKC, and the state's nickname openly acknowledges law-breakers, the Sooners.

* That Oklahoma, like Kentucky, is a state without a clear region. It's sort of Great Plains (but with a FAR more diverse population than any state north of it), too western to be Midwest ultimately, and not south at all. In the end, Oklahoma is part of what I call the Texas sub-continent, linked to its rival big brother more than any of its other neighbors.

* Oklahoma's 'black towns' like Boley, which hosts a 'black rodeo' annually -- all legacies of towns settled shortly after the Civil War.

* Oklahoma is redder than any state -- election-wise (all counties went McCain in 08) -- yet OKC did the unthinkable by voting in a one-cent sales tax that helped improve itself more than any other American city in the past decade (eg Art Museum downtown, new library, putting water in the river, Bricktown canal, Ford Center, Flaming Lips Alley...)

SE Hinton calls Oklahoma a 'great place for a writer, a free place for a writer.' It may be so, but it's too bad she apparently made her case without leaving her home. A missed opportunity.

State by State, can we do this one over?

Rugby Flashback

MORE FROM NORTH DAKOTA
I went well out of my way, on May 10, 2001, to reach Rugby, ND, the geographical center of the North American continent. A little on a Great Plains map can mean hours -- and I didn't question my decision for a second. This is my journal entry:

The Rugby visitors center is why you travel.

Located across the road from the cute stacked-stone geographical center of North America marker, the worker here -- dressed in a 'Rugby - Geographical Center of North America' jacket -- is a serious, bald, 35-year-old local who sells Mexico and Canada flags along with US ones to keep the North American focus. He takes that seriously. He pulled out travel planners he's painstakingly collected from all 50 US states and much of Canada -- to have onhand, as a defacto representative of North American travel, here in a sad wind-swept town far from an interstate.

'It's something,' he said in an eager monotone, with a trace of a Fargo accent. 'You really learn which states have the highest tourism budgets and which don't.' Which have the least? 'Oh Virginia, definitely. They sent us just one guide. Said if we wanted more we'd have to pay postage,' he added without a trace of resentment. 'But New Jersey, they sent us cartons of magazines and brochures. They sent us 1000 New Jersey maps.' I laughed at this, but he clearly saw no humor in it.

Rugby wants to create a new visitors center, but ran out of money. He showed me three separate artists' renderings of a new proposed center. I left to check out the North American stone marker across the street, first asking if it really was the real geographical center.

'Oh no,' he said. 'The actual spot is 16 miles south -- in the middle of a swamp.'

North Dakota!

The USA's least-visited state -- sometimes misinterpreted as the coldest of the contiguous 48 (Maine is colder, for instance), and made fun of by a movie that takes place in next-door Minnesota (Fargo) -- is getting the last laugh on the rest of us, it appears. According to a New York Times article a few days ago, North Dakota is, more or less, taking a bypass around the recession. It enjoys a $1.2 million budget surplus, the nation's lowest unemployment rate and a recent rise in real-estate values. Good for them.

I've particularly been a fan of the state's punk-rock threats of renaming its state -- from 'North Dakota' to simply 'Dakota,' which pops up in its state legislature every couple years. Predictably South Dakota -- the more famous twin -- gets furious over the notion, but I can't help but wonder if more states should remain fluid with its nomenclature.

Some examples:

*New Jersey --> York. The only thing that could possibly make New Jersey cool is upsetting New York (the Boss certainly hasn't done it). Another option would be simply Manhattan. Clearly 'Jersey' isn't working.
*West Virginia --> Authentic Virginia. No one will know which came first after 80 years.
*Oklahoma Panhandle --> Actual Massachusetts
*Michigan's Upper Peninsula --> Better Wisconsin
*Drop the New. Why does every 'new' state (eg New Hampshire, New York, New Mexico) feel the need to qualify itself with an adjective? Think anyone will confuse New York with the old one anymore?

I should also note that Virginia and Georgia are the laziest state names in the US. Maybe we can do something about that.

In the innocent-and-free days of early 2001, Lonely Planet offered me two projects: island hopping in the Caribbean, or driving around the USA's Great Plains. And I immediately took the latter, the 24,000-mile drive still remains my favorite trip I've taken. I had a great week in North Dakota, stopping in Grand Forks for lame university-troupe comedy and a bowl of cream of wheat in its birthplace. I saw Sitting Bull's grave, the wonderful badlands of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and went well out of my way to the clunky International Peace Garden that straddles Manitoba/Dakota lines -- it was built to show the world how peace can last, just before WWII broke out. My car was searched crossing back from an hour in Manitoba. The most intense border experience of my life.

I arrived in Fargo the day its brand new tourist information center -- fashioned from a giant grain elevator -- was launching a seasonal 'visit North Dakota!' campaign. The staff were down though, as that day FUJI film deemed Fargo as the 'least photogenic' city in the country. That's just mean. You'd think a film company would appreciate the trials and tribs of good photography, rather than taking an easy kick at a three-legged dog.

No more FUJI for me!

PBS' 60 Favorite Public Spaces

I just saw that PBS unleashed recently a list of 60 'great places' around the world -- determining which make the cut as public spaces 'where serendipitous things happen, the places we tell stories about' and also 'decidedly local, but can also absorb a fair amount of tourism with out losing the qualities that make them great.'

The list is here.

There's a few surprises here. Corpus Christi's bus station? While 'Bleecker Street' (a touristy, lame Greenwich Village strip, way past its 'decidedly local' prime) for New York is a bit of an embarrassment. Some obvious inclusions -- Paris' Notre Dame, Rome's Spanish Steps, New Orleans' French Quarter -- are here, but no San Francisco! No Hanoi! No Beijing!

If PBS is willing to expand from a nice even 50 to an unusual 60, they might as well gone with 70. Here's ten they missed:


*HANOI's Old Quarter. Lanes still hold onto ancient identities -- as tin makers, instrument shops etc. And locals come out at 4.30am to nearby Hoan Kiem Lake to exercise.
*BROOKLYN's DUMBO. Phil Collins shot his awful 'Take Me Home' video from the city's greatest viewpoint, on the East River between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.
*SAN FRANCISCO's North Beach. If you can put in New Orleans' French Quarter, you can put in this Kerouacian Italian district up the hill from downtown.
*BERLIN's Prenslaeur Berg. The East Berlin 'Boho' neighborhood.
*AMARAPURA, MYANMAR's U Bein Bridge. A mile-long teak bridge with a stream of robed monks. It's public, even 'serendipitous.'
*CHICHICASTENANGO, GUATEMALA's market. Traditional Mayan market occurs weekly.
*BOGOTA's La Candelaria. The historic center of Colombia's capital is backed by Andean mountains and filled with cafes serving cheese-filled hot chocolate or local spirits with yerba buena tea.
*NEW YORK CITY's Bryant Park. In the middle of Midtown, a Paris-style cafe backed by the library and skyscrapers, hosts fashion shows and free movies. Plus there's free wi-fi!
*MERIDA, MEXICO's weekend street fair. It's open-air bands, tacos and closed-off streets in this colonial Yucatan town built from broken Mayan pyramids.
*BEIJING's Tiananmen Square. It faces the Forbidden City's Mao mural, and the loooong lines of locals coming to see Mao's mausoleum is hard to forget.

That and many many more.

Colombians Are Nice & Happy (But Some Bite)

The 70-year-old German who invited himself to sit with me at a orange-and-green restaurant near my guesthouse had bite marks on his finger, his arm and -- he indicated with a point -- his lower leg.

Bogota doesn't always have the best reputation for being a safe place. A couple years ago when I was here, a Juan Carlos (I met more than one) stopped a conversation mid-sentence in a central business office when a loud boom could be heard. 'Oh, you're lucky. It's a bomb!,' he said excitedly. Then after a moment, 'Oh, it was just a blown tire.' Outside a car driver stood by his stranded vehicle, hands on hips.

The German is travelling for half a year around South America, which I managed to understand despite his not being able to understand any English ('how are you?' 'I'm 70!' 'uh, no how are you? are you doing OK?' 'yes, I am 70'). Yesterday, his first day in Bogota, he went on a hike to a nearby mountain through one of the sketchiest areas of the city, and one everyone tells you to avoid. But the German went anyway and when two guys '50 years younger' than him approached he fought them off, and then they BIT him. Eventually he let go of 80 euro and a camera. On the way back, he got robbed again.

This is not the sort of experience I've had so far in this city of the world's third-happiest country. Sticking with busier areas with better reputations, Bogota to me has been a place that when you ender a grocery, museum or cafe, you're pretty much expected to give a smiling 'buenas dias' to whomever you see. People have been patient with my stumbling Spanish, laughing and urging me to continue. I met someone the other day who, when I mentioned I was interested in tejo (a traditional game involving throwing weights at gunpowder in warehouses with free entrance as long as you buy a 'box of beer' and use the urinal with a full view of the games), he immediately drove me -- past the red-light district, where locals and skimpily-clad woman exchanged words on street corners -- to a tejo place where a dignified group of gray hairs in suits stumbled out and warmly shook my hand. 'Ah, you like tejo too?'

It seems Bogota, like all places, is a little bit of everything.

Sofia Likes to Dance

Bulgaria's famed for its yoghurt, its ski slopes, its beaches and its lovely little head bob which you never know means 'yes,' 'no,' 'as you wish,' 'I'm glad you're happy' or 'kindly leave my sight.'

On my last night recently, some Sofia friends Assen and Ira took me to a classic: a traditional restaurant outside the centre lined with portraits of 47 Bulgarian heroes and 11 flags. A traditional band -- guy with big drum, a clarinet, an accordion and a guy with a Strat -- played as the tables emptied and a long line of locals danced in a frenzy around the small area between tables.

Enjoy.

Veteran Tours in Vietnam

NEW TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Vietnam's peak season is nearly here. One new fun hurdle to consider is that Vietnam has gone and added a digit to its telephone numbers across much of the country! I've not been able to correct the numbers on the site because I don't know what they are yet -- for instance, in Hanoi and Saigon, the seven-digit numbers remain the same, but are preface with a new digit based on their local telephone provider. Not something I thought much about asking when going around Vietnam to research this guide... I hope to have corrections made by late November. Sorry for the inconvenience.



'VIETNAM WAR' SITES
I've been getting a fair share of questions about 'veteran tours' in Vietnam, and I'd love to hear from anyone who has gone on such trips to Vietnam. There are some tour groups that specialize in this, but it's possible to revisit several sites in Vietnam on your own.

Here are a few things to consider:

* The most famous 'Vietnam war' site is at the Cu Chi Tunnels, a network of re-made, claustrophobic tunnels north of Saigon. It's easily visited on a half-day trip from Saigon.

* Tunnel fans can also see another tunnel network that seems -- in my estimation -- even a bit more interesting, north of Hue, at the Vinh Moc Tunnels. It's only a part of the DMZ tours offered from Hue. Most travelers go on bus tours but I found hopping on the back of a bike of a South Vietnamese vet was far more educational and got me to places the bus tours don't reach. See here for info on how to do that.

* One of the war's more infamous sites is at My Lai, where there's a somber memorial dedicated to the locals killed there in 1968. You can go on a DIY day trip -- with a little effort -- from Hoi An, or stay in nearby, way off-the-radar Quang Ngai and venture out by taxi or rented motorcycle.

* In the Mekong Delta, Toc Dup Hill is also called the 'US$2 million hill' for the money spent to try to claim the rocky, cave-filled mountain you can explore on your own.

* Such sites aren't limited to the south. In Hanoi, you can see the lake where John McCain crashed into and drop by the exhibits where he stayed at the 'Hanoi Hilton.' And on Cat Ba Island, off Halong Bay, you can hear a 'Ho Chi Minh' song sung by a sweet ex-north Vietnamese vet in a hospital cave. (The guy practically tackled me with hugs when we posed for a photo.)

A Few Photos from Bulgaria

I'm nearly four weeks in to a five-week research trip across Bulgaria and been too distracted by collecting the pesky rabotne vreme (working hours) of cafes, banks and museums to blog much. Though I did manage to make to the BEST BAR OF ALL TIME today. Not far from the seat of the Bulgarian government, a heavy metal bar. Tiny, with red-and-black sign, and hanging banners -- for Pantera, Priest, Motorhead alongside a carefully graphed score sheet for the 'Storm Riders Table Football Club,' some of whom were crowding the FIVE foosball tables as make-up-off KISS, AC/DC and various late '80s metal played. The bartender looked like 1987 Slayer -- and it was a woman.

Here are some photos of other things:

The Heavy Metal Capital of the World!

Heavy metal never died, it just went to East Europe. A few years ago, while traveling across the Russian Far East, I kept spotting Dio promos in places like the Theatre of Musical Comedy in Khabarovsk, and learned the five-foot-plus singer was starting his tour in a place gulag labourers agonized to build seven decades ago. This year in Vladivostok, I dropped by a snooty CD store to ask about local bands, and a giant blond guy handed me a band called 'Masters of Defecation.' 'It is death metal, very hard.'

Nothing beats Kavarna, Bulgaria though -- perhaps the heart of the heavy metal world. It's a crummy place, with aged housing blocks sweeping down a dramatic cliffside setting to a crummy beach. The sea name? Black of course. It jumped onto the heavy metal map when a headbanging mayor delivered, apparently, on his campaign promises by launching the Kaliakra Rock Fest, an annual three-day metal fest named for a dramatic cape nearby dotted with remains of Thracian and Roman forts.

This year Manowar, Alice Cooper and Slayer headlined the nights.

In town, the main road passes communist-era housing blocks with a twist. The murals of 'workers power!' have been whitewashed and replaced with full images of a few Bulgarian metal singers in the process of a fist-pump, plus Billy Idol ('Mony Mony' era). This is a town where John Lawton -- singer from Uriah Heep and a Rock Fest regular -- is more of a household name than David Beckham or Vladimir Putin.

There is more than your average share of turreted rooftops -- essential for warding off dragons I hear. Down by a rather crappy beach lined with old buildings, some out of use, is a grey silo re-fashioned into a castle.

I didn't stop for a pizza slice or seek out a local CD shop while passing through. And I already regret it. Deeply.

Bulgaria's Little Thorn

I'm not sure why more people don't travel around Bulgaria's northwest corner, extending like a little thorn between Serbia and Romania. I'm currently researching Lonely Planet's Eastern Europe chapter for Bulgaria and started off my trip -- getting over jetlag and flat-out enjoying myself -- with a little road trip across this mountainous extreme of Bulgaria few see.

Belogradchik is a medieval fortress on a site used by Romans, Ottomans, Bulgarians that looks like a lost set of The Lord of the Rings. Stone figures, carved from prehistoric seas, look like giants looming over a toy fort. Above the walls is a 50-sq-km area of more rocks, with endless climbing opportunities and views across a deep valley.

Vidin, on the Danube, sees a little action for its car ferry to Calafat, Romania. There's another fort here and a great riverside walkway -- no other town I've seen here embraces the Danube as warmly. Traveling with a Sofia friend, we ate local fish on a floating restaurant and swam at a pool made from an old Turkish bath. Then we stopped at a car market where 10-year-old Renaults and VWs were going for 1500 to 3000 euro, cheaper than back in Sofia.

The next day we followed the map to the far north -- to figure which of two villages were Bulgaria's northenmost. In Kudelin, near the Serbian border, a mayor's assistant -- a stern woman, about 50, with dyed black hair and thickly applied magenta lipstick, mocked the nearby Vrav. 'They are bigger but half of their houses are abandoned. Here we have more kids.' Also: 'it's understood that we're the northwestern most village in Bulgaria,' she said proudly. She also bragged about the mental institution near the Danube. 'We have 200 people there!' We drove that way and heard ape-like screams. In a patch of shade a few old codgers saw us, jumping up eagerly and waving like Forest Gump off the shrimp boat.

Over in Vrav, we asked a local about the town, and he willfully agreed half the village was empty. 'On Friday some Brits come who have bought houses in the area -- to drink at our bar,' he motioned to a few outside tables facing the tiny central park. 'They're bad, but not as bad as the gypsies.' He had no idea which town was farther north.

We ended the trip to the south at Lekhchevo, where a family had had a baby sheep killed for us -- 'we decapitated it today' they said proudly -- and a long night of local rakiya brandy, their own wine ('this is a 20-year-old bottle -- it's a gamble if it'll be good or not') and beer made up in Lom took us to 2am. One of the sons, a beefy guy in a taut muscle shirt, yelled out from across the porch eating area under vines of purple grapes, 'Robert! Dance!' and turned on an ageing Bulgarian pop singer on a mini cassette player.

I stuck with the decapitated sheep and wine.

Battle of Brooklyn!

Lately the battle of Brooklyn centers around finding cheap rent for bands or artists in neighborhoods in from Williamsburg on the L line, which heads straight into East Village bar turf on Manhattan. Or the battle over the Atlantic Yards project. The ultimate should we/shouldn't we in urban development -- a new business center that could bring jobs (and the NBA Nets) but means extra traffic and, worse, kicking out locals from some homes.

There was another Battle of Brooklyn, one few Americans have heard about. Likely because it was a huge defeat.

On August 27, 1776, British troops eyed New York, but to claim it, Brooklyn came first. The battle was ultimately the biggest of the Revolutionary War, claiming 25,000 American lives alone -- equivalent in modern times, per John J Gallagher in his book The Battle of Brooklyn, to two million casualties. It was a loss, but somehow New York City was saved, and the war went on.

Essentially no sites of the battle remain today. There's a marker in Prospect Park, which saw some action, but Forts Box and Defiance have no trace (or plaque) remaining. And one key hillpoint is covered in graves, at Green-Wood Cemetery.

I had been thinking of trying to stage an borough-wide re-enactment of the battle, with British troops coming up two-century-old streets like Flatbush, and American troops standing them off outside delis and Brooklyn Industries t-shirt shops. Then I learned there is a 're-enactment' of sorts.

Today I visited it, finally, at Green-Wood. A crowd of a few hundred encircled a British and American soldier standing side-by-side (!). A British officer (!) ordered them to load and shoot fake rifles, puffs of smoke filling the air and claps all around. When they tried it again, the British guy's didn't go off. A local dad in a Mets jersey jeered him, 'That's why you Brits lost the war!'

Afterward the several hundred observers milled about with mostly upper mid-aged re-enactors who broke character and snapped when missing a note in a flute solo. When they marched 'up the hill' to where battle was waged, a marching band in modern white uniforms followed them playing 'Yankee Doodle Dandy.'

That's where I let the battle go on without me.

Vladivostok!

I've been busy writing up my Russia research for Lonely Planet's Russia and Trans-Siberian Railway books. I did manage to squeeze in a short article on Vladivostok for the New York Times last Sunday.

The city has much more to talk about. One of the things that fascinated me most was a growing breed of new entrepreneurs who are busy re-working how the city sees itself. Mr Park, quoted in the piece, is a hilarious guy. A Korean-Russian, he jets to South Pacific islands for vacations, buys outrageous Gucci and Prada outfits in Italy ('America makes it so hard to visit, visa-wise, so I just spend my money elsewhere).

Another cafe in Vladivostok fashioned itself as a humble little English bakery with a Queen Elizabeth plate behind a case of quiche and local pastries few locals have seen before. The owner, also a Korean Russian (married to a British guy), said 'I couldn't live with a regular job, working for someone else. I had to try this even if it failed.'

This is sort of new for the city. So far from Moscow, things have been corrupt and wild for a while. A couple mayors have been ushered out recently -- one is in a Moscow jail -- and people tend to by quite cynical of any positive change. 'We're an impermanent place,' the bakery owner said. 'People come and leave. We're a port town. Nothing stays.'

The first business after the fall of the USSR was punctuated with street shoot-outs. A 20-something or 30-something didn't really have access to opening a spot on a main central street like hers. And now that the APEC summit will come to Vladivostok in 2012 -- and lots of money in preperations -- maybe Vladivostok will have its day, and live up to its name somewhat: 'to rule the east' in Russian.

The End of BAM: Vanino/Sovetskaya Gavan

Novy Urgal: Boredom in a BAM Town

Novy Urgal, the lead town from the eastern stretches of the BAM railway, is clearly not a place most, or any, travellers will come to. The train station has no guesthouse, and a tragic toilet for those needing it. The hotel is under renovation -- if you can find it -- and a scattered group of tile-peeling buildings are lined along dusty streets in a town of 6000 (and diminishing) people. It only began in 1974, when 320 Ukrainians came to work the railroad. Now the lone cafe in town, Aisberg (Iceberg) -- a blue and white place with three bored women watching Russian comedy on a big-screen TV -- doesn't serve borscht, but 'Ukrainian borscht' and 'Ukraine' is written along with 'Urgal' above the train station. I came because Lonely Planet thought it would be added to the Russian book. I knew it wouldn't be much, and it was clear about five minutes off the train, but I now have a day to kill before my night train to Birobidzhan. Here's how it's going:

* Got in line for train info at the station, but saw a break was coming in 15 minutes; with three people before me, chances were zero, so I left for town. TEN HOURS TO KILL

* Up the long steps into town, I saw a great 'BAM' marker, with a hero worker and kilometer distances to Moscow and Fevralsk. Nearby was a hospital shaped Dom Kulturi, I stepped into. I asked if I could look to the admin woman in a mini office up front. 'We have a store, a club, a library. Sure, you can look.' Above was towering ceilings, with elevated walkways I didn't know how to reach and a painting of a mountain scene. NINE-AND-A-HALF HOURS.

* Across a scruffy plaza stand a big gray buildng that seemed official, so I headed toward it -- and walked right in, finding the former admin bldg of some sort converted into a mall, a common occurence out here. walked past shops for haircuts, fresh bread, bad clothes and found -- sacre bleu! -- this Internet spot, where I checked college football details and answered a few emails. EIGHT-AND-A-HALF HOURS.

* There's a lone attraction in town, a BAM MUSEUM, and I tried to find it, walking lazily down cracked sidewalks of streets namd 60 Years of USSR and Kiev (Ukraine). I asked at a store, where a auburn-haired woman, locked up and walked me 15 feet away to point to the next door. 'Second or third floor.' Up the stairs, I surprised a 60- or 70-something attendant who gave a painstakingly detailed run-down of each and every item (1970s samovars, paintings that say 'Long Live Stalin,' a mini BAM map, stuffed animals I've never seen before), using her pointer to show the first, second and third buildings made in town from a glassed-in town model, and I finally had to excuse myself from a very Soviet experience. SEVEN HOURS.

* I dropped by the closed hotel under reconstruction and got some prices to be, and ate at a meal at Iceberg, watching Russian MTV (don't Russians ever listen to US pop?). I pushed the onions off my slice of pork and mixed them with a few potatoes I didn't eat to disguise my dislike for them. I didn't touch the peas. The borscht was excellent. FIVE-AND-A-HALF HOURS.

* I stopped or more Internet, and slowly returned to the train station where I found two people in line in an empty station. After 40 minutes of waiting, with no progress, I sat down and watched seven people take my place, and the two before me finish up. I left to a cafe near the Dom Kulturi, where shirtless guys in shorts and buzz haircuts worked on setting up a stage backed with navy-blue flames that look like Arabic writing. I had a beer and read. TWO-AND-A-HALF HOURS.

Now, with just 95 MINUTES TO GO, I'll try a ticket again. If not, I'll set in the shade and worry about my next ticket in Birobidzhan. Someone needs to clock waiting-in-vain on a trip here.

Komsomolsk: Communist Tour

The Trans-Siberian Railway is a Tsar's creation, but the scrappy BAM -- connecting west Siberia with the Soviet Harbor port in the far east -- is pure Soviet. Built over most of the USSR's run, with stops in production here and there, the Soviets put cosmonaut-like money into this train to nowhere. Purpose-built towns were made along the way, with laborers chiefly from Gulags that moved up and down the line built over permafrost and through mountains and over rivers no one had developed before.

Most towns here are cynical gray ugly creatures -- a lone Chinese restaurant, a sad cafe with latticework of iron gates on the windows, blocks of uniform housing with apartments in the beautiful area as cramped as Hong Kong's Chungking mansions. That's not true of Komsomolsk. Here, buildings are pink, salmon and sky-blue, made to look like St Petersburg by design -- the city, founded in 1932, became a ship-building and aircraft-building center of the Far East, and a successful one. Even today it feels more Soviet than many towns, in the best possible ways. Parks named for Ship-Building Factory, Railroad Workers and Construction Workers dot the city, as do tree-lined backways and sidewalks. The old 'factory kitchen' (fabrika-kuzhnya), where streams of workers poured in for meals next to the still-active shipyards, is now El Dorado, a renovated nightclub.

A local tour agent took me on a trip of various sights of the 'Stalin era.' His grandfather perished in a nearby gulag, then his father moved here from Siberia to see if he could find the cemetery. He's happy to be here. 'Things maybe were better 10 or 15 years, when the government gave us high pay, good food and free tickets as incentive to live here. Now they want to out. But I like it,' Misha, 48, says.

We visited an area by the railroad that was now as a mini gulag district -- nice tree-lined streets and Petersburg-styled housing blocks. A district for the administration, not the prisoners.

We drove by the active Amur Steel plant -- 'used to be 30,000 workers, now 7,000' -- and passed a working prison. 'When I was young I took the tram to work in the factory an we'd stop here, as 1000 gulag prisoners would cross the tracks to work in a nearby plant. That stopped in 1980.' And the prisoners now? 'Mostly criminals. But maybe a little bit political too.'

Russia Time-Out

I'm a bad blogger, but it's not all my fault. Been dashing about Russia's Far East -- sometimes a couple nights on trains, sometimes too worn out to cross town for an Internet connection you have to wait for. While I catch up on a few experiences to jot down here, here are a few photos:

Give Taxidermy a Chance

Every Russian museum follows the same template: exhibit on heroism of locals during the 'Great War' (WWII), some local photos of settlers with hats and moustaches, out here in the east you get a few artifacts from original inhabitants (eg the Aino here on Sakhalin Island) and a full room devoted to the careful artistry of taxidermy.

I've seen enough stuffed tigers and bears to feed busloads of kids going to museums like these. But nothing compared to this one in Vladivostok. It's supposed to be of a Siberian Tiger attacking a Siberian bear, teeth exposed, looks of rage, between two animals that once lived in the area (a central street in Vlad is called Tiger Hill -- apparently they were there before the housing blocks came). I didn't want to pay the $2 or so fee to use my camera in the museum, but the guard noticed me looking at it intently and suggested 'go ahead, photograph...' I did.

I mentioned it to some locals which prompted a Beatles-or-Stones type conversation about who would when the fight. 'Tiger is quicker. Tiger would win.' 'But what if the bear was bigger? It could let the tiger exhaust itself.' 'Tiger claws not as deep as bears.' 'Yeah but bear can't spin in circles to keep up with tiger.' 'Tiger!' 'Tiger!' 'Yes, tiger.'

I always felt they looked like they were dancing.

Vladivostok Looking Ahead?

'What do you think of Vladivostok?'

I hear this question a lot. I've begun my nearly two month trip across Russia's Far East with two weeks in Vladivostok, so I should have an answer. Its name means 'to rule the East,' but it was only meant as a menacing threat to its neighbors from a military sense. The town was closed for most of the Soviet period -- no Russians, no foreigners could get in. Though resources and trade potential loom still, it's had a bumpy start towards the free market. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was run by corrupt local politicians, locals tell me, who took the new autonomy from the Moscow for their own means. After Moscow grew stronger the past eight years with Putin in power, and now Medvedev, some locals tell me 'it's better -- we don't know what to do with freedom, me neither.'

A lot of talk circulates about Putin's last push as president to bring the APEC summit here in 2012, a plan that involves a supposed Moscow commitment of $6 billion in investment -- to clean the polluted port waters, add a new sewage systems, some roads, some hotels, an entertainment complex ('like Russia Vegas,' one person told me) and, most importantly, a Golden Gate-style bridge to nearby Russky Island, which was a military island solely until recently. When I visited it three years ago, many locals -- including travel agents -- said I couldn't go. I did, and I could, it seemed.

Few locals believe all this. A Korean owner of a British pastry shop said 'Frankly I think if APEC comes all the countries will forget Vladivostok once they go home.' Other note that bridges take eight years to build. One enthusiastic boat guy, who collects mud for spa and fishes shrimp and takes tourists on fishing tours -- and who looks like Morrissey a bit -- says 'I saw bridges made in South Korea -- it takes them five years. I don't think it can be done.'

Walking around Vladivostok's streets it's easy to confuse it with another post-Soviet city. People don't mind trash and debris or graffitti on the streets, some of which have been widened, cutting down trees to do it. The main square is covered in asphalt. The new promenade along Sportivnaya Harbor was made with gray stones -- a poor color choice in an already gray city. When the city built a small pond with a lotus flower and fish on the main ped strip Fokina, someone stole the fish, and filled the pond with emptied beer bottles. 'Usually in summer, people take the flowers out of other garden areas to grow some cabbages.' It can look a little grim.

But getting a view of the scene, from the $1 ferry to Russky Island and back, from atop a San Francisco-style hill reached by a 20-cent funicular train, or by busing to the south point of Vlad and standing on a lookout overlooking the bay, you can see the potential. Few cities have more attractive landscape.

Anyway I like it.

Photo of the Antique Automobile Museum, a collection of Soviet cars and motorcycles:

This Man Is Very Drunk

 

FINALLY, A DRUNK GUY... WITH GRAPES

Rewards in Russia depend not on plans or actual destinations like an art museum or pretty pretty mountain. But the random occurences where you don't know what's happening, where you're going, why you're doing it, or if you should.

The Trans-Siberian runs some 9500 kilometres from Moscow to Vladivostok, crossing seven times zones along the way. During the Soviet Union, though, it finished here in Nakhodka, an international port town with an enviable bay lined with shipyards and loading docks, and facing a far off pair of mountains named Brother and Sister. During the '70s, the Soviets lopped off the head of the Brother -- mining it; a 'sad day' says one local -- but taller Sister stands untouched. I took a local bus out to see if it could be climbed -- it could, but not by me -- when a very drunk man found a new friend: me.

Walking back to find a bus stop, at least 2km away, he ran up to me, then padded his shorts looking for a phone. He pulled out some keys. 'That's not a phone,' I added helpfully in bad Russian. 'Wait... You wait... here.' He ran off. I did wait for a couple minutes, but thought - as clouds gathered - I'd best move on. I kept an eye back, and 90m down I saw him coming finally. I lazily, guiltily, went back. He had grapes.

Gray-bearded Nikolai wreaked of vodka too, and had two (apparently recently) severed fingers from the hand holding the grapes. His middle and ring finger were stubs, with blackened ends and exposed stitches. He handed me grapes and I took them. 'Eat!' I nibbled, and he yelled out, 'No! Like this.' He put six or seven, along with the vine, into his mouth and chomped.

I apologized that I spoke Russian poorly. I studied it 16, no 17, years ago. '16 Years! 17 Years!' He stopped, holding out his arms dramatically. 'Russian language.... everything...' he said pointing around. 'It is heart!'

His sister and niece pulled soberly up in a car and, when Nikolai opened the door, I dutifully got in. They took me to a bus stop down the road, the women laughing at the drunken rants.

As I got out, Nikolai offered 'it is better to walk and talk.'

Vladivostok Cat Walk

Some say the '70s were the Soviet hippie decade -- when rock music first made its appearance, along with long hair and whatnot -- and looking around the streets of Vladivostok, or listening to tunes playing in any of many cafes, you'd wonder if the 2000s is their '80s. Forgotten songs by Bon Jovi, Journey and Mr Mister are blasted in Italian-run pizzerias, reminding me of how earnest, and shameless, and over-the-top in the wrongest ways, that decade was. By the '90s, we learned some subtley, or at least that it might not be such a bad thing to dress up like we were eternally raking leaves -- in used clothes, beaten-up clothes, whatever.

There's a lot of status made by the pants and top you're wearing in Russia. There's the saying here that in Russia 'you're greeted by what you wear, then judged for your mind.' I met an ethnic Korean manager of Vladivostok's hottest club OKNO -- which refers to the full window that overlooks the bay as well as the idea that it's 'OK' or 'No,' meaning do what you want, or don't. It's $120 to get in. But that includes all you want to drink. From 10pm to 4am. The manager, wearing a 1000 euro pair of Dolce & Gabbana pants he bought in Italy, said, 'It's a club for priveleged people. Though sometimes people come with their last rubles, wanting to seem like they live a luxurious life, even if they don't.' He made his way up from nothing. 'I had $6000 six years ago, started an advertising company, now this.' He says most Russians are 'too lazy' to work for what they want. He bought a Bentley a week ago. 'Right now it's a great car, next week it'll be good, in four weeks, I'll forget about it.'

That sounds bad, but he's really not. He was genuinely interested when I mentioned how 'suits' is often a derogatory term in the US, and that we dress more like Soviets than they do. 'This shirt I'm wearing,' I said motioning to a button-up shirt I wear on every research trip, 'cost me $5 at a used store ten years ago.'

Vladivostok's setting -- on Twin Peaks' style hills, overlooking a bay named after Istanbul's Golden Horn -- is gorgeous, but the scenes on the streets aren't. Small parks are overrun with knee-high weeds. Even central plazas are laid in concrete, adding to the gray. But the cracked sidewalks are practically a catwalk. Whenever I speak to someone, they're friendly, but sometimes I feel like I'm back in a high-school hallway, ashamed not to be wearing Tommy H.

Aeroflot Debut

FLYING TO RUSSIA
I'll be updating Russia's Far East for Lonely Planet over the next two months. Typically the fun started before getting there...

I've flown all across Russia, but had never taken an Aeroflot flight until Tuesday. My debut in the orange-and-blue, as their design on the inside of the jets goes, went smooth to Moscow, an eight-hour flight, but then went haywire. After busing to a nearby terminal, I waited in the middle of three lines to check in for the next leg (Moscow to Vladivostok, seven time zones east). A family butted in front of me just as it became my turn, then the luggage ticket machine broke as I stepped up. The clerk didn't say a word. Text messaging on her phone. After a couple minutes I asked, 'not work?' in Russian, and she frowned and pointed to the long lines to the left and right. Nothing more. I'd wait anyway. Within a couple minutes, a gray-haired guy, though, was playing with the machine, opening up the inside and pulling out a spool that looked something like a device you'd see in shop class in 1980s Oklahoma public schools. After five or so minutes, she started printing out the luggage tickets on her neighbors machine. On we went.

The flight was delayed, at first, for four hours. 'We are fixing plane.' I was impressed in how they handled it though. Within 10 minutes, we had 540 ruble vouchers, which I and a fellow stranded passenger from Vladivostok, mistakenly took it to a potato bar, which didn't accept them. Eventually we spent the 540 rubles -- over $21 -- on chocolate, beer and hot tea, paying for the potato. Sat next to the smoking area of the airport. An simple stand where a cluster of men and women blew smoke into the open waiting hall.

The flight was delayed another five hours. 'Flight will leave at 4am. Still trying to fix plane.' Still, Aeroflot came through. Within 15 minutes, we were all put onto a bus and taken to a nearby hotel for four hours' of sleep. Classic communist-era hotel but redone (ie Michael Scott-sized flat-screen TV on wall). They bunked two per room, regardless if you knew them. Two twin beds uneasily side by side. I got a Russian guy who came in later; 'a-lo?' he said, waking me up. At 4am the hotel called everyone -- my Russian bunkmate didn't notice, and I had to practically yell. 'Give me minute.' I did.

When the wheels hit the Vladivostok runway nine hours later, everyone clapped. On the way back I think I'll get the Aeroflot t-shirt they offer. Twenty-five euro. Anyone need one?

Local Relief in Myanmar

Today I wrote a small piece for the Lonely Planet website citing my local friends who set up their own DIY relief groups and distributed essentials like clean water, food and clothing to those who were hit by Cyclone Nargis.

See it here.

Thoughts on Myanmar

The people of Myanmar are overdue some sort of break. Only half a year since peaceful protests over fuel-price hikes sunk daily budgets in an impoverished country, a cyclone tore through its rice delta region in the south this week, perhaps taken half as many lives as the tsunami three years ago. I was there only in January -- mid-way between these events -- and once again it's hard to fathom the level of destruction we see in snippets.

A friend in Yangon, which saw the cyclone in a still-powerful yet diminished strength, just emailed me this:

"There has been big damages at homes. The storm was indeed terrible. I and everyone in town are not yet recover from the shock. We were very scared. It will take so much of time for the areas to get back to normal. There are many casualties, people homeless and there are many more problems await. Ninety percent of the infrastructures is down. Reconstruction everywhere is extremely slow as the damages are enormous."

Visitors to Myanmar often see how much the locals look out for each other. In January, I went to remote corners of Rakhaing State with a guide, who brought along simple medicines to give to villages cut off from roads, running water and electricity. He never asked for my money; it's just something he normally does. My friend in Yangon is similiarly trying to help the parts of Yangon and surrounding villages that were hit the hardest by the storm. He's formed a team to help, but has been cut off by roads 'blocked with big trees and lamp posts and wire cables and big signboards.' It's takes very long to go even small distances in normal times, and now it's worse.

The xenophobic military in power are reluctant to grant visas or allow foreign aids groups access to the country -- particularly as the first national elections in years are due this Saturday (and still going forth) -- but I hope western aid groups will overlook this and try to get aid in by any means possible. Even if it means handing over supplies for the Myanmar military to distribute.

It's certainly been interesting seeing Bush smirk at the Myanmar government, considering the USA's own hesitation at helping victims in New Orleans.

Notice the Silence over 'Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?'

The big hub-bub over Thomas Kohnstamm's Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? is finally dying down. Much of the coverage jumped on false claims that Thomas 'plagiarized' text while updating portions of Brazil for Lonely Planet (not true), or his use of a LP business card to get free drinks, meals and hotels (true). It's led to a backlash over the 'ethics' behind all of LP's guidebooks.

Some authors, not including myself, are furious over the link to how everyone works. What I find funny is the silence of a cowering group of publishers -- be it Frommer's, Fodor's, Footprint, Rough Guides -- who haven't spoken out on the subject, and let all the fall-out stay on LP's shoulders. Many of us who write for LP, as I still do, do so because it remains a better deal than writing for even 'more high-end' publishers like Fodor's, who pay far less. Some publishers actively encourage freebies.

I reviewed the book for World Hum a week ago.

Travel Poems? Yes, Travel Poems!

Stumbled on this on YouTube and, maybe I'm a cynic, but it kinda cracks me up. Poems collected from a one-time stoner's trip across north Africa, the Middle East and into Southeast Asia in 1971. It's from poet Richard Krech's 1972 book "Poems from Free World," named for his observation of pool players in sarongs in Mandalay. It's not altogether uninteresting.

Of travel

"The acquisition of a ticket enables you to travel more than geographically."


Of Libya

"I am a stranger among strangers.
Here there are no women, no drugs, no beer, no wine, no amusement
I have found companionship in the Tunisians
Who come here to work because the pay is better...
Habib and his illiterate brother
Who shares a bong with me because we both have tattoos."

Of bus ride into Afghanistan

"Drink chai, smoke, take showers.
Several hours later Linda and I asleep on the rooftop
The stars brilliant in the windy sky
The horse cart in the galloping street
The opium dreams going on forever
So real I can reach out and touch them"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I actually tried to make an EP a few years ago called "I Like to Travel," which was largely dumb and unmelodic, and completely unfinished. My favorite song, probably, was "Fistfight at the Union of '90s Expats" which imagined expats sharing tales from the road a decade later. In Pennsylvania.

It goes:

"At the union
Of '90s expats
Held at
A swank
Philadelphia lodge
Hunter's speech
Called The Beach
As the very Dylan
Of our broken
Wayward generation
Some Keralan res
Threw off his fez
And said 'spit on this son'
That's revisionist raj'
We spray and spread in the sun
Till darkness comes
With a punch"

[enter synthesizer solo]


OK, maybe travel's best left outside verse.

It's Shwebo!

VIDEO: MY FAVORITE TOWN IN BURMA




I have a documenting problem, in that I document too much. I know it's wrong, but pretty much any where I go I end up trying to 'capture' by my digital camera, then my video camera, then my journal -- and THEN maybe I'll take a note for whatever project I'm actually being paid to go there for. So I put together this little video to make it worthwhile...

I visited Burma a couple months after the protests last September, and found things -- in touristy destinations or back-waters -- more or less back to the normal day-to-day routine. One of the things I think is important to do on any trip, but particularly to a place like Burma, is get off-the-beaten-track and try to engage with people.

One of my favorite places in Burma is Shwebo, about three hours' north of Mandalay by local bus -- and rarely seen by anyone. It once was a proud Burmese capital; Alaungpaya revived a sinking Burmese empire in the mid 18th century -- and nearly conquered all of Siam (Thailand) in his brief lifetime. Now it's more known for the thanakha (powdered bark), that women and children apply in smears, dollops and stripes to their faces for sunscreen and skin moisturizer.

At a little teastand on the main street, a father and son sat down with me to chat a bit (in English) about Shwebo, Burma and the US presidential race. When I asked the inevitable question -- 'do you like Iron Cross?' (Burma's own Rolling Stones -- their long-time biggest rock band) -- both dad and son's eyes popped open wide. Son was off to grab a CD, which he gave to me. 'I hope you enjoy it.'

That's Shwebo.

(I went with harpist Hlaing Win Maung for the soundtrack though. Apologies to Iron Cross.)

Hey, World Hum Likes Me

I had a little sit-down virtual interview that was posted on WorldHum.com yesterday. I'd like to point out that that Creedence Clearwater Revival beard that's show on the home-page link there is a few beards ago.

OLD & NEW GUIDEBOOK WRITING STYLES

Guidebook travel writers of the '90s and '00s straddle two eras of travel and travel writing. Between the 'old travel' when many places were yet to be discovered (eg all of East Europe, the USSR, Southeast Asia more or less) and the 'new travel' when masses go on package trips or well-oiled backpacker routes through Laos and Vietnam and Hungary. Less and less is 'new' anymore.

How does that affect the books?

When books like Lonely Planet were first made it was for a different, more adventurous audience. Introduction sections dryly retold historical and cultural background for a more serious (or perceived-to-be more serious) audience. Now there's debate of how much of that information is useful, wanted or ever read by guidebook users.

Compare crusty LP books from the '70s -- the first Southeast Asias -- with the '90s video star Ian Wright, who -- briefly for LP, later Globe Trekker -- hosted TV travel shows, where he tripped his way through destinations, got drunk, and did it all with a goofy, good-natured grin. He wasn't shy to learn, but the fact that he wasn't immediately familiar with the exotic world before him struck a chord with many viewers.

No LP author does much research without hearing 'Oh, Lonely Planet? Do you know that guy on the TV show? Ian... somebody?'

Thought about this while in Bagan, Myanmar, recently. I bought a little photocopied paperback of 'Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism' (written in the '50s). The sort of book that maybe two or three tourists pick up a year these days. These were the sorts of resources that the first guidebook writers must've lept at, read fiercely and pooled into little cultural/historical sections that still remain, in some form, in the fronts and backs of guidebooks several updates down the line.

I always enjoy this sort of thing: a piqued interest in Burmese nat spirits, then following it up by trying to find out more. But guidebook authors rarely have time to follow such tangents on the road these days. One, there's tight deadlines to worry over, and limited budgets (guidebook publishers don't pay expenses), and the bulk of new options (travelers cafes, Internet cafes, travel agents, guesthouses, private bus companies, souvenir shops) that just weren't around in the beginning.

Just commenting on the difference.

Video: HANOI AT 5AM

One of the great things to do in Hanoi is get up with the locals -- very early -- and walk about central Hoan Kiem Lake. Many come to walk, others to play badminton, but most come for Jazzercise.



OK, maybe I showed up at 6:30am or so.

AT HOME, AT WORK

Anyone notice how much easier it is to blog when away from home?

I've been working on Lonely Planet's Myanmar (Burma) guide the past month, as well as finishing up their New York City guide.

Last week I was the 'expert' for an online forum chat on Budget Travel's website for Vietnam. I've done the sort of thing once before -- for LP -- when mostly my friends sent in joke questions about monkeys. (The idea was still raw then -- a couple years ago.) This one was serious and a lot of fun. Lots of good questions.

Meanwhile, I had an article published this week in the great online magazine Perceptive Travel. The piece recounts my time in a place everyone in Burma said I couldn't go: the new capital Nay Pyi Daw. I've not seen a place like it -- wide paved highways with no one but a few locals without vehicles on them.

Here in NYC, everyone's still coming down from the Super Bowl. I always like to experience such city events -- like the Rangers first Stanley Cup in half a century -- in public places. For the Super Bowl, I went to a simple sports bar on Ninth Ave in Park Slope. A tiny Puerto Rican waiter hugged me when the winning TD catch was made, and my right palm was bruised from so many strangers' high-fives. It was worth doing. And I'm a Green Bay fan.

BUS STATION BOOK-SELLER

AN INTERVIEW
Taking the bus from Mandalay to Monywa, I met a 19-year-old book-seller, with three dozen Myanmar-language books propped on a long strap and balanced on his hip at the scrappy station in central Mandalay. His girlfriend lives back in Monywa (three hours north), where he's from and soon plans to return for university. He's living with some Mandalay cousins to earn a little money before school starts. He gets around by foot or bicycle.

What kind of books do you sell?
Some education books, but most are 'honey books like this [shows skinny paperback with cartoon cover of silly-looking couple].

How many do you sell a day?
Oh, sometimes seven or eight in six hours. If I'm lucky, 15.

How much do you earn a day?
About 2000 kyat (US$1.65).

What would you like to do?
Go abroad. Probably Singapore or Malaysia. Best is Singapore - the salary there is about US$2500, Malaysia is only US$1000. I want to work at a restaurant.

As I got on the bus for Monywa he added, 'Today is a happy day because I get to talk to you.'

How to Carry a Basket On Your Head

MORE FROM MRAUK U

In Yangon bookstores it's easy to find a handful of English-language translations of local writers who wax poetic about the charms of rural life. I bought a couple for about $1.50 each and thumb through them during the trip. It's easy enough to see during a trip here, out the bus window, or beginning on the shortest bike ride out of a town or village.

On my last night in Mrauk U, I wandered atop an overgrown pagoda so thick with brush and cobwebs you can't see anything but the top of a pagoda-top Buddha from below. Above there are four entrances, each with a Buddha looking out. From the top, you can catch a panoramic scene of Rakhaing farming and farmers' lives, which bustle with energy in the cool hours right before dusk. Monks in saffron robes, women balancing baskets of vegetables on their heads or sacks of rice to be husked, walked along a skinny dirt road that cut a diagonal to the green rounded hillocks in the distance.

In fields, boys walked across the road to a creek and filled two rusted cans with water and carry them with a pole on their shoulder back to water, row by row, their plot of cauliflower. Below, a frightening tree with a veiny trunk and branches dwarfed a bamboo hut elevated on poles; outside it, a grandpa in a magenta sweatshirt, swept his clean dirt yard.

I got back to the bike, with a great Belgian scientist I met a couple days before, and we headed out - away from town - a couple kilometers, deeper into the farmlands and past some of the hills. Then stopped on the raised dirt road between a gold field of rice and a green field of cabbage and radishes. We returned 'bye byes' local kids offered us, and waved to a parade of passerby, mostly women carrying baskets on their head filled with vegetables, rice, sugarcane, sticks. Some looked stern or shy. Others giggled, even dared removing a hand holding their basket to wave briefly, and move on.

Soon a plumpish woman carrying a basket overflowing with neatly arranged radishes - white roots about 10 inches long - paused before us. Signalling to the basket in near panic, we rushed to help her take it down. My Belgian pal said, 'My goodness, it's at least 50 kilos - that weighs more than her.' The two of us very nearly dropped it. Her group - including a serious looking grandmother - stopped and we helped them unload to. And they sat with us for about 10 minutes. I showed the old woman a photo she let me take of her - frowning - and her eyes lit up like a teenager when she saw her digital likeness.

We helped them reload. They keep a small towel rolled in a circle on their head and balance the basket, just so, on top. It was getting dark, so we bid farewell and started to drive off. Teenage boys jumped up and down in the ricefield just then - signaling to each other 'ho! ho! ho!,' which we joined in as we left. Laughter came from all parts of the field from people we hadn't even seen.

Sometimes to see things you have to stop a bit.