Smith Family Home

With my final research paper written and the first semester of grad school safely completed, it was time for Steven and I to depart on our 25-day father-and-son trip through SE Asia. We would be joined on the journey by five other China Olmsted Scholars and family members who would either complete the entire five country itinerary with us or stay with us for only certain legs of the trip. We had such a great time traveling together during the Tibet trip that we decided to do it again for SE Asia.

Our first country was Vietnam. We arrived in chilly Hanoi and over the course of the next eight days managed to do a pretty complete north to south tour of the country. Some general comments: We didn’t meet a single Vietnamese food dish that we didn’t love—the food was fantastic everywhere we went. Vietnamese people are generally very friendly and helpful. Interestingly enough, we found that they seemed even happier and friendlier the further south we traveled in the country. If we thought traffic was crazy in China, then we weren’t prepared for the utter chaos that is traffic in Vietnam. Motorcycles are the preferred vehicle and seemingly function just as well for a family of five (stacked on a little scooter) as for a delivery driver dropping off 30 ducks, 30 chickens and a side of beef to a local restaurant. Streets are wall-to-wall motorcycles and crossing them requires a quick prayer, nimble feet, and some luck. Finally, I was very impressed by just how much Chinese culture has influenced Vietnam over the last 2000 years—particularly in the north. From similar Mahayana Buddhism beliefs and temple architecture, to Confucianism and an imperial civil service examination system based on the Chinese model, China’s influence could be traced in many ways. This faded the further south we traveled, as remnants of ancient Cham and Khmer culture with its Hindu influences could be detected. Today of course, Vietnam is fiercely proud of its own national identity and independence.

During our exploration of Hanoi, we had the chance to visit a ton of places, but the highlights for Steven and I were probably Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum (where we were solemnly marched through for a glimpse of his real (???) corpse under a crystal sarcophagus), and Hoa Lo Prison (AKA the Hanoi Hilton) where we got just a small sense of what it might have been like for the hundreds of US POWs incarcerated there during the Vietnam War. Other sites we visited included the history museum, Turtle Lake, the Old Quarter, the Temple of Literature, a water puppet show, the Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh’s house, and the Single-Pillar Pagoda. We also were fortunate to have enough time to meet with the current resident Olmsted Scholar in Hanoi and his wife who joined us for dinner our final evening in town.

We next traveled to beautiful Ha Long Bay and its fantastic karst topography. To imagine what Ha Long Bay is like, take the beautiful, mystical mountains of Guilin in China and submerge their bases in the South China Sea. We took a five hour cruise aboard a “junk” through this wondrous maze of islands. Had a great time.

We flew from Hanoi down to Danang (once the location of the busiest airport in the world as the major US airbase during the war) where we visited the Cham museum, hiked to the top of Marble Mountain, drove past China Beach, and finally arrived in Hoi An—a well-preserved little market town on the coast settled by Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the 1500s. We had our best food yet at a little restaurant overlooking the river called Mango Rooms.

The next day we drove up the coast and over the Hai Van pass--shrouded in low clouds and crowned with a series of old bunkers and pillboxes from the Vietnam War. Back then, South Vietnamese and US troops were attacked almost nightly here by Vietcong guerrillas trying to cut the road between Danang and Hue, our next destination. In Hue, we visited Emperor Tu Duc’s elaborate tomb, took a cruise on the Perfume River, visited the Thien Mu Pagoda (home of the Buddhist monk who famously burned himself alive in Saigon to protest against the government in 1963—you’ve probably seen the iconic photo of this event), and explored the Citadel and the Forbidden Purple City which was the home of the last Vietnamese imperial dynasty and based on the design of China’s own Forbidden City.

We flew from Hue to Saigon (only the government calls is by it’s official name of Ho Chi Minh City—most Vietnamese still call it Saigon). Our first stop was the eerily impressive Cu Chi tunnel complex about 30 kilometers outside of Saigon. Vietcong guerrillas used these tunnels as refuge and as bases from which to strike US and South Vietnam forces. I can’t explain adequately how intricate, extensive, and claustrophobic these tunnels are. I was very impressed that the people who designed them (and their myriads of booby traps) were very determined. I also can’t imagine what it must have been like to be a US Army tunnel rat tasked to go down and fight inside these tunnels. Next we visited the War Remnants Museum and saw exhibits detailing the tragedy of the Vietnam War—complete with agent orange-deformed fetuses preserved in large jars.

Saigon is booming economically and the streets are bustling with motorcycles and cars everywhere. The architecture was beautiful, the weather was a perfect temperature (we were told it was similar throughout the year), and the shopping was terrific. I’m a confirmed Saigon city fan now.

The next day, we stopped by the beautiful Saigon post-office, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Presidential Palace before heading out to explore the Mekong River Delta and some of its islands by boat. The Mekong plays a huge role in southern Vietnam’s daily life and it is certainly impressive--the third longest river in Asia behind the Yangtze and the Yellow River. The Mekong starts in China before traveling through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and finally Vietnam. We visited a coconut candy factory, sampled some terrific local fruit, made friends with a huge 45 kilo python, rode smaller canoes through canals, and finally had another great lunch of Vietnamese Spring Rolls made with translucent rice paper, a local river fish, vegetables and fish sauce. Man, we liked Vietnamese food... 

     The next day we visited the Cambodian Landmine Museum. It is run by a young Cambodian man who was once a child soldier. He has since made it his life’s work to educate people about the dangers of landmines, train military teams how to detect and clear them, and care for local victims of landmines. Our guide was an 18 year-old young man who had his leg blown off when he was playing in the jungle near his village with his older brother and sister when he was ten. His brother or sister tripped a mine which then detonated another nearby mine—killing both of them instantly. Our guide’s leg was severed in the blasts and he used his own T-shirt to make a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and waited several hours until villagers finally found him. Today, he has learned enough English to work in the museum. For every two dollars contributed, the clearing teams can clear three mines. We contributed and encourage you to do so also, if you are so inclined. Check out their website for more details at www.cambodialandminemuseum.org. We had the rest of the day free to explore Siem Reap more at our leisure. I really liked this little city—the food was terrific, the restaurants were pretty cool, and the market prices for hand carved souvenirs were unbeatable.
     On our final morning in town, we visited the Siem Reap military museum before heading to the airport to catch our flight to Bangkok.

     We were met at Bangkok International Airport by our Thai guide and transferred to our hotel in the middle of the city. Bangkok is big, bustling, and felt kind of edgy. There were still soldiers posted around the airport holding their Uzi submachine guns at the ready. Ready for what, I’m not sure. There had been the New Year’s bombings around the city that killed six people and wounded many more about three weeks before. The consolidation of power by the military generals was also still underway after the peaceful coup d’etat in September. In any case, Bangkok didn’t feel like the happy smiling place I imagined it to be—the ‘Land of a Thousand Smiles’ was kind of surly feeling. In fact, throughout the Thailand leg, the service in hotels and restaurants was poor, prices in the markets were high, and people seemed kind of rude. It was also nearly impossible to find a tuk-tuk or taxi driver who wouldn’t try to gouge us for several times the normal fare. Internet access had been free in Vietnam and Cambodia, but it was ridiculously expensive in Thailand. Many friends have said they had terrific experiences in Thailand (mostly down south on the beaches of Phuket and Phi-Phi Island), but we didn’t have that luck.  

            Steven and I spent the first evening exploring the market streets around the hotel. We had a quiet dinner and went home early. Part of our group went out that evening and enjoyed a Thai cultural event called a “Lady-Boy” show. It’s basically a drag queen show except the bikini and feather-clad performers are men who have already undergone various stages of sex change procedures. The crazy thing is that the shows and performers are considered main-stream culture in Thailand. There’s no apparent social stigma to being a Lady-Boy. I don’t get Thailand’s schizophrenic moral culture. On the one hand, most Thais are devout Buddhists. Our guide books even warn women travelers to be careful not to accidentally brush against a Buddhist monk (lots of them everywhere) for whom celibacy is a serious responsibility and the mere touch of a female would cause problems. On the other hand, Thailand is home to a very open sex trade which employs/victimizes literally tens of thousands of women and children. Our guide tried to explain that there was nothing in Buddhism which explicitly prohibited such behavior and that Buddhism was a tolerant religion which didn’t judge such activity. I’ll let the readers judge such activity for themselves.  

            On our first full day in the city, we visited the flower market before beginning our exploration of Bangkok by water—riding a long-tail boat on the Chao Phraya river through the heart of the city. It was fascinating to see just how many temples and palaces there are in the city—literally dozens of them can be seen from the river. There was one interesting place where catfish congregate near a Buddhist temple and wait for boatloads of tourists and Thais to feed them bread. Feeding the fish apparently earns people karma points after death. After the boat ride, we visited Wat Traimit, Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn), Wat Pho (home of the giant reclining Buddha), Wat Phrakaew (where the emerald Buddha is) and finally the impressive Royal Grand Palace. Steven and I enjoyed a really good Thai dinner near our hotel before turning in for the night. 

            The next day, we checked out of the hotel and made our way out to Kanchanaburi (via the floating markets) which is home to the Death Railway and the famous Bridge Over the River Kwai. During WWII, some 116,000 people died working as Japanese slave labor to build this railway through the jungles to Burma. Roughly 200,000 conscripted workers and 60,000 Allied POWs worked 24 hours a day to build the railway. The vast majority of the workers (and 100,000 of the fatalities) were ethnic Chinese prisoners from Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, but more than 16,000 POWs also died. We next visited the Tiger Temple which is an animal refuge run by a local Buddhist monastery. The highlight was getting to walk amongst the tigers under the supervision of the monks and international volunteers. On the way to the hotel, we stopped to feed wild monkeys and take in the sights of the Death Railway where it runs along the Kwai River. The day was unfortunately made unforgettable for me, not because of the places we saw, but because I ate some bad food at the lunch-time restaurant. That night, it turned into a full-blown case of food poisoning which made the next five days miserable for me. Steven and I ordered the same dish for lunch, but after one bite he had the good sense to not eat any more and filled up on plain rice. I should have followed his example.  

            Our itinerary for the next morning took us to Ayuthaya (the ancient capital city of Siam) before heading back to Bangkok in the evening. Unfortunately, I felt so poorly I stayed in the van while everyone else saw the sights. Steven took good pictures for us. That evening we were upgraded in our accomodations and stayed in the tallest building in Bangkok—the Baiyoke Sky Hotel—but the luxury was lost on me as I became fully incapacitated. Steven nursed me through the night as best he could—which was actually pretty well. I was just hoping to be able to get on the plane the next morning to Chiang Mai. With Steven’s help, we made it. There was no way I wanted to miss Chiang Mai because it was the adventure portion of the trip.  

            After resting the remainder of the first day at our Chiang Mai hotel, I felt good enough by the second day to attempt the adventure we had planned. It began with a really fun elephant ride through the jungle and along/in the Mae Tang River. We followed that up with a ten kilometer mountain bike ride. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been very challenging. Still suffering the effects of my food poisoning however, it just wasn't doable for me. Steven encountered the first problem though. He took a hill too quickly and suffered a semi-serious crash which cut up his legs and arms and sent him into shock. I arrived as the cloud of dust was finally settling and stopped him from walking off the edge of the road (there was a steep incline down to the river on one side). A passing tour van stopped and the tour guide jumped out with her first aid kit and began treating his wounds. Our trailing van finally caught up and we put Steven inside accompanied by the guide who was still fixing him up. Steven was starting to smile and laugh again at this point so I rode ahead to let everyone else know what happened. After a few hundred yards, I discovered I wasn’t strong enough to keep going. After vomiting over the side of the road, I got dizzy and passed out. I came to my senses sitting apart from my bike in the middle of the dirt road. Our van pulled up behind me and began honking at me to get out of the way. I waved feebly at the driver indicating I couldn’t go on and joined Steven inside while the driver put my bike on the roof. The smelling salts from the first aid kit revived me somewhat and gave me back some strength. It was probably foolish of me, but I still really wanted to do the third leg of the adventure—a two hour white water rafting trip on the Mae Tang River. I felt strong again after lunch and both Steven and I made it into the raft with two of our Olmsted friends who had specific instructions to keep an eye on me. Fortunately, the cool water and fresh mountain air helped me regain my strength and we ended up having a fantastic time on the river. Our raft nearly flipped over multiple times (the other raft with our Olmsted friends did flip over) but we made it safely through all of the rapids. The rafting proved to be a good way to end our big adventure day. We have video of the rafting and I’ll try to post it on the page below.

          We spent the entire day going from Chiang Mai to Kuala Lumpur—finally arriving at the hotel at about 11 PM. The one bright spot of the day was the view we had of downtown KL from our hotel rooms. We could see the Petronas Twin Towers all lit up like giant Christmas trees—see the photos below. It probably wouldn’t make the Muslim Malays happy to hear their world famous skyscrapers described as Christmas trees…

            The next morning, we departed bright and early with our tour guide for the nine hour drive up to Kuala Perlis from where we would catch the ferry out to Langkawi Island. If the Malaysians have done anything right, it’s their highways. They were really well engineered—on a par with any of the best highways in the States. I was struck by this because the highways had been terrible everywhere else we had been in the region and we had been dreading another really long road trip. But because of the smooth ride and the full service rest stops (complete with Baskin Robins and Burger King) we had an enjoyable trip and got a chance to see a lot of the Malaysian countryside. We drove nearly three quarters the length of the country. In Kuala Perlis, we caught the next ferry out and arrived at beautiful Langkawi Island an hour later. Our hotel boasted the longest swimming pool in the country and within ten minutes of checking in, Steven and I were sliding down the waterslides. We joined a few others from our group for a sunset walk along the beach and made it back for a poolside dinner. Steven entertained us by trying to dip his toe in the closed pool, but then accidentally losing his balance and falling in fully clothed.

            After a leisurely breakfast, Steven and I packed our adventure back-pack complete with snorkeling gear, cameras, sun screen, and drinking water. We then went out and rented a motor scooter—ten dollars for 24 hours—at the rental place across from the hotel. Our first stop was the Langkawi airport where we booked our return flight to KL in order to avoid the ten hour return drive. At $60 per ticket it was a good time investment which would help us get there in time to do some sight-seeing around the city and have dinner with the Olmsted Scholar in KL. Once we had our flight booked, we took off to explore the island. Our mission was to find the nicest, jellyfish-free beach so we could go snorkeling. After asking the locals, and riding for a good 45 minutes through the jungle and over a mountain pass, we arrived at the perfect beach and hung out there for the next four hours. The Andaman Sea was beautiful and tranquil. Small islands dotted the horizon. Hardly anybody was on the beach. What a great time. We finally decided to leave because despite three separate slatherings of sunscreen we could see and feel our skin starting to burn. We rode out to Langkawi Falls where we stood under the refreshing waterfalls and then made it out to the cable car ride and the trip up to the highest mountain on the island and the amazing views from the summit. The engineering that went into building the hanging bridge at the top was impressive. You can see what I’m talking about in the picture below. We had such a blast riding the motor-bike around the island. Steven confided to me that he first thought I would get us both killed, but was really glad to see I knew what I was doing and he was having a good time. We wrapped up the day by rendezvousing with the other members of the group who had spent the day scuba diving. We ate at a really great Japanese restaurant a couple of kilometers from the hotel. After all the non-stop travel and sight-seeing we had done in the last three weeks, a relaxing day on the beach followed by a great meal with good company was just what we needed.

            Steven and I caught our flight back to KL and made it early enough so that we were able to meet with the Scholar there who showed us how to navigate around on the monorail transit system and took us to the central business district of his city. He was a wealth of information about Malaysian politics and culture—it was obvious he has made the most of his time there. Best of all, he arranged a dinner with a traditional Malay show for all of us that evening. We had a really good time talking and learning more about this cool little country. I would like to go back and spend more time there someday. KL is an extremely picturesque city and has an interesting fusion of Portuguese, Dutch, British, Malay, Chinese, and Indian architecture. It sounds like there may be political/cultural storm clouds on the horizon for Malaysia unless they figure out how to fuse those last three cultures in a more politically equitable way.