Avoiding clichéd Vegas quote here....

I could say something about "leaving Las Vegas," or about things that stay in Vegas, or the usual standby, "Vegas, baby!" but I'll spare you. Instead just the details.

We went there for the food.

And honest to god, I mean that. I'm not trying to "cover" for any shenanigans that went on in our group. No crazy all night gambling or strip clubs. Not even a stealthy trip to see Celine Dion (Is she still even performing there?) or other big Vegas performer.

We went for Bobby Flay, among others.

I think my dad was a little disappointed in me. "You should go back and see a show," he says, and recounts his story of going to see Don Rickles in the old strip days.

But we didn't see a show.

We fought AT&T's crappy service. We (okay, maybe just I) complained about the smokiness of the casinos. We beat the crowds to the pool bright and early only to be wedged like sardines in the rows of deck chairs. We wandered through malls full of stores we couldn't afford to shop at. And I even took the enjoyment up a notch and had an allergic reaction to a horse and came down with an eye infection worthy of antibiotics.

Good times.

It was a sociologist's fantasy land, that's for certain. A study on the demographics of consumption. Whether it was spoiled rich, laden-with-'tude twenty-somethings wearing "shiney shirts" and lots of hair product(the boys) or wearing almost nothing (the girls) going out for a night of hard partying and hooking up, to the older folks clearly from a different socio-economic bracket (though still with lots of hair product, often) looking dazed sitting at the penny slots for hours slowly putting a small dent into a pension, maybe? Vegas truly is an alternate universe from the one I know.

I think I was prepared for it and not prepared for it at the same time. I mean, you can't not know what it's going to be like, but I think I under-estimated how annoyed I would get by it.

Having said that, we had some excellent meals. My favorite food experiences included another trip to In-n-Out Burger (of course), Border Grill (in the Mandalay Bay complex), and Bobby Flay's fabulous Mesa Grill. And I also was pleasantly surprised to learn about Sake at Shibuya.

I think I would consider going back. Actually - I kind of have to since Dave and his friends go every few years and I'm not going to be the wet blanket on that tradition. Next time, I'll just have to budget a little more discretionary spending for a more secluded and maybe relaxing spot at the pool, a spa treatment or two, and maybe a trip to see the Hoover Dam. And I'll take my dad's advice and go to a show.

California - Napa and San Fran, before I forget them completely

When I started this blog, it was back in my days of work travel. Usually when I traveled for work, I had a lot of time on my hands. I would have hours of downtime to plot my next entry, and I was usually in the same place for several weeks - not just a few days here and there. I also usually had easy access to the internet and a computer.

I don't travel as much since I left the world of international health. That often makes me sad because I really love to travel. I guess I just need to try harder.

I've had two good trips during the last few months. I went to Napa Valley and San Francisco back in July/August for a week and then I went to Las Vegas for a few days just a few weekends ago. Really, my first trips to both places.

I'll try to re-cap Napa and SF first.

Dave and I arrived in San Francisco and immediately got in a car headed to Napa. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and our first stop in this culinary land of plenty was In-n-Out Burger, something of a legend I had heard about from Dave and his friends. It may not have resembled the rest of the meals we had that week, but it was darn tasty.

From this point on, I think the easiest thing to do is to list the specifics of the food and wine, which, after all, is why one goes to Napa. I'll do food first.

Dinner at Brix: The website boasts "a renewed focus on farm-to-table dining." Um, yeah, and that "farm" is about 15 yards away behind the restaurant, where we are pretty sure a head of lettuce had been whacked off just moments before being served as an appetizer on Dave's salad plate. No joke. The one mistake I made here was that I had filled up on cheese earlier in the day at the Oxbow Public Market in downtown Napa. But the food at Brix was very good. It wasn't anything fancy, but it isn't meant to be. Truly just good, honest, high-quality food in a beautiful location.

Another dinner at Terra: This place earned a Michelin star in 2008 and did not disappoint. The restaurant itself (as I recall) was down to earth and the food was amazing. Even better was the wine recommendation, and one that I have even found in DC wine shops! (A Belle Glos Meomi Pinot Noir, for anyone who is keeping track)

As for wine, we hit a good cross-section of wineries over the course of basically a day and a few hours. In no particular order, we visited:

- Artesa
- Silver Oak (awesome - and expensive - cab sauv)
- Domaine Chandon (Bubbly stuff. we did the "sensory" wine tasting, which was a lot of fun)
- Rutherford Hill (great picnic area that came highly recommended. They also have a yummy Port)
- Cliff Lede (has a sauv blanc that seriously has a guava taste. In a good way!)
- Reynold's Family
- Domaine Carneros (more bubbly)

We stayed at the super-quaint and really comfy Candlelight Inn.

Back in San Francisco, the culinary and wine tour continued through the course of several days time, despite the fact that it was a work trip. We did get the burritos that Dave day-dreams about at Taqueria Can-Cun in the Mission District. We also had breakfast in The Haight at the Pork Store Cafe, which, seriously...how could a place called the Pork Store Cafe be bad?

Dave also introduced me to a fantastic tasting room/wine bar concept called The Press Club, which is this great "bar" representing 8 California vineyards. You can order by the glass, but you can also do tastings for a small fee at each table. Those small fees have a way of building up though - you swipe a card each time you drink and at the end of the night you pay at the front desk. That part is kind of painful! But worth it.

Without Dave (sniff), I also went to the Samovar Tea Room in the Castro, Zare at Fly Trap (awesome Mediterranean with a very friendly chef) in SOMA, and The Slanted Door, tasty Vietnamese food in the Embarcadero Ferry Building.

So, yeah, we got around. It's exciting to feel like I actually know something about California wines now. And I really like SF a lot. It's just got a good feel to it. Despite being a city girl, sometimes there's a lot to dislike about them. But not SF.

Anyway, will try to continue with Las Vegas in the next few days and try to get back on track. And I think I need to buy a travel laptop and plan a few more big trips so I can have more to write about!

Wrap Up of Vietnam...only 5 months later

I have contemplated buying a notebook computer to take with me when I travel. This way, I can write more, edit photos maybe, and when I decide that I want to get "plugged" in to home life, I can choose to have more internet access. But only if I choose to. This way I can also avoid the inevitable "last post several months after the trip". This usually is finally prompted when I am ready to move on to the blogging of the next trip.

In any case...

So, back in March, after I left Lisa in Hoi An (she had to fly back to Hanoi to work), I moved on to Hue, which was the imperial capital of the Nguyen Dynasty during the 1800s and into the 1900s. Within the city of Hue is the Citadel (a walled city) and the "Forbidden City" within the walls was only accessed by emperors, their concubines, and, well, the guest list. Much of this area was destroyed during the Vietnam War and is currently being reconstructed and restored. I spent a day there walking around the walled city.

After Hue, I headed back to Hanoi and made plans for my final week: a two day trip to Sapa, in the NW part of the country close to the Chinese border, and a two day boat trip in Halong Bay, off the NE coast of Vietnam.

Sapa required an overnight train ride, which was a first for me. I was in a cabin with 3 other Vietnamese (two crammed into the bed beneath me). The first hike was a bit of a let down. Sapa is known for its stunning scenery. It is in the mountains and home to many of the "Hill Tribes" such as the Hmong. Unfortunately the fog was so thick that you could barely see more than 20 ft. in front of you. So much for the scenery! But I was in a group with two hilarious Australian couples who made it more fun than it might have been. Day two improved a little bit once we hiked below the cloud line. It wasn't perfect, but it could have been the same as day one, which would have been terribly depressing.

What was most interesting to me about Sapa was the level of aggressiveness that we encountered in the women who were selling their textiles. I am not proud to admit that, after a few interactions with the women scared me off, I left the hotel under cover of darkness to find a store where I could buy some souvenirs without fear of harassment. I've never seen anything quite like it.

After Sapa, I took a bus to Halong Bay with another group tour. We boarded a boat and - unfortunately, on another cloudy, foggy, rainy day - set out amidst the limestone karsts (big, upright rock formations jutting out from the sea)that make this place so beautiful.

For a pop culture reference, this area was featured in Tomorrow Never Dies (James Bond) in 1997.

It might seem like a bit of a bummer that it was so rainy and foggy, but to be honest there were two benefits to this. 1) I saw the beauty of Halong Bay in a way that isn't the typical tourist photo. 2) there weren't as many boats out as a result. Lisa had mentioned going to Halong and feeling like the sheer number of boats kind of took away from the beauty of the scenery.

I ate lots of seafood on that boat. Lunch, dinner, breakfast on day two, lunch again. Fish, shrimp, squid, more fish, more squid. And I was a trooper and ate it all (for those who don't know this about me, I really don't much care for seafood - although I do like some shellfish, so the shrimp was okay). When in Rome, right?

With just a little time left in Hanoi, I finished up some shopping, had two lovely meals with Lisa and got packed up.

Before I left, though, Lisa and I put together the following list of the best and worst of our travels, which, now that I am reading through it again for the first time since leaving in March, definitely still brings back some good and entertaining memories.

So...

Best Breakfast: The Cargo Club in Hoi An. Okay, so it wasn't anything local. It was a pretty straightforward western breakfast. But darn, it was good.

Best dinner: Tougher one. La Verticale, Green Tangerine, and the Temple Club were probably up there on the list.

Most satisfying tourist experience: Tie between the Dragon Temple outside Dalat and Preah Kahn/Bayon in Cambodia.

Least satisfying tourist experience: Day one in Sapa.

Best Hotel View: (Theoretically) in Sapa (if there had not been fog)

Worst hotel view: Can Tho. There were no windows in our hotel room.

Best contribution by the Lonely Planet Guide: The Temple Club restaurant in Saigon

Worst LP contribution: The map of Hoi An. There were no less than three errors that led us wildly out of our way.

Best beach: Mui Ne. Okay, sure, that's the only beach we went to, but it was pretty good!

Most imposing statue of Uncle Ho: Can Tho.

Most impressively French colonial experience: The Elephant Room in Siem Reap.

Best mode of transportation: Motorized cyclos in Can Tho.

Most one-sided historical "representation: Tie between the Cu Chi Tunnels, the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, and the Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi. Eeesh.

Most well-balanced historical representation: Um...hmm....(scratching head)

Best architecture: Hang Nga Crazy House in Dalat.

Worst Architecture: The summer palace of Emperor Bao Dai. Also in Dalat.

Best use of the color pink: Cao Dai temple.

Best marketing Slogan: "San San: For women who use computers" (advertising for a boutique in Hanoi)

Most confusing drink: Yogurt and fruit on the rocks with a straw, in Can Tho. It's like no one told them that you have to then throw everything in a blender to make it drinkable.

Maybe the Lonely Planet will pick up on our reviews for the next issue. Since these are clearly pieces of information that everyone needs. And hopefully Lisa and I will have future travels together in some other exciting corner of the world and have things to add to the lists.

Foreign diplomacy improvement has already started :-)

One of the things that drove me crazy about the Bush presidency was how I was constantly received overseas, and many of my friends had the same problem. When we would travel, and introduce ourselves (or just simply "become known") as Americans, we would end up automatically on the defensive. I don't think I ever met someone overseas who said "Hey - you guys have a GREAT GUY as a president! Thumbs up!" It was frustrating to have to clarify to everyone I met that not all Americans supported the administration that has caused so much chaos and bad feeling overseas.

I am happy to say that time has ended. :-) At least in Vietnam.

Even in the most limited of English language situations, the conversation usually goes like this:

Vietnamese: Where you from?

Me: America.

Vietnamese: (Smiles) Ahhh, Obama!


It is SO great.

The conversations got even better with the several Australians we have encountered, who mention the hope and optimism that he has brought, not just to us in the US, but to the world.

Now, I have always maintained that while I like the guy, I wasn't drinking any Kool Aid and thinking that he was going to be capable of changing the world (I've worked in politics. I know better!), but it's so lovely to hear, nonetheless.

Finally I can have a little more pride in being American when I travel overseas. And no, I'm not being unpatriotic in saying that, like so many people jumped on Michelle Obama when she said something similar about pride. I will never be blindly and unconditionally proud of my country and what we do - and that's a positive thing in my mind. Every country has something to be ashamed of or embarassed by in their pasts, and anyone who doesn't think that, in my humble opinion, is a little bit ignorant.

That doesn't mean I'm not happy that I'm American. I think that being so has offered me a lot of opportunities that I would not have had in other places (though that has just as much to do with being in my demographic and socioeconomic group as it does with being American - maybe more).

But it's nice to travel now and feel like I don't have to defend myself anymore. We've done something good in the eyes of the world. And it's about time.

Reality Check

So, before I left for Vietnam, I received an interesting mix of reactions from people when I told them that I was coming here for vacation. On one end of the range of those reactions where those who expressed surprise - as in, why would I go to Vietnam for VACATION???

Sure, it's not the place that invokes images of relaxation, and it dosn't have the same kind of draw that a beach resort or mountain lodge might have, and maybe the word "vacation" is a poor label for it. Sometimes I just need to have a travel experience that is so far away from what I usually experience that it has a grounding effect: It brings me back to earth.

This is what I was looking for here. Not to mention, I hadn't seen Lisa in a while and it's always more fun for me to travel somewhere whre I know someone. But I really felt the need to get far far away and ground myself. Regain perspective, in a way.

So here's the gritty reality of my vacation:

I'm hot. I'm really hot. And sweaty and smelly. Be careful what you ask for. I kept saying I wanted to go somewhere hot to escape DC winter. (And what a wimp I felt like about that when we met Bev from Ottawa who escapes her hometown every winter when the temps dip around -30C. But anyway...) And A.C. seems to not always be a guarantee anywhere, even on buses that say "A.C."

I've had this rash on the backs of my hands since Cambodia. It seems to be going away finally, but something similar popped up in a few other locations, which is annoying, but I assume related to what I said above about being hot and sweaty.

In addition to the rash, the place we stayed in last night may have had bedbugs, because my face looks like I might have a mild case of the measles.

Enough about me and my complaints.

When we were in Dalat, there was a motorbike wreck outside of our hotel. I heard the screech and crunch of metal, and when I came to the window, there was a crowd forming. Lisa pointed out that of the three bikes involved, two got up and drove away, but the third guy appeared trapped UNDER his bike. It was hard to see because it was dark an there was a crowd, but I saw someone trying to drag the guy out from under his bike, and he seemed to be struggling with the task. I saw at least one woman go running away from the scene after looking, with her hand over her mouth, implying that what she saw was pretty grim. A cab pulled up, and the guy, finally freed from his bike, was carried by three other guys, unconscious, and loaded into the cab. Asuming that medical care here isn't stellar, I felt a bit haunted thinking about what might have ultimately happened to that guy.

Also in Dalat, we were at a house and looking off of a balcony. I noticed Lisa looking down, and followed her gaze. There were two men holding a dog down, but I didn't know what else was going on. When we left the house, I saw the dog, lying on it's side on the side porch of the house next to where we had been, twitching with seizures. Lisa said that a vet had been one of the people with the dog, and she assumed that either they had injected the dog with either medicine, or with something to put the dog to sleep. Who knows what made the dog sick, but Lisa seems to have had past experiences here with questionable vets anyway. It's just a weird image - just laving the dog lying there with no one around it, regardless of whether it was just sick and being treated or dying. But I guess that's life.

More on general issues here, Lisa works with street youth here as part of her job. She tells me that there are a number of reasons why youth end up on the streets. They may have been kicked out of the house when a parent remarries. It often happens that a second spouse doesn't want to have anything to do with the children from the first marriage, so they get kicked out. Sometimes they get kicked out because they are "difficult" behaviorally. There doesn't seem to be much time to deal with parenting challenges, and if the kid isn't perfect, they're done. Or sometimes it's poverty, plain and simple. It's a sad situation because there are often no places for the youth to go once they have been kicked out, so they end up living incity parks and are driven into drugs or sex work to survive. Vietnam seems to frown on non-conformity and lack of discipline. Thanks Confucius!

In both Cambodia and Vietnam, I have seen many people who are missing limbs. Most of the people we encountered in Cambodia were victims of land-mines, and it appears that many of the Vietnamese have experienced the same thing. Over 40,000 Vietnamese had been killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance since 1975, as of the last Lonely Planet publishing in 2007. There are several NGOs working to help these people with job skills, but not nearly the structure that might exist in the US. Many seem to be on the street begging for money and food because there's nothing else they can do.

There are not many Americans here. There are lots of tourists, but I haven't encountered an American yet. Lots of French, Canadians, Australians, and Brits, but not Americans. Somehow just that fact is sort of sobering. I guess Americans don't view Vietnam as a desirable destination quite yet.

This is my grounding experience. This is the kind of place where you realize how good you have it, and also how much damage humans can cause others, even when we don't really mean to. I guess I'm still thinking about these issues and the historical context in order to define my "place" in the grand scheme of things. But these are some of my reflections on the experience so far.

It just occurred to me that my description of this blog involves occasional social commentary, and I didn't want to disappoint anyone by not doing that.

Anyway, busy day tomorrow, so I'm off to bed. Ready to storm the Citadel in the morning.

Shop Til We Drop in Hoi An

We are on Lisa's last stop of our travel, and couldn't have found a better place to land.

But first...

The journey was not easy.

We started yesterday afternoon at about 3:30pm in Dalat on an overnight bus to Danang. This bus (remember - we STARTED at 3:30pm) would get us to Danang at 6:00am this morning. That's a long time to be on a bus. They did not serve us Bibimbap. On the contrary, they handed us each a stack of plastic bags, which I was to find out later was for motion sickness. I was not afflicted by this issue, but as our bus catapulted around mountainous corner after corner from Dalat to Nha Trang, I became quite intimately aware of my co-passengers and their inability to hold onto their lunches. Awesome.

Lisa and I did quite well on this, even braving the weeds during a side-of-the-road "rest stop". We got to Danang right around 6am.

We hopped in a cab from there and got to Hoi An around 7am, just in time for shopping to begin.

Hoi An is known for its silk markets and its tailors, and admittedly, that's the main reason why Lisa and I spent 14 plus hours on a bus (okay - in hindsight, it seems like we should have thought about that a little more carefully). Between the two of us, I believe we purchased 4 skirts, 3 dresses, 1 shirt, 1 pair of pants and 3 pairs of shoes, all tailor-made to fit us with materials that we picked out. It's a very dangerous place here. There are many vendors in the market who have the foresight to sell big duffel bags for all of us who are carting home all of these products.

After a long day of shopping and trying things on, we had dinner. Now that it is dark, the town takes on new flavor, and all of the vendors selling paper lanterns are all lit up in every color imaginable.

Beyond the shopping, it's a beautiful town too. It is categorized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so there are no cars allowed on certain "old town" streets, and a lot of restoration work has been done. The trademark colonial French yellow buildings with terra cotta tile roofs are still intact, or have at least been cleaned up, and are now museums, restaurants and storefronts. It's quite lovely to walk around here, though overwhelming with the marketing, but I guess we are contributing to that just as much as anyone else is.

Tomorrow Lisa will go back to Hanoi, and I will take the bus to Hue, just overnight to hit another historical spot. This time just 4 hours in bus, which seems a whole lot more reasonable. And then I will fly back to Hanoi. I may have another overnight trip next week before my final one coming home, and I want to save my strength for that.

Nice Ride!

I spent the day on the back of a motorcycle. Not a likely place to be, but as I have mentioned, and as will be clear when I finally post pictures, there's no way to travel in Vietnam without it. In Dalat, the Easy Riders are a group of motorcycle guides who do countryside tours. So Lisa and I arrived in Dalat yesterday and Truong and "Ted' (easier to say than "Thiet") found us at the hotel. We got on the road this morning at 8:30am.

First stop was Tuyen Lam Lake, a madmade lake outside of Dalat surrounded by pine forests. It's a beautiful setting for what else than elephant riding!

???

Okay, yes, I admit, I had some mixed feelings about this activity. All sorts of "don't elephants belong in the wild with the other elephants, and are we participating in an exploitative activity, and I wonder if they at least treat the elephant well, and how does the elephant feel having two western women (one of whom - moi - could stand to lose a few pounds) and a smallish Vietnamese man riding around on it's back?" But ultimately, I had to push those thoughts out of my mind and enjoy the experience of seeing the lake and forest the way emperors did and admiring the sheer strength of this amazing animal. I've always thought that elephants are wise looking old souls. This guy was no different. And he liked sugar cane. A lot.

So we rode the elephant, which wasn't nearly as cool as just being up close to the elephant, I will admit, because we couldn't exactly SEE the elephant when we were sitting on top of him. But it was still pretty cool.

After elephant riding, we had a variety of stops with the Easy Riders, but only a few really worth mentioning. First there was the Truc Lam Meditation center, which is a Zen Buddhist monastery outside of Dalat. It's a beautiful place and most buildings are open to the public except where the real meditation work happens. The campus (my term) is filled with gardens and pagoda buildings and just a general peacefulness that came from hearing a monk bang a gong while devotees presented incense and said their prayers.

The next stop was to the Linh Phuoc Pagoda, also known as the Dragon Pagoda for obvious reasons. And thank god for Flickr, because my memory stick seems to be acting up, but I have to be clear that I cannot take credit for the photo I lifted from there and have posted here. Another beautiful, spiritual place. This one had added spiritual significance because on the ground on a particular side of the tallest tower was a constant crowd of people looking upward and pointing their cellphones in the same place.

So apparently there is something about the way the sun is these days that, when it hits a certain spot over the temple and when you take a picture with just the right exposure, it looks like a halo is circling the top of the temple. Yes, I got caught up in trying this, and no I did not succeed. And I admit, I was annoyed that my nice camera was not able to capture what - apparently - many other Vietnamese people were able to capture on their stupid cell phones.

We saw a good deal of the Dalat countryside. It's beautiful and the weather is perfect. Cool and dry, since we are in the mountains. We will have most of the day tomorrow to explore some more, and for me to figure out what the heck to do about my memorystick issue. Then we will board a ridiculously long bus to Hoi An, almost exclusively for silk shopping. :-) Nah, we'll probably find more to do than just that.