Smooth Roughness (Malay Peninsula - Part 6 of 6)

Funny how certain serendipities can just set you off on an adventure. It happened to Bilbo Baggins, though that seemed to be directed by a wizard, I guess. Still, my little expedition did involve dragons, sublime sights, and many miles underfoot, so…

That my intended AT thru-hike turned out to be a colossal non-event, that my son Ethan was at my place taking care of things for a few months, that I had time and resources I’d saved for the AT available to me, that I have a still adventurous spirit (when I’m not sedentary and bingeing some happy chazerai on some screen, etc.)  All of this aligned, and I decided to go for a two month walkabout.  

I’d travel, eat, observe, run, read, write, reflect, and contemplate a variety of things in a variety of places.  Those places turned out to be: Lisbon and Porto, Portugal; Casablanca, Meknes, Fes, and Tangier, Morocco; Istanbul, Turkey; Bangkok, Thailand; Hanoi and Danang, Vietnam; Singapore; and Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A whirlwind. My lovely partner knows I have a propensity to live inside my own head sometimes (except when I am on a Jet-Ski, I am gently reminded), and this is especially the case when I am alone, which I was mostly, apart from the Morocco leg, which I enjoyed with her. The internal me gets even more amplified when I don’t speak the language so I think about lots of things.  Architecture, philosophy, art, wildlife, food, infrastructure, government, culture, sport, history, and the like. Lots of fodder.

Vietnam got me thinking about governance systems and some of the politics which, ostensibly, enable them. It started with the whole Communist rhetorical story structure overlaid atop a network of busy merchants in the markets selling myriad things to myriad people. Well, one morning in Hanoi I was out on a run, avoiding traffic, leaping over fallen mangos, and listening to a podcast.  Ezra Klein talking to a NY state legislator named Alex Bores about AI regulation.  Well, I’m very interested in AI and have been following it pretty deeply since around 2022, mostly because I think it is a singularly important issue on many fronts:  existential, educational, scientific,  practical, environmental, economic, spiritual, ethical, etc, and deserves far more attention than it receives, certainly more than the naive and predictable one dimensional tripe being spewed out in the media- needless to say I found the topic to be fascinating.  

But, listening to Bores, a really smart guy and former Palantir operator, talk about it and make reference to the bills he sponsored, the frameworks he advocates, the lobbyists attacking him, the “collaboration and coordination” that would need to occur, the "conversations" that need to be had, the decisions which need to be made, and so on - all of this made me realize that though he wants to do good, he is utterly hobbled by the system, and so is everyone else that wants to act rationally and in good faith around this issue, or others.

For some reason on this run, in this country, an epiphany hit me, I realized that our very system of governance is no longer suited to identify and address the risks of the present and the future- AI being first and foremost among them, by orders of magnitude.  While Liberals are constantly warbling their standard visionless myopic tribal shibboleths, and Conservatives are continuing to compromise seemingly every political and societal norm and standard which had benefited our system thus far, it leaves little room for the fair-minded pragmatic rationalist who has neither the will nor the patience to participate in the partisan vitriol gripping us for the past decades. So, I remembered my Greeks and became fixated on this highly idealized notion of a system which could act swiftly, smartly, in good faith, and in the spirit of providing the greatest good to the greatest number, aka bog standard Utilitarianism, as a guidepost. We need a first principles leader with the authority to lead.

Well, it turned out that a solution was it right in front of me, quite literally three days in front of me because my next stop was Singapore.  I came to learn that Singapore was a paradigm for almost exactly what I was looking for. It grew from a quasi-backwater under British rule to a first world exemplar and archetype in 60 years. It leads in most major economic and social measures of development, and it has maintained the pace.  I consider it to be a superpower because I don’t limit that label to purely military capacity. 

It really is a miracle of sorts and it is nearly all due to a guy called Lee Kuan Yew. Legend.  And weirdly, having known nothing about him other than as a name floating in the aether of my college poli-sci memories, the name popped up after I heard the Bores interview and then was motivated to go deep with Google in a fit of search-energy asking about “the closest leader to a Platonic Philosopher-King,” “Who best embodies radical pragmatism?” “Best example of an effective modern day 20th century political leader.” "Can a strong executive actually work outside of business?" This kind of thing. He pops up every single time. Then I was down a rabbit hole.  I listened to podcasts, watched videos, reviewed articles, read Parag Khanna's book Technocracy in America, all of this.   I couldn’t get enough. 

So after all of this headwork I have concluded that his system is better than ours and that, more importantly, ours is not up to the risk, velocity, and momentum of the future.  We are hobbled by: mediocrity in government professional intellectual horsepower, slow moving deliberative systems made even slower by stupid partisan polarity and arrogance, time horizons pegged to the electoral cycle, a culture resistant to long term planning, and a lack of focus on the common good.  I’m sad to say it, but there it is. We are outgunned by the realities of the future.  The 20thC was ours, but this one is probably Asia's. But this isn’t meant to be an LKY hagiography. All I will say that if you are so inclined and want to see a different model of governance, check him out.  He’s simply fascinating. And his nation’s success speaks for itself.

This research made me very excited to get to Singapore and when I did it was, as anticipated, a revelation.  I’ve never seen a city like this.  It just works. Like Apple products.  You fly into Changi airport and are greeted by slick architecture, smiling and helpful staff, cute and curious public art, burnished metals, water features, gardens…all in the airport.  And it is clean.  So clean.  Once you take the perfectly operating and fully intuitive MRT into the city, that sense of order and contentment is further galvanized.  Littering is illegal in Singapore and people take it very seriously.  The streets are clean and swept and there is no graffiti anywhere.  There aren’t even coins in the public fountains. I don’t even know what the currency looks like because I didn’t use it.  I used my phone because everything is touchless. And yes, it always worked.

Now, I think it is a fair rejoinder to my ravings here to be critical too. It is warranted. Singapore has been labeled “soulless,” that “It lacks weird,” that "the fringe element” is hard to find.  Like that.  And there is something to it, to be honest.  It's like having a home which seems comfortably lived in, vice having all the furniture covered in plastic, and never-used china sitting on a shelf only for display. Singapore has a bit of that “plastic” feel to it.  There is definitely something clinical and corporate about the city, as beautifully planned and designed as it is.  I really do understand that. But that sense of Singapore isn’t necessarily what I’m focused on, though aesthetically I love not having old and decrepit structures laying around being overcome by mold, rats, and despondence. 

It is the system of government that interests me - one which is guided by a strong, pragmatic, decisive, leader possessing dignity, integrity, character, and knowledge (that's an acronym), choreographing a team of pipe-hitting analysts, planners, and specialist-leaders,  all incorruptibly and transparently aimed at providing excellent services to citizens, by acting deftly and driven by data. That’s what I want, and that’s what we do not have. Not even an approximation.  And this statement is party-agnostic.   Full stop. I understand that this is a fantasy and that we can’t just change systems, however better another system might be.  Our Constitution precludes such rapid and substantial change.  See the issue? And the thick irony?

Beyond that nerdy stuff, though,  there is so much to see and appreciate here.  I learned about the WWII history of the Malay Peninsula.  It was a brutal and ferocious campaign, which the Brits ultimately lost with the fall of Singapore, which had been an essential element of their empire - “The Gibraltar of the East.” Churchill called the loss of Singapore the worst disaster in England’s military history.  Grim. I spent time at the National Museum and enjoyed several installations focusing on Singapore’s seamless multi-culturalism, its maritime and trade history, its clothing and languages, and its mythology, which involves a giant crab living within a magical sea-tree called Pauh Janggi,  and, of course, the epic Merlion. 

After a sweaty and scenic run through the botanical garden one morning, where I slalomed my way through the hundreds of people out for their morning constitutional,  I visited The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore’s most luxe shopping center and had a mall experience exceeding any one I'd ever had in my life.  Now, I am the last thing from a brand, style, high fashion, designer-savvy kind of guy; it doesn’t really enter my life except when I hear people ask some celebrity, “Who are you wearing?” then I get irritated- but pretension usually does that to me. I do appreciate that rarified world though, and its foreign-ness, when I see it, but I don't really understand it and I likely won’t be attending the Met Gala anytime soon. And I saw that world at the Shoppes - a mall, btw, which had a river running through it (with dinghies you could set sail on), waterfalls, fountains.  All while surrounded by Balenciaga, Marc Jacobs, Luis Vitton, Gucci, Dior, Hermès, Fendi, Prada, Patek Phillipe, Bvlgari, and the guy who makes shoes with red bottoms who I am too lazy to research.  All were represented.  Target was not. 

Before I left, on my last day since I had a late flight so a bit of time to explore. After a run down to the waterfront on one of the hundreds of bike-ped pathways, I went to visit the Cloud Forest and the Flower Dome, both attractions covered and out of the heat and humidity.  The Cloud Forest mimics the cool, moist conditions of tropical highlands in SE Asia, and right now that environment also has a Jurassic Park display, flush with animatronic raptors - a brachiosaur, diplodocus, T Rex, a pachycephalasaurus, and a bunch of nasty little sharp-toothed fringe-necked beasts. Sort of campy, but as well done as it could be.  The Flower Dome is the world’s largest greenhouse.  It is immense and eclectic in its choice of flora.  Tulip fields with an Old Dutch Masters aesthetic out front, rows and rows of roses, and a grove of baobabs.  Well worth an easy stroll as I prepped for the next leg, which was to be Malaysia.

Penang, in Malaysia, started as a bit of a mess.  First, one of the given anxiety points of every international trip is to ensure you get cell service via your provider, in my case Xfinity on the Verizon network.  It had been going well on the trip so far with a little glitch in Vietnam where I had to do some creative toggling on my phone to make it happen.  (And thanks, Gemini, for guiding me through it.  Gemini has been a very useful tool to help me figure things out on this trip:  currency exchange, rug price ranges, ceramics scams, history and backstory of certain sites and foods and drinks, agenda-building, language translation, flight information, cultural norms to be aware of, and the aforementioned help getting cell service). So I land in Penang and I have no service.  That’s okay, it usually takes time.  We offload from the plane and I get into the terminal.  Still no service. And no working wifi in the terminal.  Okay fine, I just need to get to my hotel in George Town and use their wifi.  I’ll call a Grab.  Oops,  can’t.  I can’t access the Grab app.  Okay, I’ll use a taxi, but I don’t have Malaysian Ringgits and they only take cash, and I don’t have Singaporean because I didn’t use cash down there.  Lemme go hit up that ATM over there.  I go, I try. Oh, wonderful. My bank thinks it's a fraudulent transaction and does not allow me to get the ducats. Drat. The bank sends me a text giving me a phone number to call.  I do and it doesn’t go through, God knows why.  Double Drat.

But wait.  How did that text get through? Something is up.   Okay, so I go back to the taxi coordinator, and try to explain my situation, which I do. Barely, because his English isn’t great, but it is sheer brilliance compared to my skills in Malay, which are limited to knowing the word for toilet (it's tandas).  So, he gives me a driver, Hafiz, and we head to George Town with the plan being that I get cash from my hotel so I can pay him and then I’d figure everything else out later.  So Hafiz, who was wearing Lee jeans, and I leave, and I have time to play with the phone.  I play toggle panic on the iPhone, I hard boot it once or twice and behold;  the LTE with max bars appears.  How, I don’t know.  Then I remember that I had an old bank card with me that I never used.  I wasn’t even sure why I had it.  But, just for giggles, I had the driver stop at an ATM to give it a try, and hallelujah, it worked.  I got enough cash to pay the driver and sustain me through this Penang piece and then down to Kuala Lumpur, which would be my final city. That hour was more fun than a cystoscopy sans lorazepam pregame.  But it turned out okay and I had excellent service for the rest of Malaysia.

Malaysia is yet another fascinating place. I really love it.  It’s as if it occupies a space right between the clean clinical competence of Singapore and the impassioned, noisy, chaotic fury of Vietnam.  Islam is the primary religion here and the ethnic makeup is roughly 65% Malay, 22% Chinese, and 12% Indian (mostly Tamil). And this, my foodie friend, makes for the richest, freshest, spiciest, most savory fusion cuisine you’ve ever had. I never thought I’d love fried anchovies (ikan bilis) as a condiment, or fishballs (bebola ikan) bobbing inside a bone broth bowl with basil boats afloat on it. Or the satays with that savory, thick, piquant, peanut sauce. Or the day-opening nasi mamak, which prepares you for the night-closing nasi kandar, basically a pile of coconut rice splashed by expert spoon lashings of every curry at every spice level you can imagine. 

And the people are warm and kind, putting right hand over heart when they greet you or say farewell.  It is pluralism and integration without being loud about it. The US can be a bit much when it comes to identity politics. Duh.  In America your optics are defined by your sex, your skin color, your religion, your choice of relationships.  It is far too much, at least to me, and I tend to dismiss most of those snowflake arguments simply because they bore me. However, my good friend Nathan, who died far too young a year ago, used to argue with me about this all the time and I was never bored.  I miss him. I was constantly wondering what he would think of this place and wishing he was with me just walking, marveling, and bantering.

Here, whether you see a Chinese man validating boarding passes, a Malaysian woman wearing a hijab (which, btw, they see as an empowering garment) checking passports and looking stern, or a Tamil teenager helping people wrap luggage in plastic at the airport, it all works.  Some friction?  Yeah, on the edges.  But not the US where that stuff dominates. And BTW, Vietnam, if I didn’t mention it in that last post, has 54 different ethnicities.  Doesn’t matter. They simply don’t care.  Stupid issues don’t get oxygen over here.  And I like it.

I did a wonderful food tour in Penang which brought us out into the streets for four hours.  Ken, a Chinese local who clearly liked his food, was our host. We had so many dishes I can’t recount.  But the chicken pakora I had in  Little India was a blast of flavor that I’ve never felt in a dumpling before.  They say that the mutton pakoras are the real deal and even better but they sell out by 11am every day, apparently.  We also had a nice mix of dishes, a Penang version of tapas which included a lovely blue rice (the blue hue coming from Clitoria ternatea, the Butterfly Pea Flower), which was finger-lickin’ good, especially when doused with curry. We also visited a place where the proprietor, a 78 yo Chinese man, and wizard of the wok who specializes in a particular dish called beef koay teow- stir fried velveted beef, wide rice noodles, and fresh vegetables. It was his life’s work to perfect the dish and he was known for it throughout the city.  Well, he is planning to retire, and no one is happy about it.  I feel grateful that I was able to sample this almost Platonic delectable.

On one of my Penang days, I just walked around being very much in the moment with no agenda.  I’m getting better at living a life that is less goal-oriented. I guess I think that’s good, but still not sure. Retirement is very strange indeed and rhythms change. I visited the Khoo Kongsi clan house, an ornate complex that is the centerpiece of the Khoo family in Malaysia.  They are a Chinese clan. The Chinese take family, community, social harmony,  bonding, and respect for elders to a new level.  We don’t even have a vocabulary for it in the West. No, Confucianism, if it is known about at all in our society, is a word that is used to represent some very vague form of Asian wisdom, not to index the specific tenets of the very rigorous system it is. The West is focused on individual action and actualization. Obligation (and love) toward family, elders, and unit, is certainly there, but generally subordinated to that. I am most certainly a product of the West, but I have had some gut checks on this trip around individuality, selfishness, liberty, freedom, ethics, and self-sacrifice. 

Here is something I found sad, humorous, and bizarre.  So, I finished my visit to the clan house, and I was just walking around looking for a good chicken satay at a hawker stall (street food), and a can of very cold Tiger lager. Then I hear a familiar tune.  It was the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” and it was being sung in Malay by a little kid, I assume poor because he had a can in front of him, sitting on the steps of a building on Armenian Street, accompanying himself with the handclaps and everything. Okay.  Fair. But he was wearing a Spiderman suit. A full-on Spiderman suit. So bizarre. I know you wouldn’t see this in Singapore. It’s the weird. I do love the weird. Afterwards, I searched for batik wall hangings as gifts, but decided I couldn’t afford to ship it back through the vendor because it would have cost more than the products themselves and I refused to play the game.  Apparently there are tariffs in the world somehow and they trickle down to American tourists. The irony is delicious. I continued my day taking pictures of street art, another thing Penang is famous for.

Kuala Lumpur finished out the trip. The biggest part of this section of the trip was taking a day excursion into city center to look at the buildings. KL is known for two (three, actually) structures.  The first is the Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest twins in the world.  Up until 2004 they were the tallest buildings in the world. They are beautiful.  I went to the top. The second is the Merdeka 118, which is the second tallest building in the world, second to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.  It dominates the skyline here and its angles are aesthetically interesting.

On my last day, before my late flight back to JFK, I went to see the Batu Caves, an active place of worship for Hindus, but also featuring a massive limestone hill punctured with a series of caves, all surrounded by ornate temples. A focal point of the site is the world’s tallest statue of the deity Lord Murugan, a golden work which stands prominently at the base of a rainbow-colored, 272-step staircase. It is also home to about 200 long tailed very mischievous macaques who steal worshippers sandals, and demand bananas.  Personally, I thought it was too touristy, but really enjoyed learning about Lord Haruman, the Monkey God.  He is stoic and noble.  More of that, please.

People need to travel. Being on the ground in a place is the only way to experience it. Read and research as much as you want, but reality, dimensionality, and expectations are baselined at first contact.  That’s the actual starting point.  The hawker at her stall.  The rug trader.  The blind guy selling simits, the Grab driver, the beggar, the barista.  That’s where lives intersect, stories are told, minds enrich one another.

Lots of people who are reading these dispatches have asked what my favorite place was. It's too hard a question. That said, overall the SE Asia part was most interesting to me because I had never been there before so it was all new.  It was an education, however brief and limited in scope.

Here are a few superlatives:

Prettiest:  Danang.  It has the coast, the mountains, and the peninsular nature preserve up north, all bound up in a recent history I am familiar with.

Most Eye-opening: Singapore.  It led me down a big Lee Kuan Yew fanboy governance rabbithole and then a re-exposed me to Aurelius, Frederick the Great, Ashoka the Great, Kemal Ataturk, and Akbar the Great.

Most Disappointing: Bangkok.  Too big and busy, but they have monitor lizards and the food is stellar.  Not a hit against Thailand, just my rural preference bias speaking. I’d like to see the north.

Most Vibrant: Tie between Hanoi and Fes in raw energy, but Hanoi gets the nod because Fes was far too touristy and the merchants could get obnoxious. Hanoi was just being itself.

Best Food: Penang, due to the ethnic mixture of ingredients, techniques, and very sweet and proud people serving it.

Most Resonant:  Istanbul, mostly because fate led me there on Pascha, after having been exploring Orthodoxy for over two years. And the Turkish bath was so fantastic.

Most Fun:  The 4 x Morocco cities because I could share them all with Nereida and we had a blast.  

Best Running: Porto.  Riverside options, big climbs on hilly cobbled streets, soccer stadium repeats. Istanbul also was excellent to explore at pace.

Worst Running:  Kuala Lumpur. Head on a swivel every freakin’ step.

Thanks for reading.

Old Conflicts; New Insights (Vietnam - Part 5 of 6)

Just a quick top note and I won’t dwell. But it is kind of a bizarre, surreal, and even slightly uncomfortable thing to be in Vietnam. We are 53 years beyond the US pulling out of that war, and yet it somehow has a lingering presence in my mind.  I was 12yo when we left Vietnam in 1973, yet I remember snippets and images and conversations adults were having in the late 60’s as well. That conflict was the first so ubiquitously televised, which is part of the reason I remember bits. I didn’t know much about the details at the time, just that we were at war and that there were lots of pictures of helicopters, broken-looking soldiers, and grieving families watching their sons come home in body bags. Now I am 64yo, American, and retired from the military, educated in US strategic planning and geopolitics, with a fairly detailed understanding of both the strategy and tactics on the ground as well as the domestic political backdrop in the US behind that war. I have low level anxiety and discomfort around all that, though I’m having a great time overall. Now on to better things… Dragons!

There were dragons in Thailand.  You saw them in post #4.  There are also dragons in Vietnam. Lots.  Additionally, as it happens, I have a lovely friend group up in Montpelier, VT which was texting concern one morning a few days ago when I was in Hanoi, about a wayward Central Bearded Dragon

(pogona vitticeps) that one of the kids found on a trail in town. Central VT temps are still very low right now and these dragons need to exist at around 90-96F.  If it is cooler than that they can’t digest food.  This one was probably an escapee or was released into the wild by a dunderheaded owner who got tired of it.  Quite sad because he probably met his maker;  but I wished it were here with me in Vietnam.  He would have had no problem eating and basking and looking at me with reptilian judgement, knowing that his progenitors on Zeta Reticuli rule our world, beskinned as humans.

There are also dragons carved into temple walls, hewn into mountain village rocks, painted in public spaces,  and in Danang there is the famous Dragon Bridge which breathes fire and spits water every weekend. It’s immense, and certainly not an infrastructure project one would normally associate with a communist regime. Many dragons. Then I learned about why dragons are important in Vietnamese culture.  

And I learned it from a 19 year old young Hanoi lady named Pinky. Pinky was my contact for a running tour I signed up for in Hanoi.  We had to resked due to torrential rain but finally made it happen the day before I was to fly off to Danang. The meeting point was 6am at a KFC (I know. I know. Starbucks,too) near Hoàn Kiếm Lake.  So I’m sitting there on a bench waiting and I see two bubbly smiling young ladies approach me. They were excited about just being alive in such a vibrant, eclectic, chaotic city in the company with one another’s BFF.  There was Pinky, who didn’t run, but rode a bike, and Trang, her best friend, who did run. My God, so young! And so removed from decades of lived experience which would have undoubtedly dampened their organic joy. Far different from my guide in Porto when I did one of these run tours, who was grizzled, experienced, and in his 40s. 

Part of me was, "Are you kidding me? She's freakin' 12 and is probably still playing with Tamagotchis. And she has stuffed animals strapped to her bike!" But this is a vacation; and vacations are about adventure and taking what comes and not having unreasonable expectations. So I went with it with a curious smile on my face. I am so glad I did. Pinky explained what we would be doing.  Trang and I would run the mile lap around the lake, and then we’d launch into a city route for the remaining 10K or so. 

Trang and I ran that lap, and I found her to be extremely sweet and earnest.  She’s 18yo, just started as an Econ major at an elite university, and wanted to learn about running.  She dyed her hair pink (Pinky didn't, funnily), had big dorky-wonderful spectacles, and not only was she a brainy economics nerd, she was also a very enthusiastic hiphop dancer.   So we traded questions about one another as we did that lap. Her English was really good. Orders of magnitude better than my Vietnamese. Know this. I love my boys.  Their lives transcend my own;  but I’ve also wished I’d had a daughter, too.  Trang reminded me of that.

So we finished that initial lap, linked back up with Pinky, and then took off on the remainder of the route.  It was a great program Pinky set out for us.  I was the runner and then she and Trang basically ran interference for me on the frenetic streets on their bikes. Pinky was an absolute chatterbox, brilliant in her mastery of languages, but most impressive to me was the fact she was almost pathologically curious.  She wanted to talk about anything and everything. At one point we stopped for tea on the west side of Hồ Tây, and sat on the standard plastic stools which are 4” above the ground, and which make for a delightful experience when watching a worn out graybeard runner trying to get upright from them. It is ugly-funny. The lady who was the purveyor of the tea seemed to be fascinated that a “mature” white guy was just sitting there hanging with a couple of Vietnamese girls, so she asked to take pictures.  We did.  She laughed. 

During that tea, I saw the depth in Pinky.  She was so wholly dialed in to international politics, US domestic politics, the Vietnamese political system, etc.  She was a master inquisitor. And she learned much of what she knows of English from watching toy ads when she was a little girl! It was also interesting how they reacted when I told them I had been to grad school, and even more so when they learned that I’d studied international relations.  That opened the sluice gates of one thousand questions and they just wanted to sit and talk and learn. I felt flattered that they held me in such high esteem (it is cultural;  they respect elders as a given), but I was even more moved by the quality of questions she asked.  Seems she had read every document of the Epstein files, had been following Trump’s trajectory…and had questions.  Good ones. It was so fun.  

And it gave me hope.  I am a creature of my biases, and of my arrogance.  But talking with these young ladies really reinforced the idea that my generation is leaving this world to them.  We’ve done some good things and some bad things. We’ve benefited from economic robustness and have had comparatively good lives.  But we really need to look beyond ourselves and try and ensure that the space these younger gens grow into is healthy, optimistic, and kind- not poisoned by the visceral cynicism and condescension being spewed by our two party adherents. I want to think I've done my part to make that happen. But I don't know if I have- and if I have, whether I have done enough.

Back to dragons.  We continued the run and ended up at a Buddhist pagoda, Tran Quoc.  Pinky is laying out the history and describing the uniquely syncretic Buddhist/Confucian spiritual influences present in Vietnam.  She explains that the reason that there are always koi fish at every pagoda is because the koi represent the starting point of the eternal struggle of we humans swimming upstream in Life until we encounter and overcome the massive legendary falls called the Dragon’s Gate, and that if we are to be strong enough to make it over that barrier we transform into a dragon, the Ultimate Protector. Here I was a semi-learned dude, getting schooled by a 19yo. So much new and rich information.  Michelangelo said, “Ancora imparo.”  Indeed, Mike.  Loved it.

Pinky, Trang and I finished the run  with a coffee at a funky coffee shop only they knew about, and continued our discussions which involved US gun culture, communism vs free-market, the legend of Uncle Ho, their dreams for life, SAT scores, etc.  It was a fantastic morning. It gave me an enduring smile that lasted hours - sort of like when Nereida and I spent time with those Moroccan students in Tangier a few weeks ago.

During COVID, I took up cocktail-making. It took my mind off the ridiculousness and gave me smiles.  So, I’ve been interested in this for a few years.  The culture is an interesting one, and involves not just the skills to master the mixing, making, and listening, but also a deep knowledge of the lore behind the various drinks.  I’m an Old Fashioned guy.  That’s my go to. Simple. Classic. I’ve learned on this trip that the cocktail culture in the places I’ve visited isn’t really all that sophisticated.  I look for the OF and usually come up short. When I do find one it is usually either made from a mix or involves rotgut spirits.  In SE Asia, I fully understand this.  It is so hot here that wine and cocktails are a second thought, never the default.  Beer is king here. And rightly so. It is cold, refreshing, cheap, and available.  I’m not a night owl at all. In fact, I haven’t looked for any “nightlife” this whole trip.  It doesn’t interest me. I’m usually in my room by 6pm. So I tend to have a drink, if I want one, during the afternoon.  Before a late lunch.  I don’t generally consume much after 3 or 4 pm. It’s a bit of a ritual. But when I get to a new city, I like to know where the cocktail bars are.   

In Hanoi I found a little speakeasy (seriously, it was tough to find) in the basement of a building on a busy road, called Two Schmucks.  It was owned by a couple of locals, not wiseass Jews from Brooklyn.  No. A Vietnamese guy, and a South Asian partner  opened it. The mood was woody, dark, and jazzy.  Low ceilings, tasteful wall lights, dusky scent. Madeleine Peyroux in the background. Could have been in Chicago during prohibition. It was managed by a young man who knew what he was talking about. He knew his bourbons and ryes and what a Luxardo cherry is (though they don’t use cherries in Asian OFs, apparently).  I had a couple of nice cocktails there my first night in town after a harrowing 2-mile walk to the location dodging bikes, busses, and food vendors. I paid my bill at the end in cash.  Cash, by the way, which has Ho Chi Minh’s visage on every denomination.

One morning in Hanoi, after my run, I went out for my daily explorations.  No agenda, just walking and looking and making observations. This particular morning I noted two guys in khaki military garb tag-teamed on a Vespa, slowly patrolling the streets. They seemed very serious and very scoldy.  I also noticed that people who were on the street down from them, washing produce, cutting meat, cooking, immediately folded up whatever they were doing-ground mats, micro stools, all of it, and brought it into the house post haste.  Then when the guys Vespa-ed by, they just came back out and resumed their activities. I did some research and learned that this is a morning ritual called “street clearing” and is executed by low rank local police who are looking for people to fine for encroaching too much into the streets. It gives them something to do and can even bring in a few shekels, aka dong. This is funny because on the main roads, there is 100 times more encroachment into vehicular paths by shopkeepers, parked scooters, moped-ers, walkers, runners, grocers, and the like. 

That morning I wanted to go and see the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum at some point so I ambled my way over to that area.  I walked I passed a school.  It was gated, painted red and yellow like everything related to government is.  It included the requisite hammer and sickle flags, as well.  The kids were going absolutely nutsoid in the play ground.  No different from the US.  Yelling, shouting, grab-assing, teasing, poking, pinching.  It was quite hilarious, but comforting at the same time because it reminded me that Universals do exist. What was interesting was how the staff calmed the maddening horde down. They used a massive bass drum.  They hit it and the THRUMP and WHOOMP transmitted viscerally through the air like a shock wave, and the kids just settled.  I don’t know for how long because by this time I was beyond the gates and trying to survive crossing the street.  Not long, I'd imagine.

The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum was packed with people coming to pay their respects.  “Uncle Ho” is a national hero. He is venerated aggressively. The mausoleum was a case study at the micro level as to how the bigger picture Vietnam system works.  An overly serious and self-important unified military/ideological authority structure replete with uniforms, crisp marching and saluting, grim faces, robotic physicality, and all the rest of it, as an overarching fantasy scheme pretending to control a ferociously free-market and ultra-dynamic chaotic and lusty commerce below it.

Funny, but on this trip, I’ve noticed my past dorky interests in governance systems, which I thought were in stasis, have kicked back in.  Probably because the US system is so broken, maybe beyond recovery in its current incarnation.  Not recovery from this president. I’m confident that will happen, but recovery of our institutional makeup and functionality generally, and its ability to do demonstrable good for the people. That’s another conversation, though.  Let's just say I’m looking forward to getting to Singapore.

I did a food tour with Ella ("The Enchanting," I called her).  We had 5 people in our group including me, a mother-daughter pair - both doctors, and a newlywed couple from Vancouver, BC who were very polite. It was tremendous.  We spent 2 ½ hours together, walked all over the city, and tried all the highlights: banh mi, fermented noodles with beef, glass noodles with fish, hand-wrapped spring rolls and a savory-piquant dipping sauce, pork stir fry, sweetened rice balls, coconut ice cream.  Superb.  Ella was a wonderful host filling us up with stories of foods and the people who cooked them and she also shared an interesting tidbit.  Seems that when Vietnamese people think of Westerners, Americans specifically, they always mention how much bigger we are. They believe, and I heard this elsewhere, too, that it is because we consume so much dairy.  Milk and cheese is simply not part of the Vietnamese bounty. Hey, it's a theory.

I took a day trip out to Ninh Binh. It was a great outing which included a visit to the Mua Cave and Lotus Garden, a buffet lunch (not the best, but the goat curry was great), a bike ride through  a remote village, a Buddhist temple complex walkabout, and ended with a spectacular two hour boat trip on the waterways of Trang An.  The boat trip was beyond stunning.  King Kong: Skull Island was filmed here! I was lucky enough to be paired up on my boat with a young couple from Sacramento.  He was an MD hospitalist with a Korean/Chinese background and his wife was a Filipina pharmacist.  Delightful people.  He and I talked lots of Vietnam War stuff. They were on a late honeymoon.  The trip was so peaceful and beautiful. Our Captain was a local lady who has done hundreds of these trips. We gently moved across cool calm waters and saw dramatic sentinel mountains all around us, forest temples, wildlife (no giant simians), and transited from lake to lake through no fewer than 5 somewhat claustrophobic rock tunnels, the stalactites of which our oarslady had to navigate around.  It was simply gorgeous. 

When I got to Danang, I breathed.Going from Hanoi to Danang is like going from NYC  to Phoenix.  It was a very clear and distinct change in energy, traffic, chaos, and terrain. 8 million to 1 million in population.  Dramatic.  Danang is a beach city and it has that feel. Salty, sandy, windy, hot, humid, parasailers soaring, Jet-Skis jetting and, weirdly, coracles floating around a couple hundred yards off shore.  Coracles.  That’s not a vessel one sees every day, unless you’re Gollum cruising the Anduin. 

Danang’s local dish is called Mi Quan, which is a savory noodle dish and includes pork, fresh vegetables, crumbled up rice crackers, peanuts, lotsa basic, and all covered with a tasty thick brown gravy.  So fresh. Filling, but not uncomfortably so.  None of the food I had was bloating. But to be honest one afternoon I had a craving for nachos so found a Mexican place that provided. Not bad at all. Kind of heavy. The Margaritas were not wonderful.

I learned that Vietnam has 54 ethnic groups. I had no idea. I also learned that ethnicity means next to nothing in Vietnam.  There isn’t the strife (and ceaseless drama) we experience back in the US around these race and ethnicity. There is a group here which, while going back to the 4thC, still lives on the high mountains here, called the Cham.  This group is so interesting because in a country that is primarily Buddhist, taking its lead from China, these people integrated elements of Hindu and Islamic philosophy into their spiritual lives.  Intriguing.  One of the cultural high points in Danang is the Museum of Cham Sculpture.  Here you can see hundreds of examples of their art and learn about the archaeology around it throughout the country. And more dragons and multiple Ganesha’s too!

I had some great runs in Danang.  I’ve mentioned before that I use my runs to explore new places whenever I go anywhere. This place presented me with three landmarks I really wanted to see.  The Dragon Bridge, The Marble Mountains, and The Lady Buddha. So I incorporated them into my runs.  Dragon Bridge was a nice 7-ish mi loop.  Marble Mountain was a hot 8 mi out and back, and Lady B was a 13.1mi out and back.  I loved them. Marble Mountain was very moving for the history alone.  These mountains reminded me in a way of the Black Cuillin massif on the Isle of Skye.  This huge. Imposing, dramatic structure just plonked right down on super flat land as if dropped there by aliens.  These mountains were home during the war to a Viet Cong hospital and fire base right adjacent to a US helicopter field, which is now blasted and overgrown from disuse, like it was a scene from Fallout. The Viet Cong used to launch rocket attacks from those mountains into the base.  And here I was at their base, buying water from an old woman who could have been the mother of fighters, imagining the daily dramas back then.  Lady Buddha was a great run, most of it along the coast and some on sweltering asphalt.  I got to the statue and saw that it was, in fact, a temple complex with the Giant Lady, yes, but also a temple for quiet worship, a fat happy Buddha statue, and an ice cream and soda concession. And monkeys.  Perfect.  It was a great day out.

Something very surprising and sweet happened at the airport as I was a flying on to Singapore.  Since I was an international traveler, I had to get a hardcopy boarding pass, and the airline needed to check that I still had my Vietnam visa, as well as my authorization to enter Singapore, which was simple, free, and I had done on-line the night before.  The big board told us that the flight was on time and that check-in was to begin 3 hours before flight time. And it gave us the three stations which would be checking us in.   So, I killed a little time and then me and this French guy got in line right at the 3 hour mark.  The attendants, all young professional Vietnamese women in their well-starched blue uniforms, were preparing their stations with luggage stickers, ticket stock, and the like.  Then the time came and the board changed from “Standby” to “Check-in.” 

Well, the three women who would be checking us in all got off of their stools and climbed over the luggage belt.  “What’s happening?,” I asked myself. I thought they were off to take a tea break, and huffed.  But then they stopped right in front of me, Pierre, and the people behind us, lined up three abreast, and…they bowed to us, as one.  They bowed like it was a curtain call in some West End show, I think as if to say, “We are now ready to do our best to take care of you.” It was shocking, and moving, and I’ve never in all my travels seen anything like it.  Wonderful.  So I left Vietnam with a nice surprising glow and a big bowl of beef pho in my belly.  On to Singapore and Malaysia, the final act of this sojourn.

Thanks for reading.

Dragons & Basil (Bangkok- Part 4 of 6)

I’ve always loved dinosaurs.  Like most kids, maybe. I remember going to the Peabody Museum down at Yale as a child and being in awe of the size and imagined ferocity of these creatures. I rather liked the Ankylosaurus because they were basically turtle Thors.  Well, I arrived in Bangkok from Istanbul very early in the day and couldn’t check into my hotel at the time.  

Note: I stayed at an Amanta property and it was fantastic.  Clean, well-managed, responsive, comfortable beds, and…hot high pressure showers! I made a course correction on this trip re my lodging plans.  Due to bad luck with a couple of squalor-stays using AirBNB in Casa and Lisbon, I went back to hotels. A few reasons.  First, they're predictable.  You know what you are going to get.  No Byzantine quest to find the place and then go through a  self check-in process where you have to decode three separate lock boxes while reciting incantations in Latin as if you are going into the Vatican's Holy of Holies. Second, they generally have laundry services; and on longer excursions like this one where you are only using carry-ons, that’s very helpful and saves you the agony of going out and looking for a private operator, though there is a certain charm and adventure to that too, I’ll admit. Third, I like to have access to the staff for questions on logistics, local services, sites, etc.

In any case, I stored my luggage at the hotel and I went for a walk, which took me through some local markets, into a nice - really nice indoor air-conditioned mall, and ultimately to Lumphini Park for a nice walkabout. I was caught by surprise at 8:00 on the dot when all of the walkers and runners and bikers in the park stopped dead in their tracks and took a position of attention. Then I heard music over the speakers and realized it was the Thai national anthem.  I later learned that this happens every morning at 8.   

I continued the walk.   I then sensed movement on the edge of the pond to the left, turned my head, and this is what I saw creeping out of the muddy waters as I strolled by.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was.  It was like I was 8 again, which I am in many ways, but this time it was more about childlike wonder than it was about laughing at flatulence.  This animal was gorgeous. Intelligent eyes, 4’ long head to tail. Its skin was dry, mottled, green-gray, and scaly only in the sense that they looked like small beads, rather than overlapping plates of armor. Still it looked thick and protective. And it had certain quadruped swagger; its body language saying, “I’d eat you if I were bigger, you tender pale morsel.” I continued the walk, smiling at I don’t know what.  Maybe by existing in the same moment with that child of Daenerys. I don’t feel like doing any paleontological research right now, but I want to say that the Gobi Desert in China is the most dino fossil-rich area in the world, isn’t it?  Is this connected to the dragon focus in Asian culture?  Dunno.

Thailand is charming and I’ve really enjoyed it.  The people are so kind and attentive.  The uniquely Thai design elements in architecture, sculpture, and textiles are unique and magnetic, and the food is wonderful, deep in flavor, and fresh.  But I also realize that what I am seeing right now is a huge city.  The place is enormous and loud and chaotic in a weirdly orderly way. Yes, they have beautiful parks situated well throughout the city to support the physically active (and the lizards), but it is still a small piece of a highly built environment.  At some point I’d love to come back to this country and get up into the mountain villages near Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Mae Hong Son, and listen to the sounds of macaques and gibbons, rather than Hondas. 

Thailand is also one of the most challenging places I have ever been in terms of figuring out my way around.  I felt truly foreign here. I always manage to get done what I need to, but English is not ubiquitous here (the hospitality industry as an exception), and the alphabet, Aksorn, derived from the ancient Khmer culture, is utterly unique (also gorgeous to look at) but impenetrable if you need to read something. I felt like a pre-schooler just staring at these indecipherable symbols. Consequently, there was a great deal of made up in the moment sign language, mostly me pointing at things and looking clueless.

The traffic here is a sight to behold, and like many other South Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian cities, the motorbike/scooter class absolutely rules the roads.  There are so many of them and it is as if they have no individuation.  It’s more like they act like an an ant colony, or maybe even a murmuration of starlings. Perhaps blood cells in our veins. No individual matters, but the moving, revving, exhausting, honking horde of them has some kind of proto-sapient agency. They are better understood that way. Remarkable to watch.

But not simply watch. One must participate in Life.  Not sit back and judge it.  And no, I don’t have a death wish but I do want to experience things and get adrenalized a little bit when I can. Not by cave diving, not by free-climbing, and not by bungee jumping (though I would maybe do that for money if offered).  The Uber of this part of Asia I’m visiting is called Grab.  It's like Bolt in Portugal or inDrive in Morocco. Works great. In Thailand the vehicle options to get you to your destination are varied.  Cars, vans, limos, etc.  But one of the options is motorbike. So, yeah.  You can request a scooter to come pick you up.  Because there is so much congestion the two-wheeler is almost always the fastest way to get to where you need to be, especially if you aren’t carrying luggage. You request it, the response time is fast because there is always a scooter somewhere near you, as close as a nitrogen atom.  They arrive, they give you a helmet, you verify identity, jump on the back of the bike and off you go.  Accelerating into traffic, weaving in and out of cars, dodging truck mirrors to avoid getting straight-armed, and ultimately, breathlessly, you arrive, thankful you remain alive. (It was like this fake pic)

Bangkok is so hot and humid.  It puts SC in August to shame.  And what’s funny is that one of Thailand’s draws for Westerners is the food.  At least it was for me;  but with the heat conditions I never became ravenous because that’s how my ridiculously shredded body deals with wet air and being incinerated daily. But I did become lazy. In fact one night, after a day bopping around the city, lethargic, I became a bit peckish and just hopped over to the Boss-level 7-11 next door and got some easy to prepare spicy rice noodles to make in my room. It was either that or shrimp and plum flavored rice cakes or hot chili squid Doritos. I had stopped at a hawker stall near Lumphini Park earlier in the day for lunch and had a heaping, fresh, and incredibly tasty plate of Rad Na Goong, and that lasted me until later, around 5. So, water boiled, I added it to the noodles, and “nee-ngai!”  It was done. Delicious!  And from 7-11!  I also had some pickled mango, a grapefruit and a few slices of pitaya.  Cost me maybe $3. “Such a deal,” my friend G. Himmelfarb would say.

I did starve myself for an entire day however toward the end of this BKK leg to force a ravening hunger because I had made a reservation at Gobi, which is supposed to be one of the best buffets in town, and I wanted to get the most from it. It delivered.  Honestly, kind of light on the Thai offerings, but it was constructed to serve a very international crowd.  They had  a couple of Thai noodle dishes (Padh Thái , Lǎo Thái ), sticky rice, prawn cakes, char-grilled chicken, roast whole salmon, and several steamed vegetables. Beyond that they had prime rib, a little taco/burrito section, fresh pizza (looked good but I didn’t want any), and a really large South Asian station consisting of a nice biryani, three different curries- lamb, chicken, and vegetable, and fresh garlic naan. I’m not a big sweets guy, but the dessert section was incredible too. So colorful.  Cakes, pastries, tarts, bread pudding, ice cream with fixings.  But I had a quarter ton of fresh fruit to rationalize the health benefits in the face of the insult I had just exposed my body to.

I’ve never been one to drink my calories, unless it involved carbs during a long race, or a good cocktail, enjoyed in moderation.  I don’t do soda or fruit juices, but after being here in Thailand I kind of get it.  It is so hot and humid here, so many gallons of perspiration leaking out of millions of sweating bodies, that people are going to want something beyond simple water to replenish it. Drinks are a massive part of the economy here.  Cha Yen (Thai Iced Tea), Nam Prao (Fresh Coconut Water), Oliang (Iced Coffee), Nam Manao (Lime Juice), Nam Krajiab (Hibiscus Juice), Nam Hoy (Sugarcane Juice), Nom Yen (Thai Pink Milk), Nam Dok Anchan (Butterfly Peaflower Tea).  All of these are everywhere, and they are very popular.  And so colorful!  I have seen more people drinking these than holding plastic bottles of water. I didn’t imbibe, but I do understand. Also, WTH is boba? It seems like beach ball tapioca, but I'm not sure.

Ever walk down the street and see a couple and do a double take neck snap asking, “How the Hell did that happen?”  Well, after the first day in BKK  I needed a neck massage (which I ended up getting-read on) because of this phenomenon. I have seen so many middle-aged and older white guys coupled up with gorgeous Thai women. It hit me as a bit creepy at first.  The cynic in me went right to the three ring binder “mail order bride” phenomenon. Well, I dug a little and learned that this is a bit anachronistic at this point and since the advent of dating apps, we’re seeing a whole lot more “legitimate” matches which are more a function of Western men shifting from past norms and willing to have a relationship between equals rather than ones where the middle class dude is preying on the socio-economically desperate realities of the woman. It used to be that he wanted a hyper attractive woman to be his; and she wanted a sugar daddy to take her away from the overwhelming drudgery and poverty of the Thai backcountry.  Now it is a dialogue, or at least it seems that way.

I got a Thai massage and it was awkward at first. This is one of those things one must be wary of.  I can’t even count the number of times, as I strolled the streets of BKK, that I was asked to come into a “spa” and get a “delightful” massage, the end state of which was amorphously promised at best.  What I do know is that the Sirens sitting outside those establishments were, to a woman (and they were all women)- dressed to the nines, skin forward, made up cosmetically with what can only be described as a sultry and suggestive messaging. I kept the beeswax in my ears and strode on.  So, I did some research and found a place that was certified, ethical, and had a great reputation locally and internationally amongst the traveling class.   As luck would have it was only a short walk from my hotel.  A place called Mooklada.

After a run one morning I walked into that place, sweaty and spent, and made a reservation for later in the day.  The guy asked if I wanted a man or a woman to work on me.  I didn’t care, and I told him. This was therapy and education for me.  Nothing else.  So I went and did my day and ended up back at Mooklada late in the afternoon.  I walked in for my appointment and the lobby was full of staff.  The women were beautiful, yes, but they were wearing Polo shirts and trousers, not fishnet and only fishnet.  

I got a guy masseuse, Somchai.  He was super kind and he knew straight away that I was a first timer and maybe a bit disoriented and nervous.  I had no idea what to do.  Without a word spoken he urged me to sit down and then with a tub of hot water and soap. He washed my feet. Feet are considered to be the lowest and dirtiest part of the body, and so this is a symbolic gesture of preparation prior to a therapeutically cleansing activity. After the foot bath he directed me upstairs to the massage rooms. There were four calm sanctuaries up there, each with a pad, and lovely and calming decorations, separated by thick curtains. I was the only client up there. Somchai motioned that I should get undressed and get into this cotton pyjama-like outfit for the massage.  So I put all my stuff into a bin and got into that very non-Lululemon ensemble.  Very comfortable.  He motioned that I should lay down on the mat face down, and then he went to work. Thai massage is a very unique thing. Combining acupressure, Ayurvedic practices, and the meditation of the practitioner while he/she is practicing, it is less about simply rubbing muscles and more about full constant bodyweight focused on areas the therapist identifies (for me he found that my neck/cervical area was full of tight knots and he really hit those hard - to great effect. He wouldn't let it go), rocking of the joints, cracking toes and fingers, and pull/push assisted poses and stretches.  He giggled at the end when he saw how absolutely unflexible I am because of stupidly tight hamstrings. I’m embarrassed by this as well. It was an hour treatment, not all comfortable, and I felt fantastic at the end.  I slept like a babe that night. (This a rendition, and very close.)

Not unlike this very unique idea of saudade, a nuanced “longing” I learned about in Portugal, Thailand also has a sociocultural interpersonal stance which I find to be fascinating and which doesn’t map to anything in our American culture or language.  It is called Kreng Jai, and it basically means a desire to avoid causing discomfort or bothering others.  It is a sort of a hypercharged sense of empathy and it translates into radical kindness and acknowledgement of every move of the other person so as to ensure a smooth flow of the situation, whatever that happens to be.  From a good meal served by the wait staff, to an interaction with the hotel cleaning lady to your madman Grab scooter driver, to the lady in the hawker stall who only knows one thing, and that is how to make a delectable mango sticky rice for you. It’s everywhere from the bow of greeting and thanks, to paying the handful of baht for a delicious meal down some back alley.  It is a tangible thing and the world needs more of it.

I say farewell to Thailand in hopes that I’ll be back and that I will be able to reciprocate the kindnesses shown to me, and emulate them. Also see lizards and primates.

Thanks for reading.