Sunday, December 20, 2009

Booked and now planning

We went to Dave's holiday party last night. People realized he'd put in for vacation, but they hadn't realized we'd booked Thailand and Cambodia. Eyes widened, jaws dropped. "Incredulity" was the word of the day. Yeppers. We're headed back to Southeast Asia again, to finish the trip we weren't able to complete last time.

I admit, as much as I love to travel, yes, I did feel a bit worried about returning. We thought about it. Not going back to SEA felt like we would be avoiding horses because of the one that threw us. I don't like being afraid, so much so that while I'm afraid of heights, I leaned over and looked down over the edge of the Grand Canyon's precipice. Going back to finish the trip to Southeast Asia is about those experiences other than watching Dave's infection bloom. I'm just going to pack a smaller suitcase this time.

I need to see Angkor Wat. I need to experience Bangkok. I'm not sure that the experiences will be as intense as our first trip to SEA was, where the scents were cryptical, the sounds assailing, the color white was for death and red was for joy. But travel has to do with the search for newness, the means to stave off ennui. While even the spectacular can become expected, we've spent a year back home, going to our jobs, living our normal lives just enough so that we can hope there will be that "clap" of awakening when we arrive. It's one reason we didn't want to go back to Europe yet. We need difference.

We're going to fly from Seattle to Bangkok via Taipei. We're flying the EVA air (lousy website, so you might as well plan on making the phone calls), but this time, on the return trip we're going to spend some time in Taipei. We're working with Exotissimo again and they came up with an itinerary whereby we will have a driver and a guide take us from Bangkok into Cambodia, passing through what has been kindly called one of the "armpits" border towns of SEA, Poipet. From there we will go south of Tonle Sap Lake to Battambang.


View Southeast Asia in a larger map

From Battambang, we'll drive back north to Siem Reap, where the temples of Angkor Wat are. We'll then be driven to Phnom Penh.

Dave and I will be avoiding as many of the "The Killing Fields" tours as possible. We take cooking classes instead.

We'll only have two nights and one full day in Phnom Penh before we fly back to Taipei, Taiwan. From what I've read, Taipei has done a tremendous amount of infrastructure / city cleanup in the past decade. It's a city which is surrounded by parks and "mountains?", hot springs abound. Dave & I will be in the Ximending District.

The hotel itself is just across the street from one of Taipei's walking districts and one of the older areas of Taipei. The city also has a "foodie" reputation these days. Looking forward to it.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

It's time to travel again

My thoughts are stale. Even with the change of season, I find myself breathing one breath after another even as autumn sharpens the air. I shrug when called to come watch the flock of starlings descend on my neighbor's tree. Our fruiting grapevine has crawled throughout it like it was a kudzu, or an ivy. The grapes have turned from apple green to a translucent purple. The birds pluck at the purple globes, arguing greedily over clusters.

I finished drafting poem #39 about Vietnam. I have until the 15th of November to post-mark 50 pages of poetry for the Walt Whitman contest. The staleness of my brain makes me look at the way I use the same words over and over again. I seem particularly attached to colors. There are other senses as well, I remind myself. When I'm travelling, I have little time to sit and collect my thoughts. When I'm at home too long, I lose my memories and the repetition of being well-fed muffles the experience of each day actually being different than the one before. I have now bored myself with philosophy.

London?
Bangkok?
Greece?
Crete
Spain
Portugal
Ukraine
Romania
Japan
Austria

I need new smells. I'm ready to return to Vietnam just to be shocked again.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

The Reason Why Blogs Exist

They save on email / spam messages. What a hoot!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Egg Cups and Other Family Treasures



One of those grandmotherly kitchen "tools" I've always secretly hankered for, but would not be caught dead buying is an egg cup. Made out of china, it's used to boil eggs without their shell. When two egg cups from my grandmother's tzachkis weren't sold at my mother's yard sale, they came home with me. I used them today to softboil eggs and there wasn't a leak. Lovely soft-boiled eggs without the mess of trying to grapple with the shell.

So, here I am, working with a tool I've never used before. I checked my Joy, my Betty Crocker, my Martha Stewart's Cooking school. I couldn't find a recipe for how to cook eggs with an egg cup. They're that out of fashion. Food is fashionable now that we can have whatever we want when we want it being who we are. It's not seasonable, it's not organic, it's not right or wrong. There are a lot of foods for which we've lost the means, or the knowledge of how to make because it is fashionable. I think egg cups might be going the way of my grandmothers.

Re-reading my first stab at writing my own recipe, I see a lot of gaps in explanation. I'm making leaps because of direct experience. The short hand is not a proper guide for someone who might never have made an egg boiled in an egg cup.



It should actually read something more closely along the lines of:

Remove eggs from the refrigerator to begin to take off the chill. Let them warm to room temperature - this will reduce cooking time.

Add water to a pot to the height to cover an egg top, but not the egg top handle. Set pot to boil. When the water is boiling reduce to a simmer.

Crack an egg into an egg cup. Add salt and pepper. Screw the lid tightly. Add filled egg cup(s) to simmering water. Cook 4-6 minutes.

When egg cooked to desired set, remove from cup by scraping out with a spoon into a bowl or eating directly from the egg cup with a slice of buttered toast & a very small spoon.

Monday, August 10, 2009

You send me yours




You send me a hand-written recipe on a 3x5 or 4x6 card, and I'll send you one of mine.

I'm gonna have to use the 4x6 cards. The 3x5s I wrote this weekend are all messed up. My handwriting is too large for the card. Hell, even my script is aging. Anyways, wrote up some of my own favorite recipes: from Joy of Cooking there were the rolled biscuits, piemento chees, and buffalo chicken wings; from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: the brioche, the pecan sticky buns, the vanilla rum cake; from I Like You the Vulgar BBQ sauce. These are recipes and techniques I've used again and again. The thought I kept in mind while writing them out was that at least now I didn't have to haul out the ten pound book. ha!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

You know you are loved

when your partner spends ten days helping organize, price, and pack the family treasures with your mother & her sister.

Dave survived. He gets a gold star every day for the rest of the year just for this exercise.

Thank you, Dave

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Recipe Box pictures & scanned recipes

I'm photographing & scanning recipes from the recipe box. I'll be uploading some PDFs of recipes from Pillsbury before there was a Doughboy and signed by an "Ann Pillsbury". I have lots of Knox & Princess Gelatin recipes as well.

One of my favorites so far is a recipe to extend butter.

The Recipe Box Club

My plans have changed. Originally, I was to go to Olympus Women's Spa in Tacoma for a soak, a massage and such a thorough scrub-down that your skin peels off in rolls. So, I'm using this time to write in my blog, and go through the recipe box. I plan to cook up one of the recipes & lay out the general logistics of The Recipe Box Club.

The basic premise of the Recipe Box Club is that if you care enough for how good the food tastes, you'd be willing to hand write the recipe down. There are other objectives as well. One is to end up with intimate notes on food and advice which can be handed down through your family. Another is to share good food and companionship. A third one is to carve out time to prepare something you might not give time to otherwise. There's also the point of trying foods you might not otherwise have tried, to explore recipes & cooking that you've never really done before.

The club will be invitation only. At this point, I'd say no children. The invitation should be limited to two people: the invited + guest. RSVP is mandatory so that everyone will have a committed number of guests to prepare for.

For the first meeting, I'll ask each person to bring a single, home-made item, i.e., an appetizer, a pickle or relish tray, salad w/ homemade salad dressing, entrees (how many meat & fish), drinks, desserts, (cheeses? why not?!). They'll bring the hand-written recipe on an index card. We sit down to eat. Now, here's where I haven't figured out the logistical components.

If you like the recipe, whip out your empty index cards & write it down. The original hand-written recipe will be passed to another person maybe by some sort of pre-determined rotation - like if you brought the pickles & wrote the pickles recipe, maybe that recipe gets passed to the person who brought the appetizer, the appetizer person's recipe gets passed to the salad person?

Logistically, I can see several problems. I'm open to comments and suggestions.

Should the meal have a common theme?
How many people can be seated at a table? I think this meeting will create a gathering "bigger than my breadbox" dining table (seats 6) or house. What other options are there for seating a large group of people? Church halls?
If we have to rent a church hall or something, we'll have to collect money first.
Plates, glasses, forks (I now have a plethora of those - in silver, no less!), knives (not so lucky there), etc.
If we rent a hall, will there be a kitchen available?
Clean - up

Anyways, those are my initial thoughts for the Recipe Box Club. Don't hesitate to email me if you'd like to be invited. I'm starting a list.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Heirlooms and a future

My mother is moving into an assisted living facility, so Dave & I went down to help prepare for the yard sale & finish getting her moved in. She'd gone from an 11 room house to a 4 room house without downsizing. When her mother died, Mom's sister had dutifully shipped up her 1/3 of the family heirlooms. So much of it was just going to have to go. Mom was moving into a 13x16 room and her children were well grown with houses full of their lifetime. Neither myself, nor my brothers, wanted the pickle forks, the single crystal salt cellar, the macrame doilies.

It was time to divvy up the family silver, but I needed five plate forks (no matching spoons or knives mind you, with, I might add, the name "Mary" engraved on them) added to my already full silverware drawer like I needed my grandmother's pink bathroom towels. We had fights about how to price everything from the Tupperware Salt & Peppers (vintage 1973) to the price of the rusted pick-axe found in the garage. The family Bible was overlooked, but found by a potential buyer in with the Earl Stanley Gardner paperbacks priced @ 25c. Hugging and laughing and kissing on Sunday, after the successful sale, it was time to pack up and go home after ten days of clearing out, packing, and selling the lifetimes of at least four women.

There are three items I consider my inheritance. One I received at my grandmother's death, the other two I was given last week. The first were twenty or so stories about growing up in Cuba before the Depression. She hand-wrote the stories and because I was the grandchild who asked, I received the originals. The second two items are my mother's and grandmother's recipes and books.

My grandmother's recipes are housed in this old index card holder



Which opens up to reveal a box full of mostly hand-written recipes. The earliest date I've found is 1938, but I haven't finished going through them.


The cards are hand-written, in a variety of hands. These pictures compare my mother's and her mother's. Mom rewrote her mother's notes. These were the first two cards of the index file. They're instructions as to what is a hot oven (450) and what is slow heat (250), what is a standard cup, 2 c = 1 pint, etc., the building blocks of sharing recipes. I'm going to add my 2 cards, rewriting the instructions.



This intimate gift has inspired me to begin a recipe club. What will come from this recipe club is not the printed out instructions you download from the internet, but a box of recipes, written by hand of food you note as "Delicious", or "Mother Anna (Lawton)"s Strawberry Jam, Hattie's Cranberry Jelly. It's food you cared enough to take the time, the effort to write down.

Here's how it's going to work. Meetings will be based around a full meal - appetizer, salads, drinks, entree, desserts, etc. Frankly, I've found a recipe for pickles. I think we need to relearn how to make a nice pickle. For the first go around, I'll ask you to bring one item under a single category. You'll bring your hand-made dish and a single hand-written recipe card to the "meeting." We sit down and eat. We'll swap the single hand-written recipe we brought, so all the recipes in the box won't be just in our hand, but in others' as well. After we've eaten, if you like a dish, you write recipe down on index cards.

I haven't gotten further in my planning than that. I can see where it would probably be best if there was some menu planning, as well as some plates, forks, and glasses. But I think I'll just try to set up a time and a location first. I'll send out invitations. Those who respond will be first given a "Please bring", but at the meeting, we could probably do more - possibly plan the actual menu?


I don't know the Helen Way who wrote this recipe out for Angel Pie below, but it seems like an intriguing recipe.


Here's the recipe:

Beat whites of 4 eggs until they stand in peaks. Add 1/4 t cream of tarter & beat in 1 c sugar. Sprinkle with 1 t vinegar & 1/2 t vanilla & beat a second longer. Now place mixture in buttered pie pan as smoothly as possible. Bake slowly 225 oven from 30-40, "when done remove from oven and cool slightly. Meringue will fall to form a pie crust. Now spread on 1/2 pt cream (whipped) to which sugar and sherry will have been added to taste. Grate over it Bakers bitter chocolate & let stand in refrigerator 6-12 hours.
_______
Much better if 1 t rum used in meringue in place of vinegar & rum in whipped cream & no sherry.

Helen Way

Friday, May 1, 2009

30 days


Finished - 30 pieces about Vietnam in 30 days. There was so much about that trip and I didn't do that much writing while I was there. I never do. I'm not even really good about taking pictures. I like experience.


Time to start working on the pictures again.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Nearing the end

of NaPoWriMo - National Poetry Writing Month. I've posted a pome a day. These are rough drafts, first thoughts, unedited scrawl. The theme was my trip to Vietnam. I don't leave them on the web for long periods of time after the initial work. So, read 'em while they're hot, because I will pull them off & there won't be any drafts left to read.

At that point, I begin my revision process. I might keep a line or two, a phrase. But first draft, for me, is about capturing the initial idea - like hewing a block of marble from the mountainside. It'll be through the editing process that something I would show a reader arises.

This link will be broken in the future, until then, my rough stuff (some pictures included)

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Pome A Day

If you don't see much activity here, that's because I'm attempting to write a pome a day. (I wish I had an alternate interest which would garner more than 5c a line)

I'm also working on the pictures from Hue. Anyone been there before?

Friday, March 27, 2009

White bread 'mericans

I just got off the phone with a friend who's from Shanghai. Now, he hasn't lived there since '91, so every time he goes home he gets sick too.

We 'mericans are wusses. At least, Dave, myself & my friend are. That said, some of my tests have come back & I'm not growing a 12 foot long tapeworm. More drama later on that front when there's something to say other than, "Erp!"

Here's more pictures of Ha Noi. They're the ones I thought most closely captured the cacaphony of life, of life lived with your front door as wide as a garage door & open to your neighbor's.

But we, as tourists, started from the top of Vietnam, literally & figuratively. Our trip began in Hanoi, the northernmost city, the capitol. We were on the 5th floor of our 6 story hotel - really quite tall for the district. The government is trying to preserve the Old Quarter, so the buildings are human scale. Then there was the fact of our relative wealth. But even as high up as we were, the sounds of life travelled.

It began at about 5am - a horn here, the sound of a motorbike there. Hanoi seems to get going about 6:30am. Milan, Rome - those are early rising cities - 5:30am; Paris - you couldn't find an open boulangerie before 7am, and forget about a cappuccino before 9am.

This is the view from our hotel's restaurant balcony. It's the best picture I've got which shows how narrow, but deep & tall the Vietnamese tube houses are. There's also a lot of use of covered balcony space to capture the breeze.



Hanoi has many tree-lined streets. The banyan trees can get huge.



I thought this picture below was good b/c it shows the height of the buildings. Shops open to the street on the first floor, first room. It also shows how hanging plants were used as sun screens across the front windows of the living area. These homes also have pretty deep balconies.



How dense the buildings are.


Color and sound. The 2nd red scooter in the back - the woman is wearing a face mask. The material seemed to be the same kind used for cloth diapers. In the north, these masks covered just the nose & mouth area & I thought it was to protect against the pollution. In the south, the mask became a head-dress, with a skirt which covered the decollatage & went around the back of the neck. I was later told that was to protect against the sun.



The older houses in Hanoi didn't have glass in the windows.


More shops & older tube houses. They also used hanging plants across the front of the windows to add shade & cut down the penetration of the sun.



Living with your neighbors & yes - that is a flower pot with flowers stuck into the branch of a banyon tree.


Old house & shop filled to the gills in the Old Quarter of Hanoi.






Take the quiet moment where it can be found:



One of the side streets in Hanoi. Private life is relative as it seems one is always being observed.

Also, note how clean the streets are. It was stunning really. As much as would be going on, the streets were cleaned each night & all throughout the day.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

I gave in

I ate two Peptos.

Things Which Go Bump In the Night

I've got a temp of 100.8. I've been eating Pepto Bismol since the end of February (I just made it 48 hours, not sure if that's a "good thing." My husband got a nasty infection and my dog died. It hasn't been a good month.

I've started planning next year's trip - Bangkok & Angkor Wat in Cambodia. I'm ticked I missed those places.

funeral procession through the streets of Hanoi

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

It's great to be able to drink the water again

Wish me luck. I'm working on 30 hours of no Pepto Bismol. Last time the stomach cramps hit, but it could have been something I ate.

The "complimentary" bottled waters in the hotel bathrooms - those are for brushing your teeth, not for rehydration.

Right is left except those times when right is righ

In Hanoi, someone placed the location of our hotel, the Quoc Hoa, on the wrong side of one of the maps.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Street Scenes & Cabling

I work in telecommunications, which means I work with wires and cables and cabling. Cable management & dressing cable - these are to cabling what hair dressing is to heads of hair. My abilities with dressing cable tapped the same vein of talent I have with styling my hair.

I've never been accused of having a good hair day.



Street scene from the Old Quarter in Hanoi.

Those of you who work with cable management, wiring, data centers, networks, or even just have tried to connect a VCR, a DVD player, a stereo & a TV together play "Trace the Cable" with me. These are scenes from various parts of Vietnam. Not being the world's greatest photographer, I don't always get the focus exactly right, but hopefully they can give you a sense of how out of control the phone, TV, power & whatever else cabling was in the urban areas of Vietnam. It looked like I'd been cabling their network.

Sometimes the cable was draped so low I could touch the bottom cables just by walking under them.










Dead cables were oftentimes just cut and left hanging down in the middle of a sidewalk.














The smiling woman below was a fantastic, wonderful guide Thinh Le (in Vietnamese it would be Le Thi Thinh). Email me for her contact info if you're looking for someone who will take you out to eat fabulous bun cha or pho.

This is the remaining gate in Hanoi's original wall surrounding the city.

div>
But basically, cabling more than graffiti defaced some tremendously beautiful, or historical architectural details.














This is a temple down the street from our hotel in Hanoi.


















Cables hanging from all the windows of all the apartments in a building in Sai Gon.














Cable being moved from one location to another - they loop it & then hang it off of a guy on a motorbike.















Finally - one of The Most Popular mobile phone contenders. I swear they were on every street corner.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Come 'n Git It - While You Can

Dave's already said not to do this, but this is what a blog is about: showing & telling. Since the infection consumed such a large portion of our attention, I might as well just get it out of the way and then we're done talking about it.

I've got 1600 pictures from the trip to Vietnam, of which 12 might be worth viewing. I don't really know. I'm just beginning to work on them. But before we get to any of the scenic photos & the promised write-ups, etc. of travel in Vietnam, let's just get the infection photos out of the way. I'm not even going to post any of the hospital photos because the only good one, the one which shows how blue was the blue in the Blue Hospital Room, he's got his eyes closed & it looks like he's just in his underwear.

Once this is out of the way, I am moving on to the more traditional aspects of travel blogging.



This photograph was from March 9th, the day before he was hospitalized. Remember, this started as a "pimple" on the top part of his leg March 4th. By March 9th, his thigh was swollen to twice its original size.



Now Dave has just called from the bed, "Are you posting in the blog, Andrea?"

"Yes." (I tell no lies even if I tell no truths)

"Are you posting the pictures of the infection?" (insert groans which can be heard across the room)

And you all know the answer to that one. Gotta love him, don't cha?





Saturday, March 21, 2009

We're home

We made it home last night on the same Taipei-Seattle flight we'd planned on. David's wound looks pretty good. It's still open. We're going to get it checked out today through Group Health, now that we can actually contact them. One of my unposted blog rants was the inadequancy of Group Health's contact means when one is travelling internationally. More on that rant later. Bottom line, Group Health does not have a readily accessible direct means of contacting them when you're out of the U.S.


Dave was taken off of IV antibiotics on the morning of Thursday, March 19th. Yes, that was two days ago. He was let out of the hospital after 3 or 4 days in, but had to be hooked up to IVs 2x a day for drips & wound cleaning which lasted 3 or 4 hours each time. It turns out that something like 8 out of 12 strains of bacteria were resistent to the antibiotics he'd been given, so they changed their IV drip around the 12th or 13th. Then the clean up really began. We'd go in for his morning IVs & dressing change / wound care, then head out & explore Saigon and he'd go back to the hospital in the evening for more drips. I did a variety of things waiting for him. Blogging was obviously NOT one of them.

He was released for travel last Monday, however, it was actually cheaper for us to simply change our booked flights & upgrade the Taipei Seattle return flight home than to use the travel insurance evacuation. I would have had to pay for a whole new ticket. I was not included in Dave's medical evacuation according to the insurance.

Basically, once the insurance dust is settled, there will be a "What I Learned About Travel Insurance - the Hard Way & While in a Third World Country". Bottom line: Always ensure you have $$ on your credit card to pay for hospitalization and return flights. Neither Group Health or the Travel Insurance would guarantee payment to the hospital, so Dave & I paid the whole bill out of pocket. And, as I mentioned before, travelling companions may not be "medically necessary" to travel with the evacuee and so have to be able to come up with the $$ to cover either their own new return ticket, or continue the trip sans the evacuee.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

oozing pus now

The surgeon "opened" up the wound yesterday evening. He made a small incision, then took foreceps & moved it around the wound area. It appeared to be separating the skin layers from the muscle. He squeezed out pus. Then, then packed Dave with about 6 inches of gauze. When I talked to Dave this morning, he said it had actually drained quite a bit. I haven't gotten to the hospital this morning.

He's getting really frustrated lying in bed. If he was feverish, unconscious, feeling ill - that would be one thing. But he's in better shape than he was in Hoi An, or even Hue (2nd day). He's also frustrated to be in such an amazing city like Saigon, Vietnam & all he's seen of it is The Blue Room (pictures later).

My wonderful tour contact - Mr. Quoc Minh, of Exotissimo rode me through the streets of Saigon on a motorbike. I was one of the raindrops! After all the landline problems of yesterday I decided to buy a mobile phone. It cost less than the phone bill for all the connected calls who couldn't hear me yesterday.

I called Quoc up yesterday asking to get a guide's help in buying a phone. He offered to come pick me up & help me buy one instead. It was so much fun being one of the hoarde. We rode to a store which specializes in mobile phones. I swami, they had about every brand out there. I picked my Nokia up for less than I paid for dinner. I guess it might have been around $30 or so. I got 150 minutes with that as well. I think. That, or the $9 minute card bought me 150 minutes. I'm not quite sure. I've been going up to Vietnamese people & asking them what things mean. Registration, though, was in English. Email me if you want my number.

Quoc's taken good care of me during this time. I haven't had to worry about accommodations or other arrangements. Here's a BIG KISS to Mr. Quoc Minh of Exotissimo & a "Tell All My Friends" about this agency. It's been amazing.

Ate dinner at The Refinery again last night. One thing Dave & I have learned about travel is that it can be tiring always trying new things. Especially at the end of trips, if we find a restaurant we're comfortable with, we simply go there for our meals instead of trying to go to the Next New One. I'm at that stage now. Beautiful little place with limewashed stucco walls, there's a huge round pass through area. I'd sit outside but I'm tired of sweating, so I go in. The waiters recognized me after night before last. Things like that, plus good wine & the availability of at least a 12 year Glenfiddich, make a restaurant a place to return to when one is tired. It's located in a courtyard. Address is 74 Hai Ba Trung in Q1. You have to walk through what looks to be a terrifying garage entrance, but which is really the entrance to the courtyard it shares with what looks to be two other restaurants.

I'm walking in Saigon alone at 10pm - no problem. It's balmy and loud. They've torn up the sidewalks. What's left of those are filled with parked scooters. Mostly people smile back as I pass by. There's some shops with incredibly detailed wooden ships. I'll take pictures, but Fraser will have to identify the types of ships these people are modelling. They've got sails and lines. How's that for technical detail.

-a

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Okay, next time we bring a mobile phone

Well, since Dave is doing better, time for an amusing antecdote. It's a good thing I'm an older single woman wandering the streets of HCMC instead of an older, single man. Dave wandered the streets of Hue by himself the first night in b/c I'd crashed after no sleep the night before in Halong Bay. He told me he'd been propositioned as to his need for a woman, pot, and heroin, but stalwart fellow that he is, he assured me he turned them all down. He said it was downright unsafe for a guy to walk unattended because so many people came up to him asking to service various needs.

I walked around the block by myself here in Saigon & only "saw" what was being offered. The fine art gallery changed from abstract street scenes to full representational nudes of lovely, lovely young women. I wouldn't have been able to compete even when I was 24. This street, Thi Sach, had a few more store fronts open in the evening than in the day. The women are comely here. I hope they're unionized, have a pension & access to adequate medical care.

The land line network here is having troubles with one-way audio into the U.S. I can hear the far end just fine, but they can't hear us here in Vietnam. One receptionist at the hospital moved around like she was trying to pick up a good signal. Uh, no. It's wired up. Calls from the U.S. to Vietnam don't seem to be experiencing the same problem, just out-going from here. Mobile phones are making it through. I was able to call Italy via the land-line, no problem. U.S. lines, though, were intermittent & now, I can't get a line through.

I ate dinner at a little restaurant around the corner from here - The Refinery. It might have aspirations towards the French side of things, but the wine was from Australia. Tasty - finally. Lots of fruit in the bouquet. Had it with some fried sole with home made tartar sauce. The sauce was on the mustardy side. Dave, on the other hand, had lasagna at the hospital. They order in. heh. It was good. Their mozzarella was outstanding in the mozzarella & tomato salad.

I'm moving to the Sao Hotel (aka Star Hotel) tomorrow. I'm emailing the phone number - let me know if you need it.

-a

Dave's better and I'm no longer out of my mind

The doctor had originally thought 5 days of hospitalization. He's now saying all day tomorrow & then outpatient for two, maybe three days. We plan on travelling back to Seattle as soon as the doctor feels comfortable with him flying.

The swelling is almost down. The redness has dropped back to a light pink. It had encompassed nearly the entirety of his right thigh and had begun to travel past his groin yesterday. There is still discharge, but not nearly the same amount. The antibiotics are working - this time. he's on an IV drip for the medications / antibiotics. His blood sugar is elevated, but the doctors are monitoring. It's not actually out of range for his "norm" when not on medications. According to Patsy (sister-in-law who's a 20+year veteran nurse), that's to be expected during infection. So far they haven't talked shooting him up with insulin to drop it, they're just keeping him on meds & monitoring. The traveller's support we have through our insurance is coordinating care.

We'd been to two other doctors before we got to Saigon - one in Hue and another in Hoi An. Dave had been given several regimens of antibiotics & the infection didn't respond to any of them.

Tonight I am at the May Hotel. Tomorrow I move to the Star Hotel, I don't have a phone number yet.

Current plans are that he remain in the hospital today, tomorrow & then begin outpatient treament on the 13th, continuing the 14th. We're hoping to fly home to Seattle the next day, but that is completely based on whether the doctor feels he's ready for the international flight.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Dave's hospitalized

We're in Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City. Dave's small little boil has encompassed his right thigh. The doctors in Hue & Hoi An... The promised reduction in infection never occurred. It kept growing. The travel insurance help people put us in touch with the Family Medical Practice (a private clinic / hospital in Saigon). I'm in the May hotel in Saigon - at least for the next two days.

He's going to be on antibiotic drip for at least the next 5 days as of this writing. Yes, we've been having adventures even while this thing has been happening. I'm just not ready to post the happy stuff at the moment. I haven't since Hue. I've just kept looking at this infection grow. Everything after Saigon has been cancelled at this point - at least I'm not having to negotiate a Visa extension at the moment.

Exotissimo - GREAT travel agents! The gentleman, Mr. Quoc Minh, who made (& subsequently has cancelled) all of our travel arrangements is taking care of my hotel needs and has found where I can make international phone calls at airports. Their guides & drivers have been extraordinary. They've been tremendous fun & a lot of support & help - with pharmacies, calling doctors, updating Exotissimo as to where we were, taking care of lost reservations. I can't recommend Exotissimo enough for the quality of people they've brought into this play Dave & I are going to give a name to. Maybe we should start a contest, "Name This Vacation."

Friday, March 6, 2009

March 7th

Dave was hot last night, but seems cooler this morning. I drew a circle around the infection site last night. It looks less red this morning, but seems to have spread. Our driver should arrive to take us to Hoi An in the next 30 minutes.

March 6th - cyclo through the countryside

I didn't bring our cyclo driver's name with me to make this post, but I'll post later. I love the cyclo. Of course, the two of us do not fit in a single cyclo, so pricing is always per cyclo per person. A cyclo is basically a seat pushed by a many on a bicycle / tricycle. These things navigate through five-way intersections along with buses, trucks, and the motorbikes. The cyclo is a little bit faster than a walk, but not much. It's a chance to cover distance & still see, smell, and hear the world around you.

Our cyclo driver agreed to a full day. They're taking us out to the far tombs. We cycle through villages with roads the size of a sidewalk. These are villages in what remains of the rain forest, among the paddies. We see the banana plantations, the chickens with their chicks, the dogs, the babies, the hills surrounding Hue. It's misty & rainy, which keeps us cool.

Dave's leg is infected. It's covering half the front left thigh. We call for a doctor. He's on antibiotics. Tomorrow we leave for Hoi An.

March 5th - My 48th Birthday

We were sick in Hue. Got colds. Our hotel room is pink & has a heart on the door. It's a comfortable bed, but it's in a pink room. It has a jacuzzi, but we're feeling too ill to do more than shower.

We find another pharmacy. Get some Ameriflu - decongestant, cough suppressant, cough expectorant, fever reducer, non-drowsy, grow wings & fly like a pig medication. We go back to bed & sleep for 4 hours.

Took a cyclo to the citadel & the forbidden city. Hue - the city of the Tet offensive. Amazing city by the river. So much is still here that I think many friends would recognize. I hope the pictures turn out.

Dave had a leg hair which created a small pimple. He's wearing shorts. His leg is irritated.

March 4th - it's still raining so we're still in Halong Bay

I did wade for a moment in the south China Sea yesterday - up to my knees. There was a terrible dog fight between 3 dogs on the beach they dropped us off at. I forwent the opportunity to go to the fishing village yesterday or climb through the cave today. I hate travelling in crowds & took the opportunity to be on the quiet boat & watch the flying fish. It was really the only time I saw birds - starlings out at dusk eating the insects.

We drove back into Hanoi. Thinh, our guide, stopped by a "pharmacy" and got us some antihistimines for my allergies which seemed to have kicked up. The pharmacy is in worse shape than many of the shops I've seen in the Old Quarter - a jumble of boxes & medications. They open the boxes, read the directions & point at my nose. These are not trained pharmacists. The baby is crawling around on the counter. More on medications & pharmacies later.

The Hanoi airport - internal departures gates / lounge is packed with people. The bar is a jumble of empty bottles of Johnny Walker & Hennessey. I order a drink. All they have left is Hennessey. I order a Hennessey - do I want a large or small. I start paying attention. They're washing glasses in a plastic tub on the bar counter. We're waiting on the bar stools - hoping that one of the comfortable chair / couches opens up. They announce the Saigon flight is boarding. The place clears. We take a couch.

A middle aged woman brings a spit of brownish liquid up in a cognac glass along with a water for Dave. I ask how much. She says 150,000 Vietnames Dong. We pay. The cognac is watered down, as in "I taste more water than cognac" watered down. Even Dave can take a swig. We ask to look at a menu from another person's table. The Hennessey was only 50,000 VD & the water was 20,000. We won't ask the "waitress" for "help" for the rest of the waiting. At least when I go pick up a beer and only have 20,000 dong for the 15,000 beer, the bartender offers me a bag of potato chips to compensate for the lack of any change coming. I tell her to keep the potato chips.

Our flight is to Hue, not DaNang like I've been thinking all day long. It's packed. There are only4 Vietnamese people. The rest are German, French, Swiss, Italian, Spanish, American, British, Australian, and if I've left a nationality out - I apologize.

March 3rd - if it's raining we must have arrived in Halong Bay

The "junk" was lovely. Only 10 cabins and no day trippers. There's 400 licensed junks to ride around in Halong Bay. Some of them carry more than 20 cabins + daytrippers. Not the Halong Ginger. We got one of the Deluxe Rooms - a room with a queen size bed. Our window opened up to right over the water. The karst formations were amazing. It was foggy & very romantic in a drippy sort of nose way.

Was up all night - couldn't sleep. I hadn't set the ac right, then I started sneezing, congestion... I'm going down down down

March 1st - I think

I'm doing quickie posts - reverse date because too much time has passed & I'm forgetting things. It's been a week, I see, from my last post. Connections in Hanoi were "difficult". The internet "shop" was the bottom floor of one of the Hanoi tube houses. The keyboards were scary, at the last.

During one of these days, either the first or the 2nd, we were taken on what was supposed to be a half day outing to a pagoda. It was a Monday. We went to a silk factory first, then the pagoda. The silk factory still had some of the original looms set up & working - looms operating off of cardboard key codes - the original computer program! You know I was so into how the 1s & zeroes created the beautiful patterns. Pictures of the mechanism to follow.

The pagoda - I don't even remember its name.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Cyclo Drivers - 2, Andrea&Dave - 0

We missed seeing Uncle Ho's body. We were going there first thing this morning. Out of the door, at the complex, before 8am and the crowds. We got in the wrong line and didn't check out the title on the tickets - Ho Chi Minh Museum - not Mausoleum. We should have pointed to the picture in the book, not just walked around saying, "Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh." But I'm jumping ahead now. I've missed two full days and one instance of "too tired to go out at night".

It's Saturday, 3:30 pm here. On Thursday we went to the "village" of Bat Trang. Bat Trang village has been eaten by the export shops. We walked down one little alley area and watched someone pour the slurry into molds. More interestingly, we got to meet two families which make the ceramics. Our guide, Thin, actually knew them. Apparently she, a brother and her sister-in-law had worked with them at one time. One family created pieces for internal use, another family made work for export.

During the purchase process, they served us green tea, we played with the baby, and they prepared and served me an areca nut wrapped in a betel leaf. This is what makes for those fantastic pictures of the smiling old woman with the black mouth & red lips. I bit down and the nut broke apart into a woody mass. It was a peppery taste, but I didn't want to swallow. I also didn't want to spit it out on their floor. The whole family - grandmother, husband, sisters, brothers, babies, just about died laughing. I was smiling a bit too hard and worried about drool. Luckily, there was a garbage can near by. I spit out the mass into my hand (because I dont' spit very far or very well). My spit was red, which meant I'd just made my hand & fingers red. (I always carry wipes with me when I travel, so "tragedy" was averted.

Bat Trang is down the road from Hanoi, so we actually made it out of town. The "highway" was actually wider than those we'd driven in Croatia or in the Italian alps. That said, there were more bicycles, farm stands, people walking, cows, and motorbikes than cars. The paved portion of the road was actually quite narrow - the sides eaten away into potholes and dirt. The driving was slow and comfortable. It's the dry season here. The Red river is down, and people have moved into temporary shelters to plant in the alluvial soil that's bared during this time. When the rains come, the fields will be covered and they'll move on. There's no houses allowed to be built in this planting area, however these temporary shelters exist so that people can guard their plantings. Apparently agricultural theft is common.

The temperature's dropped down to the 70's. It's been grey every day here. We did see some blue sky yestrday, but we could hear someone yell "Fake!" Good thing too because this humidity is curling my hair. There's quite a few tourists here - Indians, Germans, French, English, Australian. We all seem to be walking with a glazed look across our face, ignoring each other, as we all wander through the Old Quarter eating at the same twelve restaurants recommended by Lonely Planet. Dave & I haven't braved sitting down at one of the street vendors, but we're not the only chickens.

Yesterday, Friday, we had our cooking class. It was really quite the surprise for us. We didn't understand what we'd signed up for. It started out with Thinh and our driver picking us up at the hotel & taking us to La Verticale. There we met Didier Corlou, the chef and owner. He'd been head chef at the Sofitel Metropole before he opened up his own restaurant. I'd heard about him from the Food Network. Dave (yes, my Dave) took to him right away. The man collects spices, has a 15 year old Nuoc mam. He let us sniff his tumeric and taste his 5 spice. He took us shopping at the December 19 market (no the fat lady in the cyclo isn't me - startling resemblance though ain't it?). There we wandered the stalls while he spoke about the variety of spices and herbs in Vietnam. Dave & he talked about different kinds of preparation. We watched catfish being clubbed, squid being cleaned, ofal separated. He's interested in preparing all parts of the animal for consumption. Alot of this he learned from his wife, Mia, who's Vietnamese. She'd dropped us off & then picked us up. It was with her that we had the cooking class.

She took us back to their house. Again, we left Hanoi and crossed the Red River. This time we stopped at a "suburb" just out of Hanoi. Behind high walls, their home was the ideal of a tropical house. The first floor was one great room with huge glass doors & windows which would open up to capture the breeze. After that was a small courtyard with two different kinds of alcove and an oven. This cooking "wall" was made out of brick Both alcoves were vented with chimneys. We came to find that the one alcove which had a shelf at waist height was there to take a charcoal brazier. The other one opened up for even more cooking surface. Behind this, they had their catering kitchen. The catering kitchen had a roof and monster / professional cook stoves & wok burner & baker's area, but they weren't enclosed with walls on all sides, they were open to the air in traditional Vietnamese kitchen style. Makes a lot of sense when it's 90 degrees in February.

Mia took us through the steps to prepare what we'd been eating on the streets - bun cha with nem - the grilled pork meatballs in a sauce along with fried eggrolls. We also made a chicken wrapped in lemon leaves. The whole cooking process was very well organized, enjoyable to watch & participate in with tasty results. Yes, we brought the recipes home with us. And if you're good little girls & boys we'll prepare some for you when we get home.

The hour is up. It's time to go. No pictures due to slow connection speeds to U.S. sites.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Hanoi

is a city the way cities were meant to be: they eat strangers. It smells of charcoal and burning money. We walk in the streets with the mopeds, buses and cars now. It's amazingly clean even while women hack the nails off of pigs' feet and eels squirm in their plastic bowls. Hanoi howls and honks. It's life lived on the sidewalk. The bolts of silk and bags of buttons, zippers, sheet metal furnaces, steel pipe, silk lanterns, wrapped reams of paper, embossed invitations, candy offerings formed like flowers, three foot talk candles, all spill out onto the sidewalk. There are no lines to draw or drive between here. It's woven movement. There's chicken soup and there's charcoal braziers. Roosters run beneath the grills. You look into a doorway and see someone's bed. The brick pavement has collapsed into holes, or heaved itself with the roots of the banyan tree. There's cigarette smoke and incense. They paint their gods blue here.

We arrived here on Tuesday afternoon just fine. Our guide, Thinh Thi Le, met us at the airport. Seattle to Taipei was a 13 hour flight, then we had a 3 hour lay over. We have pictures of the Taipei airport, including the "Hello Kitty" gate. The drive into the city was uneventful, until we hit the Old Quarter. The traffic is stunning. No one stops at the red light to wait for the green in this district. Mopeds come at you down "one-way" streets. Everyone merges on a right had turn.

After we unpacked, we decided to go for a small walk to find a restaurant recommended by everyone & the guide-books. It was supposed to be "right" out of the hotel, then take a left. We found the restaurant four clover-leaf's later. We walked for nearly two hours to make the four blocks it should have taken us. The streets change their names from one shop to the next. We decided to try to follow the map, again, back to the hotel before it got dark. We should have left bread crumbs for all the good the map did us. We wandered the streets parallel & perpidicular to the one which has our hotel on it. We walked back to the restaurant for fried fish. It only took half -again the time this third trip. After dinner, we knew to keep walking when we passed the hardware street. You can build a house with what you find on the sidewalk.

We've begun to take pictures of our food, but this first night we forgot. We had the fried fish at Cha ca La Vong. They have little hot plates set at the tables. The front part of the restaurant, the part straight off the side walk, is where you pull your motorbike in. That's also where they keep their coolers. The restaurant has its whole front wall made out of glass, but this isn't a glamorous joint, it's to keep the air conditioning in. There were a few tables. We sat down at one next across from a family of six. They brought out a small skillet with the fish. They brought out a bowl of dill, a bowl of onion & cilantro, a plate of rice vermicelli, one of peanuts, one of thai peppers and a bowl of dipping sauce. They heated the skillet with the fish & oil & then placed a goodly amount in with the fish. In an empty bowl, you place a good grab of vermicelli, then put some of the onion & cilantro, peanuts, & pepper in it. Then you grab the cooked dill & fish & put that in the bowl. Then you pour the sauce over all. We don't know what the sauce was made of, but it was grey & had a frothy skin of some kind of on the top. It was more on the sweet than on the savory side. This is the only dish they serve at Cha Ca La Vong. Tast-eeee...

We walked back to the hotel through a dark Hanoi. Light flickers red because of the charcoal braziers at night on the street. I walked back to the hotel in a daze, holding on to David for balance I was so tired. There's no even pavement, or if you think there is, the next step will prove you wrong, or you run out of sidewalk & have to walk back into the street.

Yesterday Thinh took us for a walking tour through the old quarters. Once Dave & I figure out how to hook up the usb to the camera we'll try to upload pictures - or maybe those will just have to wait until we get back. We walked through the markets with someone who knew how to find our way home. We gave in to the smells, the sights, everything which was strange. We ate sugar cane from a woman who hacked the bark off with a ancient steel cleaver. The cleaver didn't gleam, it was black and she wielded it in sure strokes down the stem. Then when the stem was bare, she started shearing it into sections - her fingernails were black, but her fingers knew exactly how to move across the branch. She split the sections into half. I ate my first cane and it was clean and only a little sweet. It killed my thirst without sticking to my throat.

Thinh took us for Bun Cha - a specialty of Hanoi. This is pork grilled over one of the charcoal braziers. We walked up stairs to the private quarters of the family. Additional tables had been added, but they cleared the family table for us. Dave got pictures of this meal. It starts out like a bowl of pho with plates of vegetables around. You put your pork in the broth, add the vermicelli, a little bit of fish sauce, et viola - bun cha! Amazing pork. We've never had anything like this. I think it was marinated for at least a year it was so tender. The broth was dark and rich without being thick. It had a generous amount of pepper.

Dinner was at au Lac in the French Quarter. We took cyclos across the town - $3 and the fat lady sang. It was the perfect pace, but yes, we were riding in the front of a bicycle through metropolitan traffic. Remember: red lights do not mean "stop," they mean - get the hell merged before the bus eats the bicycle. We tapped the bus once or twice. Motorbikes flew around us like raindrops down a windshield. Hanoi is a beautiful city at night.

Pictures next time - hopefully!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Things Which Go Wrong Before and During "The Dream Trip"

Day 3 of the 5 week vacation in Italy - I sneezed & I couldn't straighten up.
head colds
sinus infections
blisters
popped ear drums b/c of aforesaid head colds while driving through the Italian alps as well as from descending airplanes after other passengers spritzed a fresh layer perfume over their otherwise travel-stinked body.
sore legs & thighs
vomiting (projectile & otherwise)
traveler's trots (including the explosive kind)

This time:

Friday evening our dog, Honey, climbed the stairs to the office. I was finishing up work. Dave had come home & was checking stuff on-line. Thirty minutes later, she's trying to stand up, but can't get out of a sitting position. Her head is canting to the left. Then her left front leg jerks up like she's going for a hand shake. Her rear right leg splays out from under her. She can't walk. We think she's having a stroke.

We took her to the emergency vet. There's a name for it, but "dizzy dog" is a simple name for something which apparently is like losing your inner ear balance. She actually spazzed out with so much force she flipped herself over. Her legs go everywhere and her head continues to twitch her to left. She won't drink, hasn't drunk since Friday. She won't eat. She's 16 1/2. She's older than our nephews.

We're headed back to the vet.


Saturday, February 21, 2009

Where in the world do you want to go?

What do you want to do when you get there?


    What do you expect to see?


Do you want to be in a crowd of people, or do you want to walk the streets by yourself?





Will you stop in cafes & eat or drink, or is your destination more remote than that, or are you a volksmarcher!





What's the most exotic spot you've ever been to? Did you find it tame, or exciting?


Do you like being able to read and understand the menu?



    Do you enjoy driving? Riding trains? Flying in red balloons? What's the setting of your favorite tv show or book?




What strange thing, or sight, would you like to see with your own two eyes? Or smell with your own nose? What about sounds? What would you like to hear?



How does the word "pilgrimage" make you feel?


    Have you ever been bored while traveling? What are your complaints about while traveling?

Do you want to sleep in the same bed every night?


Do you like meeting new people, or not?


How long would you like to stay? Not, how long can you stay, but how long would make you just a little bit homesick?
You have lots of reasons why you can't travel: kids, money, time. What's to stop you from reading, researching, planning, budgeting, thinking about how you could make it work for you?


How many times have you traveled to the same place? What are the characteristics which make you return again and again? Is it because of obligation or love? If it's love, what other place in the world would have similar characteristics?

Leave the name of a place you'd like to visit, a budget, and an obstacle you've got to visiting it.