I forgot I had a few additional photos on my iPhone:
Gotta love that nightly rate:
If you’ve ever smelled durian (sao rieng), you understand why it’s banned from the taxis in Singapore:
My strange dessert at the hawker center in Singapore:
Sometimes these weird desserts are good – like I have a strange affinity for green tea ice cream mixed with red bean paste (!), but this one was terrible. I could barely eat it. Of course Thao liked it.
That’s it.
Here’s a video of the dreaded aloo lurking around the fish pond:
[From what I can tell online, the aloo is some type of monitor lizard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_lizard]
Vietnam’s national soccer team beat Thailand to win the Suzuki Cup last night – apparently the first time Vietnam has ever won it and Thailand had been big favorites to win, etc., etc. Anyway, for about 5 hours after the game last night, this is what was going on in the streets:
I think the technical term for this is either “wildin’ out” or “going apeshit.” It was so loud with all of the honking, beating of drums, banging on pots and pans, etc., that I had to turn on my white noise generator (actually an app on my iPhone) to drown out the noise so I could sleep. And that was at about 12:30am.
Anyway, go Vietnam!
My friend Sharla brought Roberto Bolano’s book 2666 – actually a 3-volume set – to me when she was here a couple of weeks ago. I finished it on our trip to Bali and I have to say that it is incredible. Very heavy subject matter – loosely (except for book 2) related to the unsolved murders of literally hundreds of women in and around the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez – so maybe not for everyone. But just brilliant. For anyone whose read and liked some/most of the other books I’ve mentioned on this blog, I highly recommend 2666.
After that, I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Also very good. Also somewhat dark – but nowhere near as dark as 2666. Won the Pulitzer and I can understand why. Funny and tragic at the same time. And if you like it, I also recommend The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa – a lot less funny and more tragic, but about the same subject matter: the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
We’re back from our trip – got back about 5:30 this afternoon. We had a great trip, but were both beat when we got back. Thao headed home to her place and I am about to go to bed myself as soon as I finish this post. Here are some photos and commentary:
Thao in the Singapore airport on our way to Bali:
We had a few hours to kill on our layover in Singapore, so we took a cab into the city and ate lunch at a Hawker Center – kind of like a food court with all different kinds of food in one location. Apparently they are famous in Singapore.
Checking out the beach behind our hotel in Bali:
Some Vietnamese-style posing:
After dinner on Christmas eve, we went to the lobby of our hotel to hear an Indonesian choir singing Christmas carols. Most of the seats were taken, but there was this one big wooden chair in front of the Christmas tree that was still empty, so I sat in that and Thao sat on my lap:
[Note the big purple saurian looming over my right shoulder.]
Anyway, after we sat there for a few minutes, a woman came up with an Indonesian Santa Claus in tow and asked me “Can Santa have his seat?” We had no idea we were sitting in Santa’s seat!
The beach behind our hotel was nice, but there were no waves. There is a reef kind of far out, and you could see the waves breaking out there, but it was like a pool up on the beach where we were:
Thao loved it. I was kind of bored by it after a while.
Our hotel:
Thao at Kuta Beach on Christmas day:
We stopped for cocktails – I had a margarita and Thao had a sex on the beach:
You may want to get any kids out of the room before you look at these next pictures, because they give you a good indication of what was going on in our bedroom:
Poor Thao still hasn’t figured out my trick with the mirror in the background:
You can’t really make out these photos very well because it was dark when I took them, but this is some type of Komodo Dragon lizard-ish thing that lived around the lily pond where we had breakfast every morning. Earlier that day we had seen him snatch a pretty good-sized fish (photos of the fish are below) out of the pond and drag it off into the bushes. We asked the Indonesians what it was called, and they said an “aloo”. The words for be careful in Indonesian are “hati hati” so for the rest of our trip we would tell each other to hati hati aloo. I’ve got a video of him stalking around the pond that I’ll put up later:
At happy hour:
At breakfast the next morning – my favorite Indonesian fruit called a “salat” – I have no idea if the spelling is correct but that’s how it sounded. You peel the scaly skin off and inside is a yellow fruit that is delicious – I don’t know what to compare it to:
The Aloo’s lair:
Aloo bait:
Seeing if my new palm-print shirt works as camouflage:
On our balcony:
Somebody’s going to get hurt:
Back to the beach:
My other tropical print shirt:
The best dessert I’ve ever eaten:
Checking out:
Our last meal in Bali at a seafood restaurant on the beach:
Having a sushi lunch in Singapore:
Messing with Thao’s swimming cap:
At our hotel in Singapore:
Out to dinner – our last dinner of our trip:
Thao’s first ride ever on a subway or train:
Ol’ Sembawang:
That’s all I’ve got.
We got to Singapore last night – and so far I would say you can keep it. It feels very sanitized after Bali – and especially after living in Vietnam. It is too crowded. Saigon is obviously crowded too, but this is a different kind of crowded. Not as interesting – kind of like being in a big outdoor shopping mall or something. Just doesn’t feel very authentic. Granted we haven’t done much but walk around downtown, some shopping, and eaten lunch, but both Thao and I wish we had stayed in Bali a couple of extra days instead of coming to Singapore. Oh well, now we know.
Our hotel is extremely nice though. Thao wins on this trip, as the resort in Bali and the hotel here have both been great. I am sure that I will be spoiled after this – I don’t stay in too many nice hotels like this when it’s on my own dime.
That’s it. We’re off to go swimming then out to dinner. Tomorrow to the zoo/aquarium (we think), then fly back to Vietnam tomorrow afternoon.
Peace out.
Hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas! We made it to Bali no problem and are having a great time. The resort is incredible and it’s beautiful here. About 90 degrees. Maybe more. So doesn’t feel like Christmas, but it’s nice. We have been chillin’ at the resort so far, but are about to take a taxi to Kuta – the nearest big city – to do some shopping, etc. Internet access at the hotel is very expensive – we’re at an internet cafe down the street now – so no photos, etc., until we get back to Vietnam. Take care and Merry Christmas!
Tomorrow’s the day. Thao and Dr. Dre and I will be chillin’ in Indonesia, bus stop full of fly beeyotches and skeezers.
We fly from HCMC to Singapore tomorrow morning at 9:20am. Have about a 7-hour layover in Singapore. Neither of us have ever been there so we’re going to take a train/taxi/etc. into the city from the airport, have lunch, and look around. We get into Bali late tomorrow night – I think around midnight. We have all day the 24th, 25th, and 26th there, then fly back to Singpore late on the 26th and spend the nights of the 26th and 27th there, flying back to HCMC on the 28th. We can’t wait!
I’m taking my laptop and will try to blog from Bali. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc.
[I think the above title will ensure that this post becomes my most heavily trafficked to date - so far (to my neverending bafflement) it's been the post about Vietnamese lessons, noodling catfish, and rednecks.]
I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without posting something on the blog. The longer I wait, the less inclined I am to want to post – kind of like exercise.
Speaking of which, I have started exercising regularly again – not sure what was going on with me in that regard for a while there. But it’s gotten to the point where people have started asking me if I’ve lost some weight.
Thao and I leave for Bali a week for tomorrow. I went and bought the Lonely Planet for Bali, but other than that haven’t really done anything to prepare. My friend Tim stayed in the same Hyatt resort there before and said it’s so nice that we probably won’t want to even leave the resort. We’ll see. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll try to use the trip as a reason to post more photos, etc.
No real news here. Everything is great. The semester is continuing to go well. Still studying VNese.
Oh, yesterday my friend Melissa’s friend Alison was in Saidon and Thao and I spent most of the day hanging out with her. It was fun – we just knocked around Saigon, ate some good food, etc. Alison was brave enough to ride on the back of a xe om motorbike taxi. We will try to have dinner with her again while she’s here. But she’s here on business and probably has a pretty busy schedule already.
That’s all I got. Like I said – lamest blogger ever.
