Okay, part the second re our trip to Bao Loc and Da Lat last weekend.

Da Lat is a very agricultural region – they grow tons of flowers and vegetables in fields and greenhouses all around the city. Here’s a shot as we rode motorbikes out from the city to Lang Biang mountain:

Thao ready to load up in the jeep to take us to the top of the mountain. I don’t think anyone will be able to see her in that pink camouflage:

Tourists (yes that’s me there on the left – you can always tell by the arms akimbo, chest bowed up, and bowlegs – I have no idea why that’s my standard photo pose, but there you go):

Going up the mountain through the pine forest – that photo is taken from inside the jeep looking out the back window:

From the top:

Chillin’?

Yep, chillin’.

Thao attacks me:

I strike back:

Posing with Co Phuc:

Thao in her safari hat in the cafe on the top of the mountain:

My friend the cat – that cat was so friendly. He/she just came up and jumped up into my lap:

Thao (looking strangely somber), me, cat:

Thao attempts to choke this fake duck to death:

Thao likes to take all of the standard Vietnamese-style photos, which involve standing next/on/near/behind every single plant/tree/rock/bench/etc. you come across and having your picture made. This old drunk gardener who worked in the park on the top of the mountain started showing us where the “good spots” to have our photos made were and insisting that we pose while he shot our photos. I was game for about three or four, and then bailed. I can’t tell you how many photos of Thao and Co Phuc posing in the aforementioned fashion there were on my camera:

Here’s the old guy taking our photos:

Thao and a large dog:

A cool, operational water wheel on a creek feeding into the lake (all of this is still on the top of Lang Biang mountain):

It’s hard to look like a hardened motorcycle gangster when your facemask is made out of Hello Kitty fabric and your helmet is about 6 sizes too small for your big cranium:

After we left Lang Biang mountain, we rode out into the countryside for about an hour to this waterfall:

It was pretty but we could get as close to it as we wanted to.

Downtown Da Lat by the big traditional market:

The hills outside of Da Lat:

On Monday, the day before we came back, I rode back out to the waterfall we’d gone to and figured out a different way to get to it – and got as close as I wanted to get without actually being under it:

Up in the mist:

Be careful coming around those blind corners on the way back from the waterfall:

On our way out to dinner Monday night – our last night in Da Lat:

That lavender jacket Thao is wearing is a North Face jacket I bought for her in Da Lat because it was so cold there for her. It’s a really nice fleece-lined jacket with windblock fabric on the outside. Would be over $100 in the U.S. In Da Lat: $20. And it’s authentic. A lot of gear like North Face, Nike, etc., is made in Vietnam and a lot of it inevitably finds its way out of the factory and into “unofficial” channels – AKA the black market.

When I saw these I thought they were some sort of taxidermied bats (as in bats that fly at night). It turns out they are some sort of plant. I don’t know why they sell them in the market – the only thing they could tell me was that if you cut yourself and put some of the “fur” of the plant onto the wound, it will stop the bleeding. If anyone out there has any idea what these are, please comment:

Thao and our bag made out of a pig feed sack we bought at the market:

In front of the market:

Me posing with our other recycled bag we bought at the market – this one is made out of recycled packing straps (like they use to strap loads down to pallets) and is really durable:

Some final shots of the pine forest on the way back from the waterfall – those of you from Georgia can see how you could easily mistake yourself as being in Georgia vs. Vietnam:

That’s all I got.

Those members of the left who are publicly rending their garments and gnashing their teeth over the death of the great* left-wing voice Howard Zinn should remember Zinn’s recent words about Obama:

“I’ve been searching hard for a highlight. The only thing that comes close is some of Obama’s rhetoric; I don’t see any kind of a highlight in his actions and policies. . . . I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president–which means, in our time, a dangerous president–unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”

*I don’t use “great” sarcastically here. Although I disagreed with Zinn’s take on a lot of things, I found his books very interesting to read. R.I.P.

This is one of my favorite songs right now: Cabwaylingo by Songs:Ohia. I like the studio version immediately below better than the live version farther down, but I am a generous soul so you can have both. Please send money.

they come in sorry for the second vanquisher
to have so much to pretend
themselves not so against
though overtaken
this we’ll survive, surviving those
against the smell of rope through pulley sing
there are fewer greater losses known
they have their affect they have their ransom
this will survive
you’re all i think, this thing set troublin’
it will not end without brevity
against the smell of hope through measuring
there are fewer greater former ghosts
we have our affect we have our ranson
this we’ll survive

[This started out as a response to my buddy James' email to me saying that he wasn't that blown away by the iPad. Somewhere in the middle of responding, I realized that I needed to post it as a follow-up post on my blog, so that's why it sounds like a blog post. Also, I've added a new first paragraph about which model I will buy.]

So, which model am I going to buy? Probably the 16GB version without 3G for the basic $499. Why? 16GB is enough for me and what I will use a device like this for. My iPhone 2G that I love is still only 8GB, and it’s more than enough memory for me. Also, I really don’t need the 3G here in Vietnam – see below. But probably the main reason is because I am well aware that this is just Version 1.0 of what will undoubtedly be a multi-version product, and I don’t want to invest so much in Version 1.0 that I feel disinclined to buy Version 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever version becomes compelling enough to make me upgrade. (Although since I’ve held onto my old 2G iPhone for more than 2 years and am still very happy with it, who knows.) And also, “Version 2.0″ may not even be made by Apple. What? Yes, I know that V2.0 of the actual iPad will be made by Apple, but competitors will also take Apple’s iPad and use it as a kind of reference model – just like they’ve done with the iPhone. Apple’s set the bar, and now the competitors will be falling over themselves trying to meet or exceed it. They’ve upped the ante for Google, the netbook manufacturers, and everyone else whose been rumored to be developing tablets. Which is exactly why that demo of HP’s new Windows-based tablet looks so absolutely ridiculous in light of the iPad’s release. (And I would be a lot of money that that HP tablet cost more than $499 – or at least it did before the iPad announcement.)

I wasn’t totally blown away until he said the price. And I’m coming at it from someone who really wants/needs and ereader. If this thing had not come out, I would have happily bought the Kindle or one of the other ereaders coming out soon. But people were speculating this thing would be $800 or $1000 minimum. $499 is just crazy. I also love the fact that it can be used with a bluetooth keyboard – that means you can do real work on the thing if you ever need to. (Not that you’d want it as your primary computer, however.) Also, this is only Day Zero for this thing. Where it really gets interesting is when third-party developers start coming out with new apps custom-developed for the iPad (i.e., not just the iPhone apps playing on the iPad). And when the hackers crack the thing. Incidentally, I thought the iPhone apps playing on the iPad in a little window was kind of cheesy looking – and really, it is – but then I realized that the reason they did that is because that means this thing can run 100,000+ apps right out of the box. They don’t have to wait for all of the developers to port their apps to the iPad natively (although I bet most will).

Disappointments:

(1) No multitasking. You can’t open up a music app and have it playing in the background while you type a document, browse the web, etc. That is ridiculously stupid and I am 99.9% confident that will be addressed quickly in a software update (if not by the time the thing ships). It really just makes absolutely no sense for a “lifestyle device” like this.

(2) No camera (and no front-facing camera for videoconferencing). Realistically, I don’t know how often I would use the camera in a bigger device like this – it’s not like an iPhone where you can whip the thing out of your pocket and take a quick photo or video with it. But it still seems like it would have been a good idea to have at least one camera – if not two for videoconferencing. One would have at least allowed you to use apps such as those for the iPhone that require a camera. And videoconferencing would have been very cool. Probably in Version 2.0 or a business iPad somewhere down the road. And, hey, it’s $499. Adding a camera or two would have pushed that up.

(3) Design. I think it looks pretty cool – and I’m sure holding one in your hand it will look and feel great, but the design of it doesn’t absolutely blow me away. The edges look a little more hard and angular than I would have imagined. I would have thought it would have been a little more rounded and organic. I’m not sure why I would have thought that, but it just surprised me that it looks as much like the unibody Macbook design as it does the iPhone 3G.

(4) Name. I’m being a little particular here, because really who cares what the name is, but I think iPad is kind of the easy, not ideal choice. It’s easy to confuse with iPod – especially when written. It’s not very creative. It just doesn’t feel very inspired. Of course what the hell was inspiring about iPod back when it was introduced in 2001? I think they could have done better – although I’m not sure what the name should have been. I never liked iSlate. I never really liked iTablet but even that might have been better than just iPad. I guess I just thought Apple would come out with something a little bit cooler than iPad.

(5) 3G. I guess it makes sense that you have to pay more for 3G, and it’s not that big a deal to me because 3G is just getting off of the ground here in Vietnam and so not all that useful anyway, but if I was in the US, having to pay an extra $130 to have the 3G radio in the thing would disapppoint me a little – although the $29.99 for unlimited data sounds like a pretty good deal. (The 250 megabyte for $14.99 deal is a joke. When he said “megabytes” I seriously thought he was making a mistake and it should have been “gigabytes.” 250 megabytes? I probably burn through more than that every single day.

(6) No SD card reader. It would have been cool to have been able to pop your SD card out of your camera and pop it into your iPad to review photos, etc. And it would have also been awesome to have been able to pop an extra few GBs of memory into the thing using an 8GB or 16GB memory card, etc. I understand why Apple wouldn’t want you to be able to do that, but still, it would have been cool.

It’s 2:40am here and I’m still up – have been watching the Apple iPad announcement for almost two hours. It is unbelievable. (The iPad, not the fact that I am still up. That’s just stupid.)

eReader (with dedicated bookstore – books in the open epub format so you should be able to easily import other books – and if they don’t officially sanction it, the hackers will still figure it out), video, music, games, internet (wifi and 3G models available), etc.

The most amazing thing is the pricing: $499 for the 16GB, $599 for the 32GB, and $699 for the 64GB. (If you want 3G connectivity it’s another $130 for each model, so $629, $729, and $829.)

They’re all being sold unlocked, and so should work with 3G simcards around the world . . . like Vietnam.

$499! I’m all over this. They ship in 60 days. Who wants to come to Vietnam sometime in May to bring me my iPad???

Oh, and let the age of book piracy officially begin. All it’s been waiting for has been a market, and with this thing coming out – especially with the open epub format – it’s game on.

Or, of course, you could go with this piece of junk running Windows:

Poor Microsoft. If I didn’t hate them so much I might feel sorry for them.

Engadget has what look to be the first legitimate photos of the Apple Tablet here (even if it is bolted down inside some sort of protective case):

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/is-this-the-apple-tablet/

This one is the most revealing, as that is an iPhone sitting on the tablet in the bottom left corner, so it gives you a very good idea of how big the thing is:

I’ve read so much about that I’ve basically made myself sick of it already. But I’m still staying up to check out the announcement.

Also, here’s a link by a usually reputable guy, Jason Calcanis, claiming to have had a tablet for 10 days and revealing a lot of information about it:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/01/27/jason-calacanis-possibly-spoils-apple-tablet-event-drops-major-details/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)&utm_content=Google+Reader

I guess we’ll see how much of this is bs in five and a half hours or so.

We took the bus from Saigon to Bao Loc on Thursday night – arrived in Bao Loc about 12:30am. Long bus ride. Thao was sick. We were glad to get to the hotel.

Out to breakfast Friday morning with our friend, Duy Anh, who was getting married in Da Lat on Saturday, and her parents:

Thao and my Vietnamese teacher, Co Phuc, at breakfast (Duy Anh works with Co Phuc at my Vietnamese language school, VLS, and they are good friends):

The countryside around Bao Loc – it’s always strange to me to see mountains in Vietnam because the area around Saigon is so flat:

At the Damb’Ri waterfalls outside of Bao Loc:

That pink dot in the center of the photo is Thao:

See?

Thao and Co Phuc make their way (slowly) down the hill:

Wifey:

Hubby (or as Thao says, “Husby”):

Don’t get jealous, ladies:

Thao takes a photo of me taking a photo of this Vietnamese family at the waterfalls (with their camera so they could all get into the photo together):

Thao and Co Phuc:

The cable car we took down to the lower falls:

Thao at the lower falls:

Thao was carrying a plastic bag around with a banana in it – the banana was for Thao, not for this monkey (we did not know that there even were monkeys at these waterfalls). Anyway, this monkey snuck up behind Thao and snatched the bag out of her hand and made short work of Thao’s banana:

He and about three of his family members also nearly made short work out of me. They were all sitting there on some rocks and I made what I like to describe as “polite vocalizations and gestures of greeting from one primate to another,” but which others might describe as “hooting and screeching while simultaneously making threatening movements toward a bunch of wild monkeys.” Whatever you want to call it, they didn’t like it, and there is really only one word to describe what they did to me next: bumrush. Four of those damn monkeys bumrushed me – baring their teeth, holding their little clawed hands up at me and making trachea-ripping-out motions at me while screeching at me at the top of their foul little lungs. I did what anyone would do in that situation – which was to haul ass out of there as quickly as possible. Thao and Co Phuc got a good laugh out of it, and Thao later imitated me running away in what, again, can really only be described as “high-stepping.” Although I wasn’t conscious of it, apparently I was running away and kicking my legs up as high in the air as I could. Again, I didn’t even know I was doing it, but I guess subconsciously I was trying to get my legs as far away from those little heathen bastards as I could. I wish we had that on film. Anyway . . .

The view from the top of the falls:

Thao at Damb’Ri:

Our three xe om drivers (motorcycle taxi drivers) and me:

On the way back from the waterfalls, we stopped at a Buddhist temple that was founded by the famous Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. It was in a beautiful location. Here’s the view from the back porch of one of the little houses there:

The big bell they used to call the monks to assembly:

Part of the main temple:

This nun was chillin’:

Tailless cat:

In most parts of the world, you see a tailless cat and probably assume that it is a Manx cat which is naturally tailless. In Vietnam I see a tailless cat and I assume that someone has eaten the tail.

Little stall at the market in Bao Loc:

Co Phuc bought a basket:

This old bitch will sell you a birdcage:

*I don’t know why I called that woman an old bitch. It just sounded funny when I typed it. Although it reminds me of this photo and caption from my trip to Myanmar back in 2008:

I like this photo for some reason – in my mind this woman is looking at that other woman coming down the street and saying to herself “Here comes this bitch again.” Why that is in my mind I have no idea:

Okay, back to Vietnam.

Big photo of Duy Anh and her husband at their wedding outside of Da Lat:

Under the tent at the wedding party:

It was a very hot day – not really sure why this woman was wearing this hat, but I liked it:

Thao, Dr. Ugly, Duy Anh, and her husband:

After the wedding on Saturday, we went on to Da Lat and checked into our hotel, which was right on Xuan Huong lake, the big lake in the center of Da Lat:

*Note that the lake has water in it.

But also note that, in this photo taken at the same time but from a different angle, the lake appears to be a little low. I remember noticing that at the time but – as I’ve never seen the lake before – really didn’t think anything of it:

Contrast the above photos with the following photos, which were taken about 12 hours later, on Sunday morning:

They drained the damn lake. The lake that we could see from our hotel room. They drained the damn thing the weekend we happened to be there. I asked someone “How often do they drain this lake?” and they replied “Once every twelve years.” ONCE EVERY TWELVE YEARS!!! So the weekend we pick for our weekend in trip to Da Lat, and for which we arranged a hotel room with a view of the lake, was the one weekend every twelve years they drain the damn thing dry. Co Phuc said we were lucky, because any other weekend it would have just been a normal weekend in Da Lat and the lake wouldn’t have been any more interesting than usual. I understand what she’s saying, but since I had never even seen the lake before, I feel like seeing it in its normal, actually quite attractive state would have probably been just fine for me.

This was our little “lakeview” chalet:

If you look carefully, behind the chalet you can catch a glimpse of the festering mud pit we paid extra to obtain a view of.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now – got to go to bed. I’ll put a bunch more photos and some videos up in the next couple of days. I’ll leave you with this teaser:

It’s noon on Tuesday and we’re getting ready to head back to HCMC. We have to check out at 1pm. I just finished packing and Thao is still packing. I’m not sure what we’ll do between 1pm and 4:30pm, when we need to catch a taxi to the airport – probably just chill. (We’re flying back because the bus trip was so damn long and we are wimps.)

It’s been a great weekend – Da Lat is a neat place. Up in the mountains – I think the altitude is about 8,500 feet – so about like South Lake Tahoe where I stayed for a month back in 2006. It’s extremely different than HCMC – first it is a hell of a lot cooler and there is no humidity. It’s very dry here, which is an odd feeling for Vietnam – at least for those of used to living in HCMC. It also looks completely different – beautiful mountains and rivers/streams, and the vegetation is completely different. There are pine trees and regular oak-looking trees all over the place – along with the more typical palms and tropical-looking plants that you see in and around HCMC. Several times this weekend I had to stop and get my mental bearings for a second and remind myself that I was still in Vietnam – it’s just so different looking. We’ve taken a ton photos and I will get them online as soon as I can.

The people here are very friendly – a little quieter and more gentle than a lot of the people you interact with in HCMC. They speak more softly and they have a different accent. Very nice.

It’s cold at night. Thao kept telling me it was going to be cold but I just kind of laughed it off. But she was right – it’s really cold at night. Maybe only in the 50s, but that’s cold for Vietnam. Especially if you live in HCMC and it’s usually in the 90s and seldom below 80. You just get used to the heat and humidity and so even the 50s feel very cold. And our hotel room didn’t have a heater, so it felt very cold in the room.

It’s super cheap here. Really cheap compared to HCMC – especially if you get off of the more touristed areas of the city. You could live here for almost nothing.

I’d actually love to live here. It’s a lot smaller and slower-paced than HCMC. No pollution – the air seems very clean and fresh. Quieter. Combine those things with the cheaper prices, friendly people, better variety of weather, etc., and it would be a great place to live. Plus it’s only a $40 flight (one-way) from HCMC. Thao is not so sure about living here – too cold at night for her. I think she could get used to it.

Today is our one-month anniversary. Woo-hoo! We made it! It’s interesting being married – in a lot of ways it is exactly the same as it was before. I guess having lived together for a while before helps. But mentally it’s a bit different. I think it just takes some time to get used to the idea of being married and to mentally settle into it – probably longer if you wait until you’re 38 to get married like I did and are fairly set in your ways.

We’re getting excited because in about two and a half weeks we go to Bali for a week for our “official” honeymoon – although this has been a nice mini honeymoon in Da Lat.

I know anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows this already, but I am a big geek. I am so excited right now about Apple’s media event on Wednesday. They’re supposed to announce their tablet device but who really knows. All I know is that Apple – which is usually completely silent about upcoming products – has been making some statements about how whatever they’re going to introduce is going to revolutionize computing, and how Steve Jobs feels that it’s the most important thing he’s ever worked on, etc. I can’t imagine they’d be making statements like those if this thing were not truly a big deal – one thing they do well is manage expectations. So it’s likely to be something pretty damn cool. But truthfully I’d be happy if it was basically a larger iPod Touch with a very high-res screen and a Kindle app on it. Anything beyond that is just gravy for me. Also, I hope the price ends up being reasonable. Anyway, I’m going to stay up and watch the announcement live – or at least watch the live blogs of it as I don’t know that there will be a webcast – haven’t checked into that yet. But the press event starts at 1:00am Vietnam time.

Peace!