Mrs. Hobbs takes a vacation

Shush... don't tell Margaret you're in our so-called living room!

We just got back from Margaret's version of the old James Stewart movie. Trying to avoid burnout from her busy work and travel schedules, she booked us a five-night stay on Nikoi Island, a privately owned nature preserve with only 15 beach houses and a maximum 60 guests at any one time. It's located off the coast of Sumatra and you don't have to get on a plane from Singapore. Just take a ferry to Bintan Island, drive across the island by car and board another smaller boat. Easy. Two hours to paradise, right?

I wasn't so sure about that. I sort of had a cow when Margaret said we had a no-refund reservation at a place with no Internet, no television, no air-conditioning and pretty much no walls -- at least none from floor to ceiling. My negative reaction quickly convinced me I was the one who needed the unplugging.

We only lasted three nights. The solitude didn't do us in. That was pretty darn blissful. So was excellent food, personal service, white-sand beaches and clear coastal waters. It was the bugs -- or THE bug that found Margaret so appetizing -- that drove us out. By the time we left, she had so many bites all over her body she looked contagious. Final count was more than 40 big, bright red, itchy bumps. Me? Zero bites. 

I didn't want to leave. I was hooked on sunrise swims, Indonesian cuisine and locking into a book I'd had trouble concentrating on back home in Singapore. But Margaret was almost literally being eaten alive. At the very least, the blood was being sucked out of her. The island coolers and gorgeous sunsets didn't help.

Like Mr. Hobbs, though, one very cool thing happened our our last day. Jordan, the bartender-slash-turtle-midwife found us at breakfast and said he was about to release 126 freshly hatched young'uns into the sea. Here's a picture of the babies racing into the water -- because it's too hot to stay on the beach!

Amazing how they all instantly ran toward the water. You'd expect at least one goofball to go the wrong way. 

Here are a few other photos...

Dawn overlooking "iPod Rock."

Our authentic beach house. One bedroom, two toilets, three showers and all the ants you could ever want.

An open-door policy to our bedroom.

Leaving Nikoi and all God's creatures behind.

Definitely the destination, not the journey

     If you hire a car to go from New Delhi to Agra for a look at the Taj Mahal, make sure your driver takes the new highway. The old highway is a little like joining a dirt-track race for five hours in which some of the cars occasionally go in the opposite direction and the competition includes bicycle rickshaws, tuck-tucks, motorcycles, tractors, trucks, pedestrians, goats, sacred cows and stray dogs. 
    And don't sit up front with the driver. It seems like a fun idea at first, but the terrifying moments just aren't worth it. After being nearly run off the road a second time by north-bound cars using the south-bound lanes, our driver Asok turned to me, smiled and said, "Welcome to India."

More organized than vehicle traffic.

     We managed to drive three blocks from our hotel in Gurgaon before encountering our first goat herders of the day. Once on the highway, things appeared fairly normal except for the occasional traffic jam caused by an overturned vehicle or an indifferent sacred cow.  

The most unnecessary sign in India.

     You find yourself wanting to pull over and thank the few people who tie up their beloved cattle, like this thoughtful citizen had done. I'm sure this bull doesn't mind whiling away the hours just a few feet from the road shoulder that everyone considers an open lane.

Being sacred keeps cows alive, but other perks are not so obvious.

     Half-way to our destination, Asok said it was time for his lunch and he dropped us off at a tourist trap that was almost certainly designated by his employer or owned by his cousin. We were joined by a busload of Russian tourists who invaded the dining room shortly after we sat down. Most of them were dressed in matching white t-shirts and white head scarves. Members of a Slavic cult? Victims of tour-group hazing? Mass outbreak of bad hair? We decided not to ask.

Margaret shunned by the Ruskies.

      Refreshed after our meal of biryani, naan and what the menu described as "Zero Coke," we resumed our drive, hoping to reach Agra before sunset. But the car wars heated up as the day wore on. One accident looked particularly ugly, though we couldn't seen anyone who looked injured. 

Not good . . .

. . . not good at all.

     I'd like to tell you that once we got clear of that smash up, we drove through one quaint country hamlet after another, but this is not Ireland. 

Typical roadside strip mall.

     At last, we arrived in Agra and it was still light. Unfortunately, it was rush hour. But Asok did his best to keep things moving. Even at a dead stop, he dutifully kept honking in five-second intervals. 

Honk! Honk! Honk! Click photo to enlarge. Note the tanker on the left is carrying flammable
motor spirit.

     The sun was set by the time we finished lurching across Agra to our hotel, where we said our goodbyes to an understandably weary Asok.

Hard to muster a smile when you know you have to drive back to Delhi  via the old highway after dark.

     Unlike all the various monuments around Delhi, the Taj Mahal is not lit at night. But our splurge on a room with a view did not disappoint the next morning.

Sunrise view from the veranda.

     I can't in good conscience advise you to pack your bags and fly directly to India to see this overbuilt grave. It's a lot of travel hassle and the risk of getting sick is high. But the Taj (we're on a first-name basis now) was more spectacular than I expected -- and my expectations were pretty high. I think it helps that I had visited most of the main tombs and other architectural sites in New Delhi and Old Delhi beforehand. I thought they were all interesting and impressive until we got up close with the Taj Mahal.

One-hundred percent marble . . .

. . . inlaid with semi-precious stones on every archway.

     For the record, we did take the new highway back to Delhi. Our driver didn't want to do it because it charges a toll of 500 rupees (about $10). He finally gave in, though he grumbled about it as we fought our way out of Agra. 

Until next time, maybe . . . not likely.

     It was well worth the expense. Six-lanes of wide-open roadway across an amazingly trash-free and bucolic landscape. It almost ended our trip on an unexpected high note, one that filled us with awe and wonder nearly equal to seeing the Taj up close. Almost.

Three-and-a-half hours of smooth sailing -- then you get to Delhi.

     Unfortunately, despite avoiding all uncooked food and drinking water only from properly sealed bottles the entire week, we still got a dose of what Margaret's colleagues call "Delhi Belly." This jaunty term doesn't refer to the extra pounds you're packing from gorging on the truly delicious food. Perhaps "Krishna's Revenge" is a better description of the turmoil visited upon your personal plumbing. Even worse, the vengeance began shortly before boarding our flight back to Singapore. I have never appreciated in-flight facilities so much in my life.
     Luckily, our Singapore doctor had supplied us with a small pharmacy for the trip. We were prepared for everything from the common cold to malaria. Delhi Belly was no match for the antibiotics, though they took a long day to take command.

Old Delhi

After school commute.

     I'm writing this blog entry in part because I wanted to publish the above photo. It's one of my favorites of all the pictures I've snapped in Asia. It happened at the end of a long, immensely uncomfortable couple of hours tooling around Old Delhi in the back of bicycle rickshaw. Some of the streets were more pothole than pavement. And sitting completely exposed in this kind of crazy traffic is, well, crazy. 

There was a traffic cop on duty, but he seemed to hold no sway over the drivers. 

     I didn't see the girls at first. I had my camera aimed at some other street theater. When I pulled my camera away from my face, I could see they wanted me to photograph them. They were pretty happy with themselves when I showed them the picture. 
     I had gone to Old Delhi to get the lay of the land on how to get there and what to expect because I was scheduled to meet a local blogger the next day for a street-food tour. Eating anywhere in India is pretty risky business, so I didn't want to go it alone. The people in our hotel thought it was too dangerous for me just to visit Old Delhi alone. But I felt their concerns were overblown given the fact Lonely Planet recommends seeing a couple of historic sights in the area. I didn't have any trouble. I was in reasonably good hands with the rickshaw driver I met after getting hopelessly lost on foot within minutes of coming up from the subway.

My driver, Susee.

     The biggest obstacle of the day was riding the metro to Dehli from Gurgaon, the suburb where Margaret's office is located. Actually, riding was not a problem. It was all clean and efficient by any city's mass-transit standards. It was buying a token that almost defeated me. In most of Asia that I've seen, the concept of queuing and waiting your turn has caught on. But the concept remains elusive in some places. I've gotten pretty good at defending my ground, but I wasn't prepared for the scrum at the ticket window inside the IFFCO Chowk Metro Station in Gurgaon. I began to wonder if seats were being rationed. What else could explain the panic? But no, there were plenty of good seats available and the trains came and went every five minutes or so. I saw no reason to freak out, but what do I know.
     With this dry run under my belt I was pretty jazzed for my street-food tour. Then I got an email from my guide saying she had fallen ill and wouldn't be able to make it. She said she had a bad cold. I believed her, but I couldn't help wondering if it might have been something she'd eaten while escorting other thrill-seeking gastronomes around the slums.
     Undeterred, I asked her for tips on going it alone and she sent me a map, which turned out to be pretty worthless because there are no street signs in Old Delhi, at least none that I could find on these incredibly narrow streets. 

     The most prominent signs I saw were "No Smoking" banners put up by the Jama Masjid, India's biggest mosque and one of its oldest. Hard hard to believe smoking is the biggest health concern in these parts, but maybe. 

No shoes allowed and certainly no smoking.

Of course, cats follow their own rules.

     My self-directed street-food tour was a bust. I didn't see anything that looked all that appetizing. But I did try one thing I had read about in advance -- jalebi. It's basically deep-fried dough that's soaked in a sugar syrup. Given my success with Malaysian doughnuts, I couldn't resist.

Hot work, but plenty of customers.

     I couldn't finish the jalebi. I didn't think it was possible to make a doughnut or fritter too fat soaked or too sweet for my tastes, but the jalebi defeated me. At least I didn't get sick. That wouldn't happen until we got to Agra, where we had a room with a view of the Taj Mahal. More on that next week.

Pandora's rocks?

     We were in Beijing when demonstrators roughed up Ambassador Gary Locke's car outside the U.S Embassy recently. The hoo-ha is centered on some tiny islands in the East China Sea that Japan, China and Taiwan claim territorial rights over. Japan is the lead villain in China, but America has been accused in the official press of "using the China-Japan dispute to strengthen its military presence in the Asian-Pacific region." Some observers worry that a war could break out over these uninhabited rocks.
     Most of the vandalism and threats were aimed at Japanese businesses and products. No one got worked up enough to attack just any American they could find. (It only seems like the average motorist is out to run you down, but their aim is indiscriminate.) On the day Locke's car got pummeled with a few water bottles, Margaret was safely stuck in meetings at her employer's Beijing office, while I was watching for Mongol hoards at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. 

Chinese to the left. Mongols to the right. No Japanese in sight. P.S. The climb to this tower from the wall 
below is every bit as steep and high as this picture makes it look.

     The only Mongol I met that day was my guide, Lisa. She told me her Chinese name but I failed to grasp it. That's why she goes by Lisa when escorting ignorant tourists like me around Beijing. Lisa is from Baotu, a mid-sized industrial city (2.65 million people) in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. She says I could live well there if I opened an English-language school. I might be able to live well, but I'm thinking this good life would not include Margaret.

Not every guide will climb the wall with you, but Lisa was game.

     The Chinese are awesome wall builders and the Great Wall is pretty darn great. Most of China's important cities over the past two millennia built walls around them. After leaving Beijing, we spent the weekend in one such city, Xi'an, before Margaret had to be in Shanghai for more meetings. 
     Xi'an is most famous for the Terracotta Warriors exhibit and it didn't disappoint. In the 3rd century B.C., China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang had the life-size fake army buried with him, along with most of the real laborers on the project. (That is not living well.) It was discovered by a local farmer in 1974 and only a fraction of the site has been unearthed to date. 

Every one of the 8,000 soldiers resurrected so far has a one-of-a-kind face and physique. The horses are 
all the same.

     There's more to Xi'an than ancient clay statues. It has the best preserved of the ancient city walls in the country. 

The Tangs started it all in the 7th century A.D. The Mings enlarged it in the 14th century.

     Xi'an is also home to the historic starting point for the northern route of the Silk Road that led to the Middle East and Africa. The Chinese traded their fine silks for frankincense and myrrh. Screwed again . . .

Silk Road monument: you can't see it too well here, but the road starts with a fork in it. Fortunately, as Margaret noted, there's a gas station in the middle of the fork where silk traders can get directions.

      The Silk Road was responsible for bringing Islam to Xi'an, where China's largest population of Muslims still reside. The old Muslim Quarter is another of the city's main tourist attractions. But Gerry, our guide to the Terracotta Warriors and the city wall, was warned not to take American tourists into that part of town. Though no one seemed too riled up over Japan in Xi'an, some residents were unhappy about that anti-Islamic movie trailer that triggered anti-American demonstrations across the Middle East.

Gerry entertaining us at Emperor Qin's overkill of a tomb. 

     Of course, I ignored Gerry's warning and went to have a look around the Muslim Quarter while Margaret was catching up on some email on Sunday afternoon. 

Just another busy weekend in Xi'an's Muslim Quarter.

     No one paid much attention to me, except for a woman in a butcher shop who held up a "No Taking Photos" sign when I aimed my camera at her. I complied mainly because she was wielding a bloody meat cleaver. I encountered no such problems entering China's oldest mosque, founded in 701 A.D. I even met a friendly couple there. They were born and raised in Xi'an, but were visiting the old mosque for the first time.

The guy spoke pretty good English and was eager to use it. We chatted for awhile and posed for pictures. 
No Muslims got offended.

    To my untrained eye, the mosque looked more like a Buddhist temple. But still cool to explore.

More peaceful than most temples I've visited in Asia.

     We moved on to Shanghai on Monday. Our hotel was located in the heart of the French Concession at Xintiandi. This is about as international a spot you will find in China. Many of the world's leading financial companies have offices here. Plenty of business deals are surely sealed in the cafes and restaurants in this leafy part of town. If you need to get an announcement up quickly on your website, you can always pop into one of the handy WiFi booths.

Would Superman change in one of these?

     There was never a hint here of anti-American outrage. But not too far from Shanghai, you can get a good idea of why China so deeply distrusts Japan. Thanks to a high-speed rail line, it's fairly easy to make a day-trip to Nanjing where one of the 20th century's worst massacres took place. If you've read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang, you know what I'm talking about. 
     The memorial to the hundreds of thousands of defenseless citizens who were murdered, raped and tortured in Nanjing in 1937 should be more than enough to shut up any deniers left in Japan. It's built on one of the many killing fields around Nanjing. The skeletal remains of the dead are laid bare in solemn displays for all to see along with detailed evidence of when the murders took place and who did them. It's one of the saddest places I've ever been. I'll spare you the gruesome stuff. The art around the site is enough to make you pause and reflect.

     Let's hope both sides figure out a peaceful solution to their latest dispute.

Can Asians Think?

Opening ramble: I haven't posted recently because we haven't been traveling and, well, that's the most interesting part of living in Singapore. However, thanks to a few emails from friends asking if I haven't been writing because I've fallen on my face again, I figure I better surface every once in awhile to assure folks that I am A-OK. So, on with the show!

     I felt a little awkward going into a local book store and asking the Asian clerks if they had a book by this title, but they didn't bat an eye and quickly retrieved a copy for me. If the book's author, Kishore Mahbubani, had been there he probably would have told me to get over my politically correct self-consciousness. This Singaporean academic and former diplomat believes it's a question that Asians must ask themselves if they are to succeed in the next millennium in light of the West's global dominance during the last millennium. 
     "Can Asians Think?" is a 15-page essay that poses the question as a multiple-choice quiz with yes, no and maybe answers. He then makes pretty convincing arguments for each choice. The big sub-questions I took away are: 
     1) As Asia develops economically, is it prepared to contribute to the advancement of science, art and politics over the centuries ahead as Europe and North America did over the past 600 years? He seems to suggest it's time for Asia to step up as they did in the first millennium.
     2) Must Asia embrace Western-style democracy and individual freedom (and learn to accept the crime, violence and family breakdown that comes with it) to succeed? Mahbubani suggests the West needs to give Asia some leeway as its countries experiment with new ways for democracy to function that will preserve much of the good while minimizing the bad. Mahbubani seems to think it's possible. Only time will tell.
     What I think he's missing is the role individual freedom likely plays in sparking the imagination that leads to innovation. Getting over the fear of rebellion may be the biggest hurdle for Asian governments -- or governments anywhere -- to overcome. Mahbubani says people around the world would do well to ask the question. Can Americans think? Can Europeans think? You do wonder at times.
     The rest of "Can Asians Think?" is a collection of essays and articles that have appeared in mainstream publications from Newsweek to the Wall Street Journal, scholarly publications like Foreign Affairs and the Washington Quarterly, and presentations made at various forums sponsored by the United Nations and other international bodies. 
     You may have seen Mahbubani on TV shows like Fareed Zakaria GPS and Charlie Rose.
     He's a good writer who manages to make potential snoozers like economics, politics and history interesting. He gives you plenty to agree and disagree with.
     I've read a few other Singaporean authors since moving here and I promise to bore you with reports on them only occasionally. Hang in there. It's only a matter of time before we're back on the road again.

Rural Angkor

Siem Reap, Cambodia, has plenty of luxury hotels and upscale restaurants to accommodate well-heeled foreign tourists, but the town of 175,000 and the villages in the surrounding area deliver a distinctly rural experience.

You can still get all the fixin's for a feast at Siem Reap's Old Market.

The moto-remork (a.k.a. tuk-tuk)  provides inexpensive, reliable transportation for tourists and locals.

But the bicycle remains an important work-horse. 

Being soft foreign tourists, however, we hired an air-conditioned car to take us into the country for a peek at
the Beng Melea temple. 

Along the way, we stopped for a roadside snack called ja bamboo.

The vendor stuffs a combo of coconut sticky rice and black beans into bamboo sticks and then roasts them.
Just peel back the bamboo and voila! -- a sweet and savory, protein-packed snack that will provide hours of
fun for the kids. Two sticks for a dollar.

Restoration has been a slow-go at the Beng Melea temple. This is the main gate. You can get in
around the side, but it's a fairly rough experience.

After stumbling among the ruins, the reward is a fine lunch of wild boar, vegetables and rice in the
tidy nearby village

Back in town, you might like to end the day in reflection along the banks of the Siem Reap River.