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.

Revenge of the trees

Here's what happens when you don't clean out your gutters for several hundred years. 

Ta Prohm

Ta Som

Ta Som

Ta Prohm

Angkor artwork

From Angkor Wat.

Virtually anything that could be carted out of the Angkor monuments has been taken by invading armies and relic thieves, but there was no way for them to make off with the bas reliefs and some of the largest statues. The No. 1 recurring image is that of the apsara dancers. Thousands of them line the walls and doorways of every temple. You can see the faces, bodies and poses change slightly over the centuries and across the sites, but this Khmer classical dance is still performed today much as it was hundreds of years ago despite the trouncing it took first by the Siamese and later the Khmer Rouge.

From Preah Kahn

From Angkor Wat.

It wasn't all dance and merriment. There are battle scenes galore, nearly all from the Sanskrit epic "Ramayana." The picture below is from Angkor Wat and stars Hanuman, the great monkey-faced Hindu deity leading his forest-dwelling monkey army against the demon king Ravana, who has kidnapped his man Rama's girl Sita.

From Angkor Wat.

The epic length of the epic Ramayana... fade to black.

Terrace of the Elephants at Angkor Thom.

Unexplained dinosaur on a lintel at Ta Prohm.

One of about two dozen figures lining the bridge across the moat in front of Ta Som. It depicts the Hindu creation myth "Churning of the Sea of Milk" in which the bad gods battle the good gods and whip the cosmos into the froth of the Milky Way. 

Elephant dating from 950 A.D. stands guard above the unfinished temple known as the Eastern Mebon.

Astonishing (really!) Angkor

     Our visit last week to Siem Reap, Cambodia, and exploration of the Angkor temples was hands-down the most satisfying trip we've taken since moving to Singapore. The architectural legacy left behind by the Angkorian civilization (802-1432) is truly astonishing and the hospitality of the people living there today is utterly genuine, at times disarmingly so. One night after dinner at a local eatery, there wasn't a taxi in sight. One of the of the waiters jumped on his motorcycle, rode into the center of town and fetched a tuk-tuk for us. Then he paid our fare back to the hotel!

One of the hundreds of faces keeping an eye on you at Bayon Temple in Ankgor Thom.

     If you've heard of anything about Angkor it would be Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument. But there are dozens of other major wats (temples) in the area and hundreds of smaller ones. For me, Bayon stole the show. All the faces portray one man, King Jayavarman VII (1125-1200), possibly the greatest of all the Angkor kings and surely the most industrious. These guys were Hindus back in the day, but Buddhism made solid headway. Our guide said today's Cambodians view them as one religion. It seemed the same way in Thailand.

Main entrance to Bayon Temple.

     Bayon is located in the center or Angkor Thom, which was the main palace or castle for Jayavarman VII. Some claim that during his reign Angkor became the world's largest pre-industrial city. From the size of this place, you've got to think that most Angkorian's were employed building temples. The others undoubtedly concentrated on farming or fighting the of Chams of today's southern Vietnam or the Siamese from today's Thailand. Fun fact: Siem Reap translates roughly into "defeat of Siam."
     Still, you can't go to the Angkor Archaeological Park and not come back with a boat-load of Angkor Wat photos. I will show you three. 

The less crowded and less photographed south side of Angkor Wat, built by Suryavarman II (1112-1152).

View from the top of the center tower at Angkor Wat -- the one in the middle above. You can see the main

entrance in the distance. It was only about 104 degrees that day. 

Now you have to climb back down.

     So, gentle reader, I'm going to declare it too hot to go on today. Check back tomorrow and over the course of the next few days for dazzling Hindu artwork, fascinating Siem Reap street scenes and the ultimate warning to clean out your home's gutters at least once a year. I promise to keep them short. You can decide if they're sweet.

One last benign glare from Jayavarman VII for the road.