Thursday, December 23, 2010

Quick Holiday Update!

Wow it has been really busy! Apologies for only a quick update - we are on our way to the airport to enjoy Christmas and New Years in Bali!

I spent last week in the coastal city of Nha Trang helping to teach a training course for Vietnamese MPA managers. The course was put on by NOAA and I had a really great time getting to know all the participants and other instructors. I was able to share some of my experiences from MLPA in California and also practice my Vietnamese quite a bit. Every night I went out with some of my new Vietnamese friends and tried a different small food stall - these ranged from tiny tables on the street to the couches of living rooms. We had excellent Pho, Banh Xeo, and seafood. One evening, I played badminton with my friend Vy and learned that it can be a pretty competitive sport! I'm still sore. I also visited a couple of the local early morning fish markets to see what they were bringing in - Tuna, Gar, Marlin, as well as sharks and manta rays at the pelagic market, and every small fish you can imagine at the more local markets. At one market, some local fishermen rewarded my ability to speak Vietnamese with a fish - of course I was unable to refuse, so I took my little Christmas present back to the hotel and we had it for lunch. It was a fun week with many new friends (I even earned a nickname) and hopefully I'll be able to take part in similar trainings in the future! While I was teaching marine resource management in Nha Trang, Nikki was down south in Can Tho escorting some high level officials to talk with professors in the Mekong Delta about climate change. Though it was a great opportunity, it sounded exhausting! The good news is that it's looking like we will have the opportunity to collaborate on projects together in the future - fun! The next week, Nikki had a nice girls' weekend with several of her new friends - shopping, shoes, brunch, and mid-day sangria - the usual!

Holiday season here in Ho Chi Minh City is in full swing. All the stores are decorated with lights and nativity scenes (most of the nativity scenes are strangely in huge constructed caves). The consulate had a Christmas party last week with food, caroling performances, and of course Santa. I was both the MC and one of the 5 elves, so helped to dole out presents to 106 very excited children, many dressed like Santa themselves! Last night, Nikki and I went with the post language program to an area in the north part of the city that is famous for its decorations. There were soooo many people! The decorations definitely lived up to expectations - my favorite was sequin veiled Mary and baby Jesus under a disco ball. We sang carols in Vietnamese and English, had fun playing with the local kids, ate all kinds of street food, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Nikki and I came home to our decorated apartment (complete with a fake tree and stockings) and enjoyed a wonderful Christmas eve eve together opening presents. And this morning we are off to Bali! 

Happy Holidays to all our friends and family and hope you are well!!!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Cambodia and The Angkor Wat Half Marathon

Cambodians are some of the nicest people on Earth. Nikki and I took a 45 minute flight over to Siem Reap last weekend to participate in the 15th Annual Angkor Wat Half Marathon, and were continually impressed by the huge smiles and general friendliness of these people who have endured so much. Just look at Nikki's pictures above to get a sense – my favorite is the little girl running through the lotus field.

We arrived Friday afternoon, checked in to our fantastic hotel – which had the aura of an elegant Indiana-Jones-esque outpost – and headed downtown to get some grub. We dined al fresco on fish amok and other regional specialties while tuk tuks (moto-taxis) filled the streets and the biggest bugs I've ever seen filled the air (no wonder so many are eaten here!). We meandered through a narrow shopping/dining alley to find the night market, where Cambodian dancers took to the small stage and little kids danced and played amidst traditional music.

The next day we headed South to the Tonle Sap – a massive freshwater lake supporting millions of people living in floating villages. The size of the lake increases 4-5 fold between the dry and rainy seasons, so the position of the villages also changes throughout the year. We took a boat out and saw people moving their houses, taking in their catch, and selling their wares on the water. There was even a floating full size basketball court! We bought some notebooks/pencils and brought them to a Vietnamese-run primary school where we practiced our language skills with one of 3 teachers responsible for the 300 pupils. We hopped back in our tuk tuk and headed to a nearby temple/archaeological site, but not before stopping at a lotus farm where cute kids brought us flowers and lotus seeds to eat. The stunning site we visited was one of hundreds in the Siem Reap area and situated next to a modern Buddhist temple. After poking around for a bit and meeting a student of the monks, we grabbed a bite to eat in a peaceful butterfly garden in town, and visited the very well done National Museum, where thousands of the Angkor artifacts are on display. After a lovely dinner by the pool, we headed to bed early to prepare for an early morning…

The alarm went off at 4:00 AM and by 6:00 we had grabbed brekky, taken a bus to the site, and were watching the sun come up over Angkor Wat. There were something like 4,000 people participating, so it was a madhouse, but Nikki and I both fared pretty well. The race course wound through the huge site, passing giant temples, beautiful lakes, and the occasional pile of elephant droppings (yuk!). Nikki ran the 10k in just over 60 minutes, which was a 10 minute personal best – not bad for training on a treadmill. I placed second in the half marathon in just under 1:16, barely edging out a Japanese celebrity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_Hiroshi) and losing to the Cambodian national star by almost 6 minutes. There was even a little coverage in the local press: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010120645172/Sport/hem-bunting-cuts-it-in-half.html. The race itself was started by a Japanese Olympic marathoner and was designed to raise money to bring artificial limbs to land mine survivors (which is a huge issue in Cambodia) and save kids from HIV/AIDS. It was really touching to see participants in the wheelchair and artificial limb categories and you had to admire their determination. A handful of other folks from the US Consulate also ran and I think they have convinced us to sign up for another iconic race in May, along the Great Wall of China.

It was a quick trip, but we really loved getting a little exposure Cambodia. We are looking forward to a return visit in February, when we will get to see Phnom Penh and more of the temples at Angkor Wat.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Thanksgiving in Kuala Lumpur

Hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Nikki and I enjoyed ours in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Part 1 of our Thanksgiving meal took place at Carcosa Seri Negara, which was built to house the highest British representative in Malaysia in the early 1900's. We tramped through the surrounding gardens enroute, taking a shortcut through an open field, and arrived for the super fancy afternoon tea covered in mud. We munched on delicious scones and other snacks while monsoon rains outside rocked the hundred year old house, before taking a taxi to the art-deco style Central Market for some shopping and a visit to the fish spa. I was far too ticklish (read: wimpy) to handle the fish swarming around my feet, eating all my hard-earned calluses, but Nikki loved it! As night fell, we strolled around town checking out the Majid Jamek at the junction of the two rivers for which Kuala Lumpur is named, and various onion-domed and mogul-style buildings surrounding independence square (the country formed in 1957). We then made our way over to Chinatown for some shopping on the famous Petaling Street and part 2 of our Thanksgiving dinner at the small, cute, and delicious Old China Café.

Our hotel in KL (the Hilton) was awesome. Aside from the ever-exciting bidet, our 32nd story room had an amazing view and every amenity imaginable. The breakfast buffet was one of the best we've ever seen, with Malay, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and European food all well-represented (tried them all, of course). After gorging ourselves, we took the light-rail over to Petronas Towers – once the tallest buildings in the world. It turns out tickets to the sky-bridge are hard to come by, so we bought tickets to the Menara Kuala Lumpur, a nearby telecommunications tower, for a higher view. We spent much of the rest of the day touring the city via hop-on-hop-off bus, getting out to see locals making batik at a crafts center and snap pictures of various landmarks. We meandered back home through an ethnic Malaysian district, stopping along the way to sample various kinds of street food – spice-filled coconut rolls steamed over a boiling pot, corn-shrimp crepes, and steamed meat-filled buns called "pau." We also ate a bunch of other delicious things at a crowded local restaurant, but I don't know what they were, since we don't speak Malay and we ordered by randomly pointing at the menu.

We spent Saturday outside of KL, touring the countryside with a private guide (what a character – more on him below). First up was a jungle hike and canopy tour at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia. The scenery was beautiful – we even saw some monkeys – though within 30 minutes I had a huge leech attached to my foot. I proceeded to scream like a little girl and run around with my hands waving for the next few minutes. The bridges built 100 ft high in the canopy provided an excellent view of the preserve, though one had to question the structural integrity of the aluminum ladders providing the principal support. Next on the itinerary were Batu Caves – huge limestone caverns where a Hindu temple has been built and the center of a festival that draws millions of people each year. The caves themselves were stunning and the huge statue in front and various shrines were interesting. The whole place was crawling with long tailed macaques, which were pretty entertaining. We scarfed down an Indian-style lunch, where various visually unappealing, yet very tasty concoctions were scooped out of communal buckets onto banana leaves.

Everyone took a nap in the car as we rode out to the Selangor coast, with a stop at a traditional Malay-style house (100 years old, built without nails), where the third-generation resident taught us about the historic economic drivers of tapping rubber trees and harvesting palm oil. Closer to the famous straights of Melaka, we visited a cannon-circled lighthouse surrounded by silver leaf monkeys. I'm pretty sure that feeding these animals can't be a good idea (for the monkeys or humans!), but as part of the tour we were given handfuls of green beans and subsequently swarmed by these cute little guys. We even saw a few babies, which are golden-colored when they are born. Continuing our activities of questionable environmental consequence, we took a boat out into the nearby estuary to see eagles feeding (attracted with chicken bits). The estuary/river itself was beautiful as the sun set, and we had a lovely seafood meal by the water before heading back out in the boat in the evening to see the huge numbers of fireflies that congregate nearby. Our chain-smoking guide for all of these activities was an interesting guy – generally friendly and knowledgeable, but a bit unprofessional, disorganized and strangely quirky. For instance, he insisted that we shower and change our clothes after the initial hike, as he didn't want to taint the leather in his car – I didn't know I smelled THAT bad! Though a little bizarre at times, the tour turned out to be a great way to see areas outside of KL in a short period of time.  

On our last day in Malaysia, we took the train south of KL to see the recently constructed administrative center called Putrajaya. This beautiful city is designed around a man-made lake, with tons of unique mosques, bridges, and government buildings, though it isn't slated for completion for a couple years. After a great $1 tour, we escaped the daily downpour by returning to Petronas Towers for a Malay-style lunch. In our last few hours before heading to the airport, we toured a pretty good bird park near the city center and paid respect to the nearby national monument (designed by the same guy that did the Iwo Jima memorial in DC). In all, it was a great quick trip and a good way to use the free business class plane ticket that I won in a race a few weeks ago. Next week we are off to Cambodia for another race – the Angkor Wat Half Marathon!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Busy Social Weekend

We had a busy schedule last weekend – two fundraisers, a couple performances, a pottery class and a frisbee tournament. It started Friday night with an NFL viewing party to raise money for the consulate soccer team (the "tiger team"). Turns out all military/diplomatic posts have free access to all the games – I guess it keeps us fully American! The next morning I got up early for another beloved American sport – ultimate frisbee. It was blazing hot and humid for the all-day tournament. Unfortunately, I had to stop out early when I pulled my hamstring diving for a loose disc – so inflexible – I'm starting yoga next week. Hopefully things will heal up in time for the Angkor Wat half marathon that we are running December 5. Since I was home early, Nikki and I headed over to the consulate charity bazaar, where each of the consulates in town was selling goods representative of their respective countries – vodka from Russia, handicrafts from Malaysia, wine from Australia, cookies and cupcakes from the US (we export obesity!)

Saturday was national teachers' day in Vietnam, so in the evening we attended an event put on by our language school. I participated in more than a few performances – a group song, a skit, and a duet with one of our friends - all in Vietnamese, of course. The song for the duet was "Con Gai" ("The Girl") and I've been working to learn the words and accompanying guitar for a few weeks now. In the end I think it was pretty successful – at least no one ran screaming from the building (it was videotaped, so I'll try to post the footage for viewing pleasure later). I also entered contests for writing a Vietnamese Essay (second place!) and a home-made thank you card for our teachers (no prize – it's me – you can use your imagination…)

We got up late on Sunday, had a leisurely brunch at "the elbow room," (yeah western-style brekky!), and then meandered around town looking for a store to buy a wedding veil. No, Nikki and I have not decided to have a second, Vietnamese-style wedding (though we are thinking about getting pictures taken). It just so happens that Nikki is the "morale officer" (aka party planner) for her section at work and one of the local staff just got engaged – Nikki is helping to celebrate by making her wear a veil all day at work and throwing her a party. After finding a place (there are wedding stores everywhere) and grabbing a soda at a street stall, we taxied across town for a pottery class. The stuff that we shipped from the US by boat STILL hasn't arrived, and we drink a lot of coffee/tea, so we decided to make mugs. The nice Japanese sensei that runs the class was awesome, and with his help, our mugs turned out pretty great. We capped off our busy weekend with a trip to the Saigon Opera House with our friend Danette, where we saw performances from a visiting Korean choir, the local Saigon choir, and the Saigon Symphony (performing Tchaikovsky – they love the Russians here).  The most interesting number was "Mamma Mia," in Swedish, performed by the Koreans, here in Vietnam – talk about a multi-cultural experience!

Short work-week this week and tomorrow we are off to explore Kuala Lumpur. Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family and hope everyone is doing well!!