Taiwan
Saturday
Got to the airport and grabbed a taxi, the ride was long and not very pleasing to the eye. It was about 40 mins and all you could see was old industrial buildings that looked very run down, dirty and left to rot. Eventually we made it to Taipei, and everything changed, the city looked pretty organized and typical of a standard big city. Out hotel was nice and very chalet-like, after chilling for a little bit we went out to walk.
A few blocks away from where we were there was a pedestrian shopping area. All the shops were pretty much what one would expect from asian street markets, a lot of stuff for pretty cheap just all over the place, chaotic to some degree, but definitely fun to see. A lot of the stores had a platter with fruit at the entrance and a small furnace-type thing in which they burned trash; we later found out that they are offerings for the gods that bring them protection and good business. We ate at a “burger” place, and it was fun to order because only one person spoke English and it was hard for him to understand. We got ketchup when we asked for salt. I ordered a rice-patty roast beef sandwich, it was pretty delicious.
We headed back to our hotel, it was really hot. And we got ready to meet with Charles, the guy who convinced us to go to Taiwan and got us our visa appointments; he invited us to eat that night. Of all places, he invited us to Shin Yeh the restaurant on the 80th floor of the Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world. The dinner was incredible, they ordered several dishes for everyone at the table to share:
-squid
-mushrooms
-chicken
-beef
-liver
-beef wraps
-eggrolls
-fish
-rice with beef
-rice with eggs
-fish ball soup
everything was absolutely delicious, and covered in delicious sauces and vegetables.
Then there was desert:
-almond flavored…liquid with tapioca
-mango version of the same
-coconut version of the same
-mango flan
THEN, since it had recently been Maria and my mom’s birthday the people sang happy birthday to them and brought us peach longevity cakes. Pictures on facebook. The place was really fancy and beautiful looking, the service was impeccable and the view, of course, unique.
As drinks, Charles ordered wine, beer and tea for everyone, and told us about how in Taiwan it’s better viewed to not drink alone, because that way you know that you’re drinking with friends and it won’t become a problem, so we all took drinks at the same time. His wife Angela, and his kids Tracy and David were with us too. Both of his kids study economy, and David was made fun of a lot because he supposedly studied Spanish for 5 years but did not remember a lot.
We had a really good time eating with them, the conversation was great. We really felt like we were among friends.
Sunday
The next day we went out for some walking around and sight-seeing, we went to see the presidential palace which was well guarded by police, who asked us nicely to keep moving and not take too long taking pictures. We randomly found a really nice park in the middle of the city that although, very simple looking, had that very distinct “asian forest” feeling.
We arrived at this complex that contains the national concert Hall, the Theater and a Huge monument that is still in construction. The buildings really feel otherworldly, no matter how many times you’ve seen the style in movies or whatever to see them there in front of you and realize that for them it’s just the natural way to do things is a feeling that’s hard to describe. (Pics on the facebook)
This is when we realized that had no local currency, we tried to get some through an ATM and my mom’s “international card” but it didn’t work. It was about lunch time and Charles had told us the night before about what is known officially as the “best dumplings on earth”, they are sold at a restaurant called Din Tai Fung, so we had decided to go there. We asked a policeman about where we could exchange some currency, again it took a while because his English was not all that good and our Chinese wasn’t either :P. But this guy had decided that he was going to help us whatever it took. Being a Sunday he told us that there would be very few places that would exchange currency so that was going to be really hard, but after we told him where we were going he stopped a cab told him where we were going and…listen to this…grabbed some money from his pocket paid the cab driver and told us that it was his gift to us for visiting his country! I still find it hard to believe, the guy’s picture is also on the facebook.
The dumpling place is crazy, they have SO much business but they have decided that they’re not going to expand, they want to make sure the quality remains the same and expanding makes it harder to control that. The way it works is there is a huge line outside the place and you get there and you order they keep your number and about 20 mins later they call you and THEN you get a table, once your food is ready, really smart system if you ask me. We used those 20 mins to try and look for a place to get local currency…we couldn’t so we sat down and ate the most delicious dumplings in the world and we had no way to pay for it.
Hmmmm…what to do? For whatever reason my mom decided to ask if they took US dollars as a form of payment and they were like yeah, why not? oh wait but we’d have to give you change…in the local currency! Damn right! so that was awesome. The dumplings were delicious I ordered us some pork, some chicken, then a huge one…I think it was pork too, and a beef soup.
I have to say that although I am completely ignorant when it comes to dumpings they were really delicious, so I believe it. We used out newly acquired usable cash to take another cab and go check out the area around the Taipei 101 building. The building itself is full of really fancy and expensive designer clothing stores, which is to be expected, there is a food area in the basement where we enjoyed some tasty KFC. On our way out we found a water fountain which my sister enjoyed very much. We decided that we had seen what we wanted to see for the day we had done a lot of walking and it had been really hot, Maria had been really good all day so we figured we would stay there and let her play as much as she wanted…so a lot. She got soaked, ran, jumped, danced, and had a blast, she pulled me in there and got me really wet too. After a while, a security person came and told us that at 7 every day they have a little light and music show with the water, so we stuck around for that; it was surprisingly good.
Cab home and bed.
Monday
We met Charles again for breakfast at a Taiwanese version of an “American diner” and then he took is to his work where he had scheduled some people to meet and listen to my dad talk about the stuff he presented in Bhutan. Meanwhile my mom found herself a Spanish speaking lady at our hotel and went asian-shopping for really cool cheap stuff.
By the time we met again we did not have a lot of time left, we walked outside the hotel and went to see the gate to the old city. On the way back we crossed the shop of a shoemaker; I forgot to mention this before but about half of the sole on my right shoe had become loose and was flapping every time I took a step, the guy saw it and demanded that I give it to him so he could fix it. He got to work like a beast it took him about 2 minutes to fix that, and then fixed like 3 other things that were not optimal perfect about the show, then proceeded to fix the other one. It was really cool to see him work so fast and passionately, to him it was like a game, like a challenge and he was really enjoying it. When he was done like 10 minutes later he charged me like 5 dollars worth.
We took a cab to see the palace museum, our last stop in Taiwan. It was pretty cool, we got to see these scrolls that basically created the rules for Chinese typography and all the ways to practice and master it. They also used some ancient paintings and recreated some of the scenes portrayed in them using 3d animation. The museum was really crowded though. Another really interesting thing that we saw there was a stamp station, My guess is they put them in interesting places to motivate tourists and locals to go visit and get the stamp from the place, neat.
Another Taxi took us to the airport in a ride that made us a little nervous; there are 2 airports near Taipei, and although we knew which one we needed to go to and tried our best to communicate that to our driver, we were not sure whether he got it or not. But it all worked out, at the airport we had some dumplings and spaghetti, which were surprisingly good and then…to China
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Asia Trip 2011 - part 6 - Singapore
Thursday
Before getting on the cab I had already noticed that they were very organized and efficient assigning cabs and sending people off for an international airport. The road away from the airport is beautiful, trees to each side that are very well taken care off, and a median made out of pots abundant with pink and purple flowers, the highway looked perfectly clean, and our cab driver told us that is a priority here.
As we got closer to the city the impression only became more intense, the buildings, streetlights, sidewalks, gardens, everything absolutely clean, and this is in the heart of the financial district of the city.
We headed to the Taiwan Embassy to get our visas for Taiwan.
Our driver was really funny, his English was decent and he really wanted to help us by telling us about the city, things to do and what we were seeing. He repeated himself a lot and made sure he was very clear. “there is a 1-hour difference between here and Thailand, so now it’s 11:45 there, which means here it is 12:45, because there is a one hour difference, between where you come from which is Thailand and where you are now which is here, Singapore” “if you have problems you can call the police, it’s 999, so you take your phone, you dial 9 (motion) 9 (motion) 9 (motion) then you press send or call (motion) and you talk to the police”…he was really nice though, cool dude.
Part of the reason, he told us, the city is really clean and the country works the way it does, is very strict police, there is a 30 dollar fine for jaywalking, and 300 for throwing a cigarette butt in the street. People, more than respecting authority, are afraid of it.
We got to the Taiwanese embassy where we were treated incredibly nice and they within a half hour they gave us our visas, it’s crazy how different things are when you know the right people :-) :-/ :-?
We went for lunch at this mall-ish area where a lot of businesspeople usually go for lunch, there was some good food but mostly delicious desserts and drinks. I had kiwi juice for the first time in my life, it was delicious.
Getting a cab here is different too as far as I can tell, we’ve taken one twice, coming out of shopping malls of touristy areas, and both times there has been a line where everyone is very organized and respectful and there’s a button that calls a cab for you when you push it. It seems to work really well, since there is usually about 20 people in line but it takes about 3-5 mins for you to get in your cab.
We got to our friend’s house, Kristine was outside waiting and playing with her two daughters, who “couldn’t wait to play with their friend Maria”; they didn’t waste any time. The house was a small 2 story house, they had just moved there a few weeks before. After settling down my parents and Kristine went out for some shopping while the girls, their father and I went to a neighborhood park. Alex, the eldest (4) built a castle, and BB the youngest (3) ran around, maria worked hard on the monkey bars and build a support platform for the see-saw. The girl’s father is from south Africa and he has a very dry (british?) way of dealing with and talking to the girls, I was a little shocked but I guess it’s just his way of doing things.
Our hostess made a delicious curry (?) dish and we got the opportunity to talk about a lot of things over dinner.
• Singapore is unofficially a “benevolent dictatorship” as Paul, Kristine’s husband, described it. Officially it’s a democracy, but the same party has been in power for a really long time. So they generally can do what they want.
• At some point the opposition party started gaining some strength and the main party stopped running the schools and taking care of the roads as a way to show their discontent. The key thing here is that people may have been unhappy with some things but not unhappy enough to make those sacrifices to make those changes happen. In general, he said the government does things well, and the people are happy.
• The general feeling about it seems to be that democracy is not that good anyway, they compare Singapore to England and the US and say, “they have a real democracy and they’re not doing that well, so what’s the big deal?”
• The press is all controlled by the state, which at the very least looks like a bad thing.
• There is no minimum wage, which allows for a big gap to exist in society; construction workers earn 300-400 singapore dollars per month (1 singapore $ = 0.8 US $) while ex-pat’s can afford living in places where rent is 25000 a month.
• Even tough some people live with really low wages, it’s hard to find poverty; Chinatown is supposed to be one of the poorest communities but, again, it looked very clean and decent. Part of the reason for this is that in their culture it is very important to take care of the elderly and of your neighbor.
• As for the construction workers, they “enjoy” some exceptions, I was told they tend to live in big buildings in which you will find 20 people per bathroom, and they travel in the back of pickup trucks right next to bricks or other building materials. Apparently the government just looks the other way and decides not to implement laws to prevent this because it would hurt the construction industry too much.
• We compared the country to a company in which a CEO has a lot of freedom to do things his way, but really cares and watches over how things are and where ultimately things are run well and people are happy.
• It seems to be, however a “plastic” society, in which a lot of things were created and are designed in the optimal way, and in which there is not a lot of culture, history or national identity. People spend most of their time working or shopping.
• THERE ARE A LOT OF SHOPPING MALLS
• We learned about the merlion, which was an icon designed to be a mascot of the country, it seemed to be an attempt by the government to create that national identity.
Friday
We woke up to the delicious smell of banana pancakes, ate breakfast with everyone and watched our hosts leave to take care of their respective daily responsibilities. After a little bit of planning we decided to go to Sentosa island. We took the subway and got there quickly. Once again, we were impressed by how clean and efficient everything was. Then we were supposed to go to Vivo city mall and get on the cable cars, or the monorail to go to the island.
Sigh…People in Singapore are VERY bad at giving directions, we looked for the cable cars for about a half hour and everyone kept sending us in different directions, then we found out the cable cars were really expensive so we went back got lost a few more times and found the monorail.
We got to Sentosa, it is an island designed to have a lot of attractions for tourist kind of like a theme park but you pay for the rides and not for the park ticket, although universal studios Singapore is there. Lunch was at chili’s because our stomachs needed a break from spicy asian food, but it was really expensive, the standard $12-15 fajita was 32 here (about 25 american dollars) food in general was very expensive in Singapore.
We went up the Merlion statue for a really cool view of the city and a show about the Merlion and the legend of Singapore. Then, again because of bad direction giving, my mom had to take a 30 min excursion to “the nearest” bathroom (there were 2 others right next to us, we later found out). And we headed back home.
We took a taxi that took us through Chinatown, and arrived at our hostess house, where BB and Alex were anxious to see Maria. They played and watched Gnomeo and Juliet, and I decided to go to this high tech center...Sim Lim square I think.
I was a little disappointed, I was expecting to see either really cool new things that I haven’t seen anywhere else, or pretty normal things at really low prices. It was neither, there was nothing you couldn’t find on ebay for similar prices the only semi-interesting thing was smart TVs with internet and “apps” were starting to get pretty popular.
That night we ate dinner at a little pizza place near our hostess house, and went to bed early.
Saturday
Flight to Taiwan
Before getting on the cab I had already noticed that they were very organized and efficient assigning cabs and sending people off for an international airport. The road away from the airport is beautiful, trees to each side that are very well taken care off, and a median made out of pots abundant with pink and purple flowers, the highway looked perfectly clean, and our cab driver told us that is a priority here.
As we got closer to the city the impression only became more intense, the buildings, streetlights, sidewalks, gardens, everything absolutely clean, and this is in the heart of the financial district of the city.
We headed to the Taiwan Embassy to get our visas for Taiwan.
Our driver was really funny, his English was decent and he really wanted to help us by telling us about the city, things to do and what we were seeing. He repeated himself a lot and made sure he was very clear. “there is a 1-hour difference between here and Thailand, so now it’s 11:45 there, which means here it is 12:45, because there is a one hour difference, between where you come from which is Thailand and where you are now which is here, Singapore” “if you have problems you can call the police, it’s 999, so you take your phone, you dial 9 (motion) 9 (motion) 9 (motion) then you press send or call (motion) and you talk to the police”…he was really nice though, cool dude.
Part of the reason, he told us, the city is really clean and the country works the way it does, is very strict police, there is a 30 dollar fine for jaywalking, and 300 for throwing a cigarette butt in the street. People, more than respecting authority, are afraid of it.
We got to the Taiwanese embassy where we were treated incredibly nice and they within a half hour they gave us our visas, it’s crazy how different things are when you know the right people :-) :-/ :-?
We went for lunch at this mall-ish area where a lot of businesspeople usually go for lunch, there was some good food but mostly delicious desserts and drinks. I had kiwi juice for the first time in my life, it was delicious.
Getting a cab here is different too as far as I can tell, we’ve taken one twice, coming out of shopping malls of touristy areas, and both times there has been a line where everyone is very organized and respectful and there’s a button that calls a cab for you when you push it. It seems to work really well, since there is usually about 20 people in line but it takes about 3-5 mins for you to get in your cab.
We got to our friend’s house, Kristine was outside waiting and playing with her two daughters, who “couldn’t wait to play with their friend Maria”; they didn’t waste any time. The house was a small 2 story house, they had just moved there a few weeks before. After settling down my parents and Kristine went out for some shopping while the girls, their father and I went to a neighborhood park. Alex, the eldest (4) built a castle, and BB the youngest (3) ran around, maria worked hard on the monkey bars and build a support platform for the see-saw. The girl’s father is from south Africa and he has a very dry (british?) way of dealing with and talking to the girls, I was a little shocked but I guess it’s just his way of doing things.
Our hostess made a delicious curry (?) dish and we got the opportunity to talk about a lot of things over dinner.
• Singapore is unofficially a “benevolent dictatorship” as Paul, Kristine’s husband, described it. Officially it’s a democracy, but the same party has been in power for a really long time. So they generally can do what they want.
• At some point the opposition party started gaining some strength and the main party stopped running the schools and taking care of the roads as a way to show their discontent. The key thing here is that people may have been unhappy with some things but not unhappy enough to make those sacrifices to make those changes happen. In general, he said the government does things well, and the people are happy.
• The general feeling about it seems to be that democracy is not that good anyway, they compare Singapore to England and the US and say, “they have a real democracy and they’re not doing that well, so what’s the big deal?”
• The press is all controlled by the state, which at the very least looks like a bad thing.
• There is no minimum wage, which allows for a big gap to exist in society; construction workers earn 300-400 singapore dollars per month (1 singapore $ = 0.8 US $) while ex-pat’s can afford living in places where rent is 25000 a month.
• Even tough some people live with really low wages, it’s hard to find poverty; Chinatown is supposed to be one of the poorest communities but, again, it looked very clean and decent. Part of the reason for this is that in their culture it is very important to take care of the elderly and of your neighbor.
• As for the construction workers, they “enjoy” some exceptions, I was told they tend to live in big buildings in which you will find 20 people per bathroom, and they travel in the back of pickup trucks right next to bricks or other building materials. Apparently the government just looks the other way and decides not to implement laws to prevent this because it would hurt the construction industry too much.
• We compared the country to a company in which a CEO has a lot of freedom to do things his way, but really cares and watches over how things are and where ultimately things are run well and people are happy.
• It seems to be, however a “plastic” society, in which a lot of things were created and are designed in the optimal way, and in which there is not a lot of culture, history or national identity. People spend most of their time working or shopping.
• THERE ARE A LOT OF SHOPPING MALLS
• We learned about the merlion, which was an icon designed to be a mascot of the country, it seemed to be an attempt by the government to create that national identity.
Friday
We woke up to the delicious smell of banana pancakes, ate breakfast with everyone and watched our hosts leave to take care of their respective daily responsibilities. After a little bit of planning we decided to go to Sentosa island. We took the subway and got there quickly. Once again, we were impressed by how clean and efficient everything was. Then we were supposed to go to Vivo city mall and get on the cable cars, or the monorail to go to the island.
Sigh…People in Singapore are VERY bad at giving directions, we looked for the cable cars for about a half hour and everyone kept sending us in different directions, then we found out the cable cars were really expensive so we went back got lost a few more times and found the monorail.
We got to Sentosa, it is an island designed to have a lot of attractions for tourist kind of like a theme park but you pay for the rides and not for the park ticket, although universal studios Singapore is there. Lunch was at chili’s because our stomachs needed a break from spicy asian food, but it was really expensive, the standard $12-15 fajita was 32 here (about 25 american dollars) food in general was very expensive in Singapore.
We went up the Merlion statue for a really cool view of the city and a show about the Merlion and the legend of Singapore. Then, again because of bad direction giving, my mom had to take a 30 min excursion to “the nearest” bathroom (there were 2 others right next to us, we later found out). And we headed back home.
We took a taxi that took us through Chinatown, and arrived at our hostess house, where BB and Alex were anxious to see Maria. They played and watched Gnomeo and Juliet, and I decided to go to this high tech center...Sim Lim square I think.
I was a little disappointed, I was expecting to see either really cool new things that I haven’t seen anywhere else, or pretty normal things at really low prices. It was neither, there was nothing you couldn’t find on ebay for similar prices the only semi-interesting thing was smart TVs with internet and “apps” were starting to get pretty popular.
That night we ate dinner at a little pizza place near our hostess house, and went to bed early.
Saturday
Flight to Taiwan
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Asia Trip 2011 - part 5 - Thailand
Monday
We got to the airport in Bangkok around noon, and were stopped by the immigration “doctor” because, coming from Colombia we were more likely to have yellow fever. The doctor took us to a corner and asked us “do you have yellow fever? No? ok” and put a stamp on a piece of paper…this took about 15 minutes but oh well. On our way out of the airport we found a place that sold city tours for really cheap, the guy told us that since it is low-season for tourism the government sponsors these cheap tours and so we took it for the next day. We took a cab and headed to our hotel; the highway to the airport was impressively well taken care of, there were little statues on the side every 100 yards or so, and they had HUGE advertising sings, imagine 5 normal sized US signs stuck together side by side. Traffic when we got to the city was crazy, it took about a half hour between when we got off the highway and when we got to the hotel.
The hotel was really nice, there was a sign that said that Durian was not allowed in the hotel, it’s a fruit that apparently has a really strong smell and takes about 2 weeks to get rid of if it manages to get in the ventilation system. In the room I noticed there was a bible and a book called the teachings of Buddha, which I thought was really cool. We went out for some food and to walk for a little bit. The area was very active, the first thing we saw where some massage parlors, a LOT of them, we didn’t ask but I’m sure all sorts of services are available…actually I was later told that Thailand is a place where a lot of Europeans come to “have fun” because of how loose their laws about prostitution are. Pretty much every other establishment in the area that we walked that night was either a bar or a massage place, each one of these had about 5 five sitting outside in uniform just sitting there chatting, not even inviting you in or telling you what they have inside, like in a lot of other cities, they were just hired by the place to sit there talk and make the place look pretty. We ended up finding a McDonalds, we all ate there for the equivalent of 8 US dollars. Back to the hotel and sleepy time.
Tuesday
Early in the morning we started our city tour, we began by visiting a few temples. The first one houses the biggest pure gold Buddha statue 5.5 tons of pure gold, crazy. It was interesting to see hoe they managed to combine tourism and devotion, even though there were probably 100 people going in and out every minute while at the same time there were about 5-10 people praying and meditating in front of the statue. Bangkok is a big city in which religion is very big (yes this is the same city that we saw the night before with the massage parlors and the bars) there are 400 temples in the city including one temple next to every public school. After the first one we went to a big temple complex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Pho) that contained a lot mini temples/rooms. The first one we saw had the biggest reclining Buddha, it was ridiculously huge, the walls of the room it was in, were again all completely covered in hand painted drawings of people living with gods among them and that told stories about the characters and how they interacted. There were a lot of people and it was pretty chaotic inside, also we saw some really pretty flower arrangements with loti and other cool flowers. There was a row of hanging pots in which people dropped little pebbles that you bought, supposedly as an offer to the gods for good luck. Maria did it and thought it was so cool.
It was very hot that day and the place was really crowded which made it worse, but we powered through it, we saw some towers that were the tombs of previous kings, and live size Buddha statues that also served as the resting place for members of important families in Thailand, these make up a big part of the more than 1000 statues housed in that complex. We saw the Saturday Buddha next, which is being guarded by 7 snakes that rise from behind him, and Maria Jose sat in front of him imitating his position. The Thursday Buddha, in sitting position and under an umbrella, was in a room in which no one is supposed to be standing, we were politely asked to find a spot and sit down, facing the statue, and not have our feet pointing to the Buddha as a form of respect. I think the last Buddha we saw was the Wednesday Buddha which is standing.
By now you probably figured out that there is a position of the Buddha for every day of the week, which one you worship depends on which day of the week you were born on. While riding in the car between places we booked 2 more events with the same company, that night we would be going to Siam Nirait and the next day to a safari/zoo. Our next stop was the canals we got on a boat and sailed around the canals of the city, you could see various aspects of the city, some houses that faced the river were very neat, modern and expensive looking, but we also saw people living in houses that were about to fall down. In front of temples, people are not allowed to fish, which means that you find incredible amounts of fish just living there, we bought some bread and threw it in the water to see the fish, it was fun.
When we got off the boat we had to almost fight off this lady that wanted to sell my mom some purses, my mom made the mistake of telling her “maybe later” which works great in Colombia because they can’t really ask you to buy any more but they also know that you’re not coming back. In Thailand and the rest of India, we would eventually realize, this causes the person to wait for you, in this case about 1 hour, so they can then tell you “I waited for 1 hour now you have to buy something.
In our next stop we found out why our tour really was so cheap, they took us to a jewelry store/factory and our tour guide asked us to look at stuff for about 15 minutes and then we would move on. My mom ended up buying some earrings, and then we were taken to a clothes shop where you select a fabric have them take your measurements and then they send you your suit/dress/shirt to your hotel the next morning, we looked at some stuff because my dad was kind of interested in a jacket but he ended up playing difficult and making the salesman mad…which he kind of enjoyed. It seemed pretty obvious to us that the tours are financed by those kind of places to take people there, if you see them while walking around, the average tourist would never stop and go inside, but when you’re taken there and have to simply walk inside you’re much more likely to buy something. Then they took us to our hotel where we had a little bit of time to shower, get refreshed and change to go to the show that night.
Our bus came to get us and take us to the show (http://www.siamniramit.com/oldweb/) at our arrival we were greeted with a flower that we could pin onto our shirts, girls were greeting everyone and taking pictures. When we got past the main entrance we saw 2 guys riding elephants and some people selling pickles to feed to the elephants. It was really weird, you get close to them with the pickle and then all of a sudden their giant trunk starts attacking your hand with a slow but steady pace, then the nose opens up and reveals 2 nostrils through which the pickle could have easily fit. When you’ve been worrying about the trunk for a few seconds you realize that there is a huge beast, twice as tall as you are and probably 10 times as heavy coming at you just as fast, that’s when you let go of that stupid pickle and make your escape. Hehe, not really but yeah it’s really freaky, their skin was really tough and they had hairs as think as the bristles of a broom, they were really calm and nice. My dad and I fed them but Maria was too freaked out. Then we went for dinner, which was included in the show ticket cost, it was a thai food buffet that was very organized and well setup in a room that fit probably 200-300 people, it was also very delicious. We thought about how everything was well organized and how it was a really good idea for tourists because they would get exposed to a good chick of thai culture, food, and a very interesting and entertaining show, also the cost was very reasonable but clearly enough to cover the cost, it would probably be a good business idea to try and develop in Colombia. After a while, a magician walked around the tables performing little tricks and announcing the show would start soon; he was followed by a line of drummers, singers and dancers that carried the same message. We went downstairs and saw a little pre-show dance, then walked through a little exhibition that showed the different styled of traditional housing in Thailand. In one of them there was a lady making bowls out or leaves and flowers that looked amazing, and gave my dad and me a little string bracelet that she blessed with a prayer for good luck, then we saw a little shadow puppet show before going inside the theater.
No cameras were allowed inside, you were actually required to put them in a little numbered bag that they would keep outside for you. The theater was huge, but only about a third full that night. The show was awesome, a few “plays” with music lights and dancing and choreography that talked about traditions and history of the region. The first one was bout a king and a queen and hot they met and saw the floating lanterns fly up and away, the same lights that are featured in tangled. The second one was about a clumsy merchant who came in a boat and fell in love with the clumsy lobster saleswoman in town, at the end they kissed. One was underwater and started with a guy diving from the top of the stage to the bottom of the ocean to find a pearl, some others included elephants and one had a magician that called for a participant from the crowd. The second part included religious scenes a forest in which mystical creatures live, a scary depiction of hell where souls were tortured and the king of darkness ruled, and finally a depiction of heaven and the gods living in harmony in the clouds. For lack of a better term I’ll say it was very Disney-ish…in a good way. I really liked it. That was it on that day, we all fell asleep during the ride back to the hotel.
Wednesday
This was, according to Maria, the most fun day of the trip so far. We got up early for a long ride to Safari World, our guide was very happy and enthusiastic and, although she had a very thick accent was able to get her point across. “Look for the pink umbrella” is what we were supposed to do to find her, eventually we found out this was great advice since the park was incredibly crowded. The first thing we saw was the orangutan show, it started with a few orangutans pretending to play some instruments and eventually led up to a boxing match, both the human and non-human animals were hilarious, they kept hitting everyone and making jokes, pulling people’s shorts and pants down, one of the monkeys was a stripper that demanded money every time she showed up. Overall they all really looked like they were having fun, the monkeys didn’t look sad or like they were being forced to do this, and they really looked like they were having fun while playing with their friends, the trainers.
After that we saw the sea-lion show, hilarious, it involved some basketball and a sea-lion performing cpr on a trainer. Then was the “cowboy show”, it looked a lot like the Indiana jones show at the Disney parks, a lot of special effects and explosions and a fight between cowboys and Indians. It was cool and funny but their Thai accents made it funny. Lunch followed and it was really impressive, the package we bought included the entrance ticket and lunch, apparently so did everyone else; in a previously empty room hundreds of us walked in the dining room and a huge buffet was ready and waiting for us. The food was not amazing, but the logistics were incredible, the people were completely unorganized and impatient but there was plenty of food for everyone and in about 2 hours they had fed about 600 crazy people.
Next up was the boat trip, it was a little ride in a boat in which you got to see mechanical animals and natives simulating a boat safari in the jungle in africa, a lot like the jungle trip in the Disney parks too. This one was a lot less…polished, some things were kind of weird, for starters the first native we saw was wearing a piece fabric to cover his private parts except…it didn’t cover them very well…also whoever made the robot/person spent the time to make him a penis, that was really weird. At a few points during the ride some effects were activated; the animals would move or roar and other such things, but pretty much at every one of those you could clearly see the laser that detected your arrival to start the effect, they didn’t try too hard to hide them. Also at one point there was a cage that hung above us within reach, the gaps between bars were about 4 mm. and there was a live snake sleeping in it, maybe I was just being paranoid but it seemed dangerous. I thought the ride was pretty lame but my sister really liked it. Oh, and also on the way out of the park there was a statue of a lady that squirted water out of her nipples. Picture on facebook, hilarious.
Then it was time for the safari, that’s right, an actual real life safari. We got in the car and started driving, it was SO cool, we saw antelopes zebras giraffes, just hanging out outside, we were the ones in the cage. A few zebras and camels decided to walk in front of the cars making the trip a lot slower (and awesomer). There was a “horns” area where there all sorts of animals with different sized and shaped horns, some were really long and thin and perfectly straight, others incredibly twisted and messed up, some pointing up some to the sides, it was really cool to see them all right there in front of you. The latter areas had more dangerous and bigger animals: hippos, bears, rhinos, tigers and lions, all separate. My mom fell asleep when we were entering the lions area (we were all exhausted) and so I scratched the side of the car in order to scare her, it worked beautifully.
On the way back we were again driven to a jewelry store, which by now had started getting a little annoying, while we waited I tried to take a picture of some of the stuff they sell but they told me it wasn’t allowed. Some of the ladies who worked there did Maria’s hair because like everyone else in that continent they thought Maria was so pretty. We got in the car and there were about 4 more groups of people whose hotels were in the same area as ours, unfortunately we got caught in rush hour traffic which means the ride took at least 2 hours, I’m not exaggerating. One of the guys in the van was having a terrible day, at one point he turned to us and said that he had a headache because Maria was being too loud, Maria was a little sad to hear that but she immediately started being really quiet and good. Later on the guy started complaining to the driver about traffic and demanding that he took him to the hotel quickly, the thing escalated to the point where the driver yelled at the guy “just shut up”. The guy was being really rude, I remembered I had some advil so I offered it to him and he calmed down. We eventually got home and then Maria and I got in the pool for an hour or so. Good day.
Thursday
To the airport in the morning, on our way to Singapore. One of the things in our mind was that our next destination was Taiwan since we were very cordially invited by Charles who we met in Bhutan at the meeting. However, since we didn’t have a visa, he insisted on making arrangements and set up an appointment for us in the Taiwanese embassy in Singapore.
We got to the airport in Bangkok around noon, and were stopped by the immigration “doctor” because, coming from Colombia we were more likely to have yellow fever. The doctor took us to a corner and asked us “do you have yellow fever? No? ok” and put a stamp on a piece of paper…this took about 15 minutes but oh well. On our way out of the airport we found a place that sold city tours for really cheap, the guy told us that since it is low-season for tourism the government sponsors these cheap tours and so we took it for the next day. We took a cab and headed to our hotel; the highway to the airport was impressively well taken care of, there were little statues on the side every 100 yards or so, and they had HUGE advertising sings, imagine 5 normal sized US signs stuck together side by side. Traffic when we got to the city was crazy, it took about a half hour between when we got off the highway and when we got to the hotel.
The hotel was really nice, there was a sign that said that Durian was not allowed in the hotel, it’s a fruit that apparently has a really strong smell and takes about 2 weeks to get rid of if it manages to get in the ventilation system. In the room I noticed there was a bible and a book called the teachings of Buddha, which I thought was really cool. We went out for some food and to walk for a little bit. The area was very active, the first thing we saw where some massage parlors, a LOT of them, we didn’t ask but I’m sure all sorts of services are available…actually I was later told that Thailand is a place where a lot of Europeans come to “have fun” because of how loose their laws about prostitution are. Pretty much every other establishment in the area that we walked that night was either a bar or a massage place, each one of these had about 5 five sitting outside in uniform just sitting there chatting, not even inviting you in or telling you what they have inside, like in a lot of other cities, they were just hired by the place to sit there talk and make the place look pretty. We ended up finding a McDonalds, we all ate there for the equivalent of 8 US dollars. Back to the hotel and sleepy time.
Tuesday
Early in the morning we started our city tour, we began by visiting a few temples. The first one houses the biggest pure gold Buddha statue 5.5 tons of pure gold, crazy. It was interesting to see hoe they managed to combine tourism and devotion, even though there were probably 100 people going in and out every minute while at the same time there were about 5-10 people praying and meditating in front of the statue. Bangkok is a big city in which religion is very big (yes this is the same city that we saw the night before with the massage parlors and the bars) there are 400 temples in the city including one temple next to every public school. After the first one we went to a big temple complex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Pho) that contained a lot mini temples/rooms. The first one we saw had the biggest reclining Buddha, it was ridiculously huge, the walls of the room it was in, were again all completely covered in hand painted drawings of people living with gods among them and that told stories about the characters and how they interacted. There were a lot of people and it was pretty chaotic inside, also we saw some really pretty flower arrangements with loti and other cool flowers. There was a row of hanging pots in which people dropped little pebbles that you bought, supposedly as an offer to the gods for good luck. Maria did it and thought it was so cool.
It was very hot that day and the place was really crowded which made it worse, but we powered through it, we saw some towers that were the tombs of previous kings, and live size Buddha statues that also served as the resting place for members of important families in Thailand, these make up a big part of the more than 1000 statues housed in that complex. We saw the Saturday Buddha next, which is being guarded by 7 snakes that rise from behind him, and Maria Jose sat in front of him imitating his position. The Thursday Buddha, in sitting position and under an umbrella, was in a room in which no one is supposed to be standing, we were politely asked to find a spot and sit down, facing the statue, and not have our feet pointing to the Buddha as a form of respect. I think the last Buddha we saw was the Wednesday Buddha which is standing.
By now you probably figured out that there is a position of the Buddha for every day of the week, which one you worship depends on which day of the week you were born on. While riding in the car between places we booked 2 more events with the same company, that night we would be going to Siam Nirait and the next day to a safari/zoo. Our next stop was the canals we got on a boat and sailed around the canals of the city, you could see various aspects of the city, some houses that faced the river were very neat, modern and expensive looking, but we also saw people living in houses that were about to fall down. In front of temples, people are not allowed to fish, which means that you find incredible amounts of fish just living there, we bought some bread and threw it in the water to see the fish, it was fun.
When we got off the boat we had to almost fight off this lady that wanted to sell my mom some purses, my mom made the mistake of telling her “maybe later” which works great in Colombia because they can’t really ask you to buy any more but they also know that you’re not coming back. In Thailand and the rest of India, we would eventually realize, this causes the person to wait for you, in this case about 1 hour, so they can then tell you “I waited for 1 hour now you have to buy something.
In our next stop we found out why our tour really was so cheap, they took us to a jewelry store/factory and our tour guide asked us to look at stuff for about 15 minutes and then we would move on. My mom ended up buying some earrings, and then we were taken to a clothes shop where you select a fabric have them take your measurements and then they send you your suit/dress/shirt to your hotel the next morning, we looked at some stuff because my dad was kind of interested in a jacket but he ended up playing difficult and making the salesman mad…which he kind of enjoyed. It seemed pretty obvious to us that the tours are financed by those kind of places to take people there, if you see them while walking around, the average tourist would never stop and go inside, but when you’re taken there and have to simply walk inside you’re much more likely to buy something. Then they took us to our hotel where we had a little bit of time to shower, get refreshed and change to go to the show that night.
Our bus came to get us and take us to the show (http://www.siamniramit.com/oldweb/) at our arrival we were greeted with a flower that we could pin onto our shirts, girls were greeting everyone and taking pictures. When we got past the main entrance we saw 2 guys riding elephants and some people selling pickles to feed to the elephants. It was really weird, you get close to them with the pickle and then all of a sudden their giant trunk starts attacking your hand with a slow but steady pace, then the nose opens up and reveals 2 nostrils through which the pickle could have easily fit. When you’ve been worrying about the trunk for a few seconds you realize that there is a huge beast, twice as tall as you are and probably 10 times as heavy coming at you just as fast, that’s when you let go of that stupid pickle and make your escape. Hehe, not really but yeah it’s really freaky, their skin was really tough and they had hairs as think as the bristles of a broom, they were really calm and nice. My dad and I fed them but Maria was too freaked out. Then we went for dinner, which was included in the show ticket cost, it was a thai food buffet that was very organized and well setup in a room that fit probably 200-300 people, it was also very delicious. We thought about how everything was well organized and how it was a really good idea for tourists because they would get exposed to a good chick of thai culture, food, and a very interesting and entertaining show, also the cost was very reasonable but clearly enough to cover the cost, it would probably be a good business idea to try and develop in Colombia. After a while, a magician walked around the tables performing little tricks and announcing the show would start soon; he was followed by a line of drummers, singers and dancers that carried the same message. We went downstairs and saw a little pre-show dance, then walked through a little exhibition that showed the different styled of traditional housing in Thailand. In one of them there was a lady making bowls out or leaves and flowers that looked amazing, and gave my dad and me a little string bracelet that she blessed with a prayer for good luck, then we saw a little shadow puppet show before going inside the theater.
No cameras were allowed inside, you were actually required to put them in a little numbered bag that they would keep outside for you. The theater was huge, but only about a third full that night. The show was awesome, a few “plays” with music lights and dancing and choreography that talked about traditions and history of the region. The first one was bout a king and a queen and hot they met and saw the floating lanterns fly up and away, the same lights that are featured in tangled. The second one was about a clumsy merchant who came in a boat and fell in love with the clumsy lobster saleswoman in town, at the end they kissed. One was underwater and started with a guy diving from the top of the stage to the bottom of the ocean to find a pearl, some others included elephants and one had a magician that called for a participant from the crowd. The second part included religious scenes a forest in which mystical creatures live, a scary depiction of hell where souls were tortured and the king of darkness ruled, and finally a depiction of heaven and the gods living in harmony in the clouds. For lack of a better term I’ll say it was very Disney-ish…in a good way. I really liked it. That was it on that day, we all fell asleep during the ride back to the hotel.
Wednesday
This was, according to Maria, the most fun day of the trip so far. We got up early for a long ride to Safari World, our guide was very happy and enthusiastic and, although she had a very thick accent was able to get her point across. “Look for the pink umbrella” is what we were supposed to do to find her, eventually we found out this was great advice since the park was incredibly crowded. The first thing we saw was the orangutan show, it started with a few orangutans pretending to play some instruments and eventually led up to a boxing match, both the human and non-human animals were hilarious, they kept hitting everyone and making jokes, pulling people’s shorts and pants down, one of the monkeys was a stripper that demanded money every time she showed up. Overall they all really looked like they were having fun, the monkeys didn’t look sad or like they were being forced to do this, and they really looked like they were having fun while playing with their friends, the trainers.
After that we saw the sea-lion show, hilarious, it involved some basketball and a sea-lion performing cpr on a trainer. Then was the “cowboy show”, it looked a lot like the Indiana jones show at the Disney parks, a lot of special effects and explosions and a fight between cowboys and Indians. It was cool and funny but their Thai accents made it funny. Lunch followed and it was really impressive, the package we bought included the entrance ticket and lunch, apparently so did everyone else; in a previously empty room hundreds of us walked in the dining room and a huge buffet was ready and waiting for us. The food was not amazing, but the logistics were incredible, the people were completely unorganized and impatient but there was plenty of food for everyone and in about 2 hours they had fed about 600 crazy people.
Next up was the boat trip, it was a little ride in a boat in which you got to see mechanical animals and natives simulating a boat safari in the jungle in africa, a lot like the jungle trip in the Disney parks too. This one was a lot less…polished, some things were kind of weird, for starters the first native we saw was wearing a piece fabric to cover his private parts except…it didn’t cover them very well…also whoever made the robot/person spent the time to make him a penis, that was really weird. At a few points during the ride some effects were activated; the animals would move or roar and other such things, but pretty much at every one of those you could clearly see the laser that detected your arrival to start the effect, they didn’t try too hard to hide them. Also at one point there was a cage that hung above us within reach, the gaps between bars were about 4 mm. and there was a live snake sleeping in it, maybe I was just being paranoid but it seemed dangerous. I thought the ride was pretty lame but my sister really liked it. Oh, and also on the way out of the park there was a statue of a lady that squirted water out of her nipples. Picture on facebook, hilarious.
Then it was time for the safari, that’s right, an actual real life safari. We got in the car and started driving, it was SO cool, we saw antelopes zebras giraffes, just hanging out outside, we were the ones in the cage. A few zebras and camels decided to walk in front of the cars making the trip a lot slower (and awesomer). There was a “horns” area where there all sorts of animals with different sized and shaped horns, some were really long and thin and perfectly straight, others incredibly twisted and messed up, some pointing up some to the sides, it was really cool to see them all right there in front of you. The latter areas had more dangerous and bigger animals: hippos, bears, rhinos, tigers and lions, all separate. My mom fell asleep when we were entering the lions area (we were all exhausted) and so I scratched the side of the car in order to scare her, it worked beautifully.
On the way back we were again driven to a jewelry store, which by now had started getting a little annoying, while we waited I tried to take a picture of some of the stuff they sell but they told me it wasn’t allowed. Some of the ladies who worked there did Maria’s hair because like everyone else in that continent they thought Maria was so pretty. We got in the car and there were about 4 more groups of people whose hotels were in the same area as ours, unfortunately we got caught in rush hour traffic which means the ride took at least 2 hours, I’m not exaggerating. One of the guys in the van was having a terrible day, at one point he turned to us and said that he had a headache because Maria was being too loud, Maria was a little sad to hear that but she immediately started being really quiet and good. Later on the guy started complaining to the driver about traffic and demanding that he took him to the hotel quickly, the thing escalated to the point where the driver yelled at the guy “just shut up”. The guy was being really rude, I remembered I had some advil so I offered it to him and he calmed down. We eventually got home and then Maria and I got in the pool for an hour or so. Good day.
Thursday
To the airport in the morning, on our way to Singapore. One of the things in our mind was that our next destination was Taiwan since we were very cordially invited by Charles who we met in Bhutan at the meeting. However, since we didn’t have a visa, he insisted on making arrangements and set up an appointment for us in the Taiwanese embassy in Singapore.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Asia Trip 2011 - part 4 - Bhutan Last
Friday
Yoga in the morning BAM!
We joined the group for a visit to parliament. Along with the Gho, when there is a particularly important event people wear a white sash, ministers and…something else, wear orange and blue, and the king wears a yellow one…It’s pretty cool. While waiting for the session we got to say hi to a few of the members of parliament and talk to them. All the members arrived and they finally let us in the room, I was really happy to see they decided to keep the Bhutanese style but make it really elaborate and elegant. Lots of paintings and details and flags and statues, it was really beautiful; in the back was a throne for the king to sit cross-legged. The session began and we got cool little earphones so we could hear a real time translation to English. Everyone was really polite and organized in the room, they each talked for a really long time though. One remarkable thing was that the spirit in the room was really cooperative, the intention of ministers when they talked was more informative than demanding “here’s the research I have done, and here are the results, therefore this is the suggestion I have but of course we can all improve it” instead of “my way is the right way and this is how we need to do things”, that was surprising.
After that most of the group went back to termalinca for some more talks, while my mom sister and I went to do some more touristy things (wow, touristy is actually a word). We went to the national traditional medicine hospital, they did tell us that traditional herbal medicine is very important and widely used, but I didn’t find out how much western medicine is used. Then they took us to the local paper factory, there were some ladies working on rope handles for paper bags, and a guy working on really big sheets of paper, we got to see a lot of the process which was cool and mostly done by hand or with very basic machinery. That day my mom also decided to get a massage at the hotel, and get me one too, it was reeeeeally good.
We decided that I would go meet with the guy while my mom and Maria hung out at the Hotel, but then my dad called and said that he and my mom had been invited to have dinner with one of the queen mothers, so I had to take Maria with me. She was unbelievably good, she understood that I really wanted to talk to the guy so she brought stuff to color, and her DS so she could play and have fun while letting us talk all we wanted.
As expected, it was one of the most interesting talks I have ever had first off the guy was really nice and cool. He was as eager to share anything I wanted to know as he was to ask about stuff from my/our culture that he was curious about.
When JY was a baby he had a problem with his liver, they went to see doctors in Bhutan who told his parents they should be really nice to him since he didn’t have much to live. When they went to see doctors in India the liver appeared completely fine and doctors didn’t know what to do with a perfectly healthy liver. After a lot of that his mom decided to take him to a monastery, not knowing what else to do, where they were received with tea and a celebration. The leader at the monastery told them that the night before he had had a premonition and knew that the reincarnation of a very powerful and important monk would be visiting them that day and so they had spent a lot of time preparing for his arrival that day. JY stayed there and began his training, his liver problems disappeared completely. He was in the monastery for a few years, then I think he returned home for a while until he was 17-ish when he went back for 3 years.
He said it was tough, mentally but also physically, obviously lots of meditation, but also really intense and painful yoga and even suffocation but he stopped himself and said that’s all he really wanted to say about that.
When I asked him about Buddhism itself he replied in the form of a question. “What is happiness? how do you “achieve” it?” I told him what I thought in particular that a lot of people find it in material things or achievements, but that perhaps the most pure form is achieved by serving others and making their lives better, making other people happy and sharing it with them. Although that was very respectable, he said, it still depends on particular things or events; one of the big goals in his training is to realize that perfect pure happiness is independent of everything and always available within you. When you truly understand that you stop reacting emotionally to a lot of the world’s negatives, you never lose control or get angry or scared, you can live and act while in perfect peace and happiness with the universe. Of course this is an ideal state that’s very hard to achieve and people spend their lives meditating about it trying to get there.
I thought that the idea was really interesting and amazing, and actually very much along the lines of how I think people should be, and how I try to be. After letting it sit in my mind I realized the idea is similar to the idea of heaven, a state?place? where you can live in perfect happiness even if your relatives or friends or even yourself are in non-ideal conditions or suffering.
Another really interesting difference between Buddhism and Christianity was the source of authority, for us the bible is THE word of god and that’s why it’s important, Jesus was the son of god and that’s why he spoke the truth and that’s why he is followed.
Buddha was different, he didn’t say this is true because I say it, his message was “I spent my whole life thinking and meditating about this, and this is what I found, you should think and meditate about it, and you’ll find if/that it’s true for yourself”
We talked for at least 2 hours, then we realized what time it was but before I had to go he took me to a basketball gym since I told him I liked basketball, there were some girls playing in some local championship, then he took me to his place and showed me his house, it was an interesting combination of wealth and humility, very cool and unique. His mom greeted us happily and showed us around the house. Their prayer room was really warm and inviting. Finally Mrs. D invited me to come back for lunch or dinner on Sunday.
Then JY took me back to meet everyone, the travel agency threw a party for all the guests, which turned out to be a lot of fun. The music started with a local artist who sang danced and played at least 5 different instruments. After he was done other people started dances and chants from their countries. It was a lot of fun.
Saturday
Hmm I decided to skip yoga that morning and sleep in, which was good. We went to the market, I was impressed by how clean and organized it was; there was a lot of variety which was similar to a Colombian market (except it’s a lot more messy and loud in Colombia). Then we did a little bit of shopping before we went to the local Dzong. On the way there we were told to try not to look to out right, the palace was there and it’s disrespectful to look that way since you might see the king walking around. The Dzong again was impressive and majestic. Then we finally got the chance to head to the Buddha statue. They are still working on the temple that it will be sitting on but the statue itself was complete in all its majesty, it was huge…of course and really humbling. We learned that he is holding a bowl because even though he was a prince he gave all his fortune away to live like the poorest. The reason his right hand is touching the ground is that, one day while meditating an evil spirit came to tempt him, he asked Buddha what the point of it all was, why meditate so much and try to achieve enlightenment no one will know if he does, and it won’t help anyone else. By putting his hand on the ground he replied “the earth will be my witness”.
We went to lunch and then to an art exhibit which was…meh, then we sat outside and talked with some people from the meeting until we saw some kids playing soccer, so we went to play with them. Then it started to rain so we went back to the hotel.
It was Saturday and I had asked our guide, Wangchuk, what partying is like in Bhutan so he invited me to go party with him and his friends. He came and picked me up and we went to this bar where we sat down and talked while we waited for his friends. I had a glass of local beer and a shot of local whisky, they were…as expected…hehe I’m a sissy. We got to talk a little bit about him; he has acted in a few local movies and only works as a tour guide only during the tourist season. He is a Buddhist and told me about a special date that was coming up, it is a special date that people use in order to quit some vice, he told me that he was going to try to quit smoking, last year he asked the gods to help him quit and promised he would try really hard, but he was clean only for a few months, so this time he was going to ask for more help. He said he needed to be really careful about how he asked, because one of his friends promised that he would quit drinking, and after a few weeks he drank again. Within a week, the guy went lost his mind, everyone was worried about it, and then he disappeared no one has heard from him since then. He told me he firmly believed that the gods made that happen to him because he broke his promise. It was really strange and different to hear someone believe something so strongly that’s so different from anything you are used to seeing people believe.
When his friends got there we talked with them some more, at one point one of them asked me about a band he really liked called “matelik” that’s what I thought he said at least, we later found out it was metallica, and he was going to see them in India. We then drove to a few places to dance, there was a lot of smoking and some drug consumption pretty much a standard bar/dancing place. In one of the ones we visited we saw a bunch of people from the meeting so we stayed there for a while. Before leaving Wangchuk told me that the prince (the king’s younger brother) was there that day and he wanted me to meet him. We went to the smoking lounge and caught him as he was leaving. He was wearing a very typical European party-boy outfit, and he was very relaxed and approachable when I went to talk to him, we shook hands and hugged. I then noticed that even though he was being very friendly with me and the other foreigners all the Bhutanese people stayed a little way away and bowed respectfully. I then told him about my guide who had brought me there and had done a great job of showing me around the country and the prince went and shook his hand.
Wangchuk later told me that it was a great honor for him that that happened and that he was grateful towards me because it was thanks to me that he got to shake the hand of his prince.
Great fun night, bedtime.
Sunday
We woke up in the morning and went for a “hike in the mountains”. After a 15 min ride, we got off the car and started walking up a trail. It was about a 45 min walk in the Bhutanese forest/mountain. It was really quiet, beautiful and peaceful; the trail offered a great view of the city and the region. We eventually got to the temple at the end of the trail. The first thing we noticed when walked in were some footprints on the floor. But these were actually footprints that went INTO the floor, a solid wooden floor with footprints pushed into it, it was very hard to believe. A monk used to stand there for hours and meditate, always the same spot year after year, there’s a picture on facebook, I had to personally ask the monk there for permission to take the picture, and he also showed us where someone is currently doing a lot of praying while kneeling down and some prints are starting to form.
On the way back to the city we went to the local zoo where we learned about the takin, bhutan’s national animal. The legend says that the “divine madman” one of bhutan’s deities, known for his outrageous antics, was hanging out with his devotees when they asked him to perform a miracle, he demanded a whole cow and goat to eat and when only the bones were left he stuck the goat’s head on the cow’s body, uttered some words and the first takin was born. Now you see them grazing in the mountains around Bhutan.
Later that day I met again with JY and we went to play basketball. We drove to the local college and although the gym was closed we found an outdoor court to play in. JY, 4 friends and I played for about 1-2 hours, it was very informal and fun, it rained for a little bit but we kept playing, we all enjoyed it a lot. Then I went back to the hotel and changed before we went to his house for dinner with his mom. JY and his mom were so incredibly nice, I was told that they considered me part of their family and so there was no need for me to thank them for anything, they gave me a decorative bowl made of Bhutanese wood that was filled with crushed roasted corn kernels because “they don’t believe in giving empty gifts” along with a traditional…carrying recipient it’s hard to describe but it’s really cool and I’ll be using it a lot. For dinner they made some sort of beef jerky in a delicious sauce, a cheese/pepper sauce that was really spicy and delicious, and asparagus along with white rice which they ate by making a little ball with the palms of their hands. It was SO delicious, the conversation was great and I really felt at home, they invited me to go back anytime and stay with them next time I visit Bhutan, and they’d help me with my visa. I could not believe how fortunate I was to meet this family and to be welcomes in such a warm and loving way.
Then JY and I went for a ride, he took me to the base of the path that leads to the temple where he had just spent 3 years, and showed me a lot of “treasures” along the way: some rocks shaped like fish and one shaped like an elephant, a spot where someone important had sex with his woman, and so now a lot of people sneak there to do the same, little caves where people hide gifts for the gods. It was cool to see all those things that only he could have shown me, unfortunately since it was dark and it was raining I couldn’t get any good pictures.
I was dead tired so when he took me back to the hotel I immediately fell asleep. The next day we’d be leaving in the morning.
Hmm… wait, at some point we had to go to out travel agency’s office because they had screwed up our flight, we were supposed to fly to Bangkok but they had us booked for Calcutta. There was some trouble because the flight to Bangkok was full but we went and showed them an email that showed we wanted Bangkok and it was their mistake, so they put us in first class…which was nice :D
Yoga in the morning BAM!
We joined the group for a visit to parliament. Along with the Gho, when there is a particularly important event people wear a white sash, ministers and…something else, wear orange and blue, and the king wears a yellow one…It’s pretty cool. While waiting for the session we got to say hi to a few of the members of parliament and talk to them. All the members arrived and they finally let us in the room, I was really happy to see they decided to keep the Bhutanese style but make it really elaborate and elegant. Lots of paintings and details and flags and statues, it was really beautiful; in the back was a throne for the king to sit cross-legged. The session began and we got cool little earphones so we could hear a real time translation to English. Everyone was really polite and organized in the room, they each talked for a really long time though. One remarkable thing was that the spirit in the room was really cooperative, the intention of ministers when they talked was more informative than demanding “here’s the research I have done, and here are the results, therefore this is the suggestion I have but of course we can all improve it” instead of “my way is the right way and this is how we need to do things”, that was surprising.
After that most of the group went back to termalinca for some more talks, while my mom sister and I went to do some more touristy things (wow, touristy is actually a word). We went to the national traditional medicine hospital, they did tell us that traditional herbal medicine is very important and widely used, but I didn’t find out how much western medicine is used. Then they took us to the local paper factory, there were some ladies working on rope handles for paper bags, and a guy working on really big sheets of paper, we got to see a lot of the process which was cool and mostly done by hand or with very basic machinery. That day my mom also decided to get a massage at the hotel, and get me one too, it was reeeeeally good.
We decided that I would go meet with the guy while my mom and Maria hung out at the Hotel, but then my dad called and said that he and my mom had been invited to have dinner with one of the queen mothers, so I had to take Maria with me. She was unbelievably good, she understood that I really wanted to talk to the guy so she brought stuff to color, and her DS so she could play and have fun while letting us talk all we wanted.
As expected, it was one of the most interesting talks I have ever had first off the guy was really nice and cool. He was as eager to share anything I wanted to know as he was to ask about stuff from my/our culture that he was curious about.
When JY was a baby he had a problem with his liver, they went to see doctors in Bhutan who told his parents they should be really nice to him since he didn’t have much to live. When they went to see doctors in India the liver appeared completely fine and doctors didn’t know what to do with a perfectly healthy liver. After a lot of that his mom decided to take him to a monastery, not knowing what else to do, where they were received with tea and a celebration. The leader at the monastery told them that the night before he had had a premonition and knew that the reincarnation of a very powerful and important monk would be visiting them that day and so they had spent a lot of time preparing for his arrival that day. JY stayed there and began his training, his liver problems disappeared completely. He was in the monastery for a few years, then I think he returned home for a while until he was 17-ish when he went back for 3 years.
He said it was tough, mentally but also physically, obviously lots of meditation, but also really intense and painful yoga and even suffocation but he stopped himself and said that’s all he really wanted to say about that.
When I asked him about Buddhism itself he replied in the form of a question. “What is happiness? how do you “achieve” it?” I told him what I thought in particular that a lot of people find it in material things or achievements, but that perhaps the most pure form is achieved by serving others and making their lives better, making other people happy and sharing it with them. Although that was very respectable, he said, it still depends on particular things or events; one of the big goals in his training is to realize that perfect pure happiness is independent of everything and always available within you. When you truly understand that you stop reacting emotionally to a lot of the world’s negatives, you never lose control or get angry or scared, you can live and act while in perfect peace and happiness with the universe. Of course this is an ideal state that’s very hard to achieve and people spend their lives meditating about it trying to get there.
I thought that the idea was really interesting and amazing, and actually very much along the lines of how I think people should be, and how I try to be. After letting it sit in my mind I realized the idea is similar to the idea of heaven, a state?place? where you can live in perfect happiness even if your relatives or friends or even yourself are in non-ideal conditions or suffering.
Another really interesting difference between Buddhism and Christianity was the source of authority, for us the bible is THE word of god and that’s why it’s important, Jesus was the son of god and that’s why he spoke the truth and that’s why he is followed.
Buddha was different, he didn’t say this is true because I say it, his message was “I spent my whole life thinking and meditating about this, and this is what I found, you should think and meditate about it, and you’ll find if/that it’s true for yourself”
We talked for at least 2 hours, then we realized what time it was but before I had to go he took me to a basketball gym since I told him I liked basketball, there were some girls playing in some local championship, then he took me to his place and showed me his house, it was an interesting combination of wealth and humility, very cool and unique. His mom greeted us happily and showed us around the house. Their prayer room was really warm and inviting. Finally Mrs. D invited me to come back for lunch or dinner on Sunday.
Then JY took me back to meet everyone, the travel agency threw a party for all the guests, which turned out to be a lot of fun. The music started with a local artist who sang danced and played at least 5 different instruments. After he was done other people started dances and chants from their countries. It was a lot of fun.
Saturday
Hmm I decided to skip yoga that morning and sleep in, which was good. We went to the market, I was impressed by how clean and organized it was; there was a lot of variety which was similar to a Colombian market (except it’s a lot more messy and loud in Colombia). Then we did a little bit of shopping before we went to the local Dzong. On the way there we were told to try not to look to out right, the palace was there and it’s disrespectful to look that way since you might see the king walking around. The Dzong again was impressive and majestic. Then we finally got the chance to head to the Buddha statue. They are still working on the temple that it will be sitting on but the statue itself was complete in all its majesty, it was huge…of course and really humbling. We learned that he is holding a bowl because even though he was a prince he gave all his fortune away to live like the poorest. The reason his right hand is touching the ground is that, one day while meditating an evil spirit came to tempt him, he asked Buddha what the point of it all was, why meditate so much and try to achieve enlightenment no one will know if he does, and it won’t help anyone else. By putting his hand on the ground he replied “the earth will be my witness”.
We went to lunch and then to an art exhibit which was…meh, then we sat outside and talked with some people from the meeting until we saw some kids playing soccer, so we went to play with them. Then it started to rain so we went back to the hotel.
It was Saturday and I had asked our guide, Wangchuk, what partying is like in Bhutan so he invited me to go party with him and his friends. He came and picked me up and we went to this bar where we sat down and talked while we waited for his friends. I had a glass of local beer and a shot of local whisky, they were…as expected…hehe I’m a sissy. We got to talk a little bit about him; he has acted in a few local movies and only works as a tour guide only during the tourist season. He is a Buddhist and told me about a special date that was coming up, it is a special date that people use in order to quit some vice, he told me that he was going to try to quit smoking, last year he asked the gods to help him quit and promised he would try really hard, but he was clean only for a few months, so this time he was going to ask for more help. He said he needed to be really careful about how he asked, because one of his friends promised that he would quit drinking, and after a few weeks he drank again. Within a week, the guy went lost his mind, everyone was worried about it, and then he disappeared no one has heard from him since then. He told me he firmly believed that the gods made that happen to him because he broke his promise. It was really strange and different to hear someone believe something so strongly that’s so different from anything you are used to seeing people believe.
When his friends got there we talked with them some more, at one point one of them asked me about a band he really liked called “matelik” that’s what I thought he said at least, we later found out it was metallica, and he was going to see them in India. We then drove to a few places to dance, there was a lot of smoking and some drug consumption pretty much a standard bar/dancing place. In one of the ones we visited we saw a bunch of people from the meeting so we stayed there for a while. Before leaving Wangchuk told me that the prince (the king’s younger brother) was there that day and he wanted me to meet him. We went to the smoking lounge and caught him as he was leaving. He was wearing a very typical European party-boy outfit, and he was very relaxed and approachable when I went to talk to him, we shook hands and hugged. I then noticed that even though he was being very friendly with me and the other foreigners all the Bhutanese people stayed a little way away and bowed respectfully. I then told him about my guide who had brought me there and had done a great job of showing me around the country and the prince went and shook his hand.
Wangchuk later told me that it was a great honor for him that that happened and that he was grateful towards me because it was thanks to me that he got to shake the hand of his prince.
Great fun night, bedtime.
Sunday
We woke up in the morning and went for a “hike in the mountains”. After a 15 min ride, we got off the car and started walking up a trail. It was about a 45 min walk in the Bhutanese forest/mountain. It was really quiet, beautiful and peaceful; the trail offered a great view of the city and the region. We eventually got to the temple at the end of the trail. The first thing we noticed when walked in were some footprints on the floor. But these were actually footprints that went INTO the floor, a solid wooden floor with footprints pushed into it, it was very hard to believe. A monk used to stand there for hours and meditate, always the same spot year after year, there’s a picture on facebook, I had to personally ask the monk there for permission to take the picture, and he also showed us where someone is currently doing a lot of praying while kneeling down and some prints are starting to form.
On the way back to the city we went to the local zoo where we learned about the takin, bhutan’s national animal. The legend says that the “divine madman” one of bhutan’s deities, known for his outrageous antics, was hanging out with his devotees when they asked him to perform a miracle, he demanded a whole cow and goat to eat and when only the bones were left he stuck the goat’s head on the cow’s body, uttered some words and the first takin was born. Now you see them grazing in the mountains around Bhutan.
Later that day I met again with JY and we went to play basketball. We drove to the local college and although the gym was closed we found an outdoor court to play in. JY, 4 friends and I played for about 1-2 hours, it was very informal and fun, it rained for a little bit but we kept playing, we all enjoyed it a lot. Then I went back to the hotel and changed before we went to his house for dinner with his mom. JY and his mom were so incredibly nice, I was told that they considered me part of their family and so there was no need for me to thank them for anything, they gave me a decorative bowl made of Bhutanese wood that was filled with crushed roasted corn kernels because “they don’t believe in giving empty gifts” along with a traditional…carrying recipient it’s hard to describe but it’s really cool and I’ll be using it a lot. For dinner they made some sort of beef jerky in a delicious sauce, a cheese/pepper sauce that was really spicy and delicious, and asparagus along with white rice which they ate by making a little ball with the palms of their hands. It was SO delicious, the conversation was great and I really felt at home, they invited me to go back anytime and stay with them next time I visit Bhutan, and they’d help me with my visa. I could not believe how fortunate I was to meet this family and to be welcomes in such a warm and loving way.
Then JY and I went for a ride, he took me to the base of the path that leads to the temple where he had just spent 3 years, and showed me a lot of “treasures” along the way: some rocks shaped like fish and one shaped like an elephant, a spot where someone important had sex with his woman, and so now a lot of people sneak there to do the same, little caves where people hide gifts for the gods. It was cool to see all those things that only he could have shown me, unfortunately since it was dark and it was raining I couldn’t get any good pictures.
I was dead tired so when he took me back to the hotel I immediately fell asleep. The next day we’d be leaving in the morning.
Hmm… wait, at some point we had to go to out travel agency’s office because they had screwed up our flight, we were supposed to fly to Bangkok but they had us booked for Calcutta. There was some trouble because the flight to Bangkok was full but we went and showed them an email that showed we wanted Bangkok and it was their mistake, so they put us in first class…which was nice :D
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