Asia Trip 2011 - part 8 - China I

Shanghai

Monday

We arrived late Monday so all we did was go to our hotel, the highway was really big and well kept, it was pretty impressive. It was pretty hard to communicate with people, since no one spoke any English, not even the people at the hotel. The hotel was a super 8 hotel, but it was a little shady. There was no wi-fi and the LAN internet was really slow, especially google pages, as for facebook…completely blocked.

Tuesday

We got in touch with our friend Richard, who we had met in Bhutan and he suggested that we buy of those bus tours. We took a cab that took us downtown where we bought our passes. The idea is that these buses run continuously around the city and you can get off and back on at any station (14 total I think). So we got on the bus which took us through the historic part of the city, it’s always cool to see cities that conserve old buildings and have a nice looking downtown.

We got off at this stop  where there was a little shopping area, we looked around and bought some stuff, my dad bought this little portable speaker of which all of his brothers wanted one back in Colombia. Still walking around we got to a spot where there were a bunch of people who approached/harassed us offering stuff to buy for really cheap, these included watches, iphones, ipads, designer clothing and other stuff that we didn’t really want. Later on, we saw this group of guys selling roller skate attachments for your shoes. They were kind of like those shoes they sell now that have wheels under them, but these were attachments so we thought it would be a really cool idea, initially they asked for 500 yuan (7 yuan to a dollar) and we told the guy to get serious and leave us alone, so he came back and kept offering lower and lower prices until eventually we bought a pair for 100.  Then another guy came up and started offering me another pair for 100…80…60! ok 60, I thought it was a good deal so why not? My dad gave him a 100 bill and he reached in his pocket and gave us 2 20’s. Alright, good, no big deal.

We went into a McDonald’s, ordered lunch and when my mom went to pay for our order the cashier laughed and told us that 20 bill was not from there. After more careful examination it was pretty obvious that the bills, although they were the same color as the Chinese 20 dollar bills were Russian which made them worth about a 5^th of what we expected. We were a little mad/amused, and I decided to try and do something about it, I went back to where the guy had tricked us and there were about 8 other guys selling the same stuff, they all greeted me with smiles and some even laughed, it was pretty obvious that they knew what had happened. I asked them where the guy was and they acted like they had no idea what I was talking about, or which guy I meant, or like they understood English at all…all while laughing and (I think) making jokes about me.

There were some security people next to us since there was a jewelry next to where they were so I asked them for help and they basically said “just get over it and move on”. Don’t ask me why I decided that I was going to push a little further and so I said I’d call the police. After a few threats that were responded to with laughter one lady, who was kind of with the group, came to me and said “look there is a pubic phone over there the number is…whatever it was”. I think she thought I was bluffing, because she was laughing and still talking to the guys while she told me. I walked towards the phone...dialed the number…After they answered and asked me what was going on I looked at the lady and asked her the name of where I was, she told me, and looked back at the guys with a “he’s actually doing it!” kind of look. I said that I was at whatever place and that someone had just robbed me and the lady on the phone said that she didn’t speak English and so she would get an interpreter, while she was doing that the call was dropped. I thought about it for a second and said…ok I’ll just wait here for them to come. I looked up and all of a sudden the 8ish guys who were sitting there laughing had vanished. Completely gone.

It felt pretty good so I went back inside the McDonalds and finished lunch. When we came back out we walked by the same place and the guys were sitting there again but got up and started slowly walking away like it was no big deal…just walking away for no reason. I did not see the one guy who gave us the Russian bills though. We walked away and continued our journey.

Our tour bus took us by the site of the first communist party meeting, which was next to a beautiful park/garden. Maria had fun at first on her new skate/shoes but she got a little frustrated and since we all started telling her what to do, she got upset after a while. We got back on the bus and went under the river through a tunnel, I took a little nap while we rode around the business district. Some people from Mexico and Korea started talking to us on the bus, they were very nice. We went by a walking/shopping district but we decided not to stop there.

Our tour ended where it began, we found a nice restaurant where we sat down, had an overpriced smoothie, and asked to borrow the telephone so we could get in touch with Richard, our friend. He told us to get a cab and go meet him at work, he would invite us to dinner that night. We had peanut and strawberry ice cream for dessert…but that was also the first thing they brought apparently in Shanghai they prefer to have everything served at the same time so you can choose which order to eat things in, he also order a weird pineapple/shrimp dessert that happened to be very delicious. Richard is a teacher who goes to third-world countries and teaches…kind of general education and creativity to children, so he showed us some cool videos that he uses. We talked about some of the things we had noticed in China (oh and by the way in pretty much every neighborhood there were clothes hanging outside). One of the most interesting things he said was that people have a very strange love/hate relationship with china so everything that they find even remotely criticizeable becomes automatically a hot topic and it’s because of communism. With respect to Google and how they filter their results in China because the government demands it, he said that he thought it was a good thing, now peole may have access to 80% of the information and articles out there, but before Google, or if Google had not agreed to comply with the demands of the government they would have much more restricted access. Another example he talked about was that a new law that was about to be put into place, ads for luxury items were going to be banned in areas where there is poverty, some people will say it’s censorship and goes against freedom of speech, but some other people say it’s insensitive for companies to put up such ads and that it’s a good thing for the government to think about that, much like in the US you can’t have naked images in publicity.

We talked about other things, like culture and how much can be justified by that, girls being raped by their family members in regions of India, girls being sold between families in native tribes in Colombia?

It was a very pleasant dinner we were taken to our hotel where the internet sucked we slept and…

Wednesday

Left for Xi’an the next day. We ended up in the wrong terminal, but luckily we found out in time to run to the other one and make it to our flight…and find out it was slightly delayed.

Xi-an

Wednesday

We landed and looked for a tour agency as always, we found a good one for pretty cheap. The people were noticeably nice, a lot of people simply came to us and asked us what we needed and such, there was a guy who told us he studies English and so sometimes he just likes to act as tour guide for people to practice his English for free…although after having seen the movie taken I don’t really know that the guy’s intentions were all that good.

The first part of the tour took us to the ruins of Banpo a town that is supposed to have existed 6000 years ago. From there we went to the site of the (drumroll) terracotta warriors.

We got a guide who took us through the line, it was a rainy Wednesday morning but still the place was completely crowded. We waited in line for a while, and then got in a little car that took us to the site. We entered this huge hangar looking thing and got to see the first pit of warriors. It is really intense to walk in there and see rows and rows of warrior statues lines up as if getting ready to go to battle. The sight is hard to describe, so many things went through my head it’s such an overwhelming sensation to see something so grand in front of you. There were about 12 rows, about 5 feet wide completely filled with lines of warriors and horses in different stances. Each warrior’s face was modeled after an actual warrior or the army at the time; there are 4 kinds; generals, soldiers, archers and advisors. All of the statues were hand painted to great detail but they are so old that when exposed to sunlight the colors fade within 20 minutes. Some are kept in the dark for those reasons and are not available for the general public, also some are still buried. In some areas the ceiling collapsed, and so a lot of them were broken but they are being restored, which must be a pretty cool job.

The idea behind them is that in Chinese tradition terracotta (cooked dirt) warrior statues are very common, lots of people have them in their houses or offices as protection from evil spirits and energies, the emperor at the time built them with that kind of idea in mind, to protect him and the country. We visited 3 of the 4 pits that are there; the first one is the one most people probably see in pictures and documentaries. In the second one the statues are organized as if in a meeting room, it’s really dark in that one; the last one is as almost as big as the first one, and most of the warriors in this one are covered or still unburied, but they have 4 on display in crystal cases that one can get really close to. They also had a few displays that contained the weapons they were buried with, supposedly, and I didn’t hear about this until I came back to the us, the technology used to make the weapons made them not only really sharp but also incredibly long lasting, it is also a lost art in the sense that we have not been able to replicate the results.

They were found by a farmer in the 70’s while digging for water, now he’s really rich and happy supposedly…also he happened to be there that day signing copies of his book. Walking into the little souvenir store was really strange, there we were, 4 occidental looking people walking into the shop in a sea of locals, the farmer who discovered the warriors treated us very nicely, shook our hands and offered us to buy and sign his book for us, but whenever anyone else approached him and try to shake his hand he seemed a little annoyed. Right after that we walked into a section where they sold replicas of the statues, they varied in size from 2 inches to 7 feet. The person in charge, again saw us and approached us in order to offer us the statues, the life-size replicas, he said, were made using the same techniques used for the originals, dried (cooked) in the sun and not in an oven, which makes them more durable and they are made and certified by the archaeologists that study and restore the real ones. The price was 17,000 yuan (2700 USD) and after a while he even offered us a 50% discount and free shipping to Cartagena, a maritime port in Colombia it would only take 3 months.

We went ahead and bought our uncertified oven cooked 2 inch replicas, and went our way. The next destination they took us to was a silk factory, we got to see how they get the silk thread from the cocoon and then all the different products which ranged from shirts to bed covers. The stud was pretty cool and lookd like really good quality, the prices were not ridiculous, and I actually found a really nice shirt that I thought was not too expensive and treated myself to it. I’m still pretty happy with it.

Next up was “the hot springs” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Guifei). We were not really sure where we were going or what the plan was but it was part of our tour so we assumed it would be awesome. It was, we entered this palace with really beautiful, typically Chinese gardens and houses. Again the attention to detail in decoration and architecture impressed us; the dragon statues on the ceilings gave it a really cool touch.

This used to be a palace built for the daughter of someone really important we got to see the bathing rooms for the princess which were basically huge and very luxurious (for the time) pools.

This also happened to be the place of the “Xi’an event” which had to do with the civil war in china and the communist party, also the fact that Taiwan is not really part of China anymore. They have little crystal cases protecting bullet holes in windows and walls with lettering that says “Xi’an event bullet hole”. The place was actually quite impressive (like most of the things we saw really) but it must have been really incredible to live there, a beautiful palace in the middle of the nowhere and where all you can see is mountains and forest around you. The lake in the middle of the palace reminded me of the song Lady of the Snow by Symphony X, and the imagery that Walter and I discussed a few times. We saw a poster for a show called song of eternal sorrow, it is a light/music/dancing show that they play there every night, it’s really beautiful and amazing…supposedly we didn’t get to see it because it was a rainy-ish day and so they were not having it, I was really excited about it but oh well, I’m hanging out in China so I don’t get to complain.

We got to the hotel, which I had booked online and paid for 2 nights before…for the night before…go me. They saw that we were pretty upset and lost and said that they really wanted our business so they gave us like a 50% discount on the night that we actually stayed there, it was really nice of them. The hotel was pretty nice although it also had semi-crappy internet (not as bad as in Shanghai), it also had an interesting assortment of goods available for us in the bathroom, men’s and women’s underwear, a vibrator-condom and, this one was actually really cool, a disc about 1.5 cm. tall and 2 cm. of radius with a label that read magic towel. It was 10 yuan I think so my dad and I decided it was worth satisfying our curiosity. We opened it…and it stayed that way, the instructions said put in water, we did and it slowly started expanding until it became a 40 by 40 cm. hand towel, it was pretty cool. Maria and I read some Goosebumps (the night of the living doll 3) and went to bed.

We would be flying to Beijing to see great wall the next morning. 

Asia Trip 2011 - part 7 - Taiwan

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

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

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.

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

Asia Trip 2011 - part 3 - Bhutan still

Wednesday
On the schedule for the meeting they had yoga at 6:30 every morning, I figured I’d give it a try so I got up early and went there, plus I was jetlagged so I was wide awake at 5. It was really cool, and apparently I did really well, even for a non first timer. That day there was a trip to Punakha on the schedule it’s a town about 2 hours from Thimphu, where we were. The other road was really good, right? well this one was the opposite, it was really curvy (not a lot you can do there) but also really bumpy, so it was pretty annoying it was hard to sleep and relax but oh well.

Out first stop was the 108 stupa monument that we heard about the day before. It was huge and really cool; imagine all those people working hard to build something that big, all that hope and all those good intentions together in the same place.

Across the street was a Temple, we went up some stairs and then were told to take our shoes off and make sure not to take any pictures inside. I was about to enter my first Buddhist temple. There were 3 giant statues, the one in the center was of Buddha, as it was in every temple we visited in Bhutan, two other giant statues to its left and right, the silent was impeccable, everyone was really nice and respectful, and there were 2 or 3 priests there sitting welcoming us all. Every wall was covered with beautiful and colorful paintings done by hand with incredible detail. Some of the people sat down and meditated, and I decided it would be fun to try, it was very cool.
Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside any of the temples in Bhutan, I did take pictures of Buddhist temples in other countries but they were not in the same style.

During the ride one of our guides was telling us about one of his “side” projects that he works at with the government, they have started a series of self sustainable farms. That’s right, tour guide by day, leader of sustainable development by night, that seemed to be a general trends though, it seemed that all of our tour guides were really well educated people who were working on really interesting things for the development of the country with the government but somehow it was still profitable and interesting for them to work as tour guides.

We finally arrived at Punakha where we ate lunch, it was really good (though, again, really spicy) but the area was really hot, and all we had were fans, no A/C, but oh well. After eating and hanging out for a while we went to the Dzong. Many years ago, Zhabdrung, who was the person who brought Buddhism to Bhutan, laid down to spend the night right next to where 2 rivers meet. He had a dream that night about a place where a lot of people would live very happily. The next day he described the dream to the people he led and decided to build a Dzong, it’s a mixture of a fort, town, and a temple. Supposedly this was built exactly as he had dreamt it with no blueprints or planning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punakha_Dzong#History

It was really cool, the amount of work the put into details is incredible, ever single wall is hand painted and the paintings themselves are amazing. This Dzong is one of the most important ones in Bhutan; they keep their most sacred relics there, including the world’s tiniest statue of Buddha, which is carved from a vertebrae of Zhabdrung. All the relics are housed in a building where few people are allowed, this is also where the king has a second, private crowning ceremony.

It was really impressive and different. I felt really lucky and honored to be able to visit a place like that.

We drove back, got home exhausted and went to bed.

Thursday
This was the day that my dad was going to give his presentation, but there were presentations all day

I went to yoga again in the morning, but this time my mom and sister decided to join us too, which was awesome, although Maria almost fell asleep during the relaxation we did at the end. We went to the Chorten Memorial; as you walk in you see a little area to the left where they have these spinning bells the idea is that inside they have prayers to the god of love and compassion written and by spinning it a lot of times while you pray you cleanse yourself of your sins and accumulate blessings for you and your loved ones. The memorial itself works the same way excepts you’re the one who spins; the main building is in the center of the memorial and it houses statues of Buddha and other deities, all day you’ll see people walking around the main building praying with the same objectives, we walked around 3 times (make sure it’s clockwise while looked at from above, or it will have the opposite effect), while our guide told us about the place. Most of the people you see there are old people who don’t work anymore so they spend all day praying, but he said that around 6 am you’ll see a lot of young people who work in he city go there and walk around for a while before they start their day.

Maria Jose noticed there were 4 statues of white lions so we asked our guide about them. Apparently someone really important felt there was an evil spirit threatening him at some point, so he decided to call guru Rimpoche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmasambhava) and ask for his help. The spirit knew of guru Rimpoche’s power so he hid in the forest, but guru Rimpoche was not going to let that happen. They planned a big festival in the town, knowing the spirit would not be able to resist and show up. Sure enough, the spirit showed up in the form of a white lion so as not to be recognized, Guru Rimpoche found out it was him and with the help of the people subdued him and turned him into a protective deity of the region. Now the white lion is a very popular deity in the region around Thimphu, you see statues and paintings of him in houses and temples.

They wanted to take us to the art school, but it was closed because classes were already over, so we went to the little shop they have setup to sell their products which was really cool.

Our next destination was the Termalinca hotel, where we were going to see my dad’s presentation and also he wanted Maria Jose and I to say a few words. On the way there I asked our guide about Buddha, what his story was and why he was so important. My memory fails me but I’ll write what I remember and hopefully won’t offend anyone or look too much like a fool. He was born out of an armpit, which indicated from the beginning that he was special, he was a prince, and once, while hunting he pierced several trees with one arrow, another event in his life that indicated his uniqueness. As a king he was very caring of his people and visited them a lot. He saw a lot of suffering and started thinking about how to fix that. He mediated a lot…and after many years, achieved enlightenment. In itself enlightenment is a mysterious thing, but as a Buddhist achieving it is your ultimate goal and there are several paths that you must explore in a quest for personal and spiritual improvement.

We arrived at the hotel, and listened to a talk about cruelty-free silk, a few highlights were scaring elephants of their workplaces by using bees initially (in south Africa, I think) and then just by using the sound they make when attacking; getting spiders in a state of sleepy happiness using milk and something else, to make them produce very regular and high quality silk, and genetically modified silkworms. The person showing the project had asked the day before at another presentation what Buddhist philosophy said about genetically modified organisms, the person in charge gave a really interesting answer along these lines;
“I don’t know officially, and I have no authority to tell you what the official position is, but I’ll happily tell you how I, as a Buddhist feel about it. In this case where the means is not clearly objectionable, it depends on your goals and your state of mind, are you doing it to become rich and satisfy yourself? are you doing it to provide more and better products at a better price for more people and make their lives better?”
I thought that was perfect.

My dad was next and he gave his talk which went great, then he called Maria and me on stage so we could do our thing; everyone was really happy to see a family involved in something like this (he mentioned my mom and she stood up too) most of them told us at some point that they had wished they could take their families with them to the event but they thought it was too crazy, so they were happy to see that it could be done. After doing our little number a lady approached me, Damchae, she told me that she was really happy to have seen me up there, that she had a son who was a Buddhist monk and who had just returned from 3 years of meditation in the mountains, he is about my age, and she would love to arrange a time for us to sit down, have some coffee and just talk about stuff. AWESOME!
We scheduled it for that evening, ate lunch and then continued our tour around Thimphu. We went downtown, walked and saw the little shops, we saw a lot of people wearing the Gho’s which was cool, and we experienced a little bit of what everyday life in Bhutan is.

We started going towards the big Buddha statue (169 ft. tall), but found out it was raining up there, and since construction is still going on it’s very muddy and dirty so we took some pictures from far away and went back. We later found out that there was a dinner planned for that day, so I called Damchae, and moved my meeting with her son, Jamyang, to Friday.

Dinner was good, and then bedtime.

Asia Trip 2011 - part 2 - Bhutan

Tuesday

After the longest trip ever to get there, we started our descent to the Paro airport in Bhutan, it was really cool to see how the pilot had to maneuver between mountains, to land, it must be really difficult or at least it looked like it, he had to make some sharp turns all while descending and then ther it was the airport.

It was incredible the architecture of the airport was typical Bhutanese, everyone we saw was wearing the traditional gho the view was incredible mountains all around, with little houses and temples popping up randomly. During entry there was a problem with my sister’s visa because her gender was “N” the guy told me to go find our travel agent (you can’t enter Bhutan unless you have a specified plan with a travel agency, I think) and so I walked all by myself past immigration, baggage claim customs up to the point where the cabs would be, found the guy with the sign that had our names on it, and then we walked back to immigration, no one stopped us, no one asked us anything. He talked to the officer, made a phone call and within 3 minutes we were good to go and drowned in apologies from them.

It’s easy to see that one of the reasons this is possible is because there are fewer people to manage, and enough well trained government officers to handle it. Maybe in this case it would seem to mean that the higher amount of government/person helped, but that of course cannot be generalized.

The drive to our airport was breathtaking; it was a unique mixture of good development and tradition keeping, a brand new road, with little traffic being cleaned by groups of people who, somehow looked happy while picking up trash from the road. Lots of family owned traditional farming on the sides of the road, and of course the mountains all around us. The river was incredibly clean, we drove by it for a really long time and it looked impeccable the whole time. Our guide told us the trip used to take 2 hours before they rebuilt the road, when they started construction the King personally visited the workers and asked them to please work on it really well and efficiently because it was really important, apparently they did so and the road was finished really quickly.

Our hotel was really nice, maybe too nice given the fact that a lot of the people’s houses are very rural and traditional, but maybe the idea behind it is “this is what we need, and this is what the tourists need”…who knows, maybe I’m just trying to justify it :p. No plastic bags in the hotel…I can’t remember any in the whole country actually, but maybe I’m just forgetting. Although they did say during one of the talks about trying to reduce the amount of plastic used.

We went to Hotel Termalinca where the talks were going on, I guess this is a good time to explain why we were here in the first place. Bhutan’s government has put in place a development measurement tool called GNH – gross national happiness – one part of this is concerned with sustainable development and policies that are in agreement with log term preservation of the environment. Both my dad and godfather have been involved in projects related to this, and so my godfather organized a fundraiser for several projects in this field, a lot of investors from the world were invited and my dad (and through him, my mom and sister and I) was invited to invest (haha, right) present the Las Gaviotas project from Colombia (look it up it’s really cool) and talk to some people to see if they can set up something similar in Bhutan, since they have a lot of pine trees.

The first event we got to see was some “hang-out time” with one of the queen mothers, there are 4 in Bhutan, the current king’s mom and her 3 sisters; they’re each in charge of one major project. She talked a lot about the building regulations and how they are some restrictions with respect to how much they need to stick to the traditional style, and how they make sure they’re earthquake proof, and other things.

She told us about this monument that she was in charge of, the 108 stupas in 2003 after a lot of attempts at peaceful talks, the King decided they had to go to war in the North of Bhutan. In her words, the King is not a King to sit in his office and direct direct the soldiers through a telephone, but he went out there and fought among his men, everyone in the country was really worried about him, so the queen mother started a monument consisting of 108 stupas, 108 is apparently a really important number in bhuddism, to pray to the gods for his safety and that of every soldier, everyone contributed, one of the guides in our group later told us he spent 3 days helping there. The war ended in victory with 11 Bhutanese casualties, the King was safe.

The next talk was about operationalizing GNH. The reason Bhutan is special is because they are working very hard to control the way the country develops. They came up with this ideal called Gross National Happiness which ideally would be able to measure development in a more complete and accurate way than other indicators used in the world. The basic concept comes from thinking that happiness is the ultimate desire of every citizen and therefore it must be the main purpose of development. Measuring happiness seems to be thus the most appropriate way to measure development, as opposed to GDP or other methods.

It is obviously really hard to measure the happiness of a country, but they decided they would try really hard but in 2008, they finally made the transition of turning GNH from a an abstract philosophical goal to a measurable concept. This is awesome.

There are 4 pillars to GNH:

-sustainable and equitable development

-preservation and promotion of national culture

-environmental conservation

-good governance

To measure this they use 72 indicators in 9 domains, they didn’t talk about every indicator but they did focus on a few so here are some the domains and some of the indicators in each

Psychological well-being

Some of the things they measure here are stress, compassion, calmness, generosity, frustration, selfishness, jealousy, frequency of prayers and meditation, and consideration of karma and suicide, among the population.

Culture preservation and diversity

Here they try to measure how many people and how often people speak Bhutanese (this makes sense because the king decided to make English really important in schools a while ago, now 85% of the population speaks in English, the goal is 100% by 2015), how often people practice the national games (archery is the national sport…badass), discipline, knowledge/participation in national traditions and festivals.

Time use

The main idea here is that people should ideally work 8 hours, sleep 8 hours, and then have 8 hours every day of leisure time. I thought that the leisure time was too vague, I mean I guess it could go from spending time playing with your kids to waiting stuck in traffic. But they did some research and found that most people were pretty close to those 8-8-8 goals.

Community Vitality

How much help is available from your neighbors, and how safe people feel, at the homes and in the streets.

Good governance

They measure how true it is that they have freedom of speech and association, also discrimination and equal pay for equal value of work. I thought that was really interesting obviously equal pay is ridiculous, but equal pay for equal value, THAT’s where it’s at.

Education

They said they needed to live up to 2 different standards. They wanted to make sure the education the government offered was up to conventional international standards, after they made sure that was achieved, and ONLY after, they started working on living up to GNH standards. They decided they needed to introduce meditation in schools and then showed us a video of a bunch of kids saying how awesome it was and how much they liked it and thought it was a good idea…except for the last kid, who said “I think it’s stupid and boring now I’m going to go play soccer” we all laughed.

The other 3 domains were Ecology, Health, and Standard of Life.

complement to GDP and others as development indicator

They specified that the goal is to add to, and not to replace other development indicators, which are good just incomplete. For example in Japan, they said life expectancy is 90, but it’s necessary to see what kind of life people have from, say 80-90. If they’re just laying in bed being sick for 10 years that’s not development.

They also gave us an example of how they use it to make decisions. They were debating on whether to have Bhutan join the WTO, initially and after hearing from a lot of them 19 of the ministers were for and 5 against. Then they examined it using GNH criteria, in short, they saw that it would raise stress, and material well being, as well as decrese equality, so the votes changed to 19 against and 5 for.

In 1961 the government had to undertake ventures because the private sector was too weak to do it, but then between 1982 and 1992 they went through a lot of privatization. Debt is about 60% of GDP, and the role of the government is seen, as much as possible, as a policymaker and regulator, not as a participant in the market. Unemployment is a little under 4%, and also they have policies to encourage the added value to natural resources, i.e. not dig and sell for other countries to process, but have the process happen in Bhutan.

Whenever the Government undertakes projects that have to use the land of some citizens, the idea is to provide to every family affected 1 job guaranteed plus 10000 units worth (about 400 dollars a year)

The last thing in the guy’s presentation was some words from Buddha

Buddha said:

Never commit wrong doings

Accumulate good

Watch out for your mind (educate yourself, and don’t let people corrupt you)

Another interesting thing to mention is how people feel about the government in Bhutan, the 4^th king (the current is his son, the 5^th) was apparently really awesome, every time he comes up in conversation you can almost see the love and respect in everyone’s face, he’s the one who came up with GNH, and created the parliament. I heard at some point that the royal family is extremely rich, but there is no tax money that goes to them, still they spend huge amounts investing in projects and works for the people and the country.

That evening we had dinner at a hotel with all the people in the event, they hired some local artisans to sell their stuff and to work in front of everyone, it was really cool. The food was delicious but really spicy, so my parents couldn’t enjoy it a lot.

Then…bedtime J

Asia Trip 2011

Venezuela

We had a 17 “layover” in Venezuela, before leaving we asked the consulate in Bogota about whether we needed a visa to get in the country or not, they told us we needed one to leave the airport but it took 10 days and like 30 bucks per person, so we said screw it.

We arrived to the airport in Maiquetia, pretty tired at midnight, we decided it was worth a shot to try to go through immigration. We wait in line, get to the point where the officer is:

-Hello we’re here in transit for 17 hours

-Where are you going to spend the night?

-We would like to get a hotel, so it’s kind of up to you.

-Ok, have a good night welcome to Venezuela.

There were a few interesting things in the airport, a lot of advertising for socialism, the slogan “homeland and socialism or death” and a picture with big government projects, and the slogan “with socialism, the big milestones are done by YOU”

We got out of the airport and this cab driver approached us offering us to take us to a really good hotel and exchange currency. The official rate is 4.3 bolivares for one dollar, but he was offering us 7.5, apparently dollars are really hard to get for them, and so this black market comes up, the weird thing is that even at the unofficial rate things are pretty expensive, so using the official rate is really ridiculous…we went the unofficial way. Anyway the taxi driver was saying a lot of weird things and talking really fast, and messing up his conversion rates, so we really thought he was trying to scam us, also anytime anyone else came to talk to us he was like “hey these are my customers, don’t get in the way”…so we were pretty scared. But in the end it all worked out quite nicely, he took us to a hotel, where he talked to the manager before we got a chance and told us what the rate was. It turned out he was a really nice guy and was really helpful, he was just really aggressive approaching people and a little hyper.

We asked him to pick us up the next day so we could see the city for a while before we went to the airport at 5. He told us that since checkout is at noon at the hotel, we would be downstairs at 11:30, he also made sure to tell us that we had to check out at noon or they would charge us an extra night…like 3 times. Next morning I woke up at like 10:30, went outside and saw him there sitting waiting for noon to get there, and so we talked for a while. I wanted to ask him about Chavez and socialism, so he said that he’s the best president Venezuela has ever had and that he’s done a lot of great things for the people and the country. However he started teasing the parking lot guy and the manager of the hotel about it, and everytime he asked they got serious and replied something like “How I feel about Chavez is my problem not yours, and I don’t want to talk about it”, then the driver made fun of them.

Oh and at one point my mom sat in the restaurant and pulled out some work stuff, he started telling her how if she was traveling and on vacation she shouldn’t do work.

We asked the driver to take us to Caracas (about 20 mins away), and for some reason he just really didn’t want to go, he started saying that we didn’t have enough time, and it was raining in Caracas, and it was Sunday so everything was closed so there was really nothing to see there, we insistd a few more times but he just wasn’t going to have it “I’ll take you to this really cool place along the Caribbean shore, trust me you’ll like it a lot more”. During lunch he pretty much told us what to order and as soon as we got the chicken, he poured guacamole all over it and grabbed a piece.

He was a cool guy and after the shock and the scary part the night before, we decided to just have fun with it and see how much he would do.

Frankfurt

The flight to Frankfurt was not bad. The entertainment was good, Maria and I watched Tangled together, there was some Gnomeo and Juliet, Rango, Modern Family… The food was good and they got Maria some coloring books. Maria behaved awesomely, it’s incredible how good she is for a 7 year old, yes, there was a lot of entertainment but still she behaved really well for a 7 year old in a 10 hour flight. Oh at some point a baby started crying and somebody yelled “somebody give that baby a bottle”, jerk.

Kolkata

Nothing too exciting in Frankfurt or in the flight to Calcutta, same movies, which was awesome and Maria really liked. In Calcutta everyone was bloen away by Maria Jose, pretty much everyone who saw her stared for a while and smiled at her, I guess we were the weird ones there. She went to buy some kit-kat and I gave her the money to pay, the guys at the store were really happy and smiling at her a lot, when she said “thank you” the guy asked her what her name was and how old she was, and gave her a second bag of candy for free! Everyone in India was really cool my mom needed to get a hold of people in Colombia and a guy offered us his cell-phone to try to access the internet and to try to make a phone call, just like that. Security at the Kolkata airport is weird and pointless, you can’t get into the airport unless you have a ticket, then you get into a waiting area and you CAN’T check in until like an hour before your flight, which sucked for us because of of our 8 hour layover. After that it was all good, we checked in, got through immigration (lots of Indian decorations in the immigration room, that was awesome). And as soon as we got on the plane to Paro we were in Bhutan territory…

Oh wait, up to here, Maria Jose was keeping a little journal where she wrote every country we were in and for how long. She kind of forgot about it when we got to Bhutan.