Jumping out of planes and other great stuff

Yep - offically fulfilled a burning desire to hurtle myself out of a plane - took a great sky jump right over Lake Taupo, probably the cheapest place in New Zealand to jump.  It was absolutely beautiful - you can see the siltation at the edges of a deep volcanic lake, with the green of the largest manmade forest in the world blanketing the space all around it.  I wussed out at 12,000 feet - I should have parted with the cash for 15,000 - but it gives me the potential to do another jump over the Franz Joseph Glaciers down south... I may have to have someone hide my credit card.

I am ahead of myself - before Taupo I stopped for a few days of "rest" in Rotorua, known here as Roto-Vegas. My hostel was right over what the region is famous for - hot pools! The whole hostel (and the fab pool) all heated geothermally from the local volcanos. Nice, eh? No need for expensive spas - we climbed into the nearest human-friendly creek and just bathed. It's one of the older Maori settlements - some of the hot pools (that can just decide to flood your house one morning - not fun) can be over 98 degrees - the Mauri used to just throw food into them to cook it!  We were also treated to a Mauri Hungi (cook-out really) by a local Mauri family - the kids got a hold of my camera and I have some great shots.

Sally - you'll be pleased - I managed to pick up a second hand copy of The Bone People by Keri Hulme - the book is fascinating - more like a very long poem soaked in metaphor than what you'd commonly read for a novel.  If you can get your hands on a copy in Canada, it's giving my travel-flabby brain a work out, not to mention a better appreciation for the land and the people here.  One of the things that is really clear, is how many concessions the Bristish needed to make not to get themselves killed. I haven't ever seen colonial churches with so much influence of the local people - one in the old Mauri village even has Jesus dressed as a Mauri cheiftan, and a full Mauri-carved pulpit. 

I have just made it to Windy Wellington (again, living up to it's name!) and hoping the weather will clear a little for the south Island. So far Sally - made it through the Te Papa museum - its probably one of the most impressive museums I have ever been too (and I got to seperate DNA too... how cool is that?).  The museum has an incredible modern structure, with fantastic modern wood Mauri carvings and interesting steel fabricated intallation pieces, and very interactive exhibits... earthquaking houses, virtual bungy jumps... I wish I could pass for a kid.

138km winds... fantastic day

Time has whipped by in New Zealand... almost every day we're running off somewhere new.
Matt - I couldn't fidn the Canada Car in Auckland... and actually decided to stay away from the car altogether - with my sense of direction, supreme mechanic's skills and after a few hostel horror stories about selling (or buying) a lemon - it was the Stray Travel bus for me.

So - first stop is the top of the country - Cape Reinga, where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet at the upermost reaches of the N.Island. We have fantastic shots - the wind was positively howling - we had to hold onto the sign post to stay up right and all my photos were blurry from the gusting of the wind. We found out later that day, it's because the wind was blowing over 138km/hour.

We had a fantastic old military 4x4, and took it down to the Te Paki sand dunes where, in the middle of a sandstorm - we took up some sand surfing. Those of us willing to brave the exfoiliating walk to the top of the dune were treated with an incredible tailwind that had us whipping down the mountain - it was fantastic! From the Te Paki dunes we drove down 90 mile beach (actually less), catching glimpses of wild horses, more sandstorms and 2 tour buses stranded by the weather in the tide - it was a great day.

After Cape Reinga and the Bay of Islands, we set off for Ha Hei and hot water beach (dug our own little hot tub in the sand - fantastic) and left for the surfer's paradise of Raglan. We stayed at an old surf shack near the beach which has the longest left hand break in the world. The waves were pretty mangy, so I skipped the surf lesson - but I am going back. You could have lived at that place for months just surfing, eating and hanging out with whoever came by (all the staff were lost travelers from the Stray bus who got off around 2-4 months ago and haven't left yet). It is also bloody freezing here - I am wearing 1/2 my backpack - the thought of jumping in the ocean was a little much - I am waiting to surf with you in Oz Almira!

New Zealand is a nation destined to give you all the death-inviting, expensive, adrealine-laced activties you can imagine. Trying to keep my body in one peice is going to be difficult. Not to mention hanging onto any money in my wallet. There are fantastic hikes about, and for the next couple days I am going to try to hang out in Rotorua and escape the bungy jumping.. if I can.

Rain at last, cold and rain at last!

OK - so I shouldn't be that excited about cold and rain greeting me as I leave the airport - but hello New Zealand! ... I feel like I am home.

Really - cold, rainy, windy - it's fantastic. And everyone here jokes about the 4 seasons of weather in a day in Auckland - amazing but true - you can be shaking out your umbrella and trying to find your sunglasses at the same time.

I have also apparently arrived at party central. Less than 6 hours off the plane, my dorm in its entirety was at the pub, I was the lame-o that left after 2am... my excuse was I had been traveling for 24hours. My dorm mates apparently spent 2:30am - 6am drinking in the hostel elevator, and managed to get up at 3pm for breakfast. Welcome to Auckland. Everynight after has pretty much been the same, and my liver is woefully out of shape.

Sally (thanks Sally) connected me with a friend of hers, Vicky, in Auckland, who took me out to the beautifull black sand beach of KareKare, the top of Mt. Eden (volcano cone in town) and for great Kiwi ice cream. Woo-hoo! Vicky also fed me a home cooked meal of lamb and gravy, Mauri potatoes (Kumara), squash and more... yum.

Since I am not getting a tremendous amount of sightseeing done in Auckland, tomorrow I am heading off to the bay of Islands - one of the 1001 things to do before you die. Can't wait to get out!

Hello Ex-pat heaven - on Khao San road in Bangkok

For those of you wanting to keep up - I am updating the blog
(www.taraknight.blogspot.com) more than e-mail... I don't want to be filling
up your spam folder.

After what felt like a whirl-wind tour of Vietnam, it felt like an even
faster visit in Cambodia, where we only hit the capital (Phnom Penh) and the
temple complex of Angkor Wat (in Siem Reap).

The temples of Siem Reap are everything you have heard about - absolutely
incredible - you can feel how excited the French explorers must have been as
they came up on the "lost" cities, seeing the 4 faced towers of Bayon,
rising through the deep jungle. The Wat complexes, at their height, had a
population of over a million Cambodians. The temples are huge, the blocks of
stone that make them up was transported from 50km away, and they have vast
moats and resevoirs.

We were able to have a real treat - especially as we are in monsoon season -
we got up at about 4am our second day in Siem Reap, and made our way in the
pitch dark to Angkor Wat. A few bruised toes and shins later, we sat on a
smaller temple inside Angkor Wat and watched the sun rise from behind the
towers. It's probably the highlight of the trip so far - it was absolutely
incredible. It is the same majesty, power and domination that the ruins of
the Roman Forum Colluseum impart - a civilization that was once grand and
powerful.

And unlike the tight regulations in Canada - we visited Ta Prohm (the Lara
Croft Tomb Raider temple - where the trees are growing through the walls)
and got the chance to climb up all the rubble and the walls at Preah Khan...
a truely unique experience.

And continuing unique experiences, I fed crocodiles at Dead Fish Towers
restaurant in Siem Reap - and for all you health and safety people out there
- get this - no barriers - not even a wiggly rail - between the second or
first floor and the crocodile pit below. You could have just walked off...
if you are stupid, it's your own fault in Cambodia.

And for the past few days I have been hanging out on Khao San Road in
Bangkok - an eclectic mix of backpackers, Bangkok ex-pats, Thais and more.
There is thumping music everywhere - Thai rap, American Hip Hop, massage
parlous, road side cocktail trolleys, and street side shops and trolley
kitchens. It isn't for people with sensitive noses. But for people watching
- it can't be beat.

Next stop... Auckland, New Zealand!

Random thoughts on War (unfinished)

Throughout Vietnam, you feel a certain heavy pressure about the American War. Partly because it's an obvious draw for tourists - to understand what happened, and because it is a big piece of many people's living history. You can also feel like the Vietnamese would like people to know them for more than that - to know their country more than one war. But it's hard - it's hard because it's not that easy to forget.

For example - I took a trip from Hoi An (central/South Vietnam - the place with all the tailors) to Mi Son - "the Beautiful Mountain" an ancient religous site of the Cham people (Chams were conquered by the Vietnamese). The temple complex is quite impressive, and the guide that is leading us around tells us how the temples looked before it was bombed. 2 of the complexes were leveled by 2-3 B-52 bombs, a third is only a shadow of it's former self. The gaping craters from the bombs have still not been filled in. It's just sad. Here the temples have stood for hundreds of years - and are removed in a puff of smoke.

I left some notes on the blog... I can't type fast enough, or have reflected enough to say what I really think - but we spent a lot of time in Saigon at the War museums, and the Cu Chi Tunnels. And to follow it up, our first day in Phnom Penh, Cambodia was a trip to the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng (S-21) Prison of the Khmer Rouge. It's a whole lot of awful death and destruction all at once.

Coming to Cambodia, it is painfully obvious how the Khmer Rouge have gutted their own contryman's ability to have a life for themselves or their children. For a reign of less than 5 years of real power it is hard to conceive the mayhem and total destruction Pol Pot and his henchman were able to effect - they abolished currency, "equalized" the citizens (no school/education system), and slaughtered the Vietnamese who formed the bulk of their skilled trades class. Today, sanitation is poor to non-existant, corruption abounds, roads are built for tourists (we traveled the residential areas of Phnom Penh and the local streets in Siem Riep - people told me paved roads are only built for tourists - now I believe them), education is expensive and the government is still full of Khmer Rouge - not enough educated people left alive to take the reins.

I don't know what to think. Cambodia is a very special place - more laid back than Vietnam, the people are friendly and honest, they work very, very hard for what little they have. They are trying to rebuild what was torn from them by their own countymen, but they are very honest and forthright about the loss of their family members to the Khmer Rouge. I am amazed at how willing to talk about their problems and the realities of life in Cambodia.

Cambodia and the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge

Leaving Saigon, I have met up with my new group for Cambodia. Leaving from the small Vietnamese town of Chau Doc, we caught a boat up the Mekong Delta to the Cambodian border. It was an excellent chance to see the country and the people living on the river. As we are in Monsoon season, the water is quite high, and the river banks are flooded by as much as 5 meters above dry-season levels.

Our first stop is Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and our first organized activity is the Tuol Sleng prison and the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge. If I thought the museums in Saigon were graphic - this was a wake up call.

Tuol Sleng (or Prison S-21) is sunk in the middle of the slums of P.P. A former Secondary School, the prision was taken over to house torture chambers, interrogations rooms and the rooms modified for cells for the inmates. It is only 1 of hundreds of prisions used by the boy-soldiers of the Khmer Rouge. In power for less than a decade, the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, lead a campaign of terror and slaughter that has certainly gutted Cambodian's ability to have a stable country. At the fall of the pogroms against the inteligencia, only 300 educated people (Doctors, officials, teachers) existed in a country of over 7 million. Approximately 3 million people were killed by Pot's boy soldiers, usually only 10-20 years old.

The Killing Field for S-21 is 15km outside of P.P. and again is only one of thousands. Many Cambodians were just shot at the sides of the road - you see buried plots everywhere off the sides of roads. The ground is littered with human remains, exposed by the rain as it errodes the soil away - the Cambodians have only dug up some of the mass graves.

The loss of so much knowledge has left Cambodia - opened up in 1993 for tourism, and only relatively stable since 1998, without any solid professional or trades class, a hobbled education system and a disintegrating infrastructure. The houses of the rich are surrounded by slums and unpaved roads, even in the Capital, the drainage system is in such a state of disrepair that the streets flood with an afternoon of rain, and the poverty compared to Vietnam is very apparent. Even knowledge and workers for the cultivation of rice is hard, over 50% of the population is under 17 - born after the Pot Regieme. At a significant amount of the rice paddies are in obvious dis-use - many because of land mines.

More of the War - Cu Chi Tunnels outside Saigon

The next morning, we get up early to visit the Cu Chi tunnels - this is the tunnel system outside Saigon that was vital in making the US re-think the war. I've heard a lot about this tunnel system - and fascintaed to view it for myself.

Initally only 50km of tunnels were built under the rubber plantations of the French, as part of the Viet Minh resistance. By the end of the American war, 250km of spider-webbing tunnels ran throught Cu Chi, up to 3 levels deep (10-12m into the soil) and even directly under the American base. During the 10 years the tunnels were in full operation, over 16,000 people lived there - only coming out after dark, and an estimated 44,000 Vietnamese were killed.

The first level (about 1-2m deep - could withstand an American tank above it) was more "spacious"and included education facilities, operating rooms, resting areas, workshops, kitchens etc. the next level, about 5-7 m down, were tunnels retreated to when under attack, and to move around and sometime a third level was built - 10-12m down. 100m of tunnel has been widened to accomodate tourists - and they still aren't that big. most of us couldn't handle the dark heat for more than 30m, and only one person of 12 made the full 100m - and he didn't challenge the second level of tunnels. My shoulders were scraping the sides of the enlarged tunnel, and I had to duck walk to make it through.

You can see the tour guides who lead you through the site are immensely proud of the tunnels - as a symbol of resistance, of will, ingenuity and intelligence, determination and survival. The tunnels are very, very impressive. It also drives home how much the Vietnamese were fighting the American, S. Korean and S. Vietnamese forces with - their booby traps were made with sharpened bamboo, un-exploded American ordinance, shrapnel, scorpians, snakes, animal poisons and water traps. Everything was recylced or modified to create a mine or defensive weapon. Dogs used by Americans to search out the breathing holes for the tunnels were turned away by a mixture of chilli and pepper around the holes - and finally Vietnamese eating US army food rations and usuing US Soap to smell like the GI's.

The Tunnel Rats - the American soldiers trying to root out the fighters - you can tell were beside themsleves with frustration. They set fire, carpet bombed, flooded and destroyed the tunnel system in places, but they weren't able to control the area. The latin on the Tunnel Rats insignia translated is "not worth a rat's arse," about 50 % of the company was killed, mostly in booby traps, or getting stuck in the tunnels. It's a tragic commontary of the war in Vietnam... and interesting to get another side to the story.

Next... up the Mekong Delta to Phenom Pehn, where I'll be visiting the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge.

Saigon - independence day and the American War

Coming into Saigon I know the end of my trip in Vietnam is coming - and I am not ready yet to hit the big City.

We arrived in Saigon on an overnight train, in time to catch the sun rise on Vietnamese independence Day (the day American Forces finally left Vietnam) and the country has been preparing for days. After dumping our bags at the Hotel, we took a cyclo ride around the city, stopping off at a few points of interest, but none as powerful as the War Remnants Museum of the American War in Vietnam.

As you walk in - all manner of rusting hulks of American war machines - lots of Howitzer guns, tanks, planes, bombs greet you in the compound's centre. But what I really found interesting was the way they decided to showcase the war. The first exhibition is a collage of photos taken by foreign journalists, mostly French and American, who were covering the war. In fact - it's most of the museum's collection. The photos are truly gut wrenching. Not just for their content (that is usually swinging from ominous to horribly, horribly tragic) but that most of the photos are followed with the caption "this picture was the last shot/roll/frame found by photographer blank." Many journalists were killed in action, some of their bodies still haven't been found. There was no shortage of horrible photos of American GI's abuse and disastrous actions, but I was surprised (being in a socialist country after all) about how much humanity they showed - both the pain of the Vietnamese, and the misery of the soldiers.

The next part of the museum documents the atrocities committed against the Vietnamese people - from very gruesome anti-personnel mines, shrapnel, napalm, agent orange, and the after-war birth defects. It's so painful and sad to realize we continue to forget the lessons we should have learned a long time ago, and make the same mistakes.

The celebrations for Independance Day are madness - the streets are so full of people taking in the fireworks, attending plays, presentations and shows, motorbikes are riding at full speed down the sidewalks to move in the traffic. I am surprised we all made it back to the hotel without being burnt on motobike exhausts or having our feet run over.

The Vietnamese Civic

Those of you who have been to Asia have seen it - but you are never really prepared for the amazing balancing feats of the average Vietnamese as they stack up their trusty vespas and motobikes with a mountain of stuff.

Vietnamese ride motorbikes everywhere - no helmets, Mom, Dad and 2 babies plus dinner on a scooter that will only fit one of me. Sidewalks are for parking bikes (walers - you use the streets, please don't hit bicycles riding past you).

So far I have seen bikes so piled with goods the driver is steering with his feet, I have seen TV's, panes of glass, full Queen mattresses, and buckets, baskets and bags of food, poduce, electrical goods and more packed so tighly and highly for transport you can barely make out the driver (and his wife on the back if applicable) amongst all the stuff. Amazing.