Family On The Move 5r5z4z

Family on the Move

Jack Dold

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© 2016 Jack Dold. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 11/19/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4757-5 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-5246-4755-1 (hc) ISBN: 978-1-5246-4756-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016918880

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Contents

Introduction

China New Year 2000-01

Hong Kong, China, Thailand & Korea 2002- 2003

Ancient Chinese Cities & Hainan 2004-2005

Guatemala 2005 –2006

Costa Rica, Nicaragua & Panama 2006 –2007

Việtnam & Cambodia 2007- 2008

AUTHOR HOUSE BOOKS BY JACK DOLD

Crosshairs

You Don’t Stop Living

Boris

Eva

Canada: The World Next Door

And The Swan Died

INTRODUCTION

I’ve always been indebted to Sam Miraglia. He called me one day back in the late ’80s, and asked if I would write a trip for him to Kenya and Tanzania. He wanted to take his family—wife, kids and grandkids—on a safari. Of course I agreed and after he had approved of the itinerary and cost, I met him in Vacaville, California to give his family an orientation to their trip. I’ve never forgotten his look of pride as I told them of the incredible adventure they were all going to experience. “I usually just eat spaghetti,” one of his grandsons announced. “Will they have that there?” “You may have to make a slight adjustment at times,” I told the young boy. “But you are going to love the elephants.” I made a mental note to include a final dinner at the Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi. Sam took them all to East Africa and had a fabulous time. And I made myself a promise that if I had the chance someday, I would take my own family off to exciting parts of the world. A decade later, I got my chance. Never for a moment did I imagine what a string of incredible adventures was commencing. In the early ’90s, I was doing a good amount of business with the Canadian Pacific Hotels, and talked them into a great rate for a New Year’s trip to Alberta, to the Jasper Park Lodge and Chateau Lake Louise. It would be the first of our elaborate family trips, a wonderful experience of skiing and ice climbing and sleigh riding in some of the loveliest landscapes in the world. We were a close-knit group, two families each with two kids, ten of us in a 12enger van heading from Calgary up the Icefield Parkway to Jasper. That core would come together again and again until we had explored a good part of Asia and Central America. Mary and I have two lovely daughters, born nearly ten years apart. Nancy is our oldest, and by 1993 she was married to Marty Plaskett, raising alfalfa in Eureka, Nevada, and they were in danger of beginning their own family. Our younger daughter, Annie, was a junior high teacher in Phoenix. With us were our best

friends, Jim and Donna Schafer. We first met, literally, back in the late ’60s, when Jim and I backed our wives’ two new cars into each other. We got out to survey the damage. “It looks like we both have about the same dents,” I observed. “How about a beer?” It began a friendship that would last to this day. Jim and Donna have two sons, Matthew and Eric. Matthew was nearing marriage with his future wife, Kristi who ed us in Canada. We followed up that first New Year’s trip with another the following year to Santa Fe, and then again in 1995-96 to Phoenix. I have always felt that “twice makes custom” so the weeks between Christmas and Little Christmas became the time for our families to travel. Enter Vicki Lee and Walter. Vicki was the owner of Ananda Travel in San Francisco, a tour operator specializing in travel to the Far East. We had never done any serious group travel to that part of the world, most of our international business being to Canada and Europe. But the Euro put a stop to the latter when Europe became too expensive for our clients and we looked for another destination to fill the gap. Vicky Lee would do just that. She took me off to China on a familiarization trip to put together a tour for our groups. There we were met by Shui Heng Yong, known ever after to me, my family and all of our China travelers simply as Walter. His name, Shui means water in Mandarin, and Walter was the closest he could come to that. A bond was immediately formed and Walter would from that day on be a major figure on every China trip we did. It was Vicky who first suggested a family tour to China, a suggestion that would most certainly change our lives. In 2000, the year of Y2K, when the Internet was supposed to bring the globe to a grinding halt, the Dold-Schafer combine first left the continent. We were ed by another couple who would become annual participants—Deb and Patrick Joyce. Deb was our daughter Nancy’s closest high school friend from our days living in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and truth be told, Deb has become Mary and my third daughter. Patrick is a Bostonian, a native of Southy. The two of them are family.

Before we were finished with our globetrotting we had been to China three times, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama. When we started, our first granddaughter, Kasey, was six and our grandson, Josh, four. We would watch them grow as world travelers for the next nine years, until high school schedules made it too difficult for them to get away. It was a phenomenal ride, a decade of a family on the move.

CHINA NEW YEAR 2000-01

DECEMBER 28, 2000 TO CHINA

Our China Day has arrived! Sixteen of us, the extended family of Dold-SchaferPlaskett-Joyce, this year adding our son-in-law Marty’s parents, Walt and Tommye, are on our way to Beijing and the People’s Republic of China. For several months we have been preparing for this trip, by far the most adventurous of our annual excursions at New Year. Each of us has been practicing various degrees of cool, as we tell our friends of our trip. “What are you doing for New Year?” they ask. “Oh, we’re going to China.” It is such a great answer to be able to give. With a little practice it is possible to attain a high level of casualness, which makes people green with envy. Ultimately, they will hate you. “Where are you going?” “Beijing, for the New Year’s party.” Cities are even better than countries for bragging. If you go straight to Shanghai or Xi’an or Hong Kong, it is so much more impressive than just saying “China”, elevating you to the rank of world traveler, possessed of an intimate knowledge of world geography, and even better, of culture. It might be even more impressive to say “The Orient” or “the Far East” because that will let you field additional questions. But a simple “Beijing” or “Xi’an” does just fine. You rarely get a chance to be completely insufferable, and going to Beijing for the New Year is generally unheard of, almost as good as going to Paris for lunch. In fact, it may be better. So here we are, aboard Air China flight 986, bound non-stop for Beijing, with ten days ahead of us for ancient wonders and modern thrills. 11+ hours of flight and 16 hours of time zones will get us there by 5:30 P.M. tomorrow. We cross

the date line tonight and lose a day, which makes it impossible to figure out. I just ask for the time on arrival, accept the report, change my watch and settle in as a local. This is one case where if you leave your watch on California time you are in genuine trouble. On this trip you have to start thinking Chinese. Nothing relates—language, food, music, history, culture, crafts, time. It is best to get there, lose all preconceived notions, and settle in. China is staggering in so many ways. “What are you doing New Year’s?” “Oh, (yawn) we’re going to the Western New Year’s Party on Tiananmen Square.” Parts of cities are even more impressive than the whole. “Tiananmen Square? That’s in China isn’t it? You mean you’re going to China? For New Year? Really?” Mission accomplished!

DECEMBER 29 ARRIVAL BEIJING

I’ll have to make up something for today because we lost it somewhere above the Aleutians when we crossed the International Date Line. At least we lost most of it. We left San Francisco yesterday in early afternoon, have been flying for about ten hours and it is still early afternoon tomorrow, or today. In fact it is two hours later a day later. I have never quite figured out if I’m supposed to be really tired or sound asleep or wide awake. Whatever it is, in about two hours we are landing in China and it will be 5 P.M., dinnertime. Haven’t we missed a breakfast or two? The kids have been wonderful. Kasey, age six, is so charming, so huggable, moving around gently from row to row with a happy smile in her beautiful manner. Joshua, four years old, scoped out the airplane structure, analyzed the emergency procedures, crawled under the seats to find the floatation devices, and in two hours declared the aircraft to be okay and commenced patrolling the aisle, flitting from person to person, jabbering away, happy and funny. About nine hours into the flight both of them fell sound asleep, sprawled over whoever happened to be with them. Have there ever been two more beautiful children? But it isn’t just the Munchkins. Everyone is relaxed, laid back, patient, primed for a great experience. Jim got into his pulpit this morning and set forth the “Rules of the Road”: no complaining, no fighting, no teasing, no cell phones. We were reminded that we were “on a tour” and individual rights were subordinated to the general good, commanded to enjoy China and be interested in everything. His onition has been labeled “The Prime Directive.” It was a moving speech, delivered with ion and commitment, and it is vitally necessary. It was repeated later for Patrick and Deb and again for Walt and Tommye, although Walt was declared to be “permanently exempt.” “That shouldn’t be hard to follow, Harold,” yelled Walt in the jet way. Harold, aka Jim, immediately lifted Walt’s exemption, piercing him with a baleful stare. Today there is no room for teasing in Jim’s, James’s, nee Harold’s, world.

Just before 6 P.M. we landed in Beijing. Amazing! Halfway around the world, 5,906 miles to be exact, in a single flight and less than half a day, sort of. Our route had taken us over Alaska, across eastern Russia, above the Sea of Okhotsk and on to Mainland China, in 11.5 hours. Long before we left California, I was with Kasey and Josh in my den where I had a globe. I showed them where California was and spun it around to show them China. Josh was silent for just a moment. “Papa, won’t we fall off?” I was trying to figure out a 4-year old’s answer when he brightened up and solved my problem. “It’s okay, Papa. I’ll just put gum on on shoes.”

As I knew he would, Walter Horatio (Shui Heng Jong) was there inside customs waiting for us. Though we only met last April on my first trip to China, we have become very good friends. He came to our house in California later in the year and the bond only got stronger. He is such an attractive person, always smiling, witty and very interested in everything around him. Our travel groups have all come back from China thrilled with the experience and the quality of the service, all thanks to Walter, who runs the Beijing office. It is almost an anticlimax going through China customs. They smile and stamp your port. That’s it! You collect your luggage and simply walk into China. Whatever happened to the grim intimidation of Communism? It almost lulls you into dropping your political guard. Indeed many European countries and certainly the U.S. are harder to enter. Vickie Lee, the director of San Francisco’s Ananda Travel office, who does all of our China travel, was waiting for us outside, not being possessed of Walter’s diplomatic port that would give her access to baggage area. Also waiting was Li Xiao Sung, or Sam, our Beijing guide, who will be escorting us for the next few days. Sam has escorted several of our groups already and is almost a familiar person, though I have never actually met him before. Not knowing exactly when it is or where we are, we trudged to our waiting bus and Mr. Sun, our driver, headed for the city. It’s interesting that all bus drivers in China are addressed as Mr. and Mr. Sun would become a decades long friend, who eventually became simply “Sun” for us. With Beijing and other Chinese cities, you never really arrive at “city center”. It sprawls over a dozen square miles, encoming nearly a dozen million souls, and just when you think you have reached the center you turn the corner and enter another blitz of neon and high rise. With Beijing the glare spreads in every direction, radiating off of Chang an Avenue and Tiananmen Square. Four Ring Roads girdle the old city spreading the population further and further into the desert, accommodating to the reality of 11,000,000 people. Sam kept up a running commentary into the city, pointing out historic and modern buildings and beginning our introduction of Chinese customs and habits. Modern Beijing is spectacular at night, especially at this time of year, when a

growing Christmas and Western New Year interest prompts light demonstrations on most of the buildings. Beijing is a cacophony of light, sometimes discordant and blaring but just as often artistic and innovative. Trees flow with color. Two Rainbow Bridges, glistening with lights, arch over the highway. Freeway guardrails glow orange; modern buildings are etched in streams of color. Elegant art in light is scarred often by giant, glaring golden arches and KFC walls. The Western food culture has hit China hard, clad in neon. Sam told us there are forty Starbucks in Beijing, all in the past year. McDonalds now numbers 160, accompanied in the invasion by forty KFCs, a bunch of Pizza Huts, Dairy Queens, Baskin Robbins, Chili’s, Hooters, and Roy Rogers. Dim Sun they aren’t, but they are definitely here to stay. They are emblematic, in their explosive growth, of the incredible market that China is opening to the world. Josh and Kasey were honed in completely, listening intently, thrilled by the bright lights and huge buildings of Beijing. Josh misses nothing, pointing out the overloaded bicycles, the colorful lights, the many Christmas trees, the trains, buses and trucks of the city. “What did he say about the water?” he asked as Sam was onishing us not to use the tap water. I said he told us only to use bottled water. “Oh, okay,” Josh said matter-of-factly. “Actually, that’s what I always do.” Josh is ready. We cashed in our bodies at the new Radisson Plaza State Guest House, a 5-star hotel just outside the 2nd Ring Road. Jim, Mary, Annie and I wandered out to the local shopping mall, and McDonald’s, but the crush of thousands of shoppers was more than our weary minds could absorb and we quickly retreated to the hotel. We’ll explore tomorrow.

DECEMBER 30 FORBIDDEN CITY / TEMPLE OF HEAVEN

Zhao san hao! Good Morning! Or just plain Zhao! I don’t think any of our group expected the kind of breakfast buffet the upscale Chinese hotels offer their guests. They include full American stuff like bacon, ham, omelets and cereal; European fruits and cold meats and maybe a bratwurst or two; Japanese sushi and other live critters; and of course Chinese noodles, dumplings and “porridge,” called conchi. I always double my breakfast intake overseas, because I add the local fare to the American. Here in China you have four layers to pile on, that is if you can deal with raw fish. At best you have three cultural breakfasts to amalgamate before you can even think of touring. It is particularly difficult in China, because there is bound to be ten hours of tomb and palace walking, plus a Chinese lunch of about fifteen courses and a dinner the same size. That’s the price of world traveling. Breakfast conquered, we headed for Tiananmen Square, crowded today because it is a national holiday. Sam cautioned us about pickpockets and thieves: “In the same forest there are different kinds of beasts.” In general, China is a safe place, but crowds always attract the fast fingers. It took two minutes for Sam and I to figure out that our group would take some “organizing” if we were going to see more than one site in China during our ten days. We hit the square and immediately dispersed in ten directions and purposes. Sam geared up to begin talking and found no audience. Eric was 100 yards away laying on his back, capturing the underside of a pigeon atop the Monument to the Heroes of the Republic. Matt was off interrogating a perplexed Chinese plainclothesman about the relative merits of the Cultural Revolution, and Nancy was chasing Josh in the direction of Chairman Mao. The rest of us were standing around in awe of the world’s largest public square, 90 soccer fields in size and capable of containing at least half a million at a People’s Party rally. Walter is already floating around finding things to buy for us. I fear if he adopts Kasey and Josh, Nancy will have to buy a ship to get everything home.

Sam was at first a bit perplexed by our lack of cohesion, but things will get better the longer we are on the road. We are not yet the smooth running touring unit we will be by day’s end. I had forgotten that the family is not tour-hardened like one of our busloads of octogenarians. We actually have individual expectations and plans for each site. That is hard to break. We are also bringing in at inordinate amount of background information; there are a dozen different guidebooks among us, which have actually been read. Questions lengthen tours and the family has never been known for a paucity of inquiries. Now that I think back on that fact, we were lucky to get out of the Forbidden City by dark. The 72 acres of Forbidden City were home to thirteen Ming Dynasty Emperors and eleven from the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty. It’s actually pronounced “Ching” just as the first Qin Empire is pronounced “Chin.” The Ming Capital had been Nanjing from 1368-1421, but was moved to Beijing by the great third emperor Yongle during the latter part of his reign (1360-1424). The Last Emperor left the Forbidden City in 1911. You enter the Inner City through Tiananmen Gate, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, today draped with the five-star flag of the People’s Republic of China and a giant picture of Chairman Mao Zedong. The flag has a large star symbolizing the Communist Party and four smaller ones for the workers, students, office workers and soldiers. Inside the Gate of “Peace” you enter another world, of imperial power and despotism, euphemized by such as “tranquility,” “harmony” and “union.” It is a world that was forbidden to commoners, and, after dark, everyone else except Emperor, wives, concubines and eunuchs. If you stop to think about it, the municipal absence of testicles may indeed promote increased levels of tranquility. The Meridian Gate is the true entrance to the Forbidden City, rather than Tiananmen. It was so named by the Emperor because he asserted that the Prime Meridian ran through his house rather than Greenwich, England. We laughed at that when Sam reported it, but why should we casually accept the arrogance of the British Empire and not the Chinese? I am perfectly willing to accept both since I can’t see any way that it affects my happiness in Fairfield, California. I’m for giving everyone his or her own meridian if it will keep them in balance. The Golden Stream meanders through the Forbidden City, crossed five times by a series of three bridges. Only the emperor used the middle bridge, tried by others at the risk of their lives. The royal family walked to his right and the court

officials to the left. There were dozens of things in the Imperial world that were permitted only to the emperor—the number 9, the colors purple and gold, the 5clawed dragon. Certain trees and flowers were royal perquisites. Only the Emperor could display a dragon in front of his house. The common soul lived or died in a complicated world of taboo and restriction, capable of losing his head a thousand ways. But apparently the Emperor himself was far from immortal. Trees were banned from his city since it was feared they might harbor potential assassins. Outside the Hall of Supreme Harmony the brick flooring is fifteen layers thick to prevent tunneling. Annie led the family over the middle bridge, a vibrant symbol of her modern age. Life for the Emperor in the Forbidden City was largely symbolic and ceremonial. He came to the Meridian Gate to give out moon cakes at the Spring Festival. Twice a year he traveled to the Temple of Heaven to pray for favorable crops. He prayed at the Hall of Supreme Harmony at the Ceremony of the Winter Solstice, at New Year and during the Summer Festival. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is the picture symbol today of the Forbidden City, the most often photographed of the royal halls. It is the tallest of all the halls, built on three levels, symbolizing the heavens, the human world and the earth. Sam hit us with a torrent of statistics. There are 308 huge water jars in the city, 18 bronze incense burners and 18 bronze jars, one for each province in Qing days. There are two bronze storks and two tortoises, royal symbols. As you wander toward the Emperor’s throne, the harmony halls progress from Supreme to Complete to Preserving Harmony. At Complete Harmony, the Emperor checked seeds, the land’s and his own, reviewing his family tree to find out exactly whom he had fathered over the past year, important if you worried about relatives tunneling or climbing trees. At the Hall of Preserving Harmony he married off princesses and reviewed student examinations. Outside the Hall of Preserving Harmony there is a famous dragon carving, sixty meters long and three meters wide. Quarried at Fang Shen, it weighs 200 tons and took a year to drag to Beijing. It depicts nine dragons (the 5-claw royal ones). Originally it was carved during the Ming Dynasty and re-carved in 1761 by the Qing. In size, weight and conception the Dragon Carving is perfectly Chinese—artistic, elegant, imaginative and achieved only through nearly

inhuman toil, a microcosm of Great Wall, Terracotta Army or Forbidden City. The Hall of Heavenly Purity is the entrance to the private domain of the Emperor. Here he resided with only the Empress, his concubines and eunuchs. During the Ming Dynasty, the Hall of Heavenly Purity was the actual residence of the Emperor, but was demoted to an audience hall under the Qing. The Emperor and Empress only lived together three or four days at the beginning of their marriage. After that they occupied separate halls in the Forbidden City, and the concubines generally filled the Emperor’s nights, usually providing him with an undetermined number of princes or princesses. A large wooden tablet fills the wall behind the throne in the Hall of Heavenly Purity. From the third Qing emperor on, the name of the prince who was next in line was placed in a box behind the tablet, the name not revealed until after the emperor’s death. In a land of a thousand concubines, the succession was no sure thing. The Hall of Union came next, a place visited by the empress only twice a year, on her birthday and for Spring Festival. By this time I noticed that Tommye was always wandering off to the right side (southeast corner) of each hall, and I decided to follow her. There she was, nestled against the columns. “They’re warm!” she explained, patting the column. Indeed they were, sunheated on a 25° day. We decided to call them “Tommye-warmers.” The last hall was the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, the bedroom of the Ming Empresses, certainly a misnomer in the unsettled family life of the monarch, but this whole city is a study in verbal euphemism, and what better way to end the tour than on a note of tranquility? The royal garden completes the Forbidden City, a garden of man-made rock mountains, intertwining juniper and cypress trees and exotic plants. The royal family probably found more peace and tranquility here than in all of the elaborate halls of the city. Here they could stroll in peace, free of palace cares and political machinations. Our peace shattered completely when we hit the bus parking lot and a voracious army of peddlers, selling roasted sweet potatoes, kites, sticks of sugared fruit, tea sets, books, postcards, swords, and a peculiar one-stringed instrument called an erhu. Like a herd of musk oxen, we circled, protecting Kasey and Josh in the

middle, our backs presenting a united front to the insistent merchants. Off to lunch, our first Chinese meal, at the Tiananmen Fangshan Restaurant. The first real sign of the power of the State showed up when we tried to get off at the restaurant. A policeman very forcefully told us not to even stop and we had to go around again, and park some blocks away from the restaurant, which stood just opposite the old city gates at Tiananmen Square. This is a three-day New Year holiday, and they are expecting protests on the square. Much later I heard that there were numerous arrests at Tiananmen, which has become the focal point of protest since that memorable day in 1989 when that still undiscovered man name Wang Weilin stood alone before a monstrous tank and stared it to a stop. 400 men by that name have been turned up in Beijing, but none fit the description of the Wang Weilin who made Time Magazine’s list of 100 Most Important in the century. That is the official story. On foot we reached the Fangshan Restaurant, and entered the first of what would be a succession of private dining rooms arranged by Walter, and came face to face with our first “Lazy Susan.” It is amazing how fast a stranger can settle into the chopstick-Lazy Susan style of eating. Several appetizers are usually on the turntable as you settle into your seat, and it is expected that you will begin eating as soon as everyone is comfortable. These are usually small bites of food, usually cold, perhaps some Lima beans, shrimp, thin cuts of liver, etc. They often have peanuts because that gives the visitor chopstick practice, China now worries Westerners, who have to become accustomed to chopsticks, and it takes a few minutes to get your fingers and hands operating properly. You can always tell a foreigner, or “barbarian,” because the table cloth is usually dirty next to his/her plate where the chopsticks were poked to get them even for the next bite. Also the Chinese anchor their napkin under the plate by one corner, making a very effective lap-netting for dropped food. In short order, a bewildering variety of dishes descended on our turnstiles, and just as quickly, hunger was a grand teacher in helping us dispatch almost everything. After a few inquiries as to the nature of things, most of us stopped asking and just poked around. We learned another thing about Walter’s style of hosting a meal. As soon as your beer, tea or coke glass was even slightly empty, it was filled again. At one point in the trip, Kasey was drinking coke and after each sip, it was immediately filled. With a confused look on her face, she turned to me, pleading. “Papa, every time I look around, the coke is back on top. I can’t drink anymore.” Eventually she learned to finish and turn the glass over to stop

the service. None of us beer drinkers ever learned that lesson. It was a good start. Lunch concluded we drove south, still within the city, to Tiantanyuan, the Temple of Heaven. Here during the winter solstice every year, the Emperor would lead a procession south from the Forbidden City to pray for the welfare of China. He would stay three days, supposedly without food or fun, and then return to the City. Sam intimated that this was not always the case. The Temple Park dates back to the 15th century and the reign of the Ming Emperor Yongle, whom we will later meet as Chong Ling and a variety of other names. It is composed of three main parts all in a north-south axis. The Circular Altar, a three-tiered open altar built in 1530 and enlarged in 1749, saw the burning of bundles of silk cloth as an offering to the heavens. A sound stone in its center is supposed to magnify the voice for distant listeners, and reduce it for those near at hand. The second structure to the north is the Imperial Vault of Heaven also built in 1530 to store imperial tablets. It is circled by an echo wall, which is roped off to visitors today. But in front of the hall are three echo stones. If you clap your hands on the first stone, you hear one clap. On the second you hear two, and on the third you are supposed to hear three. We can the first two. The crowning achievement at the Temple of Heaven is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, a magnificent circular hall built entirely of wood and handpieced together. Its three blue-tiled roofs, ed by twenty-eight massive pillars, raise it to a height of 125 feet. It is 98 feet across. The tower is the symbol of Beijing, and indeed perhaps of all of China. It was built in 1420 and remained until 1829 when lightening burned it down. The modern reconstruction was done with great care, using timbers imported from Oregon by shipping owner Robert Dollar. Today the interior is closed to the public. Having the need to use the toilets, the girls wandered off in the gardens. Nearby was a stage where the Beijing Opera was being practiced. A few of us went to see what was making all the racket. We would learn that later. I walked about in the trees looking for birds, so far disappointed by the scarcity of anything except pigeons and crows. There were numerous black-billed magpies, which I had seen on my first trip, but here in the park I added a new one, the azure-winged

magpie, looking very much like our scrub jays, with a black head. My new Field Guide to the Birds of China sheds some light on the scarcity of birds I was noticing. Birds in China fall into four categories: pests, food, medicine and pets. All four are inimical to good bird health. In 1958, the officials in Beijing declared that all sparrows were “pests” and citizens were ordered to eliminate them, banging drums and shooting guns to keep them from perching, causing them to die of exhaustion. 800,000 of the little critters were massacred in three days, precipitating a subsequent horde of insects that caused an official change of heart. My book says that by contrast, 4,000,000 birds are consumed daily in America by house cats. There are few cats in China! Our day was almost finished, and we would miss the third of Beijing’s ancient masterpieces, the Summer Palace. But shopping constraints require other plans and we next stopped at the Cloisonné factory for a quick look at this wonderful Chinese craft with the French name. Six steps go into the process: the molding of the item in red copper; the soldering on of a fine filigree completely around the piece; enamel filling of the filigree; firing; polishing or sanding; and finally gilding. The end product is a wonderfully colorful piece of art that may range from bowls and vases to chopsticks, cigarette lighters or wall hangings. This was our first exposure to Chinese crafts, and everyone took home a souvenir or two. The last stop of the afternoon was a walk through the Silk Alley, an outdoor market of faux finery. Here, nestled in the shadow of the American Embassy, every sort of phony designer label can be found, from Gucci and Pucci to Beanie Babies and Rolex watches. Mary was thrilled to buy the Maple, Germania and Brittania Beanie Baby Bears that are at least $300 back home. Here she purchased all three for $4.25. “Are they real?” she asked me. “Were they made in China?” I asked back. “I think so.” “Then they are real.” She is now convinced that they are real and that is all that actually matters. The same is true for Matt and Eric, who began what would become an ongoing

challenge to see who could buy $5,000 Rolex watches for under $10. And keep them running for more than forty-two seconds. At the end of our day, Eric was in the lead by a full five seconds. This battle would continue. “Is everyone back on the bus?” Sam asked. “Two dolla!” was the affirmative answer we had learned. If someone was missing we would have said “Wan dollal!” or “One dollar.” Our Chinese was fast becoming fluent. Walter had also taught us tai guela!, too expensive, which would really be put to use in the days ahead. Everyone gasped when they were told we only had an hour to get ready for dinner. We were heading for the traditional Beijing culinary cliché—Peking Duck Dinner at the impressive Quanjude Restaurant, which our groups also use. It is the reality of touring. If you want to see and experience everything, you have to maintain a tight schedule. I didn’t write down the menu for our Peking Duck dinner because that’s it. Just about everything is duck—the appetizers, the soup, the main course. The highlight is the carving, done at the table with flair, precision and a mighty sharp knife or cleaver. Then the morsels are dipped in plum sauce and rolled into pancakes or stuffed into rolls. Kind of like Chinese burritos and pita pockets. The result was the same as always—too much to eat. Tonight, the chef also sliced the duck’s head in half and presented it to each table. It would be Eric’s and Patrick’s first taste of duck brains. They are now the designated tasters for the whole group. It was about this time that Walter taught us another useful word— “Gambei!” It is always spoken with an exclamation point. It is the German “gsuffa!”— bottoms up. Except in Walter’s world, it is performed with whatever liquor is at hand, be it a liter of beer, pijou, or a flask of beijou, a burning liquid that the Chinese have the nerve to call “rice wine.” It is nothing short of double-distilled grappa, and tastes just about as bad. But in his quiet voice (which I suspect is quite dangerous), Walter picks up his glass, clinks a neighbor or two, offers a toast of some sort, shouts “Gambei!” and downs it. Then he turns the empty side horizontal for the whole table to see it is empty. And finally, he taps the glass on the side of the Lazy Susan. That takes the place of clinking glasses. All who witness this are expected to do likewise. Having been exposed to this tradition and the liquor on my last trip, I watched and took notes as Patrick, Deb, Jim,

Donna, Matt and Kristi gambeied and shook violently. Then they made the mistake that Kasey had already learned: they put their glasses down! From some hidden recess, the waitresses snaked out a bottle and before they could stop shivering, their glasses were full again, lying in ambush for Walter’s next “Gambei!” From that night on, some folks were very careful to watch which table Walter sat at. Those with a death wish chose his table; others moved to the next room. What a day! Forbidden City, lunch on Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven, Silk Alley, Cloisonné Factory, Quanjude Peking Duck, Gambei!. Another such, and we will be carted home on a stretcher. Tomorrow is the Great Wall!

DECEMBER 31 MING TOMBS / GREAT WALL

“You haven’t been to China if you haven’t stood on the Great Wall.”] Mao’s statement is inscribed on a plaque as you climb onto the wall at Badaling. The Great Wall! It has such a monumental sound. Today it extends over 3,000 miles, but once was almost 6,000. I think that of all the things you come to see in China, the Great Wall tops the list. And as exciting as its mere name is, and as great as your expectations are, nothing prepares the first-time visitor for the actual experience. That first glimpse from the Badaling Expressway is thrilling. There it is, climbing an impossibly steep mountain side, crawling over a distant peak, running across a sharp valley. This section of the wall at Badaling , one of three accessible from Beijing, is the very spot where the Mongols under Ghengis Khan poured through into China. But the wall is not just a single line of rock barrier. Twenty-five feet high and twenty feet wide, it splits and turns and laps back on itself in its journey across Northern China. From any one point, it can be seen topping several peaks, seemingly wandering in every direction without apparent plan. When Qin Shi Huang consolidated various walls in his empire, he did it with packed earth construction. It was the Ming who transformed the wall into stone. 600,000 workers are buried within its stones. Hundreds of thousands more labored to make it a reality, from the 3rd century BC Qin to the 17th century Ming. It is ironic that this Great Wall, designed to keep barbarian foreigners out of China, is now the main attraction drawing them in. Our day actually started before the wall. After a brief stop at the Jade Factory, we went directly to the Ming Tombs near the small town of Changping. Thirteen of the sixteen Ming Emperors are buried in a broad valley beneath the Tsianshou Mountains. A red gate at the valley entrance protects the tombs, the first of which was built in 1409. The formal entrance to the tombs is the Spirit Way, extending four miles from the entrance gate to the first tomb. We entered the Spirit Way along the Avenue of Stone Animals, a delightful path for all ages, between twelve pairs of gigantic animals ranging from elephants to camels to

mythical creatures, and six pairs of public officials. How many editorial writers have commented over the ages on the propriety of putting creatures and governmental officials together? Some of these sculptures date to 1435. After ing through the Dragon Phoenix Gate, said to separate the living from the dead, we visited the grandest of the tombs in the valley, that of Chang Ling, the 3rd Ming Emperor (1360-1424). He is also known at Zhu Di, and Chongzu and has an Emperor Title of Yongle. How on earth are we supposed to figure out who did what back then? At least one of those four built the Forbidden City and perhaps by the name of Yongle constructed the Temple of Heaven. He also sent fleets to the Arab world to open trade, dispatched emissaries to India and Africa, and codified the language in the Great Encyclopedia. Chongling-Yongle-Zu DiChongzu was a great Emperor and his massive tomb is evidence. It also contains the grave of his Empress Xu, and ten separate graves of favorite concubines who are said to have been buried alive with him. He certainly is the star of the valley, outshining neighbors at Chang Ling, Zhao Ling and Ding Ling. In the region there are also the Eastern Qing tombs (Dong Qing Ling) Jing Ling and Ding Dong Ling, the mausoleum of the Empress Dowager Cixi. About this time, Kasey had mastered her numbers and was starting to put them to good use. With a huge smile, she would approach someone, hold up her hand and yell, “kai wa u!” (“Give me five!”) Asked her age, she would calmly answer, “Liu.” What I wouldn’t give for a bit of that memory back. From the Tomb of Changling, we drove a few miles to the Old China Restaurant in the village of Chengzhang near the mountains. The restaurant has the flavor of the Gobi or the Spice Road, reminding me of a Turkish caravansary-restaurant I stopped at several years ago. McDonalds it isn’t. For one thing, the bathrooms didn’t get a very high rating from Nancy and Donna, barely reaching a 1, thus putting it on a level only fractions above the Forbidden City. They haven’t yet been to the Wall. But lunch as always, was filled with mystery and surprises: Cabbage with pork Dumplings Spinach Garlic

Vegetable Pork Duck Boiled peanuts Fish, prepared in a sweet and sour sauce. Winter melon Garlic cakes Duck necks Duck livers Duck shaped pastries.

They don’t actually have desserts in China. Oh, they stick some sweet things on the table that Vicki calls dessert, but usually it is masquerading as bean curd or rice of some sort. And they positively don’t have fortune cookies. Often the last thing to be placed on the turntable is the tureen of soup, which can be made out of almost anything, like dropped eggs, corn, bird nests, duck. Usually the soup is rather viscous or greasy or both, and has not generally been well received by our group. There is nothing fancy here, unless it is the tassels of the camel that Kristi insisted on riding. When Josh and Kasey climbed between the two humps, camels and horses started materializing out of the dust. We escaped to the Wall just as the caravan arrived. Today a modern cable car can take you to the Great Wall, saving visitors a steep hour-and-half climb from the highway. Even with that mighty assistance, there is work to be done. If ever you are to form an appreciation of the construction effort required of the ancients, you need to walk a couple hundred yards on top. There is nothing flat! Steep, uneven stairs take care of the cliffs, but even the

“flat” spots wear you out, especially on a winter-cold, windy day like today, where the temperature is about 15º F and the wind chill much colder. By the time we had taken our group picture and climbed to the nearby defense tower, most of us were ready to retreat to the bus. Matt and Eric would have stayed for a day or two, but they weren’t willing to jog back to town after dark. Speaking of “town”, in China you have to rearrange all of your concepts. “Downtown” fills up about twenty square miles of a Chinese city. I always laugh when our clients naively ask, “Is the hotel in the city center?” “Well, yes!” I answer with confidence because a Chinese “city center” is as big as Rhode Island. Beijing with eleven million people is a hamlet as Chinese cities go. Shanghai has sixteen million; Chongqing somewhere over twenty-five million. I figure any place, like Shenzhen where we are going on Friday, with only four million, is a Chinese town. Under a million is a “village” not worthy of being included on maps or given road signs. Under 100,000 is a “family grouping.” But it doesn’t take long to progress from one to the other. Eight years ago, Shenzhen had “only” 400,000 souls. Shanghai’s Pudong District has increased two and a half times in five years from a million residents. In a nation of 1.26 billion people, you can’t fool around with little places like San Francisco or Boston. All of the Bay Area would be gobbled up by China’s capital. We got back to the hotel at dark to get ready for New Year’s Eve. This is our only dressy occasion on the trip, so out came the dark suits and black dresses, the rings and rocks. I even splashed on my Safari cologne. And of course, Kasey, in a long red gown, donned her black cape. Our evening has been a real mystery, neither Vickie nor Walter giving out much information about the program. I know they want to surprise us. We drove into the light-suffused “inner city” pulling up at the gleaming China Nights Theater. Inside, the theater staff was primed to escort us up three stories to private rooms, where we divided up into parties of six. Gifts were spread for each of us—stuffed Panda bears awaited the ladies, musical rabbits for the kids. For each of us there was a jade necklace with our birth sign. Walter and Vickie had been at it again! A musician played in the corner in each room, traditional instruments—the flute, the one-string “teapot” erhu and the four-string pi pai. The dinner was another flight of Chinese culinary imagination, beginning with the customary six

appetizers, this time arrayed on the plate as a fanciful pheasant, with slices lined up in neat rows across the platter. They consisted of cucumber, chicken rolls, lettuce-wrapped crab, shrimp, egg, pork and beef slices, and a gelatin we couldn’t identify and Vicki couldn’t explain. The dinner was shorter than usual, but certainly the most unusual of our trip: Shark fin soup Abalone covered by quail egg whites A huge mushroom with a goose foot plopped on top There was dessert, and I definitely heard a number of quiet prayers of thanksgiving from our group. At 8:00 the preliminary New Year show commenced, and precisely at 8:00 Kasey, removing her elegant mom-manufactured cape, exited the dining chamber to her theater box, there to preside like a reigning princess over the festivities. For four hours she sat there, straight and regal, hair coifed, redgowned, glowing, never taking her eyes from the singers and dancers who performed on the stage below. She was the perfect six-year old image of Audrey Hepburn, thrilled by the theater. Josh slept on the floor the whole time. The first two hours were filled with a wide variety of games, drawings, dance and song, emceed by two of China’s “beautiful people” who looked very much like TV or radio personalities. Of course, everything was announced only in Chinese. We had to guess at most of the proceeding, but did get very good at laughing at whatever the audience down below thought was funny. They introduced each distinct set of entertainers, interspersed every so often by children’s games and drawings. Teenagers performed lively, athletic dances. Singers ranged from pop to operatic, culminating with three eardrum-shattering singers, one male, two female, from the Beijing Opera. They took cacophony and screeched it into musical anarchy, to the inexplicable delight of their Chinese audience and dismay of the sixteen Americans in the audience. I have never heard a performer battle an orchestra into complete submission. I probably never will again, at least not on purpose. At one point, Kasey seemed to flag a bit, and rested her head on Nancy’s

shoulder. Just then about ten teeny-boppers in leather skirts and jackets invaded the stage for half an hour of hip-hop teenager music and dance, and Kasey snapped back to attention, resuming her position at the edge of the box, transfixed by the spectacle enfolding below. She was primed for the main attraction that began around 10:30. Just before the main show, a raffle was held. Like magic, Walter produced a winning ticket for Kasey, who without a hint of shyness, stood and waved the winning ducat toward the stage. The audience, looking up at this little blond princess, started applauding, and Kasey went downstairs to collect her prize, while Papas and Grammies stifled a tear or two of pride. Ultimately Walter produced three winning tickets and Kasey returned with two packets of jewelry and one very modern tea pot. The end of the year, the century, the millennium, was celebrated by a dazzling explosion of color, as the performers, dressed in the costumes of distant dynasties and National Minorities, filled the stage with gleaming headdresses and flowing gowns. An hour and a half of thrilling dances ensued, a compendium of the cultural history of this staggering land. And thus we introduced the New Millennium, amid the splendors of the Tang Dynasty in faraway Beijing, sixteen hours ahead of our friends and family in the Bay Area.

JANUARY 1, 2001 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Shin yen hao!

Happy New Year! Happy New Century! Happy New Millennium! Everyone got taken last year by the Millennium Fraud. Today is the start of the millennium, but the great unwashed, uneducated public can’t get past a number with a lot of zeros on it. Just think of it: when a baby is born, do we say it is a year old? No! 365¼ days have to go by before we say he/she is one year old. Same thing with the Millennium. At the end of a year, we can say that the old guy is now 2000 years old. Today the 20th century turned into the 21st. Happy New Year! I can think of a lot of places where I would celebrate today, but in a theater box in Beijing with our whole family is not one of them. The stage director down below was carefully checking his watch and finally gave the signal to a cast lavishly decked out in the finery of the great dynasties of China. The emcee made the announcement, in Chinese of course, and streamers and confetti descended from the ceiling. As bilingual as we now are, everyone in the Dold/Plaskett/Schafer/Joyce clan figured out exactly what they were saying. It was an extraordinary feeling to be on the backside of the globe with the very people who are closest to us, amid a crowd who are completely dissimilar, and ring in the New Year. We have so much to be thankful for, and tonight I feel that very strongly. Here we are, two families intertwined by marriage, and four families bonded by loving friendship, perfectly at ease with each other in a totally alien place. And none of us thought it strange. We have so much to be thankful for. For Walt and Tommye, Jim and Donna, Mary and I, we have children with whom we can travel, can share everything, can be friends with. For Nancy and Marty, and of course, two Papas and two Grammies and Auntie Annie, we have Kasey and Joshua, who fill up our lives with joy; who are bright and alive and loving; who would gladly take the hand of anyone in our family; and who see nothing at all strange about being in China

tonight. And for the Plasketts, Schafers, Dolds and Joyces, we have friendship that is every bit as strong as family. I have always said that we are a collection of interchangeable parts, each happy to be with any one of us at any time. That is a gift worth treasuring. We have done many things at New Year or the 4th of July, but none of them has been as daunting as this expedition to China. And none of them, at least to this point, has been as interesting, easy-going and joyful. This is a New Year Celebration we will not soon forget, even if we don’t know what on earth they are saying down on the stage. Last night, Walter and Vicki had given all of the women stuffed panda bears as a New Year’s gift. This morning, Tommye made the mistake of leaving hers in the room as we were checking out. It was a scene tailor-made for Jim, who has been writhing in the restraint dictated by his own “Prime Directive Mandate” of no teasing. Walt was dispatched to his room to fetch the critter, which Jim then paraded out to the bus and Tommye. “You can’t hide from Mr. Panda!” he announced as a grateful Tommye was reunited with her cub. With that, we checked out of the Radisson Plaza State Guest House. Walter and Sam scheduled a surprise this morning, a rickshaw ride through one of the hutongs in Beijing. The hutong is a narrow, east-west street, usually no more than an alley, in old Beijing, filled with courtyard homes called siheyuans. Dating back to the Ming Dynasty, the word derives from a Mongolian word meaning “well.” Tthe hutongs were the normal dwelling places of Beijing, until modern times, housing the great majority of the population. In the present reality of high rise splendor that has spread across the city, the hutongs are being eliminated at a startling rate. In 1949 there were over 6,000 in Beijing, home to the majority of the population. There are slightly more than 2,500 hutongs left today but they are disappearing. In 1990, more than 250 were bulldozed and modern residents are starting to complain. One man, Zhao Jingxin, has become famous, turning down $190,000 for his six apartments, and refusing to budge as demolition has taken the siheyuans of his neighbors all around him. Thus far the state has put 260 hutongs with about 2,000 dwellings on the historical preservation list. Our tour was conducted by the Beijing Hutong Culture Tour Company, in an area called Shishahai or Ten Temple Lake. We were greeted by Sarah, a charming, very confident young woman with wonderful expression in her face and voice. She was born in the hutong around Qianhai Lake, and spoke of the life with love in her eyes.

“Nearby neighbor is better than faraway relative,” she said, as she described the social life and security of the hutong. “Do you live here now?” asked Matt, who is our leading questioner, based on both habit and a great deal of reading about China. “No, I live near my school.” “Will, you move back?” “If we had inside toilet and inside kitchen, I would move back.” That, succinctly, is the reason the hutongs are disappearing. Modern China, enamored of glass and marble and Western refinements, yearns for the old ways, but demands the new. No different from us Americans. The old ways are indeed interesting. On the corner was a charcoal salesman, his coal blocks stacked in his cart ready to be distributed. They are curious round pieces, with about ten holes in them, probably for draft, and used in just about every residence. In the parks, people were exercising, performing a variety of tai chi maneuvers, while the old men busied themselves with chess or mahjong. There seemed to be a lot of activity on the streets, which were very narrow and winding. The houses all have double doors, some carved as a sign of wealth. Two or four lentils protrude above the doors, another sign of relative wealth. Plain door stones stand guard on either side, nothing fancy—certainly not stone lions, which were reserved for the Emperor. It would mean death for a common man to possess a lion. The raised threshold boards, which we had seen in stone in the Forbidden City, guard the house from evil spirits. Bright New Year paper placards are evident on most of the doorways, placed upside down (We had to be told.) to bring good fortune. Even though some of the roads are dirt, and the houses fashioned of worn brick, the hutong is surprisingly clean, as we have noted throughout Beijing. Garbage is picked up three times a day, and there were people young and old, wielding old fashioned twig brooms in most areas. Yards are crammed with household goods, bicycles, charcoal stacks, but there is very little evidence of debris. The rickshaws are traditional black, three-wheeled bicycles with red covers. The drivers are all slim, young men from a nearby village. They appeared to shrink a bit when they saw the size of us full-figured guys, but they shrugged and

accepted two in each vehicle, and pushed off quite easily. A bit later however, to my shame, our driver had to get off his bike and pull us up a very slight incline. Our route took us along Qianhai Lake to the Yingding Bridge, and then along the shore of Houhai Lake. There were kids ice skating on the frozen ponds, and considerable activity around them. In the summer the company offers boat rides on the lake as well as the rickshaw experience.

Sarah escorted us into the siheyuan of Mr. Wo, a former archaeologist, who shared his courtyard with his wife, now a retired factory worker, his two sons and their wives and one granddaughter. We were welcomed very warmly and beckoned to sit down and ask any questions we liked. The house has been in Mr. Wo’s family for over a hundred years. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution (196676), it was taken from them by the State, and they were forced to lodge Red Guard strangers at their expense. We would hear other sad stories about the Cultural Revolution, which is openly criticized by all generations in China today. It was not a good time. Mr. Wo received his house back in 1983, but the State kept all the land in China. As a result, all dwellings are subject to “Eminent Domain” and can be taken at any time. Both Mr. Wu and Sarah said that the owners never receive the full value of their property, although that may change if the story of Zhao Jingxin is repeated very often. There was a charcoal burner in the living room where we were seated. It was molded to accept the charcoal blocks we had seen on the street, heating with four of them at a time. The room, the largest in the dwelling, was very comfortable. Two other stoves heated the remainder of the courtyard rooms. There were two kitchens, the sons sharing the rear one. Mr. Wo said that most houses had a pomegranate tree in the courtyard, the fruit being a symbol of fruitfulness. “Now a peach tree—only one seed!” As we have noticed everywhere in Beijing, Kasey and Josh were the centers of attention. Their blond hair and pretty faces have attracted notice everywhere we have gone. The Wu family was no exception. They were always glancing over at the kids with big smiles on their faces. Of course, Josh and Kasey smile right back and that increases the delight. The Wu’s granddaughter, Kasey’s age, was in the room and an effort was made to get her to play with them, but shyness all around prevented much action. As we got ready to leave, the family posed with us for pictures. It was a much-appreciated visit for us, because it gave a tiny

glimpse of the lifestyle of these people. They don’t have our material wealth, but they are little different in spirit from any of us. From the Wu’s we entered the Palace of Prince Gong, built in 1777 in the form of a courtyard dwelling, but on a scale that was certainly befitting of his royal position. The long dwelling had a double row of forty-five windows, each of a completely different shape, in itself a challenge for the stone mason. There are 99½ rooms in the palace, and a complicated, elegant garden surrounding it. As we were in somewhat of a hurry this morning, we did not give justice to the gardens and pavilions, but we did stop to notice a peculiar gazebo with a flooring etched with four-inch grooves snaking around the entire surface. Sarah explained that the floor was actually a drinking game used in the old days. The grooves were filled with water. A wine glass was floated along. Wherever it stopped, the person nearest had to drink the contents. Gambei! Our entire young contingent snapped to attention. Gambei they understand, having already had two nights with Walter and Chinese rice wine. Walter and I had decided to give up a formal lunch stop today in favor of a later departure this morning, so we hit one of Beijing’s 160 McDonalds, scarfing down double cheeseburgers and fries as though we were Americans. Then we headed for the airport, bidding farewell to Sam and Mr. Sun. Our flight leaves around noon. As we got off of the bus at Beijing Airport, Walter put his bags down on the curb. One was immediately blown all the way to the back of the bus. Bad sign! Air China #1225 was scheduled to leave at 2:10, but the departure screen gave no indication that anything in the airport was leaving for Xi’an. In fact, the high winds that are so common in the capital city, had closed down the whole airport. Nothing was moving. We began our wait, homesteading the far corner of the waiting room, in what proved to be the hottest section of the airport, next to an advertising window full of lights. Four hours later, we were still there in remarkably good spirits considering the time. It would prove however to be Josh’s only “exile” time of the entire trip. Walter, true to form, had discovered a remote-control, four-wheeler, big-wheeler that turned over when it hit something solid and proceeded to move in the opposite direction. It took Josh about three seconds to estimate the potential of that machine, and it quickly began its tour of the building, under the seats of the waiting room. Before long, he was flying around the aisles heading off the berserk thing, much to the chagrin of his mother. “Exile” and “Freezer” were called at the same time, as Nancy pulled both a yellow card and a red and

ordered Josh off of the playing field, exiled to the seat next to Auntie Anne, while Big Wheel went into the freezer until unspecified future notice. Face severe, Josh worked at stretching the rules of his sentence, first toeing the floor with one foot, then trying the other, until ordered back on his rear end by Mom. He went into the Josh Slump, shoulders bowed, head down, lower lip out. He pouted, frowned, tried talking back, pleaded and prodded—to no avail. “Probation” was added to “Exile.” It took up a half-hour of everyone’s time, watching the courtroom, afraid to move ourselves lest we be sentenced to like fate. Nancy was imperial, and had to be in the face of the variety of appeals thrown forth by the little lawyer. Finally freed, he then proceeded to work on getting his car released. That proved to be too much to expect and finally he went back simply to entertaining us.

“Is he always like that?” I asked Kasey, who was being angelic, reveling in her brother’s predicament. “Oh, yes, Papa. He gets in trouble all the time.” There was a genuine smile of iration on her pretty face. Josh not only keeps all of us in stitches. He provides the adventure that Kasey loves to follow. And he is usually the one that gets caught and sent into “exile.” But considering the immense possibilities of that racer that Walter gave him, I think it is amazing that he hadn’t steered it out on the runway for takeoff into the typhoon that was raging out there. I think he was actually pretty restrained, putting only a few in the waiting room at risk, and running over the feet of barely a dozen Chinese travelers. It is only three days into our tour, but Kasey and Josh have been wonderful, interested in everything, happy, and beautiful. Kasey has already learned to count to ten in Chinese: “yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba, jiu, shi,” to the great delight of Walter and Vicki, not to mention all of us. The two of them have been completely relaxed and unintimidated by the strangeness of China and its people. Josh has sat glued to the window, either in the very front seat or all the way in the back, observing everything that es by, maintaining a running commentary of things and events with anyone who is nearby. Kasey has listened carefully to Sam and the guides, has absorbed a remarkable amount of Chinese

in a short time. They have been perfect tourists. If I had any worries about how they would react on this trip, those fears are already gone. It is impossible not to be proud of them. Each of us has worked out his or her own style on this trip. Annie is completely focused on China’s history and language, intent on bringing as much as possible back to her students. She has been peppering Sam on all sorts of subjects. Matt has read a whole lot, and generally initiates the questioning. Eric has decided to taste everything there is in China, both edible and experiential. He will look into the nooks and crannies. Patrick and Deb are continually awestruck, probably by the fact that China is indeed somewhat different from the “Hub”, as the Yankees refer to Boston. Nancy is interested in anything that is sold, and most everything that we see, while Marty, true to form, smiles quietly and enjoys the whole show. We matriarchs and patriarchs get in a word or two whenever we can, and every once in a while get asked for advice. That is enough. Sam, captivated by our family, declared that he was no longer a guide, but a friend, and at first refused the tip I offered him. But I told him it was a start of a fund to get him to visit us in the U.S. and he grudgingly accepted it. Walter and Vicki are well on their way to becoming an uncle and an auntie. We left Beijing for Xi’an about 7 P.M., the time we had originally been scheduled for dinner. That meant we would not get to the hotel much before 9:30 or 10:00, but our spirits were up and a decent dinner on board replaced the banquet that Walter and Vicki had planned. We landed in Xi’an literally in a cloud of smoke. Coming off the plane, it smelled as though we were in the midst of burning rice fields in Sacramento, and it got progressively worse as we retrieved our luggage and pushed our carts out to the waiting bus. I was certain that the smoke was the result of the winter burning of crops, Xi’an being in the center of an agricultural plain. It was literally impossible to see a hundred yards. Our driver, Mr. Yu, was waiting for us along with Jui Ming Li, Lily, our guide for the two days in Xi’an. A lovely young lady, with an accent slightly more heavy than Sam’s, she guided us into the Shangrila Golden Flower Hotel, just outside the ancient city walls. By the time we reached the city, it was obvious that the smog was no accident. A huge coal-burning power plant belched noxious waste into the airport air, augmented by the coal stoves of 7,000,000 Xi’anians who were heating their homes in the winter. In the still, heavy air of

the plains, the smog had nowhere to go and it hung like a shroud over the city, infecting every corner, contaminating every lung. It was the worst pollution I have ever witnessed, far suring the blanket of exhaust we had observed years ago in Guadalajara and making L.A. skies look like high mountain heaven. Even the impressive lights of China’s most complete ancient city walls failed to disperse the gloom of the smoky night. Xi’an is completely surrounded by massive walls in full restoration. Four immense gates lead into the inner city, with the modern metropolis spread around it in all directions. Today, there are three separate “Development Areas” outside the old city, enormous projects focused around major t ventures of Coca Cola, Nike, and a Japanese project. Xi’an is a major industrial area and that probably contributes in great measure to the pollution problem. But modern China takes these t ventures very seriously. Coming from the airport, we traveled on a major six-lane freeway, completely installed and ready for action. Housing developments are already built, waiting for people to occupy them. Lily explained that the mayor compared this advance building to buying shoes for a newborn baby. “Eventually he will get bigger and grow into them.” How different is this concept from ours? We allow the city to sprawl out in every direction and then discover that we have no roads, no rapid transit, no infrastructure capable of dealing with the population. Of course, there is very little possibility of dissent in China and decisions can be made without regard to little things like environment, pollution or human discomfort. While we treasure our freedoms, it would be nice to have a fast train or two.

The long day, exacerbated by the four hour delay at the airport, had us all heading for bed on arrival at the Shangri-La Golden Flower Hotel. Well, that’s not entirely true; most of us headed for the bar and a stiff drink or two before hitting the sack. Once again, Walter had managed to up-grade us to a 5-star deluxe hotel. I fear he is spoiling us for the future. It is easy to take luxury for granted when it comes so often. But this is no time to complain. Tomorrow we have the Terracotta Warriors. Donna and Eric ed us in the bar, excited, having just come from the hotel gift shop with the news that they have full-size copies of the Terracotta Warriors for sale, and would ship them home at a reasonable price. Kristi came to attention.

“Matt’s impotent in his office.” “Impotent?!?!” Patrick, Jim, Eric and I all blurted out the word in unison, attracting the attention of the whole gang, as well as everyone else in the lobby. “I didn’t say that,” protested a reddening Kristi. “I said he was going to put it in his office.” What followed was a complete disruption of the Prime Directive as all smiles turned to Matt, who would have protested himself, but he was too busy zipping up. “I need to have the Big General in my office,” he yelled, making matters considerably worse. “The Big General!” We have been doing so well for the first four days, carefully heeding Jim’s directive and mostly staying away from the kidding and teasing that we have all been too ready to dispense in the past. Our restraint has added considerably to everyone’s enjoyment of the tour, especially Matt and Annie who often get targeted by Eric, who usually spends most of his time complaining that everyone always blames him for everything. No, we have all been very good, but once in a while a statement cannot be overlooked. When all of the laughter had died down, and Matt had corralled his Big General, we discovered that Kristi had been talking about buying one of the full-size Terracotta Warriors for Matt’s office. Jim also wanted one for his house, and Eric would probably be talked into getting one as well. Since it was obvious they were serious, Lily came over and whispered, “Don’t let them buy them here. These in the hotel are seconds. We can go to the factory workshop. Walter knows the owner very well.” With that, we adjusted the schedule for tomorrow. We are going to need some time for bargaining. A small battalion of full-scale warriors should be perfect for Jim to work on. The excitement of seeing the ancient army was now augmented by the thrill of the purchase.

JANUARY 2 XI’AN / TERRACOTTA ARMY

The wake-up call was like a siren going off a foot from my ear. Zhao! Good Morning! Ni hao? How are you? Josh had some questions this morning. “Are you sure that this is the right foot?” he wondered as Nancy put on a shoe. “How do you know?” He pulled it on. “It’s feeling fine though,” he nodded to himself, pleased with his mother’s decision. There is always a question brewing in that little brain, and you can’t just give him any old answer because he will consider it and reject it if it doesn’t meet his common sense standards. I explained that his big toe had to go in the part of the shoe that stuck out the most. He considered that carefully and nodded. “I knew that.” Good enough. Now we can start the day. Properly shod, we headed down to the dining room for another mammoth breakfast, once again filling up on fresh fruit, omelets, great bacon and sausage, a dumpling or two and noodles. They had a new array of conchis flavored with chicken, millet or rice. For the first time in my life I saw pizza on a breakfast table. Josh loaded up on noodles. Kasey, who skips most of the lunch and dinner items, really loads up her plate with recognizable items at breakfast and digs in. I had awakened last night with the room apparently filled with smoke, certain that the hotel was on fire. It was simply the apex of the coal pollution from the sleeping city. This morning the smoke was not as bad, but as we drove out of the city to the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, it was difficult even to see the hills that I ed were only about a quarter mile off to our right. Last April there had been none of this smoke and the contrast was startling.

En route to the most amazing archaeological site of China’s last century, Lily talked about her family, and three generations of women. Her grandmother, now 103 years old, had grown up in an era where women were expected to listen, cook and never leave the house. Her feet had been bound, and she could barely walk because of the pain. “If you have big feet, nobody wants to get married with you,” Lily explained. “If you have big feet, you want to go out to see something outside the window.” The oldest daughter in the old families had to be married by seventeen or the family would lose face, be disgraced. The man expected her to stay in the house. He could divorce her any time he wanted, just by leaving her. “Whole life for cooking and listening,” commented Lily. In her mother’s generation, things had changed somewhat. Women were getting jobs outside the house. They could initiate divorce, although it seldom happened because such a woman would be shunned by the whole community. For Lily’s generation, equality has reached the women. “Before we get married we should think a lot. Take time.” The bride wears a red dress for the wedding, a dress that is usually rented at a wedding shop. We saw many of them hanging in the markets, red being the color of good luck. They always marry on an even numbered day, except 4 which is especially bad luck. In the old days, a man always gave the father of the bride a piece of pork in symbolic exchange for his wife. Jim snapped to attention. “Donna, I can buy you and your mother for a ham.” That brought on a discussion as to whether the Prime Directive covered people not present. It wouldn’t have mattered to Jim, since the whole concept of pork purchase was just too juicy to ignore. In the country, Lily pointed out the farm houses. “The thing the man concentrates on is the living room. A big living room is the sign of a rich man. All of his money is spent on the big room.” The Chinese have a bewildering array of symbols that invade every facet of their lives. The pomegranate tree, a symbol of fertility, is always planted in the yard. The persimmon is the symbol of the soft, sweet life. Fish, served whole at dinner is a sign of wealth, a symbol telling the guest that the year has been good. A Chinese man never wears a green hat, which would to the neighbors

that his wife is unfaithful. But he will drive a green car as a sign of wealth. 4 is a very unlucky number because one of its tones means “death;” as is 14, which means “going to die.” The hotels often will omit both floors, much as ours might leave out the 13th. On the other hand, 8 is a very lucky number. 9 is reserved only for the Emperor, while 99 is extremely lucky. A round figure denotes wealth; an oval is a symbol for longevity. Vicki is constantly pointing out items that are symbolic, and indeed it is difficult to do anything that does not have a hidden meaning. In 1974, a farmer, Mr. Yang Zhifa, was digging a well in the vicinity of the burial mound of the Emperor Qin. He uncovered the terracotta head of a soldier, dug up a bunch of other pieces, and carted them into town to sell. Thus he exposed to the world a discovery that may very well eclipse the tomb of King Tut in 20th century archaeology. Six years later, the world was informed of an enormous life-sized army, arrayed in battle order, guarding the tomb of the great emperor. In all, about 7,000 soldiers have been discovered thus far, 6,000 in a central phalanx, with another 1,000 in a flanking order. A third site has uncovered a command post of officers, horses and chariots. It is entirely possible that a similar, yet undiscovered army guards the rear of the emperor’s tomb. The three sites are today enclosed by huge buildings to keep them from deteriorating in the weather. Even with precautions taken, the original paint almost immediately evaporated on exposure to the air. About 1,500 soldiers have been restored to date. Others, have been reburied to prevent further degeneration. The Emperor Qin Shi Huang, named Ying Zheng, was born in 259 BC. He became the King of Qin at age thirteen, following the death of his father Yi Ren. At the time there were seven warring kingdoms that were quickly overrun by the young king. He unified the kingdoms of Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan, Han and Qi and in 221 BC, formed the first unified kingdom in Chinese history. Combining the names of two powerful ancient rulers, he coined the name Huang Di, “Emperor” signifying his supreme power. This first empire, which he boasted would last forever, survived his death in 210 BC by only four years. He was only 50 years old. The construction of the Qin Mausoleum began in 247 BC, when he was thirteen years old. It continued for thirty-nine years, until halted in 208 BC when the capital was surrounded by uprising troops. An estimated 720,000 people worked on the project, which covers fifty-six square kilometers. The tomb was a model

of the imperial capital city. On arrival at the Terracotta Army, it is obvious that this is a world-class tourist site. The buses park in a large lot, and engers are walked through a warehouse that normally serves as a gift shop. Fortunately, the place was empty for winter renovations, and we waltzed through without a hint of a stop. Back in the open, dozens of vendors are ready to sell you everything from colorful slippers to long swords, not to mention thousands of knock-offs of soldier statues. But our goal was to see the army, and we entered a great compound that was flanked by four large buildings, each of which houses one section of the army and archaeological digs. The building directly in front as you enter is the oldest, a nondescript Quonset hut structure that is also the most important—it protects the #1 trench, the original discovery area of over 6,000 soldiers. The building is massive, 230 meters long by 62 meters wide. It covers eleven lines of soldiers, a solid phalanx, with the side rows facing out and the rear row facing back. About 1,500 of the figures, which were destroyed by fire shortly after the emperor’s death, have been restored, and stand in their original positions. The chariots have long since disappeared, but the horses are still in place. Bronze swords, halberds, spears, axes, and arrows, which were actual weapons, have been removed for safe keeping. Over 10,000 have been unearthed in the first ten percent of the dig. Imprints of the chariot wheels and roof beams can be clearly seen. Photographs and videos are not allowed within the three trench areas, but true to form, Walter spoke with someone and started snapping pictures right away. Soon all of us were filming the interior of the trench, posing and recording the incredible sight. The restored warriors are lined up at the head of the trench. A walkway bridges the midpoint of the digging, an area that has been re-covered with dirt to prevent further damage to the sculptures. In the rear of the building, work continues on piecing together the shattered remains. Soldiers and horses, still working puzzles, are slowly regaining their parts. Baskets stand at the feet of each figure to hold fragments that belong to them. Trench #2, covered by a more modern building is 124 meters by 98 meters and has produced about 350 chariot horses, 100 cavalry steeds, and over 900 warriors with 89 chariots. It is noted for 230 crossbow archers, both kneeling and standing. This was the flanking force of the main army. From experience on Trench #1, the archaeologists learned to protect the figures early on. In Trench

#2 large sections of the roof beams are evident, and many of the figures still retain their original paint. Sixty-six figures, four chariot horses and one wooden chariot were found in Trench #3, which was the command post for the army. You get a great idea of the architecture from the walls that are plainly evident below the walkways. The flooring is also original. The fourth and last building on the site, contains the library, headquarters and museum. It also houses perhaps the most exciting individual artifacts yet found in the Qin Mausoleum, a half-sized copy of the royal carriage with a guard carriage in front. Both are done in bronze and decorated with gold and silver. Each carriage is drawn by a four-horse team. The realism of the figures, horses, drivers and vehicles, is startling. Both are driven by generals, a sure sign they are the Imperial Carriages. Elsewhere on the site, another ten carriages have been unearthed, used by court nobles. The detail is extraordinary; everything works. The weapons are exact. The harnesses, brakes, wheels, sirens, are both detachable and functional. Even the guard’s umbrella is adjustable! One of Qin’s successors, Liu Bang, on seeing the royal chariot procession as a youth, said, “This is indeed the way a true man should live.” Jim could have uttered that statement, because he has already decided that the only job to have in China is Emperor. Or as he put it, “Everything else sucks.” We were in a state of awe as we left the Terracotta Warriors. This is one of the truly great historic sites in the world, a mind-boggling display of ancient power, and artistic skill. Every warrior is different, each skillfully crafted, with detail down to hairstyle, armor rivets, fingernails, clothing. It is impossible to imagine the effort this mausoleum required, the human toll it exacted. While it was conceived as a royal funerary army, today it is the gift to our world of the 700,000 slaves and workers who created it. Armed with the inspiration of the site, we waded through the vendors at the gate, intent on reaching the official workshops of the Terracotta Army. At one point, Jim completely disappeared amid the crush of the jabbering vendors, but he emerged unscathed at the back of the pile with a big grin on his face and nothing to show for their efforts. We boarded the bus and drove into town to the Xi’an Rongshengzhai Tourist Arts and Handicrafts Company, the official dispensers of reproduction Terracotta Soldiers. Matthew was after his Big General.

The obvious wares of the place were the soldiers, and Jim, Matt and Eric quickly set about choosing the particular soldier they wanted to bring home with them. There was a selection of about fifteen—archers, soldiers, officers, a general, even a statue of Qin Shi Huang himself, although it is a modern inspiration. It was obvious that this was not going to be a quick sale, as Jim girded his loins to do bargaining battle with the merchants, looking for a “volume sale price.” I also was intent on getting a soldier, but Vicki had already said that she was going to bargain for me. Or more precisely, for Mary, who had her wallet out and was bound and determined to buy one for my hill. The rest of our crowd soon discovered that the shop contained much more than clay soldiers. In fact, it was perhaps the finest collection of Chinese art and artifacts that we will see, a huge showroom of cloisonné, sandalwood, porcelain, textiles, silk rugs, jade, cinnabar, pearls, opium bottles and much more. We could easily have done all of our shopping here for the whole trip, with the possible exception of the public market goods, which are beneath the notice of “reputable merchants.”

Eventually, Jim agreed to a price of $800 per figure, including all taxes and shipping, to be delivered to the Port of Oakland. He ordered the kneeling archer, which was the consensus favorite of the whole group. Matt got a standing soldier, and Eric finally was persuaded to choose a different infantryman on the condition that Jim and Donna store it at their house at no rent for up to 75 years. Mary chose the “Big General” for me, and he will be very impressive beneath an oak in the middle of our hill. Annie got a wide variety of items for use in class and Nancy bought a bunch of smaller figurines. Kasey and Josh were each gifted with an unfired piece by the shop owner, who like everyone thus far in China, was much taken by their manners and appearance. I tried to suggest to Josh that he should hold out for a full sized warrior, but he was adamant in his choice of a small horse. I think that everyone came away with something that will long be considered a treasure. The work done, Lily led us to the Wan Nian Hotel and an impressive private room in their Bloom Restaurant. By now we are old hands at wielding chopsticks, and have learned that as soon as the six appetizers are placed on the Lazy Susan, we are expected to start sticking. The appetizers are usually a variety of odd things, like lotus, various innards, celery, little shrimps. The serious items like duck, noodles, bock choy, braised lettuce, beef and chicken dishes start piling up in short order. As a dish is reduced, the waitresses reduce

the size of the plate, making room for yet more delights. With a number of dishes we were advised by either Walter or Vicki “don’t ask!” In general we all maintained a high degree of both efficiency and daring. Eric led everyone in trying the most bizarre concoctions. In fact, it became a badge of honor for him to work his way through duck brains, goose tongues, snake wine, various livers, kidneys, hearts and intestines. Patrick tried to emulate him, but there is too much Yankee in his bones to compete easily, though I never saw him turn anything down, even if it turned him green. Xi’an is rather famous for its “fast food” Chinese style. In fact, Lily explained that McDonalds and KFC both came to the city to investigate its potential as a market place, but only KFC stayed. McDonalds decided that the natives eat too much quick food of their own to do justice to Quarter Pounders with Cheese and Big Macs. But KFC took a different tack. They d to the many little boys of Xi’an, with gift offers, and catchy tunes. “If the Little Emperor goes to the KFC,” said Lily with a laugh, “the whole family goes.” “That’s a definite 10! They have super clean toilets, toilet paper, marble floors, don’t charge you money and they have an attendant who hands you a towel and opens the door.” Nancy and Donna had just come out of the restroom at the Wang Nian Restaurant. So far, in a land where toilets are perpetually on the minds of American tourist ladies, the Wan Nian has fared the best. “What’s your scale based on?” I asked, sensing a sure essay well worth writing. “If there is a sit-down toilet and teepee, it’s a minimum 6. Without the paper it can’t be above a 4.” “The Great Wall was a 1, and the Forbidden City was not much better.” “Was there a concrete floor in those?” I asked, thinking of the hole dug in the dirt I had once used in a village in Kenya. “Yes, but it was filthy and wet.” “What happens if you find something worse than the Great Wall?”

“It couldn’t be worse,” said Nancy, who had made Kasey put shoes on to go to the john on the plane. I pictured Nancy with Josh in Jakarta where they only give you a bucket of water to clean with and nobody shakes with the left hand. There are so many variables with toilet facilities: Type of room Type of flooring Square footage Plumbing fixtures Design of waste hole Sitting or standing accommodations Lighting Foot positioners Availability of paper or other cleaning media Proximity, (distance from present need) Decor Architectural appeal Artwork Automation Privacy Odor Insect life

Temperature Graffiti Acoustics Noise level Cleanliness Moisture Lockability Symbiotic animal life Cost Availability of seat cushions Flush capability Etc., etc., ad nauseum.’

I submit that it is totally impossible to confine loo-appraisal in a measurement of ten. I think that for connie-sewers like Donna and Nancy, we will have to create a scale of 100, where the hole in the Great Wall is at least a 20 and Shoji Tabuchi’s Branson Brothel Bathrooms outstrip the Wan Nian by another 20. There were no gold fixtures in Xi’an. And certainly no options like fresh or salt water in the sinks like you get at the Breakers in Newport. There were no showers available as you have with Virgin Airlines, no XXX movies over the urinals or Burt Reynolds stripping on the back of the stall doors like in Ripples in SF. I didn’t see pedicures or haircuts offered, or bidets afforded. No, once the subject of relative defecation is broached it has to be elevated to the level of scatological inquiry, rather than left floundering around like a Baby Ruth in a Caddy Shack swimming pool. Nancy and Donna are going to have to expand both their horizons and their scale if they want to be taken seriously by

the DPSJ Waste Makers. The thing is, they came to China ready to go, no pun intended. They have rolls of toilet paper, seat covers, handy wipes, little vials of hand cleaner that take off all the dirt and then leave it where it was—invisible. They have lots of coins for tips, and shoes that probably have disinfectant on them. And just to be sure that all of this was put to use, Nancy brought big bags of dried fruit for us to eat on the bus. After lunch we drove across town past the Tang Dynasty Goose Pagoda, to the Shaanxi Historical Museum. Xi’an was the capital to the first thirteen Imperial Dynasties, and as such the most important city in China. The museum houses the artifacts of those many centuries. It is a fine collection, but coming as it did in our day, after exhilarating touring of the Terracotta Army, exhausting shopping for our own army, and about twelve courses of dining at the Wan Nian Hotel, we rather breezed through the displays. China is a difficult history lesson, unless one has had the time and energy to put the dynasties in some sort of order. Taking my Lonely Planet guidebook I decided to give myself a lesson in Chinese history, of course starting at the beginning which no one is quite sure of. But we can begin with the Xia Dynasty, who either ruled from 2200-1700 BC or never really existed at all. Their mystery dynasty led to the Shang (who are also lost in the mists) and then the Zhou (1100-221 BC). That’s where the fun begins, when Chinese history starts getting geographical as well as poetic. It seems that the Zhou have an Eastern and Western Period, as well as a Spring & Autumn Period and a Warring States Period. Thank God the Qin Dynasty came in for fourteen years and stopped all that confusion. That’s when Qin Shi Huang Di became a “Di” and combined seven kingdoms into his so he could start building walls and mausoleums. Finally the Han Dynasty arrived, and I relaxed because here was a name I had heard of, 425 years spanning the millennium of Christ’s birth. Why would dates be in BC-AD in China? Anyway the Hans got the civilization going in the right direction, because instead of a Western and Eastern Han there’s a Former and Later. But what’s this? There’s a Western Han and Eastern Han as well. The Later Han, at any rate, get tossed out in 220 AD to be replaced by chaos for four centuries. The land gets split up between the Wei, the Shu han and the Wu, who fight it out so that the Jin can get in, that is, the Western Jin or the Eastern Jin.

From 386 to 581, things really get complicated. the Song, Qi, Liang and Chen fight it out in the South, while the Northern dynasties are split between the Wei, who are divided into Northern, Western and Eastern, and the Northern Zhou (again!) who don’t have a Southern version, and the Northern Qi. The Sui sneak in here, for one good ruler, Yang Jian, but he sets things up for China’s Golden Age under the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The Empire expands; Buddhism flourishes; the arts thrive, all coming together to full flower under Xuanzong. “The Radiant Emperor” (685-761). Nothing seems to last forever in China except the incredible culture. The Tangs bit the dust and are later followed by the Laters: Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han and Later Zhou. One wonders where these guys were hiding all the while. Then come the Song again, but they’re not called “Later”. They are, however, either Northern or Southern. Oh, I forgot the Liao who wedged in between the Laters and the non-Later Songs. After the Western Xia, come the Jins again. We’ve already had the Western and Eastern Jins and then the Later Jins. From 1115-1234 we get the just-plain Jins who obviously are even later. Here come the Mongols, whom the Chinese call the Yuan Dynasty: good old Ghengis Khan and his famous son, Kublai. Here comes Marco Polo bringing China to the Western world. Or did he? Old Marco forgot to mention a few little things in his journal like tea and Chinese calligraphy, and the Great Wall and women’s bound feet. But he was a good public relations man for old Kublai. Finally we get to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) who open the floodgates to European intrusion and cultural disaster for China. Not only that, but they also let in the Manchus from the north, who as the Qing (1644-1911), will end the chain of dynastic rule. Theirs would be the dishonor of Opium Wars and Boxer Rebellion, of European aggression as annexed Indochina, Britain stole Burma and Japan lopped off Korea and Taiwan. The stage is set for the Republic with Sun Yatsen and the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai Shek and Civil War. And finally after Chiang’s fifth extermination campaign, the rise of Mao Zedong and the Communists, following the Long March of 1933. Mao comes to power as Chiang goes to Taiwan, and Mainland China heads for the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) that ended with the death of Mao. The last ten years have seen an extraordinary change, ushering in a tidal wave of modernization and what appears to be Market Economy. I don’t think the change has ended.

That’s it! 4,000 years of Chinese history. Simple. For the old guys in our group I made it a little clearer.

CHINESE DYNASTIES Qin Dynasty Former Han Dynasty Xin Dynasty Later Han Dynasty Three Kingdoms Sixteen Kingdoms Northern Wei Southern Dynasties Sui Dynasty Tang Dynasty 5 Dynasties & 10 Kingdoms Qidan Liao Dynasty Northern Song Dynasty Jurchen Jin Dynasty Southern Song Dynasty Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty Kublai Khan Marco Polo in China Ming Dynasty Qing Dynasty

221-207 BC 206 BC – 9 AD ROMAN EMPIRE 9 – 23 AD 25 – 220 AD 220 – 280 AD 316 – 384 AD FALL OF ROME 386 – 534 AD 304 – 589 AD 589 – 618 AD MUHAMMAD 618 – 907 AD CHARLEMAGNE 907 – 960 AD 907 – 1125 960 – 1127 1115 – 1234 1127 – 1279 1279 – 1368 1260-94 1275-91 1368 – 1644 RENNAISSANCE 1644 - 1912

Donna discovered Farmers’ Paintings at the hotel. Suffused with bright colors, they are extremely attractive portraits of rural life in Shaanxi Province. Our last stop today was at the Great Western Gate at the city wall, which, built by the Sui and the Tang and extended by the Ming, is over forty feet high and extends almost ten miles around the city. Lily had mentioned that there was a good shop there that has Farmers’ Paintings. So we climbed this incredible wall, complete with massive fortress towers, a wonderful view of Xi’an and its central bell tower, completely ignored the whole thing and plunged once more into the shopping mode. At least twenty-two Farmers’ Paintings came out of that shop twelve minutes later. In fact, this was a wonderful shopping venue. Friendly, polite men and women work the tables, which display genuinely high quality crafts. There are shadow puppets, opium bottles, clothing, fine carvings. But time was getting late, and I suggested to the girls that we might want to start to consider leaving. Like a flesh and blood army, they turned on me and as one, yelled (with a slight hint of venom) “We didn’t hurry you in finding your Big General.” I wish I had him to hide behind. Reluctantly they all finally finished their purchases and trudged for the bus, laden with long square boxes of paintings. Sadly, Eric and Patrick had wandered down the wall and we all had to wait for them to return, to the chagrin of the harried shoppers, whose body steam was now adding to the Xi’an smog. I was really looking forward to this evening, when we are to have dinner and a show by the Tang Dynasty Dancers at the Shaanxi Grand Opera House. Last time I was here I was struck by the narrow entrance to the place and the contrasting splendor of the theater within. I was not prepared for it when they walked us up three flights of stairs to a rather plain room for dinner. What happened to the theater? The restaurant is famous for their dumplings, and true to form, our dinner was a procession of the things, containing fish, vegetables, meats and a variety of other delectables. The dinner finished, we were escorted to another room, where chairs were set up around a medium sized dance floor. It was not the theater I had seen in April, but shortly the Tang Dancers started the show. Joshua, who had missed the entire show on New Year’s Eve, was bound and determined to stay awake tonight. Kasey was seated in the front row center, a foot from the stage. What followed was a toned-down version of what I had seen, the flowing sleeves of the dancers constrained by the low ceiling, and the movements restricted by the small dance floor. In compensation was a very close-up view of some of the most beautiful women in the world. In grace,

beauty, and classic style, I can only compare the Tang Dynasty Dancers to the Flamenco Dancers of Seville. Their dance is totally different, but the elegance is of the same caliber. There were also a number of spirited male dances, coming close to the famous Cossack style, and a stately woman who gave a short concert on the haunting 12-string instrument called a gu zheng. In spite of the paint odors, and small space, I think that tonight’s performance was more impressive than on the big stage, because the true beauty of the dance and the dancers was far more apparent. Josh made it all the way through the performance. “They were pretty,” was his observation, just before his head hit Dad’s shoulder and he zonked out. Josh has become a connoisseur of beauty. He totally melted Lily when he took her hand in the front seat and told her she was pretty. She is now his new girlfriend. Nancy and Marty worry about Kasey and her flirting. I think they had better pay a little more attention to their son’s activities.

JANUARY 3 XI’AN / SHANGHAI

Eric and Walter went out on the town last night, and breakfast found both strangely absent. Rumor had it that Eric had gone to the sauna, a practice he would repeat with Matthew in Shanghai. The highlight of the breakfast was Josh being presented with a slice of dragon fruit, a bizarre, red-scaled fruit that hasn’t yet made it into America. The meat is white with black seeds, and not at all as sweet looking as it tastes. Josh didn’t even hesitate—he just grabbed a piece and plopped it in his mouth as Kasey cringed in her chair. They definitely have distinct eating styles. Enveloped by dense smoke, we departed the Shangri-La Golden Flower for the airport. As wonderful as the Old Capital is historically, and on a good day, visually, I have to it that I would not have liked another day here. I can’t imagine how people actually survive in this atmosphere. The irony of it is, Xi’an is a major producer of China’s natural gas, all of which goes to Beijing to alleviate the pollution problems in the capital, leaving Xi’an roiling in its blanket of coal dust. Everything is coated with a thick layer of ash. As much as the Chinese attempt to keep their cities clean, here it is totally impossible because anywhere the air gets, everywhere, the ash falls. We saw many people in Beijing wearing surgical face masks. In Xi’an they should issue gas masks. Today was our first day to see the workers coming in to town, on thousands of bikes, as Lily said, “the dragon without a head.” In the parks, hundreds were practicing tai chi, “Old man’s disco.” Both must be close to impossible with no air to breathe. The last time I was here, I saw at least 100 burial mounds on the way from the airport to the city. So great was the smog today, that only one or two were visible. Last year another discovery of a buried army was made, in the tomb of the Emperor Hanyang, this time with over 100,000 soldiers, only 1/3 life-size. It seems logical that if Emperor Qin was buried with his stylized army, the other rulers of his age would be as well. I suspect that Xi’an, the old dynastic capital, will continue to amaze the world as people keep digging. There was no wait at Xi’an Airport for our flight to Shanghai. In fact ten minutes

before scheduled takeoff, with the aisles full of people, flight #1215 started taxiing for take-off. We arrived in Shanghai’s brand new Pudong Airport early as well, relieved that the air was actually translucent, almost transparent. Xi’an nights will stick with us a while. At the baggage area we were met by a waving Wong Gui Lin, now known to us as Jamie, who was raising a flag and calling out “Golden Gate!” Carts quickly loaded, we pushed our way across the lot to our motor coach, prepared for the new adventure of Shanghai. I had gotten into the habit of testing Kasey and Josh as to where we were. “Josh, where are we now?” “Shanghai!” Good enough. I don’t know where he gets his information, but I am convinced that we are all going to have to be very careful in what we say around him. Nothing much gets past those little ears. The highway from Pudong Airport was China’s first freeway, four and six lanes of high speed highway, incredibly landscaped by what seem to be entire forests and orchards. I asked Jamie if they were using the sides for nursery stock and he looked startled. “No, that’s the landscaping.” Shanghai has a population of 13-16 million depending on whom you speak with or what book you read. After 10 million, it is all academic anyway. “’Fu’ is short for Shanghai,” Jamie told us. Of course it is. For several days now we have been memorizing names and words, only to find out that the Chinese really call it something else. I committed “Fu” to memory as Jamie was telling us that they talk differently in Shanghai, and shi shi won’t work for “Thank you” any more, that we have to say “Sha sha no” or sha she no, or she sha no. I tried them all, as did Annie, and every time we used anything but shi shi our listeners started giggling. “Thank you” works very well in most cases. Lunch was at the Shanghai Pudong Quanjude Roast Duck Store, which sells live snakes in the fish market out front. Another tiny, fast-food lunch break: Winter melon Sweet and sour pork

Peking duck (Eric had to ask for the head because they assumed that would gross Americans out. They weren’t wrong.) Gung pau chicken Stir fried shrimp Rice Bean curd with ham Green beans & corn pureed Duck soup Egg rolls Sautéed lettuce

Josh went to scope out the snakes, to which Jim commented, “The prying eyes of youth with a touch of maturity.” He didn’t say it just then, but it is in my notes and I can’t where it goes, but it shouldn’t be forgotten because of its perspicacity. I don’t think that any of our group expected Shanghai. I was staggered by it last April, shocked in fact, because in my mind’s eye, China was not supposed to be so modern. I saw the high-rise buildings of the Pudong across the river and I saw a glimpse or two of the newly built pods of skyscrapers that are literally all around this huge city. I took the elevator to the observation deck of the Oriental Pearl Radio Tower, the tallest in China and third highest in the world. It is the symbol of the Pudong emergence, and will probably be that of the new Shanghai. I my first reaction, that it looked like the West Side Battery in New York, or London’s Dockside, certainly not China. But back then, I didn’t see anything. I had landed in the old airport, and had driven through the older parts of the city to the Huangpu River. Now, in just six months, they have opened the Pudong Airport. I think that five of the new San

Francisco International terminals could fit into this incredible piece of architecture, which sits at least twenty miles outside the city. Not only is the airport fully functional; it is served by a magnificent highway, with rapid transit, a magnetic levitation train, in place. And between it and the river is an eternity of opportunities for business development, and probably high-rise human habitation. My guess is that in ten more years, Shanghai will house 25 million people. In the old European area of Shanghai, back in the degrading times of the last Qing Emperors when the city was called “the Whore of the Orient,” the Bund was the place to be. There the House of Sassoon became the world-famous Peace Hotel, and the British financial power was centered in banks on the south side of the river, while the French Concession controlled the narrow streets of Old Shanghai. Today, the Bund is like an old dowager, out of date, tired. Behind its façade is a wildly lively shopping district, while Old Shanghai has returned to its Chinese nature and the French Concession is the upscale boutique area of the city. But the real Shanghai has exploded across the river in the Pudong. Seven years ago, that side of the river, the Pudong, was a quiet farmland, stretching north indefinitely. I have a guidebook from 1993 and the Pudong is not even mentioned. Today it is studded with at least twenty-five major buildings, with apartment dwellings beginning to surge into the countryside ultimately to meet the airport area. Xi’an style “Development Areas” will surely fill in the blank spaces. The riverfront is dominated by the Oriental Pearl Tower, and the Jing Mao Building, housing the Hyatt Regency Hotel on the 56th floor. But dozens of other monsters also line the river. These are not static buildings. They are of beautiful design, imaginative and eye-catching, with sculptured tops and magnificent texture. They feature tinted glass from greens to golds to red. They are ed by wide avenues and connected to the Bund by two tunnels and a new-age bridge. All of the world is found within, from elegant French restaurants to American disco. At night, the area explodes in light, as imaginative as the architecture. Having reveled in Beijing’s night lights, and now seeing Shanghai’s, I believe that the Chinese have made an art form out of city illumination. The whole central freeway is swathed in purple lights. The pedestrian mall of Nanjing Road is brighter than daylight at 10 P.M., the neon of the shopping street back dropped by a curtain of office buildings glowing in their outlines. This is the new China, and it is not shrinking. There is no evidence of brownouts here!

We had a mid-afternoon check-in on Dongfang Road at the luxurious Nikko Hotel Pudong, for the third time being upgraded into amazing quarters by Walter. Us patriarchs and matriarchs, along with Nancy, Marty and the kids, were all forced into suites the size of a large apartment, while the others had to content themselves with mere luxury. I heard a gasp from Mary in the bathroom and knew that the Nikko had sured all expectations in their amenities department. I went to look and found hairbrush, toothbrushes, razors, emery boards, and a bunch of different gooey liquids that I am sure will spill all over Mary’s purse. She has already pillaged the Radisson and the Shangri-La, and I don’t think her bags can handle the Nikko. The hotel being Japanese owned, I noticed that they also had a very extensive spa and health club. Eric is probably going to be surprised by the sauna if he and Walter go out again tonight. Just at dark we were on the road again, led by Jamie, waving his hand and shouting “Golden Gate!” as we moved to the Bund. There we reveled in the twilight riverscape, as the Pudong slowly began to glow. Then we moved across the road to the Peace Hotel for a look at the former splendor of Shanghai. I personally found it all very saddening. The hotel smells outdated, but it had a high level of toilet facilities, and that was something to be thankful for. Then with an hour to shop, we moved to Nanjing Road to enter a world of modern Chinese shopping. It was like any U.S. city mall—Beneton’s, Levi, dozens of shoe stores, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, bookstores—the full slate of Western goods at about the same prices. We were captivated by the lights and the excitement but hardly tempted to shop. An hour later we reformed in the pub of the Peace hotel, where for the first time in the trip, we all just sat down with a beer and laughed and talked, just like we were at home. To this point, we have always been on the move, or at a mind-boggling historical site, or having an intriguing meal of fifteen-courses in a great restaurant. At the Peace Hotel, for three-quarters of an hour, we just kicked back with a pint and relaxed. It was a nice moment. Rather a European experience. Then it was back to our Chinese adventure. Our bus took us to Old Shanghai, where we entered a world of turned tile roofs, hundreds of shops selling the crafts of the country, and of course, a paroxysm of lights. Dinner tonight was at the Lu Bo Lang, on the third floor of a building that was crammed with Chinese crafts, textiles and collectibles. By now our hands were accustomed to chopsticks and our appetites to the fifteen odd dishes, literally and figuratively, each lunch and dinner afforded. Even Kasey was beginning to pick up the sticks, ever since she discovered she could snare a dumpling by squeezing it to death or

stabbing it onto her plate. Josh, probably sitting too close to Eric and Patrick, had let down his culinary defenses and was eating things other than rice and noodles, things that at one time or another had crawled or swam. Highlights of dinner tonight included: Oyster beef Eggplant cakes Spinach Spring rolls Curried chicken and potatoes Sweet and sour meatballs Fresh water fish.

Walter started another round of “gambei” tonight, just using beer as a motivator. After a couple of rounds, Jim declined further effort, disclaiming “My fung sueh will get seriously suehed.” Today we just skimmed the surface of the city; tomorrow we explore Shanghai. We found that the night was still young when we got back to the Nikko. Walter led Jim, Donna, Nancy, Annie, Eric, Patrick, Deb and me to the Hyatt Regency. We wanted to have a drink in what was billed the “World’s Highest Bar,” the Cloud Café. The Hyatt lobby is on the 56th floor. From there an atrium, dazzling white, rises 33 floors up, in a tapering, twisting cone. Floor balconies spiral up to a starburst pinnacle, evoking dizziness as you try to follow the lines. Later in the evening Jim, Donna, Nancy and I were privileged to spend $12 each for a drink in the Cloud Café. The atrium is more impressive. When we arrived, the Hyatt had been filled and even Walter’s abilities couldn’t get us in, so he moved us down to ground level and an adjacent low-rise structure that was called Pu-J’s Entertainment Center, also part of the Grand Hyatt. There were several, perhaps many different venues in the Center. We

entered a lounge, where a black woman was singing the old traditional jazz songs, ala Ella Fitzgerald. Beyond that we entered a blare of noise, where another black American group was pounding out modern rock, at an astounding volume. The three oldsters opted for the front bar and a moderately loud “Memories”, while Walter produced a table from nowhere for the less hearing disadvantaged young crowd. He then sent around a vial of mint wine for us to sample, a brew that when mixed with about four parts water tasted exactly like a crème de menthe cocktail. Walter never ceases to surprise us. Walter Horatio is an extraordinary man. He has istered all of our tours that have come to China in the last year, and without fail, every person he has met has come away completely impressed and pleased with him. In his late 40s, he is a very handsome man, with an earnest expression and a caring way about him. He is constantly looking for ways to improve or enhance the experience of his clients. Just as often, he is buying them things, little things to make them feel good, or to help them appreciate a place or event. Through Walter and Vicki, both of whom have an extraordinary sense of gifting, our groups this year have received “presents” even before they leave the U.S., and more gifts during their trips, including T-shirts, and an assortment of favors. Our clients have come home thrilled, both with the travel experience and the service of Ananda Travel. Walter has exceeded himself with our family. It started easily enough on Tiananmen Square, when he bought Kasey and Josh some earmuffs to ward off the cold. Those were followed by Hawk Kites for each of them. On boarding the bus en route to the Great Wall, he presented me with a boxed museum replica of “The Final Imperial Examination Paper of the Number One Scholar”, dated 1598 from the Ming Dynasty. Later in the tour, a splendid framed display of Ming type dyes arrived in our room, with a silk bedroom set for Mary. In the Silk Alley, he gifted Kasey and Josh with scooters! And at New Year, everyone had gifts, large and small, including medallions with the correct year sign of each person. Walter has kept a constant flow of beer, wine, rice wine, etc. at every meal, each of which has been special. Walter and Vicki have gifted our family with ten exciting days in China. And it is impossible, properly to thank them. Our appreciation can hardly be expressed by garden rocks, or bottles of wine. It will have to shine through in our eyes. Walter has a wonderfully fluid way about him. He literally glides around, hardly noticed, until the object he is seeking is accomplished. He has a mysterious power about him that simply gets things done. I have seen him go to the head of

a line, and barge in, without a single complaint from anyone behind. At airports, he produces a special desk to handle our tickets. His anticipation of what is needed produces an event where you never have to wait, for anything. I have led tours for thirty years, and I have never seen anyone who produces results as easily and fluidly as Walter. He is a wonder. He has also become a very good friend. Kasey and Josh have already decided that he should be “Uncle Walter” and Vicki should be “Aunt Vicki”. What a joy it is to have business associates who are also firm friends.

JANUARY 4 SHANGHAI

From my hotel window I could look down on an apartment complex across Dongfang Rd. There were a couple of schools in the middle of blocks and blocks of housing units, and a nice park in the middle of those units. I got up early to walk over there this morning, because I knew there would be many people in the park exercising, and I thought I might see one or two of China’s rare birds. Crossing the street I became Chinese! I merged! No pedestrian has rights of any sort in China. You cross a street at your own risk. Few actually go directly across; they a line of traffic, merge for a few steps with the bikes, stagger to the middle of the road. There they stand, stranded on an unmarked island while cars, buses and trucks whiz by on both sides. Halfway across, you time your leap and return to the fray, side-stepping, lunging, in my case, praying. I made it across, heaved a sigh of relief, and was then almost blasted by an old man on a bike. You forget the bikes. I was a wreck by the time I got across, and I watched a bunch of old people do it. They never seem to look, and they certainly never hurry. Nonchalantly, an attitude that is completely impossible for an American (unless you live in Berkeley), they walk across streets as though the traffic doesn’t exist. They never jump; they never run. I think that the Chinese pedestrian is covered by a force field which makes cars and bikes miss him. My body is far too big a target to be protected that way. But I was so proud of myself that I had gotten across, and I was mentally whistling by the time I entered the housing complex. Inside there is another world. The lanes between the buildings are clean as can be, swept every morning and probably every evening. There is no sign of litter. Each street is landscaped with trees and what in the spring are probably flowering shrubs. Cross streets are similarly planted, giving a garden effect to all of the rather plain facades. Dozens of kids are on their way to school, the younger ones accompanied by parents or, more commonly grandparents. All were in uniforms, heavy green and yellow coats for the winter time. They wore matching sweaters underneath. I guessed they were mostly middle school kids.

Lots of folks were heading for work. I saw a mother and son, both eating rice from bowls as they walked, like everywhere, late and hurrying. As I suspected, the park was full of tai chi practitioners. Many were exercising to an American swing music recording. Others performed a variety of movements ranging from military to almost stationary. One old man was draped around a tree, hugging it with all of his might, totally motionless. I watched him for several minutes and he never budged, probably by that time having become one with the tree. What on earth would Rush Limbaugh say about that? One more than middle-aged lady was operating a type of pars course machine. Her feet strapped to arms of the contraption, she was moving violently as though cross country skiing, and she kept it up the whole time I was in the park. It pained me just to watch. I have no idea how many people lived in that complex, certainly thousands. It is a world to itself, an enclave in the midst of the stainless steel Pudong, a peaceful sanctuary of sorts. No one paid me much attention as I walked around, and I certainly must have been a strange sight in that surrounding. “Golden Gate!” Jamie was calling us from a breakfast that had included White fungus soup, Rice vermicelli Thai Style and Roasted Fish. For some reason, his call irritates the young people in our crew, and they are outspoken in their sarcasm on that point. He is a very well-dressed young man, obviously welltraveled, with a wealth of information that is more on modern subjects than ancient. That is no surprise because Shanghai does not possess the single historic spectacle such as both Beijing and Xi’an boast. Shanghai is a relatively modern occurrence. On economics and politics, Jamie is very well informed and quite eloquent. He mentioned that two years of military service are required of all youth, “mandatory in the name of voluntary conscription.” You can be dismissed for poor eyesight, Jamie said, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his sleeve. The traffic in Shanghai is changing as fast as the landscape. Ten years ago there were 15 million bicycles in the city; today there are 6 million, but cars have begun to gridlock the freeways and certainly the narrow streets and alleys of Old Shanghai. In eight years they have built most of the freeways, three subway lines and two tunnels under the river to the Puxi side (the old European side, pronounced “pushy.”) As we turned toward one of the tunnels, Jamie let out an exclamation, “Oh, that’s a nice, beautiful street garden! It wasn’t here last week.” That is Shanghai!

Our first stop this morning was at the Jade Buddha Temple, on the north side of the city, no short drive. Jamie explained that the Buddhist temples are of three types, for meditation, preaching and discipline. The Jade Buddha Temple is the first, with 100 monks still serving there. It houses two large jade statues brought in 1882 from Burma. The temple was rebuilt in 1918. The temple is divided into three parts. You enter normally through the Heavenly King Hall (Closed today because of street work.) Once inside, the worshipper lights incense sticks from braziers in the courtyard before entering the Grand Hall. Finally, upstairs is the Jade Buddha Chamber. The Entrance Hall is the most startling of the buildings in the temple. As you enter, the traditional bell is on the right, with the drum on the left, the two instruments for announcing time in Old China. Past, present and future effigies of Buddha sit on pedestals in the entry, flanked by twenty disciples. On the left wall are the four Heavenly Kings carrying lute, sword, umbrella and snake, with a laughing Buddha. On the back wall is a large statue of Guan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, standing on a crocodile and surrounded by small statues of fifty-two gods. Thus inspired, the believer enters the courtyard and lights the incense stick. There are two statues of Buddha in the temple, the sitting one, 2,200 pounds in the upstairs chamber, and a reclining Buddha, representing the 81-year old man in his nirvana stage. The latter is in an adjacent building. The 6th century BC must have been an extraordinary time in China, because Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tsu were all born within a fifty year period. Over the centuries, Buddhism has been banned four times, the last occurring during the Cultural Revolution, when all of the statues were covered by pictures of Chairman Mao. The Jade Buddha Temple sits in the middle of what looks like an ordinary neighborhood. This is a different scene from those we have been witnessing in the tourist areas. Here buildings are not gleaming new; they are rough brick, with pot-holed streets. Clothes hang on shoddy balconies and makeshift lines between buildings. Shops are strewn with merchandise, and the street produce market is a small stall sandwiched between shops. Bicycles are the trucks of this area, carrying impossible loads, in volume if not in weight. We saw men pruning trees, hanging on branches not two inches thick, swinging away with one hand, suspended above the street precariously with no life line. This is much closer to the mental picture most people have of the Chinese cities. There were no Chili’s

Restaurants to be seen, and no Starbucks, although McD is well represented. “Golden Gate!” Jamie was leading us into the Yu Yuan Gardens, a residential place of peace in the middle of the bustling City God Market, dating back 400 years to the Ming Dynasty. It is a must for the visitor, an elaborate rock garden of ponds and streams and placid pavilions. It was explained to me that Yu means “pleasing your parents” which was the intent of the garden’s original owner and designer. The results continue to give much pleasure. All of the rocks in the garden, called tai hu rocks, were brought in from a considerable distance from Tai Lake (Tai hu) and placed with architect precision. The finest is called “the magnificent jade” a giant, water-scoured piece of sea stone that is impressively perforated, placed on a pedestal above a coy pond. It is anything but jade, but nobody seems to care. The traditional Chinese garden contains certain elements: trees, rock, water and pavilions. The inner garden was for females; the outer the domain of the men. The pavilions served a variety of uses in the Chinese culture: for conversation; calligraphy; meals; meditation. In the calligraphy pavilion, Jamie pointed out “the scholar’s four treasures: ink, ink stone, brush, and paper.” The central pavilion of the Yu Yuan Garden was the model for the Willow Pattern on traditional China plates. The garden was too much to through without a bunch of pictures. It features exquisite Chinese roofline architecture, with graceful bridges arching across placid ponds, moon gates, and picturesque rock arrangements. Nancy quickly ordered everyone on to a central bridge for a family picture. We filled the bridge, stopping traffic, but finally we were shuffled around and into proper position. It is about the tenth such group study that we have done. None of those prevented from crossing the bridge seemed to mind. Our family group has generally attracted nothing but good natured, smiling interest from the people we have encountered. Our red fleece shirts mark us as a group, and Kasey and Josh set us off as a family. Over and over, people have smiled on meeting us. Some have asked for pictures, especially with the kids. All have been courteous and friendly. Of all of the markets I have seen in China, the City God Market in Shanghai is my favorite. It is filled with shops of all sorts, from humble stands selling trinkets, to elaborate showcase stores selling expensive items. There are dim sun kitchens, a KFC, a Mossburger Restaurant and the fine Zho jin hua Shanghai Drink & Food Co., where we will eat. Outside of the formal market are blocks of

additional and less fancy stands radiating in every direction. Here one can buy vegetables, household goods, antiques (old and new)—just about anything. Everyone bargains in the market, with good humor and hard work. Usually an asking price gets reduced by up to 50 percent. I had to collect a sign on one of the dumpling restaurants: “Keep your pubic places clean.” We cut short Jamie’s tour of the Yu Gardens to give everyone an hour to shop before lunch. Shopping time has been relatively skimpy thus far, at least this sort of free-form shopping, where everyone goes his own way. Matt and Eric resumed their on-going Rolex battle, while Nancy, Annie and Mary deposited the kids with Marty and me and disappeared as if on a quest for the Holy Grail. Patrick and Deb wandered off to the dustier street markets. Tommye and Walt went for pearls and cashmere and Jim and Donna shopped windows. We straggled in to lunch having agreed to meet at 1:00 in front of the Starbuck’s Coffee shop. Matt and Kristi brought me a big cup of their brew and I have to it, that first sip was like heaven, the first “good” cup of coffee we have had in China. Every breakfast so far has offered plenty of coffee, some of it pretty good, but we have grown accustomed to our designer coffees and it was a delightful taste of home. Earlier I had seen a sign and read it to Josh and Kasey to see if they could translate it: “China and foreign country amigos. Please do not dis end. Drink Coffee.” Our culinary sense of adventure got a real boost at lunch today, as we added sticky rice, cuttlefish and jellyfish to our repertoire. Additionally we got to try date cakes, sticky rice in seaweed, spinach and pork dumplings, and sticky rice pudding. Of course, those were only the highlights! During lunch, we discussed whether to stay in the market for a couple of hours and then return to the hotel, or go to the new Shanghai Museum and wander through the displays. I was certain that everyone would be tired and elect to shop and retreat, but to my surprise and delight, the museum was almost a unanimous choice. We will only have an hour there, which is far from enough time, but I have been to the Shanghai Museum and it is certainly the best exhibition of Chinese art in the country, and worth even a short visit. The museum is basically laid out in four flours, covering the fine arts of the

China from prehistoric days to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is best to take the elevators or escalators to the 4th floor and free-fall back down. A curious sign on the escalator warned visitors: “Watch the escalator over your head.” The fourth floor houses Ancient Jade Jewelry, Ming and Qing Furniture, a huge coin gallery, and the Art Gallery of Chinese Minority Nationalities. The third floor has a Gallery of Chinese Seals, a Gallery of Calligraphy and the Chinese Painting Gallery. This latter would grab most of us because it is laid out and signed in a manner that quietly leads you through the entire evolution of the distinctive Chinese watercolor painting. In that painting section, I came across another example of the complexities of naming things in China. The painter Wu Changshuo (1844-1927) is quite famous. He decided to change his name to Lo Jun, and then to Junqing, but used a “designated name” of Changshou. At age 70, he switched again, this time to Changshou, but used Foulu as his “hao” or “literary name.” I found that I only liked the paintings of half of those names. We only had an hour back at the hotel and then we were off to dinner again, and a special Shanghai treat, the Chinese Acrobats Show. Dinner was in the Mingjialou Restaurant, in an impressive 3-story building, surrounded by pleasant gardens, which has hosted such celebrities as Queen Elizabeth and President Clinton. There we sipped Chrysanthemum Tea, with appetizers of lotus root with sticky rice, tongue and German potato salad. The dinner included: Pepper chicken Beef and onions with black pepper A mushroom bowl with pork and bean sprouts Braised lettuce Sweet and sour fish And finally, egg drop corn soup

As we exited the Mingjialou Restaurant, we looked up to another fantastic Shanghai skyline. Above the garden rose the tops of a line of modern office buildings, spreading over the trees like a mountain range of peaks, dazzling in the night sky. Every pinnacle was different, variously lit, each spectacular in its own right. If ever a modern city could inspire, that scene of garden and roofline was just such an artist’s delight. Near the Shanghai Museum, we pulled into yet another new and breathtaking complex of buildings, this time, the Shanghai Ritz Carlton. From an interior parking lot, we ascended to an elegant Theater that is the home of the Chinese Acrobats. The show had started just as we entered, with a troop balancing spinning plates on long poles while contorting their bodies in odd ways. One artist kept about twenty plates spinning on tables, while the audience gasped and applauded. Each act outdid the last. At one point, a chunky man who looked like he might be from Mongolia or Northern China, appeared with a large jug. He started throwing it in the air and catching it on his head, or neck, and we all shrugged and ho-hummed a bit. But then he brought out a huge, unbalanced vase, and started heaving it in the air, and we all changed our appraisal of the difficulty of his act. How on earth do you conceive of such a skill, and then perfect actually throwing a 30-pound piece of pottery 20 feet in the air and catching it on the nape of your neck? Obviously he had missed a few times in practice because there was a bald spot very visible on the top of his head. Josh was sitting on my lap during this performance. Here he didn’t fall asleep! A continuous stream of exclamations poured out of his mouth: “I wouldn’t ever try that!” “I couldn’t do that at home!” “He better watch out. He’s gonna kill himself.” “Oh, Man!” The last act was amazing. A troop of young girls started stacking chairs, one on top of the other, each chair arching out away from the stack. When they were finished, a girl was standing on each chair, forming about a quarter arch, twenty feet in the air. It was a great finishing act.

In a final tribute to the power of “world culture”, with a small “c”, we made the perfunctory stop at the Hard Rock Café, which is just outside the Ritz Carlton. There the usual hats, shirts and pins were collected, to show the world, or whoever is near at the time, that at one time we, or someone we know, were in Shanghai. It is a badge of pride.

JANUARY 5 TO HONG KONG

“Golden Gate!” We are off again to Shanghai Pudong Airport, where we are to catch a flight to Shenzhen, a “Demonstration City” on the border of Hong Kong. We have had a difficult time with this addition to Hong Kong, and have booked into Shenzhen where we will board a bus to cross into Hong Kong. As we bid adieu to Jamie, we had no idea of how difficult that crossing can be. We are also losing Walter today. He has a rather complicated assignment from Ananda travel to fly to Beijing to pick up a visa to Malta. He will then fly to Frankfurt and on to Rome to meet with diplomatic officials in Malta. Or something like that. It is obvious that Walter has a much more important position than simply tour operator. I have a feeling that his past experience in the Chinese diplomatic corps has not totally ended. He assures us that he will see us once again in Hong Kong, but that will involve a back-breaking air schedule. Before he left us at the airport, he had one more duty. Our flight to Shenzhen was cancelled yesterday. We were supposed to be flying on China Eastern Airlines, but Walter said he could get the tickets validated to another flight. Sure enough, the tickets were issued and we flew west on China Northern Airlines. David met us in Shenzhen, a city that was created in the 1980s as one of China’s “Special Economic Zones,” an experiment in Capitalism that transformed a fishing village into a city of 4,000,000. As part of Mainland China, it is separate from Hong Kong, which is still held to be somewhat of a foreign country. In Shenzhen, the flora was considerably changed, to palm trees, bamboo, forested hills, banana plantations—a semi-tropical climate. Huge apartment buildings, many with fine architectural style, spoke of the successful “Special Economic Zone” growth. David said the town had grown from 35,000 to 4 million since 1985. The numbers keep changing! David was not very fluent in English! In fact he had no clue of what he was saying, was supposed to say, or what he wanted to say. But he did all of that with a broad smile. My first inkling of a problem was when he said that we had dinner scheduled at 6:00.

“I want to be in Hong Kong long before that time,” I told him. “But you have lunch now.” “No, we had lunch on the plane. Just show us a bit of your city and we will drive to Hong Kong.” I knew he didn’t understand, but Vicki insisted he cancel first the lunch he had scheduled and then the dinner. Now to touring. “What is the best thing to see here?” I knew the answer, because my Frommer’s Guide to Hong Kong said, “Be forewarned, that in Shenzhen and Guangzhou there aren’t any tourist attractions that warrant the time spent in getting there.” “We could go to the park and the top of the hill in the city, where there is a good view of both Shenzhen as well as Hong Kong.” “Okay, We’ll do that. Then we’ll cross the border to Hong Kong.” Going into town, David said nothing about his city, except that he liked living there and wasn’t going to move. He also said that 75 percent of the population was female, which immediately caused me to dismiss anything else he would say from that point on. Then we arrived at the “park”. David pointed to a hill, about a half mile away. A steep hill! “You want us to walk up that?” I asked. “Yes, how else would you get there?” “Take us to the border.” We would have had a revolution had I asked everyone to climb that cliff.

Thank God we didn’t do the cliff! At the border we are going to have to carry all of our luggage through the terminal, clear Chinese Customs, reload the bags on the bus, take them off again at the Hong Kong border, carry them through the terminal, go through Hong Kong Customs and reload them on the bus. Didn’t China take over Hong Kong? What is this Customs stuff? I later learned that one

of the deals in the British handover of Hong Kong was that the former colony was declared to be a “Special istrative Region” under a “one country, two systems” policy that guarantees Hong Kong’s capitalistic lifestyle and social system for fifty years. Hence, we don’t need Chinese visas to get into Hong Kong, but we need them to go from Hong Kong to China. Vicki managed to talk the Chinese officials into loaning us a cart for our luggage, which has grown 50 percent in numbers since we left the U.S. (from fifteen bags to twenty-three) and 250 percent in weight. We got everyone into the port line, and shoved the luggage through an x-ray machine that nobody was watching. In the Hong Kong Customs area, there was no cart, but the boys were wonderful in lugging everything in, and again through a useless x-ray inspection. Actually, the whole thing only took about forty minutes, not as bad as it first sounded, due entirely to the fact that everyone in the family kept their sense of humor and really worked together. We operated like a well-oiled machine, which made me very proud. As Kristi described it, “We were a real-life Chinese Fire Drill.” And, we got our ports stamped! A very nervous Vicki, our official Hong Kong guide until we get to the hotel, breathed a deep sigh of relief as our bus departed for the city, accompanied by the crew chanting, “Vicki, Vicki, Vicki!” We entered a mountainous area that separates Shenzhen from Hong Kong, described by Vicki as a future “apartment corridor” between the two cities. It was virtually that now, since very little open space is evident. About an hour’s drive brought us through the Lion Rock Tunnel, where a sign said, “Use dipped headlights in tunnel,” and into the heart of the city, down a very European style road, past the Jockey Club at the race track and into Kowloon. There we checked in to the luxurious Harbor Palace Hotel, a fabulous new hotel on the water of Hong Kong harbor, the last in our parlay of superb 5-star luxury hotels that Walter and Vicki have produced as surprises. More gifts! “Dozhan”—Thank you! Once again the language has changed. Dinner this evening was at the Tack Hsin Restaurant, our first experience with actually eating with other people. For the first time in China, there was outside noise, lots of it. The restaurant was jammed; waiters were running all over the place. Food was rather dropped on the tables instead of served. With each dish, I asked the waiter to identify it. We agreed on Tofu, pork, chicken, corn as

appetizers and egg drop soup, I think. He would just blurt out any English word he knew and leave. “What kind of soup is this?” No answer. “What is this?” I asked as he brought squid with bock choy. “Pork.” The actual pork came as ribs with red and green peppers. He brought a dish with shrimp and bean curd. “What is that?” I asked. It was too much for the poor, harried man. “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” he muttered waving me off and escaping to the kitchen. The beef and oyster sauce was delicious.

JANUARY 6 HONG KONG

Hong Kong consists of three distinct areas: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories, which include 235 islands. The modern history of Hong Kong is a sordid British tale of trading tea for opium. Denied access to China, and the tea for which the British craved, the East India Company began importing opium from their colony in India into China during the first part of the 19th century. They literally addicted the country, and the Qing Emperor banned its import during the 1830s. In 1839, the Chinese confiscated the opium stockpiles in Canton and burned them. England declared war, the First Opium War that lasted until 1842. In that year, China was forced to open her ports for trade and cede Hong Kong to Great Britain in the Treaty of Nanking, a treaty that China never recognized. A Second Opium War was fought in 1856-58, also won by Britain. In 1860, Kowloon was added to the colony. In 1898, England dictated a new 99year lease that gave them the New Territories, until 1997. Thus as that year approached it was obvious that the New Territories lease was not going to be renewed, nor would China renegotiate the Treaty of Nanking that had never been recognized. Margaret Thatcher signed the Sino-British t Declaration in 1984, agreeing to return Hong Kong to China in 1997, with the colony retaining economic and social semi-independence. Our Hong Kong guide’s name is Bob (Book in Cantonese). He is a small, slender man, possably as old as 60 though it is hard to tell. He has a wonderful face lit by a perpetual smile, and he is every bit as caring and happy, and funny, as his smile. We had come to fear that, based on the restaurant last night, Hong Kong was a cold, unfriendly place. Bob proved that fear baseless, at least from his perspective. He began his tour with a happy “Josan!” “Good Morning!”

There are now 7 million people in Hong Kong, which spreads for 32 square miles. When the British took over in 1842 there were 7,000 Chinese living here. Today, it is a mega city, extremely modern, high-rise, nestled around its lovely harbor. Our hotel looks directly across to Hong Kong Island, and it is a solid

block of apartment houses and spectacular office buildings. There are five universities in the city, but many of the students go abroad for their education. Five trains daily link the city to Guangzhou (Canton). A tunnel was built from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island in 1972, replacing most of the ferries. Of course the famous Star Ferry still operates, until 2 A.M. After that only pedestrian ferries called “walla walla” operate. We asked Bob about the changes that have been wrought since 1997. He was very open: “There is less freedom for us now. It is getting worse and worse.” Our route this morning took us back out the road we had arrived on last night, past the race track. “It’s in a place called ‘Happy Valley’. People are very unhappy there, because many lose money.” We ed the hospital, which Bob reported has 601 beds, and is popularly called the “Convenience Hospital” since the cemetery is just across the street. It costs HK$500,000 to be buried there. “Cheaper in the hospital. It is too expensive to die.” We began climbing Victoria Peak on a lovely road lined with trees, blooming in Botinia, the Provincial flower, even this early in the year. We ed another hospital, farther up the road, the Matilda Hospital, which Bob reported had a big part in “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.” Bob likes his movies and we would hear about most of those that were filmed in Hong Kong. As we continued to climb, we discovered fabulous views of Aberdeen and Repulse Bay on the other side of the island. In Aberdeen, where we are to have lunch, “everything floats. You live, work and die on a boat. Bury you on shore.” As usual, Josh had staked his seat in front, right next to Bob, and kept up a steady patter of talk. He called our bus, which was mostly painted bright pink, “the Barbie Bus.” At one point, he bumped his head and both Bob and I reacted. “It’s okay,” Josh assured us, “It’s made of metal.” Our route took us up the Wang Nai Chung Gap Road, famous in Hong Kong during World War II. The Japanese attacked Hong Kong on December 8, 1941, the same day (figuring the Date Line) as Pearl Harbor and Singapore. On this road, 2,000 Canadians lost their lives trying to repulse the invasion. The Japanese occupied the colony for three years, eight months. Bob entertained us with a fine repertoire of “groaner” jokes.

“Why can’t a bicycle stand in Beijing?” “Because they are two tired.” A poor man asked Buddha. “How much is a million years to you Buddha?” Buddha answered, “Only a minute.” “Then how much is a million dollars to you Buddha?” “It is no more than a penny.” “Well then, Buddha. Would you grant me just one of your pennies.” “Because you have been good, I will,” answered Buddha. “Wait a minute.” “The traffic police you see in front of us are called ‘jelly fish.’ They stink!” All of this was istered with a happy expression that never left Bob’s face. It is quite obvious that he has been a local tour guide for a good many years. Each guide develops his own style, and Bob’s makes everyone feel good.

We drove right to The Peak, a restaurant, observation tower and tourist trap at the highest point of Victoria Peak, at least the highest they allow, since all traffic stops before the 1,306 mark on top. The Peak is a six-level tourist area, complete with Ripley’s Believe it or Not, a virtual reality show, a three-level Galleria shopping mall and for the kids a thing called the Rise of the Dragon, a walk through old Hong Kong. We went to level 5, the Observation Deck, where you get a great overview of Hong Kong Island, and Kowloon. I wandered a bit in the gardens before we left, catching a brief glimpse of songbird life, collecting a Red-whiskered bulbul, and a White-throated bulbul to add to the two types of Magpies we saw in Beijing. Soaring over the harbor, looking very much like our Turkey vultures, were a bunch of Black-eared kites. Later in the day we would see some Black-crowned night herons. Victoria Peak has been the enclave of the very rich since British Imperial days, and continues so to this day. Bob reported that there are 5,000 Rolls Royces in

Hong Kong, and it is a good bet that quite a few reside up on the mountain. During the Empire, residents were carried by coolies in sedan chairs from the city below, a three-hour ordeal for the laborers. Today the Peak Tram, built in 1888 and remodeled 100 years later, makes the journey in eight minutes. From Victoria Peak we descended the back side of the island to Repulse Bay. It is a gorgeous place of tropical vegetation and long, appealing beaches. Josh, attentive as ever, pointed to the swimming area. “What’s that round thing down there?” “That’s a shark net,” replied Bob, and Josh really sat up. Tiger sharks killed three swimmers last year, but Bob assured Josh that the water was too cold at the moment for the sharks to come near the shore. But hope springs eternal and Josh never took his eyes off of the beaches after that. Stanley Market is world famous, and we spread in every direction among the warren of streets that wandered down to the water. From Stanley we drove a short distance to Aberdeen, the floating city. Two sampans were waiting to take us on a water tour of the typhoon haven harbor, which is filled with boats of all sizes, many the homes and workshops of the city’s population. The sampans, a small version of the traditional junks, carry about ten people each. Our driver wandered in and out of the lanes of moored boats before depositing us at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant, “the largest floating restaurant in the world.” It is actually made up of three separate restaurants, the Jumbo, Jumbo Palace and the Tai Pak, with combined seating for up to 4,300 people. We went to the Tai Pak, where there is a large buffet, featuring everything from oyster bar to sushi to Western carved roast beef. Several tried the traditional Chinese boiled meal, where you pick your favorite noodles, combine it with a variety of meats and fish. The whole thing is boiled together and served in a bowl. I selected a thing called a “manta” from the seafood buffet, an unappealing looking and very voracious shrimp, and took it over to Josh for inspection. “What do you think, Josh? Can we eat it?’ “Yeah!” he said with his usual adventure grin. And darned if he didn’t! We had one last stop in Aberdeen and it was an important one, as it turned out.

Tse Sui Luen (TSL) Jewelry Store is one of Hong Kong’s finest, and displaying the prices to prove it. It was obvious right off the bat that Jim and Donna were active shoppers, and they were ed by Matt and Kristi in the pearl department. It took an hour of negotiating before Donna walked out with a necklace, bracelet, ring and earrings of black pearls and Kristi sported a pearl necklace and diamond ear rings. Patrick ed the hunt with pearl earrings for Deb. The Dolds and the Plasketts were spectators this time. Walter was at the hotel when we returned, having flown to Beijing yesterday and back to Hong Kong, arriving around midnight last night. I had insisted that he shouldn’t make that trip, since he has to fly to Frankfurt tonight, but he insisted just as strongly on saying goodbye to the family. His sense of hospitality is extraordinary, far exceeding that of anyone I have ever met in the travel business. We had a little ceremony in the lobby of the Harbor Plaza as we were heading for dinner, presenting him with a field guide to the Birds of China, a small token of appreciation, dwarfed by his many kindness to everyone on the trip, particularly Kasey and Joshua. We will certainly miss him, but I think everyone leaves him with a warm sense of friendship. Hong Kong Harbor at New Year is an amazing feast of lights. From the Kowloon side, the skyline of Hong Kong Island is the most festive I have ever seen. Huge high-rise buildings are illuminated in a dozen different ways. One central tower changes color every five seconds or so, running the gamut of the entire rainbow. Other buildings have a continuously changing fireworks show gliding across their waterside. On another a giant Santa is displayed in lights. Buildings are edged with lights, bathed with different colors, highlighted in redand-green for Christmas. Huge neon signs Panasonic, Toshiba, Samsung and a host of other high tech companies. The Bank of China, designed by I.M. Pei, is the centerpiece of the skyline.

At the Queen’s Pier, we boarded a junk operated by Watertours of Hong Kong, our sampan company from this afternoon in Aberdeen Harbor. For an hour and a half we cruised before the lights of this incredible city, constantly amazed by the lighting techniques as well as the tremendous wealth it has taken to build Hong Kong in its present state. Of all the cities we visited in China, this is the most extravagant and expensive, importing the costs and tastes of the European society that essentially created it. I personally prefer Shanghai to Hong Kong,

but I would love to have a week or two, properly to explore Kowloon and the Island. We are not even scratching the surface in our two days here. The Chiu Chow Restaurant was having a mahjong frenzy tonight. Our last dinner in China was drowned out by a restaurant totally overflowing with people and the din of loud conversation and rattling tiles of the players. We decided that the style of dining in Hong Kong is not up to the standards we have seen in the rest of the country. Everyone is in a big hurry, and the service, especially for a group, leaves much to be desired. We opened, as we did last night, with a platter of duck parts. Over the din I tried to make it known to the waiter that the food was ice cold. He ignored me, although he didn’t go as far as to wave me off with a “yeah, yeah, yeah!” like last night. Finally I got a waiter who spoke some English, and I told him to take the plate away, because it was cold. “It’s supposed to be cold. It’s cold duck.” I made him take it anyway. On to the noodles. I know it was our least favorite meal. But actually, we have eaten so much in the last ten days, that just about all of us were ready to forsake food for a few days. The Chiu Chow Restaurant was a good place to start forsaking.

JANUARY 7 HOME

At 4:45 A.M., our 40-hour Sunday commenced, the alarms and wake-up calls jolting us awake to get the luggage into the hall and start our journey home. Today we reacquire the day we lost flying west, leaving Shanghai tonight at 5:50 and arriving in San Francisco this morning around noon. The sixteen time zones get added on to our day which sees us fly from Hong Kong to Shanghai’s old Hongqiao Airport, spend most of the day in the city and then transfer to Pudong International Airport for our flight to San Francisco. But first things first, and by 6:00 we were driving down Sunday-empty freeways toward the new Chek Lak Kok Airport just off of Lantau Island. If we were impressed by Shanghai Pudong Airport, we are staggered by Hong Kong’s new airfield, which replaced Kowloon’s Kai Tak airport two years ago. They have simply taken the island of Chep Lak Kok and leveled it, producing an architectural “blank sheet of paper” on which to exercise all of the fantasies of the modern city planner. The work started in 1992, and included not only the airport, but a complete freeway from downtown devoted exclusively to airport traffic and a high speed rail system that whisks the traveler to city center in twenty-three minutes. The airport sits on over 2,500 acres, has over two miles of moving walkways, can handle 19,000 pieces of luggage an hour, employs 45,000 people in direct and allied services and currently can handle 45,000,000 engers a year. San Franciscans are overjoyed at their new International Terminal, which is an ongoing project, looking at freeway gridlock, lack of runways and Bart delays. Five of them would fit in this new Hong Kong facility, which after a couple of years of istrative and logistic problems seems to be in full swing. It is another extraordinary example of the long range planning being undertaken in all of the cities we have visited.

Even though we arrived at the airport with almost two hours to spare, it took most of that for Dragonair to process our check-in. But we were shopped out anyway, and never really took the 150 shops in the waiting room seriously. Our

flight to Shanghai was the most pleasant of our entire journey, with a new aircraft, good food and very friendly service. We landed in Shanghai’s old airport, Hongqiao, in the western part of the city, where we heard that now familiar call: “Golden Gate!” Jamie was back, primed to take us to lunch before our transfer to Pudong International. But I had changed plans with Vicki last night, and we had decided to go back to the City God Market and let everyone free for a couple of hours, a fast-food lunch and a final explosion of shopping. We dispersed in sixteen directions. Well almost! Matt, Kristi, Patrick and Eric headed right out of the marketplace into the hinterlands, and the dusty stalls of the back alleys. Eric has been the most adventurous of our group and he wanted one last crack at the underbelly of China. The rest of us more or less wandered into the formal market place where bargaining was good for those who wished and upscale stores were ready to charge you more if you were reluctant to haggle. Mary was after strings of New Year’s firecracker decorations, which were being hawked everywhere in anticipation of the holiday on January 24. Ultimately she would end up with a fairly large bag, expanded tremendously when Vicki presented her with a mammoth string of decorations. I went after opium bottles, which make very impressive gifts for all occasions. Everyone had a list, some large, others small, of last minute treasures they couldn’t leave without.

During the afternoon, we were deluged with uniformed, young boys and girls collecting money for charity. They were full of energy but polite and fun to watch. Many came up to ask for a donation, which we gave until we realized that if we wore a sticker they handed out, it would save us from future pleading. At one point, two girls came over and asked if they could take a picture with Kasey. Kasey was more than willing and a man gave her some coins which she put into the collection bags. In five seconds, about six or eight photographers were on the scene, snapping away wildly at this beautiful blond American and the two smiling Chinese girls. Kasey positively beamed at the camera. Finally one of the photographers motioned her to look at the bag as she put a coin in. That’s the picture they will use. Later Kasey explained, “Papa I was trying to smile at the camera but that man

told me to look at the bag instead.” Our last meal in China was a cup of Starbuck’s coffee and KFC. The coffee tasted like home, but the Colonel will have to improve his recipes if he wants to make it in the west. However, here in Shanghai, the huge restaurant didn’t have an empty seat. At 3:00, we reassembled. Eric produced a dark young man, undoubtedly one of China’s 56 National Minorities, who had a six-foot bow to sell to Jim. I know that the offer was tempting, but it was just a foot too long for reality, and we escaped for the airport unarmed. “Air China Flight 985 for San Francisco is delayed for equipment redeployment.” I think that means they couldn’t get the aircraft we were supposed to take out of Beijing, where it was snowing. I know it meant that we were crammed into a plane that was only three-quarters as long as it is supposed to be, the rear portion being walled off just behind the wing section. Thank God for the tailwind that reduced our flight time to nine and a half hours, faster than going to London. It was a very uncomfortable flight, a complete contrast to the conditions of our first flight to Beijing. Only Marty, Josh and Kasey got much sleep, and that trio sacked out for just about the whole flight. The two little ones are small enough to fit on just about any lap, but I am always amazed at Marty’s ability to be comfortable in positions that should cramp him up for a month. I guess it is nice to be young. Just about noon, our vacation was over when we landed in San Francisco and waltzed through Customs without so much as a side-glance from the officers. Good thing too, because Donna was “hiding” her new pearls, in full view on both sides of her neck. I think it’s a new look, and quite chic—large black pearls almost hidden by a sweatshirt. Annie, Walt and Tommye still had one more flight ahead of them today. By my numbers, Annie will set an all-time, single day mileage record for our family: Hong Kong – Shanghai: 765; Shanghai – San Francisco: 6,138; San Francisco – Phoenix: 653. Grand total: 7,556 miles. It took most of her 40-hour Sunday. What a lucky “family” we are. That was one of the most worry-free vacations I could have imagined. So many things can go wrong on a normal trip, but for these ten days, everything clicked. I think a great credit goes to Kasey and Joshua, who traveled as though they were veterans, having almost no down

times. I give much credit too, to Jim’s Prime Directive, which headed off hurt feelings and angry confrontations for the most part. There was a general sense of cooperation throughout, important in places like Shenzhen, where customs left a few things to be desired. Of course the biggest credit goes to Vicki and Walter who istered the trip. We got much, much more than we had any right to expect. Our hotels were all upgraded to 5-star luxury. Our meals were out of the ordinary in menu and service. They exerted every effort in our behalf and I know each of us is aware of that effort and very grateful for it. The best of all, is that we have a greater family who are all friends, and friends who are all family. That, I learn more every year, is a treasure not to be underestimated. Zai jian, China. Xie, xie. “Where are you going at New Year?” “We’ll see!”

HONG KONG, CHINA, THAILAND & KOREA 2002- 2003

DECEMBER 27, 2002 OFF TO KOREA

“Whoa! That’s really cool!” Josh’s reaction to the stretch limo was predictable, a little boy’s exclamation for a neat vehicle. Kasey began her movie star strut at the top of the Schafer driveway. Anne was ecstatic. She has been thrilled with the concept of the limousine-lifestyle ever since she was a little girl and saw Lauren Becall arrive in a limo at the theater in Boston where she was starring in “Woman of the Year.” “That’s the way I want to go,” Annie had announced back then, and it has always been one of her fantasy yardsticks. The rest of us were a little more subdued in our reaction, but the sight of that long white symbol can’t do anything but make you dream a bit. It is a grand way to begin our New Year adventure that is going to take the Dold-Schafer-Plaskett-Joyce Family to four countries, and for the older set, five. Korea, Hong Kong, China and Thailand await, with Cambodia at the end for Jim, Donna, Mary and me. Who could ever have dreamed? Two years ago we took our first family New Year’s trip to China. Josh was only four and Kasey six, and now they are, as they would freely it, much wiser. Our group this year is the family core: Mary and I, Annie, Nancy and Marty and the two kids, Jim and Donna with son Eric and Deb and Patrick from Massachusetts. Tim, the limo driver, ushered us off to the City, on a post-Christmas, pre-New Year day of complete absence of traffic. I guess no one works these last two weekdays after Christmas, which means that next Monday and Tuesday will also be semi-holidays, polishing off the year. In the second limo, Jim, Donna and Mary were hearing of the existence of “space buoys” that direct air traffic out over the ocean. Josh sat in the driver window officiating, always alert for the new adventure and he never had a window like that before to watch the world ahead. Kasey lounged peacefully in the plush, approaching the moment when we are going to have to get some food into her. Annie generally laughed and made the most out of the ride, this being her world. It is the only way to go!

The only way, that is, until you are invited into the Korean Air’s Morning Calm Lounge, reserved for First Class and Prestige Class fliers. “You mean all of this is free?” Annie exclaimed as we hit the table that offered drinks, fruit, sandwiches and assorted snacks. “We don’t have to pay for any of this?” Well actually, no, not exactly. For $2,800 a person the croissant is absolutely free, an adjusted version of a Don McLean lyric I have always loved: “For $5 the flower is free.” “This is the only way to go!” The only way, that is, until you saunter into Business Class aboard Korean Air, across the Pacific. “Whoa!!!” was Josh’s appraisal, the second such exclamation he had uttered as he discovered each new surprise. “This is so cool!” The phrase had now been adopted by Kasey, as she was handed a book of stickers and Josh a big-wheel miniature as boarding gifts. The personal TV screens showing “Lilo and Stich” and “Spy Kids II” would add to the thrill. Josh is a one-syllable exclamation. Kasey is an elaborate eye movement, leading to a huge smile of joy, filling her face with light. It is a joy to observe. Kasey fits easily into the good life, her auntie’s niece in every way. How fortunate we are!

It will take us all day and then some to get to Seoul. It is a time zone difference of seventeen hours, I think, and the flight is at least twelve hours. We are leaving at noon and we get to Korea sometime in late afternoon tomorrow. We are going to need every possible elegant surprise Korean Air has to offer, because when we arrive in Seoul, we immediately transfer to a flight to Hong Kong where we spend tomorrow night. I’m never quite sure where “tonight” went when we are dealing with the International Date Line. Culturally, Donna jumped right in, ordering bibimbop for lunch, a bowl of rice, into which is dumped a smaller plate of beef and stuff, with a packet of dried seaweed, and stirred up with sesame oil and a tube of hot Korean pepper paste. “Please mix all ingredients before eating” onished the menu, fortunately because Donna, after only her first anti-malaria gin-and-tonic, was considering the pepper paste for her toothbrush. But she handed the tube to Mary, which means we will find it in the attic during our move to an old-age home in 2025. We will also find the swizzle sticks and Korean Diet Coke cans in the same box.

DECEMBER 28 HONG KONG / GUILIN, CHINA

At 6:30 tonight it became tomorrow, or in other words, at that time yesterday it became today. It has been light the whole flight and nobody is quite sure when or where it is. The kids have been wonderful, sitting in their lounge chairs watching movie after movie— “Lilo and Stitch”, “Spy Kids II”, “Bourne Identity”, “XXX”, and whatever else they could find when Nancy wasn’t watching. They served us steak twice, a full lunch and dinner, drinks, wine, snacks, pineapple juice, and lots of smiles. Mary and Donna got another gin and tonic when the stewardesses were trying to serve them diet coke. They just didn’t know what time it was. At 6:15 P.M. we arrived in Incheon (Seoul), Korea, with an hour to find Gate 21 for our transfer to Hong Kong. None of us has the slightest idea what time it is, having endured four movies to discover it is only six hours after we left. The airport is huge, a massive mall filled with all the Guccis, Puccis, Louie Vuitons, Cartiers, and other French stuff that only seems to get sold in airports and to Japanese in Honolulu. We were beginning to wear down. Kasey lasted the whole flight to Seoul, only napping off during our descent, while Josh crashed for a couple of hours. Marty fell asleep in the limo on the way to SF Airport and stayed asleep all the way to Korea. He could sleep upside down in a phone booth, a valuable skill to have if you travel. He did wake up long enough to carry a weary Josh between flights, but they were both back at it on the plane to Hong Kong. Our third dinner was served on that flight. How can you go for two apparent days without breakfast? We haven’t seen an egg since Christmas. It was 5 A.M. or 10 P.M. when we landed in Hong Kong, a 3-hour flight that clocked only two. Both are most certainly times for bed. Our hotel, the Royal Airport, will be most welcome. It will be Sunday by the time we really begin our touring. There holding a sign that read “Jack Dold and Party” was an old friend, Bob, who was our guide in Hong Kong two years ago. He is a happy, open man with a perpetual smile and engaging twinkle in his eye, who knows a great deal about

his country and most of the Far East. For tonight his duty is to get us to the hotel, just a few hundred yards from Customs. Tomorrow we tour.

DECEMBER 29 HONG KONG

“Joshua, slow down!” “I can’t!” Those two short blurts define the speakers—Nancy, issuing unheeded commands, always concerned about her son, and Josh, simply unstoppable, even if he wanted to be. We have a good part of the day to tour with Bob, because our flight to China doesn’t leave until 9:00 tonight. Hong Kong’s new airport, Chek Lap Kok, is on Lantau Island, the largest of more than 200 islands in the country. After it was transferred to China on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong continued to be governed as a “Special istrative Region (SAR), with its own currency, stamps, government and customs regulations. Actually it has three sections—Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories. Lantau is part of the last section, twice the size of Hong Kong Island, but with a population of only 40,000, for the moment. That number is exploding, as people move out of the city to take advantage of cheaper housing. Families average four kids, ignoring attempts at birth control. “They have family planning, but nobody go,” Bob reported. We ed the Shek Pek Reservoir, one of seventeen that serve Hong Kong. There is no fresh water in Hong Kong, so it has to be piped in from China. In 1941, September 8 (September 7 in Pearl Harbor) the Japanese bombed the Hong Kong reservoirs, resulting in immediate surrender. They bombed Singapore on the same day, completing a trifecta that is truly infamous. Given the strained feelings about China today, Hong Kong remains very vulnerable because of water. Most everything else is imported as well, since the province has little agriculture or manufacturing. Chickens come from Denmark, beef from Australia, oranges and lettuce from California, cucumbers from Japan, rice from China and U.S., etc., etc., etc. This financial haven is dependent on just about

everyone. We took the Tung Chug Road over the summit to the south side of the island, a steep, impossibly narrow track that offered frequent turnouts for traffic, necessary because of the many motor coaches using the route. “Loads are vely nallow,” Bob understated as a long line waited patiently for uphill traffic to . Bob entertained us with the exact jokes he used two years ago: “That’s a very rich river. Do you know why?” It has two banks. “Why can’t the bicycle stand up?” “Because it is two-tired.” And he got into the one about Buddha and time and money, which ends with the punch line, “Wait a minute…” As a tour manager, I know it isn’t fair to take jokes down in your notes. Those are supposed to be forgotten in two years so they can be used again. Actually, Bob’s delivery with his laughing face is better than his jokes anyway. Our first stop this morning is at the Po Lin Monastery, which proudly possesses the Tian Tan Buddha Statue, at 200 meters high the largest bronze, sitting Buddha statue in the world. “Whoa! That’s a humongous statue,” Josh exclaimed when he first saw it. We drove to the base of the statue and climbed inside to wander through the museum collection of the monastery. The Buddha is surrounded by a series of large bronzes depicting his students, statues that would be monuments in their own right if not overshadowed by the master’s. A steep staircase takes visitors down to ground level, where a host of vendors await to suck HK dollars out of the pious and unwary. We were not distracted, because we were hungry and heading for the Vegetarian Restaurant operated by the monastery. It was a fine, rather tasteless exercise in bean curd, tofu and unknowns that is perfect for kicking off a trip where we are certain to eat too much. For our daughter Nancy, a ed dietitian, it was a joyous repast, even though they didn’t serve beer. Whatever! It

was still tasteless. In the temple, our first effort at shoe removal, Eric sought out his fortune, taking a box of pick-up sticks and shaking it until one numbered board fell out, #36. Taking that to the fortune consultant, or whatever the title is, he was handed a paper with his fortune: “You are sick. And involved in law. Stay calm. A doughty monkey frees himself from a golden chain. Roaming around in freedom in his mountain cave.” We all agreed that that was a perfect analogy of Eric, one that would be oftquoted during the trip, especially the monkey with the golden chain part. From Po Lin we drove to Tai O, a charming fishing village that takes one back to the last century but is still very much alive in modern China. A not too ancient sign announced: “Destructive Fishing Prohibited—suction devices, explosives, dredging, toxic substances and electricity.” This is a place that values the efficacy of good old fashioned nets and baited hooks. We all jumped aboard a walla walla, a small, hand-pulled ferry that took us about 200 feet across the estuary entrance to the old town. There we entered a movie world as we strolled down Kat Hing Back Street, serenaded by the clapclap of mahjong tiles, emanating from just about every hut on this Saturday afternoon. “Are you allowed to place the tiles without noise?” I asked Bob. “Oh, no! You must slap them down or you not win anything.” Josh would be great at mahjong. The Back Street presents a non-tourist view of Hong Kong, with ramshackle huts climbing a steep slope, clothes drying on lines and balconies, dogs and cats asleep in crevices and corners. I spied a couple of rats scurrying across broken bits of tile and pavement. Fish were laid out for drying in round baskets suspended on trellises above the sidewalk. Tiny restaurants are open to the street,

their cooked and raw dishes displayed for ers-by and flying things as well. Shopkeepers offer a half-hearted plea for business. Tai O has a mixture of attractions for the visitor, but the back street is better than the average shopping on Main Street. Bob dropped us back at the airport where we boarded China Southern Flight 3032 for Guilin, China. It was a no-finger, straight-seat flight that was the most uncomfortable in my memory. I couldn’t have fit a piece of paper between my knees and the seat in front of me, much less a finger or two. Oversold, there was no room for movement, and all of us were discovering that jet lag had caught up with us. Donna and Eric immediately collapsed head-to-head, she seated in the row behind, his head flopping backwards over the seat to stop hers. Jim was comatose, straight as a post. Only Josh and Marty found the sleeping accommodations perfect, curled up like befuddled rubber bands in complete comfort. Unable to move, I fell asleep sitting straight up, something I have never done before. If the man in front had reclined his seat, my knees would have performed a colostomy. Fortunately the flight was only a little over an hour, plus one more time zone, and soon we were checking into China, giving a big hug to Walter Horatio, a.k.a., Shui Heng Jong. Walter has become an integral part of our family, and is an international personality for Golden Gate Tours, the man who epitomizes China for us and all of our customers, who helps them with the language, the customs, health problems, purchases, money…, everything. He is a wonderful friend who has plumbed the depths of generosity in every form as far as I am concerned. I value that friendship greatly. With Walter was Huang Zhung Hsiang, Shirley, a beautiful tribal woman, who will be our guide for our five days in Guilin and Yangshuo. Mr. Mo is our driver. Tired as we were, it was still interesting to listen to Shirley as she talked us into Guilin. She described the culture of the area, telling about a traditional story of “The Third Sister of the Lin Family,” a sad tale of a young woman who committed suicide rather than accept a forced marriage with an old man. We will hear the music of that story tomorrow. We checked in to the Sheraton Guilin Hotel around midnight, discovering superb rooms that we have grown accustomed to in China. Walter was in typical form, presenting all the ladies with pearl necklaces and ear rings. Mary was given an exquisite black pearl necklace. Josh discovered a “monster truck” a remote-

control “Cyclone” while Kasey snuggled up with a plush meter-high teddy. Walter!!

DECEMBER 30 GUILIN

Last night Shirley mentioned that Guilin has a height limit on buildings, so the mountains remain visible for the people. I have always wanted to visit this place, because the mountains of Guilin are famous—the inspiration for thousands of painters who have been moved by their beauty. These mountains are different— individual monolithic pinnacles that rise straight up from the ground, spaced haphazardly across the landscape, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of rounded cones of every shape and size. I have seen something similar in the arid land of Cappadocia in Turkey but there was no color, no green, to give them aesthetic value as these Chinese peaks have. I have seen the pillars in Meteora in Greece, but they don’t come close in numbers and density. No, this Guilin canvas is unique, the stuff that artists drool over. I got up early this morning to take a walk and see a bit of the city around the hotel. The cold air hit me even before I walked through the outside door. For the past couple of weeks I have been looking at the weather reports for Southern China, always reading a nice, comfortable 65º or so, nothing to get bundled up for. Since our first organized family tour to the Canadian Rockies, Donna and Nancy have always collaborated on a uniform top for all family —a sweater, heavy shirt, fleece, pullover, coat, etc. They even designed a logo—a square with the names Dold, Plaskett, Schafer and Joyce on each side of the square. Last year in China we wore blazing red fleeces. This year, since we are mostly in the south, our tops were light windbreakers, just enough to deal with a night in Korea. None of us worried about Guilin, so the chill of 30º this morning was more than a shock. “The girls will kill me,” I thought, knowing that I had advised them of the warm China weather this time of year. The Sheraton Hotel sits right on the Li River, so a brisk walk along the banks was an obvious choice. The ballroom dancers and tai chi practitioners were already in full swing, winter weather meaning nothing to them. One intrepid man

actually dove into the river a few feet from me and proceeded to swim to the other shore, probably some Finn who had just finished his sauna. A lovely park runs all along the river, filled with flowering osmanthus trees, lacy cedars, and patterned gardens. Many of the plants were covered in dark cloth to ward off the freezing cold. There was little traffic on the street, just a few bikes and an occasional scooter. Guilin doesn’t have the dense traffic of the other big cities in China. A block from the hotel I came across a large pond, Fir Lake, with two stately pagodas gracing the far shore, a nine-tiered one, and the second with eight levels. They present a lovely photo opportunity in the morning light. Off in the distance, in every direction, I could see the famous pinnacles of Guilin, dotting the very heart of the city and rising like trophies off into the distance, no two even close to each other. What an introduction, even in the cold! Shirley met us at 9:00 to begin our tour. Guilin is named for the osmanthus trees that grow throughout the region, a tree whose flowers are highly prized, producing a rather sweet wine when mixed with grapes. The region was first visited by the great Emperor Qin in the 2nd century B.C. who built the Ling Canal to connect the Yangtze system to the Pearl River in the south. Old Qin really was busy producing World Wonders, which include his terra-cotta army in Xi’an and the Great Wall. The Ling Canal fits right in, rating high in the second tier of China’s list of man-made attractions. Guilin has a lot of water, including two rivers, the Li and the Peach Blossom, and four large lakes: Fir Lake, which I visited this morning as well as Banyan Tree, Wooden Dragon and Guilin lakes. The city has five districts. The province covers twelve counties, containing 4.3 million people, seriously under-populated by Chinese standards. The population includes many of China’s official Minorities, the largest being the Dong, Miau, Zhang and Yao. Shirley is a member of the Zhang people. Guilin was opened to foreign tourism in 1973, and today ranks high in visitors among natural attractions in China, second only to the Yangtze River. The major attraction of course, is the mountain landscape, but the Li River has also been highly marketed for tourism. On a more subtle attraction level, Shirley reported that the city “is the model in China for public toilets.” Guilin has been kept in scale. The Hong Kong Hotel, at nineteen stories, sticks out like a sore thumb. After climbing the 323 steps to the top of Wave Subduing Peak, we could actually look out over the top of the entire city.

Our first stop was at the Reed Flute Cave, the most famous of the caverns of Guilin. Discovered by farmers in 1959, the cave was formed by an underground river that sculpted fantastic figures, as Shirley said, “through collosion and elosion.” “It is a 4-star cave,” she told us, one of China’s natural treasures. The cave is enormous, with only a portion open to the public. Just about every one of the pinnacles around Guilin has caverns, so the government opened Reed Flute Cave in an attempt to consolidate tourists and thus prevent accidents. It seems that local entrepreneurs were taking tourists into any cave they found, often a highly dangerous adventure. Reed Flute Cave has a well-graded and paved path and imaginative lighting, showing off the formations to best advantage. “It is not very bright in the cave,” advised Shirley, “and I remind you to pay attention to your heads.” We entered the Lion’s Room and the first of our formations, Shirley urging us to use our imaginations to make figures out of the thousands of stalactites and stalagmites we would encounter, which of course led to a learned discussion as to which was which. “Stalagmites has an ‘m’ in it for bottom.” “No, stalactites have a ‘t’ for top.” That was the extent of our scientific expertise. From then on we relied on imagination, which wasn’t really necessary because Shirley pointed them all out to us. “There is a snow covered evergreen tree and a big-belly snowman.” “What kind of room is that?” “A mushroom!” One section, beyond a reflecting pond, looked just like the skyline of Guilin, another like the Great Wall. The Crystal Palace was huge, ninety meters across, containing hundreds of fantastic shapes. “There is the Monkey King,” Shirley pointed and we all looked at Eric to see if

he was throwing off his gold chain in the mountain cave. Some people had been unable to resist writing on the walls in spots, but Donna noted that “Chinese graffiti doesn’t look as bad as ours.” We bought a couple of the local reed flutes, little green things that need to be boiled before using. From the Cave we returned to city center and Elephant Trunk Rock, so named for the riverside formation that looks like an elephant’s trunk drinking from the river. There is a winery in the cave, producing Three Flowers Wine and a strong rice wine. For fun, we boarded some of the local bamboo rafts, called zhu pai, for a very cold but interesting ride on the Li, seated in reclined wicker lounges, poled along by happy boatmen. There were a number of fishermen in the river, their cormorants tied to their rafts. We stopped at a gravel island in mid-stream, where locals offered barbecue fish and some other rather scary delicacies. Josh would have sampled it all if his Mom wasn’t supervising, and to be honest all of us would have stopped him, even if Nancy wasn’t with us. Josh is willing to try almost anything, not the safest attitude to have if you are wandering around Asia. What other little kid would order calamari instead of hamburgers? At one of the restaurants he went goofy because they had live octopi in their fish tank, and was very upset when he couldn’t order one for dinner. He would make a great food taster for an emperor or dictator. We walked across the street from the bamboo boats for lunch. The Western Garden Restaurant is owned by CYTS, the China Youth Travel Service. This will be our first actual Chinese meal. You can’t ever count breakfast in the upscale hotels in China because they offer buffets of food from everywhere in the world. For Kasey it is the whole day’s intake, except for an occasional bowl of rice. Breakfast and rice, and Power bars from Nancy’s larder—that’s what it takes to keep Kasey fed. But not Josh. Want some snake tongues and pickled lizard? Earthen pot rice noodles were hardly adventurous enough for the little guy, but for the rest of us it was a good easy transition into the local cuisine. Down the river just a bit from Elephant Trunk Mountain is Fubo Hill, named for the general whose statue graces the plaza out front. It is more poetically called “Wave Subduing Mountain,” typical of the fanciful names these peaks around Guilin have been christened. Large caves, bearing a great many Buddha statues fill niches and ledges at the base of the rock, interesting, but not nearly as important as the climb to the top for a panoramic view of this classy city. 323

steps lead to the platform that looks over the city. From that vantage point, you look out over an urban landscape, where dark, brush-covered peaks jut up here and there in every direction. Some are right in city center. The horizon is filled with them, hundreds visible as you rotate your view. If Rome and nearly every other world-class city were built on seven hills, Guilin was built around hundreds. Here and there you can spy a pagoda on top, or maybe a microwave antenna, but generally these sheer rocks are devoid of buildings, serving simply as staging for the city. I can’t wait to get out into the country where there are no houses and office buildings to compete with them. Dinner tonight was at the Guilin Royal Garden Hotel, and featured a folk show of dancers from the major minority peoples of the region, primarily Miao, Dong, Zhang and Yao. The program was varied and at times athletic as each minority demonstrated its favorite folk dances and martial routines. Several times, the dancers came into the audience to find dancing partners. The first two times, Marty was picked, obviously indicating good taste on the part of these young Chinese women. They never even wasted a glance at Jim or me, thank God, and Eric and Patrick were sitting at the back of the table. “That’s why Mommy picked him,” Kasey whispered to me, as Marty was reluctantly dragged up the second time. Kasey was so proud; Nancy was busy laughing; Patrick was relieved; Eric was jealous. It came to the last dance, a wedding ceremony, and the bride came looking for a groom. Patrick ran for the john and Marty had set up his defenses. Sure enough, he was the first choice, but he was also ready, gently deflecting the beautiful bride toward Eric, who had not yet to our knowledge been married in China. He was escorted to the back of the hall, where the bride was hoisted on to his back to be paraded up to the stage. The rest is a blur. All we know for sure is that Eric came back to us married, and with one red ball (around his neck). The Monkey King had escaped his golden chains in the cave to find one attached to a crocheted ball in the city. Ultimately Patrick returned from the loo to the considerable derision of the company. We returned to the Sheraton through a brilliantly lit city. I don’t believe I have ever been in places that use lighting as spectacularly and effectively as these Chinese centers. Guilin was alive. Bridges are outlined in bright colors; trees are festooned with lights. Particularly spectacular are a number of full-sized, fiberoptic palm trees in green, red, or blue that line the banks on both sides of the

bridge. Buildings are ablaze in lights; the streets glow. Night-time Guilin easily fits into the splendor of Hong Kong, Beijing of Shanghai, and probably every other major city in China. We were all worn out as we arrived at the hotel, victims of jet lag and late-night flights. Jim let out a huge yawn, and muttered, “I’m going to go take a sh–-,” We all held our breath. “ower.” That led to a very erudite discussion among the girls as to other possible ways he could have ended that word, “…ave,” “…ine,” but everyone knew exactly what Jim was going to do.

DECEMBER 31 LI RIVER / YANGSHUO

The most famous thing in this part of China is the boat ride on the Li River, a world renowned experience that is immediately mentioned whenever you speak of Guilin. People always say that it is spectacular but seldom actually describe it. It is the one thing I have most looked forward to doing on this trip. We got an early start this morning, because it is about an hour’s drive to the boat dock for the cruise. Our bride groom, or “gloom” as Shirley says, was still floating from last night’s events. By road it is sixty kilometers to the city of Yangshuo, where we are staying the next two nights, but by boat it is about four hours. The dock, specially built for tourists like so many things around Guilin, is a forty-minute drive. Shirley explained that we would be driving through the countryside and had to go slow because of all of the “farmer’s treasures”—pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, and especially the water buffalo, that are “#1 in the street.” She related that if a motorist so much as grazed one of these beasts, the driver would face an avaricious farmer who was going to demand a fortune, for the buffalo, his offspring, his offspring’s offspring. “Potential future earnings,” I said to Jim, who had the same idea. The day was a glorious one, with “blue skies, white puffy clouds, green mountains and clear water,” the qualities attributed to this region by our guide. She was right. The weather was still cold, maybe in the 40ºs, but it was better than yesterday, and beginning to approach what we had expected. We ed through rice fields, and many orchards, the source of the large fruit spreads we had seen at the Sheraton. This is a very prosperous looking region. In about an hour we reached the Tour Group Pier at Zhuziang Dock, a modern facility out in the country, where at least fifty boats were lined up, waiting for tour groups to arrive for their river cruise. This being winter, only a few boats were leaving this morning, but it must be a form of chaos in summer when all of these craft are in motion. A sign on shore announced that this is a “National Civilization Scenery

Tourism Region” and went on to call the dock an “Example Spot.” We would encounter similar governmental signs several times along the river: “Water and soil conservation benefits the generation and confers boundless benefaction on offspring.” The Li River begins in the Cat’s Ear Mountains in the north and runs 437 kilometers to the South China Sea. It takes its time. We boarded our boat, #17, the Ba Gui, and were soon out on the water of the Li River, a surprisingly clear and clean stream that cuts through the most amazing landscape in my experience. From the very beginning you are floating, at most times in a mysterious mist, through a forest of monolithic rocks, most of them hundreds of feet high, many much larger. They are all densely maned in low brush, with trees, evergreens and deciduous, popping up wherever a bit of soil got lodged in a crevice. None of these peaks are attached to each other, but stand, solitary in a crowd, each unique, each undoubtedly bearing a fanciful name bestowed on it by inspiration or superstition of the laboring inhabitants of the neighborhood. “Is there a name for this region?” I asked Shirley. “No.” “Is there a name for the mountains? Are they a range?” “No.” “How many of these are there?” “I don’t know.” “Do they all have names?” “I don’t know.”

It occurred to me that those are all of my notebook questions that are completely irrelevant here. The Li Valley has been the inspiration for Chinese artists since the creation of watercolor painting, a place of aesthetic reverence, to be absorbed into the soul, treasured in memory; a place of the heart, not the mind. This is not a region to catalogue, to name, or to write down names. When I finally decided

not to take notes, I started enjoying the ride. The river bends and swoops through rice-strewn level areas, around sheer cliffs, punctured with endless cave entrances. Nearly every peak has caverns, thousands of them. The shapes are endless. I took three rolls of film on the Li River, compelled to preserve these visual treasures as best I could—scenes of rugged cliff faces, emerald fields and brown paddies, of water-mirror images, of vast panoramas, where a dozen shapes make up a collage of natural icons. There are buffalo plowing fields, with an ancient farmer in traditional hat laboring behind. Waterfalls abound, and caverns yawn. Every so often a tiny village emerges around a bend, or beneath a spire of rock. A boat chugs ahead of us, rippling the placid stream, or sending a plume of exhaust into our noses. But in the right light, that boat sets the human dimension against the mountain in your frame. Cormorant fishermen or traditional netters ply their trades in the eddies. Bob, back in Hong Kong warned us about the lunch on board, saying that we should load up on breakfast at the hotel, because the lunch on board these Li River boats was not good. We had to find out for ourselves, especially when the waitress announced that candied water chestnuts were a specialty. They were awful. But they couldn’t come close to the seaweed soup, and a dozen other things that couldn’t possibly taste as bad as they did. The worst of all was the beer, especially the free ones. We finally switched to beer they charged you for and gave up on the lunch, although Marty thought the chicken was good and the beef “not too bad.” That’s a sure proof that the old adage, “This must be a good place to eat because look at all the trucks parked here” is a colossal urban legend. Patrick put it best: “When a Chinese man warns you about a meal, you ought to listen.” We arrived at the dock in Yangshuo around 2:00 P.M., and disembarked into the arms of a wonderfully picturesque cormorant fisherman who happily posed for ten yuan. Welcome to Yangshuo. Vicki had told me back in San Francisco that this village was the best part of the Guilin region and we have scheduled two nights here. We walked up Binjiang Road to West Street and found ourselves in the most curious of towns. The whole row was filled with shops and restaurants. Chinese restaurants are run by Europeans, and continental cuisine establishments by Chinese. There must be fifty pubs:

Jimmy’s Music Heaven Blue Bird Café The Stone Rose Red Bean Café 7th Heaven Café Billy’s Online Café Marco Polo Hotel Under the Moon Suzanna’s Twin Peaks Café Co Co Hotel Minnie Mao’s Café Red Capitalism Café Lisa’s Hotel The Blue Lotus Kingfisher Café Red Star Express Miss You Café Good Times Café

The Mei Yuo Café is a bit different. The name means “We don’t have it” and the sign reads, “Mei Yuo hamburgers and especially breakfast.” However they do have Mexican pizza, Holland breakfast, Calzone, tuna pizza, work hamburgers, chili beef pizza, and some things called dianuala and calabiese. The whole of West Street is a “National Tourist Zone,” a place to capture the dollars and euros of the world, but with such a nice atmosphere, it is attractive. West Street could be in Mexico if it weren’t so clean. At the top of West Street sits the Yangshuo Paradise Resort, our home for two nights. Walter had come into town by bus this morning so our rooms were all ready for us when we arrived. Jim and Donna and Mary and I were escorted to two suites that easily could have slept the whole group. Once again, Walter has outdone himself on our behalf. “Why don’t we take a bike ride?” It’s the thing to do in Yangshuo, getting out into the pastoral countryside to wander amidst the thousands of pinnacles that pop up everywhere in this impossible place. It’s what all of the guidebooks recommend for the highest enjoyment of your stay. It was an enthusiastically unanimous vote, and we all headed out to Main Street to secure a dozen bikes. None were small enough for Josh and Kasey, so over their objections, tandem bikes were ordered with Josh behind Marty and Kasey with Eric. I was worried about Mary because she can get real tired on adventures like this. “Why don’t you take a trial run around the hotel, Mary?” She wiped out in the driveway, forgetting to brake and skidding nicely into Marty. She’s ready. We didn’t know we were riding to the perfectly named End of the Universe Cafe. Or that the road was composed of mud and sharp rocks, punctuated by the droppings of water buffalo. The mountain bike tires on the bikes (except for Mary’s) should have been a clue. Once Mary was righted, we were ready to go, and our guide pointed us up West Street to a place where all of China was roaring past at 120 mph—in motorized rickshaws, exhaust-belching truck contraptions with motors for noses, scooters, bikes, Toyota SUVs, motorcycles, and 100-year old ladies shuffling along toting huge burdens on their balance poles.

“You mean, you want us to go up there? Into that traffic?” I watched Mary shudder up that hill and I almost died. Eric and Marty were shaky on their bicycles-built-for-two, and the rest of us were trying bravely to stay vertical, oblivious to such mysteries as gears, or hand brakes. How we melded into the moving chaos of that road I will never know, but somehow our twelve bikes crossed it, and maneuvered through a Chinese rotary. We breathed a premature sigh of relief as we turned on to a dirt track and out of the traffic. That’s where the mud started. It is one thing to be shaky on a flat stretch of asphalt. It is quite another to negotiate four inches of slick mud oozing in ruts, with stones running interference. Inside of a couple dozen yards we were all walking, slogging through the muck, groaning at our individual and communal folly. We were only getting started! About then the thought occurred to me that none of us, meaning me, had asked how long this jaunt was going to take. Somehow I had the uneasy memory of the lady saying something about having the bikes until 6:00. We had started, ten minutes ago at 3:30. Oh Lord, be merciful! Fortunately the mud only stretched for a couple hundred yards and soon we were back on wheels, cycling through the countryside. If there is a more spectacular place on earth, I haven’t seen it. Everywhere you look, in every direction, are huge rock-sculpted mountains, scrub-covered, green and dark, ri, layers of them filling the landscape. They guard the terraced and moated paddies where farmers toil with their oxen. Crude mud or stone houses straddle high points in the land, breaking the green of the surrounding country. Quiet ponds lie here and there with gentle creeks crossing the farms every so often. We found ourselves in the midst of pastoral serenity. Well, not exactly! It is impossible to have serenity when your buttocks are being sliced by a razor-studded banana-seat. And it is impossible to find peace when your thighs are hemorrhaging, your back is breaking and your lungs are on fire. And nirvana doesn’t allow the use of the word “Hello!” Or the incessant peddling of postcards. And heavenly water buffalo don’t charge Y10 for a photo (with three poses). However, if a body is in bike-shape, and peddlers are on vacation, and buffalo were not greedy, this land is close to visual paradise. Around 4:45 our guide announced we were half finished. She was wrong. We cyclists were at least 95 percent finished, with an hour more of pain to endure. I

never noticed how broad-beamed our family is, until I observed us from the rear of the line today. God didn’t intend rear ends like ours to find comfort on a bicycle seat, because the place in our anatomy that actually comes to rest on that skinny slice of chair was never expecting to perform that task. I always said I wanted a tractor seat, but from today on I want a business class airline seat with pedals. Fortunately Marty and Eric who are in shape were up front. The rest of us were pushed on by the groans of the riders behind, because each rider’s behind was screaming. Our tour took two hours, covering ten kilometers, or by our translation, 113 miles. It was wonderful, hailed unanimously as one of the best things we have ever done. In a short fortnight our posteriors will stop throbbing, Preparation H and heat balm no longer required. But the memory of that incredible land will remain, impossible to describe, equally impossible to forget. Mary finished with a flurry, colliding with a nice gentleman a hundred feet from the finish line. She limped in to the considerable applause of her family. The old man she ran over was carted off to the hospital. Jim began the post-bicycle discussion. “I tell you what…! Those water buffalo are in damned good shape.” The reaction, led as usual by Eric, was swift and acerbic: “Is that compared to out-of-shape water buffaloes?” “Yeah, like you have a big experience with water buffalo!” That was probably Annie. “I have animal husbandry experience,” Jim shot back. “Well, they do get a lot of exercise and have a good diet,” Nancy came to Jim’s defense, opening herself up to Eric. “And you know everything about what a water buffalo eats!” “Are you getting all of this down?” Patrick asked, more concerned with his place in history than in getting in a good jibe.

Donna is far too experienced in such discussions to get involved, and Mary just sat in the corner suffering. Kasey and Josh were busy competing and Marty likes to just sit back with a smile, a beer in his hand and take it all in, safe on the sidelines, highly entertained. We had all limped into the Paradise Hotel bar for anesthetics after our ride and Jim was only trying to keep the conversation going. He is such a sensitive soul, and didn’t deserve the sarcasm he received. It is the last day of 2002. Walter has somehow managed to smuggle an arsenal of fireworks from Beijing to light up the New Year. We are to have dinner near the hotel, and he then proposes to set them all off in the driveway at midnight. I have some doubts about doing that, since his arsenal contains several very large rockets, fully capable I am sure of burning down all of Yangshuo. Walter, as always is unconcerned and confident, Chinese-anxious to light something up. We all hobbled to dinner tonight at the Café Riviera, which features two possibilities, a room with a Chinese menu and another with Western dishes, the latter room symbolized by a metal Eiffel Tower, in front of which Annie simply had to pose. But we opted for the Chinese menu tonight, and almost finished it before we started nodding off. I needn’t have been concerned about Walter’s fireworks tonight at midnight, because everyone was sound asleep by 10:00, wiped out by our exhilarating bike ride this afternoon. We rationalized that our New Year’s Eve is actually tomorrow, because back home it is still December 30. So our year ended in a whimper, a barely heard “Happy New Year,” and a mental promise that each of us would be louder tomorrow.

JANUARY 1, 2003 YANGSHUO NEW YEAR

Happy New Year!!!! I awoke in 2003 to a heavy fog and overcast skies. Green Lotus Peak the backdrop of our hotel, loomed like a giant cucumber in the mist. I took a walk around the town to find it almost deserted at 7 A.M., the streets all swept and clean even after what must have been a riotous New Year’s Eve in the pubs and cafes of West Street. A few of the curious trucks roared by, vehicles that look like they were created from a scrap heap, with ponderous one-cylinder gas engines bracketed openly on the front of a wagon. They are called bao bao che, deriving their name from the motor sound they send out that scares the daylights out of everyone within a quarter mile. That guttural roar is far better than a horn. They carry enormous loads at times, at dreadfully high speeds. We saw one bao bao roar past with a load of bricks, and it wasn’t laboring in the least. Marty was hugely impressed by the contraptions, and I mentally made a note to watch him when he comes across the long-tail boats in Bangkok that roar around with engines three times the size of these. The rest of the traffic is mainly bicycles and moto che, scooters that can also be motorcycles or converted into taxis. At 9:00, we boarded our bus and headed for Silver Cave, the most famous cavern open to the public in the Yangshuo region. Shirley was in a playful mood and asked us if we wanted to hear a Clinton joke. Of course we refused to listen, but she told it anyway: A diplomat had to meet President Clinton, but he didn’t speak any English. A friend prepped him. “It is very simple. You ask, ‘How are you?’ He will answer, ‘I’m fine. And you?’ You reply, ‘Me too.’” When the man actually met the president he got flustered. “Who are you?” he asked Clinton. Mr. Clinton, trying to be funny, answered, “Hillary’s husband.” “Me too,” answered the Chinese diplomat, beaming.

We have heard several Clinton stories in China, and another in Thailand. That was the cutest of them. Actually, Clinton stayed at the Paradise Resort, as did George Bush Sr. and Jimmy Carter, most certainly in the suites that are now occupied by Jim, Donna, Mary and me. We feel so important! We motored out the road we had sweated along on our bikes yesterday, ing the “Dragon Meet Together” scenery where the Yellow Dragon River meets the Blue Dragon. Nearby is Moon Rock, a giant window in the mountain that seems to act like the moon as you by, the low mountain in front of it cutting the hole as though the moon were waning. Here in 1973, President Nixon planted an osmanthus tree that is now a regional symbol. Another is a giant banyan tree, estimated to be nearly 1,500 years old. Both are major tourist stops in season. The Silver Cave was opened to the public in 1999, a huge cavern that actually runs beneath twelve different pinnacles. It is even more elaborate than Reed Flute Cave, and with many, many more steps. In fact, I counted 898 steps during our tour, far more than most of our seniors are going to be able to manage on future tours. “You will have to use your imagination,” Shirley advised us as we entered Silver Cavern. “What does that look like?” “A Dragon,” Eric said confidently. “Yes, it is a peacock,” she said, pointing out the beak, and spread feathers. “And what is that? Use your imagination!” It took none. She was pointing at a giant scrotum, sticking straight and erect right at us. “Morning wood,” exclaimed Patrick, but Mary was already too far away to need an explanation. Actually in the brochure it is called “Vitality of Life” and has a feminine counterpart deeper in the cave, a ceiling of pendulous mammaries poetically entitled “Mother Love.” The Silver Cavern gets its name from the glistening rock throughout that shimmers when properly lighted. Our guide for the Cavern was a happy fellow named Jack, whose accent defied understanding, and fortunately didn’t mind being interpreted by Shirley. Jack was assisted by a young woman whose Western name was Emma. Her job was to hang around at the back of our line to keep stragglers in tow. For Josh there were a number of signs around the place

that warned, “No striding,” signs that were generally ignored by the little guy, who told me he couldn’t read what they said. There are three “treasures” in the place: Buddha teaching scriptures to his students; “solitary pillar bracing the sky”; and a solitary column that resembled a magnificent Christmas tree. There are many natural treasures here, not the least of which is Hua Chin Pond, which reflects the surrounding formations like a mirror. The Moon Palace features a long series of vertical curtains, lit in green, red, and especially important for Kasey, one called “Cedar Pine in a Golden Basin,” all bathed in purple. The “Silver Cataract” which gives the name to the cave, looks like a curtain of sun-lit ice. Of course, for Eric, there was a formation called The Wife of the Monkey King. I love the description of the cave in their brochure:

“The Silver Cave Tourist Scenery Area is like a huge natural bonsai embraced by hills. There are graceful Little Green Hill and the Chaozhai Hill standing unique on the land, thousands of peach trees scattering about, fragrance of fruit blossoms floating around in the air. And the singing of poultry can be heard in the neighborhood. The area contains oaring boat and fishing on the Green Lake. Cliff health cave Climbing at the Red Hill Precipice. It is exciting and joyous. So the area is called “Green poetic homeland.”

We finished our tour in a large room where they were selling local rice wine, a brew that is really white lightning and capable of exploding if you aren’t careful. As a final event, Emma sang a traditional song that sounded lovely in the cave acoustics. It occurred to us that it is Deb’s birthday, so Emma, Jack and Shirley sang Shen uh kwa luh, to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” Lunch was hosted in the nearby restaurant at Silver Cavern, labeled, “Designated Hotel Concerning Foreign Affairs.” It was an outstanding feast, made up almost entirely of new items to us: Steamed chicken Cantonese style Three things soup (beans, pork and pig’s liver with noodles)

Pork ribs wrapped in bamboo leaves Glutinous rice in bamboo sections Fried bean curd Taro, in several forms, a local delicacy Steamed fish Candied taro Snow peas and bacon

After lunch I took a walk around the pond outside the restaurant with Josh and Kasey. They need these little jaunts because of the large amount of bus and plane time we have had. They are completely at ease here in China, a fact that always amazes me. Nothing bothers them, even when they are besieged by camera wielding locals. On our walk we encountered an ancient, goateed fisherman with his pole net, who bestowed an enormous grin on the kids. I motioned the camera at him, and he shyly declined. It took nothing to get him to give in, and I suspect that picture will be one of the prizes of the trip. Not long after we waved goodbye to him, three young girls came strolling along the path, probably on their way home from school. They spotted Josh, and running up to Kasey, asked “Is he your brother?” Kasey nodded, and that was the end of Josh’s leisurely stroll around the pond. They pursued him all the way back to the bus, he being attacked by the girls for a picture and also by a fit of shyness that is typical of him in these kinds of situations. Back on the bus he looked just like a scared fawn that had been caught in the glare of headlights. On the way back to town, Shirley mentioned that as a member of an official minority, she did not have to adhere to the “one child” rule that was enforced throughout China. She explained that the government wanted the minorities to increase and prosper. She also mentioned that in the country most couples had two children, and generally if the first born was a girl, they would be allowed to try again. Also as a minority, the government had made her become a tour guide, saying that they wanted the minorities out in the public eye, especially for tourism. At first, she was upset about it, but now has come to love the job, at

which she is extremely good. The rest of the afternoon is for shopping, and Yangshuo is the place for that. We wandered down West Street, and dragged the kids through the public vegetable and meat market. Every sort of beast was sliced and diced in that teeming place, certainly a new experience for Kasey and Josh. Kasey was splashed by a large fish in one of the tanks, and it was her thrill for the afternoon. “I got splashed by a giant fish in there, Josh,” she said, knowing full well that it would make him jealous. We were unable to move ahead until Donna had taken Josh in to get splashed in his own right. “The fish jumped right out of the tank at me,” Josh boasted on his return, but Kasey had gone on to other concerns and couldn’t be goaded into anything new. Eric, whom Anne calls “esophagus boy”, came out having tried a local fruit called “dragon eyes.” From his description of the color (florescent green) and taste (“like shit”), we christened them “gecko gonads,” perfectly in keeping with Eric’s preferred cuisine. On our last visit to China, he had consumed just about everything he could find in the markets, and ended up quite sick for months after. As for shopping, we all were much taken with a little shop on West Street called “Vanishing Tribes.” A happy young girl named Fang Fang (Kristi, for short) proved to be the match of just about everyone, but her fabrics and costumes from the local Miau and Dong tribes were unique and we ended up buying a number of things from her. Eric was after unusual hats and was escorted to the upstairs chamber for bargaining discussions. Ultimately he purchased an antique hat made of human hair which he was assured should really be in a museum. Annie got a neat coat for school, woven with a dragon motif, while all of the girls picked up pillow fronts, dolls and a bunch of other stuff. Across the street, a man was making animals out of wrapping ribbon, remarkable figures that took hours to complete. Everyone returned to the hotel satisfied with the afternoon loot. Time to get ready for New Years.

Tonight was unique—truly unique, maybe even for China. Perhaps it could only have happened in China, where you can do almost anything without being noticed, even in the middle of a crowded city. It started with Walter setting off all of the car alarms at the hotel. Walter had suggested that Guilin would be a good place for New Year’s particularly Yangshuo, but to his chagrin, he couldn’t find a single New Year’s party in either place, and true to his imaginative nature, he decided to create his own. He loaded a large suitcase with fireworks, including some extremely powerful rockets, and a couple of huge wheels of firecrackers, and casually brought them as “luggage” on his flight from Beijing. Anywhere else in the world he would be in jail. There were enough explosives in that bag to bring down a Crusader jet. We were all too wiped out from bike riding and insulting each other last night to actually fire off anything, so we decided that we would celebrate tonight, New Year’s Day (and Deb’s 27th birthday). On the way to dinner, Walter ignited a few dozen sparklers, and his thousandfirecracker wheel, right in front of the hotel entrance, leaving a massive spread of red debris all over the parking lot. Then on the bridge, he launched the first of his rockets, a wonderfully professional explosive, that arched high above the city and blossomed into a magnificent starburst. The concussion rocked that quarter of the city, the sound bouncing off the pinnacles that surround Yangshuo. Every car in the parking lot and in the surrounding quarter mile applauded, with lights flashing and alarms coming to life. I suppose that more than a few airbags are going to have to be re-deployed. “Jesus!” was all Patrick could mutter, the highest form of praise his pyrotechnic nature can express. “That’s great!” exclaimed a Chinese gentleman next to me. “Do another one.” Just then someone else set off a wonderful series of rockets from the same launching pad, and the Yangshuo night gleamed in the excitement. Everyone in sight had a huge grin on his or her face, ready in a tiny second to enjoy fireworks, even if the whole city is in danger of burning down. On to dinner! Once again we were in for a surprise—a Chinese dinner in a restaurant on West St. called Le Votre. Walter ordered fifteen courses, added

two, plus Deb’s double birthday cake. Where else on earth can you have a dinner that includes ginger chicken, bean curd, pizza, Mandarin chicken, garlic bread, bacon snow peas, collard or mustard greens, French fries, and on and on? It was a bi-cultural, gastronomic feast that only Walter could produce, a combination of imagination and excess, that resulted in groans and sighs of appreciation. Dinner overcome, we marched down to the Li River for the next episode of the evening—night fishing with cormorants. Local fishermen capture Giant cormorants, the largest species of their kind, and tether them to their boat. A string is tied around their necks to keep them from swallowing the fish they catch. When a bird surfaces with a fish, it is poled onto the boat and degorged by hand, then unceremoniously flung or booted back into the water. We boarded one of the local tour boats to cruise out to find a fisherman. The excitement commenced immediately as our boat launched into a wide turn on the river, beaching itself beautifully on the opposite shore, in a grinding crunch of river rock and sand. “They do it all the time,” Shirley announced with a laugh. The crewmen who jumped out into the cold water weren’t as jovial about the whole thing, as they groaned with exertion trying to lever the boat off the beach, while the captain punished the screw in the rocks. It took about fifteen minutes for them to disengage the vessel and we headed downstream, our engine sounding like it had just survived a major heart attack. In a short time we saw the powerful light of a cormorant fisherman on our port side and our boat pulled up to watch, matching the trolling speed of the raft. A single fisherman carries a long pole in one hand, steering his craft with the other. About twenty birds swim around him, diving frequently in the brightly lit water. If one surfaces with a fish, the man lets out a cry and poles the bird aboard. He then grabs the bird’s neck, reaches into its mouth and extracts the small fish, which is no more than four or five inches long, tossing it into a reed basket. We saw him catch half a dozen fish, but they didn’t begin to put a dent in the large container. This is no easy way to make a living. It’s not so great for the cormorants either, who have to get mightily frustrated and hungry in the whole process, not to mention the sore throat from poking fisherman fingers. Safely returned to the city pier without being beached, Walter, Patrick, Marty and Eric got into serious rocket work. The first explosion, high above the pier and dangerously close to the town, sent a mighty concussion through the valley,

the echo reverberating for ten seconds along the river. “Jesus!” we all prayed aloud. Patrick simply beamed. Shirley moved everyone a bit farther down the quay and behind a wall. The next explosion rained burning embers down on the trees, town and family, one actually nestling nicely in Josh’s hood, which promptly began to smoulder. “I’m not watching anymore,” he declared, moving up the stairs away from the water, disgusted at the rain of fire. Blast after blast filled the air, some above the trees, others more safely directed at the river, each rocking the whole riverfront and wafting smoke and red paper debris over the closest houses. Folks gathered to watch, ever ready to enjoy a good boom and burst of color. I don’t think that there is another place on earth where that first rocket wouldn’t have brought the whole police force down on our heads. But not here in Yangshuo. Here our display was applauded and inspired others to haul out their own dynamite and commence ignition. Patrick, who provides a nearly professional fireworks display every 4th of July at Marty and Nancy’s farm in Nevada, was in heaven, thrilled with an unexpected pyrotechnic windfall that had not been in his travel dreams. To be able to fire off these things in the birthplace of black powder and explosives is heaven for him, an experience to be bragged about back home in Southey. “I still have all my fingers,” he announced proudly, holding up both hands for all to see. Deb just shook her head, somewhat in disgust, but deep down I saw an approving iration for her husband. Heading back to the hotel we saw a sign: “Carring or firing fireworks ore firecracker are not allowed to in the Weststreet.” Too late! Missed that one on the way down, probably because of the bad grammar. This has been one of the best New Year’s nights in our long tradition—fine, odd dinner, grounded boat, cormorant fishing, spectacularly illegal fireworks. Once again Walter has outdone himself and we have been the beneficiaries. Happy New Year!

JANUARY 2 YANGSHUO / GUILIN

Most everyone slept in this morning since we have nothing formal scheduled until 11:30 bags out. It is to be a morning of power shopping on West Street. Annie and Nancy are looking for small gifts for their students. They each need thirty of something and have decided on some little jade trinkets. They saw them yesterday for 5 yuan, worked the vendor down to 4 yuan, about 50 cents. Having finally made up their minds, they were told the price is now 25 yuan. “Walter!” Of course he negotiated the price back down to 4 yuan. Jim and Patrick are also good bargainers, but Eric, trained by Walter, is perhaps our best. He has learned to say anything. “You will send me to the poor house.” “What do you think I am, rich?” His best was: “My mother will be out on the street selling.” Lunch was back at Le Votre Restaurant. I told Walter last night to just order beer and pizza, which would be a refreshing change from his elaborate Chinese meals. We got both. In fact, we almost got last night’s dinner, a dozen side dishes to our pizza. It is simply not within his ability to be simple. Over the years of our friendship, I have actually gotten through to him a few times. I talked him into collecting rocks, and keeping a journal, but it is impossible to teach him even a modicum of moderation. It is wonderful to be looked after by Walter Horatio. Checking out of the Paradise Resort proved to be interesting. Eric was called over to the desk to pay for the laundry bag that was missing from his room, a cloth collectable, that clearly stated, “Property of the Paradise Resort. Not to be removed from your room.” The hotel wanted 50 yuan, and Eric was asked to

fork over, all the while protesting.

“I didn’t take it,” he whispered to me unconvincingly, probably worrying that as the travel agent I would somehow be blamed, a thing that is far from reality. “Bull shit,” I whispered back, knowing full well that if Mary had seen them, she would have six in her suitcase. “Well Dad told me to take it,” Eric deflected the blame. Jim was working out the strangle kinks in his fingers to have a go at Eric’s throat. Meanwhile Donna, who was collared a few years ago with a purloined bag, was abnormally silent. Finally the guilt piled up in her and she sauntered over to the desk. “I can’t if I took a bag or not, so I want to pay you for one.” “No, the maid said you didn’t,” came the answer back. “Well just in case I did, take this 50 yuan. You can send it to me if you find out I didn’t take one.” Now there is ’50’s morality at its finest! I was as certain that Donna has a laundry bag as I was about Eric. But even in the face of a clean maid’s report, Donna couldn’t pull it off. “But I thought they were yours to take,” she assured me as her protesting reached the level of art form. Jim went over and hugged Mary and asked if he could our family. Little did he know that I have two soap dishes and an ash tray in my bag. There really is no escape.

Our bus left for Guilin at 1:30, an hour-and-half drive from Yangshuo. It has rained all day, and is in genuine danger of snowing. We did not prepare for this sort of winter weather in China. The Internet reports for the past couple of weeks listed Guilin at around 60º, completely inaccurate since people here say it has been in the 30s and 40s for a month and snowed last week. Perhaps China’s tourist board does not want to discourage visitors by such dreadful things as cold weather, especially here in the south where Guilin is the darling of the cold weather visitors to the country. Guilin is China’s model for tourism, a city built to attract foreigners. Shirley told us today that Guilin has set the standard for her nation in clean, free toilets. To be sure, our ladies have encountered nothing like the facilities of the Great Wall or Forbidden City, toilets that would send the rats scurrying for disinfectant. “They have four-star toilets,” she boasted, and generally Nancy seconded that appraisal. The speed that China has changed is incredible. Even in the three years since I first came here, I can measure the evolution. I love this country. They decide to do something and jump immediately into accomplishing it. China is one of the most comfortable places I have ever visited. People are friendly, seeming to smile all the time. They always nod or greet you if you catch their eye. They love children, and have made much of our Kasey and Josh, constantly asking to have their picture taken with the munchkins, partly because they love kids, but especially because our two are blonds and regarded as good luck by the older Chinese people. These people bargain for everything, but they don’t pursue you to distraction as in some countries, and you can usually get the vendors laughing if you take the time to talk to them. “Hello!” is the constant greeting both to greet you and to sell you something. The cities are people-friendly, always swept clean of litter, sometimes hourly. Here in Yangshuo I watched the hotel staff constantly sweeping the streets clean of the red mess that was left from a thousand firecrackers exploding. They performed the chore quickly and without evident complaint. The town was immaculate at 7 A.M. on New Year’s Day, after a long night of revelry in the fifty bars and cafes of West Street. China seems to offer no intimidation for the visitor. I have heard there are pickpockets and petty

thieves but have never seen evidence of them myself. The streets have seemed safe in every city I have visited, so safe that you don’t even think about it. There is no obvious way to know that this is a Communist country, because you seldom see soldiers, and police are invisible. By all appearances this is a country where people operate without the control of government. You know rationally that this isn’t so, but little episodes like our fireworks display last night gives you cause to wonder. If you were beamed down to Guilin suddenly, you would be hard pressed to determine exactly where you are. This is essentially a Western nation, in city dress, in urban architecture, in street appearance. Of course, nowhere in the world would you see the incredible pinnacle landscape of the place, but the wide, tree-lined streets, the low-rise architecture of offices and apartments, the feeling of the city-center shopping centers and advertising signs would remind you strongly of Europe. All of that being said, China has so much to offer that is totally unique, a history that is captivating, historical sites that stagger your sensibilities, natural sites that rival anything to be found in the world. The Yangtze Gorge, and this incredible mountain region of Guilin are a match for anything we have in our National Park System. This is a wondrous land. We have one last stop in Guilin before we head for the airport tonight. Shirley is taking us to the Seven Star Park, the largest park in the city, corresponding to our Central Park in N.Y. or Balboa Park in San Diego, a combination of gardens, greenhouses, zoo, and planetarium—multi-purpose to handle just about any interest of the citizens. Seven Star Park is noted for Camel Rock, another of those pillars, this time in the shape of a giant one-humped camel. It was a good spot for a group picture, probably our tenth, and we posed in front of a monument marking the visit of President Clinton a few years ago. Fortunately our group was large enough to hide the marker completely and just get Camel Rock in the background. We also visited the zoo, because Shirley wanted us to get a look at a panda before we left China. There was Mae Mae, a 35-year old matron who came out of her compound to pose for us. I had to recall my encounter with Ching Ching at the Chongqing Zoo, when its handler allowed me to hold the 7-month old cub, a major privilege that few receive. Here in Guilin however, Eric and Patrick went one-up on me: they got to enter the cage of a Bengal tiger and pose for a picture. It was the biggest, fattest tiger I have ever seen, whose rotundity would allow a football team to rest on his back. Eric was told to climb aboard, but even

for him, this was asking a bit too much. Patrick was very nervous, judging how fast he would have to run to beat Eric out of the cage in case the cat got hungry. Since we still had time, Shirley had one more stop for us, at the Guangxi Normal University Art Gallery. It occupies the old palace of King Jing Jiang in city center. It is a treasure of paintings, done by master teachers and their students, paintings of the pinnacles of the Li River region that we have been seeing in all of the gift shops and tourist sites, mystical landscapes that appear to be pure fantasy unless you have visited Guilin and Yangshuo and seen them for yourself. All of us left with rolls of paintings, the best sort of souvenir there is of this magical region.

We bade Shirley a fond farewell. She has been a delight, a great representative for her country and home city, a guide that I would be very happy to have for all of our groups that come to Guilin. She speaks very well, is wonderfully informed and has a great sense of humor. She left us at the new Guilin Airport, where our country hopping continues as we move on to Thailand. This is to be another very long night, arriving in Bangkok at 12:05 A.M. There we transfer to the Marriott Resort and Spa where we are going to crash, sometime early in the morning.

JANUARY 3 BANGKOK, THAILAND

I was handed Walter’s cell phone as I came off the plane in Bangkok, not noticing the serious expression on Walter’s face. It was Vicki in San Francisco, who with a tear in her voice, informed me that my Mom had ed away the night before in Napa. What a shock! I could have preferred a different venue for such news, rather than entering customs in a strange country. I am afraid that the rest of the night is somewhat of a fog. To my consternation, I blurted the news out within earshot of Annie, so everyone’s night was ruined. But I guess there is no easy way to receive and on such information. Whatever my feelings, we still had to deal with the matters at hand, and that meant getting to our hotel in Bangkok. Our new guide’s name is Pop. He met us, dressed extremely casually in jeans and t-shirt, and escorted us to a bus that had a driver who looked like he had just escaped from the seedy side of a Bruce Lee movie—unshaven, unkempt, dressed in what appeared to be downscale rags. His bus was not much better. Pop insisted on talking inanely all the way into the city. The kids were half asleep and grumpy; I wasn’t in any better condition. “What’s the matter with them? he asked me. “Do they have jet lag?” “They’re little kids and it’s 1:00 A.M. They’re tired.” He didn’t seem to understand and proceeded to prattle on about the types of fruit found in Thailand, over a PA system that didn’t work. “Will you just sit there and shut up,” I snapped. “Don’t say anything. Leave us alone.” They couldn’t find the hotel. It was the final straw. Pop got popped, fired by Walter along with the bus and its driver. We got to the Marriott and collapsed in bed, agreeing to meet at 10:00 in the morning. We’ll worry about the touring later. Morning did arrive, as it always seems to and we met in the lobby, everyone glum, not knowing how to act or what to say. Mary and I had talked over the various things we could do, and decided to stay with the tour until we were scheduled to return to Korea and then fly home together. It was important to me

that we continue our Thailand experience, and enjoy our time as fully as possible. The week was almost over and nothing would be done as far as services for Mom until the middle of next week. Vicki was wonderful and had already changed our tickets to come home from Korea with the kids. We would miss Cambodia, but that is nothing.

Thailand! It is my fourth visit this year, and I am starting to get good at it. It is such an exotic place in culture, in architecture, in language, in history, a place to treasure in memory because it is so different from what we are used to. We will begin this afternoon with the Royal Palace. Walter was true to his anger last night. He called me over this morning to a side table in the lobby where an elegant young man and lady were sitting. The woman is Kanokon Karnchanapattana, Executive Director of New Way Travel in Bangkok. The man has an equally tongue-twisting name but introduced himself simply as Roy. The Thai people contend with these tongue-knotting names, using a high-pitched vocalization that seems to be able to flutter through multisyllabic convolutions without having to concentrate. I once looked up some of the more famous kings. I discovered King Borommarachathirat I in 1374. If he is a First, there must have been more with that mind-bending moniker. In 1448 we have King Borommatrailokanat, whose son was only Ramthibodi II. Other notable royalty include Chairachathirat, Intharachathirat, Borommakot, Maha Chakraphat, Chulalongkorn and Khun Vora-wongsa. These are not names; they are parades, long enough to have perspective, constantly in danger of running off the page to be consigned to the next chapter. Try to imagine the imagination that conceived of these verbal train wrecks, and then summoned up the energy to memorize them. “What are you going to name your son, Roy?” “I’m not too sure yet. I was thinking of Thammakanlayan. It has a nice royal ring to it. About the time your brain has filtered the syllables out to your tongue you realize that these words were not written in our Latin alphabet. No, here they use a spiffy little 44-letter alphabet with six vowels that can accept five tonal variations. Vowels can be written anywhere—above, below, before, after, probably sideways to its consonant. These 44 symbols all look like an “l”, a “b” or a “d”, stretched out and emaciated and strung together from right to left, looking like a picket fence that got squished. They are so close together that when a Thai reads them he has to go extremely fast to get them out before they rear-end the one in front and topple the whole structure like a string of dominos. For this reason, Thai speech sounds like machine gun staccato in high C, with

the vocal chords valiantly trying to push a bewildering procession of tonal variations in the direction of a tongue that can do nothing better than sit there and vibrate.

Roy and Kanakon had the itinerary in front of them that I had given to Vicki a month ago, containing most of the things I wanted the kids to see in Bangkok: elephant show and ride, traditional dancers, snake farm, floating market, long tail boat ride, Ayutthaya, Bang Pa In, a few temples and shopping. They were very busy taking notes, obviously deferring to Walter, and we soon agreed on the afternoon activities. Roy, it turned out, is our new guide, decked out in coat and tie, very well spoken and extremely polite. Mentally I smiled at the smug look on Walter’s face. “Do you have to wear that tie, Roy? It’s awfully hot out,” I observed as we headed out of the hotel into the 90º heat of the Bangkok winter. “Oh yes. It is a requirement of the management!” He would wear a coat and tie the entire four days, and I mentally thanked old Pop for showing up last night. There is very little in Thai history that Americans are aware of, so little in fact, that you can count them in a victory sign: we have heard of the King and I, and we have seen the movie “Bridge Over the River Kwai.” The latter, which is located about two hours west of Bangkok, is a tragically true story made into an impossible novel and movie. The former is a somewhat true story made into an unlikely play and movie. Sadly, Richard Holden and Yul Brenner are not particularly popular with the Thai people. But Rama IV and Rama V are important, vitally important in bringing Siam into the scope of Western awareness and those two kings are the subject of the “King and I.” We will hear about them throughout our stay in Thailand. It comes as a pleasant surprise to discover the Rama kings. An American can actually a name like Rama, and when they are nicely lined up from Rama I to Rama IX, that is enough to make one giddy. However, it’s a sham. No self-respecting Thai, especially royalty, would be content with a lousy two syllables. No, those are names that are used to assuage the petrified tongues of Westerners, names that are only good for the feeble minded. Why else would someone in Bangkok call himself “Roy?” The real names have substance, perspective, requiring a vocal ability the equivalent of extracting a long piece of spaghetti from your esophagus. Let’s take those Ramas: Rama I - Ramathibodi (1782-1809)

Rama II - Phra Phutthalaetia (1809-24) Rama III - Phra Nangklao (1824-51) Rama IV - Mongkut (1851-68) Rama IV is the Yul Brenner monarch of “Anna and the King.” A far-thinking ruler, he brought Siam into the modern and western world. The famous play and novel are regarded as gross insults to one of Thailand’s greatest monarchs and are banned today. Anna Leonowens worked as an English instructor in the palace for five years. Recent research has proven most of her memories to be fabrications. Margaret Landon’s 1943 Anna and the King of Siam is based on her two memoir-novels. Rama V - Chulalongkorn (1868-1910) Thailand’s most enlightened ruler. He abolished slavery, and the custom of prostration, built the first railroads and generally westernized the nation. He also balanced the colonial greed of both England and , maintaining Thailand’s independence at a most difficult time. He fathered 77 children by 92 wives. Rama VI -Vajiravudh (1910-1925) Rama VII - Prajadhipok (1925-35) End of absolute monarchy. Rama VIII - Ananda Mahidol (1935-46) Rama IX - Bhumibol Adulyadej (1946-present)

Today Thailand is a constitutional democracy with a figurehead king. The Prime Minister is elected to a four-year term. There are two houses, a 270-member senate appointed by the Prime Minister to “watch” the lower House of Representatives, a body of 360 freely elected . The prime minister can dissolve the government and call a new election. The nation is hardly peaceful. Since the dissolution of the monarchy in 1932 there have been 22 prime ministers, 54 governments and 22 military coups. Actually it was the Rama kings who made Bangkok the capital city, the fourth of its kind in Siam/Thailand (the name changed in 1939). The original Thai people

came out of Yunnan Province in China, migrating south into Laos, Burma and Siam. Pushed by Kublai Khan, they encountered the Khmer kingdoms in Cambodia. Defeating the Khmer, they established the Sukothai Kingdom (12381360), which most Thai people consider the beginning of their nation. In 1350, King U Thong (Too easy! He renamed himself Ramathibodi I.) established the Kingdom of Ayutthaya along the Chao Praya River. He conquered Sukothai and united the Kingdom of Siam, beginning a dynasty which lasted from 1350 to 1767, with the city of Ayutthaya as the capital. This was a city-state that flourished for over four centuries, at one time larger than contemporary Paris or London, called by European visitors, the “Venice of the Far East.” It held more than a million people, had 1,700 temples and 30,000 monks, and tremendous wealth. In 1763, the Burmese attacked Siam, easily taking Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and the rest of the northern cities. After years of brutal battle, Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese on April 7, 1767. The entire population was murdered, or carried into slavery. The royal family and 100,000 captives were taken back to Burma and sold as slaves. Ayutthaya was burned to the ground. But only seven months later, a young general, half Chinese, half Thai, rallied 500 troops and routed the Burmese occupying the ruins of Ayutthaya. Realizing that the city was too destroyed to be used, he moved the capital down the Chao Praya River to Thonburi and established himself there. His was a short reign, only fifteen years, during which he went insane, and was executed in royal fashion, placed in a velvet sack and gently beaten to death with a sandalwood club. The capital was moved a fourth and last time, across the river from Thonburi to a new city of Bangkok. Thus, in 1782 the Chakri Dynasty came to power in the person of King Ramathibodi, or Rama I. That family still occupies the throne, although their actual power has been eliminated by a constitutional government and elected prime minister. The present king, Rama IX, (Bhumibol Adulyadej) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, educated in Switzerland and is the longest ruling monarch in the nation’s history, ascending to the throne in 1946. He and his queen, Mom Rajawongse Sirikit, are immensely popular. Their pictures adorn nearly every Bangkok street as well as most shops and businesses in the outlying towns. Their birthdays, on December 5 and August 12, are virtually national holidays. To criticize the royal family is severely punished. The succession is in doubt at the moment, since the second daughter, Princess

Sirindhorn, is extremely popular, although Crown Prince Vajiralongkom is the next heir in line. On the steps of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Roy was asked if there was a chance that a woman could become king. He started to answer but then deferred: “I still want my head on my shoulders.” Later he would discuss at length about the Crown Prince, which with his accent came out curiously as “Clown Prince.”

It is a complete thrill, and a great shock, the first time you encounter one of Thailand’s temples (Wat). There are 27,000 of them in Thailand, 600 in Bangkok alone. Here is architecture out of a dream—massive, yet delicate, laden with gold and stone mosaics, guarded by giant monsters, housing the most sacred articles of the Buddhist religion. The thrill is enhanced if your first temple site is Wat Pra Kao, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, found on the grounds of the Royal Palace. Three impossible chedis greet you at the entrance to the compound, each about 100 feet in height, swathed in gold, ceramic and shimmering glass tiles. A chedi houses the most sacred relics of a temple, and sometimes the funeral ashes of kings or important royalty. A smaller funeral receptacle is a stupa, which can be found on most temple complexes, often outside the walls. There are four monumental gates at Wat Pra Kao, each guarded by a pair of massive sculpted and painted demons. Surprises hit you at every turn—gilded, life-sized spirits, intricate carvings, impossibly steep roofs with sweeping gables that literally climb into the sky. Around the temple circumference is an arcade filled with 178 paintings telling the story of the Ramayana, the great struggle between the forces of good and evil. All guides begin to tell the tale, but when their audience realizes it is going to take a month of fast talking to complete the saga, most wander off. In the temple itself, where the Emerald Buddha rests, visitors are required to take off their shoes prior to entering. Once inside, you either sit on the floor, feet carefully pointed away from the Buddha, or you are asked to move on through and leave the room. Worshippers kneel before the statue, holding lotus offerings, or other donations they intend to deposit. The Buddha is dressed for the season, having three outfits to deal with the summer and winter weather. Roy said that there are three seasons in Bangkok, “hot, very hot and goddamn hot.” Outside, supplicants place joss sticks of incense, or purchase gold leaf to apply to their favorite image. Others may be using the fortune sticks Eric shook to become a monkey king. Some supplicants finger prayer beads or throw “divining blocks,” a pair of clam-shaped wooden pieces that are dropped continuously, with the penitent praying that one will land on the rounded side and the other on the flat. The incredible complex was started in 1782 as the royal residence and throne rooms for Rama I, and its mile of walls takes in the temple and an astounding collection of royal chedis and temple halls. The Temple of the Emerald Buddha

was originally the royal place of worship. The statue is really made out of jade, and not of precious stone. At the time it was discovered in 1434, it was covered with plaster. It was found in Chiang Rai in the far north of the country, taken to Chiang Mai and then removed to Laos, where it remained for 226 years. Rama I retrieved it in 1778 and installed it in his new capital in Bangkok. It is the contrast of architectural styles that most amazes visitors to the Grand Palace grounds. The elaborate throne room complex of Rama I, the Phra Maha Monthian buildings, are the highest style of Thai architecture with their steep gabled peaks flying into the sky, adorning green tiled roofs of very sheer pitch. Nearby is the Chakri Maha Prasat of Rama V, built in the balanced style of Georgian architecture, imported from his education in England, but adorned with roof elements of Thai masters. It is a magnificent combination. Today the Chakri group is the setting for receptions of foreign leaders and for the installation of ambassadors. There is just too much to grasp in the Royal Palace, too much golden splendor, too many steeples and gables and arches and facades that gobble up film. Two worlds combine here, but it is the eastern one which snares your attention and ultimately your memory. For the Royal Palace and Temple, visitors have stricter dress regulations. Long pants are required, and ladies must have shoes that have a back or back strap to them. Donna discovered this last year when she was turned away at the temple because she was wearing clogs. She had to get loaners outside the temple. Because of the heat, long pants do get a bit warm, especially for Eric and Patrick whose lower legs need constant ventilation. Roy, dressed in sport coat and tie, and not even perspiring was still sensitive to their plight. “Okay, you can begin to strip down now,” he told them as we exited the temple grounds. They, along with Josh and Kasey, zipped down instead, having those yuppie pants that convert to shorts with a zipper.

Our dinner and show tonight were at Silom Village, the name given to an upscale Bangkok district noted for its shops, restaurants and night clubs. We entered through a maze of fish markets, craft shops and food displays to the Ruen Thep Thai Dance Theater, filled with low tables suitable for sitting on the floor. Jim let out a magnificent groan when he saw the configuration, but Walter had ordered tables with leg-space basements underneath for wide-bodied and heavy-thighed Americans. Even so, Jim had to exert himself mightily to pry his legs into such a small and low aperture. Throughout the dinner he moaned, until he finally mentioned that his feet weren’t touching the floor. Anne negotiated a pillow under him, and he sighed deeply. The dinner was “easy” Thai: kao brao (steamed rice), tang tai (chicken curry), peaowan (sweet-sour fish), krapao (curry chicken), chicken soup and spring rolls. Walter ordered dong yin gong soup for anyone who had nerve, a typically hot soup laden with shrimp. I noticed more than a couple of very wet foreheads during dinner, although Roy mentioned that “this dinner was not quite so tasty as regular Thai food.” Translation: “tasty” = “hot.” The show was not as good as the last one I had seen in Bangkok. Thai dancing is extremely slow, sometimes nerve-shattering slow, with beautiful ladies bending their fingers back into unnatural positions, and floating around the stage as if enraptured. The men also have the same hand contortions, which must be developed very early in a young person’s life. The dances are the traditional ones of the hill people as well as those of the national culture, always shortened, mercifully, for the casual foreign visitor. The khon is a male dominated dance, based on the Indian Ramayana, the great struggle of demons and monkeys which we had seen in the arcade of Wat Pra Kao today. It features a monkey warrior chasing around a beautiful mermaid he was supposed to kill, but instead fell hopelessly in love. The women dances are called lakhon, and are highly stylized with countless messages communicated by eyes and especially hands. A third type is called likay, which is almost slapstick in quality. The dances are accompanied by the traditional Thai orchestra, the pipat, a collection of gamelon-type xylophones with drums, flutes, gongs, woodwinds and strings. Our “little” show contained a bit of each of these mediums. Jim squirmed and twitched and grimaced, enduring the pain as long as he could before his screaming knees forced him to the side, where ironically, he almost got involved in a likay himself.

All things considered after last night’s news, this day went very well. I was relieved that everyone was able to put our tragedy behind us for the moment and enjoy this incredible city. Tomorrow we will start out in the country with the floating market, another completely new experience for everyone.

JANUARY 4 BANGKOK

Bangkok’s Floating Market is world famous, the central selling area for the “Water People” who make up 10 percent of the city’s population. Everything a household needs is sold from boats—groceries, trade services, meat, fish, household goods, even souvenirs. Boats seem to fly about everywhere, peculiar “long-tails,” powered by powerful engines that drive a long shaft extending out the back of the boat to the water. These craft can operate at frightening speeds, even on the large Chao Praya River. They are one of Bangkok’s treasures, and biggest tourist thrills. Unfortunately, the city’s floating market has fallen on bad times and was recently closed in favor of another outside the city, in the village of Damnem Saduak. Here you enter a world of Disney, as tour buses line up to disgorge shoppers in front of a narrow, newly constructed canal. A steady stream of “long-tail” sampans queue up for visitors to board, smaller boats than those used in Bangkok, but new, clean and very fast. What follows is an amusement park ride through the klongs of this rural district, ultimately ending at the market. At each straight stretch of canal, our driver would stop, rev up his motor, and when the coast was clear, scream ahead at full speed. The look of glee on the faces of Kasey and Josh were probably only matched by Marty’s, who was heard to say when he first saw these “long tails”, “It’s all about speed.” At the end of the ride, we disembarked at the Floating Market at Tom Ken, a sardine-can of vendors peddling just about every food and craft item that Thailand has to offer. The vegetable boats were most picturesque, and Eric was even able to find some of the fabled durian, that awful fruit that smells like aged tennis shoes at the bottom of an outhouse. Eric prides himself on being able to eat almost anything, but his durian did not go over very well, even with himself. Just about everyone found something to their liking— bamboo motorcycles, statues, hats, purses—most of the cheap stuff that Thailand s. This is not the place for fancy jewelry or fine woodwork. But it is most definitely an experience not to be missed, especially when you get to experience Patrick in a

serious buying mode. As has become our custom on these trips, sooner or later someone wants to buy a Rolex, a genuine, imitation, original, artificial, real Rolex ® (!). Usually the initial quest becomes a family search as everyone has at least one person back home they want to buy for. Donna began the purchase wanting two; Nancy upped it another, Annie jumped in and volunteered Mary. Patrick was still on the bidding for the first two, which he had worked down to about 3500 baht, or $30 each. “That’s a good deal! I paid $40 in China,” enthused Donna so that only the thousand people in our quarter of the market could hear. In actual fact we never paid more than $5 for a faux watch in China. “You did not,” hissed Jim. “You paid $12.” “Mom, we have to have a talk,” Eric interceded, almost breaking into sensitivity. The vendor smiled imperceptibly; Patrick stiffened with approaching rigor mortis, stifling a death rattle. Eric bent his head in disbelief. Jim went to Mary and asked if he could our family. Donna was dragged away, her mouth stuffed with durian. Patrick turned back to the vendor. “I’ll give you 2000 bahts. That’s all the money I have.” “3200! That’s the lowest I can go. I’m making nothing on them at that price.” “I’ll take one too,” Nancy jumped in, “And I think Annie wants one too.” The look Patrick gave her told her to go try the rambutan or a mangosteen with Donna out on the fruit barge. Patrick now found himself bargaining for five watches instead of two without having gained any advantage. “I’ll give you 2500 baht. That’s it.” “You’re crazy. I’ll lose money at that price.” It was getting time to catch the bus, so I went over to Patrick and pulled at him. “We have to go. Give him a last shot at 2500 or we’re out of here.” We started to move for the exit. “Okay, okay, 2500 each. But you’re killing me.”

An hour later, four of the watches were still working. Mary was afraid to activate hers for fear it would never start. Nancy’s never did. On the bus, Patrick called for attention. “There are some new negotiation rules! 1. Don’t utter a word anywhere near the sales table. 2. Don’t ever say how much you paid for something in the past. 3. Don’t ever pull out your money until you are asked for it. 4. Don’t say you want one too. Let me get a price for one first. 5. Don’t get involved in the discussion. That’s my job. 6. Leave me alone.

That’s the way it’s done in America. That’s what made our country great.” It was a helluva speech for Patrick, almost reaching the supreme heights of “Animal House” oratory, very moving, calling in the flag and bugles and appealing to our patriotism. It did prompt a tiny bit of banter. Kasey and Josh thought it was fine theater. Donna had been kicked off the bus because of the awful smell of durian. Nancy and Anne were practicing the Heimlich on their watches to get them to start breathing. Jim was looking for a beer. Walter was too busy laughing to get involved. Only Marty sat there quietly. “It’s all about speed,” he said again, not caring a whit for shopping in any form. Since we had moved our elephant show from the beach town of Pattaya to the Rose Garden just outside of Bangkok, we found ourselves with extra time, so Roy and I agreed to throw in a stop that was sure to gross everyone out except Josh. We pulled up to the Cobra Farm for an exciting snake show. There are dozens of such places in Thailand where they breed snakes for their venom, meat, skins, and for entertainment. Usually the place doubles as an orchid farm, a butterfly farm, sometimes a scorpion pit and of course they have all the souvenirs. Josh loves wildlife in general, and if he doesn’t have to get near them, snakes in particular. He has tons of nerve when watching on TV, or when

separated from crawling things by at least a football field or so. We all assembled in the “theater,” a rather dirty place with a watery rink up front by the stage. Three young men and one very young boy were standing there behind a series of wire cages. The announcer began his routine. “If you drink snake poison, you will be very strong in sex. But only for one night.” He got right into the meat of the act, with one of the handlers producing a very large king cobra. He proceeded to play with the thing, hitting it and deftly dodging its lunges. At times his nose was almost touching the snake’s, making everyone in the audience cringe. I have to it, it was exciting. Next came the young man, with a snake they called the jumping snake, a creature that could spring as much as three feet in its attack. The boy was all over the floor, at times avoiding the fangs by an inch or so, as he dodged and jumped away. Josh thought that was really cool. The highlight of the show featured an experienced handler dodging three mangrove snakes, highly poisonous critters with radical stripes all around their bodies. They hissed and snapped and lunged at the man, always frustrated by his nimble escapes. Finally he grabbed one in each hand, and with a silent drum roll, proposed to catch the third snake in his mouth. Josh was stunned, “No way, man!” The man manipulated the snake for quite a while, trying to get it in the correct position for his attack, and finally, with a speedy movement, lunged at the serpent, catching it cleanly in his mouth, just behind the deadly head. “Whoa!!!!” exclaimed Josh. “That was cool.” The rest of us were somewhere between astonishment and disgust. No one wanted to shop as we headed for the bus. Oh yes, they had the required fight between a cobra and a mongoose too. Our last stop before lunch was at the Royal Thai Handicraft Center, a woodworking studio where the artists are truly magicians with teakwood. We watched them carving incredibly intricate sculptures and bas relief masterpieces—whole herds of elephants feeding in the jungle, a Thai fighting ship, tigers on the prowl. The skill and patience are almost beyond belief. In addition the factory turns out elegant furniture, and large pieces, such as elephants, and other Thai animals. Of course they will ship! In addition to the wood, the Center has a very fine assortment of all of the traditional Thai handicrafts—silk materials, lacquer ware and figures, mulberry

tree pulp paper, umbrellas, sandalwood, silver, jade and jewelry. This is a very fine stop, for which unfortunately we didn’t have much time. Nancy and Marty are having a small bar built at their home, and given another half hour would probably have talked themselves into one of the spectacular teak refreshment centers that were sold here. We all escaped to lunch. The Rose Garden is a huge park, with a large complex of buildings that constitutes a genuine resort, complete with aviary, mini-zoo, golf course, huge restaurant and very large theater. The Chao Praya River runs right through the middle. We stopped for a buffet lunch in their fine restaurant, a nice meal that offered a bit of Western food as well as the usual curries and peanut dishes of the region. Then we walked over to the theater for the folkloric show, a performance that included many of the dances we had seen last night, as well as a Thai kickboxing demonstration and a wedding ceremony. A traditional Thai band played its discordant music throughout, but every so often broke into “Never on Sunday” or “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” just to keep the show international in flavor. Actually the dances were an improvement over the dinner show, because the dancers wore incredibly long fingernails that immediately absorbed Kasey’s attention. Once again the monkey soldier chased the mermaid lady around the park with the same antics we had seen last night in the khon. There were also martial arts demonstrations and a bit of an elephant appearance. The show concluded, we all exited to an outside area for a demonstration of elephants at work and play. It was not as elaborate a show as I have seen elsewhere, but it was sufficient to give everyone a good view of the beasts up very close. Mary expelled a loud sigh of relief when she realized that she didn’t have to feed the animals any bananas. Last January at Pattaya, she had been knocked down by a pachyderm when she tried to feed him only one banana at a time. He insisted that she deliver the whole bunch for a single bite, which she obliged from her rear end. This time she never held so much as a peanut. We made our way back into the city to get ready for Jim’s dinner tonight at Trader Vic’s. Eric and Patrick voiced a desire to have a suit made for them at a tailor they had seen in the market. Roy snapped to attention, and suggested a suit maker that he knew, which translates into “a suit maker that will commission him for the business.” We veered out of the way to drop the boys off at Famous Fashion in the middle of the city. Watching their backsides walk away from the bus prompted Jim to observe that it would “take a lot of cloth to dress them, a double wrap.”

This has been a very fine day, and it is far from over. If “twice makes custom” is correct, then dinner at Trader Vic’s in Bangkok is now a Dold-Schafer custom. Jim is on the board of the famous restaurant chain, and he orchestrated a wonderful dinner for us a year ago. Tonight we do a repeat, meeting for mai tais, Singapore slings, and such exotic concoctions before being escorted into a private room for dinner. Trader Vic’s brings back the sentiments of the old style restaurants of the world, places of imaginative cuisine, professional service and memorable ambiance. Such places are fast disappearing, but thankfully continue to live on at Trader Vic’s.

JANUARY 5 BANG PA IN / AYUTTHAYA

Today we delve back into Siam’s history, visiting the historic ruins of Ayutthaya, the former capital of Siam’s second dynasty, destroyed by the Burmese in 1767. The site is about sixty kilometers from Bangkok. We traveled out a fine modern highway and soon were in the country, a land of green rice fields that produce three crops a year. Our first stop is at Bang Pa In, the elegant summer palace of Rama V. I have been here a couple of times and have discovered that they rent golf carts for touring the grounds, essential even for these “cool” days of mid80° heat. A major crises occurred as soon as we entered the grounds, or tried to enter. Roy told us on the bus that you couldn’t wear shorts at the Summer Palace and most of us were in that condition. Nancy turned on her beloved father: “Dad, you never told us.” The tone was devastating and I wanted to just break down and cry. But I carried on intrepidly, having sneaked a peak at the entrance and seen a bunch of folks dressed in shorts leaving the place. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they saw all of the bermudas walking out of the place. Shorts are obviously permitted, and we sauntered confidently into the entrance center, with me fully expecting a public apology from the Empress. But Nancy was stopped cold at the gate, refused entrance because she was judged to be improperly dressed for the site, having her biceps exposed for all Thais to see. If she blamed me for shorts, she was positively livid about my failure to advise her about bare arms. I would have protested that I had warned everyone about tank tops in Thailand, but bare arms are not even something I have ever considered in my whole life. Roy came to the rescue, sort of.

“Nancy, they have outfits you can borrow,” he consoled, escorting her over to a rack of nylon, polyester and fake silk. In nothing flat Nancy was cleared for touring, dressed in an outfit of skirt and blouse that was only slightly mismatched, barely soiled and hardly odiferous. The ensemble was accessorized with one of the finest scowls I have ever observed.

“They actually wanted me to wear flowers,” she hissed at her mother. I withdrew my impending request for an apology in the face of the sartorial accident walking belligerently before us. I have to get a picture of her, I promised myself, knowing full well that Nancy would destroy any lens that attempted to capture her in such dishabille. I wondered if I dared to smile. Nooooo! The gardens of Bang Pa In are superb, with manicured lawns, playful topiary herds of elephants, luxurious flower beds and colorful blooming trees. Rama V built a Georgian palace, a Chinese pavilion, and a variety of Thai structures on the ground. There is a tall, very strong tower near one of the lagoons that was used for the training of war elephants. There are about 4,500 elephants in Thailand today, all domesticated. No longer needed for war or lumber, they are rapidly decreasing in numbers and could be extinct within two decades. Besides the elephants, there are 350 tigers in the wild, eight crocodile farms, numerous ostrich farms, and uncounted species of snakes, of which Thailand claims the most varieties. The elephant tower was built in 1629, an impressive red tower with a commanding view of the palace grounds. “Did the king just yell down instructions? How could he give orders?” “Oh, no. The king never yells. No, king does nothing! He has four girls massaging his legs. He tells a servant to yell, but he must go away from the king so the sound doesn’t disturb him.” Not only that, the king doesn’t even climb the tower. He is carried up. The Chinese throne room was much loved by Rama V, his favorite place at Bang Pa In. It contrasts strangely with the main palace, built in the Georgian style the king brought back from Europe. A Thai pavilion in the middle of the lake, containing a bronze of the king, completes the architectural variety of the place. A particularly tragic site in the gardens is a monument to the wife of Rama V, who drowned in the river nearby with three sons, in full view of her bodyguard soldiers. They were unable to save her and her boys because to touch a royal person was punishable by death, a law that a mourning king immediately repealed. We putted back to the entrance to turn in our golf carts and let Nancy bare her

upper arms and work some smile back on to her face. Marty had been pretty quiet too, because the golf carts operate at about a half mile an hour, almost dying of exhaustion at the mere mention of a 1 percent grade. Marty has a hard time with slow, and I recalled his comment with the long-tail boats at the floating market, “It’s all about speed.” Not at Bang Pa In! Actually, Marty has been a fountain of one-liners on this trip. Deb liked his line, “The things you see when you don’t have a gun,” an old phrase to folks out west, but brand new for a Yankee. “If you own the place, you do what you want,” is a good Martyism. I can tell that I am going to have to listen a little more closely to him in the future. He may yet become an orator if we don’t hold him back. We stopped for lunch at the Krungski River Hotel, the usual buffet of Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Western foods. Donna came back to the table with some deep-fried stuff and plopped one in her mouth, letting out a loud “ugh!” in reaction. “What is this?” she asked Roy. “I don’t know if I would ask that question, Donna,” I cautioned. “It’s deep-fried chicken skin.” Nancy fainted, conjuring up an image of KFC sans chicken meat. “No wonder I didn’t like it,” Donna moaned and turned to her dessert. I was here in November and was intrigued by their array of gelatinous Japanese desserts that looked like anything but human fare. I gathered a plate that resembled a collection of leeches and lychees, with black, wriggling worms and a treasure trove of paramecia and amoebas. Nothing tasted better than it looked. You just can’t beat pineapple and watermelon, which are ubiquitous on Thai meal tables, morning, noon and night. There is no point in getting that imaginative with dessert, especially if it is slimy. The present-day town of Ayutthaya sprawls over and around the ruins of the ancient metropolis, a shadow of the glorious city that it once was. In every direction you can see the pyramidal piles of ancient temple chedis, sometimes right in the middle of the modern highway. Our first stop was at the Wat Lai Chai Mongkol, all that remains of the ancient temple complex that was burned by the Burmese in 1767, ending the Ayutthaya Dynasty. A year later, King

Taksin drove out the Burmese, but realizing that Ayutthaya was burned and vulnerable to further attack, moved the capital to Thonburi on the Chao Praya River. Today we wander the ruins he left behind. A massive chedi occupies the center of the temple grounds, surrounded by 135 large Buddhas, all draped in orange cloth. Last November we had seen these robes being blessed in the temples, in preparation for the festival of Loy Kratong. A large reclining Buddha is found in a temple ruin outside the very modern viharn, called Ubosatha Hall. The hall was originally built in 1357 by King U-Thong, the first king of Ayutthaya, but it was completely rebuilt in 1979. The most impressive element in the viharn is a statue of a monk, Lunluangpaopeng, done in startling lifelike fashion. The monk sits in a glass case, watching the room, his eyes glistening. His hair is real; every texture of his skin is alive. It is a first-rate masterpiece, impossible to separate from the living man. Every temple except that of the Emerald Buddha at the Royal Palace is a home for monks. Everything revolves around the Lord Buddha. His image can be found throughout the temple, outlining his life and relating the stories of his earlier lives. The temples are the home of the monks (a minimum of thirty), who minister to just about every facet of community life from a form of infant baptism to cremation. Many of the complexes have the high stack furnaces for cremation, especially in the countryside. The temples are also the depositories for the history of the Thai people, containing the relics, the scriptures, the iconography, the legends of the culture. It is hard for us in America to grasp the bond between the monks and the people. Everywhere you look, in markets, shops, and private homes you see the orange buckets where people place their food and supply donations for the monks, picked up every morning from 8:00 to 10:00. Every man in Thailand is encouraged, expected, to be ordained a monk between 18-21, usually for a period of three months, to demonstrate his right thinking to family and friends, as well as to future wife and in-laws. In addition, men often reenter a temple for a week or more because of a special event or loss of a loved one. We stopped in the center of the Ayutthaya ruins to wander a bit and let the kids run. Jim decided to take over the control of Kasey and Josh, and embarked on an exploration in search of stone body parts. He has a uniquely grisly approach to history and culture that is particularly appealing to anyone who likes snake shows, and the munchkins immediately set out in search of random arms, legs

and other severed appendages. Here in the ruins they discovered a surprising number of loose heads, torsos and Buddha bellies. Jim’s macabre stories produced the desired screams of fright with each new discovery. Nancy was torn between relief at the short vacation from dealing with the kids and concern that the potential nightmares Jim is capable of inducing might keep her awake all night. It is undeniably true however, that Kasey and Josh have a new and peculiar interest in Thai temples now. We had to get back to Bangkok by 3:00 so that Eric and Patrick could have their second and final fitting for their suits. A tailor was waiting for them at the Marriott, and in fifteen minutes, Eric was the proud owner of a new $150 suit and five dress shirts. Patrick will pick his up when he returns from Phuket next week. It is our last night in Bangkok and we decided we were not up to another Thai dinner, all of which seem to taste the same, probably because all of them have the same curry chicken and sweet and sour something, with a lot of pepper sauce and jasmine rice. We settled on German! Roy made us a reservation at the Ratsstube, a delightful change of pace that featured bratwurst, bockwurst, even Nurnburger wűrstlein with sauerkraut, spätzle and German beer. Nothing has tasted that good since a cup of Starbuck’s coffee I had a few years ago at the City God Market in Shanghai, after two weeks of green tea. German food was a great suggestion on Roy’s part. Our last stop was a short one. Roy had told us about a new night market, the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, which is clean, modern and free from the prostitutes, drug dealers and kinky sex practitioners that infest the normal night market in Bangkok. It was a short visit for us, on a hot, steamy night, because we are frankly shopped out. I think that everyone is anxious to get to the airport and crash as best we can. We are booked for Seoul tonight at 1:00 A.M., and because we are on Business Class tickets, we have the use of their lounge, which might allow us to relax for a bit. Reality hit as we checked in to Don Mueang Airport, and stumbled into a seething mass of humanity all intent on going somewhere outside of Bangkok. Our business tickets got us checked in pretty fast, but everywhere we went, we encountered huge crowds of people. I have never seen an airport so crowded at any time of day, much less at 11:00 at night. Every flight from Thailand must be a night flight. The Korean Air Lounge was completely full and we were moved

to a nearby VIP Lounge. Jim, Donna, Mary and my tickets were written on a later flight from the kids, undoubtedly because that was all Vicki could get when she went to change our reservation. I requested that we be put on the earlier flight, but the vacant eye response I got from the Korean Air people told me that my request was probably neither understood nor possible. At 12:30 A.M. we walked the kids to their flight and bade them farewell, advising them about our in Korea, and assuring them that we would only be a half hour behind them. Just for fun, I went to the desk and asked about our ticket change. “Oh we have been trying to reach you. We have four seats but they are not all together.” “I don’t care,” I said. “We just want to be with our kids.” The seats “not together” were in First Class, given to Jim and Donna. We were gleefully welcomed when we boarded with Kasey exclaiming, “How did you do that?” Because they were “up front” Jim and Donna refused to talk with any of us “in back,” and have assured us that Eric will be able to transmit anything they have to say to us commoners. So much for family unity!

JANUARY 6 SEOUL, KOREA

At 8:00 A.M. we landed at the airport in Incheon that serves Seoul, South Korea, ing quickly through Customs to be met by Kang Yung Ja, aka Jennifer, a pretty, well-dressed Korean guide from Seoul. “An yung ha say oh”—‘How are you?’ If you say that to people, you will get a very good discount.” She informed us that our rooms would be ready at the New Manhattan Hotel, just across the river from the city center. Our driver is Mr. Ju. We exited the airport to a cold, gray blast of winter, snow-lined and windy, driving along the Western Sea from the island-city of Incheon to Seoul. From Thailand’s 85° we have plummeted to Korea’s -15°, and we are not dressed for a change of 100°. We hurried to our suitcases at the hotel to commence layering. Our itinerary called for a morning rest and then a tour of the city. By the time we would finish our two-day stay here in Korea, nothing on that itinerary remained unchanged. Jennifer was in for a surprise or two. The two Koreas sit on a peninsula that stretches south from China, bounded by the Western Sea off of Seoul and the Eastern Sea, which until recently was called the Sea of Japan. The country is about on the same latitude as Beijing, which explains the winter weather we have just encountered. South Korea (ROC, the Republic of Korea) has a population of 47.5 million, 9.6 million of which live in Seoul. The next largest city is Pusan, or in their modern spelling, Busan which has a little over 3 million. The country was carved out of the peninsula along the 38th parallel in 1945, establishing an American zone democracy opposed to a Russian dominated Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea— Population: 22.2 million). Both countries were formalized in 1948. Two years later, the North invaded South Korea, plunging the region into a war that lasted until armistice in 1953. The U.S., losing 37,000 men in battle, bore the heavy brunt of that war, which solidified the democracy of the south. Today the president is elected for a single five-year term. Mr. Lo, the new president, is a young man who campaigned on the Internet, attracting the younger generation to

get out the vote. That generation is heavily anti-American, since 80 percent of the population was born after the close of the Korean War. Today, the U.S. keeps a standing army of 35,000 in South Korea at a cost of $15 billion. It soon became obvious to us that our guide Jennifer is definitely numbered in that generation that wants to see us gone. Our hotel sits near the banks of the Han River, the main water artery of Seoul. The city is very modern, made up of large, mostly nondescript housing blocks and office buildings, all built after 1960. Nothing looks good in the gray, wet environment of a winter day, but this 1960s-architecture wouldn’t look good in any weather. Jennifer described the interesting rental system the Koreans have for their apartments. Residents put down a large deposit with the landlord. Depending on the size, and some get as high as $100,000, there is no monthly rent. Given a smaller deposit, renters must pony up normal rent. The deposit is returned without interest at the end of the lease period. With interest rates plummeting, the landlords are getting away from this system somewhat, there being small profit in the investments right now. Having grabbed a few hours’ sleep, we decided that we wanted to take a ride out to the Demilitarized Zone along the 38th parallel. In the past few decades, four tunnels have been discovered crossing the zone from North Korea, tunnels bored to facilitate the invasion of South Korea and the capture of Seoul. Tunnel #3 was discovered in 1978 and is open to the public for touring, which we intend to do after lunch. Our first Korean meal is a Korean BBQ at the Keum Kang San Restaurant. We were seated at tables that contained burners and a hot wok-type contraption. A gruff woman dumped some beef or pork onto the griddle and brought a bunch of bowls with spices, hot sauce, bean sprouts, tofu, seaweed, rice and lettuce leaves. Oh, and of course, kimchee, that peculiar Korean cabbage that is drenched in hot sauce and forms the taste base for every meal. “Korean men say they can live without wife,” Jennifer told us, “but cannot live without kimchee.” The trick is to take a lettuce leaf and put a small amount of meat in the middle, add whatever condiments you want, roll it up and eat it in one gulp. “Use fingers,” the serving lady told us. “Hey Annie, it’s like P.F. Chang’s!” I yelled, thinking to be original.

“Everyone at our table has already said that Dad.” Jennifer hadn’t been able to anyone at the DMZ, but we decided to drive out there anyway. Four invasion tunnels were dug by the North Koreans in 1972, 1974, 1978 and the last, discovered as recently as 1998. The border is at the armistice village of Panmunjom, at the Imjingak Check Point. A Peace Bell was dedicated at the spot on Jan. 1, 2000. Unfortunately, the tunnel system was closed, probably because of the impossibly cold weather, so we walked up the hill to a view point overlooking the No Man’s Land that lies between the two countries. There we could view the Peace Bridge, made famous by the prisoner exchange that took place after the war. 12,773 captured prisoners of war shuffled across that bridge in 1953. The whole area is closely guarded by heavily armed troops. The terrain is different, but the feeling I got was exactly that of standing at Checkpoint Charlie and looking out over the Berlin Wall. The distance here is longer, with a desolate wasteland on both sides of the wide Han River, but the idea is identical. Standing here today, in –15° weather I tried to imagine the thoughts of our soldiers defending this desolate place—frozen, miserable, scared. I can still the news reports of a frozen river and troops fighting in inhuman conditions, of the great wave of Chinese soldiers who poured across the border when Allied troops had pushed into the far north. MacArthur met his own Waterloo after that invasion. And today the border remains the same Demilitarized Zone it was in 1953. 170,000 men fought to establish that zone, and 37,645 Allied soldiers died. Why? This is especially relevant today, when an article in the San Francisco Chronicle reports that 67 percent of Koreans today “hate” the U.S. From Panmunjom we drove a few miles along the DMZ to the Unification Observatory on Mt. Odu, undoubtedly because the brochure reads, “Not until you see the Unification Observatory located on Mt. Odu will you truly know the meaning of Korean Tourism.” The observatory is an impressive complex, built right on the fences of the DMZ, looking out across the Han River Valley to the hills of North Korea, just 3.2 kilometers away. It is a bleak, forbidding landscape. Across the way is a North Korean village, built in 1984 mostly made up of phony uninhabited buildings, constructed to give the impression of growing prosperity to the people of South Korea across the river. An additional thirty-nine phony villages were constructed in 1993. In true ’50s Cold War strategy, loudspeakers on both sides of the river hurl propaganda rhetoric and music toward the enemy shore. It is one of the

saddest sights and sounds I have yet experienced, a supreme portrait of the folly of mankind. In the Observatory is a museum dedicated totally to the products and living conditions of the North Koreans. Here are displayed food packaging that is half a century outdated, school conditions that may be even older, a quality of life that is without color, without joy. The whole museum is a giant propaganda display aimed not at the North Koreans, but to evoke sympathy from the South Koreans. In one area there is a “Wishing for Unification Room” where visitors can write out their dreams of a future united Korea. It seems to work. Jennifer continually spoke of the deep bond that exists between the two countries, a bond that totally prohibits either side from exchanging even so much as a letter or a grain of rice, a bond that forbids any visit. The young people are focused on the unification of the country, and they propose to do that by getting rid of the U.S. Strange how this tale has turned, because fifty years ago, South Koreans would be putting up a museum like this in Seoul for their own national production, if the U.S. had not intervened to protect them and keep them free. Today they have an adult literacy rate higher than the U.S. They are ranked 13th in gross national product in the world. They have cities that are alive and thriving. And, if we are to listen to Jennifer, the U.S. is the enemy. Here at Panmunjom there is not one mention that we could find of America’s part in preserving South Korea. I resolved to find out if there is any mention anywhere in the city, tabling the resolution until tomorrow’s tour when we have a little more energy. We weren’t yet finished today though. We stopped at the World Cup Soccer stadium, built for the World Championships in May-June, 2002. It holds 64,000 people and cost $121 million. It is one of nine such stadia built in Korea for that event, a colossal outlay of money that illustrates graphically how important the sport is to the nation. And finally we stopped at one of Korea’s famous markets, its biggest, the Dongdaemun Market. It is made up of twenty-nine separate malls, 30,000 specialty shops selling the wares of 50,000 manufacturers. In frigid cold we wandered into the first shop that sold hats and gloves and equipped ourselves at about $5 a head. They don’t bargain in Korea like they do in China and the market immediately lost its appeal to most of us. Besides, at temperatures below zero, any bargaining you do better be quick. These people have toaster seat cushions and hand and feet warmers to cope with the winter in an outdoor market. They were equipped and we were not. Looking for warmth, we wandered into one of the buildings, lured there by a clown who assured us that

“everything open.” Seven flights of escalators brought us to a small clothing manufacturer that couldn’t have attracted a customer in the Goodwill Outlet. That ended our shopping. We returned to the hotel, having decided to forgo a Korean dinner on the town in favor of our own meal at the New Manhattan. All of us are worn out, a combination of emotional exhaustion and travel fatigue. The kids are showing the strain of several midnight flights. Josh was exhibiting one of his more colorful moods, with good glares and a few wise retorts. He took a quick peek over at me smiling at him, and commanded “Don’t write it in your pad.” Kasey was in one of her “moods” where she is majestically dramatic and quite often loud. But give them a little food, a little sleep and they bounce back amazingly. Kasey in particular has been a wonder, absolutely staying up with us into the wee hours of the morning. On one of the flights I looked over and saw her reading contentedly at 1:00 A.M. All of the old folks had long expired. I went over and whispered to her, “I love you, sweetie.” “I love you too, Papa,” she answered with the sweetest smile. Then she added, “Duh!” We had a lovely dinner at the hotel, where they gave us a room of our own and a western menu that included hamburgers and cheese burgers. Donna ordered off the Korean menu, #41—Cheeseburger in Paradise.

JANUARY 7 SEOUL / HOME

Our flight to San Francisco leaves this afternoon at 4:30 so we actually have most of the day to see Seoul. Jennifer had adjusted our itinerary to include a bunch of tourist things that she and her company obviously think that Americans want to see, including a return to another of their markets. When we met yesterday, she had expressed surprise that we were not Chinese, because all of the groups from Ananda Travel that her company has handled were Chinese. I assured her that we were actually non-Asians, “tokens” for Vicki Lee and Ananda. It went over her head. In the short time we were with her yesterday, it was obvious that she had no concept of what we would be interested in. She had tried to talk us out of Panmunjom and the DMZ, and she was certain that we had only come to Korea to buy cheap knock-off “fashions.” Several times yesterday I had asked her if there was a craft market or something similar and I had met with a blank response, causing all of us to wonder if in fact Korea has any crafts of its own. I think Eric was the first to formulate the theory that Korea is completely devoid of a culture. For Jennifer, history seems to be two short sentences with absolutely no substance. This morning she opened with the myth of the founding of Korea. It seems that in the ancient times, the animals could talk. Bear and Tiger were lonesome and prayed to the creator to become human and have mates. They were told to go into a cave and live for 100 days, existing only on garlic and kimchee. Tiger tried but grew weary of the diet, but Bear persisted and lasted the entire 100 days. The creator turned Bear into a beautiful woman, and the Creator sent his son to earth to be her husband. Of their union was Korea founded.

What we have seen of Seoul thus far is an ugly 1960-era American city with upscale people dressed in full-on western fashions, rushing around with cell phones in their ears. Compare this with Yangshuo, or the ancient face of Xi’an, or the water market of Bangkok or the ruins of Ayutthaya. Seoul looks like the survivors of the Korean War took a blank slate and started over again. The height

of the culture is one of those Rolex watches Patrick bargained for in Bangkok. I was still intent on finding some mention of America in the Korean War. “Is there any sort of Korean War Memorial?” I asked Jennifer right off, before she could herd us off to another market. “Oh, there is a Korean War Museum. Did you want to see that?” Well, duh!!! She decided to take us there right away, putting off the other stops she had planned. It is one of the most moving places I have seen in the Far East, easily placed beside the bridge at Panmunjom and the Allied Cemetery at River Kwai. Seoul has a magnificent Korean War Memorial, a huge complex that houses the museum, a thorough collection of armament, and a Hall of Honor that lists the name of every Allied soldier who died in the war. “Let us pray for the cherished memories of the souls of all the defenders of the Republic of Korea.” The names are etched in a black wall that reminds one of the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington D.C. There are 37,645 Allied names on that wall, of which 33,642 are Americans. They came from the UK (1,086), Turkey (724), Canada, Australia, , Thailand, Columbia, Greece, Netherlands, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Belgium, New Zealand, South Africa, Norway. Even tiny Luxembourg had two names on that wall. 170,555 men fought in the war, to achieve an armistice that achieved the magnificent goal of “status quo ante bellum.” Why? “Freedom is not free,” is one answer, proclaimed from a banner hanging from the museum. “Only strong national security can guarantee peace,” read another. A third banner was more blatantly political: “Sea of Japan? No, it’s the East Sea!”

Outside of the museum is a fine collection of the engines of war from the ’50s, including several stages of tanks, planes, even a Russian sub. We didn’t have time to enter the museum itself, a thing we would surely have done yesterday if we only knew it was here. But all of us agreed that Seoul did indeed honor those who died in Korea’s defense, and they have done so in a mighty way. Just across from the complex is the American army base, where some 36,000 soldiers are housed, the subject of considerable dissatisfaction among the Korean youth. All of us questioned the reasons they are still here. Our next stop, this one actually scheduled, was the Kan Ok Folk Village. It was closed! Once again, Jennifer was not informed that it is actually closed on Tuesdays. It is an outdoor museum of traditional Korean houses and farm buildings, quite attractive, and undoubtedly interesting to tour. It relieved our fears that there was in fact no history in Seoul. Here, albeit a tiny enclave, was a trace of the past. We were able to view the village over the palisade, and get a fair idea of the architecture and style of the Joseon period. Kan Ok is the name of this type of dwelling from the 14th century. Jennifer decided that the important thing on that hill was not really the village, but rather a time capsule that was installed in 1992 to mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of Seoul. So she marched us up that frigid hill and through a modern tunnel to view the capsule, which bore the quotations of the mayors of Seoul’s Sister Cities around the world, including that of Frank Jordan, then mayor of San Francisco. We shivered back to the bus. At Deoksugung Palace we finally discovered Korean culture. This is one of five royal palaces in the city, and it had the good quality today of being open, since the main palaces that Jennifer had planned on were all closed on Tuesdays. Deoksugung Palace was the villa of King Seonjong’s brother Prince Wolsan (1454-1488). The original was burned by the Japanese in 1592 and since rebuilt. It reminds you of a tiny Forbidden City with buildings and gates spread in all directions. Jennifer pointed out a series of curious sculptures called haetae, which were the house guardians, mythical creatures that combined features of lion, tiger, dragon and fish. Outside the palace is a statue of General Li, with his “turtle ship” an ancient ironclad that defeated the Japanese invaders. General Li would be a better palace guardian than these haetae, which Jennifer reported, seldom worked. The palace museum gave us our first good look at the Josean Kingdom that ruled

Korea from 1392 to 1910, when the Japanese invaded and occupied the land until their defeat in 1945. Here was Eric’s Korean culture, at least a tiny segment of it. The material culture of the royal palace is well displayed, with a fine discussion of everyday life, including foods, weapons, clothing, art work and palace protocol. I particularly liked a series of “notice boards” that onished visitors: “Regardless of your position, don’t enter into the room without having a permission.” And another: “Don’t leave your office unless on official business.” A third simply states: “Keeping your position,” which could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

The museum shop was the highlight of the stay in Seoul. “It might be the only quality shopping we get,” observed Nancy, and she promptly led us in emptying our wallets of Korean wot. Eric liked a very distinctive mask, and decided to buy it. Jim and Donna thought that a second mask might be a good gift for Matthew. “If we get Matthew one, we have to buy Eric’s too,” Jim commented. “No you don’t,” I argued. “They’re different guys. You don’t have to treat them the same.” “We do,” Jim observed a bit sadly, “It’s kind of a caveat.” Now there is a wonderful word to use on vacation. Sometimes Jim amazes me with his life rules. The Japanese occupation through the first half of the 20th century, known as “Japanese Colonial Rule,” is a major trauma for the Korean people. There has never been much love lost between the two peoples. However Jennifer noted that the younger generation was not alive at the end of the war and has no personal anger against Japan, and recently there has been a movement to forgive and forget. But recently there were reports about the Japanese school books that gave no mention of the Korean occupation. So now they are angry again, and “Korea has no good feelings toward the Japanese. But we do make a lot of money from

Japanese, because the young ones come only to shop.” Somehow, I think that same argument might be used toward the United States, who spends around $15 billion a year in the country. Jennifer actually finished her tour with an ethnic joke that involved a Korean, a Japanese and an American who were caught by cannibals. At least we came in second place.

Our final lunch ended our Korean adventure the way we began it, with bibimbap at the “Korean Style” Keo Ku Jang Restaurant. It was our second very fine meal in Seoul, with rice being served in ceramic bowls that were extremely hot. Into the rice we added kimchee, bean sprouts, and a variety of other items. I dumped my whole bowl of seafood soup in to cool it down a bit. It was delicious, applauded by all. Between the bibimbap and the Korean BBQ, we have eaten very well in Korea.

And so we headed home, again totally confused by the schedule we were about to experience. We left Seoul at 4:30 P.M., seventeen hours of time zones ahead of San Francisco. We flew back into the morning, all day in daylight, arriving in California at 9:00 A.M., backward peddling from dinner to lunch and arriving at breakfast. I am certain that there is going to be a major problem with jet lag for the next week or so. We have had two night flights on this trip, going to Seoul the first day and overnight back from Bangkok. We arrived in Hong Kong near midnight, in Guilin after midnight and in Bangkok at 1:00 A.M. Through it all everyone has maintained an unbelievable happy disposition. The kids have been incredible, keeping up with everyone, and in many cases, outlasting us. We have become a smooth-operating travel team that seems able to overcome just about anything with good grace and smiles. Even in the face of Mom’s death, everyone has dealt with it wonderfully. We have had so much to smile about. Now we have reality to face.

ANCIENT CHINESE CITIES & HAINAN 2004-2005

DECEMBER 27, 2004 TO BEIJING

We are off to China again, the third New Year’s visit for our extended family, and it has become old hat. “Are you going somewhere this year?” friends and family have asked. “Oh yeah. (Yawn!) We’re going to China again.” It has to kill the non-travelers to hear such a blasé answer, but the simple fact is, China has become our second home over the past few years. We have celebrated New Year at the National Theater in Beijing in 2000, and again in Yangshuo on the Li River in 2002. This year we will be in Xinglong on the Island of Hainan in the South China Sea, the southernmost province in China. We are getting more sophisticated in our China explorations, finding more esoteric spots than the usual tourist cities of Xian, Shanghai, Beijing and Guilin. All of this is because of Aunt Vicki and Uncle Walter, who through Ananda Travel have continuously made us welcome in their home country. What family is more blessed with such incredible international friends? This year, even though we are returning for the third time, almost everything is new. Oh sure, we begin with a day in Beijing and end with one in Shanghai, but in between we have six nights in the “Chinese Hawaii” of Hainan, and four nights in the ancient cities of Hangzhou, Suzhou and Wuxi. This is a huge country and we have still only scratched its surface. I think I have been in nine provinces, four autonomous cities, three SEZs and Taiwan. I still can’t say I have seen China.

DECEMBER 28 ARRIVAL IN CHINA

It is so easy to get into China! There was a fairly long line at the port check, but it went fast, except for Jim, who apparently no longer looks like his port picture. They were willing to it the guy in the picture, but weren’t at all sure about the dude carrying the port. I could imagine that Chinese officer being confused because all of us Caucasians look alike, and here were two who didn’t. Jim tried to assure him that he was in fact the guy he didn’t look like, but his Chinese skills are not that great and it took a while to negotiate a deal. By the time he was released, Walter had already collected all of our bags and was leading us out to our bus, where Mr. Sun Yi was waiting, the very same driver we had on our first foray to China four year ago. In the coach Walter had already stashed his welcome gifts: lovely scarves for all the girls, jade “worry-stones for Jim and me. Josh and Kasey’s gifts are coming later and I shudder to think what Walter might have conjured up. A short drive brought us into the city where we stopped for what Walter called “a light dinner” at the Dong Hai Pearl Seafood Restaurant. Here is “light,” Walter’s version: chicken pate sweet & sour pork rice bock choy wire vegetable with pork chicken and string beans tofu

whole fish curry beef dumplings And of course, pijou and gambei!

Welcome back to China!

Finally we reached the News Plaza Hotel, a brand-new 5-star hotel not too far from the Forbidden City. It is after 10:00 and none of us wasted much time on polite conversation.

DECEMBER 29 BEIJING / HAINAN ISLAND

It has been four years since we were here in Beijing and the kids don’t much if anything of it. Josh was four then, and Kasey six, so they are likely to more this time. Everything is new for Sully, Eric’s new wife, so Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City are the best use of our time. We thought we could also squeeze in the Summer Palace, but one look at the realities of Beijing traffic made us quickly scrap that idea. We may all be frozen by noon anyway, because Beijing is every bit as cold as it was the last time. So all fleeced up and eager, we launched our vacation in China. Traffic has increased immensely since 2000, probably doubled in of car population and the city has grown by about 5 million people. Good economic conditions have allowed millions more to purchase cars. Another five years and China will completely gridlock, sending everyone back to bikes. We left the News Plaza Hotel at 9:00 without Walter, who is going to meet us somewhere along the way. There he is, standing on the side of a busy road, with his suitcase and two huge boxes. “Oh, no!!!” It was Nancy, who has seen Walter kid-gifts before. He never worries about the care, maintenance or transportation of his presents, only the bestowal. He has come up with some doozies in the past—life-sized dolls, scooters, remotecontrolled cars, 20-pound rocks. This morning he is in perfect form as he bestows a 4-foot porcelain doll on Kasey and a mega-Hummer on Josh, as big as a truck—a remote-control, 4-wheel drive monster of a toy. On the rest of us he flashed that wonderful, boyish grin, because he knows very well the effect of his gifts. “How am I going to get that home, Walter?” It’s not his problem, Nancy.

It took us 45 minutes to go a mile to People’s Square, but we made it, promptly whipping out our cameras to photograph that famous wall with Chairman Mao’s picture on it, the entrance to the emperor’s palace city. Outside the Hall of Central Harmony is a good inscription: “The Way of Heaven is profound and mysterious and the Way of Mankind is difficult. Only if we make a precise and uniform plan and follow the doctrine of the mean, can we rule the country well.” Although most of the things we will see in China now will be different from four years ago, the Forbidden City is not one of them. It still anchors the city and is still just as imposing as you enter with the huge crowds, even in winter. The description from our first visit is still valid. It again took us the morning to see the Forbidden City, and we have been long enough without shopping! Historical sightseeing fulfilled, Walter directed us to a modern market complex, filled with good quality clothing and crafts. It didn’t take long for the grandparents to spring into action. Jim focused on little Amy, his new granddaughter, dressing her from head to toe, and Kasey was immediately outfitted by Papa in a blue Chinese gown that goes beautifully with her blond hair and blue eyes. Inside half an hour we were fully into the spirit of China travel, the essence of which is shopping. China has superb crafts at amazing prices—jade, cloisonné, sandalwood, silk, paintings, embroidery, stone carvings, calligraphy, pearls. A woman was working on an embroidery painting that will take a month to finish. It will sell perhaps for RMB (or yuan) 300, about $35. In China you aren’t allowed to accept the first price you hear; it would be a crime to do that. You have to bargain, cutting the asking price by 50 - 90 percent. You then work your way up until you hear, “I give you my final price.” Then you drop down a couple more times and walk away, only far enough so you can respond to the resigned, “Okay, okay! I make no money on that.” You forget that this piece of jade, which you would gladly snatch up for $80 in the U.S., is only 200 yuan, a measly $24. You even find yourself bargaining for a hand-knitted ornament with an asking price of 5 yuan, 60¢! You feel compelled to bargain the price down to 47¢, if you don’t get embarrassed by your misplaced values.

“Papa, you should look at these!” Kasey was almost breathless as she dragged me over to a booth in the market. She pointed to a pair of pink feather earrings, about 3” long. “Kasey, you like those?” I asked amazed. “That is all the rage with teenagers,” advised an eavesdropping mother, one of the few Americans we would see in China. “Those are really cool, Papa. Mom would kill me though.” “Done, sweetheart!” And thus, for 20 yuan, Kasey began her collection of dangling earrings, walking up to an amazed Nancy with most of her face hidden in feather. “Okay,” Nancy said in a resigned tone and a glare at me, “but those are not wearto-school earrings, Kasey.” And thus also, my lovely little doll developed her earring smile, a light that envelopes her face from ear to ear, filling the room with its glow. Uncle Jim, new grandfather of a little girl, was taking close note of all of this, which would add immeasurably to the joy of our trip before he was finished. Our first China lunch was at the Capital Garden Hotel Restaurant, a typically huge place that can easily feed 500 people. This one has a beautiful aquariumbar that is filled with exotic, non-consumable fish. Most of the upscale restaurants have fish tanks of varying sophistication, along with displays of ducks, beef and pork parts, various unidentifiable vegetables and fruits. It is like going to the market except that the kitchen is considerably closer. There is no discernable limit to the variety of Chinese dishes. They have hundreds of ways to prepare a dish, chicken for instance. They boil it, bake it, fry it, barbeque it; mix it with nuts, eggplant, beans, bean curd, tofu; spice it, curry it. They probably eat it like sushi. Lunch concluded, we headed for the airport, no easy task given the state of Beijing traffic. It is a four-hour flight to the island of Hainan Island, and we are in for a very long day. We should get there around 7:00 tonight.

Actually, we arrived at Mailan Airport at 8:00, entering a much warmer climate from the single digit Beijing temperatures. Hainan is the southernmost of China’s provinces, having been carved out of the rambunctious Guangdong Province in 1988, and made into one of China’s five Special Economic Zones (SEZ) to provide the tax incentives for promoting tourism. It is being boosted as “the Hawaii of the Orient,” and is fairly flooded with frozen Manchurians from December to April. There are dressing rooms near the baggage carousels where thawing arrivees can switch from fur to linen. Harry, from Hainan International Travel Agency, is our guide for the next week, an affable enough young man, with a very questionable grasp of English in either direction. Mr. Qia (Chew) is our driver. Harry gathered us up and took us immediately to the Aiwan Ting Restaurant, a place I visited last month when I was setting up some golf trips in China. Their menu is displayed as full dishes on an expansive table in the center of the restaurant. Around a large courtyard are two stories of private dining rooms, capable of handling just about any size group. We were escorted upstairs while Harry and Walter ordered up the menu. Following this moderate repast, we settled into the minibus for our drive to the hotel. Everyone was pretty much exhausted. “We have to drive to another city? How far?” Nancy asked. “About an hour,” I guessed. I was here last month but we didn’t drive straight down to Xinglong where the Kangle Gardens Resort is. “We have about 2 ½-hour drive,” Harry said casually, as we departed the restaurant at 10:08. “What!!!!” came the unified response from the rear. “Yes, two and half. 200 kilometers.” “Do you mean two half-hours?” was a plaintive prayer. “Yes, two half hour.” “Two hours and a half?” “Yes, two half hour.”

“Dad!!!!” That was not plaintive. It carried a threat, which caused me to be strangely silent, at least for a couple of hours. We left Haikou (“The Mouth of the Sea”), driving south on the East Expressway for the town of Xinglong and the Kangle Garden Resort. The island has only recently been “discovered” by tourists seeking a warm place in a generally winter-frozen land. Hainan was a prison island for over a millennium, where political castoffs were sentenced to tropical isolation from the imperial court. According to my Lonely Planet guidebook, only eighteen persons visited Hainan on purpose during the entire Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, over 1000 years. On the other hand, minority refugees from Cambodia, Viet Nam, Burma and Laos migrated in fairly large numbers over those centuries, more than twenty of China’s recognized minorities finding a home on the mountainous island, primarily the Li (700,000) and the Miao (60,000). Today’s total population is about 8 million. We actually reached the Kangle Gardens Resort around midnight, after only two hours of driving time. It is a pretty sensational place, a large hot spring spa with a monumental entrance. The hotel is spread around thirty-nine buildings, very expansive, with a mini-golf course, several pools, tennis courts, bowling alley, massage center, hot tub area and three major restaurants. The gardens are wonderful—hedges trimmed, bougainvillea bushes everywhere, round and in full bloom. Norfolk Island pines, coconut palms and massive fan palms fill your sight as you walk the grounds. The hotel is spread across eighty-three acres of planned gardens, with full streets of porticoed buildings, balconied with distinctive balustered porches. Fatigue and paternal disfavor evaporated as the excitement of arrival dispelled negative feelings. We were whisked away in a tram to Building 29, where we discovered fine, spacious rooms, our home for four nights.

DECEMBER 30 KANGLE GARDENS

“Oh my God, he’s not going to drive inside?” Walter sent the tram to pick us up for breakfast and the driver appeared to be driving right into the dining room. After that late arrival last night, most of us slept in, having agreed to meet at our room at 9:00. The hotel has a Western dining room and a Chinese restaurant. They were waiting for us at the former, we being the only Caucasians in the whole resort, which is filled for the New Year holiday. They even assigned Markus, a pleasant young German waiter with great English, to look after us. Of course with Walter around, we don’t need a whole lot of looking after. I have to figure out how we are spending our time here at Kangle Garden. We have three full days and the itinerary Vicki gave us is certainly not the one we will follow. They have some things arranged that won’t satisfy our group and some omitted we will want to do. Walter and I sorted it out at breakfast, because I fear that our guide Harry hasn’t a clue as to what might interest an American tourist. For one thing, he has probably never had an American tour before, and even if he did, most Chinese don’t quite understand how we travel, what we like to see and do, or how we like to fill our day. They assume we love tourist traps like Disney, Wild Animal Farm, Sea World, wax museums and strip shows, probably because we Yanks are the ones who introduced such banalities to their world. They don’t seem to believe that we would like to meet the common people, learn a little about their history and culture, maybe even learn a bit of their language. We started with a tour of the grounds that cover 86 acres, not including the world class golf courses nearby. “You mean we’re not going to drive?” Kasey moaned, having quickly come to love the stretched golf cart that moves guests around the grounds. It is plain to see that she is well cut out for the elegant life. Josh on the other hand is built for action, and while he likes a good ride, he much prefers running and climbing to slow moving. There is not a rock in creation that Josh can’t climb, jump over or jump on. We opted for Josh’s style, wandering around the complex with happy

banter, yesterday’s ordeal long forgotten. We ended up in the lobby, where the girls quickly discovered a high fashioned knock-off sale going on upstairs, which precipitated a short burst of power shopping by the ladies while we guys found the bar off the lobby for some Tiger beer. Fortunately, most of the haute couture fashions are designed for puny Italian guys and skinny Russian models, so the girls soon ed us for the first of many happy family discussion fests, at which we Dold-Schafer-Plasketts are very good. Everyone takes part, with the focus moving around from person to person depending on who performed the last faux pas or uttered the most recent questionable opinion. I love this aspect of our family, and we really are one big family in the best sense of that word. Sitting around that lobby of the Kangle Gardens was wonderful. Seeing Mary and Kasey, side by side in big zebra chairs, chatting away happily is moving. Watching Nancy try to sip away madly at an overflowing beer and get nailed for a “party foul”—priceless. A walking tour, a bit of shopping, a couple of beers, a dip in the enormous pool, and the morning was gone. It was noon before we knew it and time for lunch, this time in the Chinese dining room: Calamari, squash, chicken with tomatoes and celery, dandelion greens with eggs, shrimp with rice (just like Mary used to make), curried shrimp and fried pineapple. Our revised schedule calls for a boat ride on the Sun River, Tai Yang He that borders the resort. Connie Wang, the Sales Manager for the hotel, set it up for us, and with three men from the staff, ed us on the river. It is a very nice, warm day, perfect for such an outing. “Would you like to visit a village?” she asked us, and we enthusiastically agreed. The boat pulled up to the bank before an amazingly rickety old wooden plank bridge that spans the river. In a shack on the bank sat an old man with a spectacular mouthful of gold teeth and a smile to show them off. He probably owns the bridge and charges a toll for all who cross, about 5¢ by Walter’s estimation. A steady stream of foot traffic, bikes and an occasional motorcycle made its tentative way across the span, probably ing for the strange fortune in the gatekeeper’s mouth. The village is called Shan Feng, “Pioneer.” We walked down a muddy, litter-

strewn path to the village, home to of the Li Minority tribe. At the edge of the village we found an elementary school, in session. The principal, guarding outside, welcomed us to visit. The rooms, each with an open doorway, were filled with children sitting in worn, sometimes shabby desks. When we looked through the doorways we were greeted with a chorus of giggles and the hugest smiles. It was difficult to say who entertained the other the most. You can’t help but be captivated by these lovely children and we were certainly an unexpected apparition for them, as we snapped picture after picture of beaming happy faces. Walter introduced me to the principal. He has 100 students under his care, coming in from small Li villages throughout the region. These kids don’t have much at all, but they were very attentive and well-behaved, even in the face of our barbarian invasion. From the school, we continued into the village, ing the center, where a crowd, mostly men, lounged around a store of sorts, talking and playing cards. An itinerant butcher weighed chicken parts on a hand balance scale, cleaving legs and wings on a plywood platform on the rear of his motorcycle. The hotel men spied the village well and went over to investigate. It was shallow, with a couple of ropes and buckets for bringing up water. While the water was pretty clear, I would not like to risk my body sampling it, since it is surrounded by houses with no visible sewage system. Further up the lane a man invited us to his home, which by village standards was one of the nicer ones. Chickens roamed the yard, great subjects for Eric’s inquisitive camera. “I got a picture of a chicken, Jack.” “Good, I’ll add a domestic fowl to my bird list.” “Eric is always adding domestic fouls to his list,” quipped Sully, who is rapidly getting acclimated to the style of our family touring. There was a star-fruit tree outside the man’s house and it attracted much interest from our group, and also inspired a couple of men to start picking them for our afternoon snack. Two very young puppies lounged nearby, invoking motherly emotions from the kids and Donna, while Marty warned Josh about the puppies’ mother lurking nearby. Eric discovered a crude bong, a water pipe, near the door, which one of the men demonstrated, though even Eric declined to him in a puff. We were invited into the house to look around. Out back is the cooking

area, with a large wok and open hearth. I noticed at least ten tooth brushes jammed into wall cracks and roof beams, so this is where the family spends its time. It was getting late and we had to head back to the hotel so we thanked the hospitable man and returned through the village. We were met by a tidal wave of laughing, jabbering kids, released from school temporarily to take a better look at these strange creatures who had entered their village. We may well have given a name to their year in Shan Feng—the “Year of the White Visitors.” Visitors who carry cameras, that have screens to show you what it sees. The joyous children couldn’t resist posing, gathering in giggles wherever a camera pointed. They escorted us back through their village, finally veering off when we reached their school, where they collected on the hill for one last smile and wave, one last picture. “They seem pretty happy,” Jim observed in radical understatement. “And I didn’t see a single 4-wheel drive, remote controlled Hummer,” I mused back. Connie and Walter had yet another surprise for us back at the hotel, cooking lessons from the chef. Mary, Kasey, Donna, Sully, Anne and Eric all met the chef at 5:30 in the Chinese kitchen, where they were outfitted professionally, even with high hats, to work up our dinner for tonight. I went to photograph the event and found them squeezing dough into pot stickers. Each of them worked up a dish, either singly or as a team, including Mary, who rolled out pie dough for a sort of pineapple turnover. It was devised by Walter, who turns out to be quite a masterful chef himself, particularly adept at wielding chopsticks as a cooking tool. The dinner was most impressive: Sweet & sour pork (ketchup is the main sauce ingredient), black pepper beef, spicy chicken, dumplings (“They have our family design,” Kasey informed us. Pineapple turnover,

Walter’s Denver omelet.

How about a hot tub and massage? “Great,” said Jim. “The trouble is, by the time I get back to the room I’ll be perky.” We all laughed at that mental picture, all that is, except Josh. “Mom, was that funny?” The Kangle Garden is built on a thermal spring, which is channeled into a circle of hot tubs in the center of the grounds. They are very hot, almost too hot for Eric, Sully and Anne. But they so warm you up for the massages! “You will get a full-body, traditional Chinese massage,” boasted Walter, and we were led to the massage hall that Connie had reserved for our use tonight. In pairs we were directed to small rooms, and placed face down on tables. Then we were assaulted! Little tiny girls (Jim drew a little, tiny guy) began pummeling and spearing our flesh with thumbs of steel, hacking into our muscles until there was nothing left but a viscous rubble of tattered flesh. My girl attacked my spine and back, stabbing without the least sign of remorse, an epidural assassin whose picture should be on a post office wall, like we saw in the Li village this afternoon. On the table next to me, Mary was silently suffering, telling us later that she never thought the pain would end. Yet I never heard a single moan from any of the group as the assault team finished our backs off by flagellating the shattered muscles with some sort of soft club. Then they turned us over! Chest, legs, neck, feet and face came under the same digital scrutiny. The best part of the whole thing was the finger treatment. So strong are these girls that they are able to pull your fingers out until they have separated all the ts and realigned them. Basically that is what they did to our whole body, pulled and poked it until it was realigned. We stumbled back to our rooms bruised and battered, but since the “traditional Chinese massage” is supposed to be very good for you, we sucked it all up, and felt good. Anne did have a few bruises, and we were all sore the next morning, but what an experience! “Were they rough?” Nancy, who had stayed with the kids, wanted to know the

next morning. “You would have cried, Nancy,” Anne told her seriously.

DECEMBER 31 HAINAN ISLAND

The last day of the year, and perhaps fittingly we are going to Monkey Island, which Harry says is a half-hour drive. The minute I heard him a memory flashed in my mind of my trip last month where every drive was announced as “a half hour” and sometimes stretched as far as two half hours. I suddenly realized that I had fallen into this Chinese estimate of travel time for our ride down from Haikou two nights ago. It must be in the air in these parts. It took us an hour and twenty minutes to reach Monkey Island in Lingshui Village, almost all the way to Sanya, but it was an interesting ride through the varied farmland that is so common in China, mixed farming of vegetables, fruit and grazing lands. Here there are no modern tractors, just hand labor and water buffalo-pulled plows. Farms are small and the crops, such as melons, can be harvested as much as four times a year. Jim leads the onboard banter, usually reacting to something Donna has said: “You’re not royal” he announced at one point. “I’m wearing purple. I’m royal. I’m a royal flush.” Needless to say that remark dragged Anne and Eric immediately into the fray, fully agreeing that indeed Jim really is a flush of some sort. Fortunately we reached Lingshui before things got out of hand. This is the airport where that infamous American spy-plane was forced to make an emergency landing back in 2000, creating an international incident when the Chinese refused to release the plane and crew. Walter told us that the Chinese government sent 5,000 scientists to Hainan to dismantle the plane completely, analyze it and reconstruct it before they returned it to the US.

The “village” has about 500,000 residents—farmers, fishermen and those

working in tourism, which of course, means Monkey Island. The island is home to about 2,000 of the little red-faced, red-butted creatures, Guangxi monkeys, who are sadly all working for the tourists, performing in shows or begging. There are several families, each led by a dominant male, or “king.” There is little doubt in any area which is the king, because he is larger, more aggressive and more well-endowed, the genital area being a bright red in color. You reach Monkey Island in four-enger tram cars that cross a bridge and rise about halfway up a central peak. Kasey was delighted when Harry told her she was too tall for a child ticket, growing another inch or two out of pure pride. There was a considerable queue waiting for the tram, but the time ed quickly because we were the center of attention for everyone in line. Generally on Hainan we have been the only Caucasians around; certainly the only Americans. The Chinese actually like us! And they are captivated by Kasey and Josh. On our first trip it was Kasey, pure blond and six years old, who was the center of attention, attracting old folks as well as young. This time it is Josh, with his freckles and blue eyes who receives all of the iring smiles and looks especially from the women. Josh is our “little emperor.” Probably because of the kids in our group we are all warmly welcomed. Children are the universal treasures. I am reminded of the journal remarks of Lewis and Clark, who stated that their Corps of Discovery was always well received by the Indians because of the presence of Sacagawea and her son, Jean Baptiste. War parties don’t contain women and children. Annie’s eyes also drew a great many nods and comments of appreciation, and when she shyly revved up her power flutter, the whole line applauded in iration. Thank God she didn’t break out her supermega-flutter or we would still be on the island with people demanding to see it one more time.

Just before we boarded the tram, a group broke out in a lively song, led by a very shrill-voiced woman. Everyone in the crowd seemed to enjoy it, so we all clapped when they had finished. “What was she singing?” I asked Walter. “It was a Mao work song,” he told me, thoroughly disapproving. “The workers always used to sing them. The young people don’t even know what they’re

singing.” It is obvious that Walter wanted no part of it. I recall now the stories about the workers’ and children’s songs during the Cultural Revolution. Hitler used similar strategies to build . Music can be a powerful weapon. The tram ride gave us a wonderful view of the Lingshui harbor. It contains a large floating city and oyster farms stretching as far as we could see. Months ago Nancy, who is a world-class world shopper, reminded me that Hainan is famous for pearls. I don’t know how she finds out about this stuff. She knew that there were Cladagh rings in Ireland and cameos in Capri, that there is amber in Russia, and pearls in Hainan. There they are! We landed on the island and were led by Harry into a mosh pit of Chinese tourists, each group led by a shrill guide wielding a bull horn that was as necessary as an amplifier on a bagpipe. It seems to me that all male guides in China are nearly mute, while their female counterparts could converse with each other across the Grand Canyon. There is probably an editorial somewhere on the subject. Harry, completely out of his league in vocal mass, quickly led us up the hill to an enclosed amphitheater, where a straw-hatted man in a red outfit was leading four monkeys through an intricate ballet of tricks, from rolling over and lying down to stealing and retrieving his hat. Josh, ever timid, forced his lithe body between chattering Chinese ladies and stretched himself out on the first row bench, oblivious to the iring glances being tossed his way from every angle. It makes me proud to see him and Kasey so at ease anywhere we take them. Josh especially seems more adventurous every hour. It was a fun, humorous show, the trainees being remarkable both in action as well as expression. We humans are really a lot like them. We wandered through the park watching whole families of monkeys cavort through the trees, oblivious most of the time to the throngs of two-legged observers. Generally the king is in a prominent position, either as a warning or an ment that he is the boss. Monkey infants cling to their mothers, being groomed or suckled. Teenagers romp through the trees, performing impossible aeronautical feats to everyone’s delight. Wannabe kings test their metal with tentative forays into forbidden land, always quickly challenged and rudely expelled. The king, whom we named Tu Hung Lo, may have twenty

females at his disposal, but he has to work for the honor continuously. “Weary is the head that wears the crown’” We climbed into a park bus for a quick ride to the waterfront, walked past blankets of drying seaweed and kelp to board a water taxi back to the mainland. It cruised us past the floating city, around large fishing boats, even a classic old junk. The short ride finished, we wandered through the inevitable market area back to Mr. Qiu and our bus. “Where’s Jim?” Annie’s plaintive cry startled everyone. To be sure we were one person short, and amazed that not only were we about to leave him behind, but also that he was the most reluctant of our crew to be late in a shopping market. Eventually he arrived, worn out from wearing down an old man who was just trying to make a living. He bestowed 5 yuan bracelets on all of the gals, all the while completely satisfied with himself and his remarkable sensitivity. Forty-five minutes later we were back at the Kangle Gardens, greeted there by a beaming Vicki, Aunt Vicki to Kasey and Josh. She had business in Hong Kong and was unable to be in Beijing. It is wonderful to see her because she is really the one who has made China so attractive and hospitable for us. We took one of the hotel trams over to their Korean restaurant to enjoy a traditional Korean BBQ. It may have been traditional but I doubt it was typical, because ours was a Walter-led BBQ, where plates of beef, lamb, tongue and veggies are cooked at each table by a lovely server. So far so good! But the whole huge meal was topped off by an equally traditional bipimbop, a large bowl of rice and noodles that should be a whole meal in itself. We exited that lunch as wide as a Korean wrestler and as full as one of Walter’s gambei glasses. There was a real need to walk and the Xinglong Botanical Gardens are just the thing. What a garden it is, an organized rain forest where all of the trees are labeled and easy to observe. Last June we were in the mountains of Hunan and our guide book said there were over 500 species of trees in Jiangjiajie National Park. I doubt we were able to put a name to ten of them. Here in Xinglong, not only are there name tags, but we also have a guide, and he speaks good English! I asked his name. “My name is Gun Bing Yung. My western name is Gun.”

Gun is a delightful young man, very pleasant, with a soft voice and a twinkling sense of humor. He seems to know every tree in the garden personally. “That is a betel nut tree. We call it the “sister tree.” Coconuts are the “brother trees.” Gun pointed out a philodendron tree, observing that the leaves get larger as they are higher in the tree. “Papa, write that down,” Kasey ordered. I decided I may as well write down everything that Gun pointed out. Next came a “Traveler’s tree,” which we call a fan palm. It contains drinking water in the branches for the stranded traveler and is the national tree of Madagascar. Josh said it was his favorite plant in the garden. The “double dealer” tree has unique leaves, green on one side, yellow on the other. We saw egg fruit trees, and bread fruit trees, jackfruit trees and mangos in bloom. Naturally I am drawn to the huge jackfruit, the “Queen of fruits,” served traditionally to your wife or concubine. The Chinese are far more imaginative than we in naming their plants. There is the “Old Romantic Man,” that gets redder as it gets older; the “Red bean tree” that produces fruit in the shape of a heart; the “bomb fruit,” filled with basketball-size spheres that are poisonous. They are good for making cups though. Eric pointed out the “Torture tree,” a young ceiba tree, smooth above with vicious knife-like growths on its lower trunk. Prisoners were tied to the smooth upper trunk, holding on for dear life until they tired. Slowly they slid to their painful death. My favorite is the “Single man tree,” which produces no leaves, no flowers, no fruit. Just branches, and they are poisonous. Gun showed us the gagnep tree, a native of Hainan. “Kasey, do you want me to write that down?” Expressive eye roll!

“How about the acacia confusa?” We ed through plantations of coffee, cocoa (red and green varieties), pepper (black and white are the same, but the skin is removed on the white); and a most interesting vanilla vineyard. We also saw some rubber trees that grow well in Hainan. Gun explained the tapping process, knocking the cup from the tree as he was talking. “Aren’t you going to put it back on?” Josh worried. “It’ll all pour onto the ground.” “It turns into tires that way, Josh,” I explained, but he was having none of that. We learned a lot of great trivia: Antiaria toxicaria is used to tip poisonous arrows. A coconut is a seed, and we saw all sorts of them sprouting, stacked up against the trees. The ginger flower is called the “Chinese rose.” Teak is the national tree of Burma. “Hold Me Not” tubers are good for tumors, while “Single leaf tea” helps for memory and weight loss. The Phoenix tree has flowers that are fire-red. Gun pointed to a peculiar palm tree, explaining that it produces a very sweet sugar water “that is suitable for fat people.” With that he ended his botanical lesson, leading us into the tea room where we sampled a variety of generally distasteful teas: vanilla tea, rice tea (neither rice nor tea), magnolia tea, and a very bitter one-leaf tea. But then he got to the coffee and cocoa, both of which are very delicious. We all bought cans of each of them, especially when Gun served them to us mixed for a most unusual and happy taste This is a great stop, a fabulous garden, made both entertaining and educational

by a well-versed and congenial guide. This is easily a half-day venue, especially when combined with the coffee plantation next door. We didn’t have time for coffee. It is New Year’s Eve and we have to get ready for our year-end celebration. We have a couple of hours to relax before reconvening for an outdoor barbecue and fireworks. The weather is certainly not cooperating, with temperatures dropping into the low 40s and maybe even lower. The girls are not happy, unable to “dress” for dinner tonight. We would find out later that today was the coldest day on record. Bravely everyone wandered down to the restaurant around 7:30, just as the Minority dancers were finishing their show. Mary and Donna were lured out to dance with them, performing to the music that was pure Donna Summer disco, Miao style. That left Jim and Vicki sitting at the table and I ed them. Unfortunately all three of us were on the same side of the table, and when I sat down, the whole thing tipped, falling on top of us, as drinks, food and dishes cascaded down. Even the two umbrellas followed. The three of us were flat on our backs. The whole place silenced in shock. Waiters scurried around, righting the table, removing umbrellas, picking up debris, brushing us off. Thank God that the kids weren’t around yet, or the kidding would have been unbearable. (Pun intended). We had a good laugh though about the Chinese concept of cocktail making, having made several attempts at enticing some sort of recognizable drink out of the bartenders at the Kangle and later in Sanya. I finally gave up and reverted to straight scotch. Once Sully asked for a “Hi C.” It drew a complete blank, and she ended up amending it to “vodka and any sort of fruit juice you have,” a dangerous thing in the land of mangosteen and durian. I don’t think we ever really got into the New Year thing, after a long, tiring day, and with bitter cold weather. The crowd departed before 9:00, leaving us almost alone in the restaurant. We ed a few folks around a blazing bonfire, and waved sparklers, but the pizzazz just wasn’t there this year. We finally adjourned to the lobby bar for a celebration drink, but Jim lolled off almost immediately. Finally we declared for a Bombay New Year and headed for bed. I managed to stay awake long enough to reflect that 2004 really was a very good year, for our great expanded family and all of our business concerns. I must it it didn’t start out very well last January when a ship charter bankrupted,

but the rest of the year easily made up for it. Happy New Year! 2005!!

JANUARY 1, 2005 XINGLONG

They said it was the coldest day on record in Hainan, that last day of 2004. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Nancy wanted to know. My scale this morning said 242 and I am happy with that. Last year on January 1, I tipped the bar at 276, so a 34-pound drop is better than okay. I let down a little from Christmas until now, but I figure to start working at it again when we get home and drop another 20 or 25 pounds and settle in with Social Security and Medicare. Josh and Kasey are on their last day of vacation today. Tomorrow they start missing school. Both are ordered to keep journals of the trip, and watching them carry out the assignment is a hoot. Kasey, of course, is very serious and even more industrious, always up to date, anxious to record things because they are interesting. Now Josh, on the other hand… Even the word “journal” for Josh is a swear word. He breaks out in a sweat at the thought of picking up a pen. He fights to find two-word paragraphs and threeword journal days. “I can’t do it now. I’m figuring out my thoughts.” “I lost my pen.” “I have other things to do.” But usually, the mention of his journal sends him into deep depression, a rash breaking out on his brain. Two of his journal pages are tear-stained. Today Nancy asked Josh to send a post card to his class. “Josh, are you actually writing a post card?” I asked.

“No, I’m just going to sign my name.”

Of course, Nancy will keep pushing until he gets it done, and she will be so proud of him. As will all of us. At least he is consistent, openly arguing that there are so many more things to do that are more fun. Translate: “Important.” As Jim said just last night: “Life is just a lazysusan.” This morning it’s bikes! Twelve bikes are lined up in front of the hotel, just about the hotel’s whole supply. Walter and Vicki are on a tandem, and Harry is the front end of another bicycle-built-for-two with no rear rider. The rest of us have nice, modern, geared bikes for a ride into Xinglong. Harry is leading us a couple of miles to the market in town. Off we go, Mary a bit unsteady but game, Josh in a journal-free heaven, and Kasey bravely trying to keep up with him. Harry worked out a very easy route into town, through some back streets and generally avoiding the perils of the main highway. It only took us fifteen minutes to pull up at the sizeable market in town center. We were a big hit in town. True, as with the village school the other day, eleven Caucasians in one group are not a normal sight in Xinglong. But everywhere we went, we were met with big smiles and a gracious “Hello” and with a clear “Good bye” on departure. It is really quite amazing to me just how comfortable China has made us feel in our three visits. Never have I felt intimidated as I have in some of the European countries, for instance. Or in the big African cities like Nairobi or Capetown. The Chinese people seem genuinely to like Americans. They certainly have treated us as honored guests. They are perfectly happy to let you take their picture, even anxious to pose. They always try out the few words of English they know: “Hello!” “Good Bye!” “Good Morning!” They enjoy it immensely when Eric breaks into his bargaining posture, and get a big kick out of making a sale to us. It seems that they derive great pleasure out of very simple things, something I believe they can teach us. Walter came up with the idea of buying our lunch at the market, and immediately he and Vicki launched into purchases, beginning with the vegetables. Then he added about ten pounds of shrimp. “Should we get a duck?” he asked me as he walked over to the duck department. Next came a fish, a three-foot long thing with a mouth like a barracuda and a tail

like an eel. Walter couldn’t come up with a name for it but assured me, as he does with every fish he has ever ordered, that it was very delicious. Finally he bought a couple of bags of fruit, just fifteen pounds or so of dragon eyes and mandarin oranges. The whole thing, for fourteen people, came to about $10. “I’ll get a restaurant to cook it for us.” I asked him if they are willing to so such a thing. “Oh sure, they will charge me 5 percent of the menu cost of the dishes.” What a country! Bags of food thrown over handlebars, we rode to the Yun Xiang Restaurant near the roundabout at the edge of town, who of course agreed to do the cooking. It was another memorable dining experience. We have cooked our own meal at the hotel, and bought the ingredients for lunch today. “Now that is a great tour program,” I told Vicki. True, we can’t put a bus-load of seniors on bikes, but we could put them in tuk tuks and buy the lunch. They would talk about that for months. While waiting for the food to be cooked, Walter took Kasey and Josh off on a tuk tuk ride. Xinglong’s brand of tuk tuk, so named by the putt-putt sound of the motor, is a dirt bike with a two-person side car. They normally carry two engers, so Walter sat behind the driver, with the kids in the side car. Their smiles lit the street as they motored off.

Josh loves machines and has concentrated on the tuk tuk and the bao bao, both popularly named after the sound they make. The bao bao is a one-cylinder truck with the engine, snorting and spewing, exposed in the front. They are curious monsters that often pull massive weights of sand or rock, seemingly impervious in some mysterious way to breakdown. They are too ugly not to work. We all met once again in the lounge for another round of conversation. Eric had a deck of cards, so I introduced everyone to the game of “Indian.” Each person is dealt one card, and without looking at it, holds it face out on his forehead. You can see everyone else’s card, and have to decide whether to keep the one you

were dealt or get a new card. We limited each round to one choice each and had a great time of bantering and teasing. As a betting game “Indian” is very dangerous, because a bet is made with each decision, and the pots can get huge. Kasey tried a few riddles on the group. It is wonderful to see her growing before our eyes. She now takes an active part in all discussions, expressing herself beautifully, and holding her own remarkably well. Our family is such that everyone accords her the respect that is required if she is to continue to grow. I see a major change in her this year. It is heartwarming to observe. This afternoon we watched Jim golf. There is a pitch-and-putt golf course at the hotel, nine holes of nice lawn. Everyone showed up to try their hand at it, including Vicki and Walter. For most it was their first time ever to swing a club, and this was a fun way to do it. I explained a “scramble,” where everyone hits from the tee, and you take the best hit for the next shot. On a little course like this, one of us is sure to be on the green so the second shot will be a putt. We had a great time, highlighted by Jim driving the ball straight into the ground on three successive attempts at making , resulting in unmerciful laughter and derision, something he is masterful at absorbing and deflecting. Actually, we played eight holes, with a different winner at each of the first seven, their winning putt often assisted by the foot mashie of Jim or Josh. Josh made two incredible saves. In order to keep him occupied and apparently safe from being beaned, he was assigned to left field to pick up stray balls. On the first hole, Jim launched one that was heading for the Sun River. Josh sprang after it like a cat, and made a heroic dive for the ball just before it headed over the cliff into the water. Leaping flat out, he snared it, landing hard on his stomach, just short of the cliff, to the utter shock of his mother, who let out a horrified scream, and the equally utter iration of the rest of the company. Later, Eric sent a low line drive screamer over one of the greens that would have skipped a dozen times on the river. It was slightly to Josh’s right, and he flung his body in front of it, fearlessly and oblivious to the pain it would cause. He caught it like a major league shortstop, once again eliciting a mighty roar of approval from all of us. On the last hole, it took an honest, 20-foot putt from Sully to win the tournament, a putt unaided by hand or foot. With that, the golf careers of several came to a decisive end.

We had another excellent dinner at the Chinese restaurant this evening. Just as we were concluding, someone yelled that there were fires in the sky, and we all went out to investigate. Out on the lawn, they were sending up fire balloons. I have seen these before in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where they call them prayer balloons. Here, it is quite a production. A cloth parachute, about four feet high is lifted above a fuel-soaked pad. With spray paint you write a prayer or a message on the four sides of the balloon, which is held up and spread out while someone lights the fire pad. The balloon is held down to the ground as the flame builds and the parachute fills with hot air. When you feel it lift, you release the parachute, letting it rise into the sky. Usually it will drift a bit parallel to the ground before the hot air sends it up. With impressive flames, it rises high into the sky, carrying the dispatcher’s prayers with it. Of course, Walter came running over with a balloon for us to send off. I painted our letters on it: “D,” “P,” “S,” and “J” for Patrick and Deb Joyce, part of our travel family, who couldn’t be with us this year. We launched it, each of us with a special prayer. It rose majestically to eight or ten others that were drifting high in the sky. We watched it rise for maybe five minutes when it blinked out, either shrouded in the high mist or having run out of fuel. The fire balloons are just the latest in a fine series of new experiences that are rapidly piling up for us on this trip. Of all of us, Jim was the most excited by the balloons. “Jim was alive last night,” I said at breakfast. “Was he perky?” Josh wanted to know. “Good one, Josh. I’ll put that in the journal.” “Your journal,” the little bug, responded quickly. “I’m not writing it down.”

JANUARY 2 SANYA

It is time to get some sun! We head south this morning for Sanya, the southernmost city in China, a beach resort that is fast becoming China’s Honolulu. It is only about fifty miles south of Xinglong, but it is easily 20° warmer. We need that warmth after Beijing and the unseasonable cold of the last two days. Crossing through a long tunnel we entered a different ecosystem, a desert climate of yucca and palm. The South China Sea appeared on the left as we continued down the East Highway. There are large groves of coconut palms. Farms are quite varied with rice paddies interspersed with bean fields. Here and there a farmer slogged through the mud, plowing behind a water buffalo. Hundreds of workers ply the fields, planting a new rice crop, weeding an established crop, harvesting. They get three rice crops in this warm region, only missing a fall harvest, which is typhoon season. It seems as though everything grows down here. The highway was closed as we neared Sanya and we were forced onto a country road through Lingwang village. Workers labored all along, clearing weeds and debris from the road culverts, raking them into piles that were set on fire. The road is lined with trees, painted white at the base to protect them from insects. A man ed with a cart full of pigs. Another walked down the road prodding a herd of ducks. Mango trees in bloom spread into the distance. The traffic increased, local vehicles merging with the highway cars, producing the very finest in Chinese driving conditions—uncontrolled, motorized, wheeled chaos. There really are no rules for driving in China. Everyone and everything is allowed on the roads, any part of the roads. You see old women sweeping the fast lane of a freeway with those peculiar twig brooms. You see a farmer prodding his pig out in the road, or a goose pack being escorted across a fourlane National Road. You see bicycles, taxi-bikes, 18-wheelers, Mercedes, pedestrians, landslides, vendors—all within a mile of highway. No one ever stops on a Chinese road; they calmly and casually move around whatever is in

front of them. They never look back, not even caring if danger lurks there. In back, the folks are doing the same thing, looking ahead at what they have to miss. Chinese traffic is like a mountain stream, flowing inevitably down the slope, skipping over boulders, surging around obstacles, never ceasing, never worrying. Water will flow down! Chinese traffic will move on. A word of warning—you wouldn’t consider walking or driving through a white water river in the Sierras; you might not want to walk out into Chinese traffic either. After maybe fifteen visits to China over the years, the very thought of driving a car there is purely frightening to me. We ed through Tien Du village and into Sanya, sighting the gaudy Posh Mountain Hotel on the outskirts of the city, an ungainly “White House” complete with dome and ostentatious columns. Sanya was just created in 1996, designated as a “Tourist City.” Today it is home to 450,000 people, boasting numerous 4and 5-star hotels, spread along its six-mile long beach. Last month I visited four major golf courses and there are several more in planning. For Chinese, it is the “End of the World,” as far south as they can go in their country. Because the highway was closed, we switched pearl factories, unable to reach the big one out at the city boundary. Instead we ed along a dirt road to the Tropical Marine Biological Research Station and the Sanya Pearl Research Institute. We disembarked at an oyster farm, where a guide, Mr. Sun, briefly showed us a variety of oysters that are raised there. The Mabe oyster produces small pearls. The huge White butterfly oyster takes eight years to grow a large stone, while the Black butterfly produces black pearls. We also saw a Penguin oyster, but I don’t recall why they are different. Mr. Sun led us into the Heron Pearl Gallery, and the turmoil of loud Chinese women, each with a siren-voiced guide blaring information through a metallic bull horn. Thoroughly out-gunned, he led us upstairs into the “top quality gallery,” where the crowds were of necessity smaller. We sprang into action immediately, turning a planned half-hour stop into a two and a half hour spree. Vicki has to fly into Northern China, and thank goodness, Walter took her to the airport when we arrived instead of waiting until we were finished buying pearls. I think that all of our ladies walked out of the Heron Gallery with something from the upper shop. Nancy, Anne and Sully acquired necklaces. Kasey won Walter’s attention and some prizes. Donna, bedecked with black pearls on our

last visit to Hong Kong, avoided serious damage. But then everyone went downstairs to the cheap gallery and resumed operations. Josh was the big winner. With every major purchase, the buyer received a handful of tickets, each of which allow you to select an oyster from a tank outside, hoping it will contain a pearl. Josh, armed with thirty or more tickets, picked a bunch of pearl-bearing oysters. Several of his treasures were made into ear rings for the girls and he still had a dozen or so left over to play with. We finally got to Sanya in the early afternoon, stopping at another of the Ainan Ying restaurants. It was here that Mary started drinking beer, protesting that “I like it when it is cold,” and adding “I go with the flow.” The girls have all been shocked that their mother has been leading the infamous gambei chugs with Walter’s firewater wine. Mary actually likes the stuff, which tastes like an unfortunate blend of eau de vie and grappa. And now beer! The world is turning upside down.

We checked in for two nights at the Gloria Plaza Hotel on Yalong Bay, one of a string of 5-star hotels along the beach. The Yalong Bay Golf Club, a PGA venue, is just across the road. The rest of the afternoon is for the beach, and the warmth we have been craving. The kids are in heaven, sloshing around in a light surf, while the big kids, Eric, Marty and Jim, play in the sand, building a castle. It is nice to have nothing to do. Harry took us back to town for dinner at the Pearl River Garden Hotel. Jim entertained the party, being perky. Whenever he doffs his beret, he takes on a veneer of French ooziness, emerging as Pierre Le Pew. Tonight his lecture was entitled, “Riding the Tatami,” which seemed to evoke a rather negative response from his spouse, who was heard to say that he wouldn’t be riding anything tonight, whatever that means. Josh showed interest in the whole conversation though, because he likes Jim when he is perky, now that he knows it’s funny.

JANUARY 3 SANYA

A gardener whistles his way across the lawn on a silent, warm winter morning. The South China Sea is at peace, donating skimpy three-foot waves to the shore. Two islands loom across the water, gauzed by low fog. Other rock formations appear more threatening. A couple of dozen fishermen ply their trade outside the shoals. Coconut palms and frail deodars sway in the offshore breezes. On land, the Gloria Resort rises above the trees, a massive, white, land-locked ship yearning for the water. The ever-present bulbuls chatter away in the treetops, while a solitary Long-tailed shrike sends a more melodic call to its mate. A few horses graze near their paddock, below giant floral pinwheels spinning a morning dance. It’s a beautiful morning in Sanya. We have that morning for nothing at all—a walk on the beach, maybe a swim in the surf or the pool. Yalong Beach has great sand—clean, soft and very white. We started off, intending to visit the rocks on the west end, which seemed to be do-able. We never made it, waylaid by pearl sellers halfway there. This is bargain basement stuff, $10 a strand, and they will string them right on the beach if you wish. Donna tried to get a necklace made into a bracelet, but after three unsuccessful stringings by the patient lady, she gave up and settled on the original necklace. Everyone bought something. Surprise, surprise! We returned to the Garden Hotel in town for lunch, and then walked a block over to the Hangzhou Silk Co. It was the group’s first exposure to the concept of the silk comforter, those treacherous blankets that cost far less than the silk cover that protects and beautifies them. Mary and I first encountered these blankets in Japan last April, and everyone in our group that had one, raved about it. Jim and Donna bought one right away, and before our trip was over, we would all have a silk blanket in our suitcase. The frenzy really started however when the girls discovered the silk store beyond the blanket section. Since it was so cold on New Year’s Eve, we decided to have our dressy night tonight, and that required a few wardrobe additions. I bought a silk shirt because I hadn’t brought any nice shirts at all in my suitcase.

Josh found a spiffy vest-jacket, completely covered with Chinese calligraphy, a children’s classic poem by the Tang Dynasty poet, Li Bai. Jim positively agonized over a blue or gold Mao coat. “Jack, do you think I’ll ever wear this again after tonight?” “Not a chance!” “Thanks. You just saved me from making a stupid decision.” I don’t think we really bought that much today, but we sure did expend a lot of effort thinking about buying. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Yalong Bay Butterfly Park, an impressive facility, carved into the hillside rain forest, featuring a wonderful collection of mounted specimens from around the world and a very large butterfly tent that must occupy at least an acre, filled with trees and feeding stations for the colorful creatures. The trees around are filled in turn with bulbuls, just hoping that some of the moths and butterflies will successfully escape and provide them with an easy dinner. I always collect Chinese signs that seem to crop up frequently in the parks: “Our commitment: to offer our guests excellent service. Any complaints about clerks’ bad attitudes, jobbery, make bold to keep fare, etc. we will treat it strictly.” I think that someone may have tried some jobbery on me, but I wasn’t quite sure and so didn’t report it. Kasey, increasingly developing her “style” in dress, emerged with a multi-colored belt of coconut shell arrowheads that is very chic. She has decided that she doesn’t want things that are too flashy, but she already seems to be heading that way. We had our dress-up dinner tonight at the hotel in the Tang Room, a lovely dining chamber that was perfect for our evening. It was a night to show off all of Walter’s pearls to Walter, and the girls positively sparkled.

JANUARY 4 HAINAN / HANGZHUO

We were supposed to drive up the central highway today, on our way back to Haikou, but Harry apparently didn’t understand. Instead he headed straight back on the East Highway, announcing we would be stopping at the Li-Miao Cultural Village about halfway along, between Sanya and Haikou. Jim spotted some women working in the fields wearing the typical conical peasant’s hat and face coverings. These are Lei Minority people, most of whom are Muslim. Most of the field workers are women, causing Jim to observe that “they just aren’t making women the way they used to,” which is not a good sentiment for the Harmony Master to voice out loud in our group. Harry explained that most of the farmers only worked half the year, from September to April, retiring for the hot season. The center of Hainan is filled with the Wuzhi Mountains that rise to heights of 1,800 meters, or 6,000 feet. They are the home of most of Hainan’s minority peoples, who live in very inaccessible terrain, out of the island’s tourist stream. A few villages have been recruited for visitors, but the rest are secluded and withdrawn, at least for the time being. A rather unattractive Miao-Li Cultural Center lies just off the East Highway about halfway between Sanya and Haikou. We stopped there just before lunch. Eric, Marty, Jim and I were immediately grabbed for marriage and robbed of 50 yuan. As you enter the complex you are asked to walk through a group of redgowned Li girls. If they grab your ear, they have selected you for marriage. We four are good husband material, which means we are older than Josh and probably possess at least 50 yuan. We were ushered into a room and seated on stools next to our prospective brides, then asked if we wanted to spend 50 yuan to go through with the wedding. The girls then sang us about ten notes of a short song. Things go fast in Li weddings because there are so many more men to fleece, er…, marry, in an afternoon. Feeling we owed them more of a commitment, we sang them a song back, a fine lusty version of “You are My Sunshine,” two verses in fact. Fearing that we might know a time-consuming

third verse, the den mother, who collects 49 of the 50 yuan, cut us off and told us to carry our brides on our backs into the other room. Once out of sight, we handed over our yuan, and our brides disappeared. I really liked Wan Sa Sa too, and I think Jim was growing to appreciate Su Ming, especially when she told him she liked hard work. We feel we really got screwed in this deal. I’m sure that Marty and Eric would agree, although they never got on a first-name basis with their brides. I heard Eric say, “What did you say your name was?” But she had already disappeared with her 1 yuan wages and was off to find another husband. Eric is kind of in a tough spot. He’s already been married once, to a nice Thai girl who could bend her fingers back. And he has Sully sitting out in the audience watching him like a hawk. No sooner were we freed from that marriage tent than they was seen sharing a coconut with two straws, the perfect “Couple.” The next event was walking through an open house banging on everything in sight, baofing drums, sticks of bamboo, hollowed, spilt and drilled to produce different notes. There were sticks and gongs, drums (mostly punctured), boards, and posts. You had to hit everything just in case it might be a musical instrument. Josh really liked the experience as did the rest of us but we were too old to show it. I left the percussion tent in time to see Jim installed behind a cannon, firing tennis balls at moving targets. The gal just kept inserting balls and he kept firing at 20 yuan for every three balls. In nothing he had fired off 160 yuan worth of worthless balls.

Next we watched some dwarfs break-dance and lip-sync to hard rock. And then we heard a young Miao boy play a leaf. Finally, mercifully, we were expelled into a huge marketplace full of junk with a central stage for cultural dance, Miao on one side, Li on the other. The Li-Miao Cultural Center is a perfectly forgettable place. Let’s go to lunch and have a gambei or three to solidify the memory loss. Lunch was in the village of Wanning at the WanNing Hotel, which Harry assured us was the best in town. Regardless, it was the worst meal of our trip, consisting of goose, potatoes, eggplant and fish, some sort of beef and coconut cake. It was not our best morning, but it did use up the time until our flight to Hangzhou tonight. Josh did get to collect a different kind of tuk tuk in Wanning however,

with the enger seats behind the cycle instead of on the side. While in Wanning, Dr. Walter went to work. Eric, Sully and Anne all have cases of the touristas. Walter has a habit of prescribing a certain potion for this malady, which comes in the form of a vile vial, with a skinny straw inserted in the top. I have seen him in his doctor-mode several times in the past. He seldom explains what it is you are drinking, just walks in with a box of these vials, handing you one and commanding, “Drink this!” That was his manner today as he ed one to Eric. Sully’s eyes widened; her face blanched. “No needles!” she gasped, scaring the hell out of Dr. Walter. “Oh, there are no needles,” he explained. “Just a straw. Drink this.” The trouble is, you can’t just gulp it down like a gambei. You suck it out of that tiny bottle in dreadful, awful drops, like an extended dose of cod liver oil. In fact, that might be what it is for all I know. Everyone who tries it, swears by it, and agrees that it cures them of the runs. It occurs to me though that they may just be trying to avoid Walter handing them another dose. It is easier to suffer diarrhea in silence than to drink one of his skinny torpedoes. We reached Mailan Airport and boarded Xi Shan Airlines, Flight 7061, for Hangzhou. “Please sit down!” ordered the stewardess while we were still walking down the aisle to our seats. “I just got here,” Mary fumed, not to her, but to me. Actually I think it was all the English the young lady knew and she hasn’t quite got it straight when to use it. The plane was completely packed, another of those 737 sardine cans that you find on the inter-city flights in China. They just aren’t used to us full-bodied Yankees. An old friend was waiting for us in Hangzhou, Jamie, who had been our guide in Shanghai four years ago. We will never forget his flag waving and calling out “Golden Gate Tours!” to get us to move. Four years later he is a bit quieter, more mature, and his English is outstanding. After Harry, Jamie is going to be a treasure. It was already late, so we decided to just drive straight to the hotel, the

Hangzhou Sunny Hotel, dispense with dinner and get some sleep. We have returned to the cold weather, and everyone is worn out. Walter had some club sandwiches sent to our rooms, perfect for our appetites. Tomorrow we take a look at Hangzhou, one of the seven ancient capitals of China, made famous in the west by Marco Polo, who thought that Hangzhou and Suzhou were the two most civilized cities in the world. In fact, the Chinese have the legend that heaven is above, but on earth it is these two cities.

JANUARY 5 HANGZHOU

Hangzhou is still a capital, not of the Southern Song Dynasty as in centuries past, but in modern day Zhejiang Province, China’s wealthiest along with Guangdong Province (Canton). The two are based on enormous economic vitality, filled with factories that are churning out most of the “Made in Chinas” of the world. In 1271, Marco Polo left Venice with his father and uncle, traveling the silk route across Asia. He arrived in the court of Kublai Khan, grandson to the great Ghengis in 1275, was warmly received and, after a second trip on his own, spent the next seventeen years roaming the land in the service of the Khan. No city he visited impressed Marco Polo as much as Hangzhou, which he called Kin-sai, “The Celestial City.” Kin sai merits the name, he said, “from its preeminence to all others in the world, in point of grandeur and beauty, as well as from its abundant delights, which might lead an inhabitant to imagine himself in paradise.” He spent three chapters describing those delights, many of which we would witness ourselves.

“It is situated between a lake of fresh and very clear water on the one side (West Lake), and a river of great magnitude (Qiantang River) on the other, the waters of which by a number of canals, large and small, are made to run through every quarter of the city… and ultimately to the sea.”

He estimated that the city, of twelve thousand bridges, was home to a million and a half families. His description of West Lake, with its innumerable pleasure boats, is exactly the picture a visitor sees today.

I got a great photo on my morning walk that compensated for the lack of birds. On a clothes line hanging outside an apartment, was a line that included

underwear, socks, two large flounders and a couple of cuts of beef or pork. I have never seen such a multi-tasking drier system. We met as usual at 8:00 for breakfast, getting a chuckle out of the American Texan Dinner Buffet restaurant that also handles us westerners in the morning. Jim was enjoying the rolls from the buffet. “Can I ask you,” inquired Donna, “why you eat pastry with a fork?” “Because I know it drives you absolutely insane.” Not a nice thing for a stud-muffin to say, or do. I did notice, however, that it really did strike a raw nerve in Donna’s neck. Shan Lan Ying, who goes by the western name of Fanny, is our guide this morning in Hangzhou, and she immediately led us to West Lake to take that very cruise that Marco Polo had described so well. The lake was originally named by the Song Dynasty poet, Su Dong Po. Today, it is a major destination for city natives and tourists alike, who throng to its shores to visit the many gardens, temples and forest areas. The city has a population of 3.6 million, and received its modern name (which means “City of the Boat”) during the Song Dynasty when it was the capital. Hangzhou is one of seven ancient capitals, several of which we have already visited on past trips. They include Xi’an and Beijing as well as Nanjing, Shenyan, Kaifun, and Suzhou. The city’s early importance was assured with the completion of the Grand Canal, originally opened in 610 AD, and re-dredged around the time of Marco Polo’s visit. Today the canal is still very much in use, although the full length is no longer navigable.

Fanny told us that Hangzhou is beautiful at any time, like the goddess who wanted to be beautiful with or without makeup. The weather doesn’t matter, and that is a good thing, because today’s weather is hardly what one would wish for. We drove over to West Lake, the central focus the city as it was in Marco Polo’s day. It would take a full day to walk around it, but it would be well worth the time. The promenade is a continuous parade of gardens, temples and parks. Boats still ply the waters and even on this drizzly, foggy day, the view is great. The Pagoda of the White Snake Lady rises in the mists. There are three manmade islands in this shallow lake, each filled with houses and pavilions. We boarded one of the tour boats that do a routine half-hour cruise around the

islands. The lake is particularly beautiful during the summer, lotus season, from June to September, but the crowds were still significant on a winter day like we have today. Fanny pointed out three pagodas in the water each with five openings, telling us that they are lit at night and look like a series of moons on the water. “How many moons would you see on a good night?” Our answers ranged from six to twenty, and she said there were actually thirtytwo, each of the fifteen lights reflected in the lake plus the actual moon reflected. “Thirty-three,” I corrected, “if we count Jim pulling down his pants.” So much for American humor. We next stopped at the Six Harmony Pagoda, (Liuhe Pagoda) on Moon Wheel Hill, an impressive structure of thirteen exterior tiers, built originally in 970. It was thought that its cosmic force could deflect the immense tidal bore that hits the lake on every full moon, destroying property and killing many of the inhabitants. There is a statue in the garden of Liuhe, a little boy who was drowned in the tidal wave created in legend by the Dragon King.

The six harmonies refer to six codes of Buddhism: to observe the harmony of body, of speech and of thoughts, to abstain from temptation, from uttering opinions and from accumulating wealth. Jim, as our official Harmony Master, is obviously working on at least one of these. A sign in the park stated that on climbing the pagoda, “You’re likely to feel relaxed and happy, and be lost in iration.” There are thirteen tiers to the pagoda, but we discovered when we tramped up the 227 stairs that there are only seven levels on the inside, which wore us out and made most of us anything but relaxed and happy. Hangzhou is also called “the City of Tea,” boasting a great many tea houses. The surrounding hill country is covered with plantations. After the Six Harmony Pagoda, we drove into the hills to the Dragon Wheel Tea Plantation. This is no peasant industry! We ed rows of very elegant houses, the residences of the wealthy farmers. Tea, appearing to be neatly pruned in perfectly round bushes,

climbs in straight rows completely over the crests of steep hills. We were escorted into a reception center, “the tea culture village,” and into a tasting room where a very pleasant woman led us through the vagaries of tea preparation, brewing and drinking. This is green tea country, and each of us was dosed with a serving of loose tea. A young woman then poured water into the glasses, and we were onished not to drink yet, because the tea at that point is too hot and too strong. After letting it steep for a minute or so, she came around again, pouring a gushing stream into each cup in three definite spurts, a ritual I could only describe as an attack-pour. “It is polite to pour the water in three bows.” Our response was to tap the table twice in thanks. We now have our cup of tea, which is a garden of weeds floating on top of the hot water. We were advised that in Hangzhou it is okay to eat the leaves and our guide assured us that doing so will definitely help with digestion. It is literally called “chewing tea.” They also ed around a couple of cups, one with hawthorn beans and the other with dried orange peel that one can add to the garden in the cup. “A cup of tea a day keeps the doctor away,” boasted our tea manager, and when we told her we have the same saying about apples, she replied that one cup of tea has the healing qualities of three apples. We have heard this many times during our three family trips to China—both from the tea farmers as well as the silk traders. It inspired me to poetry.

IMMORTALITY

Silk and tea! I feel I’m on a living spree I lay down on my quilt at night, blood pressure drops

right out of sight

“Chew the brew, You’ll soon begin to feel like new.” I wonder where the gung all went? Green tea’s an antioxidant.

Asthma fled When I finally put my head in bed. That pillow stuffed with double silk As good for me As mother’s milk.

“Steam your eyes!” It will prevent those painful sties. Your vision will develop plenty You’ll see so well. I think much more Than twenty-twenty.

Heart is good

Blood pressure has begun to fall Because I’m chugging my green tea It’s cutting my Cholesterol

Protein’s up From chewing all those random leaves Calories and fats are low My skin is clear. I think I have Begun to glow.

Got no gout Lumbago’s gone; scurvy’s out; I think perfection may be near. Tea has caused my warts to Disappear.

Ah, precious worm! And tender life-bestowing leaf I rest on silk; I drink the tea. Receive the golden gift of

Immortality!

Two bundles of tea were poured into open baskets for our observation, and we were asked to pick which was the more expensive. You can actually see and feel the quality of the two teas, which range greatly in price. Our guide brought out a third basket which she said was extremely expensive. It possessed a richer color and a definitely richer taste. They harvest three crops a year in these hills, the most valuable being the first, spring picking, done immediately after the last snowfall. There are even more expensive teas. The Qing emperors drank tea that was picked by the lips of young virgins, a concept that immediately attracted the iration of our Harmony Master. “Now that was a time to live,” Jim gushed, inspiring a quick response from our Empress. “Don’t touch my chi, Nancy,” Jim barked. “I didn’t touch your chi.” “You did with that snicker.” “Your chi was in the toilet to start with,” Donna said, ending the discussion, because our tea manager was watching and listening with genuine incomprehension. Jim has been battling to harmonize his yin and yang for days now, and we all decided to be nice to him for the rest of the afternoon. Our guide concluded by telling us that Hangzhou is the sister-city to Boston, which is perfectly cool. After all Boston is a water city too, and celebrated for their ridiculous tea party. I have never understood how tea could possibly be so important that it would kick off an entire revolution and give birth to our country. Frankly I don’t think it was or it did, but that is what the books say. Now here in Hangzhou Sister City, we find out that people are willing to hire virgins as mouth pickers and pay $1000 a can for shredded green stuff, so maybe it is that important. It is certain that tea is part of the very fabric of Chinese culture. Vicki says that she can tell the difference between dozens of types, which puts tea about on a par with our wine. Well, maybe a Frenchman’s wine. As a matter of fact, the terminology and the lingo of tea is surprisingly similar to that of the effete winos in the Napa Valley.

Tea-ed off, we are ready for lunch, and Mr. Yen drove us into town to the Wah Zhong Cheng Restaurant, “The Flower in Full Bloom.” All I is Mary leading four gambeis during the meal, prompting Jim to sing, “Where gambei goes, nothing grows.” By now the day is getting long, and it is nearly dark, and we still have one more place to stop before reaching Suzhou. We waited a bit for Walter before leaving the Flower in Full Bloom. He finally appeared toting a large bag, which made me groan. During our tea ceremony, I had seen Vicki whisper something to him, and knew that something was about to be purchased. Sure enough, Walter started dispensing cans of fine tea and a pair of China cups to each of our ladies. They never miss a chance to gift us in the most extraordinary ways, and I feel we are constantly in a game of trying to match or even catch up.

Hangzhou, Suzhou and Shanghai are three points of a triangle. We are spending a night in each, plus one in Wuxi. The Fuhang Expressway (Shanghai to Hangzhou—Fu being the short form of Shanghai) led us out of Hangzhou through farmlands. But they are peculiar farmlands, edged by huge four-story mansions that Jamie explained are the dwellings of the farmers. Some of these are purely opulent, with impressive towers and cupolas on the roofs, a few with mini versions of the Eiffel Tower. These row-crop farmers appear to be every bit as well off as the tea farmers back in the city. It was dusk by the time we got to Wuzhen. Jamie called it Watertown. I don’t think in any way we expected what we discovered. It was cold, and raining, and nearly dark when Jamie went into a ticket office that appeared to be the entrance to some theme park. “Where are we, Papa?” Kasey asked. “I think it is an outdoor cultural museum, sweetheart,” I told her, mentally picturing some collection of old houses that have been thrown together, posing as an historical site. We saw one like that in Seoul a couple of years ago, on a day even colder and less comfortable. I could picture us taking a perfunctory look at a couple of these old houses, and escaping quickly for the hotel in Suzhou. What we found after we cleared the ticket booth was something entirely

different. Wuzhen is a living town of about 4,000 inhabitants. Built originally in 872 AD, it has been continuously lived in to the present day. The town is a combination of museum exhibits (carved furniture, textiles, pottery) displayed in elaborate homes of the period; and small peasant dwellings that double as retail shops. We walked through an extensive villa that housed a collection of carved furniture from both Ming and Qing times. Next came a shop selling hand woven and dyed cloth. In the courtyard, long swaths of dyed fabric were hung on high wires for natural drying. In the cold, we still managed to do well with purchases of material, dolls and a variety of other cloth souvenirs. Walter hurried us into a doorway, which led to a distillery where they produce that lethal firewater the Chinese call “wine.” He could have saved the effort, because after a tiny sip of the stuff, our whole company agreed that it was the worst we have yet tasted, and that is saying quite a bit. Even Mary didn’t suggest a Wuzhen gambei! In the dark, with the Chinese lanterns edging the buildings, sloped, up-pointed eaves reflecting in dark canals, bridges arching over the water, doorways opening to dusky interiors of homes and shops, Wuzhen lives right out of a dream. It would have been wonderful to have had the time to explore the town in leisure, and I mentally noted that on future visits to this region, we will devote an entire morning in our itinerary. The place is quite extensive, with hidden treasures for the camera and the souvenir bag around every corner, down every narrow alley. There is even a small inn and restaurant both of which are set for considerable expansion. Wuzhen is a natural for the gap between Hangzhou and Suzhou. From Wuzhen we drove one of the National Roads to Suzhou, a good example of the condition of travel in China prior to the advent of the expressways. These are two-lane highways that are completely incapable of dealing with modern traffic conditions as they are found in this frenetic country. Mr. Yen, our driver, is perhaps the best I have ever seen, certainly the best in China. He literally floats on the highway, gliding around obstacles without the slightest hint of a worry. This is no mean feat, because there are worries everywhere, in the form of slow moving trucks and bao baos, wandering pedestrians, domestic animals of all sizes, cars, taxis, bicycles, falling rocks, stalled buses, loose containers, spilled fruit. I even saw a cop once. Jamie told us that driving regulations in China are really only “suggestions,” not actual rules. That is the best description I have ever heard for the conditions you encounter. Lanes have no force in the law, you use them only if there is no one in

front of you. Otherwise, you wander freely over the highway in a variety of maneuvers all of which are designed to save your brake lining. Walter told me that he was awarded a prize by Subaru for having driven 90,000 on the same set of brake shoes. In China, you seldom use your brakes, opting instead to swerve, veer, glide, skid or weave—anything to avoid an actual stop. Drivers casually go around any object in front of them, without the slightest concern for anything that is behind them. Since that is the only iron rule, your attention need only be straight ahead. Everyone in the rear, operating on the same basis, has to worry about you and they assume that you are going to be all over the road. “All over the road” includes the wrong side of the road. Mr. Yen is every bit at home in the oncoming lanes as he is on the right side. There were times tonight when he moved to the left, apparently into the direct line of an oncoming truck, but since that put him in front of the opposite driver, that truck veered off to avoid us. As he should! I once saw a cop car stay on the left side of a divided highway for at least a mile, spilling oncoming traffic nearly off the road, over the shoulder. Tonight’s conditions may be the worst I have ever seen. It is raining, with a dense low ground fog. The city lights are all out, apparently from an overload, or perhaps because a truck had obliterated a light post. Workers are walking and cycling home on both sides of the road, without any type of reflector or light. Many cars and trucks have their lights off, and don’t come into view until the very last minute. A few vehicles are broken down with no flares or other warnings displayed. And the traffic is fairly heavy. Mr. Yen floats around a truck, barely missing a couple of men walking on the other side of the road, in the middle of the lane. He is stopped by a large transport who refuses to move over, so he rides the shoulder to the right, cutting in just before he is about to hit a tuk tuk overloaded with five engers. There is not a hint of worry in his body language; this is absolutely routine, even if we in the front are in a chronic state of gasp. The highlight comes when Mr. Yen is completely blocked by a crawling truck that blocks the whole road, refusing to move in either direction. His patience finally frayed, he calmly flips a switch on a white box to his right, activating a police siren that startles all of us out of our seats. Even then, it takes about ten wailing seconds for the truck to react, as it slides slightly to the right, allowing just enough room for Mr. Yen to slip through. What a move! Even for Jamie, this is worthy of note, an actual Chinese driving technique that he has never before seen.

It was 7:00 by the time we reached Suzhou, so we stopped for dinner, at the Gentleman’s Hotel, before checking in at our hotel. “Is this where we are staying?” I asked Walter. “No, we may be staying at the Gloria Plaza Hotel,” he answered, which got a fine response from the more sarcastic among us. In fact, we later checked in to the Suzhou Hotel, right in the heart of the action in this distinctive city. Our local guide, Weh, met us at dinner, surprised that this group of Americans, even Kasey and Josh, are all fluent in the use of chopsticks. He speaks great English, and will be with us for the next day in this city of gardens and silk. We checked in to the Suzhou Hotel after dinner, noting that the street outside was filled with shops and that most were still open. Tossing weariness aside, most of us bundled up for a cold evening walk. We soon discovered that every other shop was a bar, with Susie Wong sitting on a high chair inside, or standing provocatively at the door beckoning you to come in. “Hey Mister, come in! Come in!” “No!!!”, I answered, “That’s my wife up there.” “Oh no! You go!” A shame, because the name of Susie’s place was Whiskey Jack’s Bar. At the hotel, there were a number of shops open as well. Outside in the lobby, a young artist named Shou Si De made name signs, incorporating very elaborate lettering that incorporated dragons, butterflies, birds, bamboo, etc. For RMB 50 (rem min bi = yuan), about $6, he drew amazing signs for Kasey and Josh, each about three feet long, and extremely colorful. Before we were through, our crew had purchased a sign for everyone we knew. Mr. Shou was a major hit.

JANUARY 6 SUZHOU

It was frigid outside when I left on my morning walk, heading for the canal I had seen the night before. I ed a steady stream of students heading for school, many of them on bikes, but the youngest hand-in-hand with parents or grandparents. I always find it interesting that almost nobody pays any attention to me, even though there aren’t a whole lot of 240-pound Caucasians wandering around with a camera and a pair of military binoculars at 7 A.M. But I have learned that the Chinese are very good at seeing everything, without apparently looking. I made it past the schools, avoided being run over by speeding bicycles and arrived at a main street. The whole world was moving on that thoroughfare, and almost everyone was on a bicycle. Here is the old China that everyone talks about, a nation on two wheels, moving swiftly and silently from home to work. This is the way Beijing was the first time I visited. Now it is all cars, and they are gridlocked from morning to night. I was actually relieved and pleased to find these teeming streets in Suzhou because they feel right, exactly what the older guide books describe. I have to it, though, that I backed away quickly from trying to cross that street. It is one thing to dodge cars and trucks, but quite another to avoid, or be avoided by, hundreds of bicyclists, some of whom are not even looking where they are going. I turned back on the street we walked last night, past a now empty and quiet Whiskey Jack’s Bar. Next door is a restaurant that s “Yunnan Cross the Bridge Rice Noodles.” Weh met us in the hotel lobby after breakfast, to introduce us to his beautiful city. Marco Polo visited here as well, the second of the two heavenly cities of ancient legend. His description is interesting, calling it “the Venice of the East.”

“Sin-gui is a large and magnificent city, the circumference of which is twenty miles. The people have vast quantities of raw silk, and manufacture it, not only for their own consumption, all of them being clothed in dresses of silk, but also

for other markets. There are amongst them some very rich merchants, and the number of inhabitants is so great as to be a subject of astonishment. They are, however, a cowardly race, and solely occupied with their trade and manufactures. In these indeed they display considerable ability, and if they were as enterprising, manly, and warlike, as they are ingenious, so vast is their number, that they might not only subdue the whole of the province, but might carry their views still farther.”

The city is over 2,000 years old, designed in the shape of an eagle. Our hotel sits in the original center section, the body of the eagle, which is confined by the ancient city moat. The wings are marked on one side by a large lake, the other by Tiger Hill, water on the east, mountain in the west—good fung shue according to Weh. This is the only city in China that still sits on its original plan. The inner city is very striking. Largely through the efforts of one of Suzhou’s most famous sons, the architect I.M. Pei, there is a very strict two-story height limit within the walls. In addition there is a definite color spectrum throughout, based on designs of black and white. Most of the buildings are delightfully white, lending an airiness to the city that others definitely lack. The roofs and much of the moldings are dark or black. The modern high-rise city sits outside the walls, in the wings of the eagle. Of course, this is another of those “small cities” of a mere 2.5 million. “Compared to Shanghai, this is a peanut.”

Suzhou is world famous for its private gardens, boasting well over 100 today. These are in private homes, as opposed to the imperial gardens of Beijing. They are not as colorful, but rather themed as is the city, in shades of black and white, aiming rather at repose than impression. It is no easy task to pick the one or two that time permits the visitor. The names alone are intriguing: Five Peak Garden; Listening to Maple Garden; Master of Nets; Lingering Garden; Surging of Waves Pavilion; the Lion Grove Garden. Weh made our choice for us this morning, taking us to the largest private garden in China, the Humble ’s Garden. It was built by a Beijing minister named Wang, described by Weh as “a top banana.” Like many of Suzhou’s wealthy residents, Mr. Wang escaped south, to enter into a state of repose, far from the unnerving and dangerous intrigues of the capital. These gardens are

meant to be places to restore the soul, creations out of rock, water and plant, with pavilions to focus the eye and soft poems to calm one’s being:

Bamboo in a crystal vase Breeze in a moon-lit night Fragrant snow and Asia cloud.

“I believe that I am now in my chi,” Jim announced as he sniffed the moon-lit night and gazed at yellow snow, his inner self fully in accord with Wang. The poetry and symbolism are everywhere. The garden is constructed in three parts, much like the city itself. Eroded rocks, tai hu stones, stand at the entrance. “They should be slender, wrinkled, and hollowed, easily framed. They hide the pleasures of the garden behind.” Mr. Weh explained: “Hangzhou is like an American girl; open, you can see everything. Suzhou is like a Chinese girl, hidden and secret.” He led us behind the tai hu rocks into the secrets of the garden, pointing out a small hill in the center of the garden, an artificial hill that must conform to very strict Chinese elements. He explained that it represents a boat, turned upside down, implying that there is a time to rest from work and fix your boat. In the Four-Season Pavilion, a central table looks out through four moon gates, each revealing its distinct season: the house in winter; bamboo in autumn; the stream in spring; and the lotus pond in summer. Every window and door is a wellthought out picture frame.

“The twittering of cicadas, the singing of birds brings tranquility to the mountains.”

There are many ponds in the garden, with distinctive zigzag bridges crossing them at odd angles. Pavilions fill the eye in every direction, always with colorful names: the Pavilion of Fragrant Snow and Azure Clouds; the Pavilion of Expecting Frost; the Small Flying Rainbow Bridge; the Keep and Listen Pavilion; the Hall of Distant Fragrance. Mr. Weh posed a question in the Moon Viewing Terrace:

“With whom can I sit?” Answer: “The bright moon, a light breeze and myself.”

Jim breezed along, brightened up, pleased with himself in his chi. In the “36 Pair of Mandarin Ducks” Hall, where Mr. Wang kept precisely that number, we were able catch a glimpse of these highly technicolor fowl, exciting for me because I can add them to my life list. In the study, we all were taken by the exquisite lines of the Ming furniture, simple and elegant. Later Qing designs are stolid and cumbersome and not nearly as popular with our group. We can’t afford either. “Do you need to sing a song?” Mr. Weh inquired. No one responded, not seeing any good reason to disturb the tranquility of these lovely gardens. Then we realized that he was standing in front of the toilets and we caught his drift. The women quickly disappeared behind closed doors. It is a nice phrase to collect, “singing a song,” like “tea and pee,” and “used coffee stop,” and “refreshing pause,” “happy stop,” and “hit the head.” Near the Humble ’s Garden is a large area under demolition. It is the future site of the Suzhou Museum, being designed by I.M. Pei as his last public work. In this day of billion dollar budgets at Gugenheim and Getty, this is certain to be a world-class museum design. “I am taking you to a silk factory so that you can help our economy.”

Suzhou is also called “the city of silk” because of the huge industry in that precious cloth. 40 percent of China’s production comes from this region. “We will have our lunch today at the silk factory. Their main dish is KFS, Kentucky Fried Silkworm.” There are two main silk producers in Suzhou—Longevity and Choyers. We are visiting Choyers, and after singing another song, were escorted into a conference room. There our guide, Zhu Lin, took us through the stages of the silkworm. There are three worm crops each year, skipping only the winter season. The worms have a life span of forty days, from egg to moth. Farmers raise the eggs on paper in their homes. It takes twenty-five days for the eggs to develop to full larvae. Fed leaves from the mulberry trees, they grow and finally start spinning a cocoon around themselves, developing into pupae within seven days. The fully formed pupae are then baked and killed by the farmers, the cocoons harvested. Each normal cocoon is made up of a single strand of silk, about one-kilometer long. The best of the cocoons are those from the spring when the mulberry leaves are the freshest. Each string is 1/7 of a hair in breadth, and nine strands are braided in the factory to form a single thread. Zhu Lin told us that the pupae are edible, quite delicious, tasting like a peanut. “Better watch out at lunch,” onished Vicki. We were also told that the silk quilts inspire long life, producing amino acids and protein that enter the skin as you sleep. Between single leaf tea and silk sheets we might never have to die. A scarf uses up about 600 cocoons; a two-kilo quilt over 8,000. Zhu Lin’s was a very heavy sales pitch, but it was quite charming. “Silk is very strong. For honeymooners it is no problem.” They use double cocoons for the quilt filling, and we were taken into the production room, where a woman demonstrated how they unwrap these double cocoons, and other women let us help to spread out a blanket-sized sheet of silk. Now, fully educated, we entered the sales arena. Weh weighed into an additional sales pitch, the success of which would in his economic wellbeing, but I stopped him short, explaining that we had already endured one of these discussions in Hainan. He wasn’t very happy, but perked up when he saw us buying, not only the quilts, but the silk coverings as well. The girls were asked if they wanted a fashion show, and of course agreed. We

were directed into a viewing room where a half dozen anorexic models strutted out in some “darling” outfits, perfect for young Chinese models, but hardly the thing for full-figured American women. “That was pretty weird,” Josh observed to me. “You go to a factory and you don’t expect to see something like that.” He’ll learn. Lunch at the silk factory was very fine, although we did carefully look out for KFS, and refrained from even trying the peanuts. They served genuine fried chicken, shrimp, beef and onions, sweet & sour fish, squid, pork, snow peas, rice and cabbage. That is getting very close to a San Francisco meal! A musician entered the room during lunch, playing a couple of songs on his erhu, those distinctive one-string teapot banjos that produce a surprising amount of sound. Finished, he bowed, received our applause, and voiced a clear, “Thank you.” Then another, and finally a third “Thank you.” For 50 yuan I received yet a fourth and he left the room. From Choyers Silk Factory we drove to Tiger Hill, past the city moat that circles the inner city, the body of the eagle. It is part of the Grand Canal that carried people and goods from Beijing to Hangzhou. Even today you can take a boat from Hangzhou to Suzhou, but it takes about forty hours, and few want to use that much time on the transit. Tiger Hill gets its name, of course, from an ancient legend. Every hill, every pavilion, every pagoda, every park has at least one good old legend to explain it. In this case, the story goes back 2,500 years to the Warring States Period and the Wu Kingdom. The first king of the Wu died of tetanus during battle and was buried on the artificial hill. Three days later, a white tiger appeared on his tomb. Voila! Tiger Hill. The hill contains China’s Leaning Tower, a fine slender pagoda that is definitely out of plumb, the Yunyan Pagoda, built in 961. Other sites include the Hanhan Spring, said to be diverted to drown any prospecting tomb robbers. There is also a Sword Testing Stone (where one might find a Chinese Excalibur) and a Stone of a Thousand Men, red stained it is said, by the blood of the workers who built the hill. We walked through a most impressive bonsai garden, filled with stunted trees as old as 400 years. Weh pointed out a 400-year old Sparrow plant, and a 350-year old pomegranate. The former was labeled “Crouching tiger, hidden dragon.” It is amazing the shapes and forms and character that the Chinese are able to find in rocks, trees, plants, and landscapes.

They invest almost everything in their world with meaning, drawing every bit of pleasure out of the common things in their lives. I sometimes think that we have lost or forgotten the art of symbolism, having reduced almost everything to literal meaning. As everywhere in the parks of China, there are some great signs to be found: “Life goes with green. Civilization coexists with Beautiful Scenery.” And even better: “The scenic spot becomes more beautiful with your civilized behavior.” And right at that very scenic spot, at the Two Fairies Pavilion, we took our family picture #72, in a blatant attempt at civilized behavior. Later I would collect: “Kindly treat the virescence around the Way Life is Treated.” I asked Vicki what that meant, and she studied the Chinese characters quite a while before she answered, “The Chinese is a more make sense.” We stopped to look at the sword-testing stone, and the grave of the old king who gave the hill its function and name. That grave, which is dug deep into the hill under the pagoda, has never been opened, for fear of toppling the pagoda itself. But we did ascend far enough to get a good picture, before taking the 108 steps of the “Hundred Step Reach” back down. It is time to leave this beautiful city. Once again, we spent more time than expected in Suzhou. Our gang is interested in everything, and unless someone (like me) pulls us away, we use up way too much of the day. Our destination tonight is the “small town” of Wuxi (it means “without tin”), at a mere 4.3 million souls, hardly worth the designation of city. We left Suzhou on the Fu-nei Expressway (Shanghai-Nanjing), with two more stops to make today. The first freeway in China was built in 1988. Today there are 30,000 kilometers of divided roads, just another example of the tremendous burst of energy that has hit the country since the end of the Cultural Revolution. Mr. Yen continued his lesson on driving technique, merging into traffic without so much as a minor look at the mirrors or to the side. I have decided that the turn signals are used only for finger exercise, since they are seldom used until after the turn was made. We did slow a bit in the face of a large truck making a U-turn

in the middle of the highway, across the median divider. No one seemed to think it unusual though because there was neither a sound of a horn, nor the use of our newly discovered siren. A pedestrian, hands in pockets, sauntered out across six lanes of freeway, oblivious to any traffic that might come his way. Mr. Yen drifted around him, rather than slide. On the median stood two ladies with large baskets of vegetables, waiting for the maximum car density before they would continue crossing. Just outside of Wuxi, we stopped at Tai Hu or Tai Lake, at 2,100 square kilometers, third largest lake in China. It is the source of those wonderfully sculpted tai hu rocks we have seen in the gardens of Shanghai, Beijing and Suzhou. Jamie explained that the Tai Hu stones are created by the scouring action of water aided by algae in the lake. We paid our toll at the park entrance, and drove past a bunch of pearl farms out onto the Turtle Head Peninsula. None of us was particularly excited to be walking out into the frigid cold of the lake shore, with the wind exacerbating the winter temperatures. But sarcasm seemed to warm us a bit, and we slogged across a fine arched bridge to the lake, hardly noticing the bunches of Little egrets that were fishing off the rocks. Jim called for a group photo in the “nostrils of the turtle,” and I got ready to immortalize the moment. “Wait, I have to turn my camera on,” I yelled to the utter derision of my two daughters, who insist that I always forget to do that, on purpose. It is certain that they will be correct in their suspicions from now on. Picture accomplished, we shivered our way back to the bus. “Do we have any more stops today, Papa?” Josh wanted to know. “Just one,” I said trying to be funny. “Are we heading to the hotel now, Jamie?” I whispered up front. “No, it is a little early. We are stopping at the Purple Sand Teapot Company.” I thought I had been kidding. But after all, it is only 5:30, and hardly the time to call it a day. We rather stumbled into the Purple Sand Co. showroom without the slightest interest in whatever it was they were going to show us, more intent on having to “sing a song” than look at pots (a clever play on words!). The name, of course, comes from the color of the clay that is mined in the neighborhood of

Wuxi, which we would later find out is the center of the Chinese porcelain industry. In the lobby is the Dong Po Pot, the world’s largest tea pot, cast in that distinctive purple color. We gathered in the show room, met there by Xiao Li, a very cute lady, who also turned out to be a master potter in the factory. She embarked on a rather fascinating discussion of the tea pot, how it is made, what to look for in a good one. Of course, she explained that the purple sand tea pot is good for your eyes as well as your stomach, so I added it to my growing list of Chinese things that make for a long life. I now plan to brew one-leaf tea in a purple sand tea pot, drinking the brew while lounging on my silk comforter. She brought out a remarkable little pot, a replica of one that was made at the factory by their master craftsman. The original sold at Sotheby’s Auction for HK$1 million. It never leaks, turned upside down, on end, having a little hole to stop the flow, a teapot ABS system. It never drips after a pour. Jamie burst out in an apoplexy, murmuring “It is poetic, possessed of spiritual depth,” which prompted Jim to break out in a mélange of Nietzsche. Xiao Li, reverently smiling, averred that it is the “most complicated teapot ever created.” “I didn’t know there was that much stuff in a tea pot,” Kasey exclaimed. She had been completely absorbed in the whole demonstration. “It’s more than I want to know about tea.” Josh responded. From the million dollar pot, Xiao Li descended to less expensive versions. Of particular interest was an unusual pot, very stylish in the shape of a tea leaf, with a cicada perched on the top. It pours in a spiral flow, symbolic of the ups and downs of life, with another of those ABS systems, and the non-drip optional feature. A master craftsman made it here in the factory, and produced only 88 sets, which include the pot, four cups and saucers. It is made from green clay, the highest prized of colors, since there are very few small strains of green clay in the midst of the more common purple. Our guide also showed us a light beigecolored pot that she had designed herself. It contained the stop-flow hole in the handle so you could amaze your guests by not letting it flow into their cup, even when the pot was tilted for pouring. We all liked her pot and its design, but not the color of the clay. We had overcome our ennui and broke into active shopping interest, walking around the shop inspecting dozens of different designs. Donna spotted a huge

pot, capable of drowning half the Red Army, and she casually asked the price, figuring it was not for sale. Nothing is not for sale in this country! And the salesmanship positively exploded in the face of Donna’s half facetious query. Before long, Jim was seated on a box gazing at the 15”-tall pot, lost in his chi, or chai. I knew that he had already decided to buy the thing and was computing the odds of carrying it home. A box was produced, which saved him, because he figured it was too flimsy to protect the treasure and it would surely break on the way home. With relief tinged with sadness, he walked slowly out of the room and back to the bus, leaving Eric and Sully to decide on a pot for their hope chest. The pot they chose was Donna’s mega-pot, which they presented on the bus, all wrapped up, to their thrilled parents, delighting our whole company, but especially a mightily moved Jim. We stopped for dinner on the way to the hotel, probably too tired to really enjoy our meal. The appetizers however, were interesting: 100 year old eggs, goose feet, lima beans, dates, and chicken gizzards. I don’t the rest. I must have said something though because I recall hearing, “Dad, you should try not to verbalize your inner voice.” I have no idea what that means because I tend to verbalize everything. In fact, Josh told me yesterday that I talk more than anyone he knows. “Do you want me to stop?” “Oh, no!” Finally we arrived in Wuxi, our last stop, where we checked in to the Wuxi Jin Jiang Grand Hotel, a deluxe property in the middle of a spectacular city center, looking very much like a modern Shanghai scene. The excitement of the street scene revived us all immediately, so we dropped off the luggage and reassembled in the lobby for a jaunt around the shopping complex. This is a vibrant new city, filled with amazingly imaginative architectural trophies, each with a flamboyant pinnacle trying to outdo its neighbor. As we noted in the past in Beijing and Shanghai, the Chinese have raised architectural lighting to an art form. Wuxi is no exception. One building, composed of blocks rising in wide steps is lighted with a different color on each level. Another has rotating multicolored diamond lights. There are buildings half-lit for effect, others blazing in neon. A row of fiber optic palm trees in rainbow colors line a thoroughfare. The civic lighting of Wuxi is like New Year’s Eve every night, a permanent fireworks show of public celebration. This is a city which the guidebooks warn is “an

industrial city on the banks of Lake Tai…the town has retained a gritty, bustling atmosphere reminiscent of the pre-modern Chinese industrial centers,” almost devoid of touring interest. My 1994 guidebooks states it has a population of 800,000. Today it sits at 4.3 million.

JANUARY 7 WUXI / TONG LI / SHANGHAI

We walked across a Chinese street! Eric and I went out for a walk this morning in Wuxi, right at hustle time when everyone is going to work. We wandered a bit through the glitzy downtown area, but then decided to find some of the streets of the common people. Unfortunately that meant crossing a teeming eight-lane road without benefit of traffic lights. It is like walking into a meat grinder. There are cars and trucks and bicycles bearing down on you, at times from both directions. No one stops. Because you are not an elderly Chinese woman who rules the roads with her nonchalance, you take a tentative step off the curb, make the mistake of looking left and leap back to the shore. Embarrassed by your lack of courage, you try again, timing your step to a stream of bikes. They ; you step. Your inclination is to retreat again immediately, but you are afraid you will never make a third attempt. Amazingly, you are still in one piece as the second attack wave es you front and rear and you advance to the next square. You are now ten feet off the curb and it is as dangerous to retreat as to move ahead. Wait; leap forward; stop; wait; move ahead; wait. You are on the island in the middle of the stream with a thousand vehicles swirling around. By now, you think you have it figured out and you make the mistake of arrogance—bad move! A belching bao bao almost inhales you as you jump back, avoiding dissolution. Back to humble tourist status once more, you venture out again, this time looking right, which again almost proves fatal, when a car careens by from your left, momentarily on the wrong side of the road making a of a slow-moving truck. Edge ahead; cringe; stop; shudder; step; stop; run!!! You make the opposite bank of this raging torrent and you feel goooood! This may be the high point of the trip, so great is the feeling of exhilaration at what you have accomplished. Sir Edmond Hillary may think he was cool to climb Everest, but I’ll bet he never had the nerve to cross a Chinese street at rush hour. In the midst of the deluge of modern building, Eric and I found a little hutong pocket of tiny huts and shops, buried on a quiet cross street. There are precious

few of these districts left anywhere in the modern Chinese cities, although most of the urban sprawls are trying to preserve one or two old sections for historic purposes. Wuxi is a very ancient town, going back almost 3,000 years. Originally, in Zhou times, (1066 - 221 BC), it was called Youxi, (“with tin”) because of the many mines in the region. But when they ran out in the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) the name was changed to Wuxi (“without tin”). Today it is a major silk producer, and is rapidly moving into worldwide textile production ala Canton and Suzhou. Hence the massive modern rebuilding downtown. Elated by our morning achievements, Eric and I ed the family for breakfast in the Jin Yue Western Restaurant. Jamie came in to announce, “We have today a cold spell from Siberia.” As if that were news! The girls have slowly acclimated to wearing all the clothes they brought on the trip, actually slowing down in their reminders to me that I had told them this was a warm weather vacation. Now it is Jamie who is catching the ridicule, but I think it is cool to consider that you are involved with something that actually includes Siberia. That is so impressive! I can see myself right now casually telling friends that “I got caught in a Siberian cold front.” We are off this morning to another ancient village, this one named Tong Li. Mr. Yen moved into the teeming streets and promptly executed a wonderful U-turn, right into the teeth of the cars, receiving a sitting ovation from all of us. It is impressive that in China you can do anything you want in your car or bus without bothering a soul. It is even more impressive that the whole country hasn’t collapsed in a single, monumental traffic wreck. And it is going to get worse. The China Daily newspaper today announced that the nation’s population has just hit 1.3 billion. My 1993 guidebook lists it at 1.008 billion, meaning that almost 300 million people have been added in a little over ten years, more than the entire population of the United States. Walter told us that the one child-one family rule has recently been amended, so a major explosion may well be imminent. That, I think, will be threatening for the entire world, since some of our most radical historic changes have resulted from the pressure of a surging, surplus population. We didn’t get very far this morning. The fog had set in with a vengeance, and when we got to the expressway, we found it closed. Mr. Yen was forced to turn around and take the National Trunk Road back toward Suzhou, a slow-paced road that will use up at least an additional hour in travel time.

Around 11:00 we reached the village of Tong Li, another of those historic throwbacks that has been transformed into a tourist mecca. This one, differing from Wuzhen, is fairly modern, with traffic flowing through, working boats on the canals, and thousands of shops selling crafts and souvenirs. There is a tremendous amount of knitting going on in Tong Li, and it wasn’t long before we were capping up against the raw cold of the morning. The sun is out again, but the temperatures are hardly conforming. The good signs continue to warm us though. On a camera shop we read: “The color print flushes to print the catena.” We parked in the bus lot and walked about a half mile into a bustling town, the streets filled with taxis and bao baos, the shop keepers all “hello-ing” us to inspect their wares. A busy canal runs through the village, spanned by three bridges, “Healthy, Wealthy and Wise.” Jamie has a schedule in mind, but has learned that we are a very difficult group to control. It only takes a small shop, or a knitted Christmas ornament to distract us from the intended event. He has learned not to sigh too deeply as he waits, foot tapping, for the group to reconvene before moving on. His intention is to get us into and out of the Meditation Garden before lunch, but most of our ladies are afraid that there will not be time to visit all of the cool shops after our meal, so they are hedging now. But here we are, finally, at the entrance to another of those contemplative private gardens, this one built between 1885-87 by Mr. Ren, who was in the salt marketing business. An elaborate entrance hall greeted us, the place where wealthy guests were deposited in their sedan chairs. Next came the Grand Reception Hall. Mr. Ren was no paltry business man. The garden is quite exquisite, a series of pavilions spaced at odd heights around a central pond. There was one for the unmarried ladies, and another for those already ed for. A third was reserved for the important guests while the fourth was for Mr. Ren and his family. All four pavilions looked down on a performing stage centered on the bank of the pond. Of course, this small garden was amply supplied with an impressive array of those ubiquitous tai hu Rocks. Josh comes alive in these gardens. The rock has not been created that he can’t climb or jump on or over. It is astounding to see him bounding around these places, tripping over paths where we would stumble immediately, bouncing up and down through planted gardens, around trees, over fences without even the slightest hesitation. And all the while, we old guys are reading the signs that warn, “Rockery is dangerous.” Fortunately, Josh doesn’t read English when it is

written in China. Finishing the Meditation Garden, we walked a short distance to the Shander Restaurant in the middle of the village, an outstanding venue, quite surprising to find in such a place. We had a great lunch and then dispatched the ladies for shopping. Actually, we dispatched the ladies to find things, so that they could use Eric to bargain for them. He thrives on the practice, preferring to work on projects where he can purchase several of the same item, employing his skills on the volume level. Thus he came to be haggling over a dozen little brown clay Buddhas that pee when they are doused with warm water. Eric worked the price down from $1.25 to 57¢ and his proud smile lit the village. The prices are ridiculous. I bought Annie a knit hat, quite beautiful, for about $1.50. Original watercolor paintings go for $20. In the end, Mary found a woman who made little knitted ornaments. She wanted 10 yuan for them, a little over $1. Eric and Walter took her on, working the price down to about 50¢, and the woman was worn out, but wanted the business. They bought almost her whole supply, and walked away triumphant. I slipped her a bunch of 5-yuan bills, on leaving, figuring that both sides would be happy with the deal. You tend to forget the prices you are dealing with here. I refuse to bargain if the item is less than a couple of bucks.

For the third time in less than a year, I am driving into Shanghai, and it has changed every time. It is hard to explain the pace at which China is changing, and Shanghai is the symbol of that change, in ten years, transforming itself from a tired, European-drugged sin city to a sparkling jewel that has Hong Konged the mainland face of China. I believe that from the standpoint of architecture and light, Shanghai is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. We arrived in late afternoon, quickly checking in to the very upscale Holiday Inn. We don’t have much time because Vicki has scheduled an exciting evening for us that includes a Pudong dinner, Shanghai lights, and a performance of the Shanghai Acrobats. In an hour, we were redressed and heading for the Huangpo River, that ancient dividing line between the European Bund and the rice fields of the Pudong. Last year there were three tunnels and two bridges crossing the river. This year there are six tunnels and five bridges, and the Pudong has increased in population by another half million. Duke, the manager of Ananda Travel in Shanghai, met us at the Seagull Restaurant, next to the huge Oriental Pearl Tower, the tallest in China. Duke set up our dinner as a special treat, and indeed it was: Baked duck Octopus balls Roast onagi eel BBQ chicken Pork Sauteed crab Jellyfish Sweet and sour fish Smoked shrimp

Smoked beef Winter melon with orange Of course rice and a variety of veggies

It was at the Seagull Restaurant that Jim wrapped up his earringing of Kasey. Ever since Vicki returned to us in Hangzhou with a batch of dangling earrings, purchased at Jim’s behest, he has been decorating her every morning. It is a moving example of Jim’s rapidly evolving sensitivity for females of the opposite sex, and Kasey is the willing recipient of his attentions. In fact, it has been noted that at times she has been seen arm in arm with Uncle Jim, has dragged him around market places to investigate the “bling-bling,” and has bestowed more than a few hearty hugs on his person. She has connected Vicki with this process too, somehow realizing that Vicki is the prime mover in the whole thing. It should be a simple thing for Nancy to keep Kasey in good spirits. A pair of earrings a day is hardly too much to ask. “How many earrings have you gotten from Uncle Jim, Kasey>” “Six!” “Twelve,” corrected Josh to everyone’s astonishment. “No, Josh,” Nancy intervened. “I think she only got six.” “She has two ears, doesn’t she?” Who’s counting? The restaurant is a short, very frigid walk to the riverfront, and we were rewarded with the extraordinary light show that is the Bund at night. Here along the river on the Puxi side, is the old European section of the city, framed in lights around the historic House of Sassoon, now the famous Peace Hotel. It is one of the great urban nightlight shows in the world. Behind the Bund is an architectural world of soaring peaks and towers, the backdrop created by the most imaginative building architects in the world. There is nothing traditionally Chinese in this, no upswept rooflines or moon gates. Shanghai is nirvana for an

international leap of building fantasy, the architects apparently handed a blank slate and a bottomless budget to go wild. It is mind-numbing to stand on the river and see the contrast of the 19th century riverfront across the way and the soaring peaks behind, as well as those around the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Hyatt in the Pudong. The building we are standing in front of, the convention center, has enormous glass globes protruding from its sides. The Hyatt rises 85 stories, the last thirty in a soaring atrium that flies to the highest bar in the world. There are dozens of new buildings in the Pudong, popping up like mushrooms in the Shanghai night. The splendor is not limited to the river districts. As we drove across the city following dinner, we ed another section around Renmin Square, with the Opera House, Shanghai Museum and National Theater gleaming in the midst of yet more high rises. The freeway interchanges are edged in purple lights. The dotted lane lines are marked with blinking lights. The giant dome atop one of the buildings, bursting with light, revolves continuously. Just looking at Shanghai at night makes me think that they are going to need a dozen Three Gorges Dams before long. We just came from Wuxi, a splendor of urban lighting, and it looks like a dark cave compared with the “Paris of the Orient.” It is four years since we last saw the Shanghai Acrobats, and just like everything in their fantasy city, they have changed enormously. We saw them in a rather nondescript theater near the old Hard Rock Café, and their performance was wonderful. Now they are housed in a state-of-the-art circular theater, the Shanghai Circus World, and their show is spectacular. I only one of the acts as the same, a troupe of girl gymnasts who clambered up a wobbly stack of chairs to do handstands. I suppose that the torturous bendings of the Chinese gymnasts are the same as well. The rest of the acts are far more sophisticated than four years ago. The show begins with a group of male athletes using a teeter-totter to launch themselves into high flying summersaults, landing atop each other’s shoulders. Next came a very elegant couple with an aerial ballet in blue, using silky curtains to fly up and around in a very artistic performance that was as much sheer strength as it was beautiful. No Chinese show is complete without at least one contortionist, bending her body in impossible ways. This one did just that while standing on one arm. Next came the standard three-young-girl contortionists who almost make you ill watching them dist their bodies so that their feet are patting their heads, backwards. Hoop tumblers came next, diving and twisting through several levels of hoops, followed by a couple who reminded us of Indians performing with a ladder and a bowl. (It is hard to

explain!) Two young men ran and balanced on a giant set of treills, eliciting gasps as they appeared to be falling off at any time. Then came the lady chair acrobats. Now all of this was very impressive, but not fundamentally different from many such shows we have seen in China, around the U.S. and with the Moscow Circus. But none of these had motorcycles! The piece de resistence of these Shanghai acrobats was purely amazing. A large, latticed steel globe was uncovered in the rear of the stage, and a middle-aged man in a red jump suit came roaring out on stage on his motorcycle. More ed him until there were seven cycles roaming the stage. A woman entered the globe on her cycle and circled it on the inside to the astonishment of the audience. Then came the Chinese Evil Knievel in his red outfit, who upped the pace and the difficulty inside the globe until he was driving upside down at tremendous speed. He was ed by another biker, then another. By this time, Josh was sitting openmouthed and Marty was clapping during the middle of a performance segment. Two more bikers ed them as all five whirled around to the roars of the crowd. Finally the woman and yet another ed the fray and for a few moments all seven motorcycles were at full speed, defying gravity as well as logic, moving in every possible direction. It was a sensual blur of sound and moving lights, purely exciting, easily overwhelming all of the previous acts. You have to wonder how on earth they perfected such a death-defying stunt without killing themselves along the way. Welcome back to Shanghai! It is more exciting with each visit, a fabulous city.

JANUARY 8 SHANGHAI / HOME

“Good Morning Golden Gate!” That’s our Jamie, opening our last day in China in his inimitable style. We all stuffed ourselves on bacon, omelets and other such Chinese cuisine at the Western Breakfast restaurant of the Holiday Inn. We still have most of the day to enjoy the city, and decided to pay a return visit to two old favorites: the Shanghai Museum and the City God Market. Jamie is home in Shanghai and in very good spirits this morning. “Did you all to bring your tickets, ports, wallets, make-up, false teeth?” He led us off, at Eric and Sully’s request through the old French and British Concessions, the quarters of the city reserved for those nations when Shanghai and China were reeling like slaves under the opium-draining foreign domination. Today, those foreign quarters retain much of the European elegance they had in the 19th century—wide avenues lined with sycamore trees, mansard-roofed townhouses, couched in lovely garden settings. Much of the district now houses foreign embassies; other areas have been converted into Soho districts of haute couture boutiques and terrace cafés. We drove down Avenue Petain past the CYTS Building, the tour company that we first worked with. Here is TGIFridays, where our last group, craving American food, had their worst meal in China. Even here, we found an interesting sign: “In order to avoid any eventuality, please don’t follow profiteers for shopping to illegal shed.” “You could be shanghaied,” Jamie explained. The shopping along Central Huahai Rd. is anything but illegal.

We disembarked in the Tai Chang Road district for a walk through one of the rehabbed projects. All of the old brick houses have been thoroughly refurbished,

transformed into upscale townhouses and shops. It reminded me of Lower Quebec, where the government took a slum, evicted everyone and restored everything to its 18th century look. Then they brought the residents back and returned the whole of the Place Victoire to life. Our tour ended at the magnificent Shanghai Museum, perhaps the finest collection of Chinese art and style on the mainland. It is a very impressive structure, a square base building surmounted by a round roof, symbolic of the ancient Chinese theory of a round heaven above a square earth. The museum was first founded in 1952 on Nanjing Road, then moved into an old bank building in 1959. Ground was broken on the modern site on People’s Square in 1993, the first galleries finally opened in December, 1995. There are in all eleven galleries, containing the very finest in Chinese bronze work, calligraphy, ceramics, painting and sculpture. In addition there are exhibits of furniture, coins and jade, as well as a very impressive collection of the arts and material culture of the official Minority peoples. Most of us went to the top floor and worked our way down. I particularly like the collection of Minority people’s art, featuring the costumes, masks, weapons, coins and tools of many of the 56 officially recognized Minority nationalities of China. On this tour we have seen the Miao, Wei and Li peoples in Hainan. Mary and I were in the land of the Qiang, Tujia and Tibetan Minorities last June in the mountains of Sichuan. In Guilin we met the Yao, Miao, Dong and Zhang. Some of these minorities are huge, as many as 8 million, and the government is trying hard to encourage their differences in language and culture. Even when the rest of the country was limited to one child per family, this was never true of the Minority peoples. Many are the descendants of the Turkish tribes who lived both as conquerors as well as neighbors. One floor below are the collections of Ming and Qing furniture, jade work and coins. Below that are seals and calligraphy. Mary and I were just walking in when we met Annie. “Did you see the first thing in this gallery?” she asked with a note of resignation in her voice. It was a fine hand-written poem on a huge scroll by the Tang poet Du Fu. “What’s odd about that?” I asked. We had encountered Du Fu’s thatched cottage in Chengdu earlier this year and I bought a collection of his poems.

“Like we all believed you that there really was a guy named Du Fu!” I get the most delicious feeling when the girls find out I wasn’t kidding them. I would have told Anne that Du Fu was only his common name. He was known as Yingde in his zi name (designated), and Jinchuan in his hao name (literary.) At times the Chinese can be really confusing. The 2nd floor is filled with ceramics, which cover everything from the prehistoric 2nd millennium BC Xia and Zhang cultures, through the 2nd century BC Qin terracotta soldiers, to the elegant porcelain of the later Ming and Qing. Jim and Donna went off in search of their mega-teapot and did in fact find examples of the purple clay pottery. Actually, there was a whole display of the porcelain process that was centered around Wuxi in the Zhejiang area near Tai Lake. Jingdezhen Porcelain set the standards during the thousand years of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties (960-1911). The museum has replicas of the three main types of kilns used over the centuries, from the earliest dragon kiln, a monster as big as 80 meters long which was used from the 16th century BC.

The art of Shaanxi Province, centered on Xi’an, the ancient capital, was a special display on the ground floor. It contained the entire “command post” of the Emperor Qin’s terracotta army, as well as a major exhibit of the Crypt of the Famen Temple Pagoda, only discovered in 1987. The exhibit contains more than 1,000 artifacts from the crypt which dates to 974 AD, including items of gold, silver, silk, jewelry, bronze, stone, and iron. As nice as the museum is, their store is even better. It was good that we didn’t have more time, or we would all have been forced to buy suitcases at the Yuyuan Market this afternoon. We did manage a book or two, but our real shopping is saved for last. Every group stops at the city market for their last-minute shopping. Here too, it is easy to see the development of the place, as ramshackle shops have given way to sophisticated stores. But the prices are still great, and just about anything that you have seen on your trip can be found somewhere in this expansive market. It always strikes me as odd, that even in their elaborate department stores you still haggle like crazy over the price. All of us found our last “indispensables” this

afternoon, forgoing a lunch break in the interests of souvenir collecting. Even Marty was thrilled to find pinup girl cigarette lighters, just the thing for his redneck friends back in Eureka. Last minute jade pieces, opium bottles, art work, Buddha carvings and whatnots found their way into our luggage. Off for the airport. Pudong International Airport is thirty kilometers outside the city, the limits of the burgeoning Pudong expansion. A six-lane freeway connects it to the city, and it is served by the world’s first electro-magnetic monorail train. The bullet travels at 267 mph and goes from the river to the airport in 7.2 minutes. Even more amazing, the entire system of about twenty miles was built in ten months! Josh was anxious to see this bullet train, but he closed his eyes for a minute or so.

“There’s the train, Josh!” we all yelled. But by the time he got up and focused, it was gone. When he did finally get a glimpse of it, it was pulling into the airport at a lousy five mph, and he was not impressed. We boarded our Air China flight for San Francisco with unexpected company. Fourteen infant girls, adopted by American parents were on our flight, and nine of them were in our compartment on the plane! It was at times difficult to decide which was louder, the infant cries or the proud acclamations of the new parents. It was nice however to see the joy that these beautiful little ones brought to their new fathers and mothers. We left Shanghai around 6:30 at night, and arrived in San Francisco just after noon on the same day. It is weird, but we are now old hands at it. A 40-hour day is no big deal. That is until we find that we can’t sleep at midnight for a week, and we want to fall asleep around 5:00 P.M. China is worth it!

GUATEMALA 2005 –2006

DECEMBER 27, 2005 STUCK IN DALLAS

It has been one of the great joys of my life to be able to introduce my family to my world of travel. New Year has become our traditional time of travel, and we have had extraordinary experiences in Canada, Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong and especially China. This will be our first foray south of the border, or I should say, south of Mexico’s southern border. We will be eleven days in Guatemala, or to be more accurate, nine days in Guatemala and two just across the border in Copan, Honduras. As I have discovered in the past year, this is the land of the Maya, both modern and ancient. I think the Dold-Plaskett-Schafer-Joyce family will be thrilled with what they discover here. Guatemala is really the only one of the Latin American countries that has an indigenous population of more than 50 percent. The Mayan people have somehow survived the awful depredations of the Spanish rule, the genocide of the militarists and the Civil War of the last century and they continue to live their lives in their mountain villages as they have done for centuries. The culture of the ancient Maya has not really survived, just the people. Part of at least one modern language goes back to the Classical period and might have been understood by 18 Rabbit or Jade Sky, but the ancient religion of Jaguar and Sun Gods, of calendar-based ceremony and stone-carved stelae is long gone. What remains is the religion of the people, their kings and priests disappearing in the mists of time, but their earthy faith remaining strong. That faith can be witnessed today, interwoven curiously in the Christianity that was imposed on them in the 16th century by Spanish conquerors and priests. It may be closer to the truth that the ancient Mayan religion uses Christianity as a protective veneer and is alive and independent beneath that veneer. Machimon (or Maximon) and Jesus form curious bedfellows in a humble house in Santiago. Corn god and angels compete for space in the reredos of the church in Chichicastenango. Mayan brotherhoods operate freely during Mass, while shamans conduct sacrificial rites on hilltops before the faithful go to church on Sunday. This schizophrenic world can still be closely observed in Guatemala, certainly the

only place I have visited where that is true. I want the family to observe it as I have. We all met last night at Jim and Donna’s which is always our launching pad for these trips, because there we can board what the kids call, “the cool limos” that have become our customary mode of airport transfer. What a shabby life these kids are learning! It’s not too bad for us older ones either. This morning is gray and rainy, a condition that immediately started me off worrying that we would miss our tight connection in Dallas. There is only one flight to Guatemala each day, and we only have an hour and twenty minutes connection time to catch it. The fog was getting heavier as we approached SFO and there didn’t seem to be any planes landing or taking off. Of course it is time to worry. On check in, I asked the clerk if the flight was on time. “Which flight? Two to Dallas are delayed.” “10:20,” I whispered. “Oh, yes. That one is delayed, but only about 25 minutes.” Dallas has four terminals and can easily take 45 minutes to negotiate, so a transfer time of less than an hour is serious stuff. My worry level was about to elevate. “Is there an earlier flight?” I asked. “Yes, at 9:45. It’s on time.” He moved the eleven of us to that flight and quickly evaporated my fears. That should give us time to grab a bite to eat in Dallas, well in advance of our international flight. They don’t serve food on planes anymore and we won’t get into our hotel until almost 10:00 tonight. Dinner has to be in Texas. We had barely landed in Irving, Texas before a crisis arose—Josh’s CD player wouldn’t work. “Oh, they have a Brookstone here,” Nancy announced calmly. “I’ll get him a new one.” “I want a massage chair!” Eric ordered.

“I’ll take a foot spa.” That was Anne. “Digital camera. My wife broke mine,” Jim added as Donna sighed deeply. I have noticed that Marty always adopts the phlegmatic approach to these times when Nancy breaks into the wallet. It is certain that she has enough shopping genes for the whole family. Marty just wears the jeans.

“The flight is cancelled because of volcanic eruption.” Volcanic eruption? What kind of excuse is that for canceling a flight? I have been flying for four decades and that is a new one. There have been mechanicals, bad weather, lost flight crews, tired flight crews, terrorist scares, closed airports, fuel problems, sick people, fog, snow, ice, airline inefficiency, stupidity. But volcanic eruption? I know that Guatemala is one great big piece of lava, with a bunch of active volcanoes, three I think. One of those is Fuego near Antigua. It is always burping out a puff or two, but it must have belched a big one today. The people at the desk said there was ash in the air making it too dangerous to land in Guatemala City. Our flight is postponed until 8:00 tomorrow morning. It is a sad thing that you never, ever trust what an airline tells you. I will be very interested tomorrow to find out how many flights were actually cancelled. Then again if Fuego really did erupt, will it be possible to land tomorrow, or anytime in the near future? This looks very suspicious to me, and since we have to spend the night in Dallas anyway, I hope American Airlines actually does give me something substantial to bitch about. I have that already. The woman at the desk gave us each a voucher for the Ramada Inn, with a charge of $39. “You’re not paying for the hotel?” “No, this is not our fault. It is a case of ‘enger distress.’” “What the hell is that?” “Act of God. We’re not responsible or volcanic ash.” “Do we get meal vouchers?” “No.” “Overnight bags?” “No. The hotel will give you the things you need.

I gave them one of my best “That’s ridiculous!” snipes and got back a wonderfully condescending attitude from the air-dude behind the desk. I hate airlines more every time I encounter them. The family was wonderful. Led by Annie, who is now our designated commentator on life and human foibles, they laughed their way to an AA shuttle that would take us to the Ramada Inn. “Can volcanoes disrupt the weather?” Mary wanted to know. “They disrupt when they erupt.” The Ramada Inn isn’t actually there yet. A piece of canvas partly obscured an old Quality Inn sign, and a cardboard with “Ramada Inn” was taped on the door of a van outside. Otherwise we were in this perfect piece of hotel crap, twostoried and ugly, with no restaurant, no lobby, no service, no toothbrushes, no class, and most damaging, no bar. The line of people, a whole plane load, stretched from the non-lobby to the parking lot. All around us were nice hotels, Sheraton, Marriott, Days Inn, Holiday Inn Express. A Red Roof Inn actually looked like the Waldorf next to our dormitory. Next door was one called Harvey’s soon to be a Weston. And we are in the Ramada, tossed off like chaff by AA and charged $44.15 (including tax) by a hotel whose rack rates are normally $6. And still everyone was laughing. They even got me to do it eventually. “Did you see our walk-in closet?” Eric yelled when we met in the hall. “At least they have an iron,” Mary responded. “We need to find a bar,” Nancy asserted, striking a chord with the whole group. “This is a dry town,” met with disbelief and scorn. We did in fact, find a bar in Harvey’s, along with a curious sort of deli restaurant, big screen TV to watch the Champs Bowl Game (Rutgers’ Scarlet Knights were beating the Sun Devils), a bunch of casual tables and a parade of Texas beauty queens strolling by. There was something for everyone and very fine margaritas as well. We settled in for a most enjoyable evening, proving that our gang has learned the most important life rule of all—have fun no matter what, because

things could always be worse. Who needs a candle-lit hotel carved out of an ancient monastery, regarded as one of the great hotels in Latin America, when you can have margaritas, chips and salsa and cheese pizza at a bankrupt hotel in Dallas? Some people want it all. For Mary, Donna, Jim and me, these cancelled and missed flights are becoming old hat. Last September we spent an unscheduled night in Paris on our way to Russia. A couple of years ago, it took us a cancelled flight in San Francisco and misconnects in Taipei and Bangkok to finally, after four days, arrive in Johannesburg. Jim has come up with a solution. “Why don’t we just plan on starting our trips a day earlier?” Then we can schedule in the misconnects and cancels and not miss a thing.

DECEMBER 28 GUATEMALA CITY / ANTIGUA

Jim was knocking at the door at 5:35. “They’ve postponed our flight to 5:15 tonight!” He handed Mary a computer sheet he had been given at the front desk that outlined AA 2195 for 12/28/05, giving the normal flight schedule we should have been on yesterday. Taken back at first, it finally dawned on me that they couldn’t do that because there is always a full flight to Guatemala from Dallas, and they wouldn’t in fact send two planes at once. It was another example of the AA-Ramada farce in this whole thing. There was a whole stack of those sheets on the front desk, and the one sappy clerk had no idea why they were there. Jim called the airport and was told the flight would be at 8 A.M. as announced yesterday. We all met in the lobby at 6:00, stuffing ourselves into the breakfast area with our planeload of stranded engers, everyone looking a bit bedraggled and weary but still upbeat. “It’s no problem not changing,” Jim announced. I could wear the same shorts for ten days.” “I would just go commando,” Anne laughed, an unsettling mental picture especially if you’re the dad. Last night Annie had begged eleven toothbrushes and paste out of the desk clerk at Harvey’s, and that helped a bit. Kasey was a bit chagrined at having to wear the same earrings, and Josh was distraught at somehow losing his River Cat’s hat, but we all boarded the shuttle back to the airport and Gate D40 to find the flight actually proposing to depart on time, fifteen hours late. “I’ll believe it once we take off,” one of the engers announced to universal nods.

“I’ll believe it once we land in Guatemala,” I thought, my habitual tour manager pessimism briefly surfacing. Fifteen minutes into the flight, the captain announced that there had been another eruption, but that the ash seemed to be drifting south of the airport. Ah, something concrete for me to worry about for the next two and a half hours! We landed and hit the brakes! Guatemala City doesn’t have a very long runway, and the pilot probably didn’t want us to visit Zona 7, which fills a baranca below the end of that runway. My friend, Cole, an American Airlines pilot, has told me that the runway goes downhill first and then rises, one of the more difficult landing places in the Americas. But he would have shuddered at the landing we just made. Fidenzio was waiting for us after we had cleared Customs and gotten our bags. He is a rotund young man with a florid face and a very quiet voice. He quickly led us out to the curb to wait for our transfer bus. It is nice coming here around noon, because the normal crowds are absent. There are always a few young boys who want to grab your bags and plead for a tip, but the crush is nothing like that at the normal late evening arrival time. A brightly colored “Chicken bus” approached, a surprise I had ordered for the family. They are famous in Guatemala, gaudily painted by the owner, used mostly for public transportation. Usually they are falling apart and belching exhaust, but this one has been reconditioned by the tour operator we are using. Like most of these rolling boxes of color, it had a woman’s name, Lawrenzia, and it was tricked out as a plush luxury coach. Bayro is the driver, jamming the thing into gear as soon as we had boarded. It was a thrilling welcome to Guatemala, especially for Josh and Kasey, but almost as much as for Eric and Jim. Here we are, in one of the traditional modes of Guatemalan transportation, albeit a bit more comfortable than the native commuters, and certainly lacking the pigs and chickens that normally dwell on the roof. Lawrenzia has no AC or PA, is noisy and loose, but pure fun with plush individual seats and fresh paint. I could have wished for a lot more exhaust though. It’s just not right for a Chicken bus not to spew its guts across the landscape. It takes forty-five minutes to climb over the mountain from the new capital to the old one of Guatemala Antigua de Santiago. Today’s Santiago was the third

capital of the infant Spanish colony, the first instituted in 1524 by the infamous Pedro de Alvarado about twenty miles away, replaced by a settlement very near the present city of Antigua. This second capital, Santiago de los Caballeros, had just been completed by Pedro’s brother in 1542, when it was destroyed by flooding from the Agua volcano, following one of the many earthquakes that have wracked the town over the centuries. Santiago was moved to a new site, and a third capital established under the same name, the present-day Antigua. Two hundred thirty years later, on July 29, 1773, Santiago was almost totally destroyed by a massive quake. The capital was then permanently moved to Guatemala City, and Santiago, now Antigua, “the old city,” fell to the status of provincial town. Another devastating quake hit the region in 1976, leaving the old adobe and stone buildings in a shattered chaos of collapsed roofs and dismembered columns. This is the general state of the important buildings today, as many of the churches and convents were almost completely destroyed. Today three volcanoes dominate the scene as a backdrop to Antigua. Volcan Agua is closest, the one that flooded the second capital. To its right is Acatenango, “The Place of the Giants,” so named from an ancient Mayan legend. Slightly behind is Volcan Fuego, still active and spouting ash over the region, the one responsible for the volcanic ash that cancelled our flight yesterday. We learned, by the way, that only two flights were actually cancelled, both of the American Airlines flights, a disclosure that simply confirmed my disdain for the company. I have never found a more impressive first hotel for a tour than the Casa Santo Domingo. Fashioned out of and around an old Dominican monastery (founded 1542) it is a visual dessert, dres the beginning of our Guatemala feast, a languid collection of ruined walls, fine architectural antiques, mostly religious, spreading formal gardens, quiet interior patios and beautifully appointed rooms. In short it is a perfect venue to begin a tour. True, we had all reveled in the ambience of the Irving Ramada, but the Santo Domingo may be a step up in style. Mouths agape at the ancient splendors around us, we settled in for lunch in the fine restaurant. Crumbled walls form the outer side of the place, which is candlelit and very comfortable. The first monastery was erected by the Dominicans in 1542, begun that year but not completed for 120 years. It was severely damaged in the 1773 earthquake and abandoned when the capital was moved to Guatemala City. In 1821, Independence Day from Spain, the church was sold, as

were most of the old Church holdings. Excavations were begun in 1970, uncovering many of the footings and walls of this once resplendent church and monastery. The present owners purchased the property in 1988, opening the hotel three years later. The hotel is the prototype of its city, an earthquake-inspired ruin, perfectly suited to the mental aspirations of the tourist, photogenic with an aura of mystery, a human collection of architectural skeletons. We rather rushed through lunch to be off to view this ancient city, Fidenzio leading us through the old capital to the lovely church of La Merced, which boasts one of the most intricate facades in the city. Much of the cloister and church are in ruins, but the parish is still very much alive. From Our Lady of Mercy, we walked under the Arch of Santa Catalina Convent into the center of town toward the Plaza Mayor, a slow walk interrupted by forays into the many shops that line the streets. This is our first taste of Guatemala buyables, and they are many, from small corn husk dolls to elaborate woven blankets, runners, sashes, huipiles and cortes. We stopped for a look at the lovely inner courtyards and gardens of the Posada de Don Rodrigo one of the better old town hotels and restaurants, only a block off of the plaza. The plaza is the essential layout for the Latin world, with the four sides containing cathedral, city hall, government building and mercado. The cathedral, or at least its impressive facade, dominates the plaza. Started in 1545, this was the great church of Antigua, the focus of the city. It was demolished by earthquake in 1668, rebuilt over the next decade, destroyed again in the great quake of 1773. Attempts were made again to rebuild, as evidenced by “modern” brick construction in the main nave, but the 1976 quake finished the job of demolition. Today, the main body of the church is “preserved as a ruin” while the facade end, facing the plaza, remains an active church, the alignment at 90º to the original nave. That facade is superb, one of the great achievements of Spanish colonial architecture. The Virgin is the central figure, surrounded by the twelve apostles and four evangelists in three tiers of niches. Saint James, the patron of both the city and the country, presides just above an elaborate entrance. Across from the entrance to the Cathedral ruins is the University of San Carlos, fourth oldest in the Latin world after Santo Domingo, Lima and Mexico City. Nearby is the outdoor laundry of the town, stone water vats where the Mayan woman do their family cleaning.

Our last stop today is the impressive Monastery and church of San Francisco del Grande, an enormous Franciscan installation that seems to extend all the way across the city. It is a colossal ruin of crumbled walls and shattered rooms that have endured the two major quakes. The church was begun in 1543, one of a collection of churches, monasteries and convents in Antigua that would climb to an amazing number of thirty-eight. The Santa Marta quake of 1773 did the initial major damage. The church is now an active one. A major shrine near the sanctuary is the tomb of St. Peter Bettencourt, a brother who died in 1667, and was recently canonized by Pope John Paul. His empty tomb can be found in the rear of the church, labeled “Tomba Vaciá,” although supplicants continue to knock three times to voice their petitions to Hermano Pedro. The church also boasts one of three Christos Negro (black Christs) that are found in Guatemala. The most famous is that of the church of Esquipulas, near the border of Honduras, which draws an estimated 1 million pilgrims a year to the basilica. It was dark by the time we got back to the hotel. The kids had only a brief time for a swim before we all met for our official welcome dinner. There most were introduced to lomito, the traditional steaks of Guatemala, with guacamole, black beans, small tortillas and fried plantains—a meal called “tipica” on most of the menus. It has been an eventful day, compressed a bit by our missed flight yesterday, but nonetheless impressive, a great start to our Guatemala adventure.

DECEMBER 29 CHICHICASTENANGO / ATITLÁN

Antigua is the gateway to the Mayan highlands, more or less the entire northern central part of the country. The region is filled with villages, many of which are entirely Mayan in population. This is the homeland of Rigoberta Menchu, Guatemala’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose biography has stirred considerable controversy within the country. Many of the towns and villages still have Mayan names, with lots of –tenangos, spread around: Huehuetenango, Chimaltenango, Quetzaltenango. It means “place of…” although there seems to be considerable dispute in some instances as to just what the place is a place of. Later today we will arrive in “Gringotenango,” and there is no doubt about that one, even though the actual town name is Panajachel. Right now we are heading for Chichicastenango, perhaps from a tourist standpoint the most famous of all of the “places.” I always assumed it was “the place of the chichis,” and had a wonderful mental image, but it turns out to be a plant, named a chichicaste, not quite so poetic. When I was first in Guatemala last January, I went to a village named San Antonio del Agua Caliente, St. Anthony of the Hot Water. ing a fine weaving co-op I saw then, I asked Fidenzio if we could make a stop there the first thing this morning. Of course, the village is in the exact opposite direction from Chichi, but he readily agreed and we headed over the mountains to San Antonio, which sits in a deeply cut valley beautifully isolated from the outside world. San Antonio women are renowned for their weaving as well as for their aggressiveness in marketing their textiles throughout Guatemala. The finest of their products are attributed to Carolina, who was named the country’s foremost weaver some years ago. We stopped at her shop that sits on the road above the village, stopping more to see what was available than to purchase, because her prices are very high in comparison with those in the Cooperativo Artisana down in the valley. Between the two places, everyone got their purchasing off to a blazing start as we piled up women’s panchos (huipiles), woven runners, belts, etc. in the first bloom of Guatemala buying. Eric bought a hat that doesn’t fit him and Kasey bought a woven turtle for her teacher as well as a couple of

technicolor horses for herself and her friend, Deanna. Marty didn’t buy anything. Leaving Carolina’s we descended a steep road to the town, something that is a requirement for most villages in this part of the world. Guatemala may be one of the most dented countries on earth, the mountains deeply incised with village valleys, the roads all badly in need of an escape route for runaway vehicles. A dozen ladies and young girls display their weaving wares at the co-op, each with one of the traditional back-strap looms that produce the runners found in markets everywhere. We are already captivated by the children, whose huge eyes simply melt you. Here we collected Shirley, a tiny tyke whose wonderful face sold Annie more than the runner she bought. The colors are spectacular, woven of bright reds and blues in all sorts of traditional designs—quetzals, butterflies, birds of every sort. Many of the garments are combinations of the skills of both weaving and embroidery. When the Spanish first arrived, they decreed that each village would have its own special colors and designs, I suppose so they could keep them straight. Today, those individual colors are the pride of each village, and a local can tell immediately from the dress precisely in which town a person lives. Later we came to recognize the bird patterns of Santiago Atitlán, the deep blue of San Antonio Atitlán and the geometrics of Chichicastenango. There are more than twenty Mayan tribes in Guatemala. San Antonio is home to the Kaqchiquel. The largest group are the Quichés, centered around Chichi, while the Tz’utujil live on the western side of Lake Atitlán around Santiago. They are not always friendly. In fact, it was only after they allied themselves with the Kaqchiquel that the Spanish were able to conquer the Tz’utujil and the Quiché peoples. It was almost noon by the time we reached Chichi, because we had to return through Antigua from San Antonio and drive for two more hours after that. I kept thinking that we should stop at the Hotel Santo Tomas for lunch before we hit the market, but I was not thinking straight, at least where my daughters are concerned. Faced with the dilemma of shopping or eating, there is no decision to make. Only Mary and Deb stayed at the hotel to begin a string of nachos with rum and cokes, while the rest of us descended into the melee of Guatemala’s largest Mayan market—blocks of shops, with fruits and vegetable areas mixed in, all jammed into the plaza between two ancient churches. It is a curious sight, the shops filled with carvings and weavings, jade, stone, purses, machetes, knives, statues, and a hundred other hand-made items, humming with vendors and tourists, filling the plaza between two of the most venerable churches in the country. The steps of Santo Tomas, the main church, were once the approach to a

Mayan temple. These steps are usually filled with supplicants praying, cofrades incensing, penitents lounging. Often there are sacrifices being offered to the Mayan Gods in the form of corn, chickens, even cigarettes and rum. When one of the cofrades, brotherhood leaders, are there, visitors are expected to use the side entrance to the church. Today there were none, but we went around anyway. Inside the church, there are candles placed on the floor, in window sills, anywhere where an individual wants to make his or her petition. The whole place is an enigma, a most curious blend of Christian and Mayan religions, where the Corn God sits easily with the archangel, the cross, sharing a with a quetzal. Several s of the reredos behind the altar are filled with the Mayan God Machimon, or depict a variety of Mayan rituals. Stephen Benz in his book Guatemalan Journey, says “Christianity might hold their minds, but the Maya religion held their souls.” When I was here with my friend, Cole, we trekked up a steep hill, about a mile beyond the town to a place of a Maya idol called Pascual Abaj. It is a smokeblackened stone that looks to be of great age. Here there was scant trace of Christianity, just a three-foot stone surrounded by offerings of every sort— bottles of liquor, flowers, corn, cigars, feathers—strewn in no pattern across the dirt. A shaman waved a perforated can filled with incense while supplicants lay around the place, propped against trees. No one gave any indication that they knew we were there, a thing I had noticed in my visits to the various churches. These people practice their religion in the face of the most onerous intrusions of cameras, conversations, laughter, or disrespect. I really believe that their faith allows them to be oblivious of the foreign outside world, the world of the extranjero, the foreigner. Certainly, these people have retained their beliefs for over 400 years, since Alvarado’s legendary conquest of the Quiché chief, Tecún Umán in 1524. I wonder if the missionaries and priests know the extent of their own defeat?

Our list of purchases was impressive, though lopsided, by the time we all gathered again in the bar of the Santo Tomas Hotel. Marty bought nothing, though Nancy did christen him with a Gallo T-shirt. Eric bought nothing, as did I. Jim bought the most attractive pair of pants for his next Halloween outfit. Josh bought the third of the woven balls he would play with on the trip. Patrick and Deb bought nothing. Then we got to the shoppers like Sully, who picked up a purse and backpack. Nancy and Annie found paintings, and various woven things. Kasey ended up with a copy of the Popul Vuh, the Mayan “bible,” a sparkling lime green belt, with matching bracelet, and one of the outrageouslycolored blankets that are sold throughout the market. And Donna won the contest with a bunch of dolls, a backpack, three purses and probably other things she was too embarrassed to reveal. Mary and Deb contented themselves with between two and seven Cuba Libras, depending on which report you accept, and Mary somehow still managed to come up with a couple of T-shirts without even trying. It would be the pattern of shopping for the rest of the trip. Guatemala shopping is interesting, mainly because of the bargaining that is required. By American standards most of the items are cheap to start with, and then you are expected to start working them down. It becomes a badge of honor that you got something at an unbelievable price, and the longer you are away from the transaction, the cheaper your reported cost seems to get. You work and work and finally agree to buy a huipil, the traditional woman’s embroidered pancho, for 400 quetzales ($53.33). It is okay to round off a bit, and you figure twelve quetzales to a dollar (it should be 13.3), and arrive at $48, which is what you tell your spouse you paid. Somewhere along the line, you start dividing by ten and the price dips, perhaps a week later to $40. With luck, your memory will drop the original purchase price to Q300, and the dollar equivalent to $25. This whole process gets more complicated if someone else bought a similar huipil from a different vendor. It’s entirely possible that one of you will assert that the weaver actually paid you to take it off his hands. At times the bargaining gets almost embarrassing, in of the amounts being disputed. I absolutely refuse to bargain anything under Q10, about a buck. So you work them down to 3 for Q10 and then pull out a wad of Q100 notes. Somewhere there is insensitivity in that transaction. Sully is beginning to show the wear marks of trying to shop with Nancy and Anne. She keeps disclaiming that she is not a shopper and doesn’t want anything, but she always seems to have a bag or two when you turn a corner and

run into her. It is difficult to coexist with my girls because they could find something to buy inside a confessional. Donna discovered that years ago, and now often leads the pack in purchases when the day’s tally is complete, protesting the entire time that she can’t compete with the girls. The thing is, Nancy and Anne shop for the sheer joy of it, and don’t always have to make a purchase to have fun, a thing I have never understood. Give Annie a shop full of little boxes and tiny gifts and she will browse all day long without ever spending a dime. Donna can’t do that yet, and the idea has never even occurred to Sully at this point. Another dozen family trips and they will all be in the same league. Now then, there’s Marty…. “Sully, you can’t ever have too many of….” I actually heard that come out of Jim’s mouth. Other things are coming out of Jim’s mouth as well, as he quickly absorbs the Spanish language. “I’m mucho PO’d,” he yelled today in perfect Spanglish. “El dento!” he announced as we ed a wreck on the Pan Am Highway. He readily picked up on the name on an ice cream truck, that read “Bimbo.” I have no doubts that by the end of the vacation, Jaime will be completely fluent, even able to read the menus so long as they have English translations. Already he has mastered “margarita”, “piña colata,” “frijoles, tortillas, agua, cerveza and lomito.” “Curva Peligroso!” is a common sign on the road to and from Chichi, a snake of a thing that writhes violently down and up the 2,000’ drop from the ridge to the town. At times the bends are more than hairpin, and with the steep grade, very difficult to drive, especially for the large trucks and buses that ply the highway. There is only one road into town from the south, and we had to return on it when we left Chichi on our way to Lake Atitlan. That roads leads up to Los Encuentros, the Crossroads, that serves as the depot for goods and vehicles traveling from Guatemala to Chichi or on to Mexico. We took that latter road on our return, and then shortly after, made a left turn to the Maya village of Sololá and then on to Lake Atitlán. In a small village a man

was lying in the middle of the highway, apparently ed out or drunk, an awful sight that is apparently not uncommon. Fidenzio told us that each year in Sololá there is a town party. “One year, the men do all the drinking and the women take care of them. The next year it is the women’s turn and the men have to stay sober.” Sololá is another of those Mayan market towns, a crush of vendors and buyers centered around an elaborate Spanish style clock tower, one of only two that survived the great earthquake of 1976. We stopped at that market on my last trip, and just from a crowding standpoint it was worse than that of Chichi. I would have liked to stop again today, but we have run out of hours and the daylight is almost gone. Besides, it started raining just before we hit the town and a veritable river was cascading down the main street by the time we reached the center. Sololá sits on the rim of the crater that is Lake Atitlán, easily 1,000 feet above the water level. Another of those impossibly steep roads leads down to Panajachel on the lake, this road having been recently wiped out by Hurricane Stan in October. But it has been repaired and we descended without incident. At the bottom of the lake is Pana, “Gringotenango” from the ’60’s when the place was filled with dropout hippies and surrounded by the pot farms they introduced. We are not staying in the town, but on the outskirts in a very special hostelry, the Hotel Atitlán. Here we will ring in the New Year. The hotel must have lived a very charmed life during Hurricane Stan. On the way down the hill from Sololá, we ed a couple of streams that had carved up the land terribly, tumbling rocks and muck off the cliffs in the torrential rains. The old stone bridge was almost destroyed, and is now replaced by a temporary military span. Streams run on both sides of the hotel and in the storm must have been frightening in their ferocity, depositing feet of mud and rocks against the small hotels on the bottom. The Hotel Atitlán sits majestically in the middle, apparently barely touched by the drama of the storm. We later learned that the driveways and first floor were indeed covered with mud, but today, barely two months later, the damage is not at all evident. Nearby structures however are still anchored unusable in the storm debris. The gardens of the hotel, the soul of the place, remains as beautiful as ever.

DECEMBER 30 LAKE ATITLÁN

Rujelio was waiting for us with his boat, Paola, a brand new fiberglass rig that we later learned was on its maiden voyage today. Our Santiago guide, Daniel, met us in the hotel lobby, and we were off on our Lake Atitlán cruise promptly at 9:00. Santiago is one of thirteen Mayan villages nestled in valleys and on cliffs around Lake Atitlán. From the boat we could see Santa Cruz, Jaibalito, Tzununá, San Marcos, Santa Clara, San Juan and San Pedro running along the northwestern shore. Some are built into very steep valleys and would be difficult to visit. Three on the eastern end, San Antonio, San Lucas and Santa Catalina are more accessible. The people of Santiago Atitlán belong to the Tz’utujil Maya group. The villages in the south and southeastern part of the lake are Tz’utujil, while those in the north and northwest are mostly Kaqchiquel. In 1524, when the Spanish arrived the Kaqchiquel allied with them to defeat the Tz’utujil, only to be themselves subjugated six years later. The lake, about 1,000 feet deep, is an old crater, the remains of Los Chocoyos, which erupted 85,000 years ago, spewing ash as far away as Florida. The three present-day volcanoes rose out of the lake formed by Los Chocoyos, reducing the lake area but creating its fantastic landscape. There once was a native fish, the huapote, that was common in the lake, but a misguided “sportsman” introduced the black bass to the waters, and it has just about eaten all of the native fish. On a clear day, and today is about semi-clear, the three volcanoes dominate the view from the Hotel Atitlán, which looks directly across the water to Tolimán (3,258 meters). Atitlán, which looms behind, is higher at 3,537 meters. The third is San Pedro, rather clear today. It rises above the village of the same name, visible far off to our right.

The boys with the pens hit us before our boat had even tied up. They hand you a pad and pencil and tell you to write your name or any other names you like.

While you are in town, they will print those names on pens and sell them to you on your return. Jim immediately wrote out the names of everyone he knew, while Donna added a list of her own. “Will you find us when we return?” Donna asked worriedly, a question that drew a laugh from everyone. Fidenzio told us that the going rate was 5 quetzal per pen. The kids actually found us about a block up the street, demanding Q10 for each name. “Q5 is for the pen without a name,” they protested when Jim refused to pay them. Ultimately, after an afternoon of worry, they decided that Q5 was better than being stuck with pens made out to “Kasey” and “Cole” and other common names. Santiago is the home of the Bird Island people, and their huipiles are emblazoned with the most wonderful embroidered birds imaginable. The women all wear huipiles covered with small birds, and the men even have them on their pantaloons. We saw several young children displaying small s with three or four birds on them. The last time that Mary and I were here, we bought a beautiful huipil at a shop on the main market street. The owner had exquisite pieces and I even toyed with the idea of getting a pair of pantaloons and shirt so that I could go native in style. Since the pants are also heavily embroidered with birds, I tried to calculate the cost of each additional bird it would take to cover the rump of a XXL body. But Eric wants to get an outfit like that for his friend Harry and I think I will take the vicarious route to sartorial splendor in Harry’s name. Actually, we stopped at that shop going up the street and assured the owner we would be back. Eric did finally purchase a “toned-down” version of Santiago male attire with an interesting sales twist from the owner. Seeing me buying an embroidered for Kasey at a shop across the street, he became enraged and decided to refuse business with Eric. Only his wife, who saw dollars floating away from their home, saved the sale in the end. Daniel led us up the main street of Santiago toward a market that was literally teeming with people. Teeming is not the correct word. What we encountered was the closest thing to human gridlock that can be imagined. It seemed that 10,000 mini-Mayan women converged on the eye of the needle, proposing to get through to the other side. Our family was strung out in a single-file line, holding on to one another with desperation, as Daniel inched his way through the melee toward the top of the market. Seventeen lanes of ladies, each reaching just above

our navels, pushed and squeezed into the market neck, bringing the whole glob of people to a halt. At times it felt like a cat was running under the table as little folks edged forward beneath our field of vision. Kasey was getting frightened; Mary was semi-catatonic because she hates these public crushes with all her soul. But finally, a body yielded here, an arm moved there and we inched ahead, sidled through crevices of flesh and triumphantly emerged at the other end of the vegetables, wallets still in our pockets, with a clear shot at the venerable church of Santiago Apostle at the top of the hill. Just in time for a prayer of thanksgiving! “Se prohibe orinar en este Lugar,” read the sign just outside the church schoolyard. “It is forbidden to urinate in this place.” The fine is Q100. Santiago Atitlán endured terrible suffering during the Civil War, caught in the crossfire between the army and the guerillas in the 30-year tragedy that only ended in the Peace Accord of 1996. The Mayan villages bore the brunt of atrocities from the two warring factions, forced to accommodate both in order to survive. On January 6, 1981, ten men were murdered in the town, while hundreds disappeared. An American priest from Oklahoma, Father Stanley Rother, affectionately given the Mayan name of Apla’s by his parishioners, led the protest to the government, in peaceful demonstrations. Father Rother was murdered in his study on July 28, 1981, evoking a great sadness in the village. While his body was taken back to Oklahoma for burial, the people requested that his heart and blood be interred in his church. A memorial to the priest fills a back corner in the church, with the thanks of the people written in their three languages: “Thanks, Gracias, Meltiox.” On December 2, 1990, a second massacre hit the village when thirteen workers were brutally gunned down in Caton Panabaj. This time it was certainly the doings of the army, and the villages voiced their united protests. Finally the army was withdrawn from the region and peace has settled in. The scars of that horrendous civil war are still evident in the region, but these were added to on October 11 with the horrible landslides of Hurricane Stan. The village of Piedra Grande, just a few kilometers from Santiago, was destroyed and completely covered with mud and rock, all the inhabitants presumed dead. The tragic village of Panajab that witnessed the 1990 massacre was also destroyed. Both villages have since been consecrated by Mayan priests as sacred burial grounds. In all 1,036 are counted as dead with another 3,000 people missing. Nothing has ever come easy with the Mayan people.

Once again it is easy to see the peculiar ing of religions in the church of Santiago Apostle. There was no evidence this time of the candles planted all over the floor and sills, apparently the result of a cleanup campaign by the present pastor. But the iconography of the Maya religion is still very evident in the pulpit and altar. Statues are dressed in an astounding variety of styles and colors. The baby Jesus in the nacimiento is warmed by a Winnie the Pooh blanket, while the manger itself is surrounded by a blinking light show. Off to the left of the main altar is a small side chapel where traditional, unadulterated Catholic observances are held. “Would you like to circle the market this time?” Daniel asked unnecessarily, as we edged past a school yard, where Josh was almost enticed into a street-tough soccer game. We made our way back to that huepile shop where Eric outfitted Harry, and then we moved on to our scheduled encounter with Machimón or sometimes spelled Maximón. He is the most famous of the Maya deities, a curious mixture of St. Peter, Pedro Alvarado, Judas and Satan. The god resides in one of the private homes in the town and is moved annually in November, a great honor for the family charged by the cofradia or brotherhood with his room and board. Here he sits, available without reservation, to the public from 8:00 to 5:00 in the front room of a modest home, two cowboy hats on his head, cigar or cigarettes in mouth, boots in place, his neck draped with silk neckties or woven fabric, packs of Payosa cigarettes and bottles of Venado rum at his feet. Nearby lies the body of Christ in a glass coffin, representing the Corn God to Maximón. The alcalde or medicine man, who is appointed for a year, sits in a chair to his left; an honored guest or a supplicant to his right. His laundry is done once a week by the household; on Easter by the medicine man, who then carries him to the church. The second hat is to be worn by any supplicant who comes to ask a favor of “Don Pedro” or “Holy Grandfather” (relaj mom), two more names that he wears in addition to San Simón. As we entered the crowded room, he was “puffing” on a lighted cigarette. A woman, wearing the supplicant hat, was kneeling in front of him praying almost as if in a trance, accompanied by one of the chanting sacorinos, or mediators, both oblivious to the obvious intrusion of thirteen gringo tourists. The cigarette burned down and was replaced and lit while another man entered carrying a smoking censor made out of a pierced tin can. It is a surreal picture. Back outside, Daniel and Fidenzio explained the entire scene to us, telling us that the woman had spent a great deal for the intercession with the God and that she had serious problems that needed resolving. Both of these young men

asserted their firm belief in the powers of Maximón. The woman, Fidenzio explained, was praying for protection and had entered a state which he called “transvocation” where she could enter the mind of Maximón to find out how to solve her problem. By now it was lunch time, and we boated a short distance across the bay to the Bambu Restaurant, a place that had been recommended by Daniel on our way into Santiago. It was a great suggestion. Jim discovered frutas con ron and outfitted the table with them. We also laughed at conejo au chocolate, rabbit stewed in chocolate, while Mary ordered up camerones in full body armor, or as Jim observed, “pinch and pluck.” Several of us went for a sopreso, which turned out to be quite delicious eggplant, something we were not in the least expecting. Jim also led a discussion in his perfect Spanish about this Santiago God, named “Mas o meno.” Lunch concluded we reboarded Paola and headed for the south side of the lake and the village of San Antonio. The winds had come up and the slick lake we had come across this morning was quite a bit bumpier. Back in Santiago, Daniel had told us about Xocomil, the hard lake wind that comes up almost without warning, making boating a hazardous task at best. I have heard a bunch of different theories about that wind, and Daniel added another, about the daughter of the mountain king who fell in love with the water. She only comes back to her father on the mountain in the form of the Xocomil wind. With these fiberglass boats, it is not difficult to get a good bounce out of the lake when the wind is up, and we more or less banged our way to San Antonio. The town of about 2,500 inhabitants sits on a cliff, surrounded by farms that almost defy gravity. The farms grow corn and beans, but the main crop is onions, a curious produce that apparently goes back to an ancient legend concerning St. Anthony. Daniel told us that in the legend when Anthony spoke, only the fish would listen. As a result, to honor the fish, the people of the village were forbidden to catch or eat them, and had to resort to another source of food and income. Onions! The dress of the village is very distinctive, almost exclusively a royal blue. The girls we saw were all wearing cortes of black with blue huipiles. We walked from the pier up the steep streets toward the white church. Along the way there are several good weaving shops where the women demonstrated both the backstrap loom as well as the larger apparatus where the cortes and table cloths are

made. The quality is excellent. We were all impressed by a tiny girl who was diligently weaving small 4-strand bracelets, sold here and on the beach for a queztal a piece. So cute was the little weaver that it was impossible not to buy a bunch of her bracelets, and before we left the shop, everyone in the family was wearing at least one of them, resolving publicly not to remove them until they fell off. Farther up the hill is a pottery shop, the only one around the lake, offering a very distinctive series of patterns, again all in San Antonio blue. Here for the first time we encountered a merchant that had no desire to bargain for his wares. Most of us didn’t know how to act when we found that his prices were unshakable, but eventually we overcame our confusion and left heavily laden with plates and owls.

We got back to the Hotel Atitlán around 5:00, ready for a hot tub, a swim and a margarita. The volcanoes rose in the afternoon fog across the lake, gradually submerged in the rose of sunset. Life is good.

DECEMBER 31 LAKE ATITLÁN

I went out on a bird walk early this morning, wandering out of the hotel grounds toward the area that had been horribly inundated with rock and mud by the Hurricane Stan landslides. In places the debris must be ten feet deep or more. Where the streams run, the erosion is at times enormous, the river beds deeply incised in the surrounding fields. The area next to the hotel is a nature preserve, Reserva Natural Atitlán, with a butterfly reserve open to the public. I met Jim and Donna and together we walked over to a trio of ghastly looking high-rise building blocks that were originally intended to be a major hotel. Today it is called the Hotel & Resort La Riviera de Atitlán, a place that is architecturally foreign to the culture and land where it has been imposed. There are three towers, perhaps twenty-five stories tall, Tolkienesque in their bulk looking as out of place as the Twin Towers of that epic fantasy. Two have been painted green in an attempt to hide them against the forest. No one seems to know exactly how these monstrosities came to be found on the lakeshore. I have heard a bunch of theories, most of which attribute the things to some unknown military despot who was using his stolen wealth to create what he considered a “world-class resort” not unlike those on both coasts of Mexico. Whoever is responsible, the taste of these green pillars is most certainly militaristic. We were surprised to find that the middle building is actually an operating hotel, with perhaps four floors of reconditioned rooms open to the public. Fidenzio told us that the buildings had been purchased by the family that owns the Hotel Atitlán, and they plan to use them for overflow during the tourist season. It would surely come as a great shock to think you were staying at our lovely garden hotel and find you had been walked to these ugly towers. They did have a trampoline though, and Josh would have liked that.

Yesterday, Fidenzio and I had struck a deal with Rujelio to rent his Paola again this morning. Our plan was to get to the north end of the lake to visit a couple more villages, primarily San Pedro and perhaps San Pablo, which has no tourist

business at all and is seldom seen by outsiders. However I finally was able to get in touch with Ginny Pfister, my friend Cole’s cousin, who has a house on the lake, and she invited us all to lunch at her place. “Ginny, do you know there are thirteen of us?” I warned. “Of course I do. I have a huge family and we are always having a bunch of people around.” “How do I find you?” “It’s easy. Just go two bays to the left of Cerro de Oro. There is a village here called San Guacal.” Rujelio said he knew where San Guacal is so it was decided. We dropped San Pablo from our plans and agreed to meet at Ginny’s sometime around 12:00-1:00 for a swim and lunch. After Santiago and San Antonio, San Pedro is a bit of a letdown, a touristy sort of place that is a bit too much like Mexico, offering hippy lounges like Nick’s Place and Mike’s pizza on the lake front at the base of the village. We were all intent on finding a bank to change some money since the hotel was completely out of quetzales and we were rapidly depleting our supply. So we trudged through the tourist clutter and up the steep hill of the town, a major climb, because San Pedro sits at the base of the volcano of the same name. The bank is at the top of the hill near the town plaza and church. Of course, this is New Year’s Eve and the bank was closed, perhaps a good thing because without quetzales, our shopping was going to be limited indeed. That being the case, we were forced to look around the village, discovering a very interesting church of St. Peter, once again decorated for Christmas in that curious blend of Catholic and Mayan. Outside there is a large statue of the saint, bearing the keys to the kingdom, and accompanied by the rooster that crowed to his shame. I did manage to find a very nice (and very heavy and warm) shirt to wear tonight as my New Year’s costume, a perfect accompaniment to the Q10 pants I had purchased in Santiago yesterday. I know that I will probably be mistaken for a native in that $21 outfit. From our boat this morning we had seen a number of the other Mayan villages on the north side of the lake, San Marcos la Laguna, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Pablo. We could actually have stayed in California. In every one of these towns the Evangelical Church stands out, inevitably painted in a bright blue,

usually a discreet distance from the white Catholic parish church. The evangelicals, Mormons and other missionary sects have been extremely active among the Mayan population of the mountains. The evidence is everywhere, from necktie-clad Mormon missionaries, to the blue churches, clinics and ubiquitous signage plastered on posters and buildings throughout the region. Virtually every wall in San Pedro had a message: “Jesus, la Línica solución.” “Jesus es el Camíno.” “Jesus es el Señor de San Pedro.” “Busca a dios.” “Solo Jesus puede cambiar tu vida.” “Christo viene.” We left San Pedro around 11:30, turning south toward the small crater called Cerro de Oro. Fidenzio said it would take about twenty minutes to get to San Guacal. About an hour later we were still debating exactly what Ginny meant by “two bays.” “That’s an inlet,” Jim asserted. “I don’t think that’s a bay,” Donna said. “It’s a cove.” “There’s a bay!” someone shouted. “No, that’s a lagoon.” “It’s a gulf.” “I think it’s an estuary.” We ed a mess of indentations and recesses and finally Fidenzio got Ginny on her cell phone. We decided that we had either come too far or had not gone far enough. We were at least fifteen land dents from Cerro de Oro, stopped on what has to be the Bay of San Lucas. We turned around, searched for a woman

standing on “El Docko” as Jim’s Spanglish called it, all to no avail. Finally a guy came roaring out from the land in a speedboat, and waved us to shore. There stood Ginny, drink in hand, smiling and waving along with Maria Lice, her sister-in-law. We pulled up to “El Docko,” and soon were walking around with our own drink in hand. This afternoon would be one of the highlights of our trip. Ginny’s house sits a couple of hundred yards from the lake, although she said it used to be right on the water. We could see a couple of different old boathouses between the current shore and the house, testimony to just how far the lake has shrunk. No one quite understands the periodic fluctuations of Lake Atitlán, which has had a definite ebb and flow to it over the centuries, and it seems that Ginny with her three boat houses is ready for any eventuality. At present, the void between house and lake is a very nice garden a long, narrow Bermuda grass lawn with mature trees of several species. We all walked up to the house, and most of us changed into swim suits intent on testing the lake, having been told by Fidenzio that the water is about 70º warm, a delight by any standards. Fidenzio was off by about 30 degrees. Josh was shocked into not swimming when his toes turned blue and his skinny little body started shaking. Eric and Patrick had already done their Polar Bear impersonations and had enticed Kasey into ing them. Not Josh! He wanted no part of coldness, and stood on the slimy shore trying to figure out how to retreat gracefully. Eventually they conned and shamed him into ing them, but it is the first time I can recall that he didn’t object when I asked if he wanted to get out. Meanwhile, Marie Lice had taken control of the conversation around the table in the patio. Braced with a bottomless rum drink, she regaled the group on a wide variety of subjects, each one more hilarious and outrageous than the last. “I know about cars. I know how to get to the gas station.” “Children are nice, if you have a maid to take care of them.” “I say to the man, there is a gas tank in this car someplace. Find it!” All the while she augmented her conversation with liberal doses of Venado. “It is not called ‘Ron.’ It is Venado.”

We later discovered at the Duty Free at the airport, that her Venado is about $3 a liter. Eric, in a fit of family generosity, got a couple of bottles for his dad, whom we immediately renamed Jaime Venado, a name that would stick with him for several years. Maria Lice reached the pinnacle of her discussions when she got on to the subject of domestic responsibilities. “These hands were not made for dishes!” she exclaimed, majestically raising her drink-laden hands high in the air. It drew enthusiastic applause from our whole group and will remain her signature pose as long as we recall our Atitlán lunch. Ginny is a lovely lady. Red hair frames a perpetual smile, as she bounces fluidly from one subject to another. It is easy to see that she loves life, and she loves having people around her. I only first met her last January, and she is as close as a sister to me now. Today I think that each of us immediately felt at home at her house, a part of her family as though we had all grown up together. That is remarkable hospitality. We had a lovely lunch, typically Guatemalan, of barbecued lomito, avocados, salads, salsa, and corn. In late afternoon, offering a “Happy New Year” greeting, we boarded our boat and headed back to the hotel, to get ready for our year end celebration tonight. They had a fine buffet at the hotel tonight. We had all decided that we would somehow stay awake until midnight, for us old guys at least two hours beyond our normal bed times. Jim kept suggesting that we do Chicago New Year and move it up to 10:00. But that simply got him more than normal derision, and so he decided to entertain us instead. Josh and Kasey had brought along glow sticks and were busy twirling them in a variety of patterns to the amusement of all. One of the women at the hotel saw Josh and came over to teach him a very intricate series of moves with the sticks, which impressed him a great deal. He would have learned those moves before the night was out, but Jim jumped into the show. “I’m going to whip out my rotating glow stick,” he announced to his audience, ripping the strings out of Josh’s hands. “Keep it in your pants,” Eric shouted, momentarily forgetting the piety that is due to one’s father. “I try to meet the challenges of my environment every day,” Jim answered, a non-sequitur that nobody appreciated.

He used up at least an hour of New Year waiting time with his incredible lack of glow stick expertise. Lounging around the pool we were all thrilled with his performance, although nobody actually requested an encore. But we did in fact make it to 12:00, popped the champagne and welcomed in 2006, just as the hotel began their fireworks show. All evening we could see the rockets and bursts of fireworks from villages around the lake. Next door at the green towers, the display lasted on and off for a couple of hours. But none of those shows came close to that of our hotel. Patrick was in heaven as great flowers of light burst right over our heads, in a half-hour run that filled the night with sound and color. It was a great way to send out the old year and call in the new. Happy New Year!

JANUARY 1, 2006 TO HONDURAS

We have a very long day today and everyone knows it. It will take us two hours to get back to Antigua, another hour to Guatemala City. There we pick up lunches at the Quinta Real Hotel and drop off any unneeded luggage, before heading south toward the valley of the Rio Motagua and eventually Copan, Honduras. That last stretch should take about five hours. I had talked everyone into leaving around 8:00 instead of 9:00 because of the length of the drive, but unfortunately, at that earlier hour, Hernan and our bus were nowhere in sight. He finally arrived at 8:45 with a flat tire. The poor guy was very upset with the whole thing, but at least he had gotten to the Hotel Atitlán and we were comforted to know that we did indeed have a bus. We watched him sweat through the process of changing the tire and by 9:15 we were on the road, although a bit uneasy at not having a spare tire. It is New Year, a national holiday, and there won’t be many tire stores open in the city. We decided to try our luck at one of the small tire repair shops in Huehuetenango that we had ed on our way to Chichicastenango a couple of days ago. We retraced our path back up the hill to Sololá and Los Encuentros. Annie spotted a sign for “ANN” and insisted we stop to take her picture. We have found all sorts of such photo opportunities where someone had the good sense to name their business after one of us. Later we would dine at Mary’s, while nearby, Sully had her picture taken in front of Suly’s. (Note: I have noticed that correct spelling of one’s name is not grounds for making the stop irrelevant.) It turns out that ANN is one of Guatemala’s political parties (Alliance Neuvo Nation), of which there were twenty-one for the last election. Her namesake is apparently connected with the Communists, but that didn’t deter her in the least. Guatemala has an election every five years, and it seems that they are all highly interesting from a variety of viewpoints. “We have free elections,” Fidenzio told us. “Even the dead vote.” On our initial trip to Chichi, we remarked about the many children we saw along

the road, most of them waving to ing cars. At one point, the car in front of us threw out something to the kids, causing a mad scramble. Fidenzio explained that they waved originally because they were hungry and people threw out food to them. Of course this started Donna off on a campaign of mercy because it is precisely the kind of thing she thrives on. In San Pedro, Eric filled a sack with packaged cookies and he distributed them among the back engers to throw out to the children. Everyone got ready to spring into action as soon as wavers were sighted along the road, everyone, that is except Mary who proceeded to eat the cookies dispensed to her and didn’t even bother to wave. Mary always sits in the back of the bus, and gets away with all kinds of things as a result. But in our minibus she is far too visible and came in for a great amount of scorn, especially from Donna. But she was soon diverted as children started to appear with their hands waving, happy to race after the cookies and candies that flowed from our bus. We found a Pinchazo (tire repair shop) in Chimaltenango, the owner an entrepreneur for sure, being open on a Sunday-holiday. It was time for a potty stop anyway, and there was a Texaco station nearby. I walked over to see if the facilities were acceptable even though I know that our girls had found the nerve to use some pretty gruesome places in China. What I found was a very interesting stone commode, sans toilet seat. It had been two hours since we left the lake and everyone had to go, so the line formed and they all bit the bullet so to speak and went. Even Kasey. It became known among most of us as the “Stone throne,” while Eric anointed it with a slightly more imaginative moniker as the “No glitter shitter.” I got a kick out of watching the tire man work over Hernan’s flat, removing the casing with an old-fashioned sledge hammer and wedge. It only took him about fifteen minutes to find three holes in the tube, patch them and get us back on the road. His neighbor who ran a car parts shop was a garrulous fellow named Byron. He spoke to everyone who came within a hundred yards of him. “Where you from?” “San Francisco? I have a cousin in San Jose.” “You speak good English, Bryon,” I said. “Where did you learn it?” “I learned by talking a lot. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

And we broke into a curious dialogue of Spaneutsch. “Do you speak Chinese, too?” I asked. “Yes. Chop Suey!” It was nice driving into the city on a holiday, the streets being completely empty. As a matter of fact, we almost made up our lost time in the mountains because there weren’t many buses and trucks on the road and Hernan was able to make very good time. We stopped at the Quinta Real to pick up our box lunches and soon were on the way south to the central valley. We reached El Rancho and Highway 9 in midafternoon, turning east along the valley of the Motagua River. Guatemala is a land of constantly changing terrain and ecosystems. We descended out of the mountains into a virtual desert, a rugged, seer land of yucca, rabbit brush and prickly pear. At the town of Teculutan, about two hours out from Guatemala City, we made a rest stop at the Hotel Longarone, a nice place with an attractive pool and garden where Mary and I had lunched with Cole and his cousin Beto last April. The place was jammed with diners and kids nearly filled the entire swimming pool out back. Jim discovered there was a bar and immediately ordered eleven frutas con ron, “to go.” We are getting used to casually ordering a dozen of whatever drink is in style, as we work our way through Guatemala’s rather limited drink menu. Thus far we have sampled the margaritas, the piña coladas and now we have discovered rum frutas. We are an adventuresome group. Actually just across the highway from this restaurant is the Zacapa Rum distillery, manufacturing Guatemala’s finest liquor. Zacapa Centenario, at $30 a bottle, is the Dom Perignon in a land of $2 Venato. At Rio Hondo, we turned south on Highway 10, the road to Zacapa and Esquipulas, as well as to Copán. In February 1976, this area was especially hard hit by the earthquake that finished off Antigua. Hugo said it was called the San Andreas earthquake, named after the fault that we know so well in California. He showed us a section of the road that had jogged markedly to the left during the quake. This region is very fertile. The village of Estanzuela is surrounded by fields of tobacco, and maize and orchards of mango, coconuts, cocoa, and sapote. Morro trees line the road, festooned with round fruit that will become gourds. There are even rare grape vineyards here. The town of Zacapa is famous for its rum. This region also is rich in fossil fields and was the ancient Mayan’s only source of jade.

Near the end of the highway is the major town of Esquipilas, made famous by its cathedral and the famous “Black Jesus.” In Antigua we had seen a similar “Cristo Negro” at the Monastery of San Francisco, but this one in Esquipilas has become a popular pilgrimage site for the faithful. Fidenzio explained that in the ancient times, the Choti Indians who lived in the region worshiped the black jaguar, even domesticating the rare creatures for their temples. The Mayans believed that Venus, the god of night, changed into a jaguar at night and ruled the underworld. He went on to say that the Spanish used this tradition in creating the “Cristo Negro” devotion that has risen almost to the level of idolatry. I have also heard that the statue was simply made out of very dark wood that gradually became black with age. I like the first version better. Beyond Zacapa a road splits off to the right to the village of San Jose la Arada, and then on to the capital. I was told it was one of the “dangerous roads,” not to be traveled because of the bandits who plague it. The government is gradually eliminating these areas of lawlessness, but visitors are advised always to keep clear of the little-used highways that look like they might save some time. Just beyond that road, I enjoyed seeing a motel that was named the “Be Happy Auto Hotel.” Later I would discover its brother, the “Happy Hours Auto Hotel” near Rio Hondo. We left Highway 10 just after that first blast of happiness, entering a region of tiny villages, some Mayan, with a cultural variety of names: Ticanlu, Olopa, Veguitas, San Juan, Las Crucitas, Las Vados, Tierre Blanca, Camotan, La Orgol Osa, El Brasilar. These are places of yore, with many men carrying pistols, and life is languid and simple. The Sunday markets in a couple of the Mayan towns are things to behold, with all the population in traditional dress, the men in white with white sombreros, the women in single color, bright costumes. At the town of El Florida, we arrived at the border. Fedenzio collected our ports, Q10 notes and $3 from each of us, to pay for the crossing. The Q10 got us out of Guatemala and the $3 secured a port stamp for Honduras. Curiously the Honduras office is on the Guatemala side of the line and Guatemala is where Honduras should be. But the whole thing took less than five minutes for Fidenzio while we busied ourselves taking pictures of the border signs. All international crossings should be so easy! Ten minutes later we were in the village of Copán Ruinas, where we will stay for two nights. It is a picturesque little place of cobblestone streets and traditional

dwellings. Our hotel, the Marina Copán, sits just off of the town square and comes as a shock, a modern upscale hotel squeezed into the crowded old streets of the town. It didn’t take long for us to be stripped down to bathing suits and floating around the pool, while Jim busied himself ordering a dozen rum and lemonades, a drink I had first tasted on my last trip. I recognized the bartender from that last visit and reminded him of those drinks. From that point on, rum and lemonade is called “Jack’s Drink” at the Marina Copán. “Bartender, twelve Jack’s Drinks!” That sounds so cool. We all had dinner at the hotel tonight, a great meal that is one of the incredible travel bargains in my experience. The whole dinner with cerveza, wine, more Jack’s Drinks, etc. came to about $8 a person. We should all move to Honduras.

JANUARY 2 COPÁN

“Why are you ordering French toast in Honduras, Josh?” Kasey is beginning to pick up the verbal bantering torch that I ed on to Annie years ago. I can’t tell you how proud I am of that question, especially when Josh just rolled his eyes and gave her a mean old stare. I have worried about things like French toast for years. I mean, do you really have to capitalize french? After all, it has little to do with the French, it being only a pastry adjective. I love the way spell check always throws it out when you use the small “f”. I do the same thing with danish pastries, and bermuda onions. I never was able to find a danish in Denmark and there are certainly no bermuda onions on that island. For that matter there is no carolina rice in Carolina; it’s all in Texas and California. And I defy anyone to find canadian bacon north of the border. No, Kasey is on the right track with the question, but Josh should have told her that you can find french toast everywhere except , and it actually makes more sense in Honduras. Good going, Kasey! I got Josh up early this morning, to show him a cacao tree, with fruit hanging down from which we derive chocolate. I knew he would think it was cool. “Bring your sketch book,” I told him, “You could draw a picture of it for your journal.” It was a new twist on the dreaded journal, making it a little more fun. He still hasn’t written a word, but a few pictures could be a good start. He got very involved right at the beginning, drawing a very nice Chicken bus. I figure if he likes to draw the cacao, there are a hundred other fruit trees out here in the rain forest that will keep him busy for hours.

We have a great day in front of us today, as we hit our first Mayan ruin, the great city-state of Copán. Our Guatemala trip is neatly divided between shopping and

learning, the first half being in the “modern” towns where there is lots to buy, and the second in the rain forests and jungles where the ancient Mayans built their cities. The next four days will take us to four of those sites. Copán, in many ways is the most interesting. We have a great guide for our tour, Fito, who took our familiarization trip around last month, and whom I specifically requested for our family. His name is really Rudolfito, “little Rudolf.” That diminutive was immediately transferred to our two little ones, Kasita and Joshuito. Josh became an instant hit with Fito, because his name, Josh, is very common in the world of the ancient Mayans. There are lots of Josh-es around as we were to discover. Copán is a spectacular site, with probably the most interesting single plaza in the Mayan world. Fito led us to a map of that world that stretched from the Yucatan plateau of Uxmal to Tulun in the north, the highland cities in Guatemala’s mountains, the lowland states dominated by Tikal, and in the south the region dominated by Copán. This was hardly a single nation, although they possessed the same written language. That writing however was spoken by a perplexing variety of languages, leading to great consternation among scholars trying to interpret the stelae they find. Much as the Latin alphabet is used by dozens of European languages, the Mayan pictographs have a bewildering variety of pronunciations depending on what part of the Mayan world they were used. In addition, that world was made up of many different ethnic groups. Copán was perhaps the most distinctive, because placed on the southern edge, it was subject to the most foreign influences, and as a result, was probably more cosmopolitan. All of the Mayan states, Fito said, have five things in common: 1. Step pyramids 2. Incised stelae 3. Ball courts 4. The same writing system 5. An obsession with time—calendar rounds

The four major city states in the Classic Period were Palenque, Colokmul, Tikal and Copán.

Copán is a most impressive site. History in the valley dates back to about 1400 BC, but royal Mayan rule begins sometime in the 5th century, with the reign of king Mah K’ina Yax K uk’ Mo’, better known as Great Sun Lord Quetzal Macaw. His dynasty would rule Copán for five centuries. In the central core of Copán (about fifteen square kilometers) 3,450 structures have been unearthed. In the greater region another 1,400+ sites have been discovered with more than 4,500 structures. Realizing that many of these buildings were constructed on top of earlier ones, the building fervor of these people is astounding. It is estimated that at its height, Copán numbered more than 27,000 inhabitants. The modern population only reached that figure in the 1980s. There are a number of reasons for the demise of this flourishing city. It is all too modern a story. As the city core expanded, the people had to move from the fertile valleys onto the hillsides to do their farming. As the soil was depleted, the diets of the people degenerated, both in quality and quantity. Ultimately, they could not produce enough food to themselves and they had to begin importing. The forests were cut to clear the land for farming, and eventually there was insufficient fuel to burn the lime needed for plastering the public buildings. Lower levels of buildings show the lime stucco, while the later levels are simply mortar, mud and stone, much more heavily damaged in the frequent earthquakes. Life expectancy declined. Disease increased. Tomb excavations show many signs of increased infant mortality. There is considerable evidence of rampant hepatitis and water-born diseases. Diets lacked protein. There were no preservatives, no salt; hence no preservation for lean times. We are in fact observing these same patterns today in Guatemala—slash and burn practices to secure farming land from the forest, which produces only a few years before being depleted. We had a guide in Tikal who called it the “circle of life,” a common Mayan theme that history will continually repeat itself until we get it right. We also have similar thoughts. Fito led us around the side of Temple 11, past some of the original drainage system and up steps into what was the center of the royal city, a series of temples and courts that is very extensive. Beneath Temple 16, built by First Dawn, archaeologists found, in 1980, an earlier temple, fully intact dating from the reign of Smoke Serpent (578-628). Generally it was the Mayan custom to deface or destroy any earlier works in building for the new monarch. This early temple, now called Rosalila because of its vivid colors, can be seen by entering a tunnel used in the excavation. It has also been built as a model in the Museum of

Mayan Sculpture at Copán, which unfortunately is closed at the moment. Beneath Rosalila is another temple, Margarita, that dates a century and a half earlier. This one houses the graves of Copan’s first ruler, Great Sun Lord Quetzal Macaw, and his wife. It was found twenty-five meters down, on the original floor of the valley. The world of Great Sun Lord Quetzal Macaw lasted almost until 900 AD. There is a remarkable stone (Altar Q) in the West Plaza that is carved with the names and pictures of the sixteen kings of Copán. It was carved in 776, commissioned by the last of those sixteen kings, Yax Pac (First Dawn—the Yax is pronounced “Josh’)). The names have a definite aura of mystery. Only some of them have been deciphered: #2—Mat Head; #7—Waterlily Jaguar; #10—Moon Jaguar; #11 —Smoke Serpent. King #12, Smoke Jaguar (628-695) built Copán into its greatest era, taking over most of the surrounding city-states, including Quiriguá, which we will see later in the trip. We will see his picture on one of the stelae there. His son didn’t fare as well. I like him because we can identify his glyph when we see those three bars and three dots. 18 Rabbit (695-738) had a long rule, but it ended with him losing his head in Quiriguá. He should have been a Jaguar instead of a Rabbit. Actually he was probably not a rabbit at all, but rather an agouti, one of those funny-looking little critters we saw scurrying around the forest. But 18 Agouti just doesn’t make it as a royal name. Smoke Monkey was the 14th king of Copán, followed by his son, Smoke Shell, who created the masterpiece of the Copán site: the Hieroglyphic Staircase. First Dawn, (The word for “First” is “Josh”) who had this Altar Q carved, actually ruled for 57 years. He had a son, but nothing is known about him. It is an interesting progress, this Copán dynasty, beginning with the Great Sun Lord Quetzal Macaw, progressing through a bunch of Jaguars, declining at its peak to a clutch of Rabbits, degenerating to a Monkey and ending with the Sun Rise. During one of our stops, Fito entered into a discussion of the cosmos of the ancient Maya, and their religious beliefs. The one God is symbolized as a circle in their iconography, the circle composed of all life, large and small. There are three levels: the Upper Level, white, happy, overseen by thirteen sub-Gods led by the sun. The Middle Level consists of living things, with the Underworld, led by the Jaguar God, on nine levels of negative energy, dark and unhappy. The day is the constant reenactment of the life cycle, as the sun rises in life, dying at the end of the day to dark night, which is ruled by the jaguar. When a person dies, he journeys to the underworld, and then on to the upper levels. If his purpose has been fulfilled, he stays in the upper levels. Otherwise, he returns to a new life to

complete his purpose. “There are different forces in life,” one of my earlier guides had said. “When love and commerce don’t work, hate works.” “How powerful is knowledge in a world of ignorance?” Fito uttered this exclamation referring to the obvious power wielded by the priests and kings in the Mayan world. He could have used it about the guides I have met in this land. Earlier he used the word “egocentric!” He speaks of “asymmetry,” and “protuberances,” “the evolution of political systems” and “the degradation of religious power.” Imagine being able to converse with words like that, in a foreign language! He didn’t even hesitate when he tossed them into the discussion, blithely whipping them out as though they were normal washday words. I wonder sometimes if they don’t do that on purpose to confuse us tourists. I used to have a favorite word or two, that I always used on college tests to impress the professor, words like “exacerbate” that seems like it ought to be “exaggerate. I have been impressed by a number of the guides at these Mayan sites, who have mastered not only the intricacies of Mayan writing, but also the intricacies of non-native languages. They throw around “cosmos” and “etymology” and “symbiosis” without even breaking a sweat. Wouldn’t they spin marvels with German, where they can throw out things like “Waffenstillstandunterhaltungen” and “Grosswirtschaftsbehandlungen” in the middle of the Jaguar Plaza? You would think that these ruins were constructed specifically with Josh in mind. He took one look at these massive collections of piled stones and knew he was in his world, a world where agility, speed, and energy rule, a world that is an instant nightmare if you happen to be mother Nancy. She should have just Xeroxed a ream of paper with a single thought, “Be Careful, Josh!” The wall hasn’t been built that he can’t get on top of, and the only slope he can’t come down at full speed is a perpendicular wall. Copan is a nice introduction for him, because in general, these temples and palaces aren’t too high or steep. We all clambered up the side of the Jaguar Plaza, built by 18 Rabbit in 715 AD, to get a good group picture, and we edged our way around the Palace entrance, which is the open mouth of an enormous serpent, and past the Popol Nah, the public council house that is fronted with a very interesting herringbone pattern of stones. From there we could look down on the Great Plaza.

Fito led us down past a bunch of GOK piles (God Only Knows) into the Great Plaza, one of the most impressive sights in the Mundo Maya, a six-acre site that was the public meeting area during the height of Copán. The center area on the north contains some of the finest stelae extant, many of them carved during the reign of 18 Rabbit. Fito became nearly ecstatic as we arrived at Stela A, a deeply incised carving that contains the glyphs of four great cities during the reign of 18 Rabbit: Copán, Palenque, Tikal and Calakmul. He gave us an explanation of several of the gylphs, enthusing on the fact that Mayan is one of only seven language texts invented in the world. (Later I asked him if he was aware of the Cherokee Syllabary invented by Sequoia, and he itted he might have to increase that number to eight.) 18 Rabbit is the most famous of the Copan rulers, probably because we can all figure out the beginnings of the numbering system, and his is very visible, with three bars (3X5=15) plus 3 dots (3)=18. “This is really a very egocentric collection,” Fito observed, describing these stelae at Copán as being elaborate advertising posters for the rulers. The figure on Stela A is wearing a belt of skulls, perhaps a reference to the practice of beheading the captain of the losing team in some of the games. Copán has a beautifully preserved ball court near the southern end of the Grand Plaza, the third built on the site, finished in 738, just before 18 Rabbit was killed at Quiriguá. There is no agreement about the rules of the game played on this court with two sloping sides. It was called pocatoq, and was played with a solid rubber ball that weighed eight to ten pounds, moved around using the hips, shoulders, thighs and arms. There are no descriptions of the game in existence, but it seems to have been a “mixture of soccer, basketball and roller derby.” With a ball that heavy and solid there must have been some major injuries. The best descriptions of the game, Fito said, are found in the Popol Vuh, that curious “Mayan Bible” that has survived over the centuries. A more interesting question as far as the ball courts are concerned is why they actually played the game. The spectator seats are rather small, given the size of the population, so these were not games played for the general public. In Tikal, there is a series of three ball courts in the Plaza of Seven Temples, each with almost no spectator space. Perhaps the games were part of religious ritual, Fito theorized. There is much of the Mayan world that is pure conjecture, and the good guides often use like, “This is what we think….” Of course, anyone who has been to Chicken Itza and seen the grisly skulls that are carved in stone

there assume that bloodshed was part of the game. But Chicken Itza is 400 years later than Copán and a great deal can change in four centuries, especially when a culture has been exposed to the much more brutal civilization of the Aztecs. The ball court at Copán is magnificent. There are six macaw heads placed around the court, which must have had a function in the game. Above the East Side are the boxes for the upper nobility and priests, also adorned by a very intricate macaw carving.

As spectacular as the ball court is, the pride of Copán is found just south of it— the Hieroglyphic Staircase. Begun in 712 by 18 Rabbit, it is largely the work of his successor, Smoke Shell. It is built of 72 steps (Lonely Planet says 63 steps), containing several thousand blocks intricately carved, telling the history of the Copán dynasty. It is the longest Mayan inscription in existence, but unfortunately, when it was first discovered and rebuilt, the stones were all jumbled up and misplaced. It will take a great amount of study to get it right. The Maya recorded most of their language in books rather than stone, but all but three of these codices were destroyed by the missionaries who invaded their lands. The books that survive are all in European collections, but they are not complete enough to answer all of the questions that the stone inscriptions inspire. Archaeologists, or epigraphers as they label them where writing is concerned, do seem to have figured out the numbers to their satisfaction, and that alone is a major accomplishment because the Maya seem to have been obsessed with time and numbers. The last time I was here, I found an article about the Maya calendar and decided to figure it out for myself. Here is what I discovered:

MAYAN NUMBERING—AN EXPLANATION

Just about the time you figured that your number of years on earth made you eligible to say that you knew something or had an understanding of life, you wander into a book about the Maya in Tikal. Try this out:

“The inscription on this stela occurs in two vertical separated s. (There is a picture) The date is inscribed in the first four glyphs of the upper , in the upper two rows. (okay) The first glyph records the day 13 Ahau, followed by the month 18 Cumku; the left hand glyph in the second row is the katun glyph surmounted by the number 17,or 17th katun, while the second glyph to the right in this row, records that the haab, or tun is completed. These four glyphs state that a day in a 52-year cycle, 13 Ahau 18 Cumku, completes Katun 17 of an implied Baktun 9; in other words, 9.17.0.0.0 (see appendix).”

Now how in the hell did they imply Baktun 9? What bothers me is that I actually tried to read that gibberish and secretly turned to the appendix for understanding. What also bothers me is that there is some guy, in this case William R. Coe, who purports to understand that gibberish. What truly bothers me further is that he probably does, and I never will. There is so much to learn and understand, and for a mental trivia antiquarian, that thought is depressing. I’ll bet old William R. Coe hasn’t a clue about the starting lineup for the Yankees. That is consoling. I actually did go to the appendix to a section on Maya dating. It seems they dated things in a cycle of 52 years or 18,980 days, the “Calendar Round.” Of course, they counted vigesimally, which I now know is in groups of 20. The Calendar Round results from the permutation of three other cycles: the Sacred Round (made up of two cycles) and the Vague Year. The Sacred Round has a cycle of 13 numbered days and 20 named days, which produces 260 combinations of numbers and days. The Vague Year has 365 days (!) resulting from 18 20-day months plus 5 “days of the dead” which are added for no good reason. Now here is the fun thing: 260 and 365 have 5 as a common divisor, so 5X52X73=18,980. Would you believe it—a Calendar Round! Every single day in that 52-year cycle had a different name. In Mayanese a day is a kin. 20 kins make a utnal, while 18 utnals make a tun. There are 20 tuns in a katun, and if you pile up 20 of those katuns you get a baktun, which is exactly half of a Calendar Round. No one has ever found out what the Mayans called their grand cycle, but I’ll bet it had a tun in there somewhere. I was actually intending to commit this whole thing to memory, when I was informed that they also used a Short Count, and that fact is seriously screwing up the scholars on transferring stuff into the Gregorian calendar.

It was about at that point that it dawned on me that the high point of the golden age of the Maya was just about the time of the coronation of Charlemagne which occurred ten years before 9.19.0.0.0, the exact date of the construction of Temple 3 in Tikal. I’ll date everything after Charlemagne from now on. Now was that Caesarian or Gregorian time? Once I get all of the vagaries of Mayan dating down, I am moving to the PreClassical age where I have just discovered rare deposits of garbage called eb and new pottery shards labeled tzec. I think they are 4.75 katuns prior to Homer. Come to think about it, how did I ever figure out in school that the square root of DCCCC is XXX?

By the time we got halfway across the Great Plaza, we all realized that none of us had brought even a drop of water and we discovered it was really getting hot. Fito, of course, had a bottle and he was almost reluctant to take a drink himself. So I asked him to cut his final program short and we headed to the entrance for a water break. It was already after noon anyway, so we just continued out of the park and off to lunch. Lunch is one of my surprises, at the Hacienda San Lucas, hidden away on one of the hills across the Copán River from the ruins. I discovered it on my last trip and intend to use it for all of our future trips. It is very isolated and serves good local food. We were met by the owner, Flavia, who describes herself, quite aptly, as “the crazy woman of the hills.” In a torrent of words she welcomed us and escorted us into her hacienda, which she has rescued from the jungle that had swallowed the farm originally built by her father. The house sits on a bluff with a long lawn running down to an overview of the river and the ruins across the way. Of course there are Mayan footings all over her hill as well. Kasey and Josh were immediately occupied with a wonderfully frisky young black lab and they roared around the grounds perfectly happy and content, all three of them. Lunch began with a local tamale and a curious pickled papaya. The main dish was barbecued chicken with an adoble sauce, rice and black beans. It is always great fun to get off the beaten path and meet some of the local people. I would put this lunch in Copán right along with the one with Ginny at Lake Atitlán, ironically both of them “San Lucas” events. Lunch completed we decided to opt out of a visit to the archaeological museum in town in order to visit the Macaw Mountain on the other side of Copán Ruinas, a bird preserve that specializes in rehabbing and saving injured or abandoned tropical birds. The park was opened in 2001, and presently has 89 macaws, parrots and toucans in compounds spread throughout an extensive piece of rainforest. We have started to get used to the names of the parrots, which are usually –fronted, -lored, or –headed. In Chichi we saw some White-lored and White-headed parrots in the garden of the hotel. The park has a pair of Great green macaws, very rare, as well as a flock of Scarlet macaws and Blue and gold macaws, and a few much smaller Green-winged macaws. We reached an area where they have about a dozen very tame birds, and we were all offered a chance to hold one or more. When we were here last May, Mary liked the White-headed

amazons, and actually had three of them on her arm and shoulder at one point. This time it was Kasey and Josh who simply glowed with a parrot on their head or arm. The park is the inspiration of Lloyd Davidson, an American from Tennessee. He is fashioning a most interesting and attractive park, getting most of his birds from out-of-country people who buy houses in Guatemala or Honduras and think they need a macaw or parrot to be fully furnished. These birds require a great deal of care and attention, and most people, Lloyd said, find that out within a few months and are looking for a good excuse to get rid of them. Macaw Mountain provides that escape hatch. In addition to the protected birds, this is also a very lush rainforest, with a fine river that has been innovatively dammed to allow swimming in the rainy season. Macaw Mountain has most of the parrot species found in Central American, but it also has a few other exotic birds. It was the toucan that moved us to poetry. I had told the kids about the famous limerick about pelicans:

A wonderful bird is the pelican, His mouth can hold more than his belly can. He can hold in his beak, Enough food for a week, I wonder just how in the hell he can?

It was a simple question to ask, “Why not a toucan?” Our efforts were somewhat dubious.

It is widely known that a toucan Loves prunes that come from the Yucatan.

But he says with dismay At the end of the day, “Damn, another night spent on the poocan!”

Dinner at our hotel was such a bargain last night that we all decided to do it again, especially since the waitress, Evelin, is one of the fastest-talking females any of us had ever encountered. It would be great to eat about ten times a day in Honduras because of the low prices. Just think how much money we would save!

JANUARY 3 QUIRIGUÁ / TIKAL

If our trip from Lake Atitlán to Copán was a long one, today’s trek from Copán to Tikal is even longer. First we have to backtrack through Zacapa to Rio Hondo, a couple of hours at best. Everyone was warned about the length of our journey today, and reminded of the ride we had endured on arrival in Hainan Island last year. We left Copán at 9:00 sharp, arriving at the border at 9:07. At 9:07:50 we were through the border. “Hasta la vista, Baby!” someone exclaimed. Our Governator must be the most quoted politician in the world. All of the people at that border were smiling, perhaps because Fidenzio and Hernan knew many of them, but those guys didn’t seem to have a care in the world, once again calling up a subject that has popped up several times during the trip. For four days we have been driving through villages and towns where the people don’t have much. We have seen markets where the women were intent only on the moment—buying or selling, bargaining, talking, socializing. The kids are running free, shoeless and dirty, but hardly unfed or angry. The men lounge around in places, or are working calmly on their garden or much-dented car. Many walk along the road, machete or shovel laid over their shoulder, heading for work or returning. At 6 A.M. in Copán there were surprising numbers plying the streets heading for work. At night, the streets are alive with families, laughing in groups around plastic tables, the kids playing in a corner, or biking down the alley, kicking a soccer ball, or quietly listening to the old folks. These dusty vignettes have little in common with our world, perhaps nothing. Inevitably we feel bad for these people, and I always wonder why. We call them “poor,” with ache in our voices, and want somehow to “help” them in their misery. We want to over-tip them, offer handouts, pray for them, save their poverty-stricken souls, re-dress them in Levi’s and khakis. The only thing we don’t do for them is leave them alone.

These folks could do without us. A few months ago, a man told me, “If they have some tamales and some rice, and a few quetzales, they are happy.” The question isn’t “Are they poor?” We should be asking, “Are they happy?” In many ways, the people we are observing in these small places aren’t poor at all, no more than a humble shoemaker is in a Black Forest village, or a tiny vineyard owner with half a hectare of vines in Provence is poor. Such people often have the finest of treasures—they have balance. They work as much as they need to live in their own way and that would be enough if the outside world would let them live. The outside world can’t help itself. We send armies to butcher them or conscript them into wars they neither care about nor understand. You can’t fire a machete or blast a shovel. We send missionaries and priests to tell them they are wrong, to change their ancient ways and rituals and revoke their deities. We call them “pagans” or “barbarians” implying a serious lack of something we deem essential or at least important. Perhaps the most cutting phrase of all is “Third World,” implying that they are at least two levels below our exalted state, and badly in need of our services. Many of these , innocent enough when used in a vacuum, contain vials of poison when applied to another human being or culture. We “Western Civilization” folks, born fully marinated in the Max Weber “Protestant Ethic” of hard work and continual progress, are often unable to deal with the society that is content with what they have, willing to relax for much of the day, if only they have enough rice and beans, and a place to sleep. We disdainfully call them “lazy.” “There has to be more than this,” is the title of a popular Western song these days, and it could be the motto for our whole culture. It comes as a shock that there are people on this earth who may not agree. I think we have been looking at some of these souls in the last few days. I wonder if they are happy? More important, I often wonder if we are happy.

We made our first stop at the El Dorado Express in the village of Valle Dorado on the main highway headed to Puerto Barrios. It is an interesting place, with fruit vendors peddling baggies of cut fruit outside, and a full buffet and snack shop inside. Most of us were badly in need of baños, and immediately headed inside, but were stopped by Fidenzio who whispered that there were much better “Gringo baños” next door. This place is actually very much like our rest areas in the middle of freeways, with snack foods as well as a hot buffet. I have noticed that Fidenzio is very tuned in to the ancient Maya customs and beliefs. In Santiago, he made no bones about his belief in Maximón, and the good things that come from that faith. He has talked frequently about the efficacy of the blood sacrifices that are, according to him, still held in several secret areas in the mountains. Cerro del Oro, he reported got its golden name from the wealth derived from the sale of sacrificial offerings, not always of the wild sort. Today he introduced us to the concept of the “wooble”. Fidenzio explained that every 82 days, the serpent in the sky connects the sun and the moon. The connection lasts for three weeks, and during that time, the universe gets a case of the shakes. A wooble can open a portal that allows ancestors to come back to earth, a very important concept in the Mayan world. During a wooble, accidents happen, the very thing that precipitated this whole discussion in the first place. We have already observed the phenomenon today as our Jaime Venato was heard to utter, “Oh, Señor, mas café por favor!” There is absolutely nothing wrong with that statement and for Jim that is a complete accident. He even pronounced the tilde. It’s the wooble! At Los Amates, we turned off the highway, crossing the old railroad tracks onto a dirt track that leads into the banana plantations. These were part of the original United Fruit Company lands, purchased in the 1930s. They operate today under the modern name of Del Monte. There are sixteen banana processing plants in the area, employing the people, often at very long hours. Workers are provided with housing, schools and medical services. We intended to stop and take a look at the factory, which was operating today, but decided we were going to run short of time. We did stop to watch bunches of bananas fly by on a sort of elevated conveyor belt, on their way into the washing and grading area. A tree produces one bunch of bananas a year, which is cut green, carted into the plant for washing and grading, and packaged for shipping. Of course, like produce on the world market everywhere, the good stuff is exported and the locals get the

lower grades. It costs no more to ship the high quality fruits that will bring a higher profit. You can find better artichokes in New York than you can in Castroville, California! It is just a short drive from the banana plantation to Quiriguá, a Mayan city that was rediscovered rather late. The site was first rediscovered by American John I. Stephens in 1840, who tried to buy the ruins from the local land owner. Negotiations failed, and ultimately the entire region was purchased by the United Fruit Company, who filled the area with banana plantations, at the same time preserving the ruined city. The restoration of the site was carried on by the University of Pennsylvania in the 1930s. In 1981, it was declared one of Guatemala’s three UNESCO World Heritage Sites (along with Tikal and Antigua.) The site of Quiriguá is a park, a lovely lawn with some of the most elaborate stone carvings, stelae and zoomorphs, in the Mayan world. The red sandstone was quarried in the area, fine stone to work because it is soft when quarried and shaped, but hardens on with air. A similar rock was used on our lovely Carmel Mission back home. The city of Quiriguá was a vassal state of Copán until 737 AD, when the ruler Cauac Sky, who would rule for 54 years, captured 18 Rabbit, the king of Copán. Eventually he beheaded his captive, bringing Quiriguá into a time of ascendancy over Copán. He commissioned his artists to create a series of monolithic stelae, which remain the finest collection in the Mayan world. There are thirteen stelae standing in the extensive lawn area, each housed beneath a thatched canopy to preserve them from the elements. Seven of them bear the sculpture of Cauac Sky. The others were commissioned by his son, Sky Xul (784-800) and the last ruler of Quiriguá, Jade Sky. In addition, there are a number of extremely elaborate zoomorphs, large flat stones, carved on all sides, depicting symbolic animals: turtle, jaguar, snakes, frogs. It seems to me that they are even more stunning than the stelae. There is a rather subdued acropolis at the south end of the park. I got to thinking about the arrogance of our “Western Civilization” which doesn’t see fit to include the great cultures of Central America or the Far East in our history books. It occurs to me that when Cauac Sky was capturing 18 Rabbit, there was no discernable civilization in Western Europe. Rome was gone and so was Greece. The Huns had made a mess of everything from the Black Sea to

Gibraltar (which didn’t get its name until 711 when an Arab chieftain named Tariq brought his army across to this rock.) Charles Martel was just about girding his loins to go out and face the Muslim horde that was advancing from Spain to threaten his land. The kingdom in Quiriguá was just ending when Charlemagne was putting a crown on his own head in 800 and starting to create the “Holy Roman Empire.” There was no Italy, no , no England, no , no Europe, just a bunch of Germanic types running around worshipping oak trees. What are we so proud of? Here is a culture that was an old man when ours was barely an infant, and yet we will dismiss it with at best a sentence or two in ing. It is incredible that in our traditional list of the “Wonders of the Ancient World” there is no mention of the Mayan city-states, the Inca world, the Great Wall of China, Forbidden City, Angor Wat, the Taj Mahal, Borobradur, or anything done by the King of Siam, etc., etc., etc. My, how things change! It was a lovely stroll through the lawns of Quiriguá, which are very well maintained. The last time I was here I watched a guy mowing them with a gas-powered machine, the first I had seen in Guatemala. By my estimate, Quiriguá has risen to the fifth level of lawn care, no mean feat in this part of the world. Folks down here have a type of bald sheep they call peliguey, which of course is the old traditional tool for lawn mowing. In Livingston, I watched a man mow an entire lawn with a machete, an amazing feat in that it required him to squat on his haunches the whole time. I was in genuine pain after watching him for only a few minutes. In Rio Dulce, a young man had progressed from the machete to the weed eater. The gardeners at the Mansion Del Rio were pushing Snappers, a geometric progression in lawn technology. Now here in Quiriguá, for this huge greensward they are operating sit down mowers! La Ultima, the John Deere tractor mower, can’t be far off. The mowers don’t take care of the critters however. You have to arm your legs (pun intended) with repellant before you venture out on the grass. Marty came away the next day with legs that looked like they had been to war, and I had more than a few bites below sock level. You can’t really avoid the grass though because all of the stelae are out in the middle, protected from the elements by thatched roofs. From Quirigua we returned to the Autocarre del Atlantico and turned south. It was now going on 1:00 and we are scheduled for lunch in Rio Dulce, an hour or so away. From there we have almost four hours to get to our hotel in Tikal. Bodies are starting to shuffle in the back of the bus. We have some family

who get mean when they get tired, and even meaner when they get hungry. Thank God for “Uno,” because that game has used up several hours of travel already and will be most useful before we finish. We were a bit tired and very hungry by the time we reached Ranchon Mary in Rio Dulce. The name alone revived us, and when Mary saw the tumblers with her name on it, her acquisitive instincts flared into full flower. Lunch was a variety of things, about what you expect in a waterfront café-restaurant, sandwiches and stuff (and calamari for Josh). Some of us had a dish called Mojarres a la Plancha, barbecued fish, a type of perch that is local and quite delicious. In an hour or so we were ready to go. Eric had struck out trying to buy a mug for Mary, but I asked anyway when I went to pay the bill, and the nice waitress got one for me for Q20, reward for hosting the lunch I suppose. So we won’t have to worry about Mary the rest of the day; such prizes mollify everything in her mind. As an added bonus we had seen the Café Suli down the street, so a photo stop was essential to immortalize Sully in front of “her place,” so to speak. I was really sorry that the group couldn’t see Rio Dulce and ride down to Livingston, as we usually do on our Guatemala trips. But we didn’t have enough time and this was the day I skipped. The river is not a long one, about twenty miles, draining Lake Izabela, the nation’s largest lake, into the Caribbean. It takes about an hour to boat down to Livingston, a favorite with the Guatemalan Tourist Board because it is home to the only group of Blacks in the country, the Garifuna, descendants of African slaves and Carib Indians. Originally wrecked in transit from Africa in 1635, African slaves from Nigeria were stranded on the island of St. Vincent, where they bred with the native Carib. Evicted by the British, they were sent as prisoners to the Island of Roatán, and abandoned. The Spanish rescued them, bringing them into Honduras as agricultural workers and as sailors and fishermen. Eventually they moved out of Honduras into Belize and Livingston, Guatemala. The town is a dump and all of the hype heaped on it by Inguat, the Guatemalan Tourist Board, can’t erase that fact. Originally I had planned our groups to stay overnight at the Villa Carib Hotel, but one visit convinced me that twenty minutes in the town is quite enough for our folks. The rides down and back, however, with stops in the jungle side-rivers are worth the trip. Next time. We left the Ranchon Mary about 2:30 heading into the coastal mountains. It is really a lovely drive along a fine highway that was only built a couple of years ago, effectively opening up the Department of Petén and Tikal to visitors. The road runs through dozens of villages (aldea) and farms (fincas), carved out of the

jungle by the devastating slash and burn practices that are quickly obliterating the rain forests of the region. For miles we ed denuded hills, unable to a modern crop, and no longer part of the living forest. Well over half of Guatemala’s rain forests have been burned up, a practice that continues almost full swing in Petén. The government is making some headway however in the deep jungle, in their attempts to create the Maya Biosphere Reserve, 21,000 square kilometers, that once was a pure jungle region. Between 1962 and 1993,more than half the jungle has been destroyed, and in the past ten years, the trend has actually accelerated, as farmers invade the region, slash and burn to use up the soil for a few years before moving on to a new region, and repeating the process. The Biosphere has a Unesco designation, but like so many of that useless body’s efforts, it appears to be fighting a losing cause. Around 6:30 we reached Lake Petén Itza, a lovely lake, slightly smaller than Atitlán, around which are found the settlements that service visitors intent on going to Tikal and the other Mayan ruins. Our hotel, the Camino Real, sits on the far end of the lake, a classy property built on the bluff overlooking the water. It was nice to get checked in, and before long, Jim was down ordering twelve margaritas as the crew slowly trudged in. Dinner was a casual, slow affair, of sandwiches and fries, more than enough after our late lunch. Tomorrow we visit Tikal.

JANUARY 4 TIKAL

Noah was waiting for us when we came down to breakfast. He was our Tikal guide last month on one of our group tours, and I am delighted that he is available for us as well. I have found the guides in all of the Mayan ruin sites to be exceptional, very well informed and armed with extremely good English. Noah is a rather quiet and reserved young man who is completely conversant with the history and culture of the ancient world. Like so many of the guides, he is mostly Mayan himself, with world outlook and beliefs that are far from modern. I have found that the ancient Mayans reside just beneath the surface throughout Guatemala, surprisingly so in the younger people. Tikal National Park covers an area of 222 square miles in the midst of the Maya eco-preserve in the northern department of Petén. It is istered by the Institute of Anthropology and History of Guatemala. The Tikal Museum was instituted in 1964 to catalogue, review and house the hundreds of thousands of artifacts that have been discovered throughout the site. In the center of the park is Tikal, the explored mapped site covering about six square miles, revealing over 3,000 buildings of one sort or another: temples, palaces, ceremonial platforms, ball courts, residences, causeways and plazas. Over 200 stone monuments, stelae and altars, are spread among the ruins. The same number of chultuns, subterranean chambers, dug into the bedrock, have so far been unearthed. There are an estimated 10,000 earlier platforms and buildings lying beneath those exposed and mapped, indicating a continuous construction period that stretched over 1,100 years, from 200 BC to 900 AD. The tools and artifacts number more than 100,000; the potsherds in the millions. One guidebook compares Tikal to an iceberg, with only a tenth of the riches exposed above ground. The ruins are identified as belonging to one of a number of distinct eras: Pre-classic Period: 600 BC – around 250 AD Classic Period: 250 AD – 900 AD

Early Classic: 250 AD – 550 AD Late Classic: 550 AD – 900 AD Post Classic: 900 AD on, when Mayans still lived at the site but not in the classic manner. Almost all of the construction visible today is from the Late Classic period. All of this enormous building lay pretty much unknown to the outside world for over 900 years. There must have been local people who knew what was here, but over the centuries, the jungle swallowed most of the buildings, slowly eroding and melting them. It was not until 1848 that an official expedition was made to the site, an of which was published five years later in . In 1877, Dr. Gustav Bernoulli, a Swiss, traveled to the site, removing several wooden lintels to Basel. In 1881 and 1882, Englishman Alfred Maudslay traveled to Tikal, made an extensive map and took many photographs. Next came a German, Teobert Maler in 1895 and 1904, working for Harvard’s Peabody Museum. A follow-up expedition by the Peabody included Alfred Tozzer, who would become one of the world’s greatest Mayan experts. Working for the Carnegie Institute of Washington, Sylvanus Morley personally visited the site or oversaw the archaeology from 1914 – 37. The Tikal Museum is named in his honor. Finally, in 1956, the University of Pennsylvania began an thirteen-year program of study and excavation, and the Tikal Project was born, with Edwin Shook as the director. This was succeeded in 1970 by the Tikal National Park Archaeological Project, run by the Guatemalan government, whose work between 1979 and 1985 restored the Plaza of the Lost World and the North Zone. Most of Tikal however, is still controlled by the jungle. It is about a 45-minute drive from the Camino Real to the entrance to Tikal National Park, where a gate stops vehicles so that they can pay the Q50 charge per person, one of the great bargains in the world. Noah told us that recently a jaguar had been killed on the park road by a speeding car. Since the jaguar’s hunting area is very large, it means that there are probably no more of the cats in the region right now. As a result, all drivers are given a receipt with the time printed on it. At the visitor center another guard takes the receipt. If the time elapsed shows that the driver went more than 45 mph, he is heavily fined for speeding, a most clever way to protect the animals and birds that are often seen on the road. We arrived at the visitor center without deserving a ticket, having seen a Great crested guan along the way, but no prowling jaguars. Jim, as always

was more interested in snakes. “Do you have snakes in this jungle?” he asked Noah a bit fearfully. “There are twenty-two different species in Tikal.” “How many are poisonous?” That’s the real question. Jim is still thrilling over his sighting of a boomschlang in Africa a few years ago. His real goal is to spot a black mamba, but he won’t find one of those here. In Tikal they only have three that are poisonous, a rattlesnake, a fer de lance and a coral snake. All three are almost never seen, nor felt. There is an enormous ceiba tree near the visitor center at Tikal, a massive thing that is covered on its upper branches with epiphytes so that it looks like a huge hairy spider. At Copán we saw a very young ceiba tree, which as a sapling was used in the old days as a “torture tree.” It has spikes covering the trunk and branches. A prisoner is tied to it and as long as he stays awake and on his feet he is fine, but when he starts to slide… The mature ceiba is something else, the most holy tree of the Maya, because it is so huge, they considered it a link between the underworld and the heavens. Josh added to his importance here, because the ceiba was called josh cheh in Mayan, the josh in this case meaning “green” and the cheh, “tree.” It was the first living thing mentioned in the Popol Vuh. We have already found out that josh also means “first” as well as “blue.” Josh Atelepsop, was the founder of the kingdom in 90 AD. Another Josh, Josh Kuk Mol was one of the great Mayan leaders of Tikal. The ceiba is just one of more than 300 species in the rain forests that reach a height of at least twentyfive meters, including the mahogany and cedar. This is a monumental world that unfortunately is much prized for its lumber in modern industry. Tikal once was home to 90,000-100,000 people, spread around a huge central area of palaces and temples. A series of causeways helped to collect rainwater, since the region does not have a major river. Tikal was not alone in this part of Guatemala. Farther east is el Mirador, a city that sured Tikal in size, and according to archaeologists, there are at least six more cities lost in the jungle. It would be impossible to visit all of the excavated buildings of Tikal in a single day. The city is much less exposed than what we saw in Copán, and much more spread out. And far more monumental! There are five temples that reach heights

of 150 feet or more, and several of those can be climbed, either on the ancient stones or via modern staircases. There are many ball courts and twin pyramid complexes, built over the period of nearly a millennium. From the first king, Josh Atelepsop in 90 AD, 31 kings descend. As each assumed the throne, he built on top of his predecessors, creating layers of architectural skins as the city grew both up and out. Our first stop was at Complex Q, twin pyramids that traditionally were constructed to mark the end of katun 17, a 20-year cycle. Archaeologists have found nine twin pyramid complexes in Tikal, six of which are still standing. As interesting as the pyramids and temples are, the fauna of Tikal are even more compelling. We immediately spotted a coatimundi, that ring-tailed critter that looks like a large raccoon, and a trio of spider monkeys high in the trees. Of course, I am in bird heaven in this place, having already added at least 100 new species to my life list in prior visits. But nothing came even close on the excitement meter as the tarantula that one of the guides enticed out of a hole in Complex Q. We all gathered around as he let the three-inch thing crawl up his arm. It wasn’t long before Eric and Patrick offered their arms. After all, they couldn’t resist climbing into a cage with an overstuffed tiger in Guilin a couple of years ago. Josh was pretty quiet watching all of this, probably hoping that nobody thought of him holding that spider. His hopes were dashed however, and I watched his face as he tried to figure out a way of declining the offer. Saving face is sometimes a horrible thing, and slowly he held out his arm. The tarantula climbed up his wrist, but the little guy held his own, at least long enough for me to get a picture. He has more nerve than his grandfather! From Complex Q we walked along Sac Be, the White Road to the Grand Plaza, ing a fallen amati tree along the way. It is called, “the love tree” because, related to the strangling fig, it creates vines that actually strangle itself, “loving itself to death.” We stopped in the back of Temple 1, an awe-inspiring view. Built in 692 AD as a royal burial chamber, it rises 150’ in the air, in the back almost vertical, a massive piece of stone work. In the Grand Plaza, it faces its opposite, Temple 2, built fifteen years later, for Lade Scarlet Macaw, and is slightly smaller. At the other two sides of the plaza are acropolis complexes, making this one of the majestic public areas of the entire Mayan world. Not too long ago it was possible to climb all of these buildings, but several people fell to their deaths from the precipitous Temple 1, and it is closed to any sort of adventure. A wooden staircase has been built allowing visitors access to a platform on Temple 2, and most of the family climbed up to see the view, while

Mary and I relaxed on the lawn. We all went up the shorter acropolis for a family picture. Temple 5 was the next stop, built in 562 AD, and taller even than Temple 1. It is a very attractive pyramid, with rounded corners. A staircase that is more like a ladder leads up the side, alluring only to the most adventurous of our group, led of course by Eric and Josh. Going up seemed to be a simple although exhausting task, and everyone happily waved from the top. Coming down was another story, as they were compelled to descend backwards, the steps being so steep and close. It is not my idea of great fun. From the Grand Plaza we walked to the Seven Temple Complex, a much older group of small pyramids dating from about 300 BC. Archaeologists are presently working on digging out the structures, many of which collapsed in on themselves. One side of the complex is the back of a larger group of temple structures that belong to the Lost World (Mundo Perdido) area. These palaces were part of an enormous seasonal clock that accurately measured the equinoxes and solstices when the sun lined them up with the Lost World Pyramid. Of particular interest in the Seven Temples area are a matching set of three ball courts laid out next to each other. It reminds me of the tennis clubs we have in our time, with several courts in one area allowing many people to play at the same time. I wonder if there was an entrance fee to play in the Seven Temples Ball Club!

The Lost World Complex was excavated and opened by the National Tikal Park Project between 1979-86. It centers around an enormous square pyramid, that dates back to Pre-classic times, the oldest temple yet excavated in Tikal. Thirtyseven other structures surround this early building, dating from times throughout the Early and Late Classic periods, an unusual collection, since earlier temples were usually defaced and destroyed by each new builder. Noah pointed out how the sun measured the seasons from the pyramid to the palaces across the complex. Tikal was abandoned by the royal family in 835 AD, when they moved to the lake area. The family completely disappeared in 889, leaving no trace, and though the common people continued to live in Tikal, essentially, without leadership and the priests, the culture quickly died. I have read that one of the

reasons for the demise of the Mayan civilization was that all of the knowledge, of calendar, writing and religion was kept secret by the priests. Without them and their knowledge, there was no culture. The 31st to 34th kings, chosen from the common people after the departure of the royal family, didn’t even last a quarter of a century. Josh was in heaven in the Lost World, because this pyramid allows visitors free access to the ancient stairs. He literally ran up them, and even worse, ran down. It stops your heart to see him bounding over rocks, scaling boulders and flying down the uneven steps. I contrasted his style with that of Jim’s and decided that the Mayan world is definitely for the young at heart. I am not sure that us older tourists are not as much in danger of losing our hearts on these temples as those who lost the battle in the ancient times. Our group certainly did justice to the pyramids of Tikal, successfully scaling Temples 2, 4, 5 and Lost World. I managed only Temple 4, not wanting to be shut out completely. But actually, from the tops of these behemoths, all you can see is the rain forest canopy and a few combs of temples rising above. The view from one is enough! We all went up Temple 4, the tallest of Tikal’s pyramids at 212 feet. This is an older staircase, and the builders had much more common sense, providing landings every so often to let us out-of-shapers catch our breath. I counted 153 steps up to the observation level and a couple more than that to get back to the ground. They are working on Temple 4 all the time, and the crews were busy with stone and mortar up on top, getting their materials by means of a Rube Goldburg type of conveyor powered by a motorcycle engine down below. By the time we got down, it was almost 2:00 in the afternoon, and we have been walking and climbing for over four hours. The girls were getting pretty quiet which is a sure sign they are hungry, so Noah began the trek to the Meson Restaurant, which I had assumed was just a short walk away. We walked for about twenty minutes, during which time Mary almost reached her breaking point of endurance, but as always, she just continued trudging along, bearing the pain of her knees and the exhaustion of the rest of her body without a comment. I am always amazed at her strength in times like this, a thing I have observed often in the past 40+ years. For all of us, the restaurant was a source of huge relief, not only for the tasty barbecued chicken and cold cerveza Gallo, but for the chance to sit down and not have any more rocks to climb. Here, the traditional sparrows that are always around to pick up scraps are replaced by some very handsome Black vultures. I am sure these birds are as much on the lookout for expired bodies as bits of chicken thrown out by the diners.

In my four other trips to Tikal last year, we never went as far as the family did today. This was the first time to even get to Temple 4, much less climb it, and nobody ever even thought about climbing the other temples. I figure that we were out at least an hour longer than the previous groups and traveled a good couple of miles further. Most of us showed the wear and tear, all except Josh who easily could have taken on a few more piles of rocks. The pool at the Camino Real felt great tonight. Of course, Jim had a platter of Golden Jaguars sent to the tables poolside, part of the imaginative drink-dozens he has been ordering at every bar stop along our route.

JANUARY 5 YAXHÁ / GUATEMALA CITY

Noah met us at 7:00 this morning to take us bird watching in the gardens below the hotel. This is a wonderful place for birds, with dozens of species in sight almost at any time. We added an impressive list of the usual unusual bird names: Blue-gray tanager, Blue-crowned motmot, Smoky-brown woodpecker, Neotropic cormorant, Red-throated ant tanager, Wedge-tailed saberwing, Buff-throated saltator, and the oddest of all, a Kentucky warbler. For me the highlight was a magnificent Gray hawk, spotted by Donna perched majestically on a bare tree above the lake. “What the hell are they looking at?” I heard Jim mutter to Anne as he failed to see a Summer tanager, a bird that is redder than a Cardinal and impossible not to see. “Jack! Jack! You have to see this!” It was Donna, screaming from the steps near the lobby, as she jumped up and down, pointing wildly, alerting everyone in the ancient Mayan world. A Keelbilled toucan had settled in a bare-branched tree down by the pool and there it perched, posing for everyone to enjoy. I have to it, it is a spectacular bird to find in the wild, and rarely do they come out in the open like this one. It caused Eric to break out in limerick poetry once more, and sent nearly everyone scurrying for their cameras. I had a little difference of opinion with Noah and Fidenzio about our trip to Yaxhá this morning. I didn’t want to take the luggage. In fact, I didn’t want to take anything that had any value at all. Last year, they filmed “Survivor” in Yaxhá and since then there have been several robberies of tourists traveling the lonely road to that ancient ruin site. In fact, my last guide, Hugo, had been robbed a few months ago, and it turns out, Fidenzio was as well. Noah didn’t want to lose the time it would take to return to the hotel for luggage, but I insisted on storing it, and off we went. Josh was absolutely thrilled when a pair of police motorcycles pulled out behind us to serve as guides (and guards) for

our trip into the wilderness. All the way to Yaxha, a 45-minute ride, he kept looking behind our bus to see if the police were still there. My concerns weren’t justified and our day went without incident, but I really didn’t want to take the chance that we would lose all of our possessions if a group of machete-wielding banditos decided to stop our bus. Someone spotted a pig in the road. “Was that a sow or a cow?” Donna was trying to be clever. “It was a road hog!” Eric is clever. Yaxhá is a wonderful site. This Classic Period city was placed on a high plateau between two lakes, Laguna Yaxhá and Laguna Sacnab. Much of it is still under vegetation so it gives the visitor a great idea of what the jungle did to these ancient Mayan sites. About 500 structures have been identified, spread around nine plazas. The highpoint is Temple 216, which towers above the ruin and gives a panoramic view of the lakes and surrounding country. There is a new stairway that leads up the side of the temple, making access far more secure than on the impossibly steep front steps. Here in Yaxhá, they are preparing for a much less adventurous batch of tourists. The stairs and ramps even have handrails. On the top, there is a tremendous panoramic view of the lakes and forest that once was Yaxhá. Only Tikal and El Mirador are larger in Guatemala, at least among those found so far. However, Richard Hansen, a UCLA archaeologist, told us that they have found several more cities around El Mirador that all may be larger than Tikal. Templo 216 is a very complete restoration. At the top, are two fine examples of the “Mayan arch.” Because they didn’t have the wheel or the rounded arch, they simply inclined the two sidewalls to a central capstone. In some places, the original plaster, and even some of the red paint is still visible on these arch stones. When I was last here I had a guide, Julio, who was almost completely Mayan. When we asked to take his picture up here, he told me, “Take me from the side, so you get a good view of my Mayan nose,” turning so I could get the best view. Julio explained that there are some defining physical features for the Mayan people, including, “La Mancha la Mongolica,” a large black birthmark at the base of their spines that they gradually grow out of. He

also related that they are identified as Asian by examining their earwax, which apparently divides the races into Asian, African and Caucasian. Who comes up with this stuff? I wonder what it would be like to tell people that you examine earwax for a living? It’s a perfect job for “What’s My Line.” Julio was really very eloquent when he got into more serious subjects concerning his ancestors. He told us that many books talk about the “slave labor” that was required to build these temples and palaces, and he stated that he doesn’t believe there were any slaves involved. The houses of the gods and the lords were built willingly by the populace, “by the children, because they loved their gods and their rulers.” The Mayan calendar round consisted of 365 days, 18 months of 20 days plus five days of rest and prayer. 260 days were needed for the planting and harvesting of the crops to feed the populace, leaving 100 days free that were used in the construction of the public and holy areas of the cities. The farmers, the bulk of the populace, all had a specialization, whether it be stone work, or wood carving, etc. Julio said that it is still true today, and that his father was skilled at planing wood. The young people were used to cart and carry the stones to be sculpted or stacked. It is apparent from Mayan sites throughout their world that construction never stopped, but was an ongoing concern in every city. With each new ruler, temples were destroyed and a new one built on top. Stelae were carved; palaces constructed; roads built. And we have not seen the areas where the common people lived. There must have been no end to their building. When a young couple was married, the community built their dwelling. The women taught the bride her necessary homemaking skills, while the young man worked on jobs in the town to repay them for the home. We entered the ruin at Plaza C, an open area surrounded by un-excavated temples, which gives an air of mystery to Yaxhá and provides the visitor with a good picture of the way these lost worlds looked when first rediscovered by Europeans. The Plaza was set up as an astronomical observatory with one pyramid in the east and three in the west. There are also some pre-classic palaces in the north and south. The Galindo Causeway, its walls un-excavated, leads up to Plaza B. Plaza B contains the massive Temple 216, the highest in Yaxhá. We wandered into a Twin-Pyramid complex, similar to Complexes Q and R in Tikal. One lies in the east and its twin in the west. An oratorio sits on the north side, and a palace with thirteen doorways, the entrance to the underworld, on the south. The plaza was built to accommodate a 20-year cycle, marking the equinox of March 23, 793. One of the original stelae was found, moved by tradition from

the east side (sunrise-birth) to the west (sunset-death), and turned upside down and defaced on the death of the ruler. The acropolis has been restored, a series of three pyramids that form the Maler Group, named for the original archaeologist who worked on the site. Archaeologists use two distinct systems when working in a site like this: “consolidation,” which uses only rocks found on the site, and a “reconstruction,” which brings in new stones to fill voids. Under one of the pyramids, the archaeologists found five models of pyramids, each 1-foot square, and painted, the exact versions of the actual structures found at Yaxhá. “Hey Josh, look at this!” That line can push Josh into immediate action. When uttered by Eric who is standing on top of one of the pyramids of the Maler Group, it is terrifying. Josh took the pyramid four steps at a time, reaching Eric in about thirty seconds, a climb that had taken the others about ten minutes to accomplish. He came down just as fast, clearing the last four or five steps in a single jump. My left leg nearly cracked just watching him. It is definitely time for lunch and a couple of beers. Just outside the entrance we pulled into the El Sombrero Eco Lodge. It is getting a bit late and Noah is starting to worry about our time so he urged the waitresses to hurry up with our lunch. Only Jim was late in getting served and he was wolfing down his chicken as we were all heading for the door, causing him to label his meal, “Dial a gut.” We hurried back to the Camino Real, stacked our luggage quickly into the van and took off for the airport at Flores, where we arrived with plenty of time to spare. Jim could have taken his time, but he was so contented with his stomach discomfort that I hated to yank him out of it. Sometimes a stomach-felt complaint is just too delicious to waste. Here we bade farewell to Patrick and Deb, who are flying to Belize where they are going to spend a couple of days scuba diving. We are heading back to Guatemala City for our last night. We boarded an ATR-42 airplane operated by Taca Airlines for a fifty-minute flight to the capital. There we were met by two vans and drivers, and made the fifteen-minute transfer to the Quinta Real Hotel. In short order we were checked in, offered a glass of champagne, and got busy on the job of re-packing for our trip home tomorrow. Our final dinner is at the

hotel in their lovely dining room.

JANUARY 6 HOME

The phone rang at 5:30, and again a couple of minutes later, when the hotel did their snooze-alarm wake-up check. The more I see of the Quinta Real, the more I like the hotel. They have an elegant, service-oriented staff of cordial people. The men are all dressed in suits, even the door staff. They serve a glass of sparkly on arrival with a heart-felt welcome and warm handshake. The waiters wear white gloves and offer a style of service not often found in hotel restaurants. The Maitre’d was quite willing to open the breakfast room at 5:30, half an hour before normal, just for our eleven people. Try getting that service at the Ramada Irvine! In addition to the service, the Quinta Real is visually beautiful, a Moorish explosion on the rancid hill that overlooks the city, a hill that hides on its forested summit the well-fortified, barricaded homes of Guatemala’s upper crust. The hotel is a marvel of flowing doorways and window frames all done in the flashy Moorish style of southern Spain. There is no part of the complex that is not custom work, whether it be the woods of the doors, the decorations of the rooms, the fixtures, even the approach to the room blocks where a mini-canyon with waterfalls and coy ponds is spanned elaborately by a covered arcade, This is a fine hotel. Alfredo was waiting for us with his van to take us on the short drive to the airport. Twice last year he drove for us and I love his English which sounds at times Australian, but actually comes from a spell he spent in England. In short order we were at the airport, checked in to our flight to Dallas. No volcanic ash hindered our departure and no Texas sandstorms prevented our landing. How boring!

I helped Josh negotiate the perils of journal writing while we waited for our flight. He and Kasey are missing four days of school this week, and the journal is part of the payment for the free time. Last year, Josh’s journal was blurred by his tears, as the words were tortured out of him, a letter at a time. This year, he has again put off the drudgery to the very last minute, promising his mother that

he would work on it on the plane. Kasey, of course, kept hers up to date every night before going to bed, another example of that tenacious discipline she shows where her learning is concerned. Josh simply can’t understand the concept of schoolwork in the face of present adventures, and I doubt that he ever will. Today, I prodded and cajoled him through a half page of December 30, Dia Quatro on his way to eleven. “Why don’t you say that Santiago means St. James, Josh.” “Because I didn’t learn that when I was in Santiago. Look how much I’ve already written.” In Dallas we learned that California had almost floated away while we were gone, Jim’s buildings suffering considerable leaking damage during the storms. It is amazing how far from normal living we have been for over a week. Now it is back to reality. Actually reality is a bit more brutal. As we headed for the baggage claim area in San Francisco, someone complained that their carry-on was broken. “Broken equipment, you’re on your own,” Jim yelled without looking back. “Trip over!”

COSTA RICA, NICARAGUA & PANAMA 2006 –2007

DECEMBER 26, 2006

It’s the day after Christmas and all through the house, Josh is roaring around on his new in-line skates, creating a track out of the hardwood by subtly displacing rugs and rearranging furniture. He is quite amazing, within fifteen minutes completely at home on these treacherous wheels, a “natural” when it comes to anything with wheels and bone-breaking capabilities. Kasey and I were the first to rise today, she accompanying me to the office in search of PowerPoint materials on the Donner Party. Josh, who also has a school project due the day he gets back, is far more content to sleep in and concentrate on his roller blade techniques or BMX jumps. Schoolwork is something best kept for last minute pressure. Not Kasey! She takes every project, task or duty with utmost seriousness of purpose, jumping in with her whole being to whatever is directly in front of her. I learned long ago not to even attempt humor or kidding when Kasey is in a duty-trance, because she has no place for such levity in her purpose. It doesn’t matter whether it is practicing the flute or piano, working up a school project, playing a card game, trying out basketball or volleyball moves—Kasey takes on all of them with incredible concentration. It is wonderful to behold. The girls are being made over this morning, recipients of a Mary Merry Christmas gift that will do the toes in a family plan. Nancy and Annie then head for Walnut Creek to work over their other end. Marty, Josh and I, desperately in search of a function, drove to REI in Concord, u two hours or more in quest of mosquito repellant. It is all a matter of priorities. The real purpose of the day is to stay up long enough to go to Costa Rica shortly after midnight. We are all meeting at Jim and Donna’s where a limo transfer to the airport has become a tradition. We got there around 8:00, to be treated by a performance of Jim’s new trio, Big Bear and the Penguinettes, the ultimate in Jim’s collection of musical Christmas animals. The limos arrived promptly at 9:45 and we were off for SFO. Our Continental flight is scheduled to depart at 12:30 A.M., but we long ago gave up any hopes of our flights leaving on time, or simply leaving for that matter. We have spent

unwanted nights in Paris, Dallas, San Francisco, Taipei and Bangkok, so all we ask is that we connect. All else is gravy. Tonight would be no exception in punctuality. Our flight departed San Francisco around 1:30, but that is okay because we have three hours to connect in Houston. In one place or the other we have to sit around. In Houston however, we left exactly on time! No erupting volcanoes in Costa Rica, no mechanicals to blame, no overworked crew to protect. On time! Who on earth could have ever conceived of that?

DECEMBER 27 SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA

It was a long night. The 737 to Houston was a sardine can for everyone except Josh, who fell sound asleep within minutes of climbing into his seat. Marty was right behind him. The two quickly became the envy of the family, maybe the entire plane. They may be the only two on that packed tin can that actually slept almost the entire flight. “I hate that,” Nancy moaned, looking a bit like a sleep-deprived rumpled towel, like the rest of us operating on about ten minutes of troubled sleep. For Mary with her newly diagnosed sleep apnea, it was business as usual. We did make it to Houston however, so really there was little to complain about, except for Kasey who was disappointed at not being able to find a Dallas Cowboy hat. Just as well, because there are many faces of Texas and certainly different kinds of Texans, and anyone wearing a “Boy’s” hat in the land of the Houston Texans is likely to be in for a long day. Kasey has recently decided to become a football fan, and is approaching the subject in her usual way—a single-minded attack on the rules, players and history of the sport. In the blink of an eye she has become a rabid Cowboys fan, but in her core it is the USC Trojans who have won her love. Their colors are cool, and their mascot rides a horse around the field. What other criteria are there? There is no time zone difference between Houston and San Jose, Costa Rica, and with a 3.5-hour flight, we arrived just after noon. It is always a nervous time for me, hoping that the tour operator will actually be on hand to meet us. It was not a difficult matter getting through Costa Rican Customs, so we gathered our luggage and headed for the terminal. I was thrilled to see a sign taped to the waiting room window that read “Jack Dold Family, Golden Gate Tours.” Big relief! I also discovered that there was no body attached to the sign, so it took a few seconds before we discovered a driver named Leoned, and Luis Murillo, who would be our guide for the entire trip. Luis is a mustachioed man, solidly built, with a very good grasp of English. He told me that he was used to giving nature tours and often worked with a couple of state universities in California. I

had already heard from Mario Ordoñez, the director of Viajas sin Fronteras, our tour operator, that Luis was one of the country’s best guides. Pilar, from the tour company was also on hand to meet us. It was mid-afternoon when we checked into the Melia Cariari Hotel, a fine place that we had used thirteen years ago when we stopped in Costa Rica on several ship charters through the Panama Canal. At that time we had booked the hotel for lunch for our 1000+ engers, and I have always ed the efficient way they had handled our groups. The hotel has since been sold to the Melia chain, a very fine hotelier based in Spain. Since most of us were dead tired, it was decided that everyone would relax for the afternoon and we would get together in the bar this evening with dinner at the hotel. I went out in the afternoon to do some business with the tour operator and by the time I got back I was ready for a nap. I usually try to get an hour of sleep to take the edge off of my weariness after an all-night plane ride. Getting out of bed is one of the hardest things there is to do, but you sure don’t want to sleep too long or you will never be on track for the rest of the tour. Everyone was in pretty good shape by the time we all came together, and we decided to just enjoy the food at the hotel café, a Mexican buffet that was quite good. Someone remarked that they thought it odd that this Costa Rica hotel would have a Mexican meal, but at that time we had not discovered the fact that really there is no “Costa Rican cuisine” to speak of. The country sits in the very middle between the Mayan corn culture of the north and the Incan culture of the south. Other than beans and rice, the Costa Ricans have pretty much adopted whatever culinary delights other peoples created. At the tour office today I asked for suggestions for good restaurants in San Jose, and received a string of names that included everything except Costa Rican food. The two highest suggestions were a Brazilian steak house and the Casa Madrid. Tomorrow night we will try out the first of those.

DECEMBER 28 POÁS VOLCANO / SARCHI

I woke around 6:00, thrilled to find that it was already light out, San Jose being in the eastern end of the time zone. That is the best time for a bird walk, and I was outside in a hurry, heading for the golf course that pretty much surrounds the Cariari Hotel. It is always exciting to come to a new part of the world, especially one that is justly famous for the variety of its birds, and Costa Rica is a treasure trove of birds, officially listing 878 different species, including the elusive and exquisite quetzal. There were no quetzals on the golf course this morning, but I managed to start my list with fifteen different birds, including a fine view of a Rufous-naped wren. I know that everyone in the family would have been as excited as I was to see it. Sometimes excitement simply knows no bounds! Today we are off to Poás Volcano, which boasts the largest crater in Central America, nearly a mile across and a thousand feet deep. Poas is still active, ing an acidic turquoise lake and a bunch of fumaroles that belch sulfuric steam over the landscape. The volcano sits fifty-five kilometers from San Jose, easily visible from the city on days when the cloud layers have lifted. Today is not one of those days. Luis gave us a bit of meteorological background on the country, which is split in the south by the Cordillera de Tallamanca that begins in northern Panama, forming a north-south spine for Costa Rica before it turns west around San Jose and moves to the Pacific. That turn divides the western coastline in two, creating a rainforest in the south and a dry plain in the north. Between this mountain range and the Cordillera Central lies the Central Plain, home to more than half of Costa Rica’s four million inhabitants. North of that is the Cordillera de Tilaran, and lastly the Cordillera de Guanacaste that protects the dry northwestern plain. These mountains rise 8,000 to 14,000 feet, containing sixty volcanoes in the three northern chains, seven of which are still active. The land was created by the collision of tectonic plates, which resulted in considerable volcanic and earthquake activity. Costa Rica has an astonishing variety of ecosystems as a

result of the mountain ranges and the weather patterns. The prevailing winds are easterlies, driving off of the Caribbean. Moisture is trapped on the eastern side of the mountains in the north, resulting in extremely wet ecosystems ranging from the high cloud forests around Poas to the swamps of Tortuguero. The latter annually receives around twenty-one feet of rain. The northern Pacific plains of Guanacaste are very dry on the western side of these mountains. Westerlies keep the southern part of the Pacific coast wet. Generally the whole southern part of Costa Rica receives very large amounts of rain. More than twenty-five percent of the nation’s 19,000 square miles is preserved in national parks, wildlife refuges and preserves, the largest percentage of any nation on earth. The population of Costa Rica, about 4 million today, is quite different from the other Central American countries. The land was placed almost perfectly to have been missed by much of the turmoil created by European greed and religious fervor, indeed by the same impulses of the ancient Mayan and Incan worlds. The isolation afforded by its mountains made the land more or less inaccessible to invaders, and even when hostile armies succeeded in finding the central valley, they found it even more difficult to subdue. The Mayan culture stopped at the northern mountains, and the Incas did not get past Panama. Local tribes consolidated into small states prior to the arrival of the Spanish. Columbus landed in the area of Limon in 1502, but the Spanish made few inroads over the next sixty years. Cartago was founded in 1564 as the colonial capital, but the land remained a backwater region, generally ignored by the European powers for two centuries. It would be a century and a half (1736) before San Jose was founded and almost another century (1823) before it replaced Cartago as the capital. By then Spain had been ousted from Central and South America. “They rode a horse for three days to tell us we were independent,” Luis laughed. Costa Rica has been different in modern times as well. Today the country is almost racially homogeneous, a mestizo mixture with only very small pockets of indigenous peoples. The mestizo population is around 60 percent, with 30 percent Indian and about 10 percent African. In Guanacaste there is a distinctive blend of Mayan and African, while on the northern Caribbean Coast (“Mosquito Coast”) the inhabitants are a long-legged mix of African and Indian. The country boasts a literacy rate in the high 90 percent and unemployment is below 5 percent. In recent years, more than 800,000 Nicaraguans have been welcomed into the country to provide a much needed labor supply for the businesses and farms. They are officially ed, given medical attention and care, and

educated in the national schools. Costa Rica has decided it is better to welcome them in this fashion because of the high incidence of disease in Nicaragua— cholera, dengue fever, malaria, etc. and the welfare of the nation rests on the good health of these immigrants. As a result, there has been a huge increase in the production of what Luis called “non-traditional exports,” more than 300 products outside the original output of coffee and bananas. That the nation has been able to absorb more than 20 percent of its population is remarkable indeed, undoubtedly aided by the fact that Costa Rica has chosen not to maintain any sort of army and has diverted military expenditures into national health and education. The education is almost immediately evident, both in the industry of the people as well as the overall cleanliness and order in the towns and countryside, something that would be magnified immensely when we entered Nicaragua and Panama later in our trip. Mary’s head snapped up from her sewing when Luis mentioned William Walker, the adventurous gold miner from Tennessee who set up his own petty kingdom in Baja in 1848. He became the ruler of Nicaragua shortly after and in 1856, decided to invade Guanacaste. He was met by an impromptu army of locals and driven back into Nicaragua where a drummer boy named Juan Santamaria set fire to Walker’s barracks ending what Luis called the “Fifteen-minute War.” Juan is one of Costa Rica’s precious few military heroes. In 1860, Walker was executed and buried in Trujillo, Honduras after trying to impose plantation slavery on Central America. Mary, being a Walker herself, immediately made note of William, resolving to get the first book she could find on his erstwhile empire. A short ride out of San Jose brought us to Alajuela, locally famous for its large central market. Luis told us the central plaza was known as “Nickname Park,” so named because of the habit of the locals to be vocal in their people-watching. I asked Luis if we could stop and provision our cooler with water, cokes, and beer, so he stopped in San Isidro de Alajuela at a “Mini-super K-Mart,” a tiny little store on the slope of the mountains where we discovered the local Imperial and Bavaria beers. (And of course water and coke.) This is one of the few countries I have visited where the water is safe virtually throughout the land, yet another good feature we have ascribed to the level of education and good health. We continued to rise up the slopes of the cloud-shrouded Poás, stopping for a coffee break at La Casa del Café la Luisa. It is a lovely spot, our first good look at the spreading hillsides of coffee, the “black gold” on which Costa Rica based its wealth in the early years of the democracy. Luis led us to the ripe bushes,

explaining the growing and harvesting processes. He pointed out some of the pickers, who were carrying plastic baskets to the fields, explaining that the woven fiber baskets the Nicaraguan workers brought into Costa Rica carried human and plant diseases, so the government replaced them with plastic. The pickers’ pay is about $2 a basket, with a work day of 10-12 hours. It was here at Louisa where Donna began one of her trademark campaigns—praising the efficacy of Costa Rican coffee. I think I recall a similar reaction from her to coffee in South Africa, Guatemala and on the Amazon, but it is important to be current. Naturally we all readily agreed that Costa Rica coffee is close to the best we have ever tasted. For the rest of the trip, Donna would be in active search for a Starbucks that sells the local coffee. They plant the bushes in this region without shade trees, placing two or three plants in each hole. Since the plant produces every two to three years, this allows them to have ripe beans at all times. Much of Costa Rica’s coffee is organically grown, using banana leaves and beans as natural fertilizers. A production of 3,300 tons per hectare (2.2 acres) is the world’s highest. Luis reported that many of the coffee plantations are beginning to plant shade trees however, and we would see many of these as we drove along. The entire industry is driven by coops, combining the harvest of small growers. We ed several recividors, where the beans are collected and loaded into trucks to be taken to the plants. Just past the coffee fields we came across the first of the major “non-traditional exports,” whole hillsides of ferns, planted beneath a covering called saraan, which was developed in Israel. Ferns are a major export crop, as well as flowers and exotic plants. At the entrance to Parque National Volcán Poás, we officially entered the cloud forest, immediately aware of a plant that Luis called “Poor Man’s Umbrella,” a species of wild rhubarb that has enormous leaves, fully capable of shielding a very wide-bodied Nord-Americano in a tropical rainstorm. Luis went on to point out the rather smallish chuskia bamboo and a beautiful purple-flowered bush called melastom. He also showed us a copey tree, locally called a “love tree” because folks can carve hearts on the leaves, “like John loves Mary.” This seemed to cause a bit of mirth in the back of the bus, with Jim suggesting that he change that to “Jack loves Muffin.” Luis, Jack and Mary failed to get the joke. The mountain was totally socked in with clouds, emitting more than a little mist into the air. We walked from the visitor center, 600 meters to the rim of Poás,

hoping with Luis that the wind would shift and the sun would expose the crater and the turquoise lake below. It was not to be. The wind whipped the rain into our faces and we bravely waited for the sky to clear. Fortunately there are good pictures of the crater in the visitor center, so we retreated there for a vicarious tourist thrill. Luis led us back along a beautiful trail that wound through the forest, stopping every few yards to point out a plant or a tree, always with the Latin name and family. He found a large tree that had almost disappeared in its overcoat of bromeliads, explaining that rainforest trees generally have very shallow roots and often topple under the weight of the air plants they are hosting. When one does, it creates a “light gap,” that in turn attracts an increased population of birds, insects and animals. “Animals have nothing better to do,” he said, “than hide from tourists. If you want to see them, you need to find a light gap and sit for a while.” Indeed, only a few yards down the path, we entered one of those open areas and immediately spotted several different small forest birds, attracted by the leaf cutter ants that were ing by.

It was about that time that Nancy got attacked by the hummingbird. We in the back heard a typical Nancy scream that resounded through the forest. I first suspected that Josh had performed one of his imaginative leaps, and maybe had disappeared from view down a fumarole or craterette, but shortly we learned that it was actually the attack of a Violet-eared hummer, probably mistaking Nancy for the delectable blossom that she is, only at the last minute realizing its mistake and calling off the kamikaze attack. “Why does Nancy have all the fun?” Jim moaned. In an effort to see some of the birds we were excitedly discovering, he painted a parrot on the back of his glasses so he wouldn’t have to look so hard. This brought up the generic subject of Nancy’s screams, all of us wondering if there was anything in this world that could not drag a yelp out of her. “No,” Kasey said thoughtfully about her mother. “I think that just about

everything makes her scream.” “Especially me,” Josh added, for once happy that he wasn’t the object of the explosion. Actually I think that Joshua (Ho-shweh here in Costa Rica) was sorry that he hadn’t done something crazy, but I am sure he will make up for that soon. From that point on we started collecting things that make Nancy scream. It would become a very long list. Luis explained that the cloud forest in this area has created several small rivers that flow off the mountain, rivulets really resulting from the ubiquitous mist that we were experiencing today. That fine mist, he said, results in an average rainfall for the region of an astounding fifteen feet. On the way off the mountain, we made a strawberry stop at one of the local stands. Actually they were really selling local booze, offering samples of a coffee liquor that is a kind of Costa Rican Baileys, and a very sweet wine, one of the few that the country produces. Luis gave us a short history of the government of Costa Rica, which got its first constitution in 1848. In 1889, they had what he called the “Machete night,” all of the farmers and ladies going on strike to stop the fighting that was going on. “No love; no cooking—it worked fast!” In 1948, there was a short revolution to “invite a reluctant president to get out.” The following year a new constitution was written, outlawing an official presidential mansion, limiting the president to one four-year term. “The old president’s house was too nice,” Luis reported. “Now it is the National Museum, and the president has to live in his own house like all the rest of us.” The election takes place on the first Sunday in February, ending in a big national celebration. “It doesn’t matter who won.” If a former president wants to run again, he must wait eight years. The present president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Oscar Arias Sanchez, waited over twenty years since his last term. He was responsible for the g of the Central

American Peace Plan in 1987, as well as the rather enlightened current policy of welcoming and integrating the Nicaraguan workers. There are actually four governmental powers: a 57-member Congress, a President serving four years, a Supreme Court, and an Election Tribunal. The last of these takes over the government three months prior to the elections, supervises the vote and turns over the government to the new president on May 8. The land is divided into seven provinces, and then into counties and districts.

We ed down from the mountain through San Rafael de Poás, and then into the town and county of Grecia (Greece). The town is famous for a huge steel church that was built by a Frenchman who was intrigued with Eiffel’s tower in Paris. Later we stopped to look at it, each of us tapping or pounding on the sides to be certain they used metal. Grecia sits on the old colonial road, built said Luis by “Donkey Engineering.” “Just let a donkey loose and follow wherever it goes.” That road follows an old path through the gap between Poás and the Three Marys volcanos taking the oxcarts down to the river to sell goods to the gold miners on their way to the California gold rush. The later Pan-American Highway was a product of World War II, finally finished in the 1950s. Our second major stop today is Sarchi. I think that Sarchi is the one place name in Costa Rica that everyone re, probably because every tourist who ever came to Costa Rica went home with some sort of painted ox cart, from tiny nativity set carts to full blown ones. They are the nation’s artistic signature, noted for their brightly painted wheels and sides that are visible for blocks, and which brighten many a U.S. household. Our cart at home has been out in the gazebo for years, unmoved, and unused, but nevertheless, quite pretty. Luis told us that originally the cart artisans came from three families in Sarchi. I only got the names of two: Chaverri and Alfaro. Joaquin Chaverri began the craft in his family, carried on today by his grandson Carlos. We pulled up at the Chaverri workshops and store, d by a huge cart at least ten feet tall. Jim took one look at the workshop and large sales room and went immediately to work. He and his salesman buddy, Juan Carlos, set the task of getting a cart, a substantial one, into every household in our family. Jim started the ball rolling by

snapping up a pair of child’s rockers, immediately shipped off to his grandkids, Cole and Amy. He then turned to Donna, who opted for a medium size cart, setting the scale for the rest of the girls. Anne gave in, badly needing something to carry all the other stuff she was assembling in this woodwork heaven. Nancy was doing quite well with small stuff, walking around with a couple of serving trays and happy with her picks, when Marty suggested that if she wanted trays, she might as well just buy a cart, which has trays sitting right on top. Even Jim was astounded by that turn of events—Marty actually advising Nancy to buy something. But I have noticed that Marty is getting pretty well immersed in touring on this trip and may well have become infected by the environment that has surrounded him. I’ll bet that given a few more of these group therapy sessions he might even walk into a mall all by himself one day. Deb succumbed too! In all, Jim was quite thrilled with the production of the family in providing Luis with a fine commission. Luis seemed happy too. We left the workshop, driving into North Sarchi, a newer sales area also filled with shops. In the square outside the village church stands a huge ox cart, “the largest in the world.” It is the standard Costa Rican village—picturesque Spanish colonial church, main plaza surrounded by shops and bars, and nearby a small bull ring. Luis explained that they don’t ever kill the bull, just try to ride them. The bullfights are televised every night on local Channel 13.

Yesterday I asked for suggestions for a good restaurant in San Jose, and was highly recommended to try a Brazilian one, the Churrascaria Fogo Brasil Rodizio. Leoned and Luis took us into the city tonight to try out this place, a flashy bistro with a façade that was simply gushing Christmas lights. Inside it is rather elegant, a spacious room with large tables, very well appointed. No one ever gave us anything that looked like a menu. They simply took a drink order, let me pick a wine, pointed out a spectacular salad bar, and then started to bring food. The salad bar was filled with wonderful delicacies, highlighted by plates of hearts of palm and fresh asparagus. The entrée(s) came on skewers, every sort of cut of beef, chicken or pork, sliced at your table by a bevy of courteous waiters. Each place setting has a set of tweezers that allow you to grapple the slice from the skewer before it falls to the table. The place reminded me of the famous Carnivore Restaurants in Kenya and South Africa, except that the meats were not nearly as exotic as giraffe, crocodile, gazelle or zebra. They all taste the same though. This was a fine restaurant, a good start to our culinary exploration of Costa Rica. So far we have sampled a Mexican buffet and a Brazilian meat slicing. Dim sum and sushi can’t be far off!

DECEMBER 29 MOUNTAINS AND RAINFORESTS

“How do you want to go today?” Luis wanted to know. His instructions from the tour company only gave him the vouchers for tourist sites, hotels and meals. It didn’t indicate any itinerary. “What are my options?” I asked, not having a clue, especially where we were supposed to go. “If we take the main road, we will be there in two hours. Then there is nothing to do but check in to the hotel.” “Well, let’s not take the main road then. How else can we go?” Luis described the Donkey Engineering road he had mentioned yesterday, a winding track that was literally the path of the donkeys pulling carts down to the Sarapiqui River and on to the hordes of gold rush miners who were crossing Nicaragua to the Pacific. I jumped at the suggestion, always more than happy to take a back road, especially an historic one. Off we went to analyze Donkey Engineering. We have one similar in California—Route 1. Our path will take us up the mountain between two volcanoes, Poás and Barva, two of the Three Marys (There are actually four). Almost contiguous with San Jose is Heredia, where Luis lives, a very historic town, founded in 1706, thirty years before San Jose. Here was born the National University of Costa Rica, evolving out of the first Heredia school. Luis told us that much of the town is new, having been severely damaged by an earthquake. “In 1963 we had a good economy, so we could afford a good earthquake.” Today it is a very impressive city, bustling with activity, clean, with some fine buildings, once again centered around its 1797 church. Luis said they call it the “Town of Flowers,” because there are so many beautiful college girls walking

around the streets. It was the Heredia farmers who built the road in 1850 over the and down to the river to sell their produce and goods to the miners. We stopped by the church in the main plaza, to ire El Fortin, a curious little fortress that seemed to be built backwards with gun embrasures constructed so that attackers’ bullets would be funneled into the place. “It didn’t work,” Luis laughed. “It is a symbol of Costa Rican arms.” In 1991, there was another big quake, a 7.5, some of the effects of which are still visible. We continued on through the village of Barva, one of the first settled by the Spanish, in 1575. It sits on the slopes of the volcano that bears its name. The road rose steeply up the mountain, quickly entering the coffee growing region. It is Kodak country, with large expanses of coffee bushes covering the hills and cascading down the valleys. The fields are contained by a variety of hedges: Sleeping hibiscus (Turk’s Cup), or Cordyline (Indian Cane), or yucca. We could see the workers toiling on the steep slopes, collecting coffee or strawberries. At Vara Blanca we stopped at a local fruit stand, to begin a campaign of “eating healthy.” Those were Jim’s words but they didn’t command much attention. We did manage to pick up a fine array of edibles—plantains (must be cooked), bananas (don’t have to be cooked), cashews, plums, local apples, ion fruit. Of course, Jim’s version of “eating healthy” includes sugar candy, potato chips and capuchino, “a high protein Brazilian-American breakfast.” I am not exactly certain how we got to Brazil in all of this but we have gotten used to humoring Jim whatever his leap of fantasy. Fortunately, Nancy, our dietitian, also brought along her own version of Jim’s “eat healthy” plan. Her food cabinet on board included cashews and peanuts, dried fruits (bananas, plaintains, apricots, apples), trail mix laced with candy, a “high protein Nevada-American breakfast.” But there were no potato chips. Luis has been pointing out all of the plants and bushes and trees along the way, often giving out the Latin name as though that makes them more important to us. He mentioned a local orchid, the Little Spanish Flag, that grows in the high grasses alongside the road. We looked and looked in vain, finding all sorts of other similar flowers, until Jim let out a shout. “I saw an orchid!” He was so thrilled, that we all were gracious enough to humor him. Near that fruit stand we reached the Continental Divide, this one separating the

waters west to the Pacific and north to Lake Nicaragua. Costa Rica also has a third watershed, east to the Caribbean. A variety of rivers including the Peace River and the Angel River come off of Poás into the valley below us. The Peace River produces a series of ten waterfalls on the side of the volcano. We stopped at the Peace Lodge, an ecolodge, very upscale, which affords birdwatchers and nature lovers a spectacular series of hikes along the waterfalls and rain forest. I went in to get a brochure, discovering rooms that range from $300 to $475. Upscale indeed! Not far below the lodge is the La Paz waterfall, a fine one that cascades right down to the road. Of course we stopped for family snapshots, and a few of our troop explored a short trail that leads right behind the falls. I was absorbed with finding a new bird—a Torrent tyrannulet, duly entered in my life list. Still further down the road we stopped in the village of Cinchona, ostensibly for a potty stop. Climbing to the second floor we entered a world of hummingbirds. Decks on both sides of the building were lined with feeders, with dozens of birds darting continuously between them, the most impressive of which were very large Violet saberwings. On the deck rails, an Emerald toucanet munched contentedly on a banana, later replaced by a spectacular Red-headed barbet. Everyone was amazed by a huge bird, black with bold splashes of yellow—the Montezuma’s oropendula. I think it would become the family mascot because we would see them often and they are big enough to identify quickly. Plus they weave these long, meshed nests that literally fill up a tree. And they make a lot of funny noises. A perfect bird for the non-birding public. Noon found us at the La Quinta Hotel, where we checked in quickly and enjoyed the ubiquitous buffet lunch that included fried plantains, rice, beans and chicken. Now there is the Costa Rican cuisine! The hotel is a series of lodge buildings, spread out across the grounds, each room having a resident gecko or three, and each is equipped with a hammock on an outside veranda. The whole setting made us feel very much like we were now officially in the rainforest. Near the lobby is a cut off tree loaded with bananas and other delicacies. It attracts the most spectacular of birds, a treasure of honeycreepers, tanagers, orioles and hummingbirds. By now we have all discovered the oropendulas, and everyone is quite taken by these distinctive birds with bright orange bills and bold yellow and black markings. Near the lobby sat an old man whittling animals and birds out of jaul wood. From him I found a fine armadillo for Joshue.

In the afternoon we drove a short way to the Tirumbina Rainforest and Museo de Culturas Indigenas. The museum is a very fine one, covering the artifacts of the Pre-Columbian natives of the region, as well as the complex natural history of the rainforests. In one of the rooms, someone spotted some critters on the ceiling, which Luis identified as Greater white-lined bats. He later pointed out a different kind of bat that likes to hang around on the underside of heliconia leaves. As we were entering the rainforest behind the museum, Luis pointed out the heliconia plants, which he said were favorites of the hummingbirds. He warned us not to get too close to the leaves because the hummingbirds are the favorite food of the Eyelash viper, a very poisonous snake, a warning that immediately got Jim’s attention. Anne was interested too. “So… There could be snakes on top and bats underneath? That’s a plant to stay away from!” Luis led us into the Tirumbina Rainforest that rises into the mountains on the far side of the Sarapiqui River. The path led across a couple of very long suspension bridges, a single-line trek of several hundred yards. About halfway across the first bridge, we descended to the forest floor for a true walk in the woods. Luis pointed out all of the interesting flora we encountered along the way. Our path ended along the river, where the trail had been washed out by recent storms that had flooded the valley. So we climbed back up the tower and continued along the shaking bridges. It was an experience to watch Mary on a suspension bridge. She was shaky when the bridge was quaking over land, but when it reached out above the river, she nearly freaked out, turning white and not at all certain she wanted to go on. “Make it a trust walk,” I suggested. “Not with you clowns!” she retorted, shakily. But like everything Mary starts, she finished. I have always been amazed at this quality in her. No matter how difficult the walk or the climb, no matter how long the ride or the trek, she always finishes, and if no one bothered her, she would not utter a word of complaint along the way. “I’m okay,” is about all you will ever get out of her, and while others may drop by the wayside, she simply persists until she reaches the goal. Having finished, she may complain a bit, gripe that the half mile she just walked was the longest five miles she ever

endured. But if it was indeed five miles, she would have finished that too. She got across that bridge, both ways, even enduring the stop when we discovered a toucan in mid- span, and ignoring it when the “clowns” started shaking the suspension on purpose, and rolling her eyes when Jim announced that he had seen a sloth. Mary carries this quality into everything she does. Just try giving her a riddle. The month will end sooner than she will quit. And ultimately, she will solve it. It is far better to give her a few clues to shorten the time limit, or you could be eligible for Social Security by the time the game is over. “Hey, Mare, guess who was at the luncheon today!” Oh, damn, I thought. I didn’t want to do that. Guessing people is one of Mary’s strongest skills. By the time she gets it, and she will, you will have reviewed every person you ever knew, most of whom you have totally forgotten. “Right! Fidel Castro. How in hell did you get that?” Perhaps the symbol of Mary’s perseverance mentality is summed up in one word —quilt. Mary has been stitching away for eighteen years on a quilt she is giving to Nancy on her tenth anniversary. It is called a Cathedral Windows pattern, a complicated thing that involves sewing little scraps of material into two-inch square “windows” to form the field of the quilt. I once asked at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah if they had a book on Cathedral Windows. “Oh, we haven’t had that one in years. Nobody wants to tackle that pattern.” Well, almost nobody. Mary has dragged her quilt-to-be all over the world. There she is, in the back of the bus in Thailand or Swaziland, on the porch in Eureka, in a lodge in Guatemala, and now in our mini-bus in Costa Rica. To date she is just about half done, with two five-foot strips finished and already bestowed on Nancy, and about half of the third strip completed. In 2042 it should be just about done. Maybe she could speed up a bit and give it to Nancy and Marty on their thirty-fifth anniversary. That is Mary—a 23-hour car ride from Montreal to Dubuque, Iowa, a drive to Alaska in a VW bug, a trudge up some volcano she doesn’t even like, a name-game, a riddle, a shaky walk across a suspension bridge. Pain, boredom, weariness, weather—none of those factor into the equation when she sets her goal. She is a bulldog, fashioning a quilt of Cathedral Windows.

The waiter at the hotel suggested that we go into the village of Virgin to a “seafood restaurant,” which he said was very good. At the La Quinta tonight they are having a meat festival dinner, exactly as we had last night in San Jose. So we drove into the village to the Restaurant Marisqueria, a little open-air place that did actually have pictures of shrimps and fish on the walls. It was very simple fare, but served with good humor and we all had a great time. Actually there was a carnival on in the village and a bullfight in the small ring, but we are finding that energy runs out quicker in the tropics and we all opted for bed.

DECEMBER 30 TORTUGUERO

Our hotel is formally called La Quinta de Serapiqui Country Inn. We all wished we could have stayed another night, but we actually would make that wish on every stop in our trip. The hotel is a very attractive complex of gardens, nature venues, and forest walks. We all got up early today to visit the butterfly house, where we were thrilled by the wonderful colors and size of many of these “flying flowers” as they are known in China. I particularly liked the owl butterflies which are a perfect replica of a horned owl’s face when their wings are spread. I got a great picture of a pair of them gorging on a banana. The two spread wings are that same owl’s face. Jim, who is widely known to be one of the world’s up and coming owl collectors, really should have an owl butterfly. I made a note of a sign in the butterfly house that the main enemies of these beautiful creatures are wasps and spiders, but they have added gonflies to the garden “to add balance,” that is, to gobble up wasps and spiders. I’m not so sure it is smart to fool with Mother Nature. I wonder what else gonflies eat, or do? In addition to the butterfly house, the hotel also maintains a frog garden, several squares of tilled earth that are marked with a sign depicting one of those tiny red Poison Dart frogs. All of us have designated that frog as one of our “must see” creatures. Luis has promised us that he would find one. He has been given a long list. Donna wants a sloth; Jim, a boa; Cole and I, a quetzal; Josh wants an armadillo. We all want a jaguar; we assume monkeys—howler, spider, etc. Parrots are cool, and so are toucans. I want to see a macaw, actually in the wild and up close. We’ll do an ing at the end of the trip.

Having visited the butterfly house, and found the frog gardens empty, I settled back on a chair and watched the feeder tree fill with an amazing array of florescent birds. I think the La Quinta is every bit in the league with the Asa Wright Bird Conservatory in Trinidad. Every single species of honeycreeper came to that tree—Shining, Green, Red-footed, Blue dacnis, Scarlet-thighed

dacnis. There were every hue of tanager, and of course the noisy oropendulas. The gift shop even had a nicely mounted owl butterfly. We left Virgin and the La Quinta, bound for Tortuguero. At the market town of Puerto Viejo we reached the end of that old Colonial Road with its Donkey Engineering. From this point, the old ox carts were unloaded onto boats to float down the Sarapiqui River and on to the miners crossing Nicaragua on the Rio San Juan. We made a stop on the Sarapiqui, where even today you can take a tour boat to the San Juan which forms the eastern border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. This is another Continental Divide, now splitting the waters between Lake Nicaragua and the Caribbean. Our road turned southeast at Puerto Viejo, moving into the plains that lead down to the Caribbean. We crossed a point where the Sucio River, yellow gold from its sulphurous age, s the clear Chirripó, making an interesting blending of the waters. Luis pointed out a Cecropia tree, a rather bare-branched thing, quite distinctive, which is the favorite home of the sloths, guans and toucans. From this point on, we would be sloth-watching, with Donna and Deb in the lead. Jim decided around this time to become the team’s exercise guru, in a fit of unreality, attempting to teach Kasey how to be limber. As if! It was like watching a balloon train a Chinese gymnast. Swami Wanna Body at times can really be funny.

“A sloth! A sloth!!” I don’t know who first spotted this one, but it took a great deal of pressure off of Cole. Back on our nature walk over Mary’s suspension bridge, Jim had announced that he and Cole had seen a sloth, but led by Donna and Annie, our team was highly skeptical. No, that’s not true; we didn’t believe a word of it. Jim kept up the charade, but Cole was shaky to say the least. The truth is, Cole is a Marine, and Marines simply can’t tell a lie like that, or any lie for that matter. It was killing him to try to back up Jim’s fairytale, and he really didn’t even try very hard, his face nearly bursting in an embarrassed and sheepish smile. But there in the tree, two toes and all, was an honest-to-God sloth, moving is a most slothful way—not at all. It was just a gray-greenish blob of fur, settled into his Cecropia tree. Luis explained that they move so slowly and so seldom that moss grows on their backs, providing them highly protective coloration. My book says it also makes them host to hundreds of different kinds of bugs, microbes and other pleasant critters. Check off the sloth, Luis. Now, can we see a 3-toed one? We proceeded down Route 16 to the town of Siquirres, where we turned onto a gravel road. This town was once a settlement of Jamaicans, brought in to work on the railroads. It is now a mixed society but still far more Caribbean than most of Costa Rica. This region produces Costa Rica’s second traditional crop— bananas. Our gravel road began to stretch out for miles between large plantings of bananas, all officially owned by the Costa Rica government and sold to Del Monte, Chiquita, etc. We drove through the holdings of the Finca San Jose, and stopped at the Finca Carmen. In Guatemala we had seen a wire system where banana bunches are pulled by engines to the processing area. Here in Costa Rica, the bunches are pulled strictly by manpower. In a couple of places we were able to see men bent to the labor of pulling a heavy string of bunches across the road to the plant. There the bunches are broken into hands and deposited in a water tank. Rejects are conveyed into waiting trucks to be used for fodder and fertilizer. The others are placed in trays, bagged and boxed by hand. Josh was instantly attracted by an old man who was cutting coconuts for the milk and meat. To lure buyers he ed around a beautiful Red-lored parrot, and an even more impressive giant Rhinoceros beetle. The beetle, as big as Josh’s hand was simply calling to him to be held. I whispered how cool it would be to show his

friends what he had held, sort of like the tarantula last year in Tikal. I got a couple of great pictures. The road to Tortuguero would gravel along for forty-five minutes, winding through pastoral cattle country that features large herds of Brahma cattle. Nancy fell in love with the critters, at least with their floppy ears, and asked Marty if he would get her one. She really only wants a little one, a Nelson type as in “City Slickers.” Full grown Brahmas aren’t really that cute. We ed through the villages of Maryland and Los Angeles, the latter being just about the most popular town name in the country. Luis spotted some movement in the trees, identifying a group of Howler monkeys. The sighting raised a din in our group that could rival the monkeys themselves. While we were watching them, a group of White-faced Capuchin monkeys jumped into the same tree, making this a Luis double-header. Check off monkeys! Ultimately the road had to end, at the Tortuguero Canal that runs just about the entire length of the Caribbean coast, and we unloaded the bus in preparation for our boat ride to the hotel in Tortuguero National Park. There are no roads in Tortuguero, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Costa Rica, and every single visitor comes either by boat or by air into their small air strip. We realized immediately that we should have packed smaller for these two nights, but the boatman dutifully loaded our heavy suitcases in the back of the boat, which was provided by our hotel, the Laguna Lodge. All of the hotels of Tortuguero, and there are more than a dozen big ones, operate their own boats as water taxis. We ed a group, who actually had been picked up by the Laguna Lodge guide in San Jose and brought all the way to Tortuguero. Finally all loaded, with Jason as our boatman, we entered the Parismina River that connects with the California Canal and then to the Tortuguero Canal. It is an hour and a half ride to the hotel, at fairly high speed. The National Park, about 60,000 acres of swamp land and coastal beaches, was created in 1975, primarily to protect the giant turtles who lay their eggs on this part of the shore. There are four species that use the area: Loggerheads, Leatherbacks, Green and Hawkbill. The region was originally the home of the Mosquito Indians, with about 1,0002,000 inhabitants around the town of Tortuguero. Our hotel was just beyond the town, and we landed at a fine dock, met there by Jonathan who led us to the reception area. It was mid-afternoon already and they were holding lunch for us, so we dropped our luggage in our rooms and headed for an Imperial cerveza and a buffet of chicken, beans, rice and plantains. What else?

Luis wanted to show us the town before dark, and after lunch we boarded a boat again and drove the short distance to Tortuguero. We stopped at the Turtle Museum, founded by Archie Carr to house his collections and studies on the migration of the turtles along the “Windward Road.” This organization, which bands the various species of turtles, is called the CCC, Caribbean Conservation Corp, formerly the Brotherhood of the Green Turtle. The radio bands are quite expensive, and we were told that quite often they retrieve them from Mexican restaurants up and down the coast, who don’t want to cook up the equipment in their turtle soup. Most of the Green turtles feed off of the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. While the group was shopping in the center of the village, Luis arranged for a water taxi for me to visit two of the other lodges of Tortuguero. The first was the Mawamba Lodge, a 54-room hotel that I believe is the nicest in the area. The manager, Olman Alvarado gave me a thorough tour, and even introduced me to a very colorful Red-eyed tree frog they raise at the hotel from egg to frog. Across the river I also looked at the Pachira Lodge, the largest on the canal with 88 rooms. I think they have the largest rooms, but the Mawamba is very classy. I would rate the Laguna second because the Pachira doesn’t have beach access. Back at the hotel, I ed the gang at the pool, an expansive one with a frog island in the middle. Everyone around here raises frogs. Juan the bartender, who sets absolutely no speed records, introduced us to the gaipireña, a tall rum drink in a glass filled chock-a-block with limes. We all thought they were great, so I went back to get another round. I waited about twenty minutes while Juan concocted a rum and coke and a beer for other customers. Then I hit him up for five gaipireñas, which didn’t phase him in the least. We exchanged bilingual pleasantries for about a week, while Juan waited for the limes to grow, but then he jumped right into their dissection. Two hopeful customers developed diabetes while waiting and were taken off to the hospital. The limes cut, Juan realized he was out of sugar, and dispatched a young man with a machete to cut some cane and fire up a rendering pot. A man staggered in, bitten by a Poison-dart date who was screaming at him in some foreign language (I think it might have been Spanglish.) Another young man made the mistake of yelling out “Piña colada” while Juan was crushing the lime juice and sugar. The young man will undoubtedly be retired before he gets his drink. Limes collected, cut and squashed, sugar retrieved, Juan reached for his main weapon, a bottle of guaro, the local white lightening of the area. He actually finished one drink, draining the bottle. “Una moment, amigo,” Juan said with a big smile. “Mas guaro!” First

he disappeared into a room behind the bar, where he keeps his stock. Half an hour later he emerged empty handed. Señor piña colada left for the bar near the lobby. So did Juan, leaving his post completely unmanned. Tres hombres helped themselves to a couple of brews; another poured himself a gin and tonic. I noticed he emptied the tonic bottle, and I made a mental note not to order anything with tonic from Juan. The next day Juan returned with the guaro, a whole bottle and a huge smile. “Señor Juan, mi amigo, guaro!” I returned to the pool just in time to watch Kasey graduate from college. She is now old enough to drink so Nancy asked me to go back and get her a gaipireña as well. Nancy is no longer in my will. For the next two days, Juan would continue to call me “amigo.”

DECEMBER 31 TORTUGUERO

The whole crew was up at 6:00 A.M. We are in Tortuguero, a water land, and Luis wants us out early when the birds, animals, reptiles and amphibians are up and active. At least for the first half hour, we are the least active creatures in the region. We boarded one of the Laguna Lodge’s smaller boats, with José as our driver and Luis as our naturalist guide, and headed for the National Park, stopping at the visitor center to purchase our entrance tickets. “Here comes the guy with the yellow Nikes,” Luis announced as a Snowy egret flew by with its black legs and bright yellow feet. “Yellow Nikes! Now that’s something I can relate to,” Donna gushed. Our ride this morning found no caiman, no crocs, no boas, but there were lots of birds. Yesterday Cole and I were wondering why there were no kingfishers along the river. Today we found every species Tortuguero has to offer, including the tiny American pigmy kingfisher. Some of the other unusual birds included several Sun bitterns, a Collared arikara and a beautiful Sungrebe. Just about the time that the river narrowed to become a great swamp ride, it became potty time for several of our crew. We had been gone almost two hours and reluctantly we turned around to speed back to the lodge. At breakfast, Luis gave us a lecture on the four species of turtles that lay their eggs on the beach in Tortuguero. They come ashore at different times, dig a deep nest, deposit their eggs, cover them and depart. The mothers will never see their offspring again, except by chance. “Turtle parenting! I like that kind of parenting. You just crawl up, lay your eggs and walk away. You never see them again.” Guess who?

Our table at the lodge was a great one, next to the canal, with a ringside view of things going by. There are a bunch of interesting fish off the balcony, chumming for table scraps. Last night I was sitting with my back to the river, engaged in our normal scintillating conversation. Without looking I tossed a bread crust back over my head to feed the fish, not realizing that an elderly couple were sitting in the rockers by the water. “Dad! There is a man sitting there. You almost hit him!” Anne and Nancy each contributed an exclamation point. “Papa Jack is a maroon,” Kasey laughed, intending the misspelling. You can only say something like that if you have a smile on your face. “There is supposed to be a river there,” I said by way of rationalization, not receiving much . The guy never saw it anyway. How are the fish supposed to eat if you don’t contribute your share? We have the rest of the morning and early afternoon to lounge around, take a swim, before we take a second boat ride into the park. It is only a couple hundred yards to the Caribbean beach, miles of mostly deserted sand that parallels the Tortuguero Canal. It is a nice walk, stopping to investigate the cavities that once were the turtle nests. Many had obviously been raided, with egg shells spread all around. The whole region looks like a war zone, with mortar pits everywhere, about 50-100 feet from the water. Yesterday, some of our group saw newly hatched turtles scurrying down to the water. Of course, the Black kites, gulls and other predators are also on the lookout. It is a hazardous run these little turtles make, and not much safer once they reach the water. The beach is also littered with jellyfish, the favorite diet of the Leatherbacks. It didn’t take much of a warning from Patrick to get Josh to steer clear of the squishy carcasses laying there on the sand. Josh was unable to avoid the sand crabs however, especially once he discovered that his mother would let out a great squawk if one started in her direction. We added crabs to the list of things that make Nancy scream. After lunch we reassembled at the boathouse. José was waiting for us to take us into the deeper stretches of the park, up a slough called Caño Harold that got Jim personally involved, since his given name is Harold. He figured that with a name like that there simply has to be a boa around somewhere. Shortly after we got into the heart of the swamp, José spotted our first cayman, lying almost

completely invisible on the bank, shielded by the bushes. They aren’t very big, about five feet long, certainly not Crocodile Dundee huge, but up-close and personal, the teeth still look very intimidating. We got within ten feet of the critter who was content to just sit there and look beautiful. The jungle was much more active than this morning, or perhaps we were in a better place, but we saw a bunch of monkeys, both howler and spider, and once again, lots of water birds —jicanas, anhingas, all types of egrets and herons, and a dozen Black river turtles. Luis and José conversed a while and then pulled up to the bank. Luis disappeared into the forest while we observed some monkeys on the other side of the canal. A short time later, Luis reappeared with a bunch of leaves and branches in his hand, and one bright-red, Levi-legged Poison arrow dart frog. We all scrambled out of the boat as Luis put the pile of debris down and the frog hopped into view. They are really tiny! I was able to get a good picture of it before it disappeared into the rotting foliage of the forest floor. Check off the frogs, Luis! We got back to the lodge around 5:00, a perfect time to visit Bartender Juan out at the pool. In a moment of forgetfulness, I ordered a bunch of gin and tonics, most of us opting out of the week-long preparation time for the gaipireñas. Marty and Patrick decided that guaro and tonic would be a suitable substitute. “Señor Jack, mi amigo. No mas agua tonica!” I definitely don’t like the sound of no mas no more, especially coming from Bartender Juan. Before I could switch to cerveza, he was gone, zooming out in a boat in search of tonic, hopeful of finding a few bottles somewhere down in Venezuela. But dinner is late this evening, it being New Year’s Eve, and we managed to get our gin and tonics, and guaro and tonics before departing for supper. It was supposed to be a special party for the New Year celebration. We were kind of thrown out of a festive mood by a couple of teenage idiots running around the lodge, yelling, ripping up plants and generally being maroons of the first order. Cole confronted them and was very close to eliminating them, when Jim intervened and suggested they get the hotel security. Marty was also somewhat interested in seeing these two insipid cretins out cold on the lawn. Ultimately the security man succeeded in driving them indoors, and we all went off to dinner. Hats, noise-makers, and confetti were handed out, which everyone donned and blew and threw, but nobody even came close to making it to 2007. Eventually,

around 10:00 we figured it was midnight in Nova Scotia, gave each other a hug and kiss and called it a year. Good-bye 2006!

JANUARY 1, 2007 TORTUGUERO / ARANAL

2007—It’s a new year! It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming in the millennium, and worrying about Y2K and all the computers in the world going haywire. We are well on our way through the Decade of the OOs, however you say it. I must say that the past seven New Years have been a very exciting travel medley for our family: China—2001; China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Korea —2003; China—Hainan—2005; Guatemala, Honduras—2006; and now Costa Rica and Nicaragua—2007. Us old guys in the family can add South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Swaziland and Botswana in 2002; and we used up 2004 by going off to the Amazon and places south in December before the New Year. I still have a Kenya safari in reserve, and I hope that will happen in 2008. I don’t think it gets much better than that. And best of all, everyone is still talking to each other! Kasey has been doing more than talking. She has become the card shark of the family, and takes on all comers, so long as they are older than she. I’m not sure that the finest diplomacy can arbitrate a card game between her and her brother. But Jim brought his Uno cards, and Patrick has a deck or two. Both of them are thrilled when they manage to win a game, but then again, Kasey does live in Nevada. Jim and Kasey maintained a marathon game yesterday, that was reopened whenever they had an extra ten minutes to use up. Jim was positively gloating this morning, but Kasey had a disclaimer. “It technically was not a win for Uncle Jim. He used Josh.” “I threw the game to make her smile,” Jim protested. We were boarding the boat to take us out of Tortuguero. “Can I sit next to you, Uncle Jim?” The boat ride, in rain squalls, took an hour and twenty minutes. Nothing was ultimately decided on the Uno front.

The boat, the Kupia Kuni, deposited us back on the Caño Blanco dock around 11:00. We got excited on seeing Leoned on the pier, but he was actually waiting for another group. Our new driver is Roderigo, or Rigo for short, a burly young man with a fairly good grasp of English. None of us were looking forward to another hour and twenty minutes of the rocky road to Siquirres, but it actually didn’t seem as long in this direction. We were no sooner underway than Deb let out a scream. Sloth!! And sure enough, there was a fine lazy dude, actually descending a tree for a decent picture, a 3-toed sloth at that. Check that one off, Luis! And a bit later, Donna spotted a 2-toer on the same road. Jim, riding shotgun this time instead of Josh, picked up the portable mike and tried to act the part of tour master, to the considerable derision of the team. He did succeed in teaching everyone the twoand three-fingered sloth salute, with Donna simplifying it considerably from the back of the bus. Today is a national holiday of sorts in Costa Rica, and as we neared Siquirres, we ed increasing numbers of people walking into the town for a celebration. There we also reached the asphalt, and settled in until we reached Guacimo and a lunch stop at the Bar Restaurant Selva Tropical. It was not the height of cuisine from any nationality, a sort of spaghetti that I suppose we could blame on the Italians. I don’t think we really had a choice because the Tropical is owned by the Laguna Lodge. Each hotel in Tortuguero has a lunch restaurant that is used for their tour packages. One thing we did appreciate is that many of the restaurants in Costa Rica have a large 5-gallon jug of fresh water, and you are invited to refill your bottles in an attempt to cut down on the number of plastic bottles that need to be recycled. Costa Rica is one of the few countries in Latin America where the water is potable almost everywhere. In many ways from an environmental standpoint, the country should be a model for the world. We left Guacimo at 2:00, continuing to retrace our footsteps from two days ago when we were on our way to Tortuguero. Our path today takes us back to Puerto Viejo where we turn west around the mountains to Arenal, once again through Virgin, leaving the San Jose road at San Miguel. Luis promised us a “surprise” and in late afternoon turned off into the village of Muelle de San Jose, stopping at the Restaurant los Iguanas. Here above the river, the trees were blooming with iguanas, the huge males all nestled on high branches sporting their best courting

outfits, truly formidable looking combinations of scales, spikes and vibrant colors of red, orange and yellow. It was rather late and the restaurant was ostensibly closed, but the girls managed to rouse the owners who opened up a fine shop mostly filled with wood carvings. I even managed to find a Jim Owl for the evening presentation. We reached the Volcano Hotel around 7:00, pretty well worn out from a day that didn’t conform to the original itinerary. But the hotel was so lovely, with room blocks spread throughout a manicured garden, that we perked up noticeably, and it took only a few minutes before we were ready for dinner. Luis has made a reservation for us at the Baldi Hot Springs, one of several spas that operate in the area thanks to the superheated water that comes off of the very active Arenal Volcano. We had a brief dispute over whether we wanted to eat first and then hit the hot pools, or do the reverse. “No neckties are needed here,” Luis advised us. “Just put on something so you can be happy.” “Something” could literally be anything from a Speedo to a suit because these hot springs are the essence of casual. We all took one look at the cascade of hot tubs and pools and opted to eat first. Would you believe that Baldi Hot Springs has a dinner buffet? With rice and beans, fried plantains and chicken! Who could ask for anything more? There are a dozen or more hot pools on the mountain side, each a little different in temperature from a bearable 102° to a scalding 150+°. Many have waterfalls that do a beautiful job of pulverizing your shoulder muscles if you have the need. We all got into our swim suits in the locker room and then climbed the hill to the top, taking our time moving from pool to pool down the hill. It was a very soothing evening, a comforting way to top off a long day of boat and bus driving. Tomorrow, hopefully, we will get a clear view of Arenal, one of Costa Rica’s seven active volcanoes. It last erupted in July 1968, but has been belching and smoking non-stop ever since out the west side of the crater with the lava flowing north, directly at many of the hotels and lodges in the region. On a clear night, the red stream makes a spectacular sight.

JANUARY 2 ARANAL / BORANQUIN

We needed another day at Arenal, just as we would have liked another night at the La Quinta. We have often found this to be true, that each new place on these trips seems more exciting than the last. Costa Rica is such a rich and varied country, with so many different faces that there is a constant discovery and travel surprise. Our hotel here, the Volcano Lodge, is lovely, with large, attractive rooms spaced all around an extensive garden complex. I got up early in search of birds and to enjoy the fresh air and beautiful flowers. And there was the mountain! As the morning wore on, it came totally into view, causing us to pose by couples and families with the volcano as a backdrop. Our itinerary called for us to leave the Arenal area rather early, because we have to drive completely around Lake Arenal and down to the Pacific coast today, but with the clear weather, I knew that leaving was not going to be possible. Luis and I agreed to drive to the western side of the mountain, into the National Park, and take a look at the thermal activity. Luis described Arenal as a “two-headed volcano” which erupted in 1523-25 and not again until 1963. Cole, who is completely intrigued by volcanoes, was watching it closely this morning, and reported considerable activity in the form of rock falls and steam. Luis said that Tabacon Hot Springs, one of the most famous of the lodges in the area, is right in the path of those slides and flows, if the volcano ever decides to get serious again. In fact, most of the lodges are in the potential path of destruction. We checked out of our hotel, and drove around the mountain, ing the Montaña de Fuego, the first of the luxury hotels in the region. Not much farther along we could see the Kioro Hotel built on the volcano’s shoulder, the closest to the activity. At $250 a night it is also the most expensive of the places to stay in Arenal. Luis pointed out a dense forest that has grown directly out of the 1525 lava fields, as well as other flows that remain the wasteland that you usually picture where lava is concerned. Along the way we were stopped by a small traffic jam caused by about twenty coatamundi who were freeloading off of the tourists. It is exactly the same syndrome as caused by bears in Yellowstone. Of course we stopped for a picture or two. Ultimately we reached the entrance to

the National Park, driving to an observation deck where we could get a good look at the volcanic action. “If everyone at the observation area is quiet we should be able to hear Arenal,” Luis promised, not noticing the family with little kids walking toward that very spot. The kids screamed, the adults talked loudly, but we settled in anyway, directing our ears toward the mountain. Jim began his meditation session as soon as we were all in place. Mary and Josh dutifully followed his lead, “being one with nature,” although I have to confess most of the rest of us were not as reverent, at least not at first. I wandered off to take a look at Lake Arenal that stretches far off to the north. Cole was too busy with his binoculars to listen hard, his excitement growing with each puff of dust and smoke up on the high slopes. There was indeed quite a bit of activity. As rocks were blown out of the crater, they tumbled down, raising a plume of dust behind each avalanche. When the clouds cleared a bit, we could see exhaust streams behind the rock slides. Jim moved everyone down to the parking area. It was a fine picture to see our gang, each person turned sideways to the mountain, concentrating mightily on the sounds that emanated from above. “I can’t hear anything,” Josh moaned forlornly. Baaroooooom!!!!! It was a mighty volcanic belch that rocked the western slope, a major grumble. “I heard that!” We ed a couple of more sonic booms before deciding that it was time to move on. Our plans called for us to drive all the way around the lake, down off of the high plateau to the coast and then north to Borenquin. There we are supposed to take horses to try out some zip lines. It seemed to me to be a very ambitious schedule, close to impossible. I asked Luis if there were zip lines in this area, and he was immediately on his cell phone. “Yes, the Hotel Arenal Paraiso has some. They are going off in about fifteen minutes.” “Let’s go. The zip lines are more important than the horses, and if we wait until the afternoon, we may never get to try them. It may be too late by the time we

get to the hotel.” So the horses were discarded and we headed for the Rancho Paraiso Canopy Tour. They were just outfitting a bunch of people when we arrived, so we added another ten fliers to the crowd. Mary was not too keen about trying this thing, and then Cole opted out as well, fearing that his bad back might not be able to take the strain. I had the same thoughts so the three of us became the cheerleaders. Everyone was strapped into a rock climber’s harness, which the staff assured those with larger bodies that the equipment could up to 4,000 pounds. A leather-Iined glove grip and crash helmet completed the ensemble. Our crew posed for a fine photo. Led by Nelson, Victor and Rafa, as well as a couple of guys whose name I didn’t catch, about thirty zip liners were led up the hill to the first tower. I am not sure that any of the family realized exactly what they were in for. Annie was surprisingly calm; Deb and Donna weren’t at all sure; Nancy looked ready to let out one of her best yelps. Marsha, I have noticed, is always game for something new, although she looked as uncertain as the other gals. Kasey was in her usual concentration mode, and Josh just lit up when one of the guides said, “Just , don’t ever use the breaks.” Jim, Patrick and Marty were much too macho to appear worried, but all three itted later that it was a pretty scary experience. At the first tower, one of the guides snapped his rig onto a demonstration wire to show everyone how to ride, slide and eventually break before they crash into the tower and actually break something on their body. “The first three runs are test runs. That is your last chance to quit. After that, no crying on the platform.” Our gang was the last group onto that first tower and got the benefit of listening to a variety of loud gasps and downright screams as bodies hurtled off into the forest, flying on a cable high above the ground. Annie was in the lead and was the first of the family to leave the platform. Nancy didn’t even utter a yelp! Deb was the last to go. They have eleven runs that take them out over the forest and the river. Once Deb was gone, there was nothing more for us to see, so Cole, Mary and I wandered back to the bar to settle in, watch the volcano and dispatch a few beers. They told us it would be about two hours before the tractor and wagon went to pick the zippers up. It was actually three hours, almost 2 P.M. by the time they got back, and by that hour our day was hopelessly out of whack.

Luis wanted to take us to lunch at the Kioro Hotel, that luxurious new place we had seen up on the side of Arenal. There in the Restaurante Heliconias we had a fabulous lunch, served by a bevy of waiters in a room that was purely elegant, with a panoramic view of the volcano. We are even later on our schedule, but that lunch experience was worth it.

At 3:30 we were finally ready to leave, moving out on a forest road that skirts the north shore of Lake Arenal, a large mountain lake that connects the Parque Nacional Arenal with the Parque National Volcán Tenorío. The lake is blocked from the coastal plain by the Cordillera de Tilarán, and stopped in the north by the Cordillera de Guanacaste. At Tronadora the road discovered the between the two mountain ranges, dropping steeply to the coastal plain of Guanacaste. Several windmill farms thrive on the constant winds that are funneled into the , but the clouds and the water they carry dissipate above the . The water of the lake however, is piped into generators that produce power from gravity for Guanacaste Province and at the same time carry water down to the arid plain. We ed through the town of Tilarán and our third village of Los Angeles, and finally hit the Pan-American Highway at Las Cañas. It was now nearly dark, and Luis wanted to stop for a break at a restaurant in Bagaces, but the place was closed by the time we arrived. So we adjusted to a truck stop outside of Liberia, having been by this time almost three hours on the road without the benefit of los baños. Eleven kilometers past Liberia, at El Muerto, we turned off of the highway toward the towns of Cañas Dulces and Buenavista. Luis told us that our hotel, Rancho Borinquen, was at Buenavista, and sure enough there was a sign with a rather small fourteen kilometers scribbled below the name of the hotel. Only nine miles to go! And it’s only a little after 6:00. We made better time than we had hoped. The silence in the van grew measurable as the road worsened and ruts increased. There was not a sign of life as we climbed back into the mountains, Buenavista disappearing behind us. Half an hour later, a new sign: “Rancho Borinquen—9 km.” There was an audible groan that seemed to emanate from the rear of the bus.

“How many more half hours?” the girls in back wanted to know, a bit of Hainanese that Luis couldn’t begin to understand, but I took as a deliberate slap in the face. We roused a few nighthawks, actually the more rare Common paureque, which was quite exciting, but the ladies weren’t in a mood for birding at the moment. Actually it took us about fifteen minutes more before we pulled up to a very interesting and attractive lodge. This is a region of large ranches, several of which have been turned into a sort of sportsman’s retreat, offering a few rooms for guests and a variety of outdoor activities. We had actually reached Buenavista Rancho which has been developed into a very upscale lodge. Our rooms were huge, four of them taking up an entire complex on the hill. The Buxtons and Joyces actually had villas just across the road. I could already hear the comments tomorrow, how we really need a couple of nights here. And they would be right! The Rancho de Borinquen offers zip lines, (the ones you get to on horseback), swimming, hiking, and a variety of other outdoor activities. You have to have a couple of days here. Since we don’t have that luxury, I was even happier that we had done the zip lines at Arenal because I don’t think we would have gotten here on time to have zipped this afternoon. As it was, we all hurried down to the La Carreta Restaurant for a tasty steak (lomito) dinner. It has been a most interesting day.

JANUARY 3 GRENADA, NICARAGUA

Our original schedule called for us to arrive at the Rancho de Borinquen in midafternoon yesterday, with free time to enjoy the zip lines, horses, hiking and such. It also calls for us today to leave the hotel at 8 A.M., bound for the border at Nicaragua. But since we arrived after dark last night, and discovered this unexpectedly upscale place seemingly in the middle of nowhere, there is no chance we are leaving before 10:00 today. Kasey and Nancy are going to want to look at the horses; Josh will want a swim; I want to take a bird walk; and most everyone else wants to sleep in a bit. I was out around 7:00 to take a walk, and entered a mini-hurricane outside the room. The wind, those easterlies that Luis had told us about, was positively roaring, capable of blowing the whole rancho off the map. Our rooms were on the side of a rather steep hill that led down to the lobby, restaurant and activity areas. It was easy enough to get down the hill, borne on the winds like a dry leaf. I ignored the uneasy thought that what goes down has to fight its way back up. I discovered the horse corrals and barns down past the lobby, and further along, a very large swimming pool. A sign directed me toward the hot pools, with the warning not to veer off of the path. There are supposed to be bubbling hot pots in the region, but the area seems to have dried up, with the exception of a single small steaming puddle of bubbles. I took a picture but knew that I would erase it right away because all you could say about it was that it was an ugly picture of something. A bit further down the path was a Yoga Meditation Center, a wooden platform surrounded by Tiki lamps, built above a rapidly moving stream. I made a note to tell Jim about it so he could practice his “one with nature” routine, which I am certain works as well with a mud pot as with a volcano. A nature walk begins at the yoga center, leading off into the forest with more signs advertising a bunch of petroglyphs. I discovered a cliff, close to the path, that was covered with drawings, the usual sort of stick men, stick flowers, stick animals and other stick stuff—pre-Columbian graffiti of the finest sort. None of these guys were very good artists. The path led up and down hills for a couple of miles, ending at a noxious sulfurinfused sauna of sorts. It appeared that the whole structure was in the midst of being rebuilt. Why anyone would want to sit in this place and smell rotten eggs

is beyond me, but it is apparent that the sauna was much used. Not far beyond the stink I discovered the swimming pool, its sole occupant being Joshua, with Marty on the watch. Even though the sun was out, the water was far from hospitable, and Josh was not exactly swimming around freely, but rather sitting on a rock ledge that edged the pool. Kasey and Nancy had gone to look at the horses. I ended my walk at the breakfast table. It is the strangest morning. There is a rainbow on the eastern horizon, and a steady drizzle is falling, but there is not a cloud in the sky. Somewhere out over the mountains it is raining, and the gale that we are buffeted with this morning is bringing the rain to us, if not the storm. Just as well, though, because we do have to get on the road, and if it was really as nice as the sun seemed to indicate, we would want to stay longer. Like La Quinta and the Volcano Lodge, this place deserves a couple of days at least. On to Nicaragua! We left Borinquen at 9:30, arriving at Beunavista at 10:00 and ten minutes later at the Pan-American Highway. It seemed a lot faster getting out of the place than getting into it last night when the headlights were picking up every rock and rut. This morning with no lights able to highlight the hazards, the road appeared smoother and Rico could drive faster with a clear conscience. The northern part of Costa Rica is almost all national parks. We entered the area of Santa Rosa National Park, the largest protected dry forest area on the entire isthmus. It fills the whole peninsula of Santa Elena that juts out into the Pacific between the Gulf of Santa Elena on the north and the Gulf of Papagayo on the south. Moving east from Santa Rosa, the park system runs through Guanacaste National Park and on to Rincon Vieja National Park, where we were the day before last. An hour brought us to the border of Nicaragua, where we were stopped behind a huge line of trucks heading north along the Pan-American. It has been years since Luis went to Nicaragua so he wasn’t at all sure what the procedure would be once we hit the actual border. Rico decided to go around the trucks, a good thing because they stretched for a mile back from the Costa Rica barrier. We are required first to exit Costa Rica before we can get into Nicaragua, and Luis left us to go investigate. He found a soldier who would let us into a special line, and while we filled out the departure forms, Luis went off to find our Nicaraguan van and guide. He can’t come with us because he doesn’t have the proper visa. Once

we finished the forms, it only took ten minutes to get our ports stamped, and we were off for the border. Luis and Rico drove us to a spot where we could transfer our luggage to a new van. There we met our guide, a smiling, rather plump young man with the curious name of Byron Ortega. Our driver’s name is Jamal, who told me to collect the ports and follow him. I dragged Cole with me in case his Spanish was needed. In short order we got all the ports stamped for $3 each, and another buck for the local mayor. We are now in Nicaragua.

There is such a different feeling in this country! The weather is rather sticky; the streets are filled with litter. It doesn’t seem nearly as safe. It sort of felt like driving from Austria into Italy, from a world of cleanliness and order into one of unkempt streets and lounging people. It is apparent immediately that you are no longer in Costa Rica, and an uneasy silence descended on our van, broken only by the good will of our guide, Byron. He immediately commenced talking about his country, focusing first on the enormous Lake Nicaragua that stretched like one of the Great Lakes off to our right. This is the great watershed of the entire northern part of Costa Rica. It reaches nearly half way across the isthmus, and with the San Juan River, nearly cuts Nicaragua in half. It was the original site of the proposed canal linking the oceans, the route generally followed by the 49ers on their trek to California. On the western edge of the lake, you are barely twenty miles from the Pacific. The lake occupies 8,200 square kilometers, and even contains a couple of volcanoes. If we thought that Costa Rica was volcanic, it can’t compare with Nicaragua. Here there are forty-six of the cones, sixteen of which are active. Our route north to the city of Grenada took us through a rather sad countryside. There is a lot of garbage near the border, and the towns are dirty in the extreme. Even in the farming areas, the roadbeds are littered with debris. We ed through extensive fields of sugar cane, bananas and papayas before we were stopped by one of several police roadblocks. The soldier took a quick look into the van, to be confronted by thirteen yellow “egg shirts,” our Donna uniform for this trip. You could almost see his smile of scorn at this baker’s dozen of tourista bananas. Mary cleverly dubbed us the “Golden Eggers,” off on an adventure from Golden Egg Tours. “Jesus Christ, that was an easy one!” Byron blurted out, touching off a monologue about problems with tourism in Nicaragua. “Oh, Jesus Christ! I almost forgot to take an order for our lunch today. Do you want paella or chicken?” Who wouldn’t want paella, especially in a city named Grenada? Around 2:00 we reached the beautiful city of Grenada, home to about 90,000 people. It has recently received considerable attention from the travel writers in

the states who are trying to boost Nicaragua as a potential tourist destination. I noticed in a New York Times article that just about the entire essay was about Grenada with almost nothing about the rest of the country. We entered the city on a street lined with old shops and homes, all in very good repair, well painted with clean sidewalks. Block after block of attractive buildings stretched into the city center. Even though we were getting very hungry, Byron stopped at the historic church of La Merced, built in 1781. There we climbed a steep circular staircase to the bell tower for a fine panorama of the entire city, stretching down to the lake. From above, the place is even more impressive, with a pleasing texture of red-tile roofs stretching in off-angles in all directions, their patterns interrupted often by the pillar of a church tower rising above the streets. The huge white dome of the cathedral shimmered in the afternoon sun. Grenada was founded in 1524 by the Spaniard Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, who was naturally in search of gold. The town, situated as it was on the edge of the lake, soon became a center of commerce. In 1855 William Walker sailed up the San Juan River and captured the city, ruling it for fifty-one days. On his retreat he ordered his officers to fire the city, leaving a sign that read, “Here was Grenada.” But the city survived and today is the one shining gem of the country, and certainly the biggest tour attraction. Mary, being a Walker, has been interested in William since we first heard about him a few days ago, so I looked him up on the internet. What I discovered is a tale that could only happen in Americas, in the “Wild West.” Walker’s story leads him from Nashville where he graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Nashville to a medical degree in Philadelphia to New Orleans and finally to the California Gold Rush in San Francisco. From there he conceived the idea to conquer Baja California and Sonora, which he declared to be the Republic of Lower California. Hired as a mercenary he invaded Nicaragua with fifty-seven men, defeated the national army at La Virgen, captured Granada and took control of the country in 1855, declaring himself president the following year. Ultimately he planned the invasion of Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador, but he fell afoul of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Accessory Transit Company, and federal recognition of his status in Nicaragua was withdrawn. He returned to Central America again after being arrested and sent back to the U.S., but in 1860 he was again captured, this time by the British, who turned him over to Honduras officials. He was executed by firing squad on September 12, 1860. He was 36 years old.

It was only a couple of blocks to the Hotel Patio del Malinche, our home for the next two nights. It is a small place of twenty rooms, beautifully fashioned out of one of the old traditional houses of Grenada, with two floors of smallish rooms circling an interior garden and swimming pool. We checked in quickly, reconvening with grumbling stomachs, at 3:00, ready for lunch. Byron led us half a block down the street to Restaurant Doña Conchi, a perfectly delightful little place, filled to the brim with artwork, pottery, flowers and bric-a-brac. We were more than a couple of rounds into our beers when the paella finally arrived. Thank “Jesus Christ” that Byron had called in our order or it would have been tomorrow before we were served. But the place was so pleasant and the beer cold enough that we just laughed at the methodical service. “Kasey, where’d you get that bracelet?” someone asked. “It’s really pretty.” “Oh, I got it from Auntie Donna, for babysitting Uncle Jim.” Lunch finished, Byron proposed a short walk of the town. But first we needed a family picture since we had all donned our egg-shirts for that purpose. “It’s not egg,” Donna protested. “It’s banana!” And there we are, all sitting in a pleasant line on a stone bench outside of Doña Conchi’s, looking every bit the part of Nord Americano natives on holiday. Actually it turned out to be a very nice picture. Then Byron led us through the pleasant streets of Grenada, ing the back of the Cathedral to the Convento de San Francisco. Built in 1529, it is an impressive structure, today housing the city’s history museum. For a while it served as a university and an elementary school, abandoned in the 19th century before being converted into a museum. In the foyer is a long mural depicting the history of Nicaragua and Grenada, from pre-Columbia days to the 20th century. Inside the old convent is a fine exhibit of the early history of Nicaragua, and of the culture and crafts of the natives of the region. One open-air wing is filled with pre-Columbian statues, very well preserved, found on Isle Zapatera, one of the islands in the lake. Outside this wing, we could get a clear view of Monbacho Volcano, one of several that ring the city.

I noticed flocks of a very distinctive long-tailed bird flying into several large trees in the area of the museum. Bryon explained that they are Scissor-tailed flycatchers who converge on the mango trees every day at dusk. These birds are almost always alone or in pairs during the day. It was a thrill to see hundreds of them in one spot. It was almost dark when we worked our way through the Plaza Central and back to the hotel, but not too dark for a swim and a couple of libations. Gin and tonic has become our drink of choice, mainly because it is easier and because drinks like Planter’s Punch and Piña Colada seem to confuse the local bartenders. Rum and coke works too. And of course there is always cerveza. Byron recommended a restaurant in the area called Zaguan, which turned out to be very fine. It was well that we had made a reservation, because thirteen are not easy to seat, and we got the last tables in the place. A mariachi band was playing earlier when I had investigated the Zaguan, and they were still here, still playing at the same table when we arrived for dinner. The obvious head of that group had virtually ed the musicians in singing, belting out song after song. They were still singing when we had finished. The Zaguan, specializing in grilled meat, is worth ing.

JANUARY 4 GRENADA

The Scissor-tailed flycatchers are all gone. I got up early today and went for a walk through Grenada, retracing our walk from last night, over to the Convento de San Francisco and around the central plaza. A nice breeze blows across the city, keeping the temperature cool. Swallows, several different sizes, swarm the sky over the rooftops. Noisy parrots and parakeets scud back and forth on some sort of aimless mission. But the flycatchers in the mango trees are all gone, back to their lonely existence in the countryside. The town is more than awake, as small groups of workers head for their jobs. The vendors are arriving at the plaza, setting up stands that hawk cokes, juices, beaded bracelets and earrings. I smiled at the discovery of the Hot Dog Café, plopped on the inner side of the square. Even a couple of money changers offer their services, which I had no intention of taking, recalling Byron’s tale yesterday of the money changers at the border who sprinkle in 1000-Cordoba bills to unknowing tourists. There is no such denomination in Nicaragua. On a side street I watch as two trucks sweep the streets of garbage. Two men walk on each side of the truck, ing cans and boxes up to another pair on each side of the truck. These guys in the truck crew empty the cans and distribute recyclables to the four corners of the garbage truck —an eight-man operation, but it helps to explain why the streets of Grenada are relatively clean in comparison to the countryside. Today we will tour the city and visit several different sites around Grenada. We have a new driver, Manuel, who immediately took a liking for Josh who is again sitting up front. I noticed that when the GameBoy comes out, Josh tends to sit a little deeper in the seat, out of sight of his mother. This morning it didn’t help.

“Joshua, you have about twenty seconds to drop that GameBoy and start looking at the country!” Josh gave her one of his best “evil stares,” but the little machine disappeared in the outside pocket of his backpack, easily accessible for a future time when

Mom wasn’t so observant. We didn’t know whether to laugh at Josh or Nancy, so most of us just uttered a generic laugh. I think sometimes, Josh actually goads his mother into a response of some sort. At other times, Nancy is purely creative in her own right. The other day she was heard to say, ‘Joshua, don’t sit on your feet. They’re filthy.” God, I wish my legs were able to get my feet actually under my butt! I would dirty up my feet just to get Nancy to tell the world that I could actually sit on them. We exited Grenada on a fine road, with Byron continuing his lessons on Nicaraguan culture. Someone asked about a red-and-black flag that we saw flying from several of the buildings. Byron said it was the banner of the Sandanistas. Of course, the recent history of Nicaragua is that of the Sandanists and the Contras and the U.S. taking one side or the other and at times both. In the past few years the country has pacified considerably, but it wasn’t too long ago that a busload of Americans would not safely even enter the country. In Managua, Byron described a new Peace Park where both sides buried a large cache of AK47s, but he assured us that there were still many left in households throughout the country. He laughed, as did we (ironically) when he related the arithmetic lessons in his grammar school: “Three grenades plus four grenades equals how many grenades?” or “Five Sandanistas minus three dead Sandanistas…” The road rose steeply as we ed Lake Apollo and Lake Managua and then started climbing the side of Masaya Volcano, the centerpiece of Parc National Volcan Masaya, created in 1979, the country’s first. A major eruption occurred in 1772, leaving huge fields of the very rough lava, called aa, different from the stone fields we had seen a few days ago in Arenal. The last small eruption of Masaya was in 2001. Byron was on the mountain with a tour group that day. “Jesus Christ! I was in a brand new bus and it was hit by rocks in that eruption.” I doubt we will ever get used to Byron’s favorite exclamation phrase. He told us he learned his English, which is superb, entirely from watching TV. Even Annie couldn’t tell us what show he was watching to learn his patented “Jesus Christ.” On a hill overlooking the huge crater is a large cross, “put up by the Spanish to drive away the devil. It didn’t work.” Indeed a devilish smoke was billowing up from Masaya, which fortunately was

being blown away from our observation area. It is very toxic and quickly drives visitors away when the wind in coming toward them. Byron directed us to a path, leading still further up the mountain, where there is a second crater, San Fernando, a small, more photogenic hole devoid of the noxious vapors. From there we commanded a fine view of Masaya, and the whole countryside, down to the lake where our guide pointed out a huge factory complex that was the largest employer in Grenada. He also pointed out a brilliant yellow flower, sardillo, that somehow grows in a desolate world that s little else but dry grasses. We stopped at the Museo Masaya, a real treasure. They have a wonderful display of General Vulcanology, the best layman’s explanation of volcanoes I have ever seen, probably because Nicaragua and Central America have so many. There I learned that Masaya is a Shield Crater, 635 meters across, and can produce Strombolian as well as Hawaiian eruptions. This explains the rough aa down the side of the mountain as well as the rocks thrown at Byron’s bus. Somewhere in the last days, Josh bought a top, known locally as trompos. He was getting a bit upset in his inability to get it spinning properly, always seeming to make it land on its head instead of on the pointy end. Byron saw him trying to make it work and came to his rescue, explaining that he was winding the cord on the wrong end. He took the top from Josh, wound it tightly and flipped it to the ground, making it spin just like a top. At the museum, Manuel came over to help, patiently winding the string with Josh’s nose an inch away. It seems that the top is the national sport of Nicaragua, a skill that every schoolboy learns from the time he can walk, and both of these men obviously have not forgotten the skill. In that sense, trompos are like yo-yos when we were growing up. Josh almost had to fight to try get his trompo back from the men and try it again himself. The three of them were lost in the practice with the rest of the family watching attentively. Manuel spun out the toy, went over and picked it up, still wildly spinning, and ed the top to Josh’s hand. It would prove to be a pivotal lesson, because from that point on, Joshua and the top were never separated. With even a few feet of open space he would throw the thing down, every so often getting a reluctant spin on the proper end. We could see the effort and the quick improvement. We left the museum, driving into the market town of Masaya, a place of about 100,000 residents that has become since the late 1800s the craft center of the nation. Here the locals bring their woven goods, sculptures, pottery, wood carvings and traditional hammocks.

“We are approaching our shopping all wrong,” Donna averred, seeing all the shops and wares. “We need a container.” This from the woman who once complained that she couldn’t possibly keep up with Nancy and Anne, who in her mind were professional shoppers. After half a dozen trips Donna is now holding her own with anyone, prodded of course by her husband Jim, or as he was christened last year in Guatemala, Jaime Venado. We drove through the florist town of Santa Catharina, and climbed the hill to the top of Masaya, where Byron said there were a bunch of good restaurants for lunch. The place commands a gorgeous view of the lake and surrounding volcanoes, inspiring another round of family Kodak moments. Jim pulled out a few dollars and hired a mariachi trio who were lounging against a wall, to pose with us for a “greater group photo.” Finally we got around to eating. Byron arranged for our lunch at the Bar and Restaurant Carolina, one of four in the same complex, where a table for fifteen was quickly set up, one of the prime catches of the day for the restaurant. There we were serenaded by the very soul of Nicaraguan music, beginning with “Return to Sender” that quickly morphed into “Dream Lover.” It would be an afternoon of very loud 60s and 70s music that was so out of place it was thoroughly enjoyable. When the CD began “Donna” we all burst into song. The ultimate experience came with the Village People, bringing Jaime Venato out of his chair so that Kasey could teach him the moves of “YMCA.” He proved not to be teachable, but several tables of local folks thought that skill didn’t matter at all where entertainment is involved. Jaime was in his glory, loudly ordering “arroz con camerones,” adding “That’s damn good Spanish.” And he used up the time waiting for the food to come to buy out the entire animal whistle supply of a young girl who would have been delighted to sell a pair of tiny toucans. Several of us, led by Cole who is fluent in Spanish, understood the menu better than the rest, ordered Cerdo a la Planche. That we would discover, is a flaming, vulcanizing, grease-spitting pan of pork. The dishes erupted from the kitchen in a curtain of smoke and fire that seemed almost to consume the waiters, who stood ten feet away barely able to hold on to the platters with heavy mitts. Those are the most exciting dishes I have ever witnessed, and when cooled were totally delicious. Once Cole had gotten the cerdo ordered, we found that beef and other meats could also be “planked,” creating a very combustible luncheon. It was during lunch that Josh conquered the Costa Rican top. He gulped down

his calamari in a few swallows and was out on the balcony before we even got planked, with both Byron and Manuel as private instructors. We were all absorbed with Jim buying whistles when we heard a mighty shout. There was Josh with his top going full speed, aided undoubtedly by the happiest smile the world has ever seen. His mentors, especially Manuel, were proudly beaming behind him, when to their utter glee, Josh took the cord, wound it around the spinning top, and flipped it up to his hand. It was a sight to behold, these two Nicaraguan men and a young tourist boy, bonding over a spinning top. From the restaurant balcony, we commanded a wonderful view of the lake, the biggest caldera in Central America. On this end, there are dozens of small islands, all formed by the explosions of a string of volcanoes that edge the lake. We could see Conception Volcano on the Isle of Ometepe, and Isle Zapatera, where the ancient sculptures were found that we saw yesterday in the museum. We had ed the village of Santa Catharina on our way up the mountain to our lunch stop. A small pottery shop on the plaza there, decked out in vivid colors, required a photo stop. Byron pointed out the façade of the church, punctuated by a network of bullet holes, souvenirs of the Contra Revolution. We stopped at a fruit stand to buy some of the local fruits, many of which were entirely unknown to us. Byron ed around a mimbro, a sour apple. Totally strange was a guava (not the kind we are familiar with) that looked like a huge bean. The seeds inside were covered by a soft, watery white flesh. We also tried a nispero, a round fruit with very sweet, brown flesh. These were all ed around the van, evoking a variety of reactions from praise to groans. Up front, Manuel was giving Josh his own private tasting, amazed that a young boy would sample anything and everything. Between Josh’s gastronomical courage and his success with a top, Manuel was close to adopting him. Our next stop was the village of San Juan de Oriente, a community of about twenty families who have formed a pottery co-op to display and market their wares. It was a major stop for all of us, because here were fine quality dishes, bowls, polka dot roosters—everything an overstuffed suitcase could wish for. It was here that Jim brought his owl collection to full bloom. “Jack, come over here!” Patrick half yelled, half whispered to me as I was concentrating on a medium sized pottery chicken. I strolled across the street to the shop where Patrick was. Without a word he ushered me in and pointed. There was a fifteen-inch owl, artistically posed, beautifully carved out of the soft local

stone. Most important, it was heavy! I have been awarding owls to Jim every night on the trip, because as a Bohemian, to whom the owl is sacred, he should have such a collection. This Nicaraguan owl, (buho to the locals) will be one of the prime figures of that group. I didn’t have a choice; Jim needs that buho. Our path down from Masaya took us through more small towns, many populated by local indigenous tribes. We ed a restaurant, El Awacate, a place that Byron reported offers most of the local wild animals on its menu, including deer, armadillo, boa, etc. He said that such restaurants are very popular in the back areas, but aren’t allowed in the cities. “Do they have cock fights around here?” Marcia asked. “Every Sunday,” Byron reported. “I thought so. I saw a man back there carrying his cock.”

By now it is late afternoon, and we are headed for the lake. Our schedule calls for us to take a cruise through the volcanic islands of Lake Nicaragua, and Byron timed our excursion for this time because the birds are most active at the end of the day. We stopped at a local dock, where we boarded the Gaviota, with Victor as our driver. While waiting for the boat to be ready, Josh started topping, and immediately drew a crowd of young boys to participate. They were experts and showed him a bunch of tricks that he is sure to replicate when he gets back home. The islands were formed by the explosions of Mombacho Volcano that looms above Grenada. Over the centuries, the archipelago has become a tropical sanctuary for thousands of water birds, as a dense forest developed. The ride this afternoon was not dissimilar to the ones we took in Tortuguero, except that here in Nicaragua, there is a massive lake feeding the bayous that attracts the full spectrum of aquatic birds. We saw almost all of the herons, cormorants, egrets and grebes that we had seen in Tortuguero, except often in larger numbers. Particularly impressive was a huge colony of nesting egrets, which prompted Jim, always irreverent, to comment, “They don’t believe in the rule that you don’t shit where you eat.” We saw a flock of Snowy egrets fishing a shoal in the lake, acting very much like terns or pelicans in their movements, as they skimmed the water, dipping in every so often to grab a bite. I never knew that egrets fished in that fashion. The lake also is home to a wide variety of fish, among which Byron listed wabote, mujara, tilapia and bass. “Now this is where I could enjoy a nice gin and tonic,” Donna observed to anyone who would listen. It appears that others had the same idea, because tucked onto these islands are a number of elaborate homes, many of which appear to be vacation places for the very upper class. We also saw the remains of an old fortress, Castle San Jorge, sure evidence that the Spanish also liked the islands. We left Byron at the hotel, with a good round of hugs and fond wishes. He has proven to be a very good guide, extremely upbeat, full of interesting tales and facts, and Jesus Christ, he gave us a good impression of Grenada, if not the rest of the country. After a few gin and tonics and rum-cokes, we walked to the plaza for dinner at

the La Gran Francia Restaurant. It is a very nice place with good décor and an outstanding menu. There was a whole team of waiters to serve us, and best of all, they had a fully stocked, totally professional, full of call-brand-bottles bar and a bartender who knew how to make a drink. “Agua tonica? Parlez vous English?” “Yes, you want tonic?” “You can’t make a gin and tonic can you?” “Do you want Tanqueray or Bombay?” “Really!? Give us six of them, Bombay.” They came in large glasses, lots of ice, a slice of lime, and a smile. This is my Nicaraguan restaurant from now on! And they have a most active air conditioning system.

JANUARY 5 GUANACASTE / SAN JOSE

Jamal was waiting for us on the curb outside the Patio del Malinche this morning. The couple who now owns the hotel, both from Spain and working very hard to succeed, were in the lobby with us, talking about the city, happy that we had spent time with them. This is a lovely inn, quiet, rather refined, almost Spanish. The breakfasts are simple, almost to bare, but the good will of the place makes it very attractive. I think that is true of Grenada in general. Walking around the city again this morning, I saw industrious people heading for work, shopkeepers sweeping their sidewalks, vendors setting up, a few old folks sitting in their doorways greeting every erby, even me. An old toothless lady whom I have seen every time I left the hotel and returned, shouted a long, indecipherable greeting to me this morning, a gush of words with a huge smile for parenthesis. I think that all of us have settled in comfortably with this pleasant city, which doesn’t have the intimidation factor of the border, the unkempt attitude of the countryside, and certainly not the danger factor that everyone talks about in Managua. It may not be possible to focus on exactly why we all liked Grenada so much, but a good part can be condensed into two words —no tourists! Well, not exactly, we did see thirteen of them in our two days, but we were very nice. Jamal got us on the road as quickly as possible, leaving the hotel by 8:15. It is a rather rough road from Grenada back to the Pan-American Highway, but our feelings were considerably changed. Entering Nicaragua, we were silent and uncertain, taken back by the graffiti and garbage we encountered, not at all sure that we had made a proper decision to come here. But two days in Grenada have made us remarkably comfortable, even driving over the same road. Before we had seen poverty and filth; now we exclaimed at ox carts laden with palms, or hay. “Straw,” Marty would correct me. Grenada has won a spot for her country in our hearts, aided no doubt by the ebullient Byron who was a fine ambassador. Byron told me yesterday that we were in for a very long morning, because it is still the new year, and most of Nicaragua is trying to move to Costa Rica. An

hour later, we let out a groan when we saw the huge line waiting to get clearance north. We stopped to pay our $1 Mayor’s Tax, and I collected the $2 departure tax from everyone. Jamaal, who had worked miracles on the other end, coming into Nicaragua, said there was no way out of ing the line, and that he was going to find Luis. It took a little over an hour to wend our way to the front. By that time Luis had found us, and told me to wave when we got through port check, that he had found a Costa Rica Customs agent who would check our luggage in the van instead of us running it all through the formal check. I waved, when Nancy finally made her way out of the hall, and we walked over to the spot where an agent was inspecting the bags as they were ed through the van windows from Nicaragua to Costa Rica. I think that Luis saved us at least an hour and untold sweat with that arrangement. It was 11:30 when we bade farewell to Jamal and said hello again to Rico and Luis, back in the “safe” and “clean” environs of Costa Rica. It is always amazing to me, the psychological power that a good tour manager wields with his group, holding out his arms to enfold his children, making them secure simply by reappearing. I have watched this for decades, been one of them myself, and I call it the “Great White Hunter Syndrome,” the security blanket in the midst of imagined danger. So it was with Luis this morning. The minute we saw him, everyone relaxed a bit, and by the time our bags were approved, we were back in security’s lap. Rico immediately hit a huge backup of trucks waiting to go through Costa Rican check-in. We just knew that Luis would tell him to ignore the line and go around, and when the police officer screamed at us at the border, Rico just kept on trucking, and we were free. That’s the power of the savvy tour leader. We were no sooner back on the road, and it would be a very long one today, that Luis started back on his nature lessons, pointing out the Bullhorn acacia tree with its sandpaper toilet paper leaves. He explained that the natives use it because it “sands, scrapes, shaves and rubs,” all in one fine motion. We made a rest stop in the village of La Cruz, where we got a fine view of the Pacific and the Bahia Salinas. Then we were back on the road, without incident except when Nancy inquired, “Aren’t steers non-milking?” Lunch was at the Restaurant Rincon Cordobici Rios Tropicales, a very attractive place owned by a Swiss family by the name of Hocknauer. This is the café we were supposed to stop at coming out of the mountains from Arenal, but was closed by the time we arrived.

“What’s that bird? It’s huge! There! There!” Donna had spotted a Jabiru, the largest stork in the Western Hemisphere. They nest here in the marsh area of the National Park, one of the great bird sightings that Costa Rica has to offer. Our day stretched out as we continued north, through the bustling cruise port of Puntarenas, and on to Caldera, where the Crown Odyssey had docked during our huge cruise charter fifteen years ago. At that time, the port was completely isolated, an industrial pier really, but today the whole Pacific coast has become an unending string of condos on beaches, golf courses and resorts, mostly catering to Americans, retirement homes for many. It was getting dark when Luis pulled off the highway on a ten-kilometer detour, because he had a “surprise” for us. The last “surprise” was the Iguana River where we had seen all the males in courting finery plopped on trees above the river. This “surprise” turned out to be the Crocodile Bridge, where a bevy of huge reptiles lounged on the river bank far below the highway. Unfortunately it was almost dark by the time we got there and we didn’t get a really clear view. Luis did say that this was “a perfect place to drink polluted water.” He later told me that the real reason he wanted to come here was that in late afternoon, dozens of Scarlet macaws return from the rainforest to the mangrove swamp on the ocean’s edge. But our slow progress through the Nicaraguan border had made us too late to watch that migration. Next time. Darkness had now hit, and we were on a side road toward San Jose. There is a week-long fiesta in the town of Palmares, and Luis said that the Pan-American Highway would be stopped for hours. We ascended a precipitous incline that even in the dark gave indication of huge drop-offs on the right side of the road. There was only an occasional gasp out of the girls. Jim absolutely cut the tension and weariness by announcing that we would most certainly arrive in San Jose by 7:15. It was highly entertaining to listen to the banter that he kept up all the way to our arrival twenty minutes late. Finally he appealed to Cole’s airline watch and rules to determine that we actually had made an “on time arrival.” Back to the Cariari! It is our final dinner with the kids, who leave tomorrow for home, work and school. We spent it at La Cocina de Leña, a most attractive, open restaurant that is a short walk from the hotel lobby. I think it is part of the Cariari, certainly sitting on one of the fairways of the golf course, but at any rate, we were

thoroughly happy with the meal, and highly entertained by our waiter, an oldish, somewhat stooped man named Nestor. Everyone agreed that he was very “cute.” Nestor was tough too. Once or twice we tried ordering something from one of the other waiters, attempts that were quickly squashed by this smiling little man. From start to finish, he was quick and thorough with his service, a real professional who was without question in complete control of his restaurant. Back at the hotel, we spent the normal hour saying goodbye to the kids. Annie, Marty, Nancy, Kasey and Josh are leaving early tomorrow, out of the hotel by about 6 A.M. and off on Continental at 8:00. With our long day today none of the rest seemed inclined to get up to see them off. I think that it has been a great trip for all of them, certainly an eye-opener on the incredible country of Costa Rica.

JANUARY 6 SAN JOSE / CARTAGO

I got up at 5:30 to go with the younger set to the airport. Rico and Luis arrived on time, and we were off with plenty of time to spare. The airport is literally ten minutes from the Cariari. Unfortunately, the check-in for Continental was almost at the curb, so we all hugged and that was my airport sendoff. There is a $26 departure tax in Costa Rica, curiously payable in U.S. dollars. Nancy later reported that with children under sixteen years old they were escorted to a special line and quickly checked in. I returned to the hotel with lots of time to spare. Cole, Marcia, Jim, Donna, Mary and I are off for Panama tomorrow, and Deb and Patrick leave for the States about the same time. So we have today to do some exploring around San Jose. Luis has secured our van for the day, promising to be back at 10:00 to take us to Cartago, the old original capital. Our route today takes us into an entirely new part of the country. We actually have not even seen much of San Jose since we arrived, because like many big cities around the world, and especially in Latin America, it is perceived as dirty and dangerous. This morning we drove through the old city, ing the famous Opera House (built between 1890-97) and the Grand Hotel across the street, both symbols of a more opulent age. The Gold Museum occupies three floors below the opera house. Further up the road we ed the old Presidential Mansion, the one that was banned after the last mini-revolution in 1948. It is easy to see why it was banned, because essentially it is a fortress, suitable for protecting an ambitious president who is reluctant to leave office. That fortress-residence now houses the National Museum. Luis told us that during the William Walker war in 1856, many of the Costa Rica men died of cholera, leaving a heavy surplus of women. The result was that many women got involved both in the government and in commercial fields, far more than in other Latin American countries. Costa Rica was the first country where women were allowed to vote. In 1889, when the president tried to stay over, the women and farmers went on strike, what Luis said is known locally as

“The Cross-Legged Strike.” Today women make up 52 percent of the population. Many are public leaders. We entered the San Pedro area of the city, which is dominated by the buildings of the University of Costa Rica. First started at the school in Heredia, the university now boasts 35,000 students. Certainly it is the educational system that has made Costa Rica such an incredibly successful nation when compared with all of its neighbors. With almost complete literacy, and a government dedicated to educating the people, the country is benefiting from all of the consequences, including better health conditions, cleanliness and prosperity. Not too far from the new capital of San Jose, is the old city of Cartego. Founded in 1564 by the Spanish, it remained the capital for two centuries, although it was moved three times because of earthquake disasters. In more recent times, Cartego was nearly demolished by quakes in 1841, 1877 and 1910. The old church on the central plaza, once one of the largest in the Spanish world, dates back to 1578, but today is an elaborate ruin. In 1635, on August 2, Our Lady of the Angels appeared to local Indians, probably anticipating August 2, 1941, when Mary appeared once more in the form of my wife, Mary. An elaborate church and shrine have been built to honor the Virgin, with a spring that the locals believe provides holy water. There was a constant procession of believers with water bottles collecting water. Luis, who seems to be somewhat less than reverent, reported that the authorities tested the water and found it to be 90 percent polluted. “Give it to the kids, and save them quicker,” he laughed. To commemorate her appearance, our Mary bought a Madonna in the gift shop. Actually, she and the Schafers disappeared for quite a while, and I feared that they may have been “gathered” to use Jim’s term, but finally Deb found them wandering around the Plaza del Santuario Nacional in front of the church. I think it was the longest time I have ever spent at a shrine. From the hills outside of Cartago, Luis pointed out a dense forest in the distance, which he identified as the Tapati Rainforest Reserve, “the rainiest place in Costa Rica” at eight and a half meters per year, almost 30 feet! “It definitely has a broken sky.” That forest was across a deep valley and Rico took the steep road down to the bottom and the town of Paraiso. There are a number of attractive little towns in

this rather hidden valley. A fine river courses through the middle, with coffee fields climbing the hills on both sides. The rainforest looms above the coffee. In the town of Orosi we stopped at an old church, the Convento Franciscano San Jose de Orosi, in every way reminiscent of the missions we have in California, of the same vintage and inspired by the same Franciscans. Inspired may be the wrong word, because the diseases brought in by the padres soon decimated the Indian population, causing the priests to move the remaining villages to nearby Ujarras. However the river flooded that settlement so many times that in the end the people returned to their old village and church. By now it was mid-afternoon and Luis had yet another surprise for us. We pulled into a long driveway to Las Casona del Cafetal Restaurant, a beautiful hacienda perched on the banks of Cachi Lake. There is no way in the world that we could have found this lovely place by ourselves. The highlight of a tasty meal was the coffee, served in a small wooden contraption that strained out exactly one cup. Donna continued her Costa Rica coffee rave; I liked the brewers. There was a workshop outside that proved to be a big hit. The carver produced an odd sort of human figure, mostly busts, which almost looked Nordic in style. Patrick, Jim and Cole bought pieces. I was embarrassed later because my mind was elsewhere and it never even occurred to me to like the work enough to buy it. I’ll visit Jim and Donna’s. Tomorrow we fly to Panama. Luis, after a marathon of negotiations with the tour company, has been allowed to fly with us and accompany us all the way through Panama and back to San Jose. At first he was told he had to take a van to the city of David in northern Panama, meet us there and bring us back. Now he will become a tourist just like us as we explore a new country. We didn’t feel like going out tonight, so we enjoyed a very good dinner at the upscale restaurant at the Cariari, the Curime Steak House. Mary and I were walking back to our room when we spied a very old friend in the hotel café— Charles Markwick from Denmark. It was a genuine pleasure to see Charles again, peculiar since we are all so far from home. For many years, Charles and I wrote tours all over Europe, hardly missing a single country. We probably collaborated on more than 100 different tours that took us from Spain to Norway to Italy to Turkey. Charles was the travel manager for Travelers International, one of the world’s largest back in the ’80s. When Travelers went under in bankruptcy, Charles recruited all of the national officers from that company and created a syndicate called International Travel Network, istered by him in

Copenhagen. I would write the itineraries, fax them to Charles who turned them over to whatever company was based in the place we wanted to visit. We could write, price and package a tour in less than a week. I have fantastic memories of those days, when I literally worked in every country in Europe.

Sadly with 9/11 and the subsequent Iraq War, the whole thing came crashing to the ground. Suddenly Americans were not welcomed in Europe; the Euro blasted the Dollar in exchange rate; and Americans did not feel like traveling. Our business came to a screeching halt, and Charles was forced to close his Travel Network. These days he isters the shore excursions for several cruise lines, which is what brought him to San Jose today. We spent an enjoyable half hour this evening, and we agreed to resume our nostalgic trip in the morning with breakfast.

JANUARY 7 PANAMA CITY

We have the morning to relax for a change. Poás is finally visible this morning, but we have all seen Arenal, Masaya, Mombacho and a bunch of others around Lake Nicaragua, real volcanoes with pointy tops and stuff blowing out, and Poas is not nearly so impressive when viewed from San Jose. I believe that it is possible to become blasé about anything, whether it be herds of elephants, pods of hippos, trees full of iguanas, glaciers, Michelangelo sculptures—yes even active volcanoes. It is the human condition. Deb and Patrick fly home early this afternoon, about the same time that we are taking off for Panama. Six of us plus Luis boarded a Taca plane for an hour flight to Panama City, smooth and comfortable with a decent landing for Cole, who flew with the Marines as well as American Airlines. There we were met by Donna’s Christmas wish. It wasn’t too long ago, a couple of weeks, when Donna was heard to gush, “All I want for Christmas is George Cloony.” She talked about how nice a home fixture he would be, almost uttering that silly cliché that “He can park his shoes under my bed anytime.” But then she looked over at Jim, and recalled how cool his patent leather clogs fit under that bed, and she stifled the thought. But just now, here in Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, George Cloony walked right up to Donna, and announced, “Golden Gate Tours? Hello, my name is Philippe.” Donna was struck speechless, as Philippe took over, directing us to the curb and eventually to a waiting van. It didn’t even matter that the van was far too small for us largebodied Americans. Donna had her Christmas present. I actually think that Philippe looks more like Cary Grant than George Cloony, but neither one of them would get their boots under my bed.

It is about twenty miles from the airport to the center of Panama City, and it is immediately evident that Panama has been the recipient of a great deal of money, American money, because here as opposed to in Nicaragua and even Costa Rica,

the Pan-American Highway is four lanes of modern freeway, very un-Central Americanish. Philippe, who is actually French by nationality, gave us a brief description of the founding of the country. Columbus, on his fourth voyage, landed near Portobella in 1502. In 1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa, established the first colony, became governor and “discovered” the Pacific. The realization that the two oceans were so close set the role for Panama over the coming centuries, as the land bridge between the Pacific and the Atlantic, the highway of gold from the New World to the Old. The Old City (Panama Viejo) was founded in 1519, became wealthy and spread out on the Pacific side, one of the main cities of the Spanish empire. It was burned to the ground in 1671 by the Spanish, retreating under the attacks of the pirate Henry Morgan. The ruins of that city, walls and footings of churches, homes, convents, warehouses, remain today, silent stumps of brick and stone spread over a huge area. A new city took its place in 1673, built along the shores of the Gulf of Panama. The Spanish lost their hold on Latin America in 1821, and Panama became part of Columbia. In 1855, a railroad was constructed by Americans across the isthmus, bringing the region to the attention of the U.S., who began to see the possibilities of a canal ing the oceans. In 1903, engineered by the grasping American government and financiers, Panama was separated from Columbia, coming under the domination of the U.S. Two weeks after the “revolution” the Panama Canal zone was deeded to the Americans, and work began immediately on the canal itself.

The French had begun work as early as 1848, but the efforts failed due to the losses of workers to yellow fever, malaria and cholera. Part of the American success is due to the conquest of these diseases, and in 1914 the canal was opened to the world. America would stay until 2000.

“A Man, A Plan, A Canal—Panama!”

It is one of the all-time great palindromes, spelled the same in both directions, apparently first voiced by Leigh Mercer in the November 13, 1948 issue of Notes & Queries, although several of Teddy Roosevelt’s biographers assert that it was first used as a toast in the President’s honor. Of course the type of mind

that comes up with such things will almost never stop. I found a few other interesting varieties of Panama Palindromes:

A man, a plan, a cat, a canal—Panama!

A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal—Panama!

A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal—Panama!

I always find it amazing what people have chosen to do with their heads and their time.

The Pacific side of the canal has large tides, up to twenty feet; while on the Caribbean they are only two feet. We arrived in the new “old city,” the one built in 1673. The tide was out and there were rocks, debris and garbage visible through a definite stench far out into the gulf. Philippe took us on a walking tour of the old district, a curious place which is a combination of stylishly rebuilt old town houses, and outright slums. He reported that the city has never had a sewage system, that all sewers simply empty into the bay, a fact brought home by the thousands of vultures that hover over the place. In fact, most of the buildings in the old city seem to have a resident vulture or two perched on the eaves. It is a disconcerting picture. Philippe said that the city is about 60 percent mestizo; 9 percent Amerindians; 4 percent Chinese; and the rest Black. It does not seem to be a very comfortable place, with this mixture of upscale and downscale, often in the same block. We stopped to view the Santo Domingo Church, and walked into the Plaza Carlos V, who in 1563 is said to have ordered the construction of a canal across Panama. In the Plaza de Francia, we found the French Embassy, the house of the Mayor, and an obelisk erected in 1920, a donation from to honor those who worked on and died in Panama. Fernando de Lesseps, who in 1861 had completed the Suez Canal, took over the Panama work in 1881. Over the next eight years between 22,000 and 60,000 workers died of disease, forcing the French company into bankruptcy. From the Plaza de Francia, we walked over to the Presidential Palace, an impressive complex of several monumental buildings, usually totally open to the public. Nearby on the Cathedral Plaza, we walked past the white towers of the old stone church, over to the Museo del Canal Interoceanico. This fine exhibition gives a comprehensive history of the building of the canal, and the story of the politics underlying it, as well as graphic models of the waterway itself. Essentially the canal is dammed on both ends, with three locks on each side, the Gatun Locks on the Caribbean and the Miraflores Locks and the Pedro Miguel Lock on the Pacific. The Chagres River was dammed to create Gatun Lake, which essentially is the canal. The two oceans are actually on the same elevation, but the stronger tides in the Pacific require extra heavy locks at that end. From the museum, Philippe took us to the Miraflores Locks to watch the action.

There was a large freighter, the Xin Chongqing, in the locks when we arrived, good timing because we only have about twenty minutes before the visitor center closes today. We have all been through the Panama Canal on cruise ships, but it is a completely different picture viewing the works from the land side. It takes about twenty-four hours on the average for a ship to transit the canal, at a rate somewhere around $10,000 an hour! It was about this time that Swami Wanna Body became Jaime Venato, who was heard to say, “You know what, when your life is over, it’s over.” Jaime went on to add something about reality, and adjusting to it, something that struck a chord with Mary. Mary is more pragmatic. After being told that the reality is that we have to get up at 6:00 tomorrow morning to catch the train to Colon, she inquired, “What time do I have to go to bed tonight to get eight hours’ sleep?” To which the Swami responded, “Reality has nothing to do with anything.” I think it was two monologues each completely out of context. But Mary is serious. Jaime was last heard trying to get someone to agree that “Into each life some rain must fall.”

We checked into our hotel in city center to allow a gin and tonic or two to insinuate some sense into our conversation. Our hotel is the El Panama, an average sort of place, probably rated 4-star and not particularly memorable. We did find a fine bar however, and following Phillipe’s suggestion, walked a couple of blocks to the Caffe Pomodoro, a Spaghetteria. It is a popular place, and a good diversion from our chicken/rice/beans/plantain fare.

JANUARY 8 PANAMA CANAL / COLON

Mary didn’t get her eight hours of sleep, but she was up bright and early because she had a very strong lure—a train ride. It is in her blood, rightly so, because her entire childhood was centered around her father’s position with the Southern Pacific Railroad. She arrived this morning at the van wearing a sweat shirt and carrying a sweater, receiving considerable kidding from all of us about her attire. Sweat shirts in Panama! It turns out that she was the only one on the train who wasn’t freezing. The AC had been turned up to torture level, about the same frigidity as that last restaurant in Nicaragua. There was a lady sitting opposite me in the dome car who positively made my blood freeze just looking at her. She was crouched on her seat in tank top and shorts in a semi fetal position, hugging legs that had turned aquamarine in the conditioned air. She should know better than to dress like that in the tropics. The train ride was outstanding however, a modern system that zipped us across the isthmus skirting the huge expanse of Lake Gatun. We went in and out of the Canal Zone, a twenty-mile wide swath across the country created by the Americans. Philippe told us that Americans who were born in Panama are called Zonians. Our ride took us about an hour and a half to reach Colon on the Caribbean side of the canal. Philippe had asked about our interests and when I mentioned birds, he suggested that we take a walk in San Lorenzo National Park near Colon. It turns out that he likes bugs, and was more than happy to get out of the van and onto his feet. Our nature experience this morning was a good one, including howler monkeys, a couple of agoutis, a 3-toed sloth and some coatamundis. I have never trekked with a bug man before, and found it interesting to watch someone who actually enjoyed things that sting and bite and who gets a positive thrill out of maggots and slugs. Philippe never ed by a rotting log without turning it over, his nose close to the ground searching for creepy crawlers. He positively emoted over a Wolf spider and later came up with a florescent gold beetle about the size of a stretched out double eagle.

At the end of the National Park we found Fort San Lorenzo sitting stone-faced on a spit of land jutting out into the Chagres River. The place seemed to be the center of some sort of bull’s eye. A sign near the fort listed the following: 1597—Built 1671—Attacked by Bradley, Morgan’s lieutenant. 1677—Rebuilt 1740—Attacked by the English 1750—Rebuilt 1821—Independence from Spain, abandoned 1942—Taken over by U.S. defenses Later in the day we would discover many more forts, as the world seemed to focus on Panama because of its location. The Chagres River was undoubtedly the reason, since it comes within about twenty miles of bisecting the isthmus. Another sign called it “the world’s most valuable river, witnessing more gold than all of the rivers in the world combined.” I wondered who did the research to come up with this fact, but lost my train of thought when the sign continued in classic poetry:

Beyond the Chagres River Are paths that lead to death To the fever’s deadly breezes To malaria’s poison breath.

Beyond the Chagres River ‘Tis said—the story’s old,

Are paths that lead to mountains Of purest virgin gold.

James Stanley Gilbert

I liked the parts about the virgin gold, and poison breath. Leaving San Lorenzo, we headed for the Gatun Locks that elevate ships 85 feet to the lake and the canal crossing. We arrived just in time to greet an old friend, Holland America’s Volendam that Golden Gate Tours chartered three years ago to take the Sons in Retirement, a large California organization, to Alaska. Behind her was RCCL’s Brilliance of the Sun, a massive 780 feet long behemoth that the narrator informed us had paid $10,000 to secure a age reservation and a whopping $219,000 toll. We all gasped a bit at that until he pointed out the option of going around the horn and almost tripling the cost. It’s only money, I said, I guess out loud because Jaime Venato sighed and observed, “When you’re dead you don’t care.” It was already around 2:00 when we arrived at the lovely Melia Hotel Panama Canal for lunch. The setting is superb, with lavish landscaping and lots of room to stroll around the gardens. Obviously the place is the hotel of choice for the cruise line shore excursions, because they had set up a craft shop in the lobby for the enticement of the travelers. We were enticed as well, purchasing several gourd instruments called churucas. A mountain road stretched out to the village of Portobella, which is placed somewhere near the spot that Columbus had landed in 1502. The town itself was founded in 1597, and of course destroyed by the pirate Henry Morgan. He seems to have spent his entire time wiping out parts of Panama, in fact all of Panama. It is amazing that he destroyed Portobella and San Lorenzo on this coast and the old city of Panama on the Pacific. Essentially he sailed the Panama Canal route, except for that last portage to the western ocean. We stopped first at the old church of San Felipe, famous throughout Central America for its Black Christ, or as their sign says, “Home of Jesus Nazarene, Black Christ.” The feast day,

October 21, attracts huge crowds of worshippers, according to Phillipe. It is the third Cristo Negro we have seen now, including two in Guatemala. Nearby is the Hospital and Church of San Juan de Dios, established in 1598, its present structure dating from the 17th century. It was also destroyed by a marauding pirate, this time William Kinghill in 1744. Today it is the Museum of the Black Christ. It may not really be symbolic but I made note of a pair of Black vultures perched contentedly on the cross above the tower. In fact, vultures perch literally everywhere in Portobella, thriving on the debris and garbage that fills every nook and cranny of the place. There were several more forts around the village. We walked through the Fuerto San Jerónimo, built in 1664, and though there was no sign, it had obviously been destroyed by some sort of pirate. From the fort we climbed a steep hill to get a panoramic view of the town and the bay the forts were supposed to protect. There was a bush about half way up that Luis called a pepper tree. “It is good for your memory. It burns going in. It burns coming out. You can’t forget.” The view from the top was worth the climb. What we discovered is a simply beautiful bay with lagoon inlets stretching off in several radiuses. The lagoon is filled with expensive sailing ships. There are historic forts on several of the outcrops and picturesque churches, equally historic. And the village is quite literally a piece of shit. What a shame! This is perhaps the most historic place in all of Panama, and human sloth and neglect have allowed it to become a garbage dump. We saw open sewers emptying into the small streams leading to the bay. Garbage is strewn about everywhere. A gang of indigent young men was strewn as well across the path leading into the fort we had just visited. If the government of Panama had an ounce of energy itself, it would take an eraser to the inhabitants of this place and pray to the Lord for forgiveness for allowing such a lovely piece of nature to become a cesspool. The road back to Panama City increased the sadness that we had experienced in Portobella. Every town has huge piles of garbage piled up around a dumpster that had been filled a month before. Nobody apparently thinks to actually dump them. We saw none of this coming across on our train ride, but then we were traveling in the American Canal Zone. The effect of viewing such carelessness is depressing. Panama badly needs to take some lessons from Costa Rica. Even poverty-stricken Nicaragua wasn’t close to the unclean atmosphere of this place.

All we could do was to seek consolation in the wisdom of Jaime Venado, who helped a lot when he uttered, “Into each life some rain must fall.” Where on earth does he come up with such inspirational philosophy? We decided tonight, Cole and Marcia’s anniversary, to help them celebrate it by just staying in the hotel and dining in the Las Palmas Restaurant. I think we are beginning to run out of energy, but it was just too easy to stay, especially when we finally had a bar trained to make a decent gin and tonic. We all laughed at Luis, who has become the essential tourist over the last couple of days, because with Phillipe as our tour manager, his role was reduced to casual observations of nature as things presented themselves. He has been buying souvenirs and Tshirts for his kids, crafts and postcards for the folks back home. After all he is in a foreign country. Tonight he reached the heights when we discovered that our menus were in Spanish but his was in English. Apparently as a tourist he is no longer able to read his native language.

JANUARY 9 DAVID, PANAMA

It is 438 kilometers to the northern city of David, about 270 miles. Figuring that distance in Costa Rican road conditions, we all resigned ourselves to about eight hours of driving along the Pan-American Highway, and we inwardly let out a collective groan. But this isn’t Costa Rica, as we have found in so many ways. Costa Rica is wonderfully clean; Panama is awfully dirty. Costa Rica is blessed with a large middle class; Panama has slums. Costa Rica is ecologically intense; Panama drains its sewers into its streams. Costa Rica has rather inferior roads; Panama has fine highways. We got to David in mid-afternoon. With Edgardo as our driver, we left the hotel at 7:45, driving across the Bridge of the Americas that spans the Pacific end of the canal. We ed the PanAmerican Highway, a very nice four-lane freeway that we were sure would end a mile out of town. Philippe is still with us, although we couldn’t exactly figure out why, because he will leave us in David after a day of driving. But he spent the first hour or so explaining the map of Panama. Essentially it is a lopsided country. All the roads are on the Pacific side; none on the Caribbean except that one to Colon, because they have all the mountain ranges. Looking at the map, it appears that the whole eastern half is rainforest and wilderness, a “biological corridor.” There are four archipelagos attached to Panama, so to speak, island clusters, the most famous of which are the San Blas in the southwest. In addition, there are the Bocco del Toro Islands, the Isle de Coiba and its ading rocks and the de las Perlas Islands. The Pacific side, being basically flat, maintains the agriculture of the land. We ed a wide variety of tree orchards, growing teak, eucalyptus, and African mahogany for export.

Around noon, we stopped at the Restaurant Pirimidal, a cafeteria really that was the only place in a long stretch where you could actually find lunch. There was an interesting assortment of offerings: arroz con guanda (lentils); macarrones (spaghetti, sort of); vegetable chow mein; and of course chicken. Luis pointed out a couple of ladies wearing traditional tribal dresses, telling us that they were

of the guaymies, more or less itinerant laborers who are found throughout northern Panama. It is a holiday today, January 9, “The Day of the Martyrs.” Neither Phillipe nor Luis had the slightest notion of why it is a holiday, or who were the martyrs. Undoubtedly somewhere in Panama’s past, there was a revolution and folks were killed on January 9. It seems that there are a whole bunch of such occurrences throughout Latin America, with most everything forgotten but the date, like Cinco de Mayo in Mexico; April 5, Costa Rican Independence from Mexico in 1823; or May 20, the famous 14-minute battle against William Walker when Juan Santamaria got the San Jose Airport named after him. The main thing about the Day of the Martyrs as far as we were concerned is that no booze is sold on a holiday. We arrived at our hotel in David, the Gran Hotel National, at 3 P.M. It is a surprisingly fine facility, Spanish hacienda in style, very clean with large, attractive rooms and good facilities. The weather is much hotter and more humid than we have encountered during our trip, so naturally we descended on the bar, only to find it closed. The bartenders were out honoring the martyrs. Cole and Marcia went off in search of food, but for the other four of us who have our priorities in order, we went looking for a bar or liquor store. It was not to be. Everything in town was closed, even the main square and the cathedral. Well not exactly. We discovered The American Center, a perfectly cluttered discount store, run by East Indians, that was the absolute epitome of junk. If we had purchased so much as a pencil there, I would have died with shame, for we would truly have reached the depths of shopping lust. Thank God they had no owls! But we controlled ourselves irably and escaped with our pride still whole, wandering back to the hotel. Jaime found a bakery that was open, and proceeded to buy a bunch of cookies and then we were finished with anything that was open on Martyrs’ Day. There was nothing to do but go for a swim. We did enjoy a sign on the lawn back at the hotel, which stated: “No pisar grama. Gracias!” Which was generously translated “Don’t get laid on the lawn. Thank you!” Which promted Jaime Venado to respond, “Nada esta nadia.” Or “Nothing belongs to nobody.”

“Me gusto una piña colada sin alcohol. Capisch?” It was my finest Spanish, making me feel that I was born to communicate with folks here in David. It caused a bit of commotion among the pair of bartenders by the pool. “No, señor. No alcohol. Mañana.” I didn’t like the sound of “no” or “mañana.” “Sin alcohol. Virgin! No alcohol.” In fine English the bartender asked, “You want a piña colada without alcohol?” “Si. A Virgin.” I thought if I capitalized virgin and yelled a little louder he would understand me. I have a way with bartenders, as I found out in Tortuguero. “Quatro!” It is wonderful to be bi-lingual. Ten minutes later we got our virgin piña coladas, and to be honest, they taste exactly the same as if they had a shot in them. What we didn’t yet know was that as soon as the sun goes down, so does the liquor ban, because holidays aren’t observed in Panama except in the sunshine. Maybe the Panamanians and Zonies are taking lessons from the Muslims with their Ramadan. We had dinner at the hotel, which was pleasant and tasty. We ordered wine.

JANUARY 10 COSTA RICA

Having nothing better to do while waiting for our van this morning, we amused ourselves with Luis’ blood pressure arm band, comparing numbers and philosophizing about life. I really was waiting for Jaime Venado to say something profound, but I think that the “Into each life some rain must fall,” completely sapped him of all of his philosophical core. He has become Jim again. Somewhere during our stay here in David, Jim saw some locals with a rather distinctive straw hat, something Luis called a Sombrero de Pita, and Jim wanted one badly. Luis talked with our new driver, Nelson Murillo, who is from the area and we drove into the market area. Nelson stopped to talk with a couple of guys on the street. We were directed a few blocks away, but found the shop closed. Another suggestion was made and we arrived at the César Reyes Hat Shop. It also was closed, but several people hanging around on the sidewalk said that they would go find Señor Reyes, and went running off down the street, leaving Jim peering in the windows of the shop which d hats as well as legal services. “Typical lawyer,” Cole observed shaking his head, “Never around when you need them.” They never were able to drag Señor Reyes to work Too bad, because he would certainly have made some spectacular sales this morning, but he did manage to shake Jaime out of his funk, as he was heard to utter: “Every day is an adventure. Every day presents a new opportunity.” We really did like the town of David. It properly belongs in Costa Rica, rather than Panama because it is relatively clean, seems quite prosperous with friendly citizens. In a way it was nice that Jim was in search of a hat because it let us see a bit of the town. We headed north, only about thirty miles to the border, with one more town left in Panama. It turns out that Nelson is from Conception,

Panama, and he turned off into the town center, right to a store that not only sold sombreros de pita, but was also open. Each of the men, including el touristo Luis, chose one of the hats. They are different from the usual straws in that they have series of black striped circles around the crown and brim. Quatro hombres perdidos posed with stern visages for the cameras outside the shop. Off to the border. Cole got completely out of hand at the border while we were waiting to get out of Panama. It is odd here in “united” Central America that you have to get your port stamped both to leave a country as well as to enter a new one. We were directed to a window at the Panama side where there was no visible sign of life, with one couple in front of us. It seems as though the computers were down and they couldn’t let us out of the country, fearing they might be releasing someone who was dangerous, or who owed the government back taxes. So we just stood there as the clerks in the customs room sat, nobody apparently in the least concerned that time was ing. Finally a man sat down at a terminal, typed a bit, and started processing the ports of the couple in front of us. It was at that moment that Cole went berserk. A large cumbrous oaf, with a loud voice and a cane started shouting obscenities in Spanish at a lady behind us. He then directed his attention at Cole, who was near the back of our group, the man waving some sort of and screaming that Cole had no right to be in front of him, that he should be allowed to go to the front of the line because he had a that gave him that privilege. I have watched Cole for most of my life, and saw him straighten a bit, flatten out his left hand in a karate position and then relax. “Take it easy Cole,” I whispered. “He’s an idiot.” Cole and I got between the lout and Mary who was the last of our group to be processed. When she was finished and everyone else had left the area, I followed her. Cole turned, and very quickly put a shoulder and an elbow into the big jerk, driving him back and almost onto his rear end. The man yelled and lashed out with his cane, which Cole deflected, leaving the arena. It was Cole at his best, patient and very decisive. We left the scene with the guy screaming insults and the crowd aghast. One of the ladies whom the fool had been insulting with obscenities found a policeman and had the guy arrested. We saw her at the next line, when we queued up to get into Costa Rica. Apparently the man was on the same tour bus with the others in line and was a constant threat and distraction for the whole group. He reappeared screaming just as we were boarding our van to leave Costa Rica Customs, but I kind of pulled Cole into the bus and we were

off. Cole just has to learn to control himself! Jaime was once again silent, pondering Nietzsche for something apropos. Carlos is our new driver, with a very nice, brand new 20-enger Toyota, the best vehicle we have had in the whole trip. It is 350 kilometers, about 225 miles to San Jose, but we gained an hour at the border, and it is only 9:40. No problem. Of course we are still on the Pan-American Highway, but now in Costa Rica it is not nearly as good a road as in Panama. Everything else however, is like another world once you cross the border, a completely different feeling—clean, calm, friendly. I’ll take lesser roads! We are now on the Pacific plain, the southwest section of Costa Rica, wetter than in the north because of the central mountain range that encloses the region, running north and then turning west to the coast. We large plantations of bananas, cocoa, and a new crop, African oil palms. They produce huge seed pods that are crushed for their heavy oil content. The road cuts off the Osa Peninsula, like so much of Costa Rica, preserved as a national park, Corcovado National Park, a famous wildlife area, intersected only by a couple of lesser roads. At Palmar Norte, we turned off onto the coastal highway, a move that saves about fifty miles, and which takes us into another new world, that of plush, modern condo resorts, stretched along beaches fronting the Bay of Coronado. There are beautiful views of the ocean from Punta Mala north. Luis told us that the region around the village of Uvita (Little grapes) is about to boom, and indeed we drove past several very upscale communities of villas with the mandatory golf courses. Turning inland at Dominical, we climbed to 3,400 feet over a coastal and into a deep valley. At the valley town of San Isidro de Le General we reed the Pan-American Highway and then got very serious about climbing, the road rising at tremendous grade until we hit the highest point on the entire highway at 10,450 feet. By now Jim, who doesn’t deal well with high altitudes, was preparing to turn green. This is a fantastic part of Costa Rica, with a changing forest ecology every couple of thousand feet, with precipitous valleys falling off, sometimes in both directions as we rode a ridge. At 6,000 feet, we rose above the cloud layers, then above the tree level, forcing Jaime V. to reappear: “Where Bambi goes, nothing grows.”

Luis had promised another of his surprises, and by this time of the afternoon, most of us were hoping it was lunch. At a sign for San Gerardo de Dota, we turned west off of the highway, quickly giving back many thousands of the feet we had gained in the last hour, dropping and dropping into a deep valley. This is the only place in Costa Rica where wild oak trees are found, rather unusual looking in what was clearly a rain forest. Luis also pointed out a type of native avocado tree that is the favorite fruit of the elusive quetzal birds. Cole and I have yearned to see a quetzal since we first went to Guatemala a couple of years ago. That fabled bird, which donated its flowing feathers to fashion the capes of the Mayan kings, is just about gone in most of Guatemala. Cole, his cousin Beto and I once trudged for several hours in the Biotopa de Quetzales in the mountains of Guatemala, hoping without luck to catch a glimpse of one flying. Luis said he would call ahead and find out at what altitude the birds were feasting on the avocados. Cole and I remain hopeful. We descended for several miles into the valley ing a number of nice-looking lodges, until we reached the Sevegre River, and a lovely place called the Sevegre River Hotel del Montana. This is our lunch stop and it is in an enchanting place. I was immediately drawn to several hummingbird feeders that were simply alive with the amazing flurry of wings. A couple of feeders in back were perfectly positioned to catch the afternoon sun that ignited the glorious colors of the florescent gorgets of the tiny birds. There is the Magnificent hummingbird, with an emerald green throat and violet crown; here is the Purple-throated mountain gem, with blazing purple gorget, pale blue-green crown and blue-black tail. It’s female has a beautiful orange breast. The tiniest is the Scintillant hummingbird with an orange-red throat and wings and tail of gold and black. The owner identified five basic species that are always around, including the Volcano hummingbird and the Green violet ears with its deeply curved bill. I wolfed my way quickly through the very tasty buffet lunch and was back at the feeders as the group gathered to take an afternoon quetzal watch. Luis led us into an open area in the forest, one patrolled by a vicious brand of horse fly, but obviously a favorite bird-watching haunt judging by a couple of benches placed along the trail. Mary and I sat down to watch. And there was the quetzal!

I saw a flash of red high in one of the avocado trees, and scanned with my binoculars, calling to Luis. And there, grazing on the ripe fruit was my quetzal, of gorgeous red and green. I called to Cole who was just arriving, and he focused on the tree just as this incredible bird took flight, three amazing feet from head to tip of its tail streamers. I didn’t realize how big these birds are. They are the largest of the trogons, fourteen inches without the tail, with brilliant green head, feathers punked out almost in a crown. The wing coverts spread across the breast almost like fingers on both sides. The lower breast is brilliant red and the tail is white. The streamers appear to be a pale blue. What a sight! Almost as good a picture was Cole’s face, aglow with a huge smile of achievement. He was born in Guatemala in a town called Quetzaltenanga, the “Place of the Quetzals.” This sighting has been a life-long dream for him, and I am more thrilled for him than anything else. Our quetzal flew to another avocado, his mate staying in the first tree. A third bird was sighted further along the trail. What an hour—three quetzals in the same place! Just as we were boarding our van to depart, Donna spotted yet a fourth that flew into a tree by the drive, as if to wish us a fair journey. Between the treasure trove of hummingbirds and four Resplendent quetzals, this has been one of my most memorable days of birding, ever. I told Luis that the Sevegre River Hotel would be the foundation place for the birding trip I intend to write in Costa Rica. I will combine it with the Mawamba Lodge in Tortuguero, and the Peace Lodge along the Sarapiqui River. I have a feeling that this will only scratch the surface of birding in this amazing country. It was 4:00 P.M. by the time we finally left the Sevegre River, climbing back to the Pan-American Highway and turning north to Cartago. This has been a perfectly wonderful day, leaving the fine town of David, with our excitement at the border, a highly varied ride along the coast and into the mountains, of course topped by our quetzal experience. And here we are once more, and for a last time back at the Cariari Hotel. It has become a welcome home for all of us. We have bags to retrieve from storage and repack, so we settled on an easy dinner at the café, and a few last gin and tonics.

JANUARY 11 HOME

Today is an anti-climax, as flying home always is. Luis arrived to take us to the airport, accompanied by his wife, Maria and son, Joshue, who is exactly the age of our Joshua. It is too bad that they couldn’t have met during the trip, because Luis’ “Hoshwe” has a bright gleam in his eye and is very personable just like our version. There was a traffic jam on the highway, so Luis took us through city streets on a final little tour, before dropping us off in front of the Continental entrance at the airport. He has been a phenomenal tour leader, full of knowledge, able to dispense it to us, and with the personality to become an active member of our family. In fact, in Panama he simply ed the six of us as a fellow tourist which gave us a great bit of enjoyment. In the course of our two weeks, he found a Red poison arrow frog, two- and three-toed sloths, crocodiles, iguanas in heat, three types of monkeys, coatamundis, Jesus Christ lizards, a couple of little bat critters and 168 different birds. Jim will gripe about the lack of jaguars and boas, but there will always be the quetzals.

VIỆTNAM & CAMBODIA 2007- 2008

DECEMBER 27, 2007

“So, we’re supposed to sleep when we get on?” Mary inquired as we were getting ready to board. “Yes, that’s what we call free time.” Jim, always helpful, replied. Cathay Pacific has a very fine cattle car. We are jammed into a completely full plane, the usual ten across. Mary, Donna, Annie and I are in the second to last row, Row 68, with Patrick and Deb one row ahead, and our flight is a Nantucket Sleigh ride from the very beginning, every bounce, every bump magnified by the swing of the tail as it flops away at the end of the body. Over the course of fourteen hours or so, we have had more than a few bumps. I try to focus on the rough areas, which usually allows me to nod off a little, the same strategy as I use for barking dogs. There is not much to be said about riding in the “back of the bus,” especially on these long flights; it is an endurance test that is required if you are going to see the world. Unfortunately, nothing we consider worthwhile is close, or if it is world-class (i.e. San Francisco, the Grand Canyon, the redwoods, etc.) it is a case of “been there; done that.” No, we have to change continents these days. We have been a traveling family for too long and have seen most of the United States. Besides, we are badly addicted now to the exotic. This year we are going to Việtnam, and for us older set, Cambodia as well. This has been an adventure from the start. It began with Vicky suggesting that she show us Kunming and Yunnan Province in the very south of China. I think I observed that that was pretty close to Vietnam and she said we could combine the two. That morphed into a Kunming-Lijiang- Việtnam -Cambodia adventure, with the kids heading home after Việtnam. Vicky and Ananda Travel never seem to get things done simply and we hemmed and hawed our way into an itinerary that involved changing hotels almost every night, with seven flights in nine days. I got that itinerary about two weeks before departure, and had a heart attack. We would literally be spending the entire vacation in airports. We decided to drop Lijiang, in the Yunnan Mountains, sort of on the way to the mythical Shangri-La. That would give us a couple of two-night stays in Việtnam. The next day, Kunming got the ax, and Vicky said she could do the whole trip in Việtnam.

That would eliminate four of the flights and four hotel changes. Done! Vicky had already written all of the air tickets, but she managed to talk her way into refunds for the China portions. The rest of the flights, at least the trans-Pacific legs were unchanged. It turns out that this is also very high season in Việtnam, so the airfares are out of sight. But I had forced too many other changes to object. Let’s go! Walter was supposed to meet us in Kunming, having just finished up a U.S. trip on December 22. Vicky was supposed to go with us throughout. Both of those are scrubbed, I fear. Vicky is flying to Shanghai and Walter probably will stay in Beijing because he needs a visa to enter Vietnam. Instead, Eileen, Vicky’s manager and her two children, Edwina and Elliott, will us in Hanoi. It is all very complicated, all Vicky-mysterious. Before we are finished we will probably see both Vicky and Walter somewhere along the way. As always, the ways of Ananda Travel are mysterious indeed. Kasey and Josh are now at perfect ages for travel. Kasey was 6 and Josh 4 on our first foray into China, and they probably don’t too much from that trip, but now, at the exalted ages of thirteen and eleven, they have grown into the role of world travelers. I love to watch their interest in everything, extremely gratified that we have been able to help foster that in them. Josh said that even his friends were interested in what trips he was taking next, and Việtnam is apparently a very impressive destination in their eyes. Just think how impressed they would all be, if Josh and Kasey could all the place names you see on the airline map on the plane that shows you the progress of the flight. The names come in definite waves, from commonplace places like Tokyo and Juneau and Beijing. Then comes a second batch, a little more exotic, such as Fukuoka, Kamamoto, Kagoshima, Shanghai, Bangkok, and Manila—places you have perhaps heard of but not really mainstream on the high school geography exam. It’s the third group that I like and it seems to change with each flight, depending on the whim of the mapmaker. How about Okot and Jixi, or Nachodka, Aomori or Niigata? Those places, if in fact they are real places, are purely cool. Imagine Josh coming home and announcing, casually of course, “We stopped in Cheju between the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea.” Andrew would be totally impressed. Try throwing Kitakyushu at one of your friends, Kasey. I keep forgetting to see what the level three towns are in the U.S. I think I saw Cloverdale once. I know they put Fresno in there. The southland is probably filled with Yukaipa, Bonsall and Wildemar. Actually, I looked on our

return flight at the end of the trip. The trip map on Cathay Pacific made note of Mt. Shasta, the Coast Range, the Cascades and the Shoshone Mountains(?). It also listed Brookings, Oregon, Fresno and Santa Barbara. As we neared San Francisco, they threw in Altanta and Guadalajara. Go figure!

This is destined to be one of our most interesting trips. If it weren’t for the war, I doubt that we would know a single thing about Việtnam. Saigon, Hanoi, Hue, etc. would be names off of a mystery map, like the cities in Laos or Burma (Myanmar) or the off islands of the Philippines or Indonesia. But the war gave us the Mekong Delta, and the Ho Chi Min Trail, the Tet Offensive, Mai Ly Massacre, Khe Sanh and Da Nong harbor. So we aren’t going in completely cold as far as place names are concerned, but the history and the language are different matters. Like most of the countries of the Far East, Việtnam’s history is largely a dynastic one, with two or three major tribes, the Việt, the Cham and the Khmer controlling all or part of the country, often at the same time. Most of those dynasties are completely unknown in the west:

Ngo Dynasty 939 – 965 Dinh Dynasty 968 – 980 Early Ly Dynasty 980 – 1009 Ly Dynasty 1010 – 1225 Tran Dynasty 1225 – 1400 Ho Dynasty 1400 – 1407 Chinese Rule 1414 – 1427 Later Le Dynasty 1427 – 1524 Mac Dynasty` 1527 – 1592 Northern Trinh 1539 – 1787 Southern Nguyen 1558 – 1778 Quang Trung 1787 – 1792 Tay Son Dynasty 1802 – 1945 Nguyen Dynasty 1802 -- 1945

Only someone with a sense of duty would actually take these seriously. How can you call something that only lasted from 939 to 965 a “dynasty?” Or the Dinh who survived only twelve years. My favorites of all of these, the ones I will actually , are the Ho, who ruled the country for seven lousy years. Their capital was the city of Dong Do, which is perfect as well as predictable. The last two, the Tay Son and the Nguyen, were around at the same time, the former being three brothers who revolted. When they were defeated by the Nguyen, Gia Long, the first Nguyen emperor, had one of their bodies exhumed and ordered his troops to urinate on it in front of the poor man’s wife and son, who were then ripped apart by elephants. It was a tough life. The Nguyen are the last of the Việtnamese emperors, lasting apparently until 1945, but effectively ruled by the French from 1883, when their capital at Hue was taken. By 1893, the French controlled all of Southeast Asia, calling their colony Indochine or Cochinchina. The Communists became a force in Việtnam after the Japanese occupation during World War II. Ho Chi Minh, who as a young man, had traveled the world (including a stint as a waiter at the Parker House in Boston), was the founder of the French Communist Party in Paris. He sneaked back into Việtnam in 1942, founding the Việtminh. After the war, the allies put Britain in charge of South Việtnam and gave the north to the Chinese. Ho made a deal with Bao Dai, the last of the Nguyen emperors to turn the north over to him, and take exile in . Ho then bargained with the French to let them position 25,000 troops in the north. His reasoning became famous: “The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.” In 1954, at Dien Bien Phu, Ho got rid of the French. But in that year, President Dwight Eisenhower voiced the “Domino Theory” of Communism, that if Việtnam fell, all of Asia would follow. Two years later, the first American “advisors” were sent to South Việtnam to train the South Việtnamese army (ARVN). In 1964, Lyndon Johnson ordered the first U.S. bombing of the north. By the end of 1965 there were 200,000 soldiers in the south and by 1968 more than half a million. In that year, the north launched its Tet Offensive. In

September, 1969, Ho Chi Minh died in Hanoi. Earlier that year, President Nixon had begun the bombing of Cambodia, in an attempt to disrupt the traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail that was badly hampering the American forces in the south. In January, 1973, a cease-fire was declared and by March of that year, all U.S. troops had been pulled out, leaving Việtnam in a full-blown civil war. Saigon fell to the troops of the NVA on April 30, 1975, precipitating the dramatic helicopter evacuation of the U.S. Embassy. On July 2, 1976, the Socialist Republic of Việtnam (SRV) was declared. In three decades of war, more than 3,000,000 Việtnamese soldiers and civilians had died. But the war was not over. In 1978, the united army invaded Cambodia to depose the awful Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot, only to have their own country invaded by 600,000 Chinese. And the western nations ed Pol Pot against them! When war was finally over, the country was in a shambles, with 700 percent inflation, failed farm communes and a major exodus of citizens who would become known as the “boat people.” In 1986, the leadership announced a new policy of doi moi, “new thinking,” which gradually moved the nation into the western concepts of private property and market economy. Gradually Việtnam was able to reenter the international Community. In 1995, the U.S., under President Clinton, reopened its embassy in Hanoi.

DECEMBER 28 HONG KONG / HÀ NỘI

We arrived early in Hong Kong, no great accomplishment since we have eight hours connection time before our Vietnam Air flight to Hanoi. I think that originally, Vicky had said the connection was about three hours, but when we adjusted the itinerary, the early Hanoi flight was totally sold out. We were all groggy as we wandered into the terminal in Hong Kong, trying to make some sort of decision as to how we would use up the time. Hong Kong Airport is as good as they come, a huge, clean, bright, modern facility that used up a whole island in the making. A young officer was manning the connection line, and I asked him what he would recommend. With a big smile he led me over to a tourism desk where a lovely young lady mapped out a four-hour excursion into the city. The best thing, as we went through Hong Kong port check, is that everyone gets another half-page stamp complex that was totally unexpected. Americans live for stamps in their ports, to the total amusement of the rest of the world. One’s port stamps are a constant source of pride among everyone I know, myself included. In the old days, I used to be amazed in paging through the ports of the old folks who took our tours, amazed at the incredible number of bizarre places that were stamped there. But I have to it that our ports, including Kasey’s and Josh’s, are a match for most of those I saw in those days. The world has gotten so small! We exited Hong Kong Customs and walked a hundred yards to the Airport Express Train that makes the 25-mile run to downtown Hong Kong in twentyfour minutes, stopping only twice, in Tsing Yi and Kowloon. It drops you right in the center of the city, just a couple of blocks from the Star Ferry to Kowloon, for HK$100 for the round-trip, about $14. I think it is the slickest airport transfer system I have seen. Jim took over as soon as we touched down in the city, walking us out for shopping. But it was only 7:30 in the morning, and there was nothing open except hotels and breakfast dim sum restaurants. We walked at random for a few blocks until we came to a total stop on a non-descript street

somewhere in the city. “I’m hungry,” Josh announced. Josh is perpetually hungry these days, as his body is stoking up for a massive growth spurt sometime soon. “Didn’t he eat the breakfast on the plane?” I asked Marty. It was a pretty good meal, actually. “He ate the whole thing.” None of us could visualize the thought of dim sum at 7:00 A.M. “There was a Starbucks back there,” Deb announced. Josh had seen it too. So we reversed our directions in favor of lattés, mochas, breakfast tea and hot chocolates, muffins, turnovers, scones, and for Jim a sausage sandwich. Jim was mortified, being recalled as head of the walking tour and sent back to a Starbucks he hadn’t seen, mortified enough, thank God, to pick up the tab. Josh polished off a Danish and a blueberry muffin, and immediately started dreaming of his next meal. Jim resigned as tour director on the spot, and we decided to take the Star Ferry over to Kowloon, look at the Peninsula Hotel, where he and Donna had stayed back in their youth. There we would reverse our trip on the ferry, to the train, to the plane. I don’t think that I have been to a city where we could have done something like this, in a couple of hours—go through Customs; take a train to the city and back; wander around for an hour; walk to a round trip ferry (the Celestial Star); and return to the airport Customs with almost three hours to spare.

Good sign at the ferry: “Do not step on a rolling gangplank when the ferry is rolling heavily.” The amazing thing is that our whole crowd bought nothing over four hours in one of the great shopping cities in the world. Well, Jim did buy two $5 postcards at the Peninsula, but he has never been able to show any restraint on matters like

this. Our remaining time at the airport was filled with the excitement of Uno. How can I describe Jim and Kasey competing—a contest of a confidant young maiden and a boisterous, bluffing old dude. It is pure entertainment. “Kasey, you dog…!” “Shut up Anne…!” “You can’t do that…” “Draw 4.” “Draw 2.” “Uno!” Jim and Kasey at Uno paint the perfect scene in our families. I have always said that any two of us could go off for a day and have a completely happy time. Generation gap be dammed! We come with interchangeable parts. Our plane finally arrived, a Vietnam Airlines Airbus A321, a perfectly comfortable plane with two aisles and a bit of legroom. But the flight is now short, a little over an hour and we will be in Việtnam. I have to confess, I haven’t the slightest idea what we will encounter on arrival. I have this war-torn, Third World mental picture of a Miss Saigon land. I just know I will be wrong. I got a clue some years ago when one of our group leaders and a Việtnam War vet, asked me to write him a two-week tour of Việtnam, where he could see the whole country. Of course I deferred, because back then nobody visited this country on purpose, and the man was a strange sort of hippy guy anyway and would probably be eating worms and dogs the whole trip, coming down with beri beri or some other exotic thing, and get some of his travelers eaten or blown up in land mines. I never wrote that trip. “But Jack, they love us over there,” he had told me. “Việtnam is a very attractive place.” That just proved my point. So here I am, five years later, taking my own family there, without ever having seen the place myself. God, I hope my mental picture

is accurate, i.e. wrong. Customs was a snap after we arrived in the airport in Hanoi. The bags took forever to arrive, spurting out in bursts of four and five at a time, but eventually, mine was the last one up the conveyor belt, and we were off into the terminal. There stood Cuong with a lovely sign, “Jack Dold and Family.” We have arrived in Việtnam! Le Van Cuong is a stocky man with a happy face and a very outgoing personality. He quickly informed us that he had been a Việtcong, fighting in the jungles for five years and surviving, having walked the Ho Chi Minh Trail and fought in most of the big battles. All of this was said with a smile, which seemed perfectly genuine. He also said that the Việtnamese bear absolutely no grudge against the Americans, that they want their country to improve and that America is the best way to do that. He gave me an article from the San Diego Union Tribune, in which he is interviewed extensively. He talks about his three years of fighting in the jungle, and another two years working in the south helping the villages. When the reporter wonders if the war was worth it, two million Việtnamese dead, and 57,000 Americans, he answers, “Yes, it was worth it. It was worth it. We have a better life now, and it will get much better in the years ahead, and it’s thanks to you. The Americans. You stopped Communism.” His is a totally unexpected take on the war that was so disruptive in our country. There are plenty of Americans who cannot say that they bear no grudge against our country for that war. Hanoi Airport (Hà Nội) was an old military air base, about thirty kilometers from the city in the Tonkin Delta of the Red River. The city today has 3.4 million people and is now the capital of united Việtnam. The first thing you notice on arrival is the writing. They use the Latin alphabet here, sort of, but the vowels are all draped with the most interesting collections of diacritical marks, some of them even flowing over the side of the letter. I decided right away that I would write all of their words with those marks on them, they are so cool. So here they write Việtnam, Hà Nội, Hội An and Huè. It takes some getting used to. The second thing you notice on arrival is the architecture—three- and four-story houses, one-room skinny, painted in vibrant colors, and sporting a jaunty French

pediment gable. It is one of the things that the French left in Việtnam, and it is both different and attractive. “The French gave us architecture, wine and bread,” Cuong said with a laugh. We would find that he could add food to that list “Hà Nội is a City of Soul,” he added, “Not of money, like Saigon.” There is 93 percent literacy in the country with 14 percent poverty and 12 percent unemployment. 70 percent of the population in the north are farmers. The total population of Việtnam is 84 million, jammed into a land that is smaller than California. 40 percent of the people are under twenty-five years old. The nation has been at war since 1940 with the Chinese, the French, the Americans, the Cambodians, the Laotians, and more. In 1979, the Chinese sent 600,000 troops into the north, but were beaten back. Peace finally arrived in 1990, and prosperity dates from that date. “Before 1990,” Cuong said, “everything was free—no school, no medicine, nothing… Now, nothing is free and we have everything… No more worry about stomach and warm clothes.” Times have changed quickly in Việtnam in the last fifteen years. We ed a big t venture on our way into the city, a large Japanese complex that included Canon, Yamaha, Asahi, Panasonic, with Digital, Ford and Mercedes thrown in. Market economy has come to the country and from our first look, it seems to have settled in nicely. “We have free elections here,” Cuong laughed. “There is one name and they ask you which one you choose.” The country is definitely on the upswing though, now producing exports in green tea, rice, and fresh fruit. They are #1 in the world in pepper exports and #2 in coffee. We crossed the Red River as we neared Hà Nội, a very large stream at this point, coming out of China. Hà Nội will soon reach its millennial birthday, having been founded in 1010 by King Ly, who established the place as his capital. In modern times Hà Nội was the capital from 1802 until 1945, and again after unification following the American War.

We arrived in the city and checked into the Sofitel Hanoi, our home for the next three nights. Cuong gave us a bit of time to unpack and then, dead tired, we were off to dinner at the Hà Hoi Restaurant. It was the first of a string of totally unexpected boutique restaurants that we would discover in Hà Nội, a lovely little place, with fine ambience and very nice food, which we would discover, is a signature for the city, a combination of Chinese and French cuisines that is wonderful.

Pumpkin cream soup Crab spring rolls Steamed rice Beef BBQ shrimp Stir fried veggies

“They were perfectly proportioned!” Kasey exclaimed. Annie was thrilled that she had used an adverb properly. Cuong had on his itinerary that we were supposed to attend a performance of the famous Hanoi Water Puppets after dinner. “There is no way we can do that tonight,” I told him. “We are all fast asleep already. We have been traveling for about thirty hours.” So the puppets were postponed, and we staggered into our rooms and crashed. Tomorrow we can all wake up, stretch, and yell, “Good Morning, Việtnam!”

DECEMBER 29 HÀ NỘI

We began the day with a walk of Hà Nội. The Sofitel is right in the middle, next to West Lake, the main lake of the city. In all there are thirty-two lakes in Hà Nội. We walked across the teeming traffic, filled with motorbikes and scooters, a few cars and quite a few bicycles. “Don’t look!” Cuong advised. “Just walk across. They will miss you.” It is good advice that is almost impossible for an American to accept, but we did manage to reach the safety of the opposite sidewalk. On our left is the White Silk Lake, the body of water where Airman John McCain crashed during the Việtnam War. There is a monument marker detailing the event about midway along the lakefront. Across from this small lake is the much larger West Lake. We crossed over to it, to visit our first pagoda, the Tran Quoc Pagoda. Today 60 percent of Việtnamese people are Buddhist, and about 20 percent Catholic, the latter undoubtedly a testament to the long imperial rule of the French, whose presence is still everywhere evident in the country. Cuong told us that religious freedom only arrived in 1993. “During the war, nobody cared. The churches were used to store arms. ‘Trust the Party’ was our religion.” Today there are more than 500 pagodas in Hà Nội. I saw my first good sign outside the Tran Quoc Pagoda: “Suggest all the people no wear the short to the pagoda.” Việtnam is a combination of Việt (people) and nam (south). 90 percent of the population is Việt. Their language is the only one in the region that uses the Latin alphabet, or at least a form of it, much augmented by its impressive array of diacritical marks. The vowels are literally swimming in those accents and hats, curlicues and question marks without the dot. The whole thing, called quoc

ngu, was devised in 1651 by a missionary, Alexandre de Rhodes who put together the whole thing to for the six tonal levels that the language requires. Thus you see all sorts of vowels that are draped with stuff: ả ẵ ặ ẽ ế ề ể ỉ ố ồ ổ ỗ ộ ớ ờ ở ỡ ợ ủ ứ ừ ử ữ ự. Cuong gave me the example of the word nhá (pronounced nya). With one or more of the marks that word can variously mean teeth, pharmacy, vomiting, house, or chewing, pronounced with a rising tone, falling tone, high level, low level, falling-rising and one that requires a full glottal stop. There are a few pronunciation differences as well that will confound the visitor. D is pronounced as a Z, unless it has a little bar on the vertical, Đ, which makes it a real D. G is a Z in the north and Y in the south. Nh is like a Spanish ñ, unless it is at the end of a word, which turns it into an NG. Ph is an F as in Philadelphia. R is only an R in the south; up north it is another Z. X is an S and TR is Sh in the north, but TR in the south. Otherwise everything is just like English, which is an awful thing to say. About the time you start griping about other languages, you realize that we have things like “ough” which pops out of our mouths in things like “ought,” “rough,” “thorough,” “through,” “though,” “bough,” etc. We do “so,” “sew” and “sow,” but “sow” could be “sow” as in “cow.” English will never have to take a language back seat in difficulty. Quoc ngu was made compulsory in high schools in 1906 and formally adopted as the national script in 1920. Having been completely confounded with the four tones of Chinese, I have no intentions of even attempting Vietnamese. Or rather, Việtnamese. From the lake, we drove across the city. Cuong pointed out the central headquarters of the Communist Party, an odd combination of French and Russian buildings. Both are instantly recognizable: the French being impressive 19th century designs, always painted a yellow-gold color; the Russian are military gray. In the center of the national compound stands the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, a solid block of granite from Granite Mountain near Da Nang, a cube that drips of the Communist era. Ho, of course, is Uncle Ho to everyone, a beloved man to his people, who united the country by defeating the monster that is America. He died on September 2, 1969, (today a National Holiday), and requested that his ashes be distributed equally in the north, south and middle of the country, symbolic of the union he created. But that section of his will was concealed from the people, and officials consulted with the Russians, traveling there to pick up the embalming secrets that have kept Lenin in stasis for so long, and they duplicated the effort with Ho. The mausoleum was built in 1975, and today is the central sacred site in Hà Nội. It is very closely monitored by stiff

police. Visitors are required to walk two-by-two along a red vinyl carpet, with hands hanging at their sides. I had my hands clasped behind my back and was curtly told to change. Talking is prohibited. As with Lenin, and probably Mao, only the face and hands are exposed in the coffin, looking eerily lifelike. Preserving Communist leaders is a very serious business. It is a short walk to the Presidential Palace. During the French rule, this was the center of their Indochina government. The palace is monumentally built with elements of the late Louis kings, of course, painted a brilliant yellow-gold. The French were defeated by Ho’s army at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, but their buildings still adorn much of the city. Ho never lived in the palace itself, but rather in a worker’s cottage, house #3, in the rear of the property, where he had lived during 1944-46. This first house, consisting of a bedroom, kitchen and war room, he used from 1954-58. He returned to Hà Nội after the defeat of the French, and built a stilt house in 1958 behind the presidential palace, where he lived until his death in 1969. It is really quite beautiful in design and function, and certainly endeared him to his people. The U.S. started the bombing of Hà Nội in 1964, but spared the central area from destruction. Ho lived here throughout the war. The last site of the central area is the One Pillar Pagoda, a sort of stylized lotus flower, built originally by the Ly King in 1049. Constructed of wood, it has been continuously rebuilt over the centuries, and today is still the central pagoda for the people, and the landmark symbol of Hà Nội. Jim led Anne, with Josh and Kasey in offering prayer sacrifices of tangerines and bananas, lighting josh sticks and meditation. Near the pagoda is the Museum of Việtnam, opened in 1990. We don’t have time today to visit it. Our next stop is at the Temple of Literature, founded in 1010 AD, the first “University” of Việtnam. It was an open-air place of learning where scholars studied for their governmental examination. There are five courtyards. Cuong led us into the third courtyard, which contains a large central pond. On one side are a great many stellae standing on the backs of turtles. Each is inscribed with the names and details of those who ed the examinations, a total of 1,331 in all. Cuong explained that the turtle is considered one of the four holy animals, along with the phoenix, dragon and unicorn. We would see lots of these before we left this land. Around the lake fly the two flags of Việtnam: the national red flag with a single yellow star, and the ancient square one, very colorful with

concentric squares of red, yellow, blue, pink and green around a central red square. The actual examinations took place in the 4th square, which also happens to be the modern location of the “happy rooms.” Jim coughed up 2,000 Đ (dong) for all of the ladies to attend that examination.

Lunch found us at the Nhà Hàng Restaurant, (Seasons of Hanoi), where we enjoyed our first outside Hà Nội meal: Crab and sweet corn soup Stir-fried beef Spring rolls Pork in a clay pot Sweet & sour fish Sauteed spinach Steamed rice It was only the first of many wonderful French-imbued meals we would enjoy in this country. Fully stuffed, we continued our tour of Hà Nội, driving past the old train station. It was bombed during the war, the center section destroyed. The place was rebuilt, keeping the French sides, with a gray Russian heart in the middle. “It looks like two 18-year old girls standing next to a skeleton,” Cuong laughed. In fact, Hà Nội is a combination of three distinct architectures, with Chinese added to the French and Russian. In the Chinese world, yellow or gold is the imperial color, reserved only for the emperor. It was no accident that the French chose that color to their dominance in the country. Cuong next stopped at the Hoa Lo Prison, known in America as the Hanoi

Hilton, where 555 captured American pilots were lodged during the war, including John McCain. It is an atrocious place, of grim stone cages that housed up to twenty men and women. Cuong told us that while he was fighting, his mother was arrested because it was discovered that she had hoarded about $2,000 during her lifetime. She spent four months, sixteen days in Hoa Lo, jammed in with twenty other women, all arrested for similar “crimes.” It is what Cuong called “a rubber sentence,” one that was based on nothing but the whim of a tyrannical official. There is one room devoted to photos of the American pilots. In the rear of the prison, which is considerably truncated these days to allow for a new high-rise building, is one of the nefarious French guillotines (mái chem.), or as it is translated here, “head chopping machine.” Chuog said that today there are still 700 Americans listed as “missing in action” (MIA), but that for the Việtnamese, the number is 700,000. Those numbers, as awful as they are, pale in comparison with those of the other Asian wars of the 20th century. The Chinese loses have been in the millions. Our last major stop today is at the Sofitel Metropol, the classic old hotel of Hà Nội, which has survived all of the wars of the last hundred years. Built in 1901, it has been restored to all of its former glory, one of those stately old dames that seems to grace most of the Asian cities. The Communists “ran” it from 19541992, and almost completely destroyed it, but now it is back in the hands of private management and looking very fine. Cuong, whose wife works at the hotel, took us behind the scenes to the grave and shrine of a young woman who has always haunted the place. From the hotel, we circled the Central Lake, the “Restoring Sword Lake.” It features a statue of King Ly, who founded the city in 1010. Cuong said that there are some 500-pound turtles that inhabit the lake. The center of Hà Nội is a swirl of activity, a constant flow of motorbikes and cars, very intimidating to us Yanks who haven’t the slightest idea how to make sense of the traffic system here. Women fruit vendors, their balance poles filled with the delicacies of the tropics, wander casually along the periphery of the traffic. Rickshaws float along at their own pace, completely oblivious to faster vehicles coming at them from all directions.

Cuong took us to a spot where bicycle rickshaws were lined up waiting for souls

like us. Josh and Eliot shared one, as did Eileen and Edwina, while the rest of us, including Kasey, got a rickshaw of our own. It was a thrilling ride back to the hotel. We cruised through street after street, each devoted to a specialty of some sort—flowers, clothes, housewares. There was one filled with candy, and the most dramatic, lined with shops selling Chinese New Year decorations. I imagined that Mary was itching to stop and do some shopping, but she would never take the chance of losing the group. Our ride took us completely across the center of the city, through Old Hà Nội. Each cross street was an adventure as our drivers pedaled directly into the maelstrom, one after the other, miraculously emerging into a new flow. I think that Cuong is right, the trick is not to look. I have noticed for years, especially in China, that no one ever worries about what they can’t actually see behind them. Anything in the rear simply doesn’t exist for an Asian driver, whether he be in a car, on a moped, a bicycle, a rickshaw or on foot. Just forge ahead and those behind you will adjust. The fact is that here you don’t use breaks; you just slow down and dodge, swerve, slide and slither. You adjust. About halfway through our ride, I realized how trusting we all were to let Kasey and the boys ride in rickshaws by themselves. In the U.S. that would be unthinkable. I actually worried about it until I spotted them on one of the turns, safely tucked between the rickshaws of a couple of our group. It is amazing how quickly we have gotten comfortable in Việtnam. I never would have expected it. The rickshaws took us back to the Sofitel, where we have a couple of hours before dinner. I have been hacking away at a cold for the last week, and decided to stay in tonight and try to get rid of the malady. Cuong wasn’t able to get tickets for the water puppets until tomorrow, so all I will miss is the dinner, and at my body size, missing a dinner is hardly a catastrophe. I definitely want to be better tomorrow, because we are taking a ride out to a boat on the Ha Long Delta. Mary gave me the business card for the restaurant tonight. The group dined at the Việt Kitchen. They said it was another small, attractive place, but that the food wasn’t as good as at the Há Hoi Restaurant last night.

DECEMBER 30 HA LONG BAY

This morning we left at 8:00 for Ha Long Bay and the Delta of the Gulf of Tonkin, a drive of about three hours to get to the delta of the Red River. Josh and Elliott, whipping out their PSBs, have completely bonded already, and sat there contentedly sharing strategies and secrets that only eleven-year old boys can appreciate. Edwina, on the other hand, doesn’t need anything for her to bond. She spreads her own personal joy around to everyone within a quarter mile. We have all adopted her. We crossed the Red River, a very substantial stream, to the East Side of Hà Nội and quickly were in the countryside. The fruit vendor ladies, their poles bending under their loads of pineapples, melons, rambutan, soursap, and other exotic delicacies, were heading for the city markets. Men stood on the highway selling French bread in clear plastic bags. “It is the best thing the French left us,” laughed Cuong. “They left us their buildings, their cooking and especially their bread.” He pointed out a funeral that was taking place, explaining the complicated customs that attach to those events. It seems that a person is first buried in a grave. About three years later, the family digs up the coffin, precisely at midnight, and moves it to another site. It wasn’t clear from Cuong’s explanation exactly why they did this, but I got the feeling that it was a matter of finances, and that the second burial was more expensive. Throughout the countryside we could see the permanent graves of the people, some fields containing a dozen or more burial sites, each complex probably belonging to the family that owned that part of the field. In the cities these days, most people are cremated. The crops of choice in this region are rice, corn and bananas, but we saw an impressive variety as we drove along. Cuong told us that today, most of the farmers own their own land. Under the Communists, the land was all taken by the government, as happened in China. In 1954, Ho called for “the land back to the tillers,” taking the land from the landlords. Co-ops were created that pretty

much destroyed the productivity of the farmers, because there was no incentive to work. “It made the farmers lazy.” The co-ops were finally eliminated for good in 1988. The Land Reform was “renovated,” and the government leased the farms to the people. Today the farmers own their crops, and in fact, Việtnam is now exporting agricultural products. “The farmers are now happy, on their own land, having TV, a motorbike. A car will be the next thing!” Here in the country, as in the city, the architecture is remarkable—three- and four-story houses, one room wide, topped with a French gable. They sometimes sit alone, a tall, thin structure, plopped on ground that looks like a muddy bowl of jello. Often they are batched in strings of three or four, usually colored pink, or earth tones, sometimes blues and greens. They are distinctive to Việtnam, I think, the most obvious gift of the French imperialists. We ed a number of police stations, the officers, clad in light-brown uniforms, sitting at tables, writing tickets, pulling over cars at their leisure. The speed limit is 50 kph and there doesn’t seem to be much leeway in their tolerances. At Phả Laị, we ed a couple of major power plants, one built by the Russians, the second by Japan. From the architecture, it is obvious who built which, just as the French and Russian architecture in town was obvious, one ponderous, the other almost stately. Coal is one of the major products of this region, the source of wealth as well as fuel. We drove through the village of Mao Khe, which was black with the dust from the trucks ing through. It is a wretched place, completely black on the whole main street, the cars, homes, shops, painted with the depressing color. Wherever there was water, it was a black paste. It seems a terrible price to pay for the locals, something a central government should be able to fix. The trucks coming from the mines are essentially uncovered, and the dust blows constantly into the lives of these poor villagers. Cuong had promised us a “happy stop” on the drive to Ha Long, and he made

good on the promise at the Hong Gnoc Shop. “I think we will have ten minutes for our stop,” he said with a straight face. The Hong Gnoc does indeed have toilet facilities, good ones at that, but they also have a monstrous gift shop, filled with all of the crafts of the country. The girls have never peed so fast! Half an hour later, we all emerged with treasures of Việtnam, a trove that will most certainly be added to over the next two weeks. We reached Ha Long Bay around noon. There are 300,000 islands spread around this part of the world, a huge archipelago in the South China Sea. This particular section is a World Heritage Site, consisting of “only” about 2,000 islands. It is a major tourist site, boasting more than 300 hotels and inns and some 2,000 boats. Cuong led us down the dock where he loaded us into our own dragon boat, the Hai Long (Ocean Dragon), a sturdy block of wood with traditional designs painted on. Many of the boats we saw have two very prominent eyes painted on the bow, eyes that look out and ahead to keep the sailors safe. Boarding was only the beginning of the process. We still had to get out from the pier and there were four or five layers of boats on all sides. Our captain literally bashed his way out to open water, jamming his bow, and at times his stern, between a couple of obstacle boats, and wedging through the opening created. Boats were moving in every direction, some spinning around, some moving back toward the dock, others seeming to have no purpose at all. It was bumper boat in pure form, if there is such a thing. I noticed that there seemed to be several boats with the same name, which Cuong said were owned by the same family. Our Hai Long was #1374 and he had a bunch of brothers. Other companies were the Baì Thỏ, Minh Hải, Tùng Trang, Than Hung, Song Biéùn, Huong Hai Junks, and Minh Phuong. Once extricated from the melee, we enjoyed a beautiful cruise, winding our way through a maze of islands, all protected in the national park. There were a hundred boats like ours, each going I suppose in its own particular path, none of which seemed consistent. But then given the chaos at departure, it is difficult to expect any organization in the middle. At the end of our cruise we arrived at the Thiên Cung Dông (cave). The cove before the cave was completely filled with the dragon boats, lined bow in at the rock pier. Hai Long #1374 calmly cruised up to two of the boats, snugged up side to side with no space between. He nosed into the non-crack between the two sterns and hit the motors, slowly the two

boats separated as we squeezed forward, deftly creating a bow space on the pier. It was wonderful to watch, creating space where none exists. The sturdy boards on the boats are built for collision. “There are 100 steps to the cave entrance,” Cuong advised us, and we started the ascent up steps that would make OCEA faint. Actually there were about 150 stairs up, and inside the cave a couple of hundred more. A sign on the outside commanded, “Not allowed to climb up, write down or drawn into the stalactite.” I always liked prepositions! We wandered through the cave amidst a major crowd of tourists, the effluent from all of those boats back at the pier. It actually is a very nice cave, quite large, with a huge central area. During the war, a hundred families lived here to escape the American bombs. Throughout the region, there are hundreds of such caves in these karst mountains, which very much resemble the landscape we saw a few years ago in Guilin. We made an exciting three-boat exit from Thiên Cung Dông. Even our intrepid captain couldn’t scrunch his way to the dock, and remained blocked out at the edge of the boat scrum, so Cuong led us on a pars course of boat hopping, a path that would certainly have killed most of our seniors if they tried such a maneuver. With rocking planks and teetering bows, we scrambled out, finally arriving on the bow of our boat. It would be certain doom if anyone ever fell overboard in that mash, and I am sure that has happened a time or two in the past. When successfully accomplished, it is a thrill though. This was a nice experience. We made it back to town in about two hours, not having the benefit of a “happy stop” on the return trip. There was a general rush to the rooms when we reached the Sofitel, where we stopped for a short break before heading for dinner. On our first night in Hà Nội, Cuong had intended to take us to the famous Water Puppet Show, but we had almost fallen asleep at dinner, so he put it off until tonight. So we have a quick dinner and then the show tonight. Dinner was at the Samcam Restaurant, another totally attractive place that comes as a complete shock in this Communist city. Dinner, as was the case last night, is Chinese-Thai, with a definite French flair: Glass-noodle seafood soup Spring roll, Hanoi style

Grilled seafood skewer Pan-fried chicken breast Sauteed beef with black pepper sauce Deep fried prawns with salted eggs Chinese cabbage with Dong Cop mushrooms Steamed rice with fragrant leaf Chicken salad with cucumber onion (so hot that Jim labeled it a “holy shit salad.”)

The restaurant had a rather extensive wine list that included to my amazement, a bottle of Delicato Shiraz. I immediately ordered a bottle, since it comes from the winery of our friends Frank and Alice Indelicato in Manteca, California. I also ordered a bottle of Chilean wine. They brought a different one, saying they couldn’t find the one I ordered. I never saw the Delicato. Actually we had three bottles of wine I didn’t order, but the waitress was so nice it was easier to drink them than object. I did take their card with a note on it for Frank when we get home. Imagine, a Manteca wine in Hà Nội! From this fine dinner we went to the Thang Long Water Puppet Show. Water puppets are an ancient tradition in Hà Nội and North Việtnam in general, found in the south only as a tourist attraction. The puppets are maneuvered around by handlers who are concealed behind a screen, moving in remarkable ways on the water of a pond that serves for a stage. They jump and skip, belch fire and smoke, and literally dance during the skits. In all there were seventeen short skits in the show, ranging from a duck dance to fire-snorting unicorns that look surprisingly like dragons. Phoenixes look a bit like lions. Several heads dropped in our group as the show went on, energies having been spent on this long day. But Jim and I managed to get through the whole thing, with me being the narrator and announcing each little story as it appeared. The theater is not the best for such a performance, not being tiered enough to see the puppets well, but the dexterity of the handlers is amazing. And all of the music is performed live by a small band and two women who sing those amazingly discordant Chinese

notes. Much of the lilt of the music comes from a one-string instrument called a danbo, which we would see for sale in several places throughout the country.

DECEMBER 31 HỘI AN - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As is the case in most of Asia, breakfasts are a feast in Việtnam, a major buffet spread that takes in most cuisines of the world. Here there is a large Thai section, Chinese, American bacon and eggs (always an omelet maker), lots of fresh fruit and cold meats and cheeses. I made a note of the bee hoon (fried noodles) and bot loc dumplings. Jim awarded some breakfast gifts to Kasey (a phone case) and Mary (something he called a “water muffin.”) since that is a name she sometimes has to answer to. Festivities out of the way, Cuong took us out the other side of Hà Nội, on a levy road along the Red River. Originally this had been a morning free, but Jim and Donna had read about a pottery village, so we hired him and the van to take us there. The village is called Bát Tràng, (pronounced “Bat Chang”) and every house in the place has a kiln. In all there are about 6,000 people making pottery here, most of it for wholesale export, everything from small plates and ornaments to huge urns. There are three different kinds of kilns in the village, the traditional Dragon Kilns, Box Kilns, fired by wood, and New Kilns, operated with gas. The pottery is different from porcelain, fired at a lower temperature (about 1,100º). Cuong took us down a back street and into one of the kiln areas, where about a dozen men and women, really boys and girls, were creating their bowls and plates. Two men in front were molding bowls from wet clay, deftly sculpting them on a spinning wheel. Josh and Elliott were awarded hunks of clay to occupy their fingers and their smiles were radiant. Upstairs, girls were deg and painting the pieces before final firing. Having seen the process, we went into a large showroom to look over the product, and everyone came out with some treasure.

We returned to Hà Nội in late morning to check out of the Sofitel and get some lunch. We have all been extremely impressed by our guide, Cuong, whose

outgoing personality is very attractive. His take on the war is surprising for us, and he says that he speaks for most of the people. I don’t think that any American could devise the spin he puts on the whole tragic episode. Simply put, he credits America with ending Communism in his country, introducing private property and a work ethic that had not existed or had been killed under the Communists. I read before that Việtnam carries no grudge toward the U.S., but rather welcomes our people as a sign of a new age for them. Cuong has been very critical of the Communist days, and we would hear that echoed often during our trip. He related the story of a friend, who built himself a nice house in 1984. The government came to him and asked him where he got so much money. They took the house and used it for their own purposes. He finally got it back in 1993 after nearly ten years of protest. It was the same “rubber sentence” that confiscated Cuong’s mother’s $2,000 and got her thrown into the Hanoi Hilton. Cuong told another story that when he came home from the war, a hero, he was wearing a Beatles’ haircut because he liked their music. Some young Red Guards confronted him on the street, asking him why he was happy and whistling, and forced him to get a haircut on the spot. “And I was supposed to be a war hero!” “We want the things you can teach us,” Cuong told me and he seemed very sincere. He certainly made it easy for us to relax, almost from the minute we arrived. And Mr. Toan, our driver, could not have been more helpful and friendly.

Our final lunch in Hà Nội was at the Rung Forest Restaurant. We noticed that Marty was now sporting a moustache and goatee, and started giving him a bad time. “He can be Ho at Halloween this year,” Patrick said. “And Nancy can be Ho’s ho!” That was Anne. It is only an hour flight to Da Nang, where we landed at what is called the Da Nang International Airport. (They have flights to Macao.) It is actually an old U.S. airstrip, because this was the center of the U.S. base of operations during the war. Da Nang is Việtnam’s fourth largest city at 1.2 million population, following Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) at 7 million; Hà Nội (3.4) and Hy Phong

(1.6). We were met at the airport by Thu Chau Thi, dressed in traditional costume, a smiling 35-something woman with a rather heavy accent. She said to just call her Thu, pronounced “two.” Following Cuong, she has a difficult task. Her driver was Mr. Khied, who had Mr. Nhan as a helper, a young man in charge of dispensing water, assisting us off of the mini-bus, stopping traffic, etc. As if stopping traffic is even possible. Leaving the airport we ed a War Memorial, dating to 1978, celebrating the surprising victory of the Việtnamese over the mighty Americans. This is especially important here, because the whole region was filled with three huge American war facilities. From 1965-72, the Americans occupied the region, and fought some of the most important battles just north of here. Thu took us first to Non Nuoc Beach, more familiar to us as China Beach. We walked along the sand, a bit unnerved by the rough surf that was hitting the shore today. Pulled away from the water were a number of round tubs, maybe six feet in diameter. They are called pung chai, or rao boats, used by the fishermen to collect cuttlefish and squid. They are dropped from larger boats, and maneuvered around by the fishermen, a daunting feat in our eyes because they look completely unmanageable. They are made of woven bamboo, and sealed on the outside as well as the interior. We would later see a man using a rao boat, walking his way to shore as though he were on a sturdy raft. Thu pointed out Somtra Mountain, or Monkey Mountain as we drove. This is a farming region as indeed is most of the country. She talked of Doi Moi (the New Way), instituted in 1986, when the party ruled that people could have private businesses and homes. We were driving along the side of the old Saltwater Air Base, the major U.S. air facility during the war. The hangers are still there, and Thu told us that the government is going to convert the base into resort hotels and villas. We saw one already in place, the Sandy Beach Resort. We weren’t very far from the airport when Josh came up to the front. “Papa, I have to go to the bathroom.” I asked Thu if she could find a place to stop, and she had Mr. Khied pull over at a small café. She escorted Josh across the highway, talked to the lady in the store, and the two of them took him to the toilet in the back. He returned to us

with a smile, thanked Thu for helping him and reed Elliott. God bless Josh. He has truly grown up. Not too long ago he would have been mortified to have two ladies take him to the john. “He is a beautiful little boy,” Thu whispered to me. We drove past marble mountain to the beach town of Hội An, where we checked in to the Hội An Trails Resort and Spa, a very nice facility on a dusty side street outside the ancient town. The rooms are spacious and well appointed. In the restaurant as well as the patio, they are setting up for tonight’s New Year celebration. I saw on our itinerary that we have “mandatory gala dinner” tonight, and it does look like they are setting up for a fine celebration. Here in Asia we have had New Year parties in Beijing, Yangshuo and Xinglong on Hainan Island. Now we can add Hội An. We really didn’t last too long however. There was a nice buffet and a stage set up outside, where we had a couple of tables reserved. Some very nice young ladies had organized the program, which consisted of several riddles and party games as warm-ups for the actual New Year countdown. We made it as far as the balloon dance, around 10:00, when we called it quits, to the disappointment of the stage ladies, I might add. But it is 2008 in Australia by now!

JANUARY 1, 2008 HỘI AN – WEI

Chúc Mūng Nǎm MớI! HAPPY NEW YEAR! WELCOME 2008! I really don’t know where 2007 went. Time is flying so fast now, and it seems to pick up the older you get. It is a disconcerting feeling, but since there is nothing to be done about it, I think that we are enjoying our time as well as can be. What better way than with our family? I read not long ago that life is like a roll of toilet paper—the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. This morning we are visiting Hội An, an ancient town of about 80,000 people, 2,000 of whom are Chinese. In 1985 it was made a Việtnamese Heritage Site, and in 1999 was elevated to a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were immediately captivated by the place, which is a major tourist Mecca these days, filled with interesting shops that peddle some very attractive crafts and textiles. We left the bus with Thu’s onition, “Be careful that your money is following you.” It would be a mantra for the rest of the trip, as the ladies lined up their men’s wallets and kept them in tow. The town is very open and attractive. Thu led us into the morning market, which was alive with people. It is quite large, filled with the freshest produce, poultry, fish and meats, a place teeming with vendors and customers. It is great fun to walk through these public markets in the Far East. I am always amazed at what a little stir we Americans make as we wander through, taking pictures of everything we see. This is especially true for our family, because Nancy, the dietitian, has been building a fine repertoire of market pictures over the years, and we all go crazy with our cameras whenever we see fruit and vegetables spread around on tables or ground cloths. Hội An’s market was especially photogenic. Patrick and I, Nancy and Anne all recorded that place with hundreds of pictures, concentrating on anything that was bizarre or out of the ordinary. The boys liked the eels and snakes. The ladies gagged at buckets full of

delectable silk worms. Jim was taken by the fish, which being a staple of Việtnamese cuisine was particularly diverse and abundant. Josh had to have his picture taken with the calamari and cuttlefish. On the other hand, Elliott wasn’t happy about seeing all of those tubs and buckets full of fish, protesting that he likes to eat fish but not to see them dead. I was about to recommend that he try live fish for dinner next time, but that even grossed me out. Thu wound us through the whole place. The vendors are a joy to watch, as they haggle and yell, appear to get angry, but seldom are. It is the game of the market. Many of them had big smiles for us, since we are rarer than anything they have for sale. I have been through a couple dozen of these Asian markets over the last few years, and I have never been made to feel unwelcome. On the contrary, the people here in Việtnam seem to welcome us warmly. The market finished, Thu took us into the Phủớc Kiến Chinese Temple, built in 1697 by Chinese traders from Fukien, who had established an important commerce with Southeast Asia. The Japanese also frequented Hội An, until they were recalled when the Shogunate forbade any more foreign trade. The temple has three parts: a money area; a second building with six Ming statues and a third with Buddha, the Chien Hao Buddha. We were drawn to the first, which was filled with large, conical incense spirals, about three feet in height, that burn for thirty days. We decided to buy one for the family, with each of us writing our prayers on a tablet that is attached to the cone. The prayers were varied: Jim and Donna: For happiness and harmony Mary: For Sully and Anne Kasey: For Auntie Anne and another good year Nancy & Marty: For a wonderful harvest, happy children and healthy family. Jack: That our family always remain close and caring. Josh: For all people that don’t have as much as we do. Deb: For peace, health and love

Anne: For finding love and contentment Patrick: PLH—peace, love and happiness Directly across from the pagoda, I spied a shop where they were making lanterns, brightly colored, with cloth stretched across a wooden frame. Mary will absolutely drool over these because they fit right into her Chinese New Year decorations. Too bad they are so big; you wouldn’t want to carry a foot-wide ball around for the whole trip. But I waved to the girls anyway. They quickly found out that the lanterns could be folded up into a sort of tube, and the buying began. I think that just about all of the Dold-Plaskett ladies walked away with at least one of those balls. And Mary would later discover a smaller type and pack ten into her suitcase. They are sure to make up a new Christmas tree back home, something we badly need. She has already added to her bead-purse tree, her key-chain tree, her Asian tree, her children’s tree and her travel tree. Eventually we may completely lose our house in the forest of Mary’s Christmas trees. At last count there were thirteen of them in the house, with an average addition of a couple a year. Once I almost suggested that she make a different tree for every country we visit, but fortunately I developed laryngitis before that idea was verbalized. From the lantern shop, we walked to the Thun Guan River, where the traditional boats, all painted with those inquiring eyes on their bows, line the levies. A man was paddling one of those curious round rao boats from his fishing boat to the dock, standing in his bowl and rowing calmly as though he were on solid land. I imagined myself trying to stand up in one of those unwieldy vessels. I doubt I could last two seconds before it dumped me out. We are now in the heart of the old town of Hội An, a place filled with ancient Chinese houses. One of them is the Museum of Training Ceramics, a rather fancy name for a tourist trap. A young woman took us from craft to craft inside, at each station, pointing out the treasures we could buy. This is a town that is ready and waiting for the tourist. The highlight of the old district is the Japanese Covered Bridge, built in the 17th century, and restored often over the years. It is a curious assemblage, with a Chinese temple right in the middle. A pair of dog gods (Thiên cẩu), guard the old town end of the bridge, and two monkey gods (Than hau), the other. The temple

was built to the god Bắc Dế Trấn Vǒ, something worth mentioning only because of the number of strange little marks over all the vowels. The bridge is called Caùa Cầu, which means, “a symbol of peace,” between the Chinese, Japanese and Việtnamese people who traded in the ancient town. Our next stop was at another old house, built in 1780, and continuously occupied by eight generations of the same family. That family today practices silk work, embroidery, painting, carving and several other crafts, all of which are available for purchase. In fact, I think that everything in the house was for sale, and just in case there was nothing that struck your eye, a large “donation box” rested prominently on the second floor. Walking through an alley on our way to the town silk factory, we spotted some small boats chugging along in a water barrel, the perfect thing for Josh and Elliott. The old man who made these mini-steamers demonstrated them for us. He filled a small container with peanut oil, added a wick (as in a cigarette lighter), placing the little box inside the boat, and lighting the wick. Not only do these little boats float and motor, they also belch smoke. We bought half a dozen. Just beyond his shop is the Thẳng Lỏi Silk Co., where they actually have live silk worms, chewing away on mulberry leaves. The demonstration of silk making is not as sophisticated as those in the big factories of China, but here, they demonstrate using all hand operated machines, not the huge factory Spinning Jennys you find in Suzhuo or Beijing. Our family is not too much into silk things, so I don’t think we were much of a prospect for the shop. It was also getting too close to lunch, and our girls usually lose their appetite for shopping as they get hungry. They are not much for talking, smiling, or socializing either. They have to be kept well fed. So Thu led us back across the Japanese Bridge to the Hoa Anh Dao Sakura Restaurant, yet another attractive, open place where the food was sensational: Pan-fried shrimp Grilled seafood Braised pork Assorted veggies Mustard green soup with shrimp

Steamed rice And for dessert, Fried bananas Lotus salad

Walking back to the bus after lunch, Mary spotted some “darling” little lanterns, and she discussed the idea of a new Christmas tree with her daughters. “I think I could get about ten of them in different colors.” “Mom, that’s ridiculous. How are you going to get them home?” I think that was Nancy. “You have enough trees.” That may have been Annie. I learned a long time ago, and everyone in the family should have too, that there is nothing that you can’t get home. We have statues, carvings, dozens of table runners, large framed paintings, dolls, puppets, hats, Walter presents, etc., etc., etc. We probably have half a dozen of the big lanterns in our group already. We got a bunch of painted coffee carts in Costa Rica last year. Mary was hanging around the store with the little lanterns, and I knew that in her mind she had already bought them. She only has two answers when you ask her if she wants something: “I don’t need it.” That means no. “Uhhhh…Well….Oh, I don’t know….” That means yes. “How many colors do they have?” I asked. “Oh, I think there are at least ten.” “Do you think that ten is enough? Why don’t you get twenty? I’ll help you carry them.” “I don’t need twenty.” She got her ten. And even though they don’t collapse as the big lanterns do, she got them all stuffed into her zebra bag, which seems to have some sort of a de-

atomizer in it that breaks down large souvenirs into protons and neutrons and allows Mary to make them disappear. I am looking forward to the new Chinese lantern Christmas tree next year. Following lunch it was time to depart for Hué, the ancient capital, where we will spend the night. Since Hội An is south of Da Nang and Hué, to the north, we have to return through Da Nang. Thu began a discourse the minute our mini-bus departed Hội An, a discourse that was a wonder of non-stop, train of consciousness rambling. It began with a four-minute discussion of the “Happy New Year,” the Chinese one, during which there was no hint that she ever took a breath. Actually before she inhaled again, she had covered not only the Chinese lunar New Year, but also the Việtnamese one in April, and our own Western New Year that we began this morning. “And that’s why…” kept surging out of her monologue, along with “In my country….” She completely filled the forty-five minutes that it takes to drive from Hội An to Da Nang, during which time, she completely eliminated all punctuation from her sentences. The periods removed, her descriptions ran each word seamlessly into the next, swooping through the “Happy New Year” to how “the Vietnamese cook they don’t cook on New Year’s because they visit their parents and grandparents which takes them south through the country it is very expensive to drive because gasoline is more than $4 a gallon and bus and rail tickets to Ho Chi Minh City that is really the new name imposed by the Communist government on Saigon although the people there always call it “Saigon” but Hanoi is the capital where there is getting to be a lot of development also in Da Nang with factories and foreign investments and the farmers are leaving their farms for Da Nang city to work in the factories the cost of living is too high in Da Nang and it is cheaper to get a motor scooter but there are fewer there than in Hà Nội. (Deep breath) “And that is why…” there is a problem with traffic, so we are taking the short way to the airport because it would take an hour and a half to get there using the motorway the farmers usually live in the villages and their farms may be five miles from their homes but more and more people can afford to buy motorbikes to get to their farms.” Thu has a very difficult accent to pick up, but she talked so long and so fast, we all started to understand her, the words at least, if not the concepts. Donna finally threw up her hand and wedged a question into the raging torrent of words.

“How do people here treat the children of the Americans soldiers?” There were three U.S. bases in Da Nang—China Beach, Saltwater Airbase and Red Beach Airbase. There were certainly lots of kids produced during the war. Thu agreed that there were many American children growing up after the war. She said they were distinctive, because of their blond hair and blue eyes, but there were also many black children. She told us that they were very well treated, and received medical care and schooling from the government. Other reports we heard were not so optimistic, stating that such half-breed children were really ostracized by the general society. Finally in 1986, the U.S. Government agreed to recognize the children, offering them free airfare and a visa to come to the U.S. Thu’s reports ended when we reached Non Nuoc Village, in the shadow of Marble Mountain. It was rock from these quarries (there are three) that was used to construct Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum in Hanoi. Virtually every house in the village is involved in the marble carving and shaping. Shop after shop line the street we drove along. Thu stopped at a large shop that was filled with the most wonderful marble lions, unicorns, goddesses, etc., large ones that are beyond the tourist trade. Thu gave us ten minutes to look around, and every one of us silently laughed. No way. There are treasures here! Jim quickly latched on to three Buddha heads. He really only wanted one, but the sales girl introduced him to the triumvirate of “longevity, prosperity and happiness” and there was a distinctly different Buddha head for each of the three. So Jim’s purchase was about forty pounds of Buddha head, which I fear will be the subject of considerable bitching throughout the trip. I found a darling little four-foot Chinese fisherman, who I can envision fishing in the coi pond we don’t have in our yard. $800, including shipping? That’s only about $2 a pound. Done! I like the idea of waiting a couple of months for a surprise that recalls your whole vacation all over again. My purchase completed, I went in search of some marble coi to put in my non-pond, so that my stone fisherman can fish in hopes of a good rock catch. Patrick even went shopping here, finding some jade or stone spectacles, or something like that. Nancy bought some marble boxes, and Mary got them to throw a marble Madonna in for free with my fisherman. Donna bought a

wedding ring. Annie and Deb found little things for their houses. I believe that Mary now has the beginning of a marble Christmas tree forming in her head, along with the Madonna for her collection of Our Ladies. Thu broke out once more, as we regained the highway, fully intent on filling us in on every single element of Việtnamese culture and society. It seems that when a person’s parent or grandparent dies, they are expected to mourn for three years. During that time, you may not marry, although for women, that has been reduced to a single year. They wear white as a sign of mourning. Pity the poor maiden whose parents and grandparents away on a yearly schedule. She will be fifty by the time she is officially out of mourning. Supermarkets have made their way into Việtnam, although the people still prefer the old traditional, open markets each morning. “They like lively chickens and lively pigs.” There are three large mountains between the two cities, with two roads out of Hội An—a modern one that tunnels through the highest peak, and the old road that winds up the mountain with spectacular views of the sea. Jim wanted to take the mountain road, and promptly fell asleep just as we began the ascent of Hi Van Mountain, the “Cloudy Ocean Mountain.” I had no choice but to wake him up, because he would have been devastated if he had slept his way right over the , which is written up in all of the guidebooks. We drove past part of the Red Beach U.S. Army base, its beige buildings still very much in evidence, and began the ascent, with Da Nang Bay to our right. The village of Nam O, lies at the base of the mountain, a place famous for their fish sauce, called nuoc mam. A full view of what the Việtnamese call, “the Eastern Sea” and the Chinese name the “South China Sea” is normally available from the near the top of Cloudy Ocean Mountain, but the place today was true to its name and we had to take Thu’s word for it that there was a sea by anyone’s name somewhere down there in the soup. At the bottom of the descent is the village of Lang Co., a fishing village famous for fish and pepper, the black pepper we find on our tables. Here the tunnel emerges from the mountain, a modern achievement that eliminates as much as a hour from the traveler’s drive. We made a “Happy Stop” at the Lan Co Beach Resort. Nearby, at Nam Dong, is the road to Laos, only fifty miles away to the west. Here in the spine of the rugged Truong Son Mountains that mark the

border of Việtnam and Laos, is the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail, the bane of the U.S. forces during the war. Thu said that nowadays, many Việtnamese travel across the border, because the visa restrictions have just recently been eliminated between the three countries of old French Indochina. We reached the ancient capital of Huè in late afternoon. Today it is a city of about 60,000 on the Perfume River, centered around the ancient Citadel. We ed the Cho Ancuu Market on our way to our hotel, the Imperial Hotel. It would be the best of a string of very fine hotels throughout our trip, a deluxe 5star place with lavish rooms and outstanding service. “You are very handsome,” this absolutely gorgeous clerk said to me in the elevator. Fortunately I was able to deflect her eye toward Joshua, whom she said was also very handsome. Josh didn’t blush as much as I did, but then again, he probably wasn’t even listening. He’ll grow into it. Marty was trying hard to attract her attention, but the ride wasn’t long enough for three handsome men.

Dinner tonight was another memorable meal and picturesque restaurant, the Vuòn ý Thảu, where we dined in an outside gazebo area on a rainy night. The restaurant was on one of the narrow streets of the old city, and they sent their van to pick us up, because our Minibus was too big to fit through the city gates. The presentation of each dish was photo spectacular: Chopped pork on Phoenix Shape Springs rolls on Peacocks Vegetable soup (wonderful!) Steamed shrimp (huge) Mixed salad fig Fried fish with tomato spice Lotus rice (not very popular with our group!) Green bean cake

This was a very different meal. It was highlighted by Jim, who announced at the end after consuming everything but his napkin, “If I eat too much, I can’t sleep at night.”

JANUARY 2 HUÈ – SAIGON

The Imperial Hotel is not only the best place we will stay on this trip; it has the best breakfasts as well. That is a difficult thing to say because all of the breakfast buffets have been impressive. But the whole feeling in the Imperial is one of elegance and service. All of the waiters and hostesses greet you with a smile and constant attention. I think we discovered the noodle soup here, and it would become a breakfast staple for me the rest of the trip. Always near the chef who prepares eggs and omelets, there is a station that cooks noodles, dumps a bunch of greens and herbs into the bowl and fills it with boiling broth. Wonderful! Not as good as the wonton soup at Kangle Gardens in Hainan, but a very close second. We begin the day, which is gray and drizzly, with a boat ride on the Perfume River that runs through Huè. We boarded one of the Double Dream Tour Boats, Du Lich Duong Song, and headed out into the gray waters. Hue’s biggest market, the Dong Ba Market, is on the river, and a considerable number of boats are tied up along the shore, permanent homes for the fishermen of the area. Most of them are curious collections of things, with chicken coops, a pig here or there, clothes hanging on lines or draped over the roof, even an occasional TV antenna, and almost always a spirit house on the roof or deck. We ed under the bridge we had seen last night from the hotel. Then it was brightly lit with strings of lights that constantly changed colors, something Thu said, that they do for holidays such as our Western New Year. In mid-stream, we were stopped by river police, who checked our boat’s license and our driver’s papers. We left the boat at the Thiem Mu Pagoda, the “Heavenly Lady,” built in 1601. An impressive bell dates from 1710. The seven-story pagoda was built for the royal family, who used it until they went into exile in Paris in 1946. A sign in the Imperial Court reads: “No smoking, wearing hats, beating drum, beating wooden lish, lying, sitting and running around.”

Today this is still an active pagoda and school. Twenty monks and thirty novices live in dorms on the grounds. A boy must be at least ten to become a novice. We could see their living quarters through barred windows. In one area there is an old Austin motorcar, owned by the monk Thieh Quang Duc. On June 11, 1963, the monk drove this car into Saigon, got out, and set himself on fire, in protest to the policies of the government of Ngo dinh Diem that discriminated against Buddhists. We would later see the pictures of the immolation in a museum in Saigon. The last Nguyen king died in 1997 in Paris. Descendants still live there, although one daughter married an American and now lives in the U.S. Our bus picked us up at the pagoda, and we drove into the old city and the Citadel, a massive fortification built in 1805 by the Nguyen Emperor Gia Long (1802-20). The exterior moats and walls are based on the work of the French military architect Vaubin, while the interior buildings are of Chinese design. The massive exterior wall is 9,900 meters long, with five gates, including two elephant gates that itted people into the inner courtyards and the Forbidden Purple City of the emperors. The drizzle had turned to a steady rain by the time we reached the Citadel and ed through the exterior walls. Nine holy cannons, cast by Gia Long in 1803, symbolically guard the fort, representing the four seasons and the five elements of earth, metal, wood, water, & fire. Nearby is the massive Black Tower. The interior walls ran for 3,300 meters around the Forbidden City. This was almost totally destroyed in the firefight that occurred during the Tet Offensive in 1968. The Forbidden City was leveled at the same time, but many of its 60+ buildings have been restored to former glory, including the royal library, the royal theater, and the Queen Mother’s residence. We entered through the first, or Outer Office, used by the emperor as a place to greet foreign emissaries and guests. The Inner Office, reserved for state occasions, was totally destroyed in 1968. Some of the columns have been replaced, but not much remains of the old buildings. Two Mandarin Houses, one for civil officers and one for military, flank the Inner Office. Four gates pierced the Inner Wall, two for the mandarins and Main Gate for the emperor. The Right Gate was for the Royal Men; the Left for the Women. The Back Gate was for the eunuchs. “Eunuchs, they look like a man,” Thu told us, “but they couldn’t do anything.” The Forbidden Purple City lies inside the interior walls. During the Tet Offensive in 1968, the Việtcong seized the Citadel and held it for twenty-four

days. American bombs almost completely destroyed the place. We entered through the Interior Walls to an area of open fields, where once the palace had stood. Here and there, archaeologists are working to try to restore some of the buildings. We walked through the restored Royal Theater, which is quite exquisite, and then to the Queen Mother’s Residence, finishing with the Hung Mieu Temple, built to venerate the parents of Emperor Gia Long. Lastly we walked through the Hien Lam Pavilion, built by Gia Long’s successor, Minh Mang. By the time we exited the pavilion, we were pretty well wiped out, both by the rain, and by Thu’s rather long explanations of all of the buildings. We are a very good audience, and the more we listened, the more she talked. Finally, I told her that we were about worn out and badly needed to find some food.

We made the long walk back to the outer walls and our bus, and soon were lodged in the Royal Restaurant, An Dinh Viên. Once again, we were surprised with a fine variety of dishes: Royal spring rolls and Phoenix pate. (Another Phoenix food sculpture). Spring soup, the house specialty. Fried fish with lemon grass King prawns with garlic Breaded fish with 5 ingredients Stir fried veggies An Dinh Viên rice.

All of the Nguyen Emperors are buried in elaborate tombs around Huè. We

decided that with limited time, we could only visit one, so Thu selected that of Khai Dinh (1916-25), the second to last of the Nguyen Emperors. The tomb rests in the highest of three terraces, that climb a steep hill, the buildings constructed out of concrete in European and Việtnamese styles. The emperor’s sarcophagus is surrounded by extraordinary mosaic walls, fashioned from bits of broken glass and china. His statue is in a side chamber, life-size, marking him as a man of very short stature. We all remarked about his belt, which was displayed in a side case. It would probably not have fit around my calf. On the second level there are lines of stone statues of mandarins and soldiers on both sides. Of interest is that only the mandarins wore shoes. The lower classes were not allowed such luxuries. Thu explained that most of the emperors used the tomb as their office during their life, the tomb being more important than their earthly abode. But Khai Dinh died before he could get his “office” built. Khai Dinh died in 1925. His son, Bau Dai, the last Nguyen Emperor, finished the tomb in 1931. By now we were all pretty much water-logged. Josh was shivering with wet feet, and looking rather forlorn. Nancy went under the bus to find him some dry socks. Thu produced a bottle of ointment and told Nancy to rub his feet to make them warm. It was like giving a jolt to the Energizer Bunny. Josh, his feet now glowing, immediately perked up. And so did Jim, who asked Thu if she could get him some of that stuff for his knees. She promised she would find a pharmacy, which she did once we had returned to Hue. “Mary, we are having an oil party tonight,” Jim announced as he returned with a couple of tubes of Việtnamese Ben Gay. Thu made a stop at the Century Hotel in town, so that the girls could use the loos, and we could maybe do a bit of shopping. Then we headed for Phu Bai Airport in Hue, to catch our flight to Ho Chi Minh City, the place we all know as Saigon. We bid farewell to Thu, who was very sad to see us leaving. I have to it that she has grown on all of us. At first very difficult to understand, because of her strong accent and different cadence, we adjusted after a day or so. Thu proved to be very well informed and equally anxious to tell us about “her country.” I have often complained about guides who gave us practically no information. I have to stop myself when one tries to give us too much. Off to Saigon. It was only an hour plane ride to Ho Chi Minh City, the name bestowed on Saigon by the North Việtnamese Communists after the country was unified. I

think it is still called Saigon by most of the people; it is so much easier to say. We have a new guide here in the South, a young man by the name of Toan. Our driver is Mr. Dung. Toan is a very glib, very fast-talking young man, slight in build, with a conman’s approach to things. I think that the kids liked him immediately, especially after the rather pedantic Thu in the middle of the country. “Legally there are 8.6 million people in Saigon. But nobody knows how many people are really here…. I stay in Saigon thirteen years already; with permission, three years.” “The official name is Ho Chi Minh City. We call it Saigon.”

Toan regaled us with a steady stream of off-the-cuff comments, sandwiching in a fact or two about his city almost by accident. This was to be no standard tour. It seems he was a math major at the university, but has found employment in his field hard to get. Being extremely verbal, he holds a pretty steady job in the tour guide business, which is one of the better ways to make a living in this country, even though it is limited to about half a year of work. Saigon is a completely different world from Hà Nội. There are more cars, more people, much more traffic. Toan said that it had taken him and Dung more than two hours to get to the airport to pick us up. “Normally it is about a 45-minute drive to your hotel. Sometimes it takes much longer.” They definitely have a rush-hour traffic situation here that at times approaches complete gridlock. The city is divided into twenty-four districts. There are major markets in districts 1 and 5. Toan told us that modern supermarkets are popping up all over the city, but the people still like the street markets, where they can buy fresh meat and vegetables every day. The architecture is also different from Hà Nội, missing the tall, skinny, gabled buildings that are so characteristic in the north. The U.S. has much more influence here in frantic, bustling Saigon. It was after 9:00 by the time we arrived at the New World Hotel, a 5-star property in the middle of the city, in a very busy part of town. We had munched

on trail mix and snacks since lunch, and had a sandwich on the plane, so we dispensed with dinner tonight. I have to it that the thought of going out for another formal meal was not an appetizing one. All of us were in a mood to crash, so we said good night to Toan and fled to our rooms. Tomorrow we will explore Saigon.

JANUARY 3 HO CHI MINH CITY - MEKONG DELTA

“There are two Saigons,” Toan told us. “Saigon #1—6:30 A.M. to 11P.M.—rich. Saigon #2—11P.M.—6:30 A.M.—poor.” The “haves” rule the daylight hours; the “have-nots” roam at night. He told us that life for the poor is not so visible during the day, that it is a struggle just to get enough to eat. “Tapioca used to be the poor man’s food. Now it costs more than steamed rice. The rich people, they eat for fun.” Both Saigons are clogged with motorbikes and mopeds. I actually think that at any given moment in Việtnam, 90 percent of the population is riding a motorbike somewhere. I don’t think they ever actually stop to eat or do work; they just fill the cities with their traffic. It is indeed a people on the move. We left this morning at 8:00, bound for the Mekong Delta. The rush hour is on, and we inched our way out of city center. The highway is edged with vendors, selling sunglasses, helmets, and of course, loaves of French bread. Along the road we saw more police, pulling cars over for inspection, and presumably for fines. Dressed in a light brown uniform, Toan called them “the Yellow Cows,” saying that it is a street term, much as our “Pigs” from the ’60s. There is much more evidence here of the expanding economy, urged forward by the press of foreign investment. A suburb is building around Saigon. We ed My Tho City, once an American army base. “Now it is a snake farm,” Toan laughed. Josh’s and Elliott’s heads snapped up. We made a stop at the Mekong Rest Stop, another large souvenir trap with clean toilets. But the quality of the crafts is not so great here in the south, more the factory-issued stuff, overpriced and crassly modern. The good shopping was in Hội An and Hà Nội. In mid-morning, we reached the Song Tien Tourist Boat Rides, in the Upper Mekong River. There are four islands in the area—Unicorn, Phoenix, Dragon and Turtle. Our cruise will take us to Unicorn Island to view some of the crafts and trades of the local people. For that we have a local guide, named Giang, a very pretty young woman with a brilliant smile, framed in one

of the traditional conical hats, the non. Before this tour was finished, largely thanks to Deb, all of the women in the group plus Josh would be wearing nons of their very own. Our boat took us directly to Unicorn Island, where we walked straight in to a coconut candy factory. The candy is made by hand, really a sort of taffy. Of course we were offered samples. The peanut candy was well received. They also make candy from durian, that legendary spike fruit that smells like awful tennis shoes in a septic tank. The stuff is forbidden in all hotels, airplanes, etc., and we saw a sign advertising a heavy fine for anyone who brought durian into our hotel. Mixed with the coconut candy, it tasted like it smells. “It still smells like shit,” Patrick muttered, his face taking on a dreadful durianeating pallor. Marty was happy with candy mixed with bananas. We watched the young girls wrapping the candy by hand, achieving an astounding 4,000 wraps a day. From the factory, we followed a boardwalk through the jungle area, stopping at a tent where tables were laid out with dishes of local fruits. We sampled pineapples, sapodilla, monkey bananas, mangos and pomellos, all fresh off of the trees. A group of five young girls, plus one very young lass, performed local songs by way of entertainment. The boardwalk continued along a canal ditch, with homes on both sides. Giang pointed out the various types of trees, including longon fruit, dragon fruit, pomello, jackfruit, durian, bananas, pomegranate. Most of us stopped at a place to sample some of the palm wine. Nearby, in a large cage, a python lazed around, more or less asleep. The boys had walked on ahead with Toen, and Giang went off to find them. On their return, Patrick was all set to pull that huge snake out of the cage for them. But the woman in the camp beat him to it, opening the grate and grabbing the monster out to a nearby table. From there, Patrick, Josh and Elliott took over, posing with the huge creature resting over their arms. It developed into just about an entire family portrait, as Nancy, Annie and even Kasey’s fingers came to hold and touch the creature. I think that Patrick liked the snake best of all; it was his animal adventure for this trip, his “crazy impulse.” We boarded canoes not far from the python’s digs, clambering down to the canal

where we boarded the slender crafts, four to a canoe. For us aging wide-bodies, it was no easy task getting aboard, and I fear it will be worse getting off at the other end. With a pole in back and an oar in front, we navigated the canals of this farming village, ing many boats who had dropped their engers and were heading back for more. They maneuver in the narrow canal with very little room to each other. It seems that Toan, who was manning an oar in our boat, knew every single boatman and woman heading in the other direction. There was a constant stream of good-natured kidding directed at him, most of which he told us, was kidding, warning him that there were snakes under his boat, in the water. The canoes finally dropped us off back at our tour boat, which in turn motored us back to the shore. In the open river the fishing vessels that were anchored on the river, all sport much more intimidating eyes than those smaller craft on the Perfume River. Here the eyes are spread wider apart, according to Toan because they went into the open waters and need much wider vision to discover the dangers their boat might have to face. Our lunch today is at the Búch Tùng Viện Restaurant in Xóm Dấu (pronounced “Some Zaw”!). The meal featured another couple of spectacular dishes, including a barbecued fish, served “standing” as though it were swimming. It looked like some sort of piranha, but Toan assured us that they didn’t have any of those dread critters in Việtnam. The highlight though were perfectly round balls almost the size of soccer balls, made out of sticky rice, called Xoi chien Phong. The waitresses cut them up with scissors, stacking the pieces up on a plate, which was ed around like potato chips. Of course there were giant prawns too! “Nancy, me a hunk of that sticky rice,” Jim requested halfway through the meal. Nancy grabbed a chunk with her chopsticks and they attempted a double air chopstick transfer. “Oh, bad dismount! That’s a two-point deduction. 5.8!” “Their costumes were beautiful though,” Annie exclaimed in perfectly nauseating Olympic judge voice. It is now mid-afternoon, and time to start thinking of attacking the Saigon traffic.

Really it is the traffic that attacks you, as mopeds materialize out of all of the side streets, pouring into the main stream flowing toward the city. At times it seems like the river will overflow with two-wheeled traffic as they ooze ever more toward the margins of the road. But they all seem to get through. We saw one wreck the other night, but by and large, the vehicles are remarkably accident-free. Back at the hotel, the kids went for a swim and I went for a walk outside the hotel. In front of the L.G. Digital Center, I sat down on a low wall and simply watched the traffic.

A Roundabout in Ho Chi Minh City

A kaleidoscopic swirl of noise and color Mopedic Saigon dance. Blasts and blares, bleeps and beeps, Unheard by anyone but the outsider. Rivulets, no, streams of humanity heading home, Motorbikes, cars, bicycles, buses, pedicabs, walkers. Tributaries flowing into the mother river Bending and breaking, splitting, careening Always forward—a breathtaking ballet:

Woman walks a bike loaded with pomelos. Bike enger carries a five-foot mirror.

Young girl strolls across the rotary. Man pulls a wheeled propane tank. Dog drives by, helped by his master. Aussie lasses look for a Viet crossing guide Black mini-skirt, spike heels, parts the waters.

56 seconds to green; start at 50. One bike breaks loose, two, a dozen. Green—the gate opens, surge ahead. Red—hurry! Beat the tide; hamper the flow. Happy man with stainless steel rickshaw stops to talk, trolling for business. A counter flow opens on the sidewalk. 5:00! Gridlock. Call Rotorooter!

Dinner tonight is on the Tau Saigon, a cruise boat on the Saigon River. We drove through the center of the city, a place that is positively ablaze with lights along Le Loi Blvd. The Tau Saigon fits right into the scene, a three-story riverboat, one of several at the pier that seem to be spitting out lights. Dinner is served before the boat takes off on a river tour. The meal was actually very good, a little more Americanized than those we have had so far. Unfortunately, Annie was not feeling great, in the beginnings of one of her headaches, so we departed before the boat embarked on its cruise. It was actually

a good decision, because everyone was pretty weary by this time, and a good night’s sleep was in order for all of us.

JANUARY 4 HO CHI MINH CITY/SAIGON

On our itinerary, Toan had us down for a half-day tour. He is an enjoyable young man to listen to, but he is awful as a tour guide. Yesterday, he dispensed almost no information on the way out to the Mekong Delta, and at the boat ride, we had a local guide to show us around. He slept all the way back into the city. And he tried his best to get us to leave the boat dinner early, which we did, but only because of Annie’s headache. Today he proposed to take us around for two hours and drop us back at the hotel—end of tour. Jim and I both yelped in protest, and before long, the half-day tour had been doubled in length. Jim had a long list of things he wanted to see in Saigon and Toan wasn’t about to get away with not showing them to us. We briefly discussed driving out to the Cu Chi Tunnels, an incredible complex of subterranean ages that the Vietcong dug out during the war. The tunnels were begun by the Vietminh during their war with the French, and then expanded tremendously by the Vietcong, to an astonishing 200 kilometers that could house as many as 16,000 soldiers. A small section of the Cu Chi Tunnels has been expanded to fit the large bodies of visiting tourists, and another section at Ben Duoc has actually been dug after the war strictly for tourists. But Cu Chi is about seventy kilometers from Saigon, and we figured it would take a couple of hours at least each way, and we didn’t feel like spending most of our last day on a bus. So we told Toan that we wanted to stay in the city and see as much as possible. That began with Notre Dame Cathedral, the largest cathedral in Viêtnam. In fact, it is the largest church ever built in the French Empire. Finished in 1883, it is constructed of granite, faced with tiles brought in from Marseilles. Inside, it is very plain, not at all what you expect when you see the façade. Originally, the windows were stained glass from Chartres, but they were destroyed in WW II. Outside there is a statue of Mary, installed in 1959, and labeled Mary Queen of Peace. She wasn’t very effective! Across the street from Notre Dame is the General Post Office, one of the nicest

such offices I have ever seen. The building was designed by Gustav Eiffel and finished in 1891. Inside you would think from the vaulted ceilings, intricate tile floors and attractive colors, that you were in one of the classic train stations of the period. In the entrance are two old maps of Southeast Asia and Saigon. A large picture of Ho graces the wall at the far end. There are two wings of souvenir shops and another postal souvenir shop in the middle. They even have writing tables for guests to write out their post cards in comfort. Of course everyone went shopping. I think we even bought stamps. On the writing tables they have little pots of glue because the Việtnamese stamps don’t come with glue. Mary and Donna found some more decorations and must have gotten a bunch of them because Mary was heard to proclaim, “I don’t need any more New Year’s stuff!” Chinese New Year’s, I think. But then I heard her whisper, “Until I get home.” From the Post Office we drove to the War Remnants Museum, which d on a large sign, “Historic Truths.” Not too long ago, it was called the War Crimes Museum, but recent rapprochement with the U.S. prompted a more subtle title. Before that it was known as the Museum of Aggressive War. There also used to be a section known as the Chinese Atrocities Wing, but diplomacy also removed that. In any case, the museum is very difficult for Americans to walk through. It features a couple of gift shops selling war surplus, including dog tags, Zippo lighters, and military weapons, real and fake. Most everything is probably fake. There is a case with fetuses damaged by Agent Orange and other defoliants, and a wall of very graphic pictures of war casualties. Perhaps as distasteful as anything is a section singing the praises of Jane Fonda during her wartime visits that recently have been branded as outright treason in the U.S. There is a reproduction of the awful French prison of Condao, with its infamous “Tiger Cages,” a duplication of the Hanoi Hilton we had seen earlier, including of course a “head chopper.” Outside is a large collection of U.S. tanks, planes, flamethrowers, helicopters and other weapons. I enjoyed watching Josh wandering through that area with Marty, discussing each piece of equipment, but I had a lump in my throat watching Kasey stroll through the rest of the displays trying to understand how humanity, especially our humanity, can be so awful. I don’t know at what age kids need to start to understand these things, but war is purely awful, and it may never be too early to teach that lesson to our children. We in the U.S. have never had to experience the terrible realities of war as the

Việtnamese have done for most of the last fifty years of the 20th century. “What do you think of the museum? Toan asked us when we were all back together. “Is it right or wrong information?” “It says that war is awful,” Donna answered. Jim had wanted to see the French Quarter, so we drove around the city center a bit. Here and there are the unmistakable yellow blocks of the old French buildings, now mostly converted to governmental offices. The Opera House is a wonderful and monumental piece of architecture, worthy in every way to grace the center of any European city. Three big hotels date back to the French Empire: the Continental, Caravelle and the Rex, all used as plush news rooms by our journalists and Congressmen during the Việtnam War. We ed the Ben Thanh Market, Saigon’s largest, a huge sprawl of vendors and shops, similar to that we walked through in Hoi An. Lunch was in the Zebra Restaurant. Since the lunch was not part of our tour package, Toan was worried that we would object to an expensive restaurant, so he found this local one for us. It had very good food, possibly excepting the taro soup. The kids all ordered pasta that came out as genuine spaghetti Bolognese. Kasey has never outgrown her love of pasta with butter and cheese. Eileen picked up the tab, which she shouldn’t have done, but I was happy to see that it wasn’t too much, a little more than $50 for fourteen people! At that rate we could eat several meals a day. Lunch concluded, we drove over to the Reunification Hall, the old governmental center. In French days it was known as Norodom Palace, the headquarters of the French governor general. It became the Presidential Palace under South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinah Diem. During that time it was almost destroyed by assassination attempts on the President. Later President Van Tieu fled from the place by helicopter in front of the attacking Việtcong troops. One of the country’s most famous pictures is of a North Việtnamese tank crashing through the gates in 1975, when the south was defeated and the country unified once again. Outside, the building bears no resemblance to the lavish front the French built in the 19th century. Today it is a stark Soviet-style façade, although the interior remains quite lavish. Toan led us through three floors of offices and reception rooms, and then down

four flights to the military operation rooms. They call to mind the War Rooms of Churchill in London. A replica of the President’s escape helicopter and his Mercedes are found in the basement and out in the back gardens. Near the helicopters are painted circles showing where the bombs hit during the attack on Diem.

The Soviet T54 tank that crashed through the gates in 1975 occupies a place of honor in the front of the building, with memorials to Bai Quango Than and his three subordinates who manned the machine. Toen got us back to the hotel around 4:00, in time for just about all of us to go for a swim and a order a G&T. This will be an impossible night for the kids. Nancy, Marty, Anne, Deb, Patrick, Josh and Kasey all have a plane to catch at 3:20 A.M., bound for Beijing and then on to San Francisco. They might get to grab a couple of hours sleep before midnight, when they have to leave for the airport. Meanwhile we have one more dinner, this one on our own. Jim has his heart set on a fine French dinner. He went down to the concierge to try and find a good recommendation. A man at the desk suggested Le Camargue down in District 1, and the concierge made reservations for fourteen, no easy matter at any time. Three cabs got us to a beautiful restaurant. It was the perfect end to a perfectly neat trip. I can’t say how completely shocked I am by the Việtnam that we have discovered. I had a mental image of a rather downtrodden, third-world, war-torn place of drudgery and despair, or people angry at American tourists—a Communist country such as I have seen years ago in Russia, East Berlin and other eastern countries. What we have found is a country with remarkable energy and optimism. It is clean, comfortable, friendly, beautiful, and almost strangely modern, especially in Hà Nội. They have not destroyed the past, have preserved the best of the French tradition in architecture and food; have adopted the material culture of America and the West. We heard Cuong voice these things in Hà Nội, and we listened to Toan’s glib and sarcastic take on his city, and strangely they are not in conflict. Việtnam is an exciting country to visit. I fear that within a decade, it may well look like a section of the U.S., or at least certainly a southern version of the new China. I can’t honestly say that at any

time during our visit did we feel uncomfortable or intimidated by anything. And in view of the awful scenes we witnessed in the War Remnants Museum, that is remarkable. I had wanted to get up at midnight and go with the kids to the airport, but my cold/flu has gotten the best of me. “We can take care of ourselves,” Marty confided to me, and I was truly grateful. I did wake up around 3:00 and couldn’t even visualize getting on a plane at that ungodly hour. But the kids made it, and with a stop at the China border, made it on to Beijing. I had called Walter during the afternoon and told him that they had five hours to kill between connections in Beijing. Since we had purchased visas for China that weren’t used because of our last minute change in itinerary, they could all get through Customs if Walter could meet them. Of course he could! He was there with a van, ready to show them the Olympic stadia—the Birdnest and the Aqua Center, and offer them a Chinese lunch. They could have stayed longer, because they returned to the airport only to find out that their flight to San Francisco was delayed another four hours. It would be late afternoon when they finally arrived in the U.S. What a day! At least forty hours just to get through January 5, backed up on twenty-four from the 4th. It is way too difficult to figure it all out, but I am glad it was the young who had to do it and not us advanced souls.

JANUARY 5 HOME FOR THE KIDS / CAMBODIA

At 11:30 I called Walter in Beijing. “This is great! They are all here in the van.” I can feel the excitement in that van—Walter excitement, unique in this world. Who else could you phone the day before to get a two-hour tour of the Olympic Stadium, a flight connection filler? I could fill a book with Walter-stories and most of them would be unbelievable. In fact, this book is a fine compendium of Walter stories. But for the kids, in the middle of their forty-one-hour day, his mini-tour is perfect, just the right thing to take the edge off of a very difficult day, that began at midnight in Ho Chi Minh City and a 3:30 flight to Beijing. They will leave China at 4:15 P.M. and get to San Francisco at 10:00 A.M.—all on the same day. It is just another iteration of the International Date Line.

CAMBODIA

For Jim, Donna, Mary and me, we have a 45-minute hop from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Siem Reap, Cambodia, with the whole morning free to relax and build up our energy. And here we are on Vietnam Air VN 823, barely off the ground when we have to land. It’s a new country for all of us, and a much touted visit to Angkor Wat, one of the real treasures of the ancient world, one of the Smithsonian’s “Twenty-eight Places You Have to See.” There is a different feeling when you land in Siem Reap, Cambodia, more a sense that you are in the tropics, than when we landed in Hà Nội. We arrived on a warm day, around 80º, to a small, attractive terminal, almost an A-frame type, surrounded by gardens. I can’t the last time I stopped and took a picture of an airport and plane. It was like getting off a plane in one of those small Caribbean islands. As welcoming as the place is, Donna almost wasn’t allowed in. You buy your Cambodian visas on arrival at the airport, ing through two lines, paying $20 cash and you are in. It is quite a system they have, with about ten clerks ing your documents down the line, sticking in a visa, stamping it and handing it to a smiling man who gives it back to you. We all moved efficiently through that line, until Donna arrived. It seems she has run out of blank pages and there was nowhere to paste her visa. “That’s impossible!” she protested. “I got my port the same time as Jim, and he has room.” Jim assumed one of his best “superior” poses, as Donna stammered and objected in vain to the smiling official. He was about to make a couple of bucks and he knew it. Finally he found a lightly used page, produced a form for Donna to sign, authorizing the Cambodian government to cover up another nation’s stamp on page ten. “I can help you, Madame,” he oozed. “I will need $10.” Donna was allowed into the country with her double-stickered page 10. For the rest of the trip she would worry about whether she would also be allowed to leave Cambodia, enter Hong Kong or get back into the U.S. Jim, pointing out his more efficient use of port pages was no reassurance in any way. Donna’s protests would carry on for some time.

Anyway, once itted officially, we grabbed our luggage and wandered out into the terminal, to find a smiling, handsome young man named Mom Vannak holding a sign that said, “Dold, John Ronald.” “It is simpler if you just call me Nak,” he told us. Our driver is Mr. Sa Korn. Nak held up a map of Cambodia, telling us it looks like a rabbit. The country is small and flat, divided into twenty-two provinces. Our five days will be spent in the province of Siem Reap, 314 kilometers from the capital city of Phnom Penh. Nearby is Tonle Sap Lake, the largest in Southeast Asia, and the reason for the tremendous temple and palace building around this part of the country. The population today is 14 million, of which 10 million are Cambodians and 2 million Vietnamese. The bulk of the ethnic Cambodian population are the Khmer people. The airport is only eight kilometers from the center of Siem Reap, which has a population of about a million, not counting the tourists who probably double that number in high season. Essentially the city is an enclave built for tourism, with 95 hotels and 110 guesthouses. From the airport to the city is a steady line of hotels on both sides of the road, many of them luxury resorts. We checked into one of the most lavish, the Angkor Palace Resort, a lovely, open-lobbied place that spreads out over beautiful gardens and a huge central swimming pool. I think it was totally unexpected, but certainly fits with that tropical feeling we got the minute we walked off the plane. Dinner tonight was at the Angkor Mondial Restaurant, a very large buffet layout. The evening featured a folklore show, of classic Cambodian dancers, who look every bit like the Thai dancers we saw in Bangkok. In fact, the preponderance of the culture in Cambodia, in dress, dance, cuisine, perhaps even language, is taken from their northern Thai neighbors. There is considerable history between the two countries, mostly in warfare. A few years ago we visited the ancient ruins of Ayutthiya in Thailand, which date back to the Khmer invasion of the country. I always wonder about these folk shows. We have seen them all over Asia, in Thailand, Guilin, Japan, on Hainan Island. I have seen them in most European and African countries as well. I wonder if any people ever actually danced one of those things? Every culture seems to have a hunting dance, a courtship routine, a washerwoman, fisherman, milking, shopping, flirting medley that are all ever so cute. Tonight we got a Fishing Village Dance, a monster and a horse

with two lovely Amazon hunter types, a Coconut Dance, and the longest, slowest beautiful-girl dance in world history. I think that four of the girl dancers aged and ed away before the thing was over. As a spectator, you can only marvel at bent back fingers and impossibly arched big toes for so long. But the Tiger Beer drafts were large and we managed to stay awake through the entire performance. Jim was particularly interested because the women of Cambodia, in spite of a far poorer economy, display a noticeable increase of body fat over the ladies in Việtnam. He has been in a state of personal despair since we arrived a couple of weeks ago, because of the national prohibition in Việtnam of body fat in any form, except of course in tourists. But things are looking up here in Cambodia and he feels more like he is fitting in. I have to it that it is a bit unnerving to be completely surrounded by thin people who are a foot shorter than you to boot. It’s not a thought you want to take to bed with you. Ria tray sua stay! Good night!

JANUARY 6 CAMBODIA – ANGKOR WAT

We were more than ready for Nak when he picked us up at 8:00 this morning. This is high season in Siem Reap, and he wants to get to Angkor Wat as early as possible, before the crowds, which he says usually come in the afternoon. Siem Reap is even more a tourist place in daylight than it appeared last night. The main street from our hotel into town is lined with restaurants, big hotels, massage parlors and gift shops. They use a different sort of taxi here, which Nak called a “motor trailer,” or a “tuk tuk,” a fairly substantial cylco, powered by a motorbike. With gasoline almost $5 a gallon, it is a reasonable way to get around. There are not as many cars here in Cambodia as we saw in Việtnam, and even in this tourist city, the country appears to be very poor. All along the road, the lean-to shops sell gasoline, with liter booze bottles, mostly Johnny Walker scotch, filled from a gravity pump. We ed a large area of memorials, a mass gravesite, a grim monument to the awful days of the mad Pol Pot regime. This psychopath led the Khmer Rouge from 1975-79, creating the state of Kampuchea, supposedly the pure state of the ancient Khmer. During that time, he “cleansed” his own nation, murdering millions, (estimates are from 300,000 to 3 million), virtually exterminating the professional, artistic and academic population, vowing to set up a completely agrarian state. This is the story of “The Killing Fields.” Pol Pot, whose real name was Saloth Sar, died in the mountains in 1998, just as the Việtnamese army invaded Cambodia to drive out the Khmer Rouge. As has happened so many times in history, the western nations did nothing to stop this man, and even went so far as to it Kampuchea to the Security Council of the United Nations. That fact alone should be enough to consign that inept organization to banishment. The West also condemned Việtnam for invading Cambodia, even though the Khmer Rouge had carried out a mass extermination of Việtnamese peoples living there. From 1980 to 1986, the British and U.S. provided $88 million to the Khmer Rouge. The Chinese actually invaded Việtnam in 1989 with 600,000 troops but were driven back. The Việtnamese army finally

withdrew in 1989 and the U.N. entered to “control” Cambodia in 1992. The following year King Sihanouk returned from China to head a new kingdom and the Khmer Rouge was finally outlawed in 1994. The country today has been reitted to the U.N., but still has very basic problems with rampant poverty evident even here in Siem Reap. As we drove the few kilometers to Angkor Wat, through tiny villages of stilt houses, we saw many signs announcing donations of U.S., European and Japanese foundations who had provided house wells and other basic improvements. Angkor Wat is about seven kilometers from the city. No building is allowed within four kilometers of the temple complex, and within the city, no building can be built higher than sixty-five meters, the height of the Angkor Wat central tower. We ed through the park that surrounds Angkor Wat, and parked in front of the west entrance. Facing west is almost unique among these Khmer temples, most of which face east to the rising sun. It is thought that Angkor Wat was oriented to the west because it is dedicated to Vishnu who is often depicted as a guardian of the west. Most of the other temples are built in honor of Shiva. I bought a straw hat from a local vendor, thinking that it would allow me to blend in well with the Cambodians, especially since I am also well blessed with body fat. I am now equipped to attack the temples!

From 790 AD to 1327, the –varmans ruled Cambodia. They built temples! It is amazing to me how the world is filled with people and things you never heard of, no matter how wide and diverse your education. Until I encountered this poor, Third World country, and saw the incredible relics they possess, I never heard of a king whose name ended in –varman. There were a bunch of them, but my guess is that even a Cambodian has to tie his tongue up a bit to get hold of them. The Khmer kings are a challenge of the highest order:

Jayavarman II Jayavarman III Indravarman I

790-835 835-877 877-886

Yasovarman I 889-915 Harshavarman I 915-923 Isanavarman II 923-928 Jayavarman IV 928-941 Harshavarman II 941-944 Rajendravarman 944-968 Jayavarman V 968-1000 Udayadityavarman I 1001-1002 Jayaviravarman 1002-1010 Suryavarman I 1002-1049 Udayadityavarman II 1050-1066 Harshavarman III 1066-1080 Jayavarman VI 1080-1107 Dharanindravarman I 1107-1112 Suryavarman II 1112-1150 Angkor Wat Yasovarman II 1150-1165 Tribhuvanadityavarman 1165-1177 Jayavarman VII 1181-1220 Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Indravarman II 1220-1243 Jayavarman VIII 1243-1295 Srindravarman 1295-1307 Srindrajayavarman 1307-1327 Jayavarman Paramesvara 1327-

Now those are some fine names. I think you should be able to use a bit of math on them, and reduce them by their common denominator. All of them are varmans, so I think we can assume that. Shortening them by that common suffix leaves a mess of Jayas, Harshas, Udayadityas, Dharanindras, Suryas, etc. I am not sure that any shortening can help with a name like Tribhuvanadityavarman. That is purely a magnificent name and should not be fooled with. The big names in this list are Suryavarman II, who started Angkor Wat, the most elaborate of the dozens of temples still surviving and the most famous; Jayavarman VII who built some fifteen temples in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand; and Jayavarman VIII, who took all of the Buddhas out of the temples that Jaya VII built, turning them into Hindu temples. It is bad enough trying to any of these dudes when you see them written out in a book or on a sign at the temples, but the guides just flip the names out as though we are supposed to be able to hear them. By the second syllable of any Khmer ruler, you have listened in vain, only to come back to hearing at the end of the paragraph when you hear “varman,” pronounced in Cambodian, “var-a-man.” As if there aren’t already enough “a”s on the paper. What you hear is “This temple was built by Dharan—@#$%!–var-a-man I.” No sense in trying to write it down. We have three full days of -varmans ahead of us, and after looking at the itinerary and then my guide book, I feel good about the fact that most of these temples we are going to see are the work of the two last Jayas. I can grab on to Jaya VII and Jaya VIII. Let’s start with Angkor Wat. It was built by Suryavarman II, in the first half of the 12th century, 1113-1150. I have heard a great deal about Angkor Wat, and read about it in travel journals and articles. Every list of ancient wonders lists it as a “must see,” and it even made the recent list of new “Seven Ancient Wonders of the World” that had been skipped in that old bunch we memorized as kids. But until you actually stand across the moat in this place, and assess the measurements of the temple, you simply can’t comprehend its magnificence. The temple is really an entire ancient city, 200 hectares (440 acres), set in a rectangle 1.5 kilometers X 1.3 kilometers. The outer edge of that rectangle is a massive moat, 190 meters across that is bridged by causeways on the west and east sides, ramparts constructed out of huge blocks of sandstone. The entire moat

is lined with similar fitted stones. There is a modern reconstruction project currently underway to rebuild all of these outer moat walls and causeways. The causeway leads to the walls of the outer enclosure of the temple, walls constructed out of laterite, a type of volcanic stone, heavily pitted but easily worked when first quarried. It hardens once it is set in a construction. Because of its rough surface, the laterite is covered with a veneer of carved sandstone in most of the temples of Angkor, visible only where the work has been damaged. The outer wall of Angkor Wat encloses almost 200 acres, including the inner walls and the three-tier “mountain” of five towers in the center. The temple is a pyramid of three rising galleries, each gallery marked by ceremonial gates or gopuras, in the cardinal directions, and each bounded by four corner towers. The summit of the third gallery contains the five towers, symbolizing Mount Meru, the Olympus of Hindu mythology. The moat represents the ocean that surrounds the earth, and the galleries, the mountain ranges leading up the Mount Meru. From the first view of the outer enclosure, Angkor Wat is an assault on your visual sense, a mind-numbing canvas of ancient carvings, all connected with the gods and demons of the Hindu pantheon. For us Westerners, several things stand out immediately—the processions of apsaras, beautiful women figures in all sorts of dramatic and seductive poses; the rising heads of naga, the snake demon that marks many of the temple entrances and lines the causeways. These heads rise up like a cobra, containing from three to nine very fearsome, heavily toothed heads. Some of these are in remarkable condition. The story of the tug-of-war between the gods and the demons (asuras) in the churning of the Sea of Milk, using naga as the rope, fills an entire on the walls of the second balcony. We would see this story repeated countless times in the other temples. Angkor Wat was dedicated to the god Vishnu, a statue of whom stands by the outer enclosure, and may have been inside the central hall of the temple mount. From the outer enclosure, a second causeway 350 meters long leads to the central temple. The balusters of the causeway are naga snakes. Along both sides are six gateways, marked by naga heads, leading to the woods, the entrances to the streets of the ancient city that were built on both sides of the temple complex. Since all of the houses, even the palaces, were constructed of wood, nothing remains of the living areas of the capital. Only the stone temples are extant. On both sides of the causeway are stately buildings, called “libraries,” each with four directional entrances. They probably served more as shrines than as

repositories of sacred texts. The three levels of the temple mount have different functions. The first level is for the ancient stories, depicted in almost 2,000 feet of bas relief figures, each more than six feet high. The second level is for praying, while the third level is the five-peaked temple mount. Nak took us first to look at the stories. Most of them are derived from two great India myths, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Essentially these are the stories of the Hindu pantheon with its bewildering array of gods, demons and avatars or incarnations of the main three: Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. Two of the s that don’t deal with this mythology are one that depicts The Judgment of Yama and Heaven and Hell, and a longer devoted to the royal procession of Suryavarman II, the builder of Angkor Wat. The s run completely around the first level. Nak started us off with the West Gallery, which is devoted to the Battle of Kurukshetra, the basic story of the Mahabharata, an epic battle between two clans in northern India, a battle that occupies more than 150 feet of wall space. The corner pavilions are also completely carved, depicting events in the life of Krishna, the fight of two monkey brothers, Valin and Sugriva, a twenty-armed Ravana shaking Mt. Kailasa, and many more stories that defy even the keenest memory. The Judgment of Yama is sixty-six meters of completely boring heaven (in thirtyseven levels of disinterest) and excruciatingly active hell. Dante had nine levels of hell, but his imagination couldn’t begin to compete with the thirty-two levels depicted on this wall, each level doling out punishments for specific crimes. In level three, demons pull out tongues with long pinchers. Folks are cooked in the 6th level; thrown into a boiling lake in the 9th, have their bones smashed on the 10th. In Krakaccheda, #11, gluttons are sawn in half. Sinners get pecked to death by vultures, roasted on a spit, and toward the end get nailed to a cross and get their whole bodies punctured by nails. I saw similar depictions of hell at Fengdu and Daxu in China, so I guess that the Indian religions are perhaps not so pacific after all. The East Gallery depicts the Churning of the Milky Sea. It is a theme that is carried out throughout the temples we would see over the next three days, the giant tug of war between demons and gods, using the five-headed naga, Vasuki, as a rope. The snake is wound around Mt. Mandara and the contest turns the mountain, churning up the sea around it, a battle to see whether the gods or the demons achieve immortality. I think that the gods actually win the contest, but then Vishnu gives some of the good stuff to the demons because he is feeling guilty about something. By this time, there have been so many gods and demons

piled up on the wall—from Ganesha, the elephant-man, Airavata, the threeheaded elephant, a multi-headed Ravana, the monkey god Hanuman, to Kurma, Vishnu’s avatar turtle—that it is impossible to figure out the good guys from the bad guys. In all, 92 demons take on 88 gods, and there is a lot of churning in the Milky Sea, tossing out critters by the second. All of those lovely apsara who grace the walls of these temples got thrown out into that churn. I think Mary and Donna came with that crowd, because I took their pictures lined up with a string of apsara, and except for the fact that they weren’t topless, you couldn’t tell them apart. The second level of the temple was reserved for prayer. At one time, this was a Buddhist temple and many statues still exist, although most of them are modern donations. The older remnants of statues are housed in the national museum. We walked around the Hall of 1,000 Buddhas. There are four large water basins on this level, pools really, where penitents were bathed to remove their sins. It is known as the Cruciform Cloister, and is on the west side, where the king entered the temple. There are four more libraries on this level, two for the nobility and two for the king. Nak also took us into what he called an “echo room,” where you could stand on one side, beat your chest, and be heard throughout the room. It is supposed to cure your ills, although I didn’t notice any diminution in the cold I have been nursing. Continuing through the cloister and up the stairs you are at the base of the third level, the five massive towers of the central temple. Steep stairs, reminiscent of the Maya temples at Tikal, rise to the top of the third level. There are twelve staircases, three to a side. We noticed that the central stairway on the west, the one used by the king, was far less steep than the others. Royalty has its privilege! We didn’t ascend those stairs, which are now off-limits to visitors, thank God! Once again, the senses are overwhelmed, as they have been since we first crossed that causeway to the outer enclosure. There is literally no space that has not been carved, with line after line of apsaras, corners inevitably covered with five- and seven-headed naga sculptures, s filled with inscriptions in Sanskrit and Khmer, the former mostly Hindu and Buddhist poems; the latter inventories of the gods and practical matters. It is almost impossible to grasp the scope and complexity of Angkor Wat. We have spent three hours wandering around the temple and only saw a fraction of it, and even if we visited a room or an area, we only saw a fraction of what it contained. The stone was all quarried in the Kulen Mountains, about twenty

miles away, and brought to the area by boats. I am not sure where the laterite came from, and a considerable amount of brick was used as well. There must have been an army of craftsmen permanently employed for the forty years of building, an army that would compare with the 700,000 Qin Shi Huang used to fashion his terracotta army. And there are more than fifty temples built around Siem Reap dating from as early as the 9th century to those of Jaya VIII in the 13th century. We have only used up one morning of our visit, but I think we have more than filled my brain capacity to absorb this wealth of detail. What I need is a couple of beers to clear my head. I saw a nice sign as we were leaving the causeway: “Let learn and understand about the mind and the skill of Angkor Period. Let’s work hard in safety, carefully, good teamwork, tidy and honesty.” Lunch was a short walk through the vendors to the Angkor Café, staffed by personnel from the Blue Pumpkin Café, which we would later see in town. The café, whatever the name, is surrounded by the craft production of Artisan Angkor, which we would also see several times during our stay. Of importance at this spot was the fact that they have a stone owl for sale. It would in fact be the only owl I would find in all of Cambodia, a sad state of affairs for Jim, our itinerant Bohemian. We also discovered fruit shakes at the Angkor Café, and in particular, a lemon shake that almost succeeded in replacing beer by the time we had spent a few days around here. Lunch finished and head cleared, we headed for the country and Banteay Shrei Temple, which sits about twenty kilometers north of Angkor, almost to the Kulen Mountains, where the stone was quarried for most of the temples. This is one of the oldest temples in Angkor, dating back to 967 AD. It was not built by one of the kings, but rather by Yajnavaraha, one of the counselors of King Rajendravarman. It is usually called “The Citadel of Women” and is regarded as one of the most beautiful. It is small compared with Angkor Wat. The temple is composed of three towers, tightly packed in the center of three concentric walls. A causeway leads to the 3rd, outer enclosure which has the ruins of galleries on both sides. Once inside the west gate, a second causeway takes you across the moat that encloses the inner temple. The second enclosure contains galleries completely surrounding the temple itself, which rests inside the third set of gates, raised slightly on a terrace. Matching “libraries” flank the three temple sanctuaries.

The carving at Banteay Shrei is spectacular, with very deep bas-relief. Almost the entire wall space of the temple area is carved, sculpted out of pink sandstone. The two outer walls are made of laterite; the inner one is constructed in brick. The temple was dedicated to Shiva, but all of the usual gods and heroes can be discovered if your energy level allows you to look close enough. There are all sorts of human bodies with Garuda heads, lion heads, yaksha heads, monkey heads. The two monkey brothers are fighting here too, as we saw at Angkor Wat. Shiva shares some walls with Bramha and Vishnu. I saw Ravana and Sita somewhere in there. The apsara here are even more defined than in Angkor Wat, though not as numerous.

The temple was not “discovered” until 1914, by the French, and the “restoration” was carried on between 1931 and 1936. One French minister of culture was discovered stealing apsaras, and several of the major sculpture groups were carted off to world museums. This is one of the smallest of the temples, and it would seem that if any were capable of being completely restored, and worthy of the effort, it would be Banteay Srei. Nak stopped at one of the roadside shops we had seen on our way out to Banteay Srei. The local women do some very nice weaving in plates, baskets, etc. Mary and Donna sprang into action, gobbling up ornaments for Christmas trees, plates for the daughters and sundry other treasures. Donna is a complete pushover for the little vendor girls. If they will only speak to her earnestly or cleverly, she falls in love with them and buys whatever they have. Presently her arm is swathed in bangles—wooden, woven, carved, plastic—all the way up to her elbow. Jim fears that someday, she may be completely gobbled up by the bangles from every country she has recently visited, and some she hasn’t. She would have died of a heart attack if she had seen the bangle market in Hyderabad, India, where Mary and I were in November. These vendors in Cambodia have wonderful sales pitches, saying they were saving money for school, that they needed to buy pencils to learn to write, that their mothers were sick and needed help. They could say “hello” in a dozen languages and count to ten in as many. One little girl, hearing that Donna had no more money, advised, “Go ask your husband.” A young boy had a novel approach, complaining to me that “she only buys things from girls. That isn’t fair.”

I was more interested in the little barbecue station a woman was working near the weaving stand. There were some skewers of chicken, spiced a bright red and quite frightening. But more interesting were some four-inch blocks of something being cooked, looking horribly like black squares of jello. I asked Nak what they were. “Those are cheam, chicken blood.” Jim was not interested in sampling one. Our last temple today is Ta Prohm, the “Jungle Temple,” today happily famous as the set for the Angelina Joli film, “The Tomb Raiders.” It is a huge complex, with four sets of walls, the outermost measuring one kilometer by 800 meters, built in 1186 by Jayavarman VII to honor his mother. One of the inscriptions says that 12,640 people lived inside Ta Prohm, while the 3,000+ villages around it were home to almost 80,000. The École Française d’Extrême Orient, at one time overseer of all of the ruins, decided to leave Ta Prohm in its “natural state,” i.e. the state in which all of Angkor was when discovered in the 19th century. The result is a photographer’s dream of a ruin, with buildings and galleries being gobbled up or strangled by the most impressive of trees and vines. The stars of Ta Prohm temple stranglers are the silk cotton trees (Ceiba pentandra) which almost envelop some of the structures with their massive roots. In some areas, the trees are growing on top of the ruins, their roots exposed down the walls and interiors as they grew, in search of soil and moisture. The second major trees are the strangling figs (ficus gibbosa), whose slender tendrils poke about everywhere. These trees become major s for the ancient buildings, but eventually, when they die, the buildings collapse. Much of Ta Prohm has indeed collapsed already. The scope of the place is much too large to get any sense of order. With hallways filled with rubble, walls completely collapsed, and others engulfed in ceiba branches, it is almost impossible to get oriented. We entered the temple area through the east gate, and Nak led us back and forth through the ruins until it all blurred into one large field of rocks and sculptures. Here and there were wonderful carved stones, resting happily out of context. Some of the tree-ruins are naturals as backdrops for tourist pictures, and of course we took our share of photos. One in particular pleased Jim immensely. He had gone berserk buying things from one of the young girls. I think she was pretty. But he ended up with a couple of extra scarves. Jim has a thing about

scarves, always on the lookout for them, happily bestowing them on all of the ladies of the family, and anyone else who has a neck around which to drape them. Now, finding all of the necks he was familiar with already in possession of Jimmy-scarves, he decided that men wear scarves as well—an old Cambodian custom. I was just sitting on a rock ruin, happy as can be, when a lime green and red piece of cloth got draped around my head, and Jim was standing there with a Cheshire cat grin on his face. The fact is, the damn thing didn’t match my current ensemble and I was more than a little flummoxed by the new drapery. After all, we were right out in public, in the middle of fifty tourists who were posing by the ruin-gobbling trees. But I bravely posed for Jim’s insipid picture and promptly converted my scarf into a pocket-stuffer. Jim is better at buying puppets. Donna and Mary were enthralled with the jewelry room, a large area filled with stone blocks that had been drilled with hundreds of holes, each, according to Nak, the repository for precious gems, the treasury of the king. It was exactly the type of place I have been trying to talk Marty into building for Kasey—a walk-in jewelry box.

I spotted Jim sitting quietly in a side area, surrounded by fallen blocks and half naked apsaras. “I was taking the energy of the moment, imbuing my body with…” He had devolved into his alter ego—Jaime Venado. “I am a sponge of experience.” Dinner tonight was on the “Pop Street,” a rather incredible disco boulevard of western bars and nightclubs, garishly lit and as loud as it is light. It is completely out of place in Cambodia, but perfectly understandable in Siem Reap, which was created for tourism. The range of places is interesting: The World Lounge, Trattorio Italiano, Khmer Fundy Restaurant, Easy Speaking, Viva Mexico Café, Temple Club, Khmer Place, the Banana Leaf, The Soup Dragon, Kamasutra Indian Restaurant, the Blue Pumpkin, the World Lounge and The Red Piano (which boasts “style, quality, comfort, hygiene”). Our restaurant was called “In Touch,” a modern, airy place with balconies overlooking the Pop Street. The Cambodian menu is quite different from the Việtnamese, always three courses: salad, entrée (often fish), dessert.

Mary was enjoying her dinner calmly when she suddenly exploded, “AAARGHH!!!!” We think she may have discovered a Thai pepper lurking in her salad. “It was like drinking hot coals,” she moaned after at least five minutes of burning, a couple of glasses of water, bread, even beer. Her discomfort takes a back seat only to Jim’s a couple of years ago, sampling Indian curries in Durban, South Africa.

JANUARY 7 CAMBODIA – 5 TEMPLES

Today, January 7, is a national holiday in Cambodia, the Freedom Holiday, when the nation was released from the terror of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The story is an awful one, and it is amazing that the people of Cambodia could recover from this unspeakable maniac, and his insane policies. There were about 7.5 million people in the country in 1975, when Pol Pot began his massacres of his own people, and estimates are that he murdered almost half of the population. Today the population is about 10.5 million, and as hard as it is to believe, the people have recovered. Nak told us that he doesn’t like the present government at all, but he doesn’t seem too upset by present politics in general. The country is very poor, about 80 percent agricultural with a literacy rate of a bare 38 percent. The national language is Khmer, a non-tonal language related to Sanskrit. Even though the religion was almost annihilated by Pol Pot, the national religion is Theravada Buddhism. Everyone we met was smiling. Amazing! Today we will visit five more temples! And we won’t even have scratched the surface. We begin this morning with three temples, about fifteen kilometers from Angkor, collectively known as the Roluos Group, named for the small town that was once Hariharalaya, the capital of the first Khmer king, Indravarman I (87789). There are three temples in the group: Preah Ko (880), Ba Kong (881) and Lolei (883). We begin with the last of that group, Lolei. It was built on an island, in one of the artificial lakes that surrounded Angkor. Today that island is a terrace, ing four towers, only two of which remain. The front two were dedicated to the king’s male ancestors; the rear two to the female. The temple is built out of the lava rock and brick. Today there is an active Buddhist monastery at Lolei, with about thirty-five monks. As we walked around we could see quite a bit of activity, including a young woman visiting the monks in prayer. She would be purified with water on the steps of the monastery platform. Our second temple is Preah Ko, the “Holy Bull Temple”, or as Nak called it, “the Holy Cow!” Originally the temple was moated with three enclosures. The outer

wall, constructed of laterite, enclosed a number of galleries and buildings, probably guest houses, which are all in ruins. In the inner enclosure, stand six towers, the front three honoring male ancestors, the rear three honoring the female. They all stand on a sandstone terrace, and are built mostly in brick. Each of the three stairways that lead to the towers are guarded by a pair of lions. There are three kneeling bulls in front of the towers, symbols of Nandi, Shiva’s sacred bull. Nak pointed out that in these early temples, the lathe-turned stone window columns, which are so distinctive at Angkor Wat, have only five columns, later expanded to seven. Each of the towers rise in five levels, symbol of the earth, topped by a lotus flower. Once again, Jim was discovered in a semi-comatose state on a wall near the three rear towers. “Right now, I’m absorbing chi.” In fact he did look like he was full of it. On the way back to the van, Donna spotted her puppets. I went with her and we “bargained” down to $20 for two, a lady puppet for her and a horse puppet for Kasey. I noticed Mary’s face fall a bit when we got back to the van, and resolved to find some more for her. In fact, we stopped at the same vendor on the way back to town. This time Jim went along and was offered an opening price of $17 for two. He felt so superior! So we bought three—one for Mary, another horse for Donna and an elephant puppet for Josh. Now everyone is happy!

Nak saved the most impressive of the Roluos Group for last, Ba Kong. It was the state temple of Indravarman I, and is most impressive, 900 meters x 700 meters. There are two moats and three enclosures. Between the two moats are the remains of twenty-two towers, and in each corner another pair of sixty-meter towers. The second moat separates the second enclosure from the inner temple pyramid-mountain, a massive block that contains another eight towers, and four corner buildings. There is a statue of a bull, almost totally ruined, at the entrance. The pyramid rises in five levels, reached by very steep staircases. At the corners of the lower three levels are magnificent elephant statues. The pyramid at the top resembles the highest tower at Angkor Wat. Ba Kong is a very important temple. I was taking pictures of the elephants when my lens cap fell into a crack on the

third level. Mary set about retrieving it, although I told her not to bother, that I could get another. She groped around in the crevice until she finally felt the cap, and I knew at that point that there was no way to stop her from getting it. Finally a couple of English tourists pointed out a piece of palm branch and Mary scraped away. Sure enough, the temple yielded up my cap and Mary was happy. She would have been there at midnight if she hadn’t secured it when she did. Near the back gate of the temple there was a string band of all blind players, sitting under a tree. We saw several such groups during our stay, as well as a number of signs advertising the work of the blind. Cambodia has had a century of warfare, capped by an ongoing ordeal of undiscovered land mines, thousands of which were placed by the Khmer Rouge. They have the highest per capital number of amputees in the world, and probably the highest handicapped number as well. As we have traveled here, although it is a very short visit, we have all become aware of what a worthy cause it is to assist these longsuffering people. We returned to Siem Reap for our lunch break, this time to another very stylish, modern restaurant called Viroth’s. Once again, the meal was a three-course affair, this time washed down with the most delicious lemon ice drinks and banana shakes. Who needs beer? The afternoon is devoted to Jayavarman VII, whom we have already seen at Ta Prohm. The man ruled from 1181-1220, and he must have spent the entire forty years building temples and palaces. There are at least sixteen attributed to him in my guide book. We all adopted good old Jaya VII, especially since we could shorten his name and it. The first stop was at a very small temple, Ta Som, certainly the simplest of those we have seen. There is the usual three walls, one inside the other, but in this case the outer wall, constructed of laterite, encloses the moat. The gates of that wall have four-sided Buddha faces. The inner temple pyramid has four towers surrounding a central one. After several temples, many of these ruins start running together in your mind. You can pretty much predict the motifs of the carvings. The face towers here give Ta Som a different identity. The real treasure for this afternoon is Preah Khan, the “Holy Sword,” another of Jaya VII’s masterpieces. This temple once was home to over 1,000 monks and was probably a Buddhist university. It covered well over 100 acres, with walls 800 X 700 meters. The outer fourth wall is circled by a large moat, which is spanned on both the east and the west by naga bridges. These bridges are

magnificent, with the huge snake tugged at on the left by the gods and on the right by the demons, asura. The Churning of the Milky Sea is anchored on the wall by huge Garudas holding the naga head. There are in fact, seventy-two of these huge Garuda sculptures all the way around the enclosing wall, with even larger ones at the four corners. Most of the statues on the bridge are without heads, most of them stolen during the ’80s and ’90s. On the east side bridge, the heads have been largely restored, and even some of the modern repros have been stolen as well. The seven-headed nagas are in very good condition. One of the things we noticed in these temples is the straight runs of corridors. The places are huge, and all of the bigger ones seem to be complexes of hallways, often running at 90º angles, each doorway lined up in perfect position. It is like looking at an endless hall of mirrors, except that there are no mirrors and the hall really is endless. I was first struck by this thought at one of the earlier temples but here at Preah Khan, it was obvious. The complexity of the inner temple is numbing, a maze of age-crumbed arcades, ageways, fallen rooms, ceiba-strangled walls, piles of lava blocks, and every so often, an open courtyard. I have noticed that all of the apsaras seem to be perfectly preserved, at least from the waist up. I have never seen such perfect boobs in any place, under any conditions. And they all seem to be worn smooth from reverent visitors, obviously looking for religious inspiration, rubbing them as they by, like you would the potbelly of a happy Buddha. The more I think of it, the more amazing that is—constant rubbing would wear down even the most siliconenhanced breast in modern times. These ancient boobies must be made of the toughest stuff. The other theory of course is, that when the French and German archaeologists come to restore these temple ruins, they only concentrate on the apsaras, and if they run short of time, they just reconstruct the boobs and leave the rest of the body to fall into disrepair. Nagas and Garudas and Shivas and holy turtles are far less interesting than topless chicks in all sorts of seductive poses.

It took Jaya VII five years to build Preah Khan, which he devoted to his father. The temple is built on the western shore of one of the man-made lakes or barays, the Jayatataka that supplied the Khmer with water. The temple has a water access on the eastern side. We entered across the western naga bridge, into the third enclosure. The place is a maze of buildings. Nak obviously has his own pathway through the maze and led us into the place, down this hall, left to that courtyard, ahead, out and in. At one point, we were traversing a number of

doors, all aligned perfectly, and I counted about a dozen, leading to a stupa of some sort. I decided I would try to count the doorways that were constructed along this line, but then we veered off on a tangent and I lost track of the corridor. Later we returned and I counted thirty-nine door ages on this axis. Of course there were a dozen cross alleys in the complex. The central complex of Preah Khan is impressive, featuring a two-story “library” and a large central pyramid and on the eastern end a hall for dancing girls. Here Donna found an even larger jewel room. And there were a couple of those echo rooms where you could cure whatever ailed you. In the very center of that thirty-nine door aisle, there was a very fine stupa, the first I have seen here in Angkor. But in the jumble of fallen stones it was very difficult to come away with any coherent pattern. There were dozens of places for Jaime to stop and suck up some chi. It is interesting to note that Jaya VII converted to Buddhism, and his many temples were all devoted to that religion. But his grandson, Jaya VIII went back to Hinduism, and he set about erasing all of Jaya VII’s Buddhist sculptures. As a result many of the statues we would see were without heads, and any obvious traces of Buddha are long gone, replaced primarily by Shivas, and the mindnumbing complexity of the Hindu pantheon.

It was getting on toward late afternoon when we left Preah Khan across a betterpreserved naga bridge. Nak took us back to Angkor through yet another incredible complex of Jaya VII constructions, the multiple temples and palaces of Angkor Thom and The Bayon. We will see those tomorrow. We have one more stop today, at the Angkor Balloon. I had seen that on our itinerary, a “tenminute balloon ride,” and ed it off as a typographical error. But that is in fact what we were about to do, ascend maybe a 100 meters above the ground on a stationary balloon, to take a look at Angkor Wat, at the hill temple of Phnom Bakhong, where everyone watches the sun set over the lake, and a good look at the lake itself. Ten minutes was enough! We made it back to the hotel in time for a round of G & Ts. This has become a habit with us, and we have a barman, whose name I failed to write down, who actually waits for us to arrive. You could travel throughout China and not get anyone to understand anything about an American cocktail. They can’t even

come to grips with a gin and tonic. But here in Cambodia they have got it down, and our man at the Angkor Resort even leaves the cans of tonic for us to dilute the drinks as we sip. He thinks that a double is amazing, but we have figured out that what the world calls a drink is really only straight tonic, and if you actually want to taste any booze, you better start with a double. A triple would be better, more like we are used to, but I fear that would drive them through the roof. Our dinner tonight was in the Café Indochine, a good French restaurant with a very French owner-chef. He came over to chat for a good while, filling us in on how easy it was to open a business here in Siem Reap, so long as you never asked permission from the authorities and greased the local police and officials. He then went on to oversee the filming of a Thai group who were putting together a promotion on dining in Cambodia. It was fun watching them film a young man eating, swabbing his sweating forehead ever few seconds between bites. It was another typical three-course Cambodian meal, with a fish entrée. This has been an amazing day. I came to Cambodia expecting to see Angkor Wat, which I envisioned as a huge temple completely surrounded by jungle areas that were filled with land mines. I never expected to discover dozens of temples sprinkled through dozens of small villages and a large city filled with tourist facilities. The world is becoming a most amazing place! On the way back to the hotel I noticed a surprising array of massage places, and decided to make a note of the variety of offerings. I found that they offer a body massage, a foot massage, a 4-hand massage, a powder massage, a magical massage. There is the old massage, the healthy hand massage, the traditional original massage, and the oil massage. I was really tempted by the hammer massage until I discovered the King Kong massage. You need a good month to try all of the various techniques, and then probably another six months for your body to recover. The girls invited us for a swimming drink at the poolside bar and Jim immediately left to “slip into his slandals,” as he put it. We hurried to the pool, finding it to be surprisingly cold, but you can’t have a pool-bar drink without being in the pool. You also can’t have a pool-bar drink when the bar is closed. And Mary and Donna never even bothered to get wet, and didn’t even offer to pay for the drink we couldn’t order. Jim absorbed all that sandal-abuse for nothing.

JANUARY 8 LAKE TONLE SAP

Today we are driving to the Tonle Sap Lake, the largest lake in Southeast Asia and the whole reason why all of the Khmer Varmans decided to build their capitals and temples around here. Our itinerary says we are going for a boat ride, but I had no idea what that meant. We have actually had a number of boat rides on this trip, and each has been very different. This one would prove to be no exception. Our route took us out of Siem Reap, into the countryside, eventually onto a dirt road that looked like it was on top of a very questionable levy. It was. Within a few miles, we entered a completely different world from anything we have seen so far, a ramshackle stilt village perilously built over the water on both sides of the levy, the structures constructed of sticks and thatch. Nak told us that these lake people move their houses once the monsoon rains begin, literally floating them over to the mountain area at the end of the lake. He said that the population along the levy is about 3,000, composed of Khmer and Việtnamese people, who don’t get along very well. This is a fishing community and we could see fish drying on racks next to several of the houses. The Tonle Sap Lake is the heart of the region, the reason the ancient kings settled here in the first place. It is connected to the South China Sea via the Tonle Sap River and the Mekong River, navigable during the wet season when the lake fills. During the rainy season, June to October, the lake increases from 2,600 square kilometers to more than 10,000, as the Tonle Sap reverses directions and flows into the lake. Five of Cambodia’s provinces border the huge lake.

We exited our van near a row of long-tailed tour boats, boarding one of them that was reserved just for the four of us, taking us down the estuary toward the lake itself. A whole society lives on the water, very reminiscent of the floating market people in Bangkok. Throughout our cruise, we were approached by boats selling things—cokes, bananas, other fruits. They would pull up to our larger boat and

one of the kids would jump aboard with their supply of things to sell. Most of these boats had a snake or two aboard. I noticed one small girl, pacifier in mouth, with a boa wrapped around her neck. Of course they were waiting for you to take their picture so they would ask for a couple of dollars or several thousand riel, which exchanges at about 4,000 to the dollar. We actually never changed any money in Cambodia because the whole country pretty much trades in the U.S. dollar. The most interesting kids were navigating in the rough waters in tiny metal round tubs, no more than three feet in diameter, tiny versions of those round rao boats we saw in Da Nang. Our boat pulled up to a shop at the lake edge, or more precisely a group of shops and stores, floating on the water, much like the floating market in Thailand. The place is surrounded by the boat people, most of them in this area Việtnamese. From an observation platform on the top deck I got a great view of the whole community. Below, the boat people seem to have everything they need—fish tanks where they keep their catch, stacks of firewood, bunches of bananas and baskets full of tropical fruits, cages filled with crocodiles, chickens, even a couple of pigs. The young kids float around happily in their round tubs. I saw a tiny girl lazing away on a miniature hammock. A woman in a canoe filled with food, paddled among the boats selling hot lunches.

There is not a lot of sanitation in evidence, with the shore littered with debris, and the sluggish water giving little hint of cleanliness. Plastic bags and papers are marooned high on the shrubs and trees along the edge of the lake, testimony to the high water marks during the monsoons. Across the Tonle Sap River, is the Chong Khnies Catholic Church and School, a complex of three or four boats that undoubtedly moves with the people when the rains begin. Another boat bears a sign of the Gecko Environmental Center. We returned to the city in late morning, stopping at the Artisans D’Angkor workshops, founded in 1992. Here young people are trained in the traditional crafts of Cambodia—stone carving, painting, lacquer ware, silk weaving, and pottery. We saw their shop at the Café Angkor, where we had lunch on our first day, and we would see another at the airport on our departure from Siem Reap. They have very good quality items, but are not at all inexpensive. I give them credit for having the only owls we saw in Cambodia.

Donna, who is intent on cornering the market for bangles, wanted to find some silver ones. We stopped at the silver shop near the hotel, but the combination of average quality and high prices didn’t make for any major purchases. I suggested that we take a trip to Tijuana, buy something and say we bought it in Cambodia. Lunch was at the Tonle Mekong Restaurant, yet another very fun, open-air café. I don’t think we have had a bad meal on this trip. The quality of the food and the ambience of the restaurants in both Việtnam and Cambodia is one of the real surprises of our trip. As awesome and impressive as is Angkor Wat, I really think that Nak saved the best for this last afternoon, with the enormous complex of Angkor Thom, the Elephant Terrace, the Leper King complex, The Bayon, the temple of Buddhist faces, and Phnom Bakheng on top of the mountain. All of this is essentially in a single place, an astounding procession of temples, and palaces that was the capital of the Khmer kingdom from the 10th to the 15th centuries, finally abandoned in 1432. The Cham armies destroyed the city in 1177, and Jayavarman VII, who defeated the Cham navy in a battle on Lake Tonle Sap that same year, finally conquered the Cham after four years of war. Taking the throne in 1181, he began rebuilding Angkor Wat and built his capital of Angkor Thom at the same time. It is estimated that the city held over 100,000 people. The royal palace and the city, not built in stone, are long gone. The whole area of Angkor Thom encloses ten square kilometers, surrounded by a wall with five massive gates and a moat. Inside, besides the town and palace, there are a bunch of temples, dedicated to Buddha, rather than Hindu gods. The incredible Bayon Temple sits exactly in the middle of Angkor Thom. It is said that Jaya VII went so berserk building his projects that he exhausted the realm’s supply of construction sandstone from the quarries at Phnom Kulen. There are no sandstone temples built after his reign, which ended in 1218. We entered the city through the South Gate, crossing a magnificent Naga Bridge that spans the moat. The gate itself is topped with triple towers bearing four faces. It is thought that all of the faces of Angkor Thom are modeled after that of Jayavarman VII. Most of the statues of gods and asuras have been decapitated, Nak took us first to the Leper King Terrace, which is really an extension of the massive Elephant Terrace, once the reviewing stand for the palace. Nak led us into a trench that is really very much a maze, a narrow pathway with manifold

turns, filled with deep bas relief sculptures on both sides. It is a magnificent work of art. The s are six and seven layers high, with male figures with weapons drawn flanked by female devatas. The bottom courses are filled with sea denizens and five-, seven- and nine-headed nagas. Every corner of the maze features the nagas wrapped around. These are the best restored of all of the snake sculptures we have seen. The friezes were all restored in the ’90s. We exited the trench and climbed steep stairs to the top of the terrace. At one time, there was a statue on top of Yama, the god of the underworld, that was removed to Phnom Penh for safe keeping and a copy put in its place. The legend arose that it was a statue of Jayavarman I, who is said to have been a leper. Hence the modern name of the terrace. Extending north from the Leper King Terrace is the Elephant Terrace, where the king and his court reviewed the elephant armies, parading in the Royal Square, a huge field in the center of Angkor Thom. The armies entered the square through a massive triumphal arch on the north side. The terrace gets its modern name from the life-sized frieze of hunting elephants that cover the ing walls. They depict elephants in the hunt, at times with game animals, lions, deer, etc. Across the Royal Square is a line of twelve “jails,” one for each of the zodiac symbols. Nak told us that a criminal was placed in the jail that corresponded to his sign. Massive lions and garudas also share the wall with the elephants. Behind the Elephant and Leper King Terraces was the Royal Palace, originally built by Suryavarman I in the 11th century, and used continuously until the 16th. All that is left is the temple of Phimeanakas, dating to the second half of the 10th century. Here legend says the king had to sleep every night with a woman who was the reincarnation of the seven-headed snake, whose power could maintain the prosperity of the city. A large pond, lined with sandstone, 125 meters X 40 meters is adjacent to Phimeanakas and was part of the royal palace.

Nearby is the Temple of Baphuon, 1060, built by Udayadityavarman II (Imagine two guys taking a name like that!). Today it is undergoing heavy restoration by the French School of the Far East, and is closed to the public. It is expected to be completed by 2010. A great deal of work had been done earlier but the troops of Pol Pot destroyed all of the records and most of the work, which has been painstakingly duplicated.

Right in the center of Angkor Thom is the treasure of the site, once known as the Golden Temple, now known as The Bayon. It is filled with Buddhist symbolism. There were fifty-four four-sided towers when it was built, each side sculpted with a huge face of Buddha. They total 216 faces, twice the number 108 which is sacred in Buddhism. That number occurs again and again throughout Angkor Thom. The Bayon was the last sandstone temple built by Jayavarman VII, and hence the last one built in the Khmer world. It is simply an incredible structure, one of the most powerful religious structures in the world. Today there are thirty-seven towers left, most of which have four faces. The central tower has many more. The construction was added to over the centuries and is extremely complex, built in three levels with two enclosing walls. We scaled the steep steps to the third level, made up of countless towers surrounding a massive circular one in the middle. Everywhere are these huge, enigmatic faces. You see them face on, in profile, sometimes two and three lined up in a row. It creates a very mysterious aura, even with the large crowds that fill the place, posing for pictures from every angle. I think it is one of the most powerful places I have ever seen. Nak led us from spot to spot, pointing out the best vantage places, but there is no place on the third level that is not dramatic. The effect of the faces is so overwhelming that you almost are unimpressed by the intricate friezes that fill the walls of the 2nd and lower levels of The Bayon. These are reminiscent of the wonderful friezes we first saw at Angkor Wat. The outer reliefs generally deal with the war against the Cham and with the daily life of the people. The inner s are later, from the reign of Jayavarman VIII, the grandson of Jaya VII, who invariably wiped out any trace of Buddhism and replaced it with Hindu subjects. I think that The Bayon is even more thrilling than Angkor Wat. It is not nearly as large, nor as complex. But the feeling of the place! With all of those dramatic faces that express serenity, happiness, mystery. They each seem to be different. The pyramid temple is so crowded it is difficult to take it all in, but the effect is surely powerful. We reboarded our van, and drove to one more stop, the ancient temple mountain of Phnom Bakheng. It was built around 907 by Yasovarman I, immediately after he removed the capital from Ruluos. Nak scheduled our visit so that we could

watch the sunset from the top of the mountain, a very popular thing for tourists to do. But the highlight of the visit was not the temple. Rather it was the way we got to the temple, aboard elephants! For $25 a person roundtrip, we saved ourselves the considerable effort of climbing a very steep hill to the temple above, and we got the thrill of riding one of these wonderfully sure-footed and quiet animals. Mary and my elephant was named Bu Pa Pur, a smallish, very black animal. It took about fifteen minutes for him to climb the hill where we were deposited onto a stand in front of the temple. Nak, of course, walked up and beat us by a good margin. The temple features probably the steepest staircases of all that we have seen, and Mary decided against the climb, her knees protesting even before she attempted the first step. So she and I stayed down on solid ground, while Donna and Jim made the ascent. We had already decided that a couple of final G&Ts would be preferable to watching a sunset through fog/smoke filled skies, so as soon as they climbed down, we boarded new elephants and returned to the van. Actually it was a very beautiful sunset this evening, but by that time we were back at the hotel with double gin and tonics in our hands. Dinner tonight is at the Alliance Restaurant, perfectly fitting in with the other places that Nak has taken us, this one featuring an interesting collection of metal sculptures that would even interest Phil Glashoff, an artist friend in California who specializes is junk metal sculptures. Our visit to Angkor is over early tomorrow. It has been a thrilling visit, absolutely worthy of the recent honor as one of the modern ancient wonders of the world. Siem Reap is so much more than just Angkor Wat. The sum total of all of the dozens of temples puts this place on a par with the most elaborate of Mayan or Egyptian or Greek religious complexes. This section of Cambodia has been a wonderful experience.

JANUARY 9, CAMBODIA – HONG KONG

The young men at the hotel were all very gracious in bidding us goodbye today. This is a lovely hotel, with very friendly and service-oriented staff. I gave my bird book to Nak this morning and he was genuinely thrilled to have it. I advised him to learn the birds, and from his reaction, I have no doubt that he will memorize that book. It is a definite skill to have for local guides because the number of birders worldwide is increasing constantly. He is a very fine young man, who seems to be on a definite upward path. We all wish him well. Our driver, an older man, whose name I misplaced, has been very good as well, perhaps the most careful driver we have seen on this trip. He was always smiling, and very attentive to everyone’s needs. The Siem Reap Airport is one of the prettiest I have seen, an attractive, gabled building, set in well-groomed gardens. Inside, the shops are of high quality, once again centered around the ubiquitous Artisanat Cambodia that we visited yesterday. This third time around, they got us better, with Mary and Donna picking up a bunch of placemats and coasters. Jim bought a head of Jama VII, whom he identifies with as a builder of big structures. I broke down and bought a wooden sculpture of Ganemon, the Elephant God. It was our final burst of shopping in Cambodia, a place that has pleased us greatly and saddened us considerably, both from the horrid history of Pol Pot and the morning view of the boat people, who definitely are at the poverty level by any standards. Cambodia remains a very poor country, and you only have to drive a mile out of Siem Reap to discover that poverty in the small villages that fill the countryside. But the people seem to be fairly happy, and certainly those in this tourist city are settling into a better life.

We arrived in Hong Kong in mid-afternoon, and found our transfer van to the Novotel City Gate that Vicky booked for us. It is a two-year old hotel, quite lovely and extremely modern. From our rooms on the 19th floor, we got great views of the surrounding islands, and the cable car that takes folks up to the

giant Buddha we visited a few years ago. “Why don’t we go to Macao?” I asked Jim. “Great! Let’s go.” “I’ll get some Hong Kong dollars,” Mary volunteered. She is anxious to try out her ATM card in a foreign country, and she was delighted to pull HK$200 out of that machine, enough to sponsor our excursion. Well, almost enough. So around 4:30, we caught the train at the Tung Chung Station that runs directly into Hong Kong with about five stops. We got off at Kowloon Station, and took a cab to the First Ferry dock. There we boarded the New Ferry LXXXIII, a large hydrofoil that seats more than 300 people. In an hour we arrived in Macao, confronted with a huge Customs line from all the boats arriving from the Chinese cities. It was 7:45 by the time we actually entered Macao. “We should find out when the return boats leave,” Donna suggested and Jim and I walked over to inquire. “The last boat leaves at 8:30,” the young woman announced. We have about twelve minutes to enjoy Macao, or we are going to have to check into the Sands or the Wynn Casino for the night and return to Hong Kong in the morning. So we walked out of the boat station, strolled for a hundred yards or so to look at some casino lights. In front of the Casino Pelota Basca, the Jai Lai Fronton of Old Macao, we memorialized our stay in Macao with a picture of the four of us and headed back for the boat. In between we saw the huge casino industry in action, as buses were waiting to take people to the Sands, MGM Grand, Wynn, The Grand Emperor Casino, the Emperor’s Palace and a number of other casinos. The place is a study in Atlantic City/Las Vegas excess, beautifully positioned to cater to the gambling frenzy that is China. No wonder they leave it alone! The Communists outlawed gambling in China, but they conveniently left Macao alone on their border. We were back in Hong Kong, going through their Customs for the third time today, by 9:30, and back at the Novotel by 10:30. In all we piled up an impressive list of charges: train to the city, $10; taxi to the boat, $3; boat, $200; taxi, $3; train, $10. $226 for 12 minutes in Macao! We didn’t even have time to “collect” the place by Annie’s rules, since we never ate anything there, and certainly didn’t have time to get rid of what we ate, if we had time to eat. But the

pictures and the stamps in the ports will testify that we actually did make it to Macao. It was a satisfying three-country day we just completed.

JANUARY 10 HONG KONG – HOME

It was a perfectly nondescript trip home, so packed and uncomfortable that I don’t want to end this book with a recount of the details. I would rather reminisce back on what an incredible decade of travel Mary and I had with our family, our immediate as well as our extended family. We have seen parts of the world that are denied to most people, in some cases denied even to the experienced traveler. We have watched our kids and grandkids learn; we have watched them be amazed at the treasures that are offered everywhere if one only has the eyes to see. I suppose that none of us realized that our string of travel adventures as a family would come to an end with Vietnam and Cambodia. We knew that Kasey and Josh were having a more difficult time being away, even during the holidays. Josh was four and Kasey six when we first visited China, but by the time they left Vietnam they were teenagers. Their tiny school in Eureka, Nevada had so few students that if one or two were missing, they might not be able to field a basketball or volleyball team. Neither of them was willing to face that possibility. Eric and Sully were starting their own family, and new grandchildren are too precious to be away from, so the edge was taken off the wanderlust of Jim and Donna. Less than two years later, Mary had to face the dreaded reality of cancer in her life, and I walked away from the travel business as a result. She would fight a magnificent and triumphant battle with a variety of illnesses, and has emerged now cancer free, but it was several years when travel was out of the question. Annie met and married Erik and they have started their own family. Her little darlings, Emma and Jack, have just a couple more years before they will be of “traveling age” in the tradition of Kasey and Josh. Today, Kasey is about to graduate from the University of San Diego and Josh is a sophomore in Mechanical Engineering at Cal Poly. How time has flown! And who knows, in two years, when Emma and Jack are six and four, we may just have to start over again.

I never achieved my dream of taking them all to Kenya and Tanzania, but that inspiration of Sam Miraglia still bore wonderful fruit. It has produced memories that have filled more than a dozen lives with awe and wonder. Thanks, Sam!

THE FAMILY

(left to right) Eric Schafer, Sully Schafer, Jack Dold, Vicki Lee, Marty Plaskett, Anne Dold, Kasey Plaskett, Jim Schafer, Josh Plaskett, Nancy Plaskett, Mary Dold, Donna Schafer, Shui Heng Yong (Walter) Missing: Patrick and Deb Joyce; Cole and Marcia Buxton