Questions & answers and how I took a step towards veganism

My sister called me on Sunday: "I would like to give you some communication advice." I shut down my iPod and tried to concentrate while the three babies in front of me in the tram started all crying at once. I had an uncomfortable feeling, this didn't sound like she was prepping me to become a great orator just for fun. And indeed, my sister was thinking of me defending my vegetarian stance at my niece's 5th birthday party the day before. I had apparently justified so badly my position that she was still troubled and felt compelled to become my personal communication adviser as if I was running for some political post or was the head of the Vegan Association.

Obviously, I had myself noted that I hadn't defended my position in a very eloquent way, but, at the same time, I felt bored with a coversation about vegetarianism with people who try to accuse me of doing something at all. "But you do eat cheese and other dairy products? And what about those leather shoes???" The general prosecutor asked me when I had refused to eat some organic Swedish sausages (which, by the way, wasn't any kind of problem for me, there was plenty of delicious veggie food available).

Here we go again, and I wished I had been playing with the air balloons. This reminded me of the excellent "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer (mentioned already in this blog for a few times). He writes: "I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out the inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made." I couldn't agree more with the author. Here I am, trying to do my best to contribute to the saving of the world and I'm accused of not going all the way to living in a forest like the radical ecologist Pentti Linkola, while the people around the table eating their little sausages can smirk at my inconsistency. People are not consistent with their life; who hasn't lied while being otherwise a morally considerate person, who hasn't said at some point in the wee hours "let's have tequilas" while knowing it's the worst idea?

So, I just got annoyed by the comment, said something about hating comments like that and went to play with the air balloons. Indeed, a PhD gives me a plethora of ways to back my opinions but when pushed in a corner by a person who doesn't seem to care what I respond, I think it's better to leave the situation. In a best case scenario this should happen a bit before I get upset and raise my voice (which might have happened before turning to the balloons).

In any case, my personal coach of PR issues suggested that I should prepare a battery of FAQs so I could give witty and persuasive answers to my harasser. I had't thought of this that much before because usually I spend my time with people who more or less agree with me on the vegetarianism issue or are at least intelligent enough to understand all the arguments presented, so they don't say: "But if we were all vegetarians, would there be enough food for everyone?" (Argh, information hasn't apparently reached every one after all; this is precisely the original reason why I even became vegetarian before the ethics kicked in.) Honestly, this misinformation reminds me of the Helsinki city hall discussion on adding one veggie day to the school weekly menus. One council member said: "If the kids eat beans, they will fart more, and we need to keep the windows open and thus lose energy by heating more - is this what the vegetarians want, to increase our energy consumption?" (Sad but true, this is a real citation!) Considering that factory farming is the biggest source of co2 emissions in the world this argument is not only ridiciulous but ill-founded, instead think of this: if all Americans had a meat-free day once a week, 1.4 billion animals would be saved annually!

So the Q & A session, I have to think of it. I should probably do something similar with my PhD thesis, what's my relationship with my ex boyfriend, why do I travel alone, why I think Christina Aguilera's video is demeaning to women and why I don't like toilet paper coming from the side of the wall.

But it's not healthy!
Vegetarians are more rarely obese or over-weight than others (look at my slender shape). In addition, I'm basically never ill. (Mum says: "But your skin looks terrible." Indeed, I think that's the combination of chocolate, stress and this conversation). And most importantly: do you think that farm factories or animals pumped full of antibiotics are healthy (remember swine flu...)?

Why do you eat cheese?
Well, first of all, we would need to go through the reasons why I am or anybody is vegetarian. There are plenty of those reasons; ethical, environmental, economic, health, political. Some of these are more important than others for me or for other vegetarians. If I think that killing animals is the problem, cheese would be ok. If I think that the food production system in general is the problem, I could probably still eat organic cheese (as I do with most food I buy in any case). Obviously, I should stop eating cheese and using other dairy products, I should be vegan. I am not, but I try to compensate this with other eco-friendly action. How about you, dear general prosecutor, why do you eat pork and beef and not dog? In Vietnam, I heard that puppy meat is really tasty. What's the difference between a puppy and a baby lamb? (JSF writes on this last issue very nicely.)

I think the general prosecutor feels some kind of shame of eating meat, why would it otherwise be so important for him/her that I don't eat it? Why do I feel that meat eaters try to convince me to become a carnivore and not the other way around? They must acknowledge the moral superiority of my action even if it's spiced with some camembert or chevre. It's funny because I would be immensely happy if even the idea of Meatless Monday would expand to be a standard for carnivore life (see also the short Meatless Monday video). I don't believe in fundamentalism in anything, even if above-mentioned reactions push me towards it. If the general prosecutor initiates Meatless Monday in his/her life, I will take the challenge and have a vegan Sunday. In fact, all I want is that people acknowledge what they are eating and where their food comes from. Not like my other sister who hushed me when I said to her daughter that "I don't eat pigs" when she was having bacon and offered me some. That's an attitude I don't accept!

By the way, today is the international vegan day. Did you know that Bill Clinton is a vegan? I take the challenge, I'll reduce the amount of dairy products in my life and have a vegan Sunday! How about that? I'll stick to Italian leather shoes and bags but I will stop using milk products (well, the reduction of 5 dl per week is not likely to change the world, but if you'd do it as well...).

As you might notice, I am a bit annoyed while writing all this down and I'm done with the FAQs - bloody hell, can't we have some respect for the choices we make and for our principles in life if they don't harm anybody, quite the contrary. This makes me think of this video:



By the way, if you're interested in starting a life with less meat or knowing how eating/producing meat impacts on your health and nature or on the animals themselves, here's a good spot to start: PETA's vegetarian starter kit. Interesting videos, facts, etc. I just calculated my "meat footprint": during my four years of vegetarianism I have already saved more than 1120 animals!

From Brussels to Eira

Plans change. Mine for sure did! Instead of trying to learn some Flemish in Antwerp, as indicated in my last entry, I have now quit the academia for the time being and I'm living in Helsinki. Surprise, surprise!

New life, new city. Returning back to Finland after 4 and half years was bizarre but Helsinki turned out to be really fantastic - except for the outrageously priced espressos. I'm actually pretty excited about the place that seems to have changed quite a lot during the last couple of years. Moreover, I live in the most beautiful neighbourhood of the city, Eira, in the South by the sea. It is known for its foreign consulates and the Swedish-speaking elite though my friend keeps on mentioning about "the two doctors in Eira", the other one being the infamous True Finn MP Dr. Halla-aho who has shocked with his racist commentaries. (However, his dissertation was about historical nominal morphology of old church Slavonic, so does it really count?)

Yesterday I watched the obligatory reference for Eira, Aki Kaurismäki's wonderfully ironic film Calamari Union from 1985. In the film, fifteen guys named Frank and one called Pekka try to find their way from Kallio to Eira. The mental distance between Kallio, known for its social problems at the time (and still today, though it's more bohemian bourgeois nowadays), and Eira, described as the heavenly part of the city, is depicted in a great way. The taxi driver comments: "I don't drive as far as Eira". Finally, most of the guys die on this long way, some deviate from the route because of other reasons and two of them start rowing to Estonia instead. My mental and actual trip from Brussels to Eira was somewhat easier.

The first scene of the film is brilliant:

P.S. I figured out that I should update this blog before I forgot my password...

Contemplating Brussels

I've spent almost five months in Brussels now. In the heart of Europe if you will. In the beginning, my ambitions regarding my blog were high, I wanted to write about the country without government and its linguistic disputes, I planned an entry on the Europe 2020 programme and I gave my annoyance about the city a form of a column in my mind. Five months and all I managed to do was to change the background of my blog (obviously inspired by a nostalgia for a summer in Finland). No in-depth analysis of the European politics, meetings with the EU bureaucrats (among which Commissioner Olli Rehn), the working of the Commission. To be honest, I don't know if I could give one. I hardly understand what my colleagues are doing.

I arrived here as a pro-European, I think I will leave as one as well but with a slightly more critical attitude. Not per se about the European Union and its politics but about the efficiency of the Commission. I see so many things that need to be improved but in this huge institution with over 20 000 employees even the most modest changes have to undergo a hierarchical and bureaucratic mechanism. New ideas and daring visions are transformed into bland proposals during this long process. At the Commission, I have really started appreciating the academic freedom and the liberty academic work can offer to ambitious researchers.

When in June I defended my PhD thesis, I was happy to get the burden of the thesis from my shoulders. But in September I will be back in academia, this time in Antwerp as a post-doctoral researcher. I'm pretty sure I will miss some aspects of the European institutions there but I'm also quite excited about the new research I can start from the scratch (indeed, from a scratch, any ideas?). And Antwerp, in the Flemish part of Belgium, is not quite like the Belgium you learn to know in Brussels. It's pretty, bicycle-friendly and clean - a city that has already entered the 21st century in contrast to Brussels that feels like a place you wouldn't be surprised to find on the other side of the Mediterranean... (Ok, that's it for my daily rant about the problems of Brussels!)

My New Heroine

On Tuesday 24 May, the European Parliament's intergroup for animal welfare welcomed the famous British primatologist and researcher on animal behaviour Dr Jane Goodall to give a speech about environment, animals and humanity (sounds like a quite big theme to tackle in 2 hours...). She is most known for her studies with chimpanzees in Tanzania but she has also worked extensively on animal welfare issues and conservation.

Her talk was at the same time fascinating, starting with a story of a small girl wanting to go to Africa and thinking she would make a better 'Jane' for Tarzan, emotional, going on about similarities between human beings and chimpanzees, as well as informative, giving examples of the success stories of development aid. When she first went to Tanzania, she didn't have any university degree and her mother actually came with her for the first three months. She was surpised to see chimpanzees to kiss, hug and shake hands just like we do. During the following decades she studied chimpanzees that are so similar to human beings that it seems almost unbearable that we are destroying the living habitat of these animals. Through continous projects she has, however, gained the trust of the local communities that are getting increasingly interested in saving the rainforests.

Of course, I completely fell in love with this wonderful woman and coming back from the lecture (having finally found my way out of the labyrinths of the Parliament) I was dreaming about voluntary work in Africa. After so many years in front of the computer talking about saving the world, this seemed something that I should do before I grow too cynical about any progress in ecological or developmental affairs.

Dr Goodall has an amazing spirituality in her and despite the environmental catastrophes facing us today, she could still give us some hope for the future. Her own project Roots & Shoots with children has already shown how important it is to empower people and how small streams can eventually make up a river. One of the most important points of her speech was exactly this: it is counterproductive to preach about gloomy ecological problems that then only seem as unavoidable. Instead, what is effective, is to make people understand that their actions and choices can make a difference: "Every single one of us makes an impact." I guess I wasn't the only one in the audience thinking that maybe all that recycling, switching off the lights or vegetarianism weren't useless urban eco-hippie acts after all.

She is an inspiring person and a dedicated environmetalist, I found my heroine (and bought two of her books immediately). Let's continue with our eco-conscious behaviour because it does make a difference and we still have hope!

With this line of thinking I should also promote the petition for better animal welfare. 8 hours campaign is trying to lobby an EU directive on setting a maximum lenght of animal transportation to 8 hours. Sign it!

Monday's Reputation Revisited

I couldn't possibly care less about politics on a such a splendid long weekend. The True Finns gained amazing share of the votes last weekend but fortunately I managed to process my anger, frustration and disappointment during the 3-day work week (much of the working time was indeed spent reading blogs, following social media and trying to understand what the heck is going on in the Finns' head, and yes, I became a member of the Green party as well!) and was able to completely relax during this 5 -day weekend.

These sunny Mondays spent on the terrace of Le Pain Quotidien (love it!) with bio-croissant, Le Monde and International Herald Tribune (and actually enough time to read them thoroughly instead of reading the old news throughout the following week) and then on my own terrace are really good for the usual reputation of Monday (I'm afraid, Tuesday will have a drop in popularity though) and for my tan as well.


I have to say that although the Easter weekend doesn't usually make me search for my inner spirituality, this weekend has taken me to the religious world through the reading of Confessions d'un Cardinal, our Bookclub's next read and 'the book that the whole Church is talking about' according to the cover (the book also has a Facebook fan page with 3 people liking it, I guess they don't facebook that much in Vatican...). I've been mostly suffering due to my daily dose of 50 pages of an anonymous cardinal's confessions as I've become to learn that the Catholic religion nor its Vatican leaders do not interest me. By the way, I would really wish the editor of the book to reconsider the title as after 400 pages I'm still waiting impatiently some scandalous scoops...

Nevertheless, one interesting idea comes through the reading of the confessions and if I understand it correctly (to be honest, I haven't been reading that carefully) it would mean that in order to still be appealing to people, the Church should be in service of the poor and counterbalance the nefarious effects of the capitalist globalisation directed by money and business only. Indeed, who could better defend the disadvantaged of the world than the Church that doesn't need to worry about the electoral results or economic cycles?

Hmm, I didn't really mean to write about religion, rather about sunny Mondays and how we should only work 4 days a week and have 3-day weekends...

Election Fever

The Finns are electing a new parliament on Sunday. I've got pretty excited about the elections even if I haven't really been following the political debates in Finland. Actually, I believe it's better for my nerves considering the rise in popularity of the True Finns, the anti-immigration, anti-EU party that has nothing else to propose than negative attitude and nationalist (I'm not sure if the tone is more Soviet or fascist) art programme. I couldn't handle elegantly the stupidity of the opinions of the candidates (nor of the citizens voting). Well, the minor problem of democracy is that we get a parliament that we deserve, nothing more.

I went to vote in Brussels last week (and got to buy some Finnish delicacies, like our Easter dessert mämmi, at the same time). I had prepared myself with a few election surveys even though I was already pretty sure of whom I wanted to vote. The choice of a political party was easy as my principal concern in the world is environment (only in the second position is my professional concern: inequality). Later, I tried to counsel my Mother on the good candidates in her preferred party (in order to minimize the chances of some non-educated ice hockey player's wife...). To my great surprise, she finally voted for 'my' candidate as well. Talking about swing-voters... I guess my Father has been rolling his eyes and voted instead for someone who wants to build a nuclear plant in our backyard.

I couldn't vote in the last parlimentary elections as I was traveling in South America and I also missed European elections and some other elections of smaller importance. In fact, the last time I voted was in 2006 in the presidential elections. But as before, the whole election thing makes me want to get more involved in politics or even to become a politician myself. I think I'd be a good one in theory, but I would hate to give up my principles in order to make compromises and to win in some other issues. I would also be too honest and get too frustrated about the slow changes, stupidity and the way politics work in general. Thus, I should congratulate all those politiciens who do their work sincerely not betraying their own beliefs or moral and actually achieving something for the benefit of the society and the citizens (i.e. someone who isn't there only to vote for higher salaries for the MP's).

I've learnt a great deal about politics lately, not because I'm working in the heart of the European Union but because I've been intensely watching the American tv-series West Wing (what a great series it is!). Yesterday, I actually had a moment when I thought of the character of Martin Sheen being the real president of the USA before the image of Obama popped up from the back of my mind. It's a cruel game sometimes and not much is getting done because the incumbent politicians are constantly thinking of the next elections and pleasing lobbies and their constituencies.

Maybe it is after all more efficient to work behind the scenes, to have the powerful role of giving advices to politicians or reporting on what's actually happening in the world. Provide them with the infomation needed to decide wisely on policies, which they possibly cannot understand fully. I've probably been brainwashed during the 4 years of doctoral education, but I honestly think that research (+ a bit of idealism, a hinch of realism, and great deal of vision) should be the beginning of all policies. I just wish that researchers and academics would connect their work more closely to the current happenings and changes of our societies and make some strong political conclusions based on the empirical evidence they have objectively gathered. To follow this idea, I finished my thesis with a chapter titled 'Dear Member of the Parliament'. Not only 'why' question, not only 'how' or 'what' questions, but also the 'so what' question should be included more forcefully in all research conducted in social and political science!

It does matter!

Was I obsessed about coffee already before living in Italy? Not to the extent I am nowadays, that's for sure. In fact, I started drinking coffee in Brussels as a 19 year-old au pair. A decade ago you didn't find all these fancy Italian types of coffee in Finland, so when I tried the Belgian version of caffe latte, lait russe, in Brussels, I got into coffee drinking (I also learnt to drink beer here) and eventually was happy with the Finnish filter coffee as well.

But after the Italian coffee there is no going back to filter coffees or such. I have to say that I really liked the American way of having a half a litre of coffee in the morning with a muffin but when I returned back to Florence I realised what I had been missing. The Italian coffee culture never stopped delighting me. Still after 2 years in Florence, I learnt new ways of ordering coffee: cappuccino chiaro, macchiato freddo, orzo, ristretto in vetro… It was usual to order a different coffee for each person when a group of us was having the after-lunch coffee at our terrace in the hill of Fiesole (but summer-time favourite was always caffe con ghiaccio, coffee with ice). And though people back home just think that I've become a snob, it does matter!

Now I'm back in Brussels where my coffee history started. However, I'm a different person than back then - at least when it comes to coffee drinking. The often tepid lait russe comes with big chunks of sugar that won't melt into the coffee and the Belgian baristas (if they could even deserve this nomination) don't know what a cappuccino is (it's not a lungo with milk foam!). And they then serve it with cocoa powder, obligatorily. I miss those old guys working in the Italian bars, the hard-working man who creates a rose in the milk foam of your coffee without even thinking of it. There you are sipping your delicious coffee in a random bar in a backstreet of Florence, or any other city in Italy, the neighbouring customers in their dusty overalls holding a tiny espresso cup with their little finger up and tasting some miniature pastry (only an Italian worker can do something like this without losing his masculinity in the eyes of his colleagues).

Bialetti's little man ordering a coffee the Italian way, a finger up in the air.

In the cantine of my workplace in Brussels, you can order 'espresso Illy', I guess otherwise the espresso is made out of some shitty coffee. I pay the extra 13 cents. There are no Italian style bars around, no place to have a quick coffee, but well, would I pay 2,50 euros for an espresso that I got for 80 cents in Italy? I've started to be fastidious in Finland as well when it comes to coffee (or ice cream, or pasta, pizza, mozzarella, wine or anything related to cucina Italiana), but the Belgian coffee is of the worst kind. It's hard to believe of a city as international as Brussels, but even the Italian places here are serving their Belgian customers the local way.

To end with a positive note, the service in Brussels is very friendly. It might be slow, inefficient and not even very professional, but the people are indeed very nice and polite. This is harder to say about Florence where I had to work my way to be a respected customer worth a smile in my local coffee bar. On my next trip to Italy, I will finally buy myself a Bialetti moka pot (even though it will never replace the feeling of shouting the order in an Italian bar on a busy weekday morning).

Nature Overtaking Civilisation

As I wrote in my previous entry, what made Angkor temples interesting and exceptional was the tight connection they had to the surrounding nature. While archaeologists have tried to cut back the jungle in most locations of the Angkor complex, Ta Prohm temple is unusual in the way that the roots and huge trees are growing from the ruins making it a magical place to visit.



This special character has of course made it a favourite stop for tourists but despite the crowds attracted by the afternoon sun I was amazed by the beautiful golden shades in the stones and bare trees. Some tourists might have been more interested in the exact location where Angelina Jolie was playing Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider film a few years back (see above).



Also the less visited Preah Khan temple has this magical feeling due to its proximity to nature. This isn't an archaeological decision as in Ta Prohm but the temple is still waiting for restoration as can be guessed from the frail walls about to collapse.

The First Glimpse of the Ancient Khmer Empire

I'm already back in Finland from South-East Asia, but since my blog entries became scarce (or non-existent) as my departure approached, I haven't even mentioned the Angkor temples yet. And I should. It is the one must-see sight in this part of the world that everyone has heard of, the temple area is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year (even 2 million according to Lonely Planet) and Siem Reap, the city closest to the temples has transformed into a tourist hot spot in good (great food, drinks and services) and in bad ("Miss, tuktuk, Lady, pineapple, Miss, fish massage...").

The Angkor temple site is much larger than most people think. You can easily spend more than a week exploring the ancient temples. The area is huge, more than 25 km2. In fact, one part of the complex, Angkor Thom, was during its heyday a city of one million inhabitants, bigger than London at the time (only 50 000 inhabitants). Nowadays, only the temples of the ancient Khmer cities still exist, other buildings of lesser importance were built of wood and distroyed by time and tropical weather. Thus, not much is known about the daily life in the cities (and I can remember even less). During the visit, the main interest is in Buddhist and Hindu images and the interplay between nature and Khmer architecture (and in strategies how to avoid too many tourists and too much sun).

Map of the Angkor complex (from Wikipedia). The distance from Siem Reap to Angkor Wat is around 6 km.

I spent three days exploring the area (3-day pass 40 US dollars, everything is paid in dollars in Cambodia): two days by bike (even though at the hotel they said: "Oh no, it's way too far away, you won't make it", well, during the first day I biked more than 30km and it was great!) and the last day by a tuktuk as I went to see temples further away.

Well, I did see the Southern gate of Angkor Thom in the sunrise. Then I explored the local insects for an hour in the 'suburbs' or Angkor Thom...

On my first day, I woke up at 4.50 am to see the famous sunrise (the wow-moment every Angkor-tourist talks about). I biked 6 km to the most popular Angkor Wat temple, but already at 5.30 am it was buzzling with tourists, I decided to enjoy a more tranquil sunrise and continued a bit further. I had read from the New York Times that the hill temple of Phnom Bakheng is actually great for viewing Angkor Wat in the morning light. Well, it was pitch-dark and I couldn't find the hill (later I heard that it is actually the sunSET hill). Instead, I was biking and then running around in order to not to miss the sunrise, which I eventually did. No, wow-moment. I continued biking and lost precious calm morning time (at 6 am the place is beautiful in the morning light, still cool and tourist groups haven't arrived yet) wiping the spider nets off my shoulders as I was doing my off the beaten track -tour. Sometimes, it is just better to stick to the usual routes...


However, I did made it to the main temple of Angkor Thom, Bayon, before 7 am. It has 54 towers decorated with enormous faces of a bodhisattva that embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. Some researchers say that the faces resemble the king Jayavarman VII who built the temple in the 12th century. This king seems to be the Medici of Khmer empire as he ordered many of the famous temples in the area (and the only one whose name I could pronounce quite easily).


I had missed my potential wow-moment, and I didn't had it during the three days of my visit, but Bayon was certainly impressive. Nevertheless, I couldn't help thinking that the temples built in the area were from the golden period of Khmer civilisation, i.e. between 9th and 14th century. During this time, they built great cathedrals in Europe too (Angkor Wat was built at the same time as Notre Dame in Paris). I couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't 'that old'. I guess it was this fact that somehow suppressed any possible sentiment of pure amazement. I didn't get the same feeling as I did when I entered the 4000 years old tombs in Egypt or when I gazed at the perfect ceiling of Rome's 2000 years old Pantheon. Maybe the sunrise could have approached me to Stendhal's syndrome as in Macchu Picchu when the morning haze disappeared gently and let the viewer admire the Inca ruins (not that old either, from 15th century) and the massive mountains little by little. I was slightly disappointed, but considering how high expectations I had, it's no surprise. But for sure, some of the ruins that were left to the mercy of nature were amazing, inspiring once again Indiana Jones -like thoughts. Coming soon...

Back to the Nature

So far, the most important lesson from my traveling in Southeast Asia has been: "Never eat bananas in Europe again". They just wouldn't taste like the delicious little bananas found in here. The other day, when I was motorbiking through Cambodian countryside around Battambang with my local guide Thaa, I got a rather more sophisticated though (following Rousseau's thinking, I guess).

Seeing smiling people everywhere in the small villages, I couldn't help thinking that the Western people's depression or both mental and physical ill-health are to some extent due to our alienation from the nature. Seeing people living by the seasons, according to the natural cycle of life, understanding (but not controlling!) the immediate environment around them felt so right; the way it should be.

Probably this sounds, to say the least, hypocrite, as I am in a very poor and underdeveloped country, but I truly felt a bit jealous seeing these people in villages (lying in hammocks, carrying wood or gathering their skinny cows from the field). Not that I want to be a peasant or anything close to it but I would like to have this tight contact with the nature. I'm fine with settling for a good-sized vegetable garden, a few hens and a goat, but growing herbs on the balcony just isn't enough. (Read from my previous blogging a year ago about the great book: "Animal, vegetable, miracle")

I remember being criticized by two friends of mine about traveling in poor countries, how it is some sort of voyerism and unethical. "You just want to see poor people and think how exotic it is..." This was the line of thinking. Having now travelled in Laos, a country among the 20 poorest countries in the world, and Cambodia, another very poor country where the majority of people still live with less than 2 dollars per day, I still can't agree with them. From the point of view of my studies about human well-being, inequality and poverty, it has been enlightening for me but at the same time I feel that tourism is one of the greatest ways for these countries to escape poverty (rather than illegal logging or growing coffee, tea, tobacco or opium for the rich countries). In fact, local people working with tourists are better off than the average. For example, I gave Thaa, my guide in Battambang, a day's job that he was greatly thankful of as there are not so many opportunities for work in the region.

I waved at around three hundred children during my nine hour boat ride from Siem Reap to Battambang, they were all very excited about seeing our boat and our blond hair and fair skin, and I can't understand how my being in a tourist in Cambodia would somehow be unethical (for god sake, child prostitution and sex tourism are unethical!) as I'm trying my best to be friendly, teach locals some English, buy more expensive fair-trade local products and give people a work. I asked a man in Siem Reap (the city next to Angkor temples that see more than 1 million tourists a year) how the city had changed during the last decade when the tourism started to take off. He replied that the change was immense, but for the better, he had a work now, they could build new roads and schools, he didn't consider the flow of tourists as degrading the quality of life in the city, so the situation was not comparable to Florence for example, the city of Siem Reap wouldn't flourish without the tourists.

Of course, as in Vang Vieng in Laos, tourism can bring some bad side-effects (drugs, stupidity, noise pollution). But for example the case of prostitution, in Cambodia (with hiv) it became a greater problem with the UN coming to the country with its mission after the Khmer Rouge years and the civil war, only later the toursits started "benefiting" from these facilities (child prostitution being a real problem in the country, Cambodia being the new Thailand in this sense). But this deserves another blog entry altogether, coming soon, maybe when I'm back home to reflect upon these issues more carefully. After all, I only have one more week in the continent.

Meditation and Being Indiana Jones - Failed Attempt No.1

I was warned about Vang Vieng (my current location in Laos) or I just heard uninspiring stories from the backpackers about tubing and partying. At first, my plan was to skip the place altogether but its location on the Nam Song river in the middle of beautiful karst formations changed my mind.

On my first day, I decided to do some caving, the second attraction of the city after tubing as the karst mountains are honeycombed with little caves and holes. I didn't have a map of the region and pretty much immediately after leaving my bungalow I had already forgotten the name of the cave I wanted to visit. I knew it was next to the Blue Lagoon but on the road I realized that most of the ponds and swimming places were called Blue Lagoons.

Signs are most often something pretty unintelligible as this.

After about 4 km of walking I found my cave. As I started climbing up the hill, two little boys were following me. They stopped a meter behind me when I stopped to take photos or enjoy the scenery, and they continued close behind when I did. I got annoyed. I wanted to have the hill for myself only and enjoy the nature alone (for company I would have stayed with the tubing people in the techno bars). It was time for a fight (they were kids, I know, but there was no way I was sacrificing my peaceful moment). I started with soft measures. I sat on a rock to contemplate the view. I read my book. I had some chocolate. I stayed there for 25 minutes but I was mostly focused on my irritation and not on my book and the boys didn't seem to mind the break and were having a stick fight. Once they got distracted and didn't seem to pay attention to me anymore, I moved on. But there they were again, one meter behind me. Time for harsher measures. I turned around so quickly that the little boys got frightened (it was war), I avoided my usual Lao style smile and pleaded them to leave me alone with a hard voice. NOW! Of course I knew that they were there for some money, to show me around the cave, but I had my own headlamp and really wanted to experience the it all by myself. They obviously got my point and let me ascend to the cave alone.

I took a step inside the cave's narrow entrance and took another step back outside. The weak wooden ladders didn't seem stable and the possible insects and little animals didn't tempt me much either (later I heard about the huge spiders and moth found in the caves). I decided to sat on a little trunk and enjoy the mountain instead, from outside. This little pleasure wasn't allowed for me however. The boys' father appeared from behind the trees. He sat 5 meters away from me and shamelessly started staring at me. I tried to ignore him and decided that this would be the perfect exercise for a meditation: ignoring his stare and enjoying the sound of nature around me. I took my shoes off and closed my eyes. As I didn't know how to start a meditation (should probably google it first), I started counting according to my breathing. I got to around 60 when I had to have a peek if he was still there. He was. Still staring at me. I closed my eyes again (with a good grip of my bag though). My meditation was however somehow distracted by the non-Buddhist thoughts of irritation. My mind was wondering from the guy to other trips I'd done to the sound of cows' bells and falling leaves (hearing the falling leaves was the closest I got to meditation, I guess) and again to some non-Buddhist ideas. The guy was coughing or shooting little stones around. More non-Buddhist thoughts. I opened my eyes, the guy was looking at me and pointing at the cave: "Cave?" Yes, I know, there's a red arrow signaling the entrance to the cave, I don't want or need your help (and I'm too coward to go inside anyway). The guy kept on pointing at the entrance. I started eating my omelette sandwich. That was my first meditation trial, I guess there's only a way to improve the control over my thoughts...

I continued to the Blue Lagoon that was neither blue or a lagoon. I didn't swim and I was slightly worried about my white skin's first contact with the bright sun (my nose is pretty red). I walked back to the main dirt road and found a sign indicating 2km to for the cave I was looking for and the "real" blue lagoon. I recognized the name. This time I completely ignored the cave and instead remained by the lagoon. Or blue-green deep river.

People were jumping to the water and swinging in the air with robes hanging from the trees in Tarzan and Jane style. I lowered myself to the river very slowly. After the day's experiences I understood how there was no spirit of Indiana Jones in me. In general, compared to the whole Vang Vieng crowd, I felt overly serious and uptight. Probably I also looked like someone really boring (but I have a PhD - almost, soon, hopefully!). However, the feeling was mutual as I had no interest in interacting with these people who had their bodies covered with "tubing tattoos" or something stupid written in their backs. And I couldn't help thinking of the Finnish proverb "stupidity grows in a group" (joukossa tyhmyys tiivistyy). Traveling alone, you observe this easily but, on the other hand, you can feel left outside. You're the intelligent one, but the one having no fun.

But this kind of fun?

Bronze, Golden and Inner Buddhas

I guess you can't visit Laos, and Luang Prabang in specific, without some Buddhist awakening. I got mine during the full moon chanting in a beautiful temple when I was listening to the orange-dressed monks kneeled in front of a golden Buddha. It was such a tranquil atmosphere that I couldn't help imagining how much better place the world would be if all the religions were as peaceful and concerned mostly by the individual achievement of inner enlightenment (to be honest, I still have very weak understanding of Buddhism and my assessment is only based on this short period of observation). After the chanting, I chatted with a monk who had, just like all the others, just shaved his head. He recommended me meditation and even to my own surprise I heard myself replying: "I should indeed." It wasn't merely to please the friendly monk but I was actually seriously considering trying meditation. I'm inspired by the tranquility of Luang Prabang, Laos and Buddhism and I'd love to bring some of it back home as well (the bronze miniature Buddha doesn't count).

At dawn, I woke up to see the daily alms giving to the monks. The monks parade through the city and local believers give sticky rice and other food. The monks only have a breakfast and lunch so this is enough for them.

In the evening, I was too full after my great dinner in the New York Times recommended restaurant 3 Nagas, so I was unable to meditate (or whatever you want to call the peaceful moment of emptying your mind of useless thoughts and concentrating on breathing for a few minutes). The same happened again the following evening. Now, I have moved on from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng that is sort of backpackers' paradise full of stupidity, 'tubing' in the river and drugs. My bungalow is luckily on the other side of the river, a bit further away of these people who have for some unknown reason painted their chest in neon colours. Maybe in my beautiful garden I will find the time to seek again the tranquility of temples.

Full moon chanting.

Pace of Laos

Beautiful Lahu girl.

It took me three days to get to my destination in Laos from Sapa. In total, I spent 24 hours in a bus to make a distance of around 400 km. But once across the border, you could immediately feel that you were in a different country. The pace got slower, people smiled more and the atmosphere just felt nicer. I didn't need to travel alone as I was accompanied by a group of people escaping the cold of Northern Vietnam just like me.

Setting a banana leaf lunch table in the forest of Nam Ha national park. Menu: sticky rice, omelette and veggies.

I finally got to Luang Namtha close to the border with China in Northeastern Laos. Although I again found myself in the rain, I booked a 2-day trek to a Lahu village through an ecological travel agency. Eco-tourism is actually a big thing in Laos and half of the money coming from tourism comes from eco-traveling (meaning that a large share of the money from tours goes to local villages). The trek was nice and visiting the local Lahu people was much more interesting than in Sapa. Our communication was restricted to taking photos and showing them to the children. A Dutch women's magasine was also very popular among the locals.

Life in the Lahu village was calm, children were playing with some simple wooden toy they were throwing around, men were gone working, young girls circled around us shyly. Our greatest interest was obviosuly in the "reproduction houses" (below) as we started calling them. These very small huts were Lahu's love hotels. As the whole family lives under one roof, in one big room, the little houses were there for some privacy (we of course imagined some handcuffs, Playboy magasines, and other accessories to be found there).

Finally, after enough of rice wine ("happy water" or lao lao), the international language of music entertained as well through the evening when the whole village joined us in our hut. The small cup with rice wine went around as long as there was something to drink. Memories about the evening were only to be found in the photos the next morning; rice wine had surprised the trekkers big time but whatever had happened it made us a great group of travellers enjoying each other's company. And here I am in Huay Xai with my fellow Quebequoise trekker waiting for a boat to take us down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.

On the muddy and foggy road

I was surprised by the cold and humid weather in Sapa, closer to zero degrees. I was wearing four layers of clothes to keep me warm (my bed in the hotel had an electric warmer just like in car seats but that didn't help much when electiricity was cut). The season was absolutely wrong for seeing the beautiful rice terraces as they don't even start the cultivation before June in this Northern part of Vietnam, high in the mountains. The fog was so thick that on my last day I could barely see 15 metres ahead. I however enjoyed the encounter with the local ethnic minorities during my 2 day trek. The road was so muddy that all the tourists adopted one or two local Hmong women to help to get down the hills (those who didn't most likely fell over into the mud), I also borrowed rubber boots from the hotel. I was escorted by two ladies as well (photo above). The friendly ladies spoke with broken English they had learnt from the tourists. Some children replied: "no honey", when you refused to buy anything with the excuse of "no money". Men were working with their buffalos in the villages and took care of the babies while women communicated with tourists and tried to sell their handicrafts. I was obviously forced to buy something from my women but the deal was clear from the beginning.

While the first day of trekking was very touristy and the village roads were lined with handicraft shops and farm animals at the same time, on the second day my guide took me off the beaten track and took me also to a house of another ethnic minority (characterised by their red hats). I ate with the family some rice and cabbage while the communication was limited to a lot of smiling. The food was cooked on an open fire but as in all the houses I had seen along the way, you could find a TV in the largest room of the house.

Eating Animals

Being vegetarian is not impossible in Vietnam but it is slightly challenging. A couple of times in Hanoi, I ate in a veggie restaurant for tourists but also tried the classic pho (noodle soup) with beef from a street stall. While I've abandoned sea food to great extent in Europe and I'm very conscious of the sad truth about over-fishing, by-catch that is thrown back to seas dead and extinction of many species, I allowed myself the culinary experience of sea food in Hanoi and Halong Bay where it was indeed an amazingly delicious experience: various types of fish, squids, crabs, other shell fish and prawns.

Moving ahead to the mountainous Northern Vietnam, I have started to refer to myself as an chai, which is a Vietnamese term for vegetarians (for religious reasons). I think I haven't missed out of anything, even the cabbage can taste wonderful here and tofu is sold in the market like loaves of bread. Markets are interesting for meat eaters as well. When in Europe you can perfectly well eat and buy meat without even noticing that the nicely packaged chicken breasts belonged actually to a living creature before satisfying your overly meaty diet, here you can't avoid to understand that eating meat means eating an animal. At the market in Sapa, you could see parts of cow still with hairy skin on it, pig's head next to its paws, and various unrecognizable intestines served for lunch to the locals (not many tourists eating those things). Seeing this outdoor butchery, I however considered it much more human compared to the factory farming practiced in the 'developed' West. When it comes to food production, development and progress do not seem to mean anything positive.

The scene also reminded me of the young Finnish girl scouts with whom I visited Senegal one year ago. They were shocked how the Senegalese bought their food, a living goat, from the markets and were dragging it along the roads to their dinner table. The Finnish girls were naive enough to think that this was cruel. It only highlighted the fact how the Western people are so alienated from the reality of food production that they believe it's inhuman to forcefully drag a goat by the road, while a factory farmed animal would be hardly able to stand by its own legs.

Close to Sapa, I stayed over night in a home stay with a local village family. They had dogs and four cute puppies of 1,5 months old. They would be later sold for their meat, price around 1,5 dollars per kg. I also learn that puppy meat is tastier than older dog meat. Though the puppies were adorable (not any more adorable than baby sheep, rabbits, cows or goats however!), I hoped that all tourists would take the opportunity of reconsidering their attitudes toward eating animals when seeing Vietnamese eating puppies. In his inspiring book "Eating Animals", Jonathan Safran Foer makes a good point about eating dogs. He doesn't promote eating dogs but with this analogy tries to make people understand what it means to eat animals. Why not eating dogs? There are plenty of dogs in the USA that are fed to livestock that is later eaten by humans. Why have this step, why not eat dogs directly, he asks. What's the difference between a dog and a pig after all (the latter is even smarter)? It's all socially constructed and cultural, so how do you justify eating pigs or any other animals that are kept in horrible conditions and fed with massive amounts of antibiotics to survive and hormones to make their bodies grow in unnatural ways so that they die under their own body weight? Next door in the village, they killed a cat in the morning. It was stealing meat from the kitchen so it was now its time to get into the dinner table... An chai!

Halong Bay

Ha long, meaning 'where the dragon descends into the sea', consists of 3000 amazing islands on the coast of Vietnam, on the way to China. The legend says that a dragon created these green islands when water filled the traces of his tail but I guess there's some geological wonders (limestone karsts being developed through erosion of 20 millions years of tropical wet climate to be exact) behind this Unesco World Heritage site. The easiest way to get to know the bay is on a guided tour where you sleep one night on a boat (I paid 75 dollars for 2 days/1 night tour including everything). Even though the weather had gone down to something around +17 C and it was cloudy, the place still looked pretty amazing and otherworldly. I guess the scenery is familiar from some movies but I can't really remember if it's Jurassic Park or some James Bond.

Even though January is low season, the bay was full of boats. During kayaking, you could see the water being dirty from gasoline or oil. So no regrets I couldn't swim there. Our guide, who had the Vietnamese name of 'Dragon', was obviosuly proud of this natural site. He first took us to the 'surprising' or 'amazing' cave. At least one surprising thing about it was the Celine Dion music you could hear from the load speakers hidden behind the rocks. Cave instead was lit with neon lights so you needed a lot of imagination to wonder how it had been in the 19th century when the French explorers found the cave, now it was merely a tourist trap (but still interesting to see) even if it had all the possibilities of being amazing and surprising (it was huge!). No need for my head lamp there...

On the boat we got a lesson of doing spring rolls and again we ate delicious sea food. Travelling alone, I'm very pleased to end up in such a nice group of people. We were a German, Australian and American couple and a very nice South African family with their college-aged daughter with whom I share the cabin (and kayak). The interesting conversations vary from hiv in South Africa, vegetarianism, socialism, Paul Pot, Vietnam War (or American war as they call it here) to more usual travel stories. Again, I understand the great eye-opening opportunities of travelling, not only do I learn about the country that I'm visiting but I share these experiences with other travellers creating this vast synthesis of what I saw, what the others saw and how do we reflect upon the experience from our different cultural departure points.

People living in floating villages in the bay area sell drinks and snacks to the tourists.

Finding the sophisticated metropolis

On my fourth day in Hanoi, I started getting more used to the traffic and crossing the streets felt like part of the tourism sport. In general, I strated liking the city a bit. And more was to come. I had read an interesting article on the New York Times about the contemporary art scene in Hanoi, "The Awakening of Hanoi", and I was inspired to look at some bits of this awakening. I followed my dorm mate's advice and visited Mai Gallery and Apricot Gallery. I have to admit, I was impressed. For 3000 dollars you could buy some pretty great paintings (next door they were being copied by lesser talents). I especially fell in love with Nguyen Van Cuong's powerfully coloured paintings of Vietnamese women.

My art tour was followed by an espresso (oh, it felt good: even though Vietnam is a huge coffee producer, the coffee here is extremely sweet, almost tasting like hot chocolate, the Italian coffee snob in me speaking again) in a little coffee house, La Place, next to St. Joseph's cathedral. The neighbourhood around the church gave me a glimpse of that sophisticated Hanoi some articles were writing about. I was sitting next to three local hipsters that really caught my attention with their cool clothes and fashionable hair styles. I started talking with them. It turned out that one of the guys, Nick (right in the photo), was actually a fashion designer himself and sold his clothes in La Cage, in the very expensive neighbourhood close to the opera (he's photos are all over La Cage's website). Perhaps, an avantguard of Vietnamese fashion. Nick had lived in London and spoke perfect English with a Brittish accent. I felt bad in my crappy traveller's clothes. I quite didn't understand before arriving here that Hanoi is actually a capital just like any other, and as in London or Paris, people don't walk around in trekking shoes but girls are wearing high heels of 10 cm. Nick however noticed my Marimekko bracelet and with a sparkle in his eyes admitted that he was a big fan of the Nordic design (maybe I pushed it a bit though...).

Mausoleum.

Contemporary art, espresso, and local fashion designer, not all that bad for getting into Hanoi's sophisticated side. Well, let's not exaggerate, I also visited Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, one of the creepiest tourist site's ever and got into the socialist side of Vietnam as well. After queuing for one hour in a strict order kept by many soldiers in their white costumes, I spent 20 seconds around HCM's body (not that I had wanted to contemplate the waxy body any longer). I was almost laughing out loud; the idiot stuff you need to do when you're a tourist... Next to the mausoleum, there's also a museum dedicated to HCM. It's only slightly less weird than the mausoleum but definitely worth a visit. It's quite unlike any other museum I've visited. On display were many installations and documents that introduced HCM's ideas and achievements to the visitor mostly in a very symbolic level. It was socialist propaganda in almost a cute format that made it feel very unreal.

Ho Chi Minh.

The text for this weird display read: "The symbols of nature in its beauty contrasted with industrial plants in this hall represent Uncle Ho's expectation that Young People shoulder the reponsibility for the protection and preservation of peace and the environment, and prevention of aggressive and destrucive wars." Well said, even though the Alice in the Wonderland kind of a display is pretty funny.