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.

Sharing

Toilettes in the National Water Puppet Theatre in Hanoi. A view that was maybe even sligthly more interesting than the water puppet show.

Hanoi Rocks?

For a limited period, this blog turns into "Great Escape" as I'm travelling in South-East Asia celebrating the end of my PhD thesis.

I left Finland's extremely cold and snowy weather on 29 December. At the airport I had a glass of prosecco (in memory of Florence); I was so happy to leave Europe and my thesis behind that I had to hold the tears coming. During my second prosecco I talked with a Finnish man living in Shanghai for the last 13 years and we contemplated the advantages of travelling alone. Later in Hanoi, I met others travelling alone and others admiring those going solo (or maybe they just pity us). It is quite liberating and relaxing to travel alone, and the Vietnamese are happy to chat and help you around, so there's no need to feel lonely. Instead, I feel that I'm more open to things happening around me and I can more easily immerse to my surroundings.

In the airplane, I watch Eat, Pray and Love and I feel I'm not part of the target audience. I almost envy the Korean guy in front of me watching an action flick with Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone (I guess). My mind is wondering away from Julia Roberts' monotone narrating: maybe I should have gone to Bali as well, and hey, I certainly don't have that kind of fancy hippie clothes with me, and why is she meditating with full make-up anyway. Julia Roberts' 'finding herself' -trip ends with her falling in love. How disappointing! Well, it is Javier Bardem, but still. I wonder how her trip would have ended if she wasn't extremely pretty, and in general, should this kind of soul-searching involve something else than finding a handsom lover? Would Clint Eastwood's Marlboro-man type of a guy settle with just falling in love or would he continue alone, trying to find out what it means to be a human being in a desert/jungle/Indian meditation centre for Americans, breaking women's hearts but not compromising his higher objectives. In short, I felt disappointed with the story ending with a typical romance, maybe the feminist inside me woke up again with this traditional structure of woman finding the solution (or the sense of life) in a man.

Well, back to my great escape (not including any yoga or meditation). I arrived to Hanoi, Vietnam, three days ago. First impressions: pollution, pollution and chaotic traffic. I felt like I want to move on immediately. The traffic is like the end of a football game in Campo di Marte, Florence, when hundreds of motorinos hit the streets simultaneously. Except that here it's ten times worse. I've never seen so many scooters at once. It's almost hilarious. Except when you want to cross the road, when you're spelling "schaisse" in your mind and hoping they would have even the slightest respect for the pedestrians. They don't. The sidewalks are parked full of motorinos, so you need to walk on the road and cover your mouth and nose in order to avoid the worst fumes. The locals seem to be glued on their scooters and there are hardly other pedestrians than the exhausted tourists. I've seen locals sleeping, having their coffee and reading newspapers on their motorino. And of course, it seems safer than stepping down and walking.

Like most hotels, also my hostel is in the Old Quartier of Hanoi. The streets are full of locals going on with their daily business and the tourists wearing their khaki shorts trying to figure out how to cross the street safe. Closer to the opera house, I spot a Gucci and Louis Vuitton stores (where there is LV, there is capitalism: where there is McDonalds, there is democracy, so far I have only spotted a KFC so don't know about the latter here, and for example Facebook is blocked so I don't think we can talk about advanced democracy to say the least). This modern side of Hanoi has received a lot attention in the few articles I've read about Hanoi: "Vietnam's capital has experienced extraordinary growth over the last two decades, evolving from a grim, famine-ravaged place into a sophisticated metrpolis with high-rises, sensational cuisine and world-class art", writes The New York Times, and in another article: "Instead of being a squalid third world capital struggling to recover from years of war and isolation, it is a stylish European-influenced metropolis with manicured lakeside promenades, tree-lined boulevards, ancient pagodas and French-colonial building painted in palette of jade, turquoise and burgundy."

I'm not sure if I can sign all that. For sure, Hanoi is no longer a third world capital but it is still far from being a sophisticated metropolis, if only for the traffic. There seems to be considerable middle-class eating nicely in the restaurants and driving big cars. Lots of men wear business suits (those silk ones that make them look like Chinese mafiosos) and women are dressed with care, though the style is closer to that found in Parisian banlieus with lot of glitter and cheap tight materials rather than smart-casual style. At the same time, at least in the centre, you can't really see poverty, nobody is begging on the streets and you don't need to feel like a rich Western voyeur. In comparison to Egypt for example, there's much less haggling and people let you go around without forcing you to buy things or give money. Everybody seems to be busy working - or driving. Older men are playing with Chinese cards in the park (one had long white hair, a fabulous tweed jacket and Woody Allen glasses, I guess he didn't understand how fashionable he was), kids are waiting for a bus to take them to school, women are cooking in the outdoor restaurants and surprisingly many are taking their wedding photos in the parks.

It's my first time in Asia, so obviously I'm interested in pretty much everything and it is funny how so many of those cliches are true: the huge burdens carried around with motorinos, women with their conical hats, locals sitting on those tiny plastic chairs and having delicious lunch. But Hanoi is too hectic, noisy and bad for your health (after 3 days spent here, I guess I've shortened my life by 2 months just by inhaling the pollution, it's like smoking constantly), I'm looking forward to getting to the mountains in the North of Vietnam. But one thing I have enjoyed greatly is this incredible food (coming soon in this blog... with some photos).