Angkor, do you want more?

Spent an absolutely fabulous short week in Hoi An. Both Solfrid and me fell in love with the town (or at least its tailors) and it was very sad to leave. For your information no postcards were sent from Hoi An, we were way too busy getting dresses and skirts, tops and kimonos. Nevertheless, after a few too many hours at Danang Airport Restaurant eating something that could have been chicken, but just as likely dog, frog or cat we ended up in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Here we had 72 hours getting to know the country, the people and the temples of Angkor Wat. Most tourists spend more time just around the temples than what we did in the country as a whole, but it was still a marvelous sneak peak of a disturbed, yet so wonderful country. And despite the magnitude of Angkor dazzled in sunshine, real beauty comes from within.

Good morning, VIETNAM!!

I left Pondicherry on Thursday after Sudha had told the taxi driver in tamil to drive slow on his way to the airport. Five minutes later we were overtaking a Ferrari.

It was a long and tiring trip to Ho Chi Minh City. I arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 5am and tried for more than two hours to sleep over four seats on a bench. It would have been possible as the cushions were quite soft, had it not been for the "non-quiet-airport"-policy and flight announcments every 90 seconds. I got pretty sick in the end of "Mr. Ngyen, would you please come to gate 42 immediately as the gate is closing."

I landed in Vietnam and was met by Solfrid and two of her friends. They had worked out the currency already and happily paid 160 000,- dong for the ride into the city. I withdrew 1,2 million yesterday and another three million today. HCMC was like Chennai without the tikka masala and felt a bit like any other China Town in a world metropol. Yet, it was just a bit crazier than anything else I've seen before, and crossing the streets here are even more of a nightmare than in Pondy. At least in India you were faced with five tuk-tuks you could count, in HCMC there were fifty motorbikes for every car, which are just slightly more difficult to keep track on.

We visited the War Remnants Museum which was a brutal and honest portrayal of the war. I'd been sitting in on a lecture in Peace & Conflict Studies the day before on Afghanistan, and it wasn't hard to realize there is so much we don't know about conflicts in other areas than our own. After two very hot hours, Solfrid and me had seen enough war crimes, at least for this country (still hoping to see the land mine museum in Siem Reap).

This morning we got up at 3.30 am after the guy outside our second floor window had been testing all his different ring tones all night. We caught a taxi to the airport and had noodle soup for breakfast. We landed in Hoi An, were told our hotel room wasn't ready yet, and have been at the tailors since. There are more than 200 tailors in this town of about 70 000 inhabitants, so plenty for me and Solfrid to spend our easy earned dong on. Anyway, after a combined total of less than ten hours of good sleep since Wednesday it's time to go to bed.

Good night, Vietnam!

Work for all

Normal shops in India are a great example of how communism still has some kind of stronghold over the country. One thought or strain of ideology remains - work for all! You may not get paid a decent salary you'll be able to live off, but no one should come and tell you that you can't work for it if you want. I have an hour left in Pondy and since my views on material things have changed since my visit to Auroville (alternatively because I'm saving space for the shopping in Hoi An), I decided against buying tacky souvenir Ganesha statues and on exchanging my last 900 Rupees into a more stable (LOL) currency instead, the greenback. I went into Western Union last week and was escorted out as I had neither passport nor flight details, and naturally, only terrorists come to exchange dollars without a passport, so today I had learned and had both with me. I enter and tell the lady that I want 900 Rupees worth of US dollars. She guides me on to her colleague who I also explain my request to. Then a third guy comes up, and I'm standing there in the afternoon stinking heat explaining I don't want to pick fights or get married, I just want US dollars.

Ok, ok, whatever the white madam wishes. I give them my passport and itinerary. "You leaving today, mam?" "YES," I reply, frantically looking at my watch. He starts going through my passport, admires the multiple entry ten-year visa I have to the US, then starts scribbling down the passport details. I have to sign at least three times to say I promise not to buy drugs or fund Al-Qaeda activities with the 21 dollars I eventually will end up getting. I wonder if there is a clause for chocolate or Coca Cola there as well, as both are major threats to homeland security.

Now that the formalities are over the money needs to be counted before I can get it. The third guy counts them, six $1 notes and three $5 notes. Then he turns them up side down and count them again before he gives them to the second guy who repeats the procedure. I didn't bring a bag because it's packed and I had the intention of stuffing the dollars into my pocket when I got them. The second guy screws this up by putting them in a large envelope. "I don't need one!" I say several times, but he still gives it to me. I demonstratively take out the money, stuff them in my pocket and leave the envelope on the counter. I say I'm in a hurry and don't need the receipt either. He still writes it, pausing to think of today's date (it's on my ticket!!) and makes me sign the receipt as well. I leave it along with the envelope (hoping they will recycle) and hurry off.

Saigon next stop!

A place for trying to find one's consciousness

I'm on the probably nicest paved road in all of India, yet the only thing I can think about is whether my body would survive a crash on this beautifully paved road better than one on the dirt road I was on just ten minutes ago. I'm probably the only person wearing a helmet in all of India as I am sitting on the back of our field manager's motor bike going 40 mph in the dusky rain. I so know my mum would kill me if I died in a motorbike accident in Southeast Asia.

Anyway, I am on my way to Auroville, a very special community just north of Pondicherry. Here, 2000 people from over 40 countries have for 40 years lived (supposedly) in harmony. I feel it's a mix between Nimbin in Australia and the movie The Beach. Minus the surfers and a topless Leo. It's a surreal place, created on the idea of sharing and inner health instead of material wealth. Children are educated, not to pass exams or tests, but to connect with their sould and become citizens of a community who works together for the divine and superior truth. I can't really say I believe in it either.


Nevertheless, our field manager has some cool contacts and I was invited into the Matrimandir, the soul of the city. The Matrimandir is a massive golden globe (29*36 meters) in the middle of a large open space called Peace. There are meditation rooms all around and the world's largest crystal inside. Its construction started in 1970-something after visions of the Mother (their "leader", it is otherwise a place free of religion, discrimination etc., doubtfull), and is still ongoing today.

After a introductory movie we were divided into groups and given yet another talk, then told to be absolutely quiet as the room of the spiritual crystal is constructed so even the smallest sneeze will sound like thunder, and were led into the Matrimandir. I immediately felt as I entered a spaceship, Will Smith would have been happy if he flew one of these babies in Independece Day. We walked around a large spiral before entering the holiest of the holy, a massive crispy white room with 12 twelve-meter tall pillars with a hole in the ceiling to let the sunlight in and the massive crystal ball in the middle of the room.

I was one of the last to enter as I had daydreamed my way up the spiral and by then nearly all my companions were heavily into meditation already. I politely sat down for the compulsory 10-15 minutes absolutely flabbergasted by the surrender to the spiritual by the people around me, before I, as the first, got up and out. I didn't work out the closing mechanism on the door, so as the guard opened the door from the outside he jammed my finger, resulting in a large AUUU! I could hear the loud echo behind me as I walked back into real life.

Contrasts

This morning when I walked out on the street two men sitting on the sidewalks shouted after me: "Happy Women's Day!" I smiled and said "Happy Women's Day" back and kept walking. I turned the corner and three rickshawdrivers were loitering, as I think the term is, ("drive dank"), waiting for their next customer. One asks me if I want a rickshaw and I politely say no.
"All right bitch, good bye bitch."

India has grown on me, the culture shock was gone by Tuesday, but still there is lots of things that are frustrating, confusing, downright silly or just stupid. The traffic is one example. Here you have to keep walking. The drivers of two-, three- and four-wheeled vehicles are all completely mad, and if you want to cross the street you have to walk semi-fast and determined. Don't run as you will be in a spot the driver did't expect you to be in soo soon, and he will most likely run you over, don't stop as the driver behind the one who maybe will run you over will run you over as he thought you'd kept walking and don't just stand there as you will never cross the street.

India has some of the absolute richest and absolute poorest people on the earth. 23 of the world's 700-something dollar billionaires live in the country, yet so many countless of millions live on really, less than $1 a day (and not any of that PPP-dollar-svada we had in human geography, these are real people making no money for a lot of work. Yet I find it hard to give money to people who I know are bullied into begging, children are forced into the "trade" by gangs, women by their husbands of fathers. If they have a baby on the arm it is especially cruel, so you definitively have a chance to re-think your perpectives in life.

Then there is the male chauvinism I was faced with earlier today. In general, as us Westerners don't believe in the beauty of arranged marriages, some Indian females look at white women as promiscuous tarts who should be dressed up. Fair enough, and we do get told to cover knees and shoulders, which is fine and we happily do it in respect for them. Then however is the Indian males who think any white women who is against marriage and pro all sorts of explicit fun and every Tom, Dick and Harry over the age of 12 thinks a white woman means an easy shag. There are so many dissapointed men out there, but for crying out loud, don't make pussycat sounds when we walk past, it's pathetic!

Nevertheless, India is an absolutely beautiful country, the people are gorgeous, the children who are not used as slave labour by their parent adorable and the food is delicious. Enjoy!

Sidewalks are not for walking, cutlery not for eating

It is hard to know where to start. India has blown my expectations to pieces (along with the generator opposite my lunch cafe which also went up in smoke), it is everything, and nothing of what I expected, or whatever I expected was succeded enormously. The generalisations are easy: the trafic is chaotic, extremely dangerous and quite entertaining. The food is not as Indian in Norway, you really do eat with your fingers, and a dinner easy costs less than 30 NOK, drinks included. But the general feeling of India?

Pondicherry is by many dubbed "India light" with its French and Indian quarters, religious plurality and foreigners, but I can't in my wildest imagination foresee what the "the real" India then must be like. Chaotic is an understatement, that's all I can think of. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic diversity of culture and people, and I've several times "understood" my religion readings better, even after just 36 hours in the country, because you really must experience this first hand, and the people are easy to get along and enjoy that you come for a visit.

With that in mind I leave you wondering what this country will bring next as I go to bed after establishing that the cricket outside my door has only moved 20 cm the last two hours, meaning it won't reach my pillow until the morning, and I can live with that. After all, I'm in India!