Journey highlights - Worship

Worship:

Fascinating to me everywhere I go are the places and practices of worship.  I'll detour almost anywhere to see a spectacular temple, to find a quiet mosque, visit a quirky church, or burn incense at a far-flung altar or shrine or cemetery. I don't understand at all the fervor of faith... but I revel in the reverent awe of untamed landscapes, full-throated expressions of culture and social identity, unfiltered fresh air, and naturally clean water. I'm in that growing category of folks who aren't quite atheist, somewhat animist, and a tad bit pagan - yet adamantly spiritual by experience, but a-religious in practice.  And so it's often to the places and celebrations of worship & reverence - where the bulk of humanity seeks internal peace, happiness & community - that I find myself drawn to wherever I go.

Here are some snapshots of a few side-treks and some too-quickly-passed-by places of faithful expression during this visit.  I include details (names, locations, etc.) where I recall or was aware, but some spots were simply surprise discoveries.

 Fun and bright, this Buddhist temple is right down the block from our hosts' house in the Binh Thanh District and the first I visited in the city.  I'm still impressed by the ornate dragon statues above the entryway and the typically immaculate care of the grounds by the resident monks. Saigon, Vietnam.

Tombs of south Vietnamese general Marshall Le Van Duyet and his wife.  A national folk and cultural hero, pilgrims during the new year Tet celebrations came here to assert oaths of good faiths and avow committments.  He's rather controversial in the political context of the modern Communist regime for his role in putting down the Tay Son rebellion and facilitating expansion of French colonial influence.  The temple grounds are relatively newly renovated (c.1937), and were very awesomely decorated for Tet.  Le Van Duyet Temple, Saigon, Vietnam.

While the light balance was off in the photo here, the arrangement of incense burner and alter is very typical. And I thought it looked cool. Saigon, Vietnam.

Super-sized young Buddha statue.  Saigon, Vietnam.

View from the roadside of a very pagoda in the seaside town of Mui Ne, Vietnam.  Despite the electrical lines, I still can't get over how awesome the roof is.

Spectacular statuary of a multi-eyed Buddha (look closely at the hands!) at the Linh An Pagoda.  Near Elephant Falls around Nam Ban, Vietnam.

Giant golden Buddha at a monastery atop a tall hill outside the city center.  Dalat, Vietnam.

Past, present, & future Buddha's.  Clandestine photo from outside during morning service. Linh An Pagoda.

Another variation on the eternal Buddha.  The wild variety of this image throughout China and Vietnam (and far beyond, I'm sure) inspires awe and a grand appreciation for the diversity of the culture here. Linh An Pagoda.

A stellar larger-than-life Buddha at Linh An Pagoda, flanked by a small army of Bodhisattva statues. 

An esoteric Buddha statue, at the Lamasery in Beijing.  Covered for a reason, this and the series of similar statues were at one time used to teach the young emporer the wonders and mystery of divine copulation.

Way old school.  Centuries-old statues that are still revered for their luck-imbuing reputation.  

Giant wooden Buddha statue inside the Lamasery, Beijing.

 Another esoteric Buddha statue, heralded by the 8 sacred symbols. Lamasery, Beijing, China. 

A proliferation of these colorful and festive cemetaries dotted the countryside all throughout Vietnam. Perhaps it was the time of year - just before Tet - but the buzz of activity, sounds, and smells makes me think the Vietnamese take on death is more a celebration of life. From the train, enroute to Saigon.

Rear-side view of Notre Dame Cathedral, downtown Saigon.

  

 

 And here, Notre Dame Cathedral from the front.  Another favorite shot. 

 Simple (when compared to many Buddhist temples) yet stunning entrance and central spire of the Saigon Central Mosque - c.1935.  Stopping in here for a few quiet moments amidst the hive of activity that is the downtown Dong Khoi district was like a cool breath of fresh air. 

Marvelous entrance to the Mariamman Hindu Temple, the only one still in active use in Saigon by the 60 or so Hindu's still here.  The interior was bedecked in similarly spectacular colors and images.

Chris, lighting some joss sticks just inside Mariamman Temple.  It is revered by many Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese and reputed to have strong healing energies.  The whole temple had a lively, healthy vibe - definitely worth a trek to check it out.

 Statue of the Hindu god Mahavishnu inside the temple, one of many continually and meticulously maintained by the Tamil Hindu's who run the temple.

 Cho Quan Church, in downtown Saigon.  I liked the angles & lines in one, with streamers and flags laid out for the Tet holiday...

 ..but one of the coolest things at Cho Quan Church is the liberal use of neon lighting around the iconography sprinkled all over the church grounds.  Here, a grotto dedicated to the Virgin. 

The photos laid out heretofore are taken with an Olympus Stylus 1050 SW 

 
These works by Tim Paez are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Journey highlights - Transit!

Clearly this post comes well after that spectacular trip - almost two years to the day.  However, I need to keep the blog going.  I'm heading out again soon for another trek (European return!) and as I'm looking back to be inspired, I'm finding some great shots from my last overseas jaunt.

Here, in a raw and unorganized form, are some photo highlights from the Asian 2011 adventure.


Transit:

Everywhere around the world people will find the most convenient, cost-efficient, and accessible ways to move themselves and their things.  But not everything translates across borders - and to see things done differently than what I see in my normal, everyday default world is what Travel is all about. 



By road!

Everywhere in Asia and worldwide, bus  is most often the cheapest way to travel.  Horror stories abound of bus travel misadventures, and if you're reading this chances are you have your own tales.  But whatever ones own experience, bus travel will remain with us as long as petrol flows and distances are long.

  Fantastic bus experience in southern Vietnam.  These bus seats recline to near horizontal, and still something like 30 people fit on this bus with TONS of luggage.  While relatively expensive for regular long-distance commutes for locals, plenty of foreign and holiday travelers (Lunar New Year!) enjoyed the comfort of these buses from Saigon.  En route to Mui Ne, Vietnam from Saigon.

 This was a very different kind of bus experience.  Clearly, this is the more typical bus travel situation - and, yes, even this is quite comfortable as far as global bus travel goes.  Enroute to Dalat, Vietnam from Mui Ne.

 The perils of being in 3D.. and in an overburdened truck on windy mountain roads.  A poignant lesson in taking initiative, even as an independent budget travels, to make sure you inspect and feel confident about your travel choices.  Even if it costs a bit more or may take you longer to arrive - it pays to make sure you arrive in one piece.

Another exceedingly popular and efficient way to move around, all over the world, is motor bikes, smaller utility trucks, and human-powered vehicles of innumerable variety.  In these parts of Asia motor bikes and little trucks, tuk tuks, and bike-carts were literally everywhere, and particularly moreso along the southern sweep of the journey (weather is warmer) where the shape and variety of vehicles exploded in diversity.

Maximum utility & ingenuity, borne out of daily necessity.  Another of my favorite shots - local living in gorgeous southern Vietnam. 

Downtown Saigon - world-famous pushcart drivers, yet another remnant from the French Indochina era of Vietnam.  The city is working to phase these guys out entirely, eliminating a whole segment of the transit infrastructure.  And a great tourist trap. 

 

Sharing the road has a wider application beyond the US.  A fun respite from the high-speed bumpiness of the road outside Mui Ne, Vietnam.

 Creative, effective, & totally illegal if this were the US.  Clearly its not an issue here.  Vietnam.

By rail!

Train is by far one of my favorite ways to move around when trekking anywhere.  Handing the hassle of the journey to the pro's, I almost always enjoy a great time-saving trip from one point to the other.  Some snapshots here reflect the diversity of global train experience, with an Asian twist this time. 

Freight & people, all over the world both share the same tracks on the older, established lines.  Train delays in most places are caused by the competing priorities of commerce and human transit.  Here, waiting enroute.. to somewhere, China.

Relatively clean, comfortable, and extremely timely - the awesome train system in China. 

 Where pop-a-squat takes on a whole new meaning, particularly when passing through the hillsides!  Train in China. 

Freight and passengers, all standing by.  A short train delay in Vietnam.

Its never hard to make friends on the train anywhere in the world.  Here, a fellow traveler was heading home with her mother for the New Years holiday.  Zaijian, pengyou!

Smudgy view along the riverside tracks, somewhere in central China.

The photos laid out heretofore are taken with an Olympus Stylus 1050 SW 

 
These works by Tim Paez are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Dalat - Foray into the Alps... of Vietnam.

9 - 11 February

Dalat, Vietnam.

Hardy traveling companions, on the shores of Tuyen Lam Lake; on the way to Datanla Falls.

After our extended stay in paradise, our crew opted for another get-away haven - the city of Dalat. It's described almost everywhere (books, brochures, travel sites, etc.) as the 'Alps of Vietnam', a spot for lovers and friends to escape to, where the climate is cool and mountainous, and the food is fresh and mostly local. Even while securing bus tickets to here, I was constantly met with the same quizzical grin and question: "Why do you want to go to Dalat? It's romantic there, and expensive; for couples!"

Wandering through the innards of the night market - an awesome fixture of urban life in much of Asia. We're so domesticated in the States, with our curfews, noise ordinances, and endless circus of regulations for small vendors - but its here where flows the life of the community.

Aside from the European vibe, here is another reason Dalat is known as le Petit Paris.

Finished by 1942, the Dalat Cathedral, whose spire reached 47-metres, sits in the heart of the city.

Frankly, I had heard a lot about the landscape and natural spots surrounding the city. Several people I'd spoken with had recommended it as a starting point for forays into mountainous rural parts of southern Vietnam. In the several hours over the 3 days we spent getting there, around, and away, I have come to agree. By this time in our journey we did not have so much time to explore the surrounding countryside as deeply as I would have preferred, but the group had maintained a solid sense of coherence after our down-time in Mui Ne, so I stuck with the party. Between the wild night market, the fresh food, and the great weather (not hot, but not cold either; much like San Francisco, I found that Dalat was a seriously pleasant city in which to spend a few days.

Situated below the Nam Ban Pagoda, and magnificent as it is rather dirty, the 30-meter high Thac Voi - Elephant Falls.

Two very different Buddha statues, well-situated across from each other, at Nam Ban Pagoda. Another favorite.

Nam Ban Pagoda, side entrance. Another favorite photo..

The main entrance to this hilltop monastery, sporting intricate Buddhist carvings, houses the massive sitting gold Buddha statue.

Giant sitting Buddha is the center piece of this monastery, and can be seen from almost everywhere in Dalat.

Detail of sand Mandala housed inside the same monastery.

The immediately surrounding land nursed a surprising variety of crops on a mountainous array of hillsides and valleys. For hours beyond the city, the landscape was covered in greenhouses, hundreds of acres of coffee farms, and innumerable farmed acres of everything else from onions to greens to livestock. On a 4-person Easy Rider trip (usually done one-on-one via bike, we were 4-to-2 in a jeep) we learned a lot about the local industries around Dalat, including a nascent dairy industry supported by Dutch foreign investment, a booming artichoke market, and a blossoming market in flowers year-round. In a lot of ways, I got the impression that this region of Vietnam was fairly self-sufficient and in fact an overall exporter of many domestically produced goods. Supposedly, here also is the bottling plant for the now-infamous (among our small traveling crew) and delicious Dalat Wine which can be found all over Vietnam for outrageously cheap - compared to the $USD anyway...

We requested of our Easy Rider guide a less-touristy route, where we could see more communities and natural spots around Dalat. Here, a small rural dam spillway doubles as a local swimming hole.


Awesome reservoir stretching far and away from Dalat - another example of Dalat's relative self-sufficiency. Our Easy Rider tour (for four, in a jeep not a bike) stopped us here for a while, granting us a less touristy side trip up a mountainside for this view.

Long shot of the downstream side of the same river, but here showing the unusual dam-like section. Shallow, but seemingly effective during the dry season.

Detail of dry river bank outside Dalat. Just some wildly shaped stone and clearly once a larger structure.

Great view of the northern limits of Dalat that looks over just a sliver of the local horticulture industry. Fields of flowering plants and rows of low-tech green houses dominate this unique urban landscape.

What was not so cheap - though arguably still relatively affordable when compared to costs in most North American urban areas - was the overnight stay at the Crazy House in Dalat. The Crazy House is a moderately-sized property within walking distance of the downtown area designed and still being built in accordance with the plan of artist & architect Dang Viet Nga . The whole place is a ridiculous dreamland of organic shapes and textures forming rooms and niches throughout an awesomely landscaped compound. I've never seen anything like this place anywhere in the world, and I'm real glad we got a chance to stay here for a night. And it was thanks to the extremely helpful staff here that we were able to catch one of the few daily buses to Nha Trang, and a ride to the station, on very short notice...

Here is the rear side of the Honeymoon suite at the Crazy House. ..

...with a very clear fairyland-like quality clearly evident from the Front side garden of the same suite. Just a single structure out of many existing and planned at the Crazy House.

From across the garden and up on a balcony, a view over the main courtyard of the Crazy House at one of the central buildings. Much of it is still under construction on the inside, however.

Closer details of the balcony entrance of this central building within the Crazy House.

Looking up towards the rooftop, a great example of the unique exterior passages of the Crazy House. This one reaches the top of the gabled roof of the central building.

A view from above the Crazy House - looking over Dalat in the distance. Look close to see labyrinthine side-building, where the passageways wrap around the exterior of the structure, and the rooms and suites form the core.

Still under construction, here clearly evident in real-time. A labor of love, it seems, for the workers who construct according to paintings and sketches instead of blueprints and designs.

Home security, a la DIY style. Outside wall of Crazy House, in a section still under construction. Just a cool shot..

More wacky passageways between buildings of the Crazy House.

One building is built to resemble a giraffe - in an excellent example of how the place is meant to look natural and organic, with very few straight lines or linear shapes. Here Natasja surveys the Crazy House compound from above, soon after we entered the place.

The photos laid out heretofore are taken with an Olympus Stylus 1050 SW 

 
These works by Tim Paez are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License