Hanoi Day 7: The Kidnapping

Everyone slept well, despite the incredibly foreign environment. Good clean mattresses and thick futons make for a very cosy bed. Ten to twelve hours of sleep refreshed all of us. And despite my physical fitness regimen back home, I still woke up with some aching muscles. All the cycling I do pretty much neglected my calf muscles. And wearing pliable sandals, my soleus/gastrocnemius had to absorb a lot of the impact from the climb down the valley.

Breakfast was pancakes with chocolate syrup. A little disappointed with all these 'western' meals. Wished we could have more local foods. But did have some glutinous rice cakes that the hostess made the night before.

There also happened to be a festival at the village square today. Some new year, spring, pre-planting celebration. Pity it started only in the afternoon, so we weren't able to catch the event. Our trek today carried us ever onwards.

We took some final pictures with our host and guide, before we were kidnapped by a gaggle of Black Hmong women...

One lady grabbed my hand, and whisked me away from the rest of the group. We pounded onwards relentlessly, often half a kilometer ahead of the others. Almost everyone had a 'helping hand'. Dinh has an excellent rapport with the locals, and recruited the bunch of them to help us over the mud-slick trails. Wee Loong was alright on his own. Ravi needed two helping hands.

I was rescued a couple of times as I hopped recklessly along the treacherous trails. The Slatters were great, but not infallible. Then my lady swiped a bamboo walking stick for me from a farmhouse, and it was easy going the rest of the way. She knew only a few words of English. Her favourite words being, "Vely goooood!" in various contexts.

We were hopping from one paddy terrace to another most of the way. Also cut through a swath of bamboo forest, where the surest footings on the steep slope was to step on the stumps of felled bamboo. With the tactile feedback of sandals, it was no problem hopping up like a mountain goat. But sandals do have their failings.... like when I mistook a pile of buffalo dung for a dark coloured rock. "Not goooood."


We passed by my lady's casa, a typical Hmong dwelling: old dirty wooden walls, dirt floor, and livestock in and out of cages around the perimeter. She proudly suckled her youngest while we waited for the others to catch up. She's 35, but looked more like 55, and has five young children. The oldest child takes care of the others while mommy earns the bread. Daddy, the house-husband didn't seem to be around, although he didn't have much to do until planting season begins.


We finally stopped for a rest at a waterfall (N22 17.675 E103 54.016). That's when the Hmong women revealed their ulterior motives for helping us on our trek. It's an excellent sales technique... first soften up the targets with gratitude, then guilt them into making the sale.

This was where I was cleaned out. My last USD10 went into some pillowcases, a bag, a bracelet etc. All useless souvenier stuff. And now I'm penniless. If they could take Visa, I might have bought more. But being broke is liberating in its own way. I could now turn all the saleswomen away by showing them my empty wallet.

Unfortunately for Ravi, since he ended up taking up all the slack.


Just a little further ahead, we came to our final rest-stop. From here, we would make one last climb up to a Red Dzao village for a look see before coming back again for lunch.

Ravi got freaked out by the word 'climb', and chose to stay behind with all the Hmong women for company. The rest of us headed onwards.

The trail was wide and easy. Nothing much to see by way of scenery. The Dzao just like to live apart and isolated from the others. But we got clued in about some Dzao legends. It seems that once upon a time, a demon attacked a Dzao village and killed a lot of people. After some investigation, it was found that the demon had found its way to the village because a Dzao woman had dropped a strand of her hair in the demon's hunting grounds. Having thus established the blame, it was then decreed that all women had to cover their hair with a red turban, and shave their eyebrows from that day forth.

What a witch-hunt. Well, at least the women have a place to keep their wallet...


We poked our head into the house of a 'shaman', although he would be more accurately described as a master of ceremonies. The house had a different layout than the Hmong and Zay abodes we've seen thus far.

There's a huge wok in the kitchen for cooking up bathwaters. Bathwaters are cooked with a mix of herbs. Some of these herbs probably have disinfectant properties, since it's a communal bath. Family members take it in turns, in order of seniority. I'm guessing that the baby bathes in the murkiest muck, thus the coining of the idiom, "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater."

The Dzao bathe daily, but change their clothes weekly. The Black Hmong bathe weekly, and change daily.


We made a short circuit of the tiny village, then came back to where we left Ravi. Had lunch, a bit of rest, then crossed the final bridge, and trekked up to Cau May (N22 18.021 E103 54.257), where a jeep took us back to the hotel.

Thus, concluding the most fantastic tour I've ever had! All for the low low price of US$18!!


The hotel was good to give us showering facilities, even when we've already checked out. Thus the advantage of booking your tour from your own hotel. It took us a considerable effort to become presentable again, but we had time before the last mini-van down the mountain at 6.30pm, and catch our train to Hanoi at 8.20pm.

WeeLoong had to use this time to make good his promises to buy some souveniers from the girl he had the Loser-fight with. I had a last walk around while dodging Hmong girls. They wouldn't let me leave until I've convinced them that I'm REALLY flat broke. And then, they couldn't wait to shove me aside and redirected their attentions to Ben and WeeLoong.


Dinner at a restaurant Dinh recommended before we parted ways. Excellent call. Can't remember the name of the restaurant, but I could show you where the next time I'm in that neighbourhood... Must try the duck.


On the journey down, I got a sight of the Sa Pa lake, from out of a moving van, and in between two buildings, a milisecond glimpse of a beautiful lake, an acquaintance that fate had denied us.


There was a bit of time to kill back at Lao Cai. We sat down for a drink. Some concoction of condensed milk with a few drops of coffee dripped on it. There was enough sugar to jazz up a fat blues singer. WeeLoong wasted not a single moment, hitting on the drinks vendors by pretending to be Vietnamese. Don't ask how he managed it... He does, what he does.


We got a slightly smaller berth this time. Different train than the one we came in on. Made no real difference. It was Bridge again for most of the ride.

Hanoi Day 6: The Tribes

Need a good breakfast this morning. Some omellete and stuff to give us lots of energy for the walk ahead. Noticed that a bowl of Pho is the same price as a small cup of coffee. So I say, screw the bitter diuretic, give me some of that hearty soup!

I'm doing the trek with my trusty CamelBak, carrying everything I brought with me to Hanoi. It was an issued challenge, and I stood to earn a cup of Irish coffee. The rest of the guys dumped their excess baggage in the hotel's store room.

We met our guide, a young man named Dinh. He's a fresh history grad, home for a couple of months before his teacher's training begins. He speaks good English, and is full of stories and gave us an incredibly personal insight of how the educated class sees their country today. What a freaking bargain!


It had rained the night before. Our trail was muddy and slick. But on the plus side, the mist had cleared and we had a fantastic view of the mountains, the terraces etc.

The road to the villages start directly SE of Mountain View. Go 2.7km along the tarmac road until the trailhead at (N22 19.169 E103 51.426), next to a little shop. Then go south and down and get intimate with the mud.

Along the way, you'll find small boys selling bamboo walking sticks for 5k Dong. It's not essential, but it gives you immeasureably better footing on slick slopes. I went the first day without a stick, and picked up a free stick on the second day. There's a big difference, for a small price.


I was psyched about the route we were taking, because it was taking us to a geocache! I checked http://www.geocaching.net for searchable caches before I left home, and I was pretty excited about this one. The trail we were following fitted the descriptions, and I was sure that the guide will lead us past the bridge in no time.

But we missed the cache by 230m. It seems that we were skipping the bridge that would have taken us to Y Linh Ho. I didn't realise we were off course until too late. To this day... I still can't figure out how I got turned around... we were heading east, paralleling a stream, then cross the stream and turned right, and we were still going east....

But just as well... As it happens, another geocaching group was there just the week before and had taken the Travel Bug that I was after...


After we hit the stream, we were walking along the rice terraces. It was still some months from planting season, so right now the terraces were merely swimming pools for ducks, and jacuzzis for buffalos. There's no path through the terraces. We had to balance ourselves on the embankments. Ravi's pants was the first that could not resist the lure of mud. Dinh's pants followed immediately after while he was helping Ravi up.

Word of advice, you can't balance or stop a fall with your arms when your hand is holding onto an expensive piece of optical electronic. The Olympus came away slightly stained but otherwise unscathed.


There were some concerns earlier about the sandals I was wearing, whether it was good enough for the muddy trek ahead. I didn't pack hiking shoes for the trip cos I wanted to minimize gear, and maximise comfort. But these were good sandals: Slatters, which I bought in Melbourne. Not as good nor as cheap as the Salomons I had been wearing for years earlier until the straps had started disintegrating whilst the sole remained in near mint condition. But these sandals gave me good grip, probably better than Ben's Asics, gave me good feedback of the terrain that I'm putting my foot down on, I can easily wash off the mud at convenient streams when it becomes slick, and it dries easily. The last is very important in the high humidity.


All through the trek, Dinh kept up a running conversation about many aspects of the life in the mountains, or in Vietnam in general.

The rice growing season. The penetration of education into the tribes. How they're taxed, and how the tax collected is immediately put to use to improve the villages in the form of schools or grid power. How the fields are inherited. How the fields here are exempt from government control unlike the rice fields on the deltas, which are ruled by the land reform laws. The gender inequality amongst the minorities.

At the same time also, he steals blankets and pillow cases from the basket carriers of passing Hmong girls. He has an excellent rapport with the locals.

We taught him a malay word: "Buaya."


We kept going east until we reached a bridge and a foodstop, where we had some lunch.

After a brief rest, we went across the bridge to the village of Lao Chai, which means market or something. And past this village, we finally reached the village of Ta Van (N22 18.144 E103 53.313), where we stopped for the night at the homestay (N22 18.004 E103 53.633). 11.6km trek in total today.


The homestay is very comfortable and cosy. It's a brick and mortar windowless house belonging to a Zay family. The house had to achieve a certain standard of hygiene before it can be licensed as a homestay. The house is made up of three chambers. The middle, where the front door opens into, is the living / dining room and where the altars are; the left chamber is where the beds are; the right opens to the kitchen. There's a mezzanine level with comfortable mattresses and warm blankets for the homestay guests.

I brought a compact sleeping bag all the way here, but it seems that I won't be using it at all the whole trip.

I think Ben might have been a little disappointed by the arrangements. I think he was visualising Mongolian char-siew-pao tents, sleeping on the grassy plains under a velvet starry sky. Too much period chinese TV series. These are agrarian tribes. I suspect Ben's wanderlust will carry him to the plains of Mongolia next.


And for the first time since we came to Hanoi, we were served complimentary drinks! The homestay owner was generous with the tea. Ravi still has to pay for his liquid bread, of course. We tried to have a tranquil moment on the patio, but that hope was dashed almost immediately when were were beset by Hmong saleswomen.


We put up our best efforts to hold on to our money, but it was a losing battle.


Dinner was very generous. There's a lot of fresh meat, which Dinh must have brought along with him. In the villages, they seem to favour meat jerkies. Our host also bought "Happy Water" for the meal.

It's a potent rice wine, made locally. In Dinh's estimation, it may be 35% alcohol. It was delicious! It goes down like a depth charge, and will likely sink a sailor. This is how I've always imagined what liquor tastes like.

But this liquor can only be safely imbibed in these villages. If you try to order them elsewhere in the cities, there's a high risk that the drink will be mixed with methanol. And that stuff makes you blind.

The Happy Water incapacitated Ben and WeeLoong for the remainder of the night.

Ravi & I managed to stay conscious and chatted with Dinh till the late hours of... 8.30pm. Early to bed and early to rise is the norm here. The kids, watching TV at a neighbour's, actually stayed up later than the dad.

We spoke of many things. The marriage traditions of the tribes. The going rate of a Zay bride (3 buffalos, 5 pigs, a large measure of rice, and silver bullions). The Zay have arranged marriages. The Black Hmong 'kidnap' their brides, with her consent of course. The Red Dzao have a more open marriage, and frequent the Love Market. Can't remember which tribe has the bride being 'inherited' by the brother-in-law or even father-in-law if the husband died. No sense letting a workable womb go to waste.

The area around Sa Pa has been a tourist attraction for more than 11 years already. It's amazing how much charm has been preserved after such a length of time. But it's also seeing some rapid growth. 5yrs ago, there were only 4 guest houses in town. Now the numbers are closer to 84.

It's evident that the government acts in the interest of the locals in managing the growth. The charm of the place and of the people are largely preserved. And there is strong regulatory control, as unseen authorities register the passports of every tenant at every hotel. Almost everywhere we stayed, our passports will be kept for half a day for registration and inspection.

We also discussed about the rest of Vietnam in general. How Hanoi felt like a very safe city, the abscence of crime despite there being no police in the streets. Dinh corrected this impression. The police in the streets are all in plain clothes.

When you put a couple of Malaysians together and ask them to talk about our country and our government, you'll frequently hear grouses, government cluelessness or corruption, dissatisfaction, race inequality, etc. When our government budgets money for education, I'm immediately thinking which fat bastards are going to line their pockets with the IT purchases this year... (But apparently times are tough with Badawi-Mr-Clean's rule; heard one Dato complained about how Khairul is taking the bulk of the projects, such that only 5% of a 5billion project is trickling down to the impoverished Dato...)

But when Dinh talked about Vietnam, he talked passionately about oversights the government has made, such as the land reform laws which leases agricultural land for only 5 short years, that only encourages the growing of fast cash crops but not the more long term crops like fruit trees. He discussed these problems, but with the desire and ambition to do something to make things better. He believes in education, and is looking forward to his teacher training. He is optimistic about the future, and he has faith in his government, and in his own ability to effect changes.

I have yet to see such spirit at home.


Eventually even Dinh and Ravi retired. I toasted myself by the fire in the kitchen for a while longer to stay warm. The aroma of a bamboo & wood fire is strangely sweet. I knocked off out of boredom after I finished jotting down the notes for this day's trip.

Hanoi Day 5: The Trek to Mt Fansipan

Vietnam factoid
Mt. Fansipan is the highest peak in Vietnam, topping out at 3142 metres.

Reached the border town of Lao Cai (N22 29.584 E103 58.668) around 430am. There's plenty of touts at the station to get you up to the hotels in Sa Pa. Just go with the flow, they all charge the same, 25k Dong. There may be cheaper buses, but it wasn't possible to find someone non-partisan to advise us how to do so.

Lao Cai is a border town just a stone's throw away from China. Can see plenty of tourists here. It's also the only place that I saw Vietnamese girls who wore anything more revealing than long pants and long sleeves. It's likely due to the seediness nature of bordertowns.

We started our minivan journey at 103m above sea-level, and ended at 1495m in Sa Pa. It gets significantly colder here...


The rooms at Mountainview Hotel (N22 19.985 E103 50.571) is excellent. US$8 per room. Asked for flasks of hot water, then leaving them to cool to supplement my hydration needs. Drinking mineral water daily is biting a good chunk of my food budget.

We walked about the town square, being stalked by little girls the whole time. The Black Hmong tribe dress up their younger daughters in traditional garb, and unleash them on the tourists to sell handicrafts. They pick up English from the visitors, and are amazingly fluent. Although, I wonder if they might speak even better English, if visitors are less patronising; it seems that almost all English speakers unconsciously lose their diction & grammar when they start talking to the locals.

WeeLoong found a kindred spirit, and started a "You Loser" "No, you Loser" fight with an 8-yr old girl. It'ld have been embarassing, if it weren't so damn funny.


We took a late breakfast, and headed towards Cat Cat Waterfalls. The road starts west of Cat Cat Hotel (N22 19.967 E103 50.402), and there's a toll-booth (N22 19.946 E103 50.359). And at (N22 19.861 E103 50.035) we stepped off the tarmac and took the stone stairs leading down to the Hmong village.

Was impressed by the stairs. It was development that had given tourism dollars, back to the benefit of the local people. Encouraging tourists to come, and at the same time making the Hmong's commute easier and safer. There was almost 2km of well constructed concrete steps going down and up the valley. The inundation of foreign influences may be slowly polluting their culture, yet at the same time, it also encourages their traditional crafts that are in such high demand among the visitors.

At the end of the trip, we will learn that it was not advisable to buy souveniers from the craft shops. Because you'll be plagued by 'sales-women' throughout the entire stay, and it's more cost beneficial to spend the souvenier budget to purchase 'favours' at the same time you purchase goods. ...Um... 'favours' in the sense of making friends, getting a photo-op, help on the slippery slopes, getting email addresses etc. (Oh yeah, some of these 'mountain tribe' girls have Yahoo accounts.) Or just to get them to go away and leave you in peace to savour the tranquility.

We reached the Cat Cat Waterfalls at (N22 19.624 E103 50.047). We'd already climbed down to 1232m above sea-level. So we'll have a bit of a climb to look forward to at this point.

The path forked at the waterfall. We took the one going downwards and towards Mt Fansipan. Passed a few wonderfully secluded bathing ponds filled with pure mountain waters. Would be an excellent place to take a swim if the temperatures weren't in the low teens.

We continued this path towards Mt Fansipan for about a kilometre before we turned back. We only trekked to Mt Fansipan. I never said we made it to the 3142m summit.


The other fork at the waterfalls climbed upwards and took us in a small clockwise loop that brought us back to the main road.

The day was very misty, but we did get to see some rice terraces and such. And the photographers amused themselves with pictures of the local livestock.

We also had a round of bridge up on a small peak, just to be the first to penetrate Bridge to this part of the world. Also to give everyone a moment to catch our breaths after a particularly long climb.

There's a bridge at (N22 19.723 E103 49.769), where some of the men with motorbikes will spare you the rest of the uphill climb for US$1. The junction at (N22 19.874 E103 49.782) will take us to another village to the west. East goes back to Sa Pa.


Back in town we arranged our train tickets back to Hanoi. Then back at the hotel we negotiated a 2D/1N homestay tour to the villages in the valley. Got a much better deal this time, ie US$18/pax, with a personal guide just for the four of us. This was the shorter tour. I was more keen on the package that goes to villages a little further away, but the rest of the group balked when they heard about the 1.5hr uphill trek...


The night was too freaking cold to do much exploring. We snuck out and grabbed dinner at the first place that looked acceptable, then came straight back. Missing out on the rest of Sa Pa town.


BraveHeart was on TV.

Hanoi Day 4: The Train

Slept through the night easily. The sea is dead calm and the boat did not rock perceptibly. Almost felt like we're on a stilt house over the waters. The morning air was pretty cold this time of year. Fore-go-ed (fore-went?) showering. Although the others who did make use of the showering facilities had fun with the temperamental water heater that blasts cold and warm water in alternation.

Boat ride today was far more leisurely, since there's nothing scheduled. Just a ride from the boat park to Cat Ba Island, where we pick up some more passengers, and back to the jetty.

Relaxed on the top deck, catching sun and appreciating the scenery of islands that look like human faces, bosoms, cocks, etc. Um... I meant roosters. The other synonym is rather prone to misunderstanding.

It was only when we swapped tourguides at Cat Ba, that we got a guy who actually recognised my GPS device. He was more useful, and started pointing out islands and naming them for me. He also pointed out the hidden lagoons where Tomorrow Never Dies was filmed. The boats are not licensed to go there. The only way to take a look at the lagoon without going through red tape with the authorities was to stop at the village and borrow a boat from one of the fishermen.

The filming happened near a floating fishing village, which sees a lot of boat traffic for the seafood the villagers sell. It's really a cool lifestyle, these villages... Grab two dozen blue plastic barrels; seal them; lash them together into a raft; planks over the top; four walls and a roof; a few dozen yards of rope to anchor your real estate to an island. Stock some booze, and you've almost got a Malibu lifestyle with a huge, zero maintenance swimming pool, and without the risk of the pool-boy diddling your wife. The bay is so sheltered, it'll be like living on a pool deck.

What's amazing about Ha Long Bay is the cleanliness. Despite the production line of boats bringing boatloads of tourists hitting the islands at staggered intervals, the waters has remained pure. The industry is strictly regulated, each licensed boat is required to maintain certain standards, they can only stop at certain islands and stay on a designated course. Discipline and good sense keeps the water and beaches refuse free. I did not see a single Coke can, or discarded tyre washed up on any of the beaches.

If we had such beauty in Malaysia, you can be sure that local authorities will have raped the place and ejaculated commercial crap all over the place, all in the name of development, as some corrupt official lines his pockets. Who wants to go all the way to Langkawi to see a giant concrete eagle, pay rm20 per cab ride, rm50 per jet-ski ride, or see the museum dedicated to Mahathir?


Back at the jetty, we had our last "Big Lunch". Took the chance to talk to the other Vietnamese tourists. Most importantly, to learn how to order non-dog meat.

Vietnam Observation #4
Chinese 'cuisine' here pretty much sucks. Sweet and sour pork that's neither sweet nor sour. Lunch was at a 'Cantonese' restaurant...

And mini-van back to the city.


The mini-van will only drop us back at our hotel, and wouldn't take us to the train station. So we have to trek through town lugging everything on our backs. Didn't give me much trouble, cos I travelled light.

Dumped out baggage at the train station and took a walk around that part of the city. There's a smaller lake marked out on the map, so we thought we could try to find it.

This adventure failed it's primary objective, but it was more interesting than I had expected.

We took a general bearing and just went down random roads and alleys that lead in the general direction. My GPS isn't much help, cos it only marks my position and my trail, but there is no Hanoi city map that I could download into it. There isn't a community of GPS nuts here after all...

If the Old Quarter is like Petaling Street, then the rail station area is like Chow Kit.

Narrow streets. Old buildings. Sweat shops. A LOT of hair-dressers...

Even saw a 'hotel' that almost looked like the 'Pig Cage' dwelling in Kung Fu Hustle.

There were no other tourists on these streets with us. In fact it occured to me that, to the locals, we probably looked like a bunch of foreigners trying to find some Vietnamese tail, and rather unsuccessfully at that. It was at this point that I looked at the hairdressers with renewed suspicion.

There can't be THAT big a market for hairdressers... In such a poor part of town, no less. Granted that almost every Vietnamese girl keeps impeccable silky straight hair, but even then! I later had these suspicions confirmed by our Sa Pa guide. He confirmed that some of these establishments are more than likely to perform special services, which the locals have dubbed, "Happy Ending".

Well, now you know...


A note about trains in communist countries... They leave on time. Something that takes some getting used to, for us Malaysians. But no disaster this time.

We got a sleeper coach. The room was cosy and comfortable, and all four of us fit in one room just nicely.

And this night, we inducted WeeLoong to the game of Bridge. And the laughs never stopped. It's amazing that a commercial airline pilot can be so inattentive. Almost everything went past him.

Hanoi Day 3: The Sea

Today, we went to Ha Long Bay.

We took the US$45 option, which we bargained down to US$44, and then got a service tax slapped on it, making it US$48.40. This was the one and only time we ever got slapped with a 10% tax, anywhere!

So, we're looking forward to the "Big Boat", and the "Big Lunch", and the fluent English speaking guide. The trip started real well with a cramped little bus, packed to capacity, and a guide who's not all that fluent in English.

It was an uncomfortable 3hr ride to Bai Chay, which is just one bridge away before Hong Gai. That's where the tourist jetty is, where an armada of hotel-boats berth. We found our boat quickly, and waited impatiently to depart. The view here was already amazing, and we're looking forward to getting closer to the islands dotting the bay.

The waters are greenish blue, and dead calm. There's hardly any wind, but the movement of the boat gave a good 30kph breeze. The warm sun. The cool air. The smell of the sea. The sight of the limestone islands. The relaxation, wonderful. Except that the cold air makes my skin break out in a rash if I sit top-side too long.

The islands are one of a kind... They're like those phallic mountains you often see in chinese landscape art, ie tall, sheer-faces, narrow rounded peaks. Just imagine a whole bunch of these mountains together, and then you flood the whole place till only the tip shows.

Sorry I can't be more poetic describing these wonderful sights... There's no poetry in my cold silicon soul.

We made a stop at the island with the Cave of Surprises, which composed of several huge limestone caverns. It must have looked great when it was virgin. They've remodeled the cavern to make it tourist friendly. A wide path carved out. Strategically placed yellow spotlights. The ceiling machined smooth so no stalagtites are left to fall and kill. And the rubble was stacked up in 'artistic piles', hoping that tourist won't notice how much of it was artificial.

I walked on ahead and listened in while another tour guide did his spiel on his group. When our tourguide caught up, it was agony hearing our guide trying to do the exact same speech, rote learned from their Tourism 101 class, in his halting English.


Lunchtime, at least the Big Lunch did not disappoint. Fairly neutral and palatable foods in bountiful quantities. The four of us got a table all to ourselves. The others were still recovering their appetite from the dog meat, so I got the lion's share of the food.

After lunch, we began to teach WeeLoong to play Hearts. Yes, that game that comes with Windows XP.


Then we made a stop at Ti Top island. Nothing there but a viewing gazebo up on a 84m summit. It was quite a climb. But even a gimp legged Jap tourist made it. Think he had arthrodesis on one knee. The view was good.


Back down on the beach, there's kayaking for those who felt up to it. That ended in a minor disaster. Got my bermudas wet, and they're impossible to dry in these temperatures and humidity. Tried to air dry it anywhere I could, but it was hopeless. Luckily, the hotel at Sa Pa could do laundry at 15k Dong per kg, but that's 3 nights later.


In the evening, the boat chugged slowly to the 'boat park'. As it happens, there's a big "P" sign to designate the parking area.

The night was moonless, and the darkness quite complete. Such that you can see a green glow in the waters from the bioluminescent plankton. It's pretty cool to watch. When you spit into the water, you can see green ripples in the waters. Amusing as it was, I couldn't indulge too much. Was running low on fluids, and drinking water is expensive, and I down 2-3 litres of water on any given day.

Speaking of which...

Hanoi Travel Tip
1.5l of mineral water is 10k Dong for tourists almost everywhere. But they'll sell for 7k, which was the cheapest I ever saw in Hanoi, which also doesn't happen very often.

Hanoi Day 2: The City

The city wakes very early.

While the others dozed, I was on the balcony watching the traffic. Very few cars. A lot of motorbikes. A lot of bicycles. And no fat people!

Vietnam Observation #1:
I didn't see a single fat Vietnamese in Hanoi in the first few days there. All the men are wiry and fit. All the women are slim and fair.

Eventually everybody got up. Had breakfast. And talked with the hotelier about arranging a trip to Ha Long Bay. He offered 3 different 2D1N packages, for USD29, 35 & 45 per pax.

The USD45 package has "Big Lunch! Big Dinner! Big Breakfast!"

We told them we'ld think on it...

Our first destination was the lake (Ho Hoan Kiem, Lake of the Restored Sword). It's a well developed spot, with gardens all around it, a temple in the middle of the lake, and a toll-booth on the bridge leading to the temple.

This was when I felt that I was leading an outing of the photography club. Two Olympuses and a Canon were whipped out and started clicking away.

But clicking alongside them, I saw an unexpectedly high camera per pax ratio amongst the locals too... Seems that every second Hanoi-ite was sporting an old Nikon or Pentax SLR, those old metal affairs... For a while I was thinking that they were a press crew there waiting for some news-worthy event. Later I figured out that they're professional photographers, taking pics for those visitors who are without cameras, and then they'll run off to the nearest photo shop, develop that square of film, then re-use the remaining roll of film with the next customer. Quite a lot of effort just to make a buck.


Right after our first destination, we immediately met our first crisis. Wee's camera ran out of juice. But our photography club has an excellent support system and we helped him weather out the crisis.


Next on our journey was the St. Joseph Cathedral.

Then Pho for second breakfast.

Went and found the train station, and bought soft sleeper tickets to go to Lao Cai for the day that we get back from Ha Long Bay.

Got double charged for using the toilet at the train station. Locals pay D500, but I didn't get change for D1000.

The Temple of Literature.

Ho Chih Minh Museum. Closed.

Ho Chih Minh Musoleum. Closed for the day.

Lunch.

Military Museum. Charges extra for bringing in cameras.

Afternoon tea at cafe under the flag tower.

Walked about Old Quarter. Saw the Opera House and the Hanoi Hilton at night. Bought hats. Ate Vietnamese prepared western food for dinner.


Noteworthy events for the day...

We had an interesting lunch. Somewhere near the HCM Museum, we found a secreted restaurant (no sign boards) doing bustling business, mostly local patrons. We thought it would bea good place to sample genuine local cuisine, and quickly found ourselves a table.

Wee Loong proceeded to order us four glasses of fresh beer... by accident... before we were even seated. But it was a serendipitous accident, as we will later find. It was more beer than I had ever consumed in my lifetime prior to this day. Tasted better than the tapped stuff I had to sip socially before.

The menu was in Vietnamese. The waitresses didn't speak a word of English. But the menu had caricatures of animals on each page, so we thought we could handle it alright. We ordered a vegetable dish by pointing at a neighbouring table. So that's one down.

I managed to challenge everyone to try dog meat. And with some few phrases from a guide book, I managed to decode the alphabets for "grilled". I thought it was safest to order grilled dog, since all satay taste the same irregardless of the meat used.

Then we ordered a random (close eyes and point) pork, and a random chicken. The chicken was significantly pricier than the other meats, so we kinda looked forward to something special.

First came the boiled cold cuts of dog. Oops! The waitress took the wrong order. It looked like boiled pork, but with leaner, browner meat, and a thin darkish brown skin. Came with sliced ginger, a few segments of 'sausages', and some lime. This was more adventure than we bargained for.

First, the denial, we wanted to believe that this was the pork dish we ordered at random. But a taste removed all doubts. I guess I would describe the taste as... tastes like dog. It wasn't disgusting or anything. It just tasted like a different kind of meat. The texture was rather chewey... Like beef tongue. A little alien. A little funny.

Ravi tried a few slices. Wee spat out his first piece after chewing on it for a few minutes. Not entirely sure if Ben ate any, only remembered him poking it with his chopsticks. Had maybe about 8 pieces. Didn't mind the taste, but didn't like it too much either. I was the only one who tried the suspicious sausage segment. And, disappointing to some, it was not canine penis. Just some nutty or chestnutty stuffing in an intestine, I think...

This is where the serendipitous beer came in very helpful.

The other dishes came... But the dog-meat has already turned a few appetites. We were served boiled pork. And boiled chicken. It seemed rather suspicious that we somehow randomly picked 3 dishes of boiled meat. Especially the chicken dish, which had a very wordy name on the menu, but it only came out boiled??

Ah well... We're ignorant tourists. We suffered our lot silently.


The military museum was also a good visit. It was just a bunch of old photos, old war paraphrenalia (ie old flags, news clippings, chairs that some general sat on, different uniforms their armies wore, a clay bowl that some hero drank his own piss out of, etc), a bunch of trophies they collected from their enemies (ie a giant Howitzer, a few planes, the wreckage of a bomber brought down by their AAA [anti-aircraft artillery], a tank, a few vehicles etc), and diaromas of their victory in the battle of Dien Bien Phu, and the taking of Saigon.

Almost missed the Dien Bien Phu diaroma, as it was almost hidden off in a different part of the building, accessible through a door that looked like a service door. Maybe it's so that the exhibit can be diplomatically closed away when French diplomats visit, so they won't get offended by the gloating displays. But you would think that a people who devised the ingenious Maginot Line would be 'impenetrable' to ridicule already, where their military history is concerned.

Didn't really appreciate the military manuevers that brought them their victories. But through the theme of all the exhibits, one can come to appreciate that these are a people that has gone through a lot of shit, and had prevailed against everyone of them. Their nationalistic pride is well earned. They have the right to be a proud people. They have weathered numerous storms, and are fully capable of surviving many more.


Next to the military museum was a flag tower. No big deal really. You climb to the summit (29m above sea level), and get a little view around the city. But strangely, at the top of the tower, there are two stairways going down. When we got back down to the base of the tower, I can't find the doorway to the alternate stairs to the top.

I couldn't leave with this mystery haunting me. So I climbed all the way back up, and down the mystery stair. This one came to a dead-end halfway down the tower. And at the dead-end, which was just a narrow enclosed space with light coming in through a port-hole, there's a mysterious little shrine, with an urn for joss-sticks. No idea what it was for. Now that explained why a young Vietnamese couple was down here when my photography club was clicking pictures at the summit.


One of the better sights seen today was at the rail tracks. At a barrier, we decided to walk along the tracks after a train had just passed. The track runs behind the backs of a lot of houses. And most residences keep their back-door wide open. From this vantage, we got to take a peek at how the locals live, how they furnish their houses, what TV they own etc. It was cool just to wander off the beaten path for a short while.


Vietnam Observation #2 & #3
Where are the cats? Did not see a single stray cat the whole day. Except for a few kittens in cages at a market. And we've not seen cats on menus either. Curious...

Another thing... I did not hear a single dog bark. All of them are subdued, with sad soulless eyes. Like they're just waiting for the shoe to drop.

Hanoi Day 1: The Flight

Finally finished the backlog of work from when I was away in Hanoi. Had to get up before 7 this morning (7/4/06) and drive through rush hour traffic to a bungalow hidden behind KLCC to fix a few things this morning. Big-shot Dato of I Berhad mah...

So finally, finding some time to blog at work again :)


Ok, back in Continuity Mode.

..............

Woke up and spent the whole morning just reading the papers while Ben puttered around with last minute laundry and packed his bags.

Thought of dropping by WeeLoong's place for lunch and maybe take his Schwinn for a spin. But the fellow just got back from a holiday in Rome, and we figured it best to give him time to sleep and pack instead.

We all met up at Changi late afternoon.

Can't recognise the airport anymore. The last time I was here was probably July 1996, when I took off to KL for my spirit-ectomy in Universiti Malaya.

Had a bit of afternoon tea first, since we'll be reaching Hanoi way past dinner time. The MacDonald's here has more interesting foods than Malaysia, but a lousier Coke-refill policy, ie none to speak of.

Flight took off about 5.30pm, and we touched down about 8pm local time.

The more you know...

Hanoi is in the +7GMT timezone, although its longitude is slightly further east than Singapore, which is at +8GMT. This is because West Malaysia and Singapore are following East Malaysia's timezone. Thus we're an hour ahead of everyone else on our same longitude.
Therefore, do the sums and you'll see that our flight took about 3.5hrs.

We were seated pretty far towards the back of the plane. The four of us couldn't get seats together. So I left WeeLoong alone sleeping, while I spent the 3hr flight standing near the loo like a toilet attendent, occassionally opening doors for passengers who looked puzzled by the door latch.

Used the time to find out what Ravi and Ben had planned out for us. And get some vague idea what Hanoi is going to be like.

I was determined to go into this holiday completely blind. With no expectations nor preconceptions to colour my experience. The only research I did was the safety of their tap water, and the forecasted temperatures for this time of the year.

At this point, the bulk of my knowledge about Vietnam was:

• The French, and also Forrest Gump, were there at some point or another
• They're Commies
• Tour of Duty used to show these goblins in black pyjamas killing American soldiers
• Residences in KL where Vietnamese workers live, often see a high rate of pet mortality ('stewing' being the chief cause of death)
• Top quality brides

So, yeah... there's plenty of gaps in my knowledge to fill in...


We took a cab from Noibai Airport into Hanoi. The cabbie will ask for US$15. Pay him US$10 only. Get an airport personnel to back you up on this. But you can't blame the cabbie for trying to get lucky with the occassional gullible tourist.


Google for cheap hotels in Hanoi and you'll often get Salute Hotel. But that wasn't where the cabbie took us to. We ended up at Backpacker's Hotel, which I've labelled on my GPS as Fake Salute. But the room and price was agreeable, and we didn't have any better ideas how to find the real Salute.

Dumped the bags and went out looking for dinner.


There are HEAPS of local food stalls all along the pedestrian walkways! I was dazzled by the bounty of genuine local cuisine! Was just hoping to sit down anywhere and pick out a random dish and be surprised. But I followed the more seasoned travellers and see where they'ld lead me.

We took a few turns around the Old Quarter part of the city, and ended up at ... City View Cafe. My compatriots ordered Nasi Goreng and Pork Fillet.....

I was speechless...

I comforted myself with a bowl of hygienically prepared Pho. Somehow, the Vietnamese noodles I had in Australia tasted better than the authentic article.


But the cafe did have a very good view over the lake. Had a time looking at the bright city lights reflected in the waters, accompanied by the pleasing ambience of motorbike horns.

It was also a good chance to look at the streets and learn how the locals cross the roads. The idea is to wade right into the traffic and move at a leisurely pace. As long as you don't stop unexpectedly in the middle of the road, the onus is on the motorbikes to swerve out of your way.

Cool...


We walked about the Old Quarter a bit more before getting back to the hotel.

The room isn't too bad. But only 2 beds, a queen & a single. We put them together, and could squeeze 4 guys on it if we sleep in an "E" formation.

WeeLoong, unfortunately was the middle horizontal bar. Ravi being the vertical bar. So, WeeLoong had the choice of either Ravi's ass or his dick facing his head as he sleeps.


Ben snores lightly. WeeLoong gnashes his teeth. I sleep through it all.

Hanoi Day 0: Getting to Singapore

The highway lights fly across the bus window in dizzying streaks of amber. The effect is pleasantly hypnotic, but it gets nauseating after a while. The journey is so smooth that the passing flashes of light is the only indication of motion.

It was worth the few extra dollars for the bus service with the newer fleet, with the better suspensions, and hopefully with the more well maintained brakes. Not to mention fresher seat cushions, greater elbow room, and more air to barrier my nose from the odours of my fellow passengers.

Asides from the risk of olfactory assault, a chaueffered Mercedes is really the best way to travel.

Although the engine may sound muted, giving the illusion of a leisurely pace, the bus is actually hurtling down the highway at breakneck speed. But such thoughts are best expunged from one's head once the course is already committed.

I'm sure bus drivers have to meet stringent criteria of safety and discipline to keep their well paying jobs. And like every sane creature created under God, they will similarly be motivated by instincts of self-preservation. My irrational fear for my safety must be entirely unfounded.

And I must be really tired if my mental boundaries of fantasy and reality are beginning to blur such.

----

Accidentally dug up this literary abortion from several years ago. I suppose it'll do to describe my bus trip down to Singapore.


Anyways, had a particular bad day of work. Several things just popped up all at the last minute that I have to settle before I can leave. But still manage to pop out 2hrs early to go home to pack.

Cab to the LRT station. Train to the city. Met up with a travelling companion going the same direction. Bought tix. Ate dinner. Choked on carbon monoxide fumes on platform while waiting for late bus. Get caught in rush hour traffic. Reach JB. Bus 170 to immigration. Over the causeway.

And reached Kranji MRT just 5 minutes after 11:28pm, too late to catch the last connecting train going east out of Jurong East St.

So, stuck at JE, but as luck would have it, I managed to catch a bus that still goes past Commonwealth Ave West, and that got me to Ben's place sometime after midnight.

Showered. Then used Ben's internet to finish up my course assignment and handed it up.

Yes, I'm pretty much a last minute kind of guy. My muse is strongest at the eleventh hour.

The Iran Oil Bourse

Why is it that I can't find a single piece of news whether the Iran bourse has started or not?

It's an action that will have wide ranging consequences, yet no one is reporting whether it has or has not happened.

Maybe I need to update my Search-Fu skillz...

Paronychia

Eeeewww!

One of my fingers started turning green, somewhere around the nail bed.

I think I burnt the finger while twisting spark-plugs out of a very warm engine. So there was a small spot of cooked tissue under the skin. After a few days, it became inflammed, but that always heals, no problem.

But when I started seeing a tinge of green under the skin... hmm.....

Lucky I've got a few medical supplies sitting around the house. Broke open a sterile needle, sterilised it just in case, since the needle expired 3yrs ago, and I lanced the green spot.

There was a fair amount of pus, oozing out like squeezing a pimple. The pus looked like green phlegm, and there was significantly more of it than I thought could fit in the tiny space under the skin. Squeezed out as much as I could. It hurt a lot less than popping a stubborn pimple.

Didn't have any convenient anti-septic in the house, other than a bar of Dettol soap. So I microwaved a mug of hot water, dissolved a half handful of salt into it, and soaked the finger in it for about an hour.

I don't know how effective that was. But I'm not man enough to cauterize my wound with gunpowder, nor burning pitch, nor red iron. Salt water is a harsh environment and it kills stuff. Nothing lives in the Dead Sea. That's as far as my rationale went, and it made me feel better about the wound. Or I could get a stiff brush and scrubbed the wound until I reach clean tissue, but unsurprisingly, I favoured the salt water approach better.

The finger looks much healthier this morning.

But maybe the ill effects weren't completely purged... It's entirely possible that some disease inspired dementia told me that this would be an interesting subject matter to share with my friends.

Well, I'm accustomed to writing about weird stuff. Be glad that you've not read my gleeful account of the sounds of snapping human ribs with a large pair of pliers, or hacksawing a female jaw-bone. But I'm pretty sure I've not told anyone about the horror porn I've seen either. The real horrors are the one where the inept performer spent 40minutes stitching up an episiotomy.


PS. Isn't Google just wonderful for digging up inappropriate links?

George Lucas Sucks

This was the thought going through my head when I watched V For Vendetta.

Because in this movie, it is so immediately apparent that Natalie Portman is an amazing actress. Yet as Queen Amidala, this fact is expertly disguised under Lucas' direction.

But then again, maybe Lucas wanted to recapture the same magic as in The New Hope: amateurish acting & directing. Or he's completely clueless about how to work with talent. Of every Harrison Ford movie I've watched, his acting was roughest in Star Wars. Anyway, I blame Lucas for failing to make me see Natalie Portman in the same light as V did.

Enough digressing.

V For Vendetta is an old Alan Moore masterpiece. It is a complicated and thoughtful tale of an anarchist's fight against an evil government. Or some might say, a mad-man's terror against a stable albeit totalitarian government.

Natalie Portman is Evey, the Victim.

Hugo Weaving is V, the Vigilante.

John Hurt is Adam Sutler, the Villian.

? Who ?

John Hurt, the first chest-burster incubator...

...No... Who's Adam Sutler?

I dunno. Maybe the script writer has a problem with Adam James Susan, and
changed it to Sutler so that the audience won't get confused by a man named Mr. Susan.

...But why?

Well, audience are stupid people and get confused fairly easily, so Hollywood considerately dumbs down everything so that the befuddled masses don't stub their mental toes trying to think their way out of the theatre.


This isn't the only thing that was dumbed down. The sexual devience of each and every corrupt party member was taken out, (fetishism, pedophilia, a disturbing emotional lust for a supercomputer named Fate).

Some story arcs also had to be taken out, cos a 10 issue comic just won't fit in a 2hr movie. Certain characters had to be simplified, left undeveloped, or left out altogether. The widow of a fallen Finger-man, whose own fall from grace led her to assassinate Leader. A very long winded and not altogether that interesting arc. But taking her out, means that Leader had to be killed by some other means, and thus a complete re-write of the ending.

The ending is also air-brushed.

The comic book ended with a country in anarchy and chaos, as general disorder overwhelmed the government's forces. In the movie, there's a near bloodless revolution where an army of people marched into the streets that brings to mind the opening of Kung Fu Hustle with the gangsters in tux and top-hats.


Not to say that the movie wasn't good. It was most enjoyable. Although the message was diluted, but it's still more flavourful than the half-baked saw-dust that Hollywood usually feeds the mindless masses. And it's almost sad to say, that this is the best Alan Moore adaptation so far. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was so crap, and From Hell was only good for Johnny Depp.

Cats

"That's it. Cats. I don't need men. I'll raise cats and they will stave off the soul-crushing loneliness. Cats are better than men. Cats don't see you as what you could or never will be. Cats view everyone with the same distanced apathy. Cats are honest about the fact their love to you is only because you feed them. And cats, at least, eat bugs you don't want in your home."

--R.K.Milholland--

I've just spent two nights reading through my archive of Something Positive comics looking for this particular episode.

This one about the Homotron 5000 was what got me into reading web-comics in the first place. And what brought me to the Homotron comic, was this letter on Dan's Data, while I was still neck deep in my technophilia stage.

Something Positive is full of edgy humour that's unfit for mainstream media. But mainstream nowadays is just a lot of recycled crap, and after a while, you've seen them all already. This has wit, drama, friendship, tragedy, violence, pink pussy, a big dose of real-life-sucks & people-are-stupid, relationship advice and truths.

The wit and sarcasm is just gold. I'm grateful that this gem came along only now. If I had read this stuff a decade ago, I might have patterned my 'wit' by it, and I'ld probably have less friends than I do now. But then again, it's not like I've received a single birthday card from anyone in the last couple of years anyway.


PS. Statcounter allows me to see the referring page of who comes in to read my blogs. Yeah, I need a social life, but I derive entertainment from this activity. It's really funny when I see someone who linked here from a Google of "coitus & G-spot". Although I don't remember using that in a sentence before. Anyway, I'm interested to see how "pink pussy" will now rank me on Google. It'll be interesting to see.

Whoops! Speak of the devil. I just got crawled by a Googlebot.
crawl-66-249-72-51.googlebot.com (66.249.72.51)

Engine Re-tuning

Thanks to this compression tester on the right, I was able to set my mind at ease about my car engine.

Took out all the spark-plugs of my engine, and tested each cylinder compression with it. What a freaking relief that all three cylinders registered more than 150psi, within my engine specs.

Which means the piston rings are still ok, as are the intake/exhaust valves, and no leaky gasket. Thus, no expensive overhaul needed.

Having eliminated the mechanical causes, I went back to re-check all the possible electrical problems.

Took out the distributor contacts, which I just replaced a few months ago. Found the contacts all burnt and pitted already. Must have set the dwell angle too high. Thus confirming my doubts about the accuracy of my Made In China dwell-meter.

Have no idea how to recalibrate the thing either. Guess the only thing to do will be to replace the contacts again, and set it to a lower dwell angle this time. In the meantime, I just filed down the contacts I have now till I can grab a new one.

Had to adjust engine timing as well. A procedure made more bothersome since I upgraded to shining new Bosch platinum-tipped spark-plugs. Somehow, with these new plugs, the current running down the resistive cords aren't triggering the inductive pick-up of my timing light. So I have to swap back the first spark-plug with an old one to do the timing.

Just took the car out for a spin, and it now runs ten times better.

Happiness.

Now, if only I could also take the time to clean out the bird-shit on the bonnet, which is marring my new barely one week old paint-job.

Weird Science

Car has been running funny. The timing seems a bit off and quite erratic. There is significant loss of power. And pretty sure that my fuel consumption is affected too. Also finding the engine running warmer than before.

Tried to Google up a solution and came up with the weirdest nutcase information.

I had tried to retune the engine. And even bought a new set of spark-plugs.

Just hoping that it's not something mechanical with the engine. Worried that it's a leaky gasket or a piston ring problem affecting the compression.

...

It is obvious I don't know what I'm talking about, isn't it?

Taman Wetlands, Putrajaya

11 million MYR or more was spent building this 'largest artificial fresh water wetlands in the tropics'. The same money could have gone into preserving ten to twenty times the acreage of natural ecology, instead of trying to fabricate this artificial one.

But that's Boleh-land.

Been here two years ago, and found it mildly interesting. A couple of flamingoes, pelicans, swans, and ducks, and lots of grass. It's not as interesting as the other Paya Indah Wetlands park somewhere nearby in Dengkil, but it would seem that the 33m MYR project is in trouble. Eco-tourism seems to be a lost cause here.

Anyways, I came back to this park in Putrajaya because of this. It's a geocache with a Travel Bug in it. And the fact that I have 3 bicycles now, so I grabbed two friends along for a leisurely, scenic ride around the wetlands.

Tried to find the geocache with my GPS, but no luck. The GPS insisted that the cache is behind a TNB fence which we have no way of getting to, short of climbing over a fence and risking tetanus from the scratchy rusted fence. Later back home, I discovered that the geocache page gave two different coordinates. And I copied down the wrong one. That, or I may not be using the same map datum as the guy who placed the cache.

Didn't find treasure. But at least got a good morning's ride out of it.

And managed to see one lone swan. The pelicans, ducks, flamingoes are nowhere to be seen this time. The wildlife has mysteriously disappeared, but at least the park is still very well maintained.

From some biking forums, I've come across various recipes for home-made powerbars, using muesli, chopped nuts/almonds, caramel, raisins etc to make hand-sized energy bars for long hours of biking.

I wonder how these recipes compare to the chinese 'power-balls'.

ie. sugary bean paste, wrapped in glutinous rice flour, richly coated with sesame seed, and then deep-fried until the ball is oozing with oil...

OOTS #291

Panel 1: "I thought you said your dad was dead?"

Good News

Was having a most exhausting day driving all around Klang Valley, when I was lifted by this little piece of good news on the radio.

They're making a movie of Stardust!

Yes, I'm a Neil Gaiman fan-boy. Why else would Stardust get me all excited?

Ain'tItCool News already has the latest.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert deNiro! Also Mr. Casanova and young Ms Capulet.

And the producer is the guy who did Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Something worth waiting for....


Speaking of movies to wait for....

I just read V for Vendetta last night.

This is an Alan Moore comic from 17yrs ago. One of his ground-breaking works.

I can appreciate its genius. But it's not the kind of story that appeals to me. I tend to focus on characters in stories. And in a tale about a masked murderer, a victim, and a line-up of sexual deviants; it doesn't seem likely that one can find a character to root for.

But it's still a very thoughtful story. And the movie's coming out very soon. (Pity they couldn't get it done before 5th November...)

Queen Amidala is the victim, and Agent Smith will be V. Sounds pretty cool so far.

John Hurt will be in it too.

Who?

The guy who sold Harry Potter his wand!

Who?

The guy who went into contemporary consciousness as the unfortunate spaceman with an alien bursting through his chest.

There we go.....


It'll certainly be very interesting to see if the movie can capture the essense of the comic. It's not an easy story to tell. There's a danger that it might degrade into a Zorro movie. Let's hope not.

Two Zorro movies in my lifetime is enough puke already.

Seen the trailers, and there's too much of a Matrix feel to it...

Geek Fest

Went to a nasi kandar place around Ampang Park this Sunday morning for a geek fest.

The GPS users from http://www.malsingmaps.com called a gathering, and almost twenty showed up with their toys. There was a land surveyor, an accountant, a senior manager of an IT firm, a CEO of a Friendster knock-off (Kawanster.com), an aviation cadet etc. It was a cool way to meet some new people. And get my grubby hands on some new gear.

One guy combined his GPS with a notebook running Google Earth, so he can have a satellite view of his position as he navigates around KL. One guy has a GPS watch. Some used their Pocket PCs with a BlueTooth interface. I was probably the only one still viewing the GPS maps in black & white, and given strong urgings to sell off my one week old purchase and start looking for a better one.

Met the guys who built the KL maps. It was a 16mth effort, primarily by two guys who've met each other in the flesh less than a dozen times. The map is really an incredible achievement.

One guy gave a tutorial on how he's incorporating Google Earth's hi-def pics as an aid to draw his maps. By using reference points and using the GE as an overlay, he can extrapolate some details without needing to track down every small lane/road.

Even got a look at a copyright trap. This is a deliberate mapping mistake, a small non-existent lane drawn somewhere in the map. So in case anyone tries to copy and paste this map into a commercial product and violate the copyright, these traps will catch them out.

An interesting day spent.

Garmin GPSMap 76

I've been trawling Lelong.com (the Malaysian eBay) for many months now for a second hand GPS receiver. And last week, I finally got results.

If you're not sure what a Global Positioning Satellite receiver is, then get your education here.

What I've just gone out and bought is a Garmin GPSMap 76. The seller just blew RM2500 on a newer colour model, the 60CS. So I'm getting a 7mth old, pristine condition GPS unit for a rather good price.

Been having a whale of a time playing with this new toy. Had wanted one for quite a while already. I can see where I am, see where I've been, and see where I'm going. It'll be great for jungle trekking, or off-road biking, so I don't get lost inside an oil-palm plantation somewhere.

The GPS unit can record where you've been, creating a track of you movements, so you can always backtrack your way out.

If you just want this most basic GPS function, then you can just get an eTrex for less than RM800 hereabouts (cheaper to buy in Singapore).

BUT, the GPSMap76 series also allows you to load up a map of your region. And this feature is definitely worth the premium that you pay for it. Although this function is only as good as the map that you can get for it.

There are a variety of GPS receivers out there, but Garmin models are the only one you should seriously consider, because of THIS. A community of GPS enthusiasts around Malaysia and Singapore have spent innumerable hours tracking all the roads, labelling them, and authoring the maps. And these maps are in a format useable by Garmin devices, and I can't speculate how much luck you'll have converting these maps to be compatible with other devices.

The map is INCREDIBLE. I can search for road names, malls, LRT stations, the nearest Bak Kut Teh restaurant (at least those that the mapper finds note-worthy) etc. And if you have a GPSMap 60 series, you can even have auto-routing. This means you ask the GPSr to find a way to get from point A to point B, prioritising time or distance, whether you want to avoid toll roads or not, and the device will show you the way. It's brilliant!

Best of all, the Malsing map is FREE. Free in the sense like, "free beer". Not in the sense as Linux is free. It's still copyrighted. But this map is proven to be superior to several commercial products for Malaysian roads. Products like Mapking will have you driving through concrete road dividers, or punching through cars coming in the other direction.

The GPSMap 76 that I have sadly lacks this auto-routing function. The 76 is a marine series, so routing from point A to B is frequently a straight line and a dose of common sense. Where the 76 excels over the 60, is the tide informations, NAVaid info, which will come in useful if I run a beer smuggling operation between Labuan & Brunei. And most of all, it FLOATS.

.....

If it's not apparent by now, the 60 series is the better toy to buy if you've got the cash. I got my 76 for RM820, so I'm pretty happy. All I'm missing out is the colour, the auto-routing, the electronic compass, the barometer, the altimeter, the hiking altitude graph.... But hey, my 76 floats.


And once I've got my GPS co-ordinates, the next obvious thing to do will be to download Google Earth, of course. Must've burnt a whole night looking for my parents' place in Sibu, and my sister in Melbourne.

I'm at 3deg 09' 09.64" N, 101deg 36' 18.96" E. Check out the golf-course view directly south of me, or the proximity to Ikea.

Next thing to do, will be to look for trail maps!

And GeoCaching!

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

While back in Sibu over the weekend, I decided to dig around my old books. I have a proud collection at home. Plenty of sci-fi and fantasy. A couple of detective fictions. A sticker book of prehistoric animals. Sandman graphic novels. And a near complete collection of the translated works of Mitsuru Adachi.

It often makes me break out in sweat when I hear my parents giving my room out as a guestroom to relatives with grubby-handed brats. I've invested a small fortune here. Many of these books had carried me through some of the most miserable years of my life.


This trip back, I decided to dig out Hyperion by Dan Simmons, and its sequel The Fall of Hyperion.

Like I said before, Hyperion is by far the best sci-fi I've ever read. It has everything. Murder mysteries. Lovecraftian horror. Starship trooper action. Space battles. Time travelling. Several amazing love stories. Detective fiction. Cyperpunk. Rambo II chain-gun action. Monsters. Poetry. Comedy. Tragedy.

But, it's not a sci-fi that I will recommend to the uninitiated. You need a solid grounding in Geek, or phrases like time-debt, AU, FTL travel, singularities will all be Greek to you. Otherwise, better to start with kindergarten stuff like Robotech.

You'll need to know some astronomy to understand what the author meant when he wrote, "Hyperion is afflicted with its Deep Ice Ages, although here the periodicity is spread to thirty-seven million years by the long ellipse of the currently absent binary dwarf."

You don't need to be Einstein to understand the effects of time-dilation in Faster Than Light travel, but it helps.

A useful primer perhaps, will be Bill Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything, which will give you the solid grounding in real sciences before you can understand the speculated science.

And this is part of the appeal of Hyperion.


But if you just want to machette through the science stuff and just revel in the characters' stories, I suppose that's good too.


The story begins with seven pilgrims arriving at Hyperion, a planet on the border of known space. A planet also under threat from an Ouster invasion, a tribe of barbarians (read 'hippie communists') who had left the web worlds of cultured capitalists several centuries ago.

The planet is distinguished by the existence of the Time Tombs, an archeological find of great mystery. A mystery protected by the Shrike, a four-armed, metallic personification of bladed death. And that's where the pilgrims are headed, to petition the Shrike to grant a wish. One will receive his/her wish, the others will die.

On the pilgrimage, each of the pilgrims tell their tale, to prepare each other for the mysteries ahead. Sounds like The Canterbury Tales, no?

Yeah, I've bought that book, but I won't pretend that I've read it. It's a headache....

A lovyere and a lusty bacheler;
With lokkes crulle, as they were leyd in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse.

WTF?!

... Digressing again...


The story of the pilgrims began with the Priest's Tale.

The story of how an archaeologist from the Catholic church was exiled to Hyperion, where he undertook to study a lost race in the most inaccesible part the planet. How he discovered the village of 70 inhabitants, all mentally as capbable as Down's children, but who respect the burden of the cruciform. A mystery that will not be revealed in its entire horror until the next book.


The Soldier's Tale.

A passionate tale of a decorated soldier's hallucination of a lover in the virtual combat simulations, a love affair with a ghost in the machine, and ultimately meeting this lover in the flesh on Hyperion.

This tale is the author's vehicle to build up the history of his universe. Introducing the Ouster threat into the plot. And revealing the stark horrors of how wars will be fought in the future.

The group went out into the cool evening air, shielding their eyes from the staggering display of silent explosions which filled the sky: pure white fusion bursts expanding like explosive ripples across a lapis pond; smaller, brighter plasma implosions in blue and yellow and brightest red, curling inward like flowers folding for the night: the lightning dance of gigantic hellwhip displays, beams the size of small worlds cutting their swath across light-hours and being contorted by the riptides of defensive singularities: the aurora shimmer of defense fields leaping and dying under the assault of terrible energies only to be reborn nanoseconds later. Amid it all, the blue-white fusion tails of torchships and larger warships slicing perfectly true lines across the sky like diamond scratches on blue glass.

The Poet's Tale.

The story of a poet who discovers that the Shrike's horrific slaughter of innocents on Hyperion is the muse for his epic cantos, told in the dark sardonic humor of a delusional neurotic.

The funniest part was when the poet suffered a stroke during cryogenic sleep which destroyed the language part of his brain.

For the record, here is my entire vocabluary of manageable words: f*ck, shit, piss, cunt, goddamn, motherf*cker, asshole, peepee, and poopoo. A quick analysis will show some redundancy here. I had at my disposal eight nouns, which stood for six things; five of the eight nouns could double as verbs. I retained one indisputable noun and a single adjective which also could be used as a verb or expletive. my new language universe was comprised of four monosyllables, three compound words, and two baby-talk repetitions. My arena of literal expression offered four avenues to the topic of elimination, two references to human anatomy, one request for divine imprecation, one standard description of or request for coitus, and a coital variation which was no longer an option for me since my mother was deceased. All in all, it was enough.

The Scholar's Tale.

This is by far my favourite love story. I have re-read this tale more than twice.

Those who watched Adam Sandler's 50 First Dates will recognise many of the elements.

A young archaeologist is cursed with Merlin's sickness while investigating the time tombs. She begins to age backwards. Every morning she awakens, she becomes a day younger, and her memories regress by a day.

Like Drew in the movie, she weeps in denial every morning, finally catching up with her forgotten days and finding acceptance later in the day, only to forget it all and begin the process anew the next morning. Until the day she tells her father not to let her remember anymore.

So the scholar carries the burden of lying to his beloved daughter every day of her life as she grows younger and younger. Until he arrives at the Time Tombs with a five day old babe.


The Captain's Tale.

This is not told cos he may have been shredded by the Shrike before his turn to tell his tale.


The Detective's Tale.

Here, the cyberpunk element of the future is introduced, of how the AI's co-exist with humanity, and of their own conspiracies for the fate of Hyperion.


The Consul's Tale.

This is a Shakespearean tale. Of a pair of true 'star-crossed lovers', but who shared a hundred days more together than R+J. A space-boy who fell in love with an island girl. Every journey he makes across the stars means his island lover gains another 11 years of age over him. Blame Einstein for the paradox.


All meshed together, these tales create an incredibly detailed and imaginative universe brimming with endless possibilities. The delivery just blew my mind the first time I read it.

This book earned its rightful place in the very short list of books that I read twice. Right there with Tolkien. But not quite there with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I read three or more times.

And thankfully, also one of the very few books that will get such a lengthy review from me.

WTF ?

I have a nemesis! I can't believe that there is a Klan dedicated to my extinction!