Faces

From Hue to HoiAn or being an easy rider

After a day of sightseeing in Hue that included some pagodas and tombs and a most delicious lunch in a so not tourist place, I decided to change my means of transport. So far I’ve travelled by plain, by train, by bus, by boat but not motorcycle. So I took the offer by a so called easy rider to have a two days ride through the outback of Vietnam away from the tourist tracks.

We started early in the morning with a good breakfast; a banana pancake, coffee for me and for him just a cigarette. This should become a habit through our two days we spent together – me eating and him smoking. We left the big and busy streets and enter narrow and hidden side streets going through village after village. Slowly going higher and higher. After a couple of hours ride I got the surprise of a hidden waterfall. I had a swim at the most enchanted place. Being on the road again I loved the breeze of wind and sun in my face, I had my camera on my knee all time ready for the snapshot …

We made about 180 km on the first day and about 1400 altitude difference. I saw jungle, mountains, people, beauty and poverty, I waved at smiling children, had a power cut while I was having a shower and then again while we were having dinner, I got wet while we crossed a rainfall, I met str5ange Germans with crazy business ideas, I got tired sitting on the motorbike for so may hours and at the end - I was very happy.

Halong Bay - Mountains are glistend by water shadow, water spills all over the sky

After all the rain in the mountains of Sapa I was looking forward a lot to the seaside and the strange landscape of Halong Bay. The bay consists of a dense cluster of about 2000 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Some of the islands support floating villages of fishermen. They live on floating houses and are sustained by capture fishing.
The landscaped changed a lot with the weather: with sun it was beautiful and peaceful, though without the sun it became grey, mysterious and fabulous.


I stayed on a boat that cruised through this beautiful and also strange landscape. I had very nice company by Monika and Angelo, two Swiss travellers who are exploring Vietnam via bike. We slept on the boat, had very good food and enjoyed the breeze. We had a stop to explore one of the caves and some of the islands, did some kayaking.

Sapa or how many kinds of green are there?

Blue green, dark green, frog green, bilious green, mud green, charming green, grass green, ripe green, innocent green, spinach, indigo, light green, fir green, water green ….

What do you do on a long holiday weekend when all the Vietnamese leave the city to enjoy a bit of leisure time? Well you join the club. At least that’s what I did. So I surely did not end up to be the only one in the rice paddies that can be found all around in Sapa. So me, some hundred other international travellers and half a million Vietnamese tried to find peace and tranquillity in the hills surrounding Sapa. The whole thing became really funny after it had been raining throughout the night and all day. So the planned hike through tribe villages and rice paddies turned into a mud slide. I basically just survived because I had some helping hands from our wonderful guide Lam (a wonderful woman with a loud vice and a charming smile) or some other girls who accompanied us on the way. For this kind of help they wanted some service in return, so I ended up buying things I really don’t need. Guess that’s the way it works this way ….



On the trip I met two wonderful men from the beautiful city of Roma: Marco and Maximo. We had a very good checking out the local food stalls for lunch. Both were very cautious of the kind of meat they were offered since they did not desire to eat either frog nor dog, both delicacies are offered, apparently. I was out of the game being a vegetarian. At the end we got a great little lunch and met a wonderful Vietnam family. Very friendly people.
I’ve also met a very nice Swiss couple: Barbara and Patrick. They travel the world and have this month Vietnam on there plan. A good chance to speak a bit of German and talk about travel in general and in particular. Hope to see them again somewhere along the track.


On the last day I hired a motorcycle plus driver to take me around. We made it almost to China going all the way up into the mountains passing beautiful waterfalls and getting great views into the valley and up the mountains. I really enjoyed that ride and I regret that I cannot ride a bike myself. Well, maybe I learn it while I’m here …

rainy Hanoi

Arriving in Hanoi. Its gray, so gray. And it will be gray for the next three days I"m in this city. After the calmness and the peace of my retreat is the city like a shock therapy in any sense: noises, people, rudeness and fraud and cheating. So to survive I had to wake up and face this madness. Its difficult and I ended up being cheated two times by taxi driver. Now I've learned. First ask the price and never ever trust the meter! Well, it is much more fun to take the bus, anyway. The bus is conducted by a dream trio: the driver, the girl who sells the tickets and number three the DJ. He is responsible for changing the music according to the wishes of the passengers or is own mood, I;m not so sure about that. Anyway the bus ens up being a jolly good ride. Also fun is taking a motor bike. You get a dented old helmed and just jump on and then you pull out into the traffic and ride along. I love it. some breeze, some speed ....

I had good food, saw a water puppet show, which was quite boring, listed to classical Vietnames music, which was difficult to understand. Went to the ethnology museum to learn a lot about all the different tribes in Vietnam.So, I started my Vietnam cultural understanding program. ;)


HO Chi Minh Mausoleum

I saw him! I saw HO Chi Minh. Lying there in his sagrophag smiling. I was lucky to see him because within the year for three months he goes of to Europe to the people of Madame Tussuad to get a refreshment. After quoting for about 1 hour and moving along with hundreds of Vietnamese I had about 30 seconds to see the old man. There were lots of guards who were very keen that you keep on moving. With me there were two old ladies in wheel chairs who got sooo emotional, they started to cry and wave their hands in prayer. I wish I had known what connection they have with Mr. Ho Chi Minh....

See things as they really are

I did an 10 day silent retreat. The place was the most beautiful place I could imagine. in the mountains close to Phitsanulok. It was pure nature everywhere and if I had not been busy with learning how to meditate I could have done a study on wild creatures in Thailand because they were all there: birds, butterflys, frogs, snails, geckos, grasshoper, spiders and lizards. And pretty big because nature is just very generous. And then sometimes it was very nice to just watch nature because I was so tired of meditation.

Here is our time table:

4:00 am Morning wake-up bell
4:30-6:30 am Meditate in the hall or in your room
6:30-8:00 am Breakfast break
8:00-9:00 am Group meditation in the hall
9:00-11:00 am Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher's instructions
1:00-12:00 noon Lunch break
12noon-1:00 pm Rest and interviews with the teacher
1:00-2:30 pm Meditate in the hall or in your room
2:30-3:30 pm Group meditation in the hall
3:30-5:00 pm Meditate in the hall or in your own room according to the teacher's instructions
5:00-6:00 pm Tea break
6:00-7:00 pm Group meditation in the hall
7:00-8:15 pm Teacher's Discourse in the hall
8:15-9:00 pm Group meditation in the hall
9:00-9:30 pm Question time in the hall
9:30 pm Retire to your own room--Lights out

So the day was basically dived between 12 hours meditation and remaining 12 hours for sleep, eat and personal hygiene including doing your laundry. And all the time Noble silence was to be maintained. This also meant that you should not get in contact with the other mediators neither by voice, look or even touch. Not to have to talk was a great great relief because it actually helped me to get into the whole business of meditation and it was such a relief - not to communicate. I mean I love to communicate but here this was different. Not to communicate opens up a whole new world of closer observation of more attentiveness towards yourself and others. So in this coherence I was a little sad as on the last, the 10. day, we were allowed to speak again.


Vipassana Mediation

I've learned Vipassan Mediation, which is one of India's most ancient meditation techniques.Long lost to humanity, it was rediscovered by Gotama the Buddha more than 2500 years ago. The word Vipassana means seeing things as they really are. It is the process of self- purification by self-observation. One begins by observing the natural breath to concentrate the mind. With a sharpened awareness one proceeds to observe the changing nature of body and mind and experiences the universal truths of impermanence, suffering and egolessness. This truth-realization by direct experience is the process of purification. The entire path (Dhamma) is a universal remedy for universal problems and has nothing to do with any organized religion or sectarianism. For this reason, it can be freely practiced by everyone, at any time, in any place, without conflict due to race, community or religion, and will prove equally beneficial to one and all.
If you like to learn more, please click here.

In my words, I found a key to happiness and contentment and I hope that my life will become characterized by increased awareness, non-delusion, self-control and peace. I am really happy to have found the answer to several questions that troubled my mind during many years.....the experience itself cannot be put into words because, it is true, we all paint our own canvas with many different colors in life, to share in detail my experience would probably create false expectations...

And tomorrow I shall leave for Hanoi ______

The wet and wonderful Thai New Year

'Happy, happy, happy New Year!' shouts an excited teenage boy as he scoops a handful of white clay from the small, red plastic pot he is carrying and smears it over my face as I'm walking along the road. I laugh and ru away from a group of other boys who try toget me wet with their guns.

Nearby, techno music blasts from inside a bar while a crowd has formed around a dancing man clad in snakeskin trousers. Egged on by his audience, he runs his hand across his chest and thighs, unbuttons his shirt and gyrates his pelvis. He's soon interrupted by five ladyboys, who push their way through the crowd and add a few moves of their own.

Around the corner, several open-topped 4x4s, each crammed with whole families and a huge drum of iced water, are soaking each other and anyone else in their firing range. A bus drives past and several passengers throw water from the windows. Far from berating his passengers, the driver opens the door and squirts a couple of clay-covered children with his water pistol.

The three-day Thai New Year celebration, Songkran, makes the rest of the year look like a quiet night in an English country pub.

I've noticed very little, only some fires, of the anti-government protesters although the whole thing took place quite close to where I"m staying.

Tomorrow I'm leaving Bangkok to travel to Phinsanulouk and start to be silent _______

PS.next news from my in 10 or more days :)