tripp

Vicksburg

2009-01-31T16:26:00.000-08:00

When you drive into Vicksburg, site of a Civil War battle, you get a brochure. It mentions Lincoln' words: "Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket." Then you go to the visitors' center, and you hear, "Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket." Afterwards you walk though the small museum to a large map, where the first words you hear are, "Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket."

The National Military Park of Vickburg celebrates the crucial battle that won the west in the American Civil War. But battles are such complicated things, and this one so complicated that students of military history study it assiduously and probably write thousands of dull papers about it, titled things like "Vicksburg, The Key." In order to fully understand it, non-military types must grasp an array of subjects : geography, history, politics, and 19th century technology.

And so, the museum simply beats you over the head with it all. Again and again. Yes, it's somewhat dull at first. But over time, as you drive across the strange, undulating landscape marked by hundreds of memorials—like an elongated graveyard—you begin to understand it all. The parallel lines, the assaults, the redoubts, redans, and lunettes. And you begin to forgive them for their ceaseless repetition of the themes, the dull recounting of facts. It all starts to become clear.

Suddenly, you see the battle in all of its fascinating detail. The Gibraltar of the Mississippi. The fearless and brutal Grant moving his troops at dazzling speed. While Pemberton and Johnston and Jefferson Davis prevaricate and fumble. And then, the guts and determination of Sherman and Porter bring them to heel. The suffering of the people, the righteousness of the victors. It's quite a story, once you get the backstory.

The best part of the park, however, is the restored gunboat Cairo. It was an ironclad river-battle ship, sunk during the war and buried in silt in the Yazoo River. Raised and restored in as much detail as possible, it opens a window on 19th century naval culture and technology. There also is an interesting video about the restoration. Needless to say, it opens with the words, "Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket."

Houston: a million bizarre little pieces

2009-01-29T20:17:00.000-08:00

Houston is admittedly an ugly place. From one end to another, it bristles with car dealerships and chain restaurants. People drive in big cars from neighborhoods without sidewalks to malls without sidewalks. They walk (some waddle) into thousands stores, under the lights of a hundred thousand branded signs—ok, enough. Houston is filled with strip malls. It's a picture no one needs to paint.

That said, for all the scorn poured on it, Houston is a surprisingly diverse city—more authentically diverse than, say, Austin. It's also a big food city. There might be strip malls, but a single one can have a Japanese, Vietnamese and Turkish restaurant—many of them really good. There is even a supermarket specializing in Middle Eastern cuisine, the first time I'd ever been in one. We had terrific Thai food and the best bowl of Vietnamese noodles since a hole in the wall in Hue. It was all tasty.

For tourism, we asked my sister for a trip to the National Museum of Funerary History, which was suggested by one of my Facebook friends. It currently has an exhibit of a working 1900-era coffin manufacturer. My sister thought it sounded ghoulish. She had a point (but no imagination).

Instead, she took us to something that is, in a way, even more strange: NASA and the Johnson Space Center. (Pop quiz: why is the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Answer: because then-VP Lyndon B. Johnson put it there.) It's part McDonalds-Playland, and part very serious and sober history of the US Space Program. There are many very cool things: big rockets, full scale models of Skylab, moon rocks, knowledgeable staff—I've never been to a museum where the curators knew so much.

But I have to say there's something very odd about it all. Every single staff member lives convinced that going into space is the apex of human ambition. There is nothing cooler, greater, or more impressive than climbing into a tin can, strapping yourself to a rocket, and blasting into space. I admit it's really cool, and I'd love to take the ride. But if I had to hang out with those people all day I'd never make it. They were so clean cut, so dedicated, so driven, and so thoroughly humorless and boring, that I'd have to shoot myself and several of them long before I made it through the program.

Even so, NASA comes well recommended from me.

Road Trip, Help Wanted

2009-01-28T20:20:00.000-08:00

After logging several hundred thousand miles in the last few years, we can find our way to most places without help. But Nicole and I have now plotted a long road trip south, and no one we know believes we can actually bring it to a successful conclusion. Or start, for that matter. Since we've announced our intentions, we have met with a chorus of disbelief.

On the one side are car-skeptics. We're doing the trip in a ten-year-old Toyota, our second car, which I keep meticulously maintained under the hood. It looks terrible, but this really doesn't matter—or so you might think. Those who know us universally believe that the single most important indicator of a car's health is its paint job. Second is upholstery. Our decision to sally forth in a car without leather has been a sore trial for our loved ones.

Next comes the trip itself. How shall we go? One might think that we would have the good sense to consult a map. But who needs a map when you have relatives? My in-laws each possess a remarkably detailed internal map of the entire tri-state area. Ask them how to go anywhere—no, don't bother asking, simply tell them you're going somewhere, and a remarkable stream of information will pour forth.

"Ok, you need to take the 143, then get on to the Taconic, go south until you hit the Henry Hudson, then go onto the Parkway—no, you're going in the morning, so there's construction on the Parkway. Sorry, stay on the Henry Hudson until the Bridge, get off at Tappan Zee, turn into Reed's Ice Cream, go through the parking lot, and take the right exit in front of the white house with the purple cow in front, and then get onto the Turnpike, which should take you down to 81."

For fun, you ask, "Are you sure the cow is purple?"

"They've had that cow—it's ceramic—since 2004, but if they've removed it or painted it some other color, just look for Moorpark."

"Is that a nursing home?"

"No, it's a Jewish deli. They have great rye bagels, you should pick some up for the road. Actually, come to think of it, if you want some great rye bagels…"

"I don't want rye bagels."

"You should not get off at Tappan Zee, but instead stay on the Connector until you get to Elizabethtown…"

In my inlaws' defense, I have never endured traffic during hundreds of trips with them through some of worst stretches of New York highways. But I simply don't care as much as they do about avoiding traffic. (Come to think of it, I don't think I care about any single thing on God's great green earth as much as they do about avoiding traffic).

So you see, we set off armed with a set of these directions—but immediately dropped them in favor of a Rand McNally road atlas. It guided us along a similar route down through New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and then Texas.

There, we picked up an entirely different set of directions, this time from my beloved relative. She has lived in Houston for almost 13 years and has learned to navigate it—I can only surmise-by getting lost in it most of the time. She's a geophysicist and only moderately absentminded as those people go. Still, she can get up from a dinner party, head towards the bathroom, return somehow with a handful of laundry, pass back by the dinner party wondering what all the people are doing there, put the wash in, wander back to the kitchen, remove a leftover bowl of fried rice from the fridge, take a few bites, and then suddenly remember the dinner party. She'll then rush back to her guests, sit down, when she realizes she has to get up again to go to the bathroom.

Her instructions had an ethereal quality.

"Ok where are you? Are you on Merchant St?"

"Yes."

"Ok, when you pass the pizza place, go to the 2nd or 3rd light and turn left at the next street. I think it's Pine-something."

You continue on. The second light is for Wetherford St., the third is for Courtland Court. The fourth is for Nottingham Oaks Blvd. Then you pass over some railroad tracks into a business district. Finally you say, "We did pass a Nottingham Oaks."

"Yes, that's it! Pine, Oaks, what's the difference. I knew it was a tree."

In this way we arrived safely in Houston. We got a warm welcome. Then somebody may have said, "You drove from Connecticut? It's amazing you got all that way without leather."

To Omotepe

2009-01-18T09:41:00.001-08:00

(image is Nicole, swaddled in gnats, with her game face on).

The volcanic island that looms out of Lake Nicaragua has been described as one of the most magical and fantastical places on earth. The trip to get there, however, is an all too familiar slog through the vagaries of the underdeveloped Nicaraguan tourist industry.

A minibus (which costs $15) drove us to the dock at San Jorge, where the driver (who had no $5 bills) took payment. I was able to pay only by emptying my pockets of every spare dollar and piece of Nicaraguan money I had. That left me on the dock of a small, poor town with a $20 bill—a fantastical sum, considering that the boat itself cost less than $1 and they had no change.

Enter Juan, a pint-sized man who offered to help us with everything. He showed us where the boat would come, how much it would cost, and then tried to find some change for us. There were no money changers near the docks, but there were stores. Soon, Juan was running along the street with our $20 bill, going into every place looking to buy a bottle of water. Finally we watched in dismay as he ran up a hill and out of sight. We figured we'd never see our $20 again.

In all our travels we've only been robbed once. (Unless you count taxi drivers. Once, we were lost in China, for example, and needed a ride to see the terra cotta warriors. A taxi driver, scratched his head, made a great show of calculation, and said "Five dollar." We agreed, got into his car, and he drove us exactly 100 yards to the gate, which was just out of view. With much laughter, we paid him in full.).

But not this time. We waited ten minutes and he soon appeared, sprinting down the hill with our water bottle and change. "A tip?" he asked. We gave him about $7. He seemed happy.

The boat ride was hot and fly-ridden. By fly-ridden, I mean that we were, quite literally, covered in tiny flies. They didn't bite, but they were good at attaching themselves to us and drowning in our sweat. Nicole found this particularly unpleasant, Needless to say, we arrived in a terrific mood.

Hotel Terrasol: Grenada

2009-01-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

Year ago, I was attending a business meeting with a client in Silicon Valley. He was from out of town, but he had formerly lived in San Jose, and like many Californians, was obsessed with food. During his brief visit, he insisted on revisiting all of his favorite culinary haunts, one of which, oddly enough, was Dragers Supermarket in Los Altos. We ended up talking business at a card table in the parking lot, while he shoveled down a quart of chicken salad with a plastic fork.

Flash forward to today. We are staying at the Hotel Terrasol, where the restaurant serves up California-style cuisine using fresh, local Nicaraguan ingredients. For two days, we feasted on octopus pasta, chicken in papaya and rum sauce with peppers, and pork with cilantro and sour orange. I spent some time talking with Victor, the chef, and, to make the very obvious point being labored to death here, he was the executive chef at Dragers at the very time I was dragged to that weird parking lot lunch.

In any case, when in Grenada, you must eat at the Hotel Terrasol. Stay there too, it's quite nice.

Grenada, Nicaragua

2009-01-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

You can spend an exceptionally long time in Latin America without admiring a building. This isn't a statement of prejudice, but of fact. The Spanish conquistadors built beastly churches and vast public squares that look like they were designed chiefly for executing heretics (this was one of their functions). The newly independent countries complimented them with ponderous Neo-classical buildings and ghastly Beaux-Arts opera houses. Seeing them, you must always be ready with words like "stately," "impressive," and "imaginative." I'd advise staying away from more accurate adjectives like "overbearing," "squat," and "horrid." Your fellow travelers, mostly eager 20 year old backpackers and beaded retirees, will think that you have no sensitivity for other cultures.

Nicaragua's jewel city Grenada is the exception that proves the rule. We dropped our things at our hotel and sauntered out into a hot, steamy afternoon. The town square was small and was not particularly suited for beheadings. In each of its four corners, it had a pleasant tree bower where you could get a vigoron, a dish of steamed plantains, salad, and pork rind, served on a banana leaf. This was good stuff, even though they didn't serve beer.

"It's a family park," explained the restaurant proprietor.

Grenada is filled with little colonnades and arcades, brightly painted churches and courtyard buildings that burst from the inside with lush gardens. It's a clean, peaceful town that wears its age well.

Road to Grenada

2009-01-18T09:03:00.001-08:00

Crossing to Nicaragua was a long, hot, and dull process, punctuated by endless polite no-thank-you's to men who changed money, women who made cheese tortillas, and children who wanted a peso for no particular reason at all.

One feature of the border deserves comment. When you pass through Nicaraguan customs, you stand in line before a customs official, who sits at a small table. On top of it sits a regulation-sized stoplight. You hand him your declaration, he looks it over, and then directs you to push a button. At the point, the stoplight changes from red to green, and you can go. Don't try to dispense with the custom, it doesn't work.

Then it was on to Nicaragua, which is completely different. Most of my countrymen believe that below the United States are a large number of exactly similar countries, with borders arbitrarily drawn between them. You can't really blame them. Mostly we only see them in the context of a storm or war, which tends to blur finer cultural distinctions.

For the record, Nicaragua and Costa Rica are entirely different places. Nicaraguans (Nicos) despise Costa Ricans (Ticos). Ticos return the insult with interest by ignoring their northern neighbors. Ticos shop in bland, orderly Western supermarkets. Nicos shop in bazaars to the deafening sound of dozens of stereo systems. Tican towns are well built, with lots of stone, tiled roofs, and gardens. Nicos have a lot less money, so they build with tin and baling wire.

When you cross the border, even the landscape changes from a dry jungle to more open spaces of poor ranches and sparse trees. Soon, on the right, Lake Nicaragua heaves into view: beautiful, black as you might imagine, with the twin volcanic island Ometepe looming up like a just awakened giant.

Flashback, Uspallata Argentina

2008-06-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

You might think getting stuck in Liberia because of a combination of Tropical Storm Alma and Nicaraguan Mother's Day is a one-in-a-lifetime occurrence. But no. There was another time when we were stymied by an unlikely confluence of two entirely unrelated events.

It was January 2006, and we were heading out of Argentina's Mendoza wine region to Santiago, Chile, a trip that took us over the mighty Andes. The halfway point was the town of Uspallata, at the foot of Cerro Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas. The guidebook warned us that accommodations could become scarce during the climbing season, which it was. So we called a hotel while still in Mendoza and told them we'd be arriving at eight. No problem, they said.

Except that by the time we arrived in Uspallata at seven, our hotel had already given our room to someone else. Our disbelief quickly approached panic. We knocked on the doors of every other hotel on the town's one street, and found nothing available.

It was getting dark, the wind was picking up, and visions of sleeping on a sidewalk were dancing in our heads. To give you an idea of what we were facing, Uspallata stood in for Tibet in the movie Seven Years in Tibet. It's a high-ish, cold-ish, desolate-ish, don't-want-to-sleep-on-the-ground-under-any-circumstances-ish kind of place.

By this time, we had figured out what was wrong. Not only was it climbing season, but we had also arrived just before a massive festival celebrating a particular kind of Argentine folk music. Uspallata was bursting at the seams with intrepid, sunburned mountaineers and thousands of people who had come from all over the world (see below) to listen to Pablo Somebody-or-other strum his ukulele.

Argentina, by the way, is a sophisticated country filled with open air cafes and tango music. I'd never suspected it of harboring folk music, let alone some vibrant folk festival popular with the bead-wearing hordes.

Eventually, we poured out our sorrows to a bus station attendant, who directed us to a family that offered 4-wheel drive tours of the mountain. They called every hotel in the area. Luckily, a youth hostel two kilometers outside of town had room, and they loaded us in their car and drove us there.

We found ourselves in a hostel filled with a curious mix of folk music aficionados and mountain climbers. And no food. Not a scrap of bread or even a candy machine, which will always do in a pinch. Luckily we had two bottles of wine leftover from Mendoza, and immediately came to the same conclusion: That would be dinner.

We went outside, sat on stumps, and began to plow violently through the Malbec. By and by, the hotel owner came out and invited us to a bonfire, where he gathered his guests and handed around bottles of homemade hooch. We were an unlikely group of friends: grim mountain climbers, bizarre international folk music fanatics, and us. The climbers were a particularly subhuman lot. It apparently takes all of your mental and physical resources to get up 20,000 foot peaks, because unless you wanted to talk about the finer points of pitons, cutoffs, rappelling harnesses, alternative routes, and oxygen tanks, their store of conversation ran dry fairly quickly.

The folk music fans were a different matter. The most memorable among them was a tall, blond 23 year old from the Netherlands, who had—in only two weeks in Argentina—already pushed through an intensive Spanish class and managed to shack up with a good-looking Argentine bravo who spoke no English. Since she spoke no Spanish, for a moment, I wondered what they talked about. Then I realized they were probably just bouncing the hammock every spare moment they had. Besides if the male half of the equation actually understood what was coming out of her mouth, it would have been all the worse for him.

We spent a merry hour listening to her babble on about the music of the great Pablo (god knows where she discovered it) and how she had come especially to see him. Then, we watched the Southern Cross rise, and turned in.

The next morning we woke up to bright sunlight, a hangover, and the strange sight of the Dutch woman following the hostel owner's pet goose around with a camera. Once we got to town, we learned that we wouldn't be able to get a bus to Santiago for two days. We also found that Uspallata was deserted. Even the small supermarket, which in no way adhered to its posted business hours, was shut (presumably to avoid the after-concert riots which are endemic to the folk music circuit). There was, however, a gas station with a small store. Over the course of the next two days we relied on its limited supplies for food.

Needless to say, we eventually did make it to Santiago. There, we went out and had a great pasta dinner kicked off by two pisco sours. We thought we had died and gone to heaven.

Patrimony National, Liberia, Costa Rica

2008-06-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

Among the 20 or so things you're not supposed to miss in Costa Rica is the Calle Real in Liberia. It's supposedly the "best example of colonial architecture in the country."

So we pulled out our guidebooks and joined about ten puzzled tourists milling around with their guidebooks. We passed to and fro, up and down the Calle Real—which is a strip of ordinary bars, backpacker hotels, muffler shops, cheap eateries, and hardware stores.

What we didn't realize is that winning the prize for colonial architecture in Costa Rica is like winning the Puerto Rican All-Commonwealth ice hockey title. The Calle Real has perhaps two small buildings left over from colonial times, and they probably weren't very important then. Other than that, it's just a street.

Liberia is a nice town. It has a small plaza bedecked with flowers, a number of good but cheap eateries, and three bus stations (Costa Rican towns never have just one). But we're happy to be pressing on.

Hurricane Party: Liberia, Costa Rica

2008-06-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

We were enjoying a morning coffee in the tropical storm, when someone asked if we spoke English. She was a small woman with a large chip on her shoulder. Had we been to the beach? she asked. Had we SEEN what was there? she asked. Her tone indicated that the beach was the place where Costa Ricans molested their children in public.

She had been to Central America several times, she said. She was a seasoned and patient traveler, she averred. She had been to Nicaragua (pronounced Nee-haar-A-wah) and Panama (pah-na-MAH), and had never ever turned her back on a place before. But she had gone to Playa Flamingo (PLY-zhha, Fla-MEEN-goh), a tony resort, and had been appalled. It was unspeakably bad.

"What was wrong?" we asked.

"It was soooo touristy," said this tourist, "I just don't go for that kind of thing." She searched for the best way to illustrate her disgust. "They had a Pizza Hut," she said.

We nodded in deep sympathy (even though we'd just knocked back a personal pan pizza apiece at the airport in Dallas).

She asked us if we knew if other beaches in Costa Rica were like that. Without waiting for an answer, she continued on. She and her husband loved to travel. She was very fond of Nee-haar-A-wah, where things were not like they were in Khost-ah REE-kah. Of course, the beaches there weren't so nice, and the policemen carried machine guns and picked up spare change by robbing tourists, but at least she didn't have to share air with Pizza Hut employees.

After having gotten that off her chest, she pushed off to her room. I felt a little bad. Costa Ricans are a sensible folk who abolished their army 60 years ago and have, as a result, never had a civil war since. They have managed to build up a stable tourist industry, a large number of coffee plantations, and a safe, stable society.

Of course, for the people most inclined to take the side of the oppressed underclass that makes Costa Rica a place to avoid.

The Perfect Storm: Liberia, Costa Rica

2008-05-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

The next morning, we trotted a kilometer up the PanAmerica to the center of town. Once there, we learned there were no bus tickets to Nicaragua. Sunday is Nicaraguan Mother's Day. Since half of Nicaragua's men seem to work in Costa Rica and all of them apparently love mama, there were huge lines at every bus stop.

"We have no tickets until Saturday," we heard everywhere.

At our hotel, we managed to hire a car to the border at a perfectly larcenous rate, but it soon got worse. It started raining. Hard and steady. It continued to rain all day and into the night.

By morning, parts of the hotel were ankle deep in water. On the TV, we learned that an extremely rare—once in 100 years—early season Pacific tropical storm, Alma, was laying off the coast pouring rain onto the country. Soon rivers had broken through levies, and whole towns were under water. In San Jose, there was an frightful bloodbath on the highways (Costa Ricans are horrific drivers.)

Somehow, the idea of standing for hours at the border during a tropical storm, along with the entire mother-mad nation of Nicaragua, was too much. We canceled our car and spent the day watching the news.

There were the usual images you see of people paddling boats down streets of submerged houses, dogs stranded on rooftops, hundreds of wet, miserable people being handed out sandwiches in school gymnasiums. Then, there were the bland public officials assuring everyone that due to special measures taken since the last round of heavy rains, everything would be different this time. Don't worry! Teams are in place! Help has been dispatched to all affected areas! We have called up the special reserve units (whatever it is they do)! Cooperation at national and regional levels has been extraordinary! Everyone is working very hard (with the exception, perhaps, of the bland public official, who is doing nothing)!

Then the news cuts to the Man Who Has Lost Everything. He is standing in a T-shirt and shorts with rain pouring down his face, while Jose, a reporter in a sparkling new poncho and freshly oiled hair, draws near.

"What happened?" asks Jose.

"I lost everything," says the man. He begins to explain how his whole house was inundated by the flood and what little possessions he had were swept away. But suddenly there's an interruption!

Why it's the news anchor, and he has something very important to say. "Jose," he says, "That is a very sad story, and we hope everyone prays for him. But right now we have to go to some amazing footage of a man rescuing a dog from a tree."

And so it went.

The pictures here are from our last watery debacle, when we were in Chiang Mai, Thailand and it rained for about a week. The river that runs through town jumped its banks leaving the entire city in knee deep water.

A truckstop café in Liberia, Costa Rica

2008-05-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

We woke up expecting a comfortable van ride north, followed by a taxi ride to our decent hotel. But we had traveled long and hard and slept late. Our breakfast, taken in the courtyard of our old hotel, was some deliciously ripe fruit and rich, smooth Costa Rican coffee. But at the desk the clerk told us that all of the regular minivans had already departed.

Costa Ricans are accommodating folks—probably have seen too many pushy tourists. So she went into a long account of the amazingly expensive options available, including limousine service. We must have looked distressed, and so said, "Or you know, you could take a public bus. That's what I'd recommend."

We took a taxi through the dreary, wet streets and found a shelter of a bus station: concrete blocks and corrugated tin roof. Tickets were a snap and cheap. We listened to the rain drum on the roof of the bus station, staring at a sign that said "Absolutely no farm animals allowed on the bus." In one corner there were six dirty men throwing dice, arguing, drinking; in another a café serving up piles of rice and beans. And the assorted panhandlers of the area who took our worldly wealth a quarter at a time.

A half hour later, and we and twenty Costa Ricans were on a bus, with the air blowing through our hair. We sputtered through a tropical mountain range, ringed by emerald green grass and fields of banana trees and lumpy white cows.

Our goal was Liberia, a transit town consisting of a small grid of muddy streets, a few supermarkets, three bus stops and a dozen hotels. The PanAmerican Highway, which runs through its heart, makes it loud, but otherwise it's pleasant. After getting to our hotel, we walked out to the nearest restaurant, which happened to be in a truckstop. We ordered plates of meat and rice and beans—Costa Rican food is underrated—and set to with gusto.

San Jose, Costa Rica

2008-05-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

About the charmless capital of Costa Rica, the less said the better. But that's not much fun. Though San Jose sits in a lush little valley, it is loud, ramshackle, filled with barred windows, corrugated tin roofs, broken sidewalks, huge storm drains, and people standing in doorways looking at you like they would like nothing better than to see you fried in lard, and they wouldn't even like that very much.

Our stay was a brief layover, made somewhat interesting by the fact that our good hotel was in a bad place. We know it was a bad place because it was filled with tire repair shops and patrolled by San Jose's finest streetwalkers. Well, maybe they weren't the finest. They all looked as if they had been stamped out of the same mold at the local hooker factory: giant fake boobs stuffed into leather bras one size too small. They stared at every passerby as if they were utterly bored and murderously inclined. They seemed underemployed too. (Surprise.)

But our hotel, the Britannia, was a lovely old thing, all courtyards, lush plants, and crown moldings. We arrived late and after a quick dinner of crackers and cheese, and a few swigs from our flask, we settled in for a long summer's nap.

La Proxima Parada: San Jose, Costa Rica

2008-05-25T16:12:00.001-07:00

Will it qualify as a real tripp? Hard to say, because we are in a state of exhaustion thanks to a four month home renovation. We've chosen to travel all the way to Costa Rica to explore its unique culture, sample its exotic cuisine, hike through stunning cloud forests, scale majestic volcanoes--who are we kidding? We're beat. Say hello to white sand beaches, all inclusive resorts, gallons of Coppertone, and swim-up bars. Viva la Cuba Libre (not the country, the drink).

That said, we may recover in time to take a shot at Nicaragua. Posts start day after tomorrow. We miss traveling.

Ho Chi Minh City

2007-11-14T04:41:00.000-08:00

(apologies for the lack of photos…time constraints, stay tuned)

You enter Saigon along a highway that is flanked for miles with small stores, rice farms, and repair shops. As you approach, they increase in frequency, until the black soot clinging to the concrete tells you are in a city again. Motorcycles dominate the roads, chaotically darting and buzzing amongst the cars. The only traffic rule they follow is a Darwinian one: wherever a motorcycle can go, it will. That includes sidewalks, crosswalks, and the wrong way on a one way street.

Interestingly enough, the drivers of these death machines will often cross several lanes of traffic, pop up a curb, burst through a fruit stand, and then casually ask you if you might need a ride somewhere. One imagines that if one of them took you to your execution, you'd be somewhat relieved to arrive in one piece.

In any case, your bus beeps and honks its way over a bridge or two, and plunges into a modern, but still old city. Saigon is built flat and spread out, rather than up. Depending on where you stay in it, you can have a dozen different experiences. On the outskirts, you'll swim in a steamy sea of South East Asian grime and mania. Trucks and buses belch smoke and dust onto impromptu cafes where patrons poke through bowls of pho. Women walk balancing loads of coconuts or fruit on long staves. Motorcycles run down everyone in sight.

In the center, though, you find the wide, patient boulevards of colonial France. The traffic is still incredible, but you can easily escape it in small boutiques or cool cafes, which serve some of the best iced tea you'll ever find.

We liked it so much, we immediately ditched our idea of a trip to see some wartime tunnels outside the city (there's a perfectly informative book we'll read), and concentrated on the city itself. The first day took us to the War Remnants Museum. It is, as you might imagine, a long, gruesome, and pretty much accurate portrayal of the US war on Vietnam. Hardly the sort of thing you follow up with a steak dinner.

From there, we went book shopping, and I was left, as usual, to ponder who chooses the absurdly high-falutin titles in a foreign bookstore. It had no less than five books by Thomas Hardy, in addition to Vanity Fair, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Middlemarch, Ethan Frome, Silas Marner, volumes of eye-closing Wordsworth, the sonnets of the Reverend John Donne, and the complete works of the lesser Bronte sisters. I was once a graduate student in literature, and I've read most of that stuff. My advice: buy a gun instead. It's quicker and you'll suffer less.

We ended up eating dinner at a café and considered the day a success. Tomorrow, we'll head back out to take in the Ho Chi Mihn City Museum and the city market. Then, we're off to home.

Mui Ne: The Backpack Archipelago

2007-11-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

We are relaxing in Mui Ne, a coastal town about three hours north of Saigon. Nicole and I have a tradition of ending every trip with a stay at a resort for a few days. This one, "The Beach" is like any you've ever seen: beaches and pools, cabanas, and German and Russian men sunning themselves in bikini bottoms. Since there's nothing interesting here, we'll take up a different topic.

Mark Twain once said something like the following. A person may naturally be a great bore, but he will never reach his true potential until he travels. How many of you have seen a pair of travelers come back from a 'round the world' tour, world-wearily heave their backpacks into their living rooms, and proceed to tell everyone who can't run fast enough all about the eye-opening trip they've taken to Thailand and beyond? They must be brave, foolhardy, or just plain nuts.

In reality, exotic travel is amazingly easy today. The reason is an institution we've nicknamed the Archipelago. It's a network of interlinked budget hotels, restaurants and travel agencies that stretch out like friendly islands across the developing world.

How does it work? Let's imagine that you're in Thailand and want to go see Angkor Wat. Don't have a visa? No worries, it can be arranged either at your hotel or at the travel agency next door. Need a plane ticket? No problem. Hotel room? Let us know what you want to pay per night. Not sure what to do there? They'll arrange a tour. When you arrive, the Archipelago is there to feed you, house you, do your laundry, and send you on your way to the next stop. A child could do it, maybe even a dumb child.

Oddly enough, the Archipelago makes the most visible symbol of the adventurous traveler, the backpack, an unnecessary affectation. The modern travelers' backpack has become an evolved monstrosity, capable of carrying more than any normal suitcase. It is designed not for serious travelers, but for well-heeled 20-somethings who want to look fabulous in far flung destinations. We abandoned ours years ago in favor of much smaller rolling suitcases that can double as backpacks in a pinch. In five years of travel, we've used them as backpacks once. That was in Copacabana, Bolivia, and it was only because we went the wrong way.

The Bible of the Archipelago is The Lonely Planet, that maddeningly uneven but unavoidable travel guide. In addition to providing valuable transportation information and dreadful restaurant tips, the Planet also gives the Archipelago its moral backbone. In sanctimonious and claptrap-filled asides, it urges you to be a sensitive traveler. According to it, that means not feeding Bolivian peasants candy, picking up after yourself if you're in the wilderness, pondering the adverse psychological effects of Chinese children growing up without brothers and sisters, and avoiding plane travel if possible (this, from a travel guide!). The LP's hold is so pervasive though, I challenge anyone to travel the length of Bolivia without having at least one conversation in which an earnest backpacker warns you not to feed the proud peasants sweets. As if it would have occurred to you to do so otherwise!

The Archipelago has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it has made travel to anywhere convenient and pleasurable. You can see great sights without undue effort. Wherever you are in the world, you can find a lounge with natural wood chairs, tapestries on the walls, and a menu that features hamburgers, fried eggs, pancakes, and coffee. (That's right, the anti-American backpacker universe has brought Denny's with it everywhere). You can listen to old rock and roll in a setting that feels exotic and authentic. It's fun, and easy to meet people.

On the other hand, the Archipelago has also MacDonaldized travel to a great deal. We may find the faux-Tiki lounges exotic, but that doesn't mean they have anything to do with native culture. Americans often deck out their backyards in a similar style. We have whole chains of stores like Cost Plus and Pier One that sell the same crap that is supposed to be so authentic in Hoi An. When the Third World goes upscale, it likes bright paint, marble, tile floors, clean walls, crystal chandeliers, and gold leaf—not wicker chairs and bamboo roofs.

It also insulates us to a great degree. Travel is supposed to be about confronting other cultures and learning about them. The Archipelago is much more about other cultures anticipating what you'd like to see in them and delivering it to you. If you want to find a country spiritual, they'll find a monk or a medicine man for you to study under. If you want to feel adventurous, they'll bring you a mountain to climb. Whatever need you have, whatever itch you want to scratch, the Archipelago can supply it. Of course, most people simply want to drink beer, see sights, and party in a "Third World" environment. And that's what the Archipelago is best at.

One of the best parts of our trip, and most difficult, was that we decided to avoid the Archipelago in China. Instead, we made separate arrangements outside the sainted Lonely Planet. This made travel much more cumbersome, but also more interesting. In Vietnam, this was impossible. There is only the backpacker's route…the few Vietnamese who travel use it as well. So we dropped back in.

Nha Trang

2007-11-10T00:35:00.000-08:00

Leaving Hoi An, we boarded a Vietnamese Air ATR-72, one of my least favorite planes. It heaves and pinwheels into the air, turning every atmospheric disturbance into a gut-wrenching lurch. Our destination, reached happily without barfing, was Nha Trang, a coastal city that had had an important military airport during the war.

Today, Nha Trang and its beautiful bay are all about tourism, both foreign and domestic. Large hotels line the beaches. Strips of open air restaurants provide a gathering place for a vast population of underemployed motorcycle taxi-drivers. Along the coast runs a wide boulevard and a concrete boardwalk. Vietnamese youngsters crowd the beaches in bicycles. The only sound you hear, though, is the towering waves pounding the coastline. No one can swim here, but that doesn't stop them from coming.

As with much of Vietnam, we've been impressed by Nha Trang's fast-approaching modernity. Poverty exists of course, especially away from the coast, but this is a country on the upswing. Everywhere new buildings are going up, streets are being paved, and the strange concrete blockhouses are receiving their coats of bright lacquer.

We checked into our hotel, and walked along the beach. There, we were struck by something. Stretching across the miles of beautiful white sand were acres and acres of sunburnt European flesh.

Naturally, the sight of all those bloated bodies was worrisome to a true patriot. For years, America has been the undisputed world power when it came to waistlines. Our Nachos Bell Grandes, Whoppers with Cheese, and Grand Slam Breakfasts have kept us in a class of our own. And while the title is still not in doubt, warning shots are being fired across the bow. New powers are gathering at lunch counters around the world, devouring pizzas, choucroutes, and haggises whole. They are ordering an extra schnitzel when no such schnitzel is nutritionally necessary. Who knows where it will end?

I urge my countrymen to get to work. We cannot afford to rest on our capacious laurels. To the trough! Applebees and Papa Johns await, my friends! Go forth. Order something made in a skillet, and get it with a side of hamburgers!

Hoi An: The Cham

2007-11-08T04:41:00.000-08:00

Vietnam's entry in the sweepstakes for Large Ancient Monuments of Note is the Cham ruins about 30km outside of Hoi An. In a rattling and mostly comprehensible overview, delivered free of charge by the bus company tour guide, we learned that the Cham were a Hindu kingdom established in Vietnam around 200 AD. It flourished for about ten centuries after that until it was subjugated by the Vietnamese. Interestingly enough, they used Sanskrit for their inscriptions. Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, derived from the same root as English, Russian, Greek, and French. It's quite far from home here.

The first order of business on arrival, however, was to escape the free tour guide. He was a short young man in a button down shirt with a voice like a bullhorn. Like many tour guides here, he spoke his own, entirely unique dialect of English. But he completely lost our confidence by insisting that we spend 20 minutes in the tiny Cham museum. Its exhibits consisted of a few stone inscriptions and some large-format photographs of the site. It all would have been much more apropos if we not sitting a kilometer or so from the scenes they depicted.

Finally, he released us from the bondage of the museum and allowed us to go towards a "staging area," where we were to wait for some "jeeps." He was technically correct in his use of the plural—there were two, honest to god American military Jeeps—but with a group of roughly 30, we were in for a long wait. Luckily, the first people into the initial jeep were three portly natives of Holland, whose bulk took up 95% of the space.

"Come on," said urged our sanguine guide, "It holds six."

The hell it did, but Nicole and I were desperate. Before the Jeep pulled off, we leaped into two startled but ample Dutch laps. Then, clinging to the frame of those legendarily uncomfortable vehicles, we made our way up to the ruins.

We had been warned that the ruins themselves were not overwhelming. Even so, we found them pleasantly whelming. The Cham built modest brick towers with small, claustrophobic sanctuaries. Their stately but decaying brick blends nicely with the rich, emerald green of the subtropical forest. The Vietnamese have made the most of it too. Handsome stone paths run throughout it, leading you easily from site to site. We spent a happy hour there.

Hoi An

2007-11-07T04:33:00.000-08:00

It took three dollars and over four hours to move the short distance from Hue to Hoi An. An hour or two of that was driving. The rest was spent at a hotel and restaurant on the outskirts of Hue. It was a charming place in own small way, and I'm sure the bus driver's brother is quite proud of it, but it was hardly a necessary stop. Welcome to this part of the world.

You don't hear of Hoi An nowadays, but it was once quite the place. Here, a major river met the ocean—think an Asian New Orleans. Traders from all over the east piled in for a four-month-long trade fair. They built Chinese mercantile clubs, Indian trading houses, and Japanese homes and bridges. All of this has left Hoi An a charming jumble of architectural styles, dominated mainly by the yellow walls and gently sloping tile roofs of Old China.

In recognition of its unique character, UNESCO has designated Hoi An a World Heritage Site, an awesome distinction that is intended to preserve places of cultural interest. Instead, it has had the perverse effect of drawing millions of tourists who might potentially destroy it.

In Hoi An, though, the crush of tourists actually works to the site's advantage. It was a bustling market center, and the thousands of visitors return it to its original purpose. The heavy wood Chinese houses, the narrow streets filled with foreigners, and the Vietnamese hawking wares are somehow more authentic than otherwise.

So what do you do here? Tour Vietnam style. You buy a ticket, and wander through houses, museums, and temples. At every one, you're greeted by a person who clips your ticket, sits you down, and then, in the most astonishingly impenetrable accent and diction, starts to tell you about the place.

"Welcome to theees hoose," a girl says, "live in this place blah blah blah wood walls blah blah blah marble blah blah blah China, impenetrably nonsensical stuff that goes on for no less than ten minutes, and then you hear, to your immense relief, 'Follow me.'"

From what I can tell, the Vietnamese speak excellent French, but their English is largely theoretical in nature. Their tour guides memorize long scripts which have been quite artfully constructed, with anecdotes, recurring jokes, and other important literary devices. Then the scripts go through a strange metamorphosis, first to French, and then to a kind of English that no human being has ever spoke or is likely to speak. In this form, it is memorized by a Vietnamese guide, who delivers it faithfully to you, even though he or she hasn't the foggiest idea what the words mean. The result is a painful ordeal for both teller and audience. I'm sure it will improve with time.

In other words, we're quite enjoying ourselves. They like to serve beef wrapped around cheese and fried won tons smothered with garlic tomato sauce. They smile a lot; we smile back. It's a very welcoming place.

Hue: The Wet Way Tour

2007-11-05T17:10:00.000-08:00

Hue, Vietnam is one of the rainiest places on earth, and we have caught it in high mass form. It has alternated between drizzling, pouring, and raining water buffalos ever since we have arrived. Water is pooling ominously in the streets, and at times I half expect animals to start lining up two by two and asking the way to the ark, but it hasn't quite come to that yet.

The people seem perfectly accustomed though. Many get around by bicycles that have been customized with a basket that holds an elongated rain poncho from wheel to wheel. The shops and restaurants also have wide awnings that make it possible to walk around without getting too wet. Street life, so common in the rest of the Vietnam we have seen, is muted here, or driven into the garage-like restaurants on the bottom floors of buildings.

Hue was the first large town south of the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, the 10 kilometer swath of land that separated North from South Vietnam. It also lies at the narrowest point of the country, only 50 Km (30 miles) across. These circumstances made it the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Of course, in Vietnam, no one seems to remember. The DMZ tour is remarkable for its lack of sights. Apparently, on the few sunny days when it operates, you are taken to areas where such and such a thing happened, or such and such a firebase used to dominate a hill, but there are almost no monuments. The tour is supposedly a good way to see the countryside. The Vietnamese seem as intent on forgetting the war as the Americans are on refighting it shot by shot in books, movies, and chat rooms.

But it is rainy and nearly impossible to get around, or even stay outside for more than ten minutes at a stretch. What you do see is an unpretentious city that stretches out along two sides of a river (its lovely name is "Perfume River"). On one side is the imperial seat of the Vietnam empire. On the other side is a familiar backpacker district of hotels, restaurants, photo shops, and Internet cafes.

This afternoon, we will don our ponchos and go see the imperial palace.

Ha Long Bay

2007-11-03T23:05:00.000-07:00

(Apologies for photos, it's been quite rainy and hard to shoot anything but grim-looking landscapes)

Dawn has struck on Ha Long Bay, and we are in our cabins on an "authentic junk," in reality a junk-shaped, diesel powered, mini-cruise ship. It has showers, flush toilets, air conditioning, and a staff that is currently preparing us hot coffee and breakfast. So far on this voyage we have eaten stir-fried squid, steamed clams, boiled shrimp, stuffed crab, poached fish, and French fries. I love seafood, but I am concerned about breakfast.

The event is a two day cruise on Ha Long Bay, in the Gulf of Tonkin, where an ambiguous incident led to a foolish and angry declaration by the US Congress, which was in turn used by successive presidents to widen and prolong the Vietnam War. Our spiffy tour was arranged by our hotel (a bargain at $50 per person for transportation, one night, two days, and a bushel of freshly-killed crustaceans).

We began with a long van ride through a very young country. Most Vietnamese were born after the war, which has filled the country with sprightly 20-somethings.The object of their desire is—unlike the Chinese—not a car, but a motorscooter and an apartment in one of the narrow concrete buildings found everywhere. They are an entirely unique architectural form. They have three stories, two balconies, all squeezed into a building perhaps 12 feet wide. Their street side is garishly painted and often fitted with ornate Art Deco balconies--always empty--while the other sides remain concrete-prison gray. At their base, dozens of people squat at impromptu restaurants, which typically consist of a woman and her daughter ladling out soup to customers who laugh and gesture with chopsticks.

Still, Vietnam is not a place where it is easy to get close to the people—by this I don't mean it's not easy to wrangle a bowl of pho out of the confused woman and her daughter mentioned above. I mean that tourism mostly consists of sitting with other westerners on buses and boats and looking out at the Vietnamese as if you were in some kind of human zoo. A good example of this was a French couple (doctor and radiologist) on our boat who had brought their young daughter for a three week trip. They said, "She is learning a lot, she is seeing poverty. Tres triste."

For all that, it's sometimes nice to be in a zoo. Ha Long Bay is one of the more magical places on earth, a rare instance of beautiful green mountains buried mostly under sea. Our first day began with a visit to a cave, where our guide seemed to think that we would all be interested in seeing stalagmites that (he said) looked like camels or stars or turtles. None, in fact, looked anything like those animals. However, there was one called "finger rock," which did bear a most striking resemblance to a human appendage. Not a hand with a finger pointing in the air, mind you, but from the peals of laughter that rang out in the cave, you'll know it was something far more amusing.

From there, our guides shanghaied us into some cold kayaks—a circumstance that led not to kayaking, but to a huddle of cold tourists shivering on a dock and pooling their money together to buy beers. Our party consisted of three Austrians (who seemed vastly less interested in the scenery than they did the astonishingly reasonable price of Hanoi vodka on the boat), a young French couple who spent most of the time with their faces stuck together, and a chummy Australian who could talk about Brisbane weather for fifteen minutes at a stretch. In all, a good party.

The second day, those of us who were not throwing up Hanoi vodka over the side railing were treated to a cruise through the mountains and a long description of the many golf courses available in the Brisbane metro area. It was raining, though, and it looks like more of the same is on the way.

Rain Check

2007-11-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

A pair of windy, rainy days has kept us in our hotel room (which is, in most respects, exactly like any other hotel room). It has also provided some time so that Joe could complete a rush job for one of his long suffering clients. We're off for a boatride today on Ha Long Bay, with an overnight stay, but hope to return on Saturday with a more interesting post.

Hanoi Hilton

2007-10-31T09:22:00.000-07:00

We were buying a salami and a baguette in a modern supermarket, when I realized why I liked the city. How pleasant to find oneself in a place without attractions. In Hanoi, there's no Splendid Tower Built By A Rich But Entirely Forgettable Personage. There's no Bulky Monument To Commemorate An Otherwise Uninteresting Historical Event. Not even some Extinct Religion's Temple To A Now-Unworshipped God. The curse of traveling is the oversold destination, and Hanoi has none of it.

Here we can enjoy an unembellished city. There is nothing particular to see and nothing important to do. It was raining today, but we donned hooded jackets and found ourselves again in South East Asia. The smell of spices and peppers, the beeping of thousands of horns, the chaotic traffic swirling about you like gnats as you cross a street, the apartment blocks wrapped in power lines and covered in creeping mildew—we were happy.

To provide some context for our visit, we decided to find the Hanoi Hilton. It was a prison built by the French, for whom it housed thousands of Vietnamese prisoners that no one cared about. After the French decamped, the Vietnamese Communists then housed about 25 of my own countrymen there, about whom many people cared a great deal. One of those prisoners is now running for president.

Today, 90% of the prison has been leveled to make way for an office tower and shopping mall—welcome to the New Vietnam. There Nicole and I sipped a coffee and shopped in a modern supermarket, purchasing, quite by accident, some French cheese, a Vietnamese baguette, and an American sausage. I'd like to point out that this historically ironic meal went quite well with a Thai beer.

Then we went over to the prison. Only about a quarter of it now remains as a museum, which excoriates the French and Americans. History is always written by the victors, of course. Do you want a description of the place? Thick walls, imposing gates, miserable concrete cells, the entirety of John McCain's flight suit, and a scale model of a guillotine. Prisons are not much fun though, so we left just before we got to the exhibit on Comrades Propagandizing the Revolution—fascinating though it most certainly was—and walked home in a driving rain.

Tomorrow, we will have more to report.

One Night in Bangkok

2007-10-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

It's not entirely clear to me how Nicole discovers these things, but for the Macau-Hanoi leg, she unearthed a budget airline called Thai Air Asia. It was having a fare promotion that would bring us those 600 miles at a cost of less than a dinner and a movie in the States. But there was a catch. We had to book two flights, one to Bangkok, and another to Hanoi. That meant that between the two we would have to deplane, collect our luggage, go through immigration, check in again, go back through immigration, and get on another flight—all in two and a half hours.

Sitting in our cozy hotel room, snifters in hand, we came to the conclusion that it was doable. It might even be adventurous. The only downside was that if we missed the connecting plane, we would be stuck for a day or two in Bangkok. We love the city, though, and the prospect of green curry and mugs of Singha sounded just fine.

Of course, we were wrong. Getting stuck in Bangkok was not the only downside. There was also the possibility that we might get stuck in Macau. This unpleasant reality dawned on us as we sat in front of an empty gate at the Macau Airport, while the departure time for our flight passed. Not only was there no plane, there was no visible presence of Thai Air Asia. This had bad news emblazoned all over it. As a precaution, we immediately headed over to the duty-free shop and spent our last Hong Kong dollars on a two-pound Toblerone chocolate bar and a bottle of Macallan single malt scotch. It simply wouldn't do to be caught overnight in an airport without basic supplies.

About a half hour later, a young Chinese man with floppy hair—he looked like a high school freshman—walked up to the counter and commenced a boarding procedure that I'll charitably say was one of the most chaotic I've ever witnessed. Thai Air Asia does not have assigned seating, and, this being China, we had to all shove our way onto the plane like a herd of wildebeests on the annual lion-run across the Serengeti.

We arrived in Bangkok a half hour late. Thai immigration was agonizing. It's not normally so, but there was a religious convention of some kind going on that had attracted an enormous quantity of barefoot old men with Father Time beards. In our calculations, we had, somehow, omitted to account for this possibility. They were wandering through the immigration area, oblivious to the finer points of passports, customs, and, for that matter, lines. The Thai police soon rounded them all up, and we pushed through and gathered our luggage.

I love Thailand dearly, but it's not easy to navigate the 50 yards or so outside the arrival terminal at the Bangkok airport. Hoteliers and gypsy cab drivers block your path, grab at your suitcase, and understand the word "yes," but not "no." They're quite useful if you've come to the city with the intention of paying someone an absurd sum to drive you to an overpriced dump of a hotel, but that was not our intention.

Luckily, we guessed correctly that the departure gates were on the second floor. Working together, we quickly deduced the proper check-in counter, and managed to hit it exactly an hour before our plane departed. (In case you're wondering, that's about the bare minimum for ensuring your baggage makes it on an international flight).

With boarding passes that were printed on paper one grade above Kleenex, we sprinted off to immigration, where we received another shiny new stamp on our passports. At security, the Thai Home Guard inexplicably relieved Nicole of a jar of peanut butter, but allowed her to keep a —to my mind—far more dangerous bottle of Sriracha hot sauce. People of Thailand, your airport security men require more training, preferably in deductive reasoning.

Finally, we escaped, and made a final sprint to our plane to Vietnam. Total savings: about $600. Total stress: priceless.

Macau: Where Worlds Collide

2007-10-29T03:10:00.000-07:00

It took one good long shower and a wrestling match with an iron to transform two scruffy backpackers into a pair of presentable adults. With our hair raked, our jeans flattened, and our nails neatly sandblasted, we stepped forth into a warm Macanese night.

A Reuters reporter recently wrote an article in which he declared that Macau was the new Las Vegas, and maybe even better than Las Vegas. You can only come to that conclusion under one of two circumstances: either you have never been to Macau, or you have never been to Las Vegas. There's a lot more to Sin City than a couple of megacasinos and dreams.

Even so, Macau offers a fascinating and easily-observed contrast between the two cultures. Our hotel, the Lisboa, sits across the street from the gleaming, new Wynn. The latter is said to be an exact replica of its Las Vegas counterpart. And while I can't shake the impression that the original Wynn is much bigger, the interior design of this one is spot on.

Why they've decided to build exact copies I don't know. But it is interesting. After weeks of being subjected to Chinese notions of design, we can now see ours inflicted on them. And I have to say that any American walking from the Lisboa to the Wynn will initially feel a burst of national pride. The latter is simply a different world, and one I like much better.

The Lisboa is a warren of scalloping passages, small shops, and cramped corners. Ghastly vases and sculptures jut out everywhere; shockingly ornate chandeliers dominate the foyers; busy restaurants shoehorn their customers into tiny tables; and the gaming rooms are low, circular, and claustrophobic. We have lost our way numerous times. Then again, it's thronged with prostitutes, a fact that some people might consider goes a long way to making up for its spatial deficiencies.

How different is the refined styling of Steve Wynn. As the creator of the most opulent casinos in Las Vegas (if you have never been to a Steve Wynn casino and your experience of Vegas included a $4.99 steak dinner, please do not extend your impression to this discussion), his design focuses on light and air. Passageways run like huge avenues through the casino, ending either in lights, mirrors or windows, which creates an illusion of immense space. Still, it is impeccably marked and organized. You could never get lost there. The gaming rooms are vast, but cleverly baffled with lushly folded curtains that absorb sound so well that you can talk in a whisper in a room full of hundreds of people. The triple-wide carport is never clogged; the reception desk never has a line. For someone who has spent weeks in China, this piece of convenient, transposed America can be exhilarating, even liberating.

Nicole and I lounged contentedly in thick armchairs, sipping perfect martinis that came in brimming chalices. (By definition, a perfect martini comes in a glass that is able to house a goldfish in comfort). We gazed lovingly out onto the casino, but soon realized that our fellow guests were not impressed with it. They were much more inclined to pull out their cameras and snap pictures of themselves in the star-spangled lobby of the Grand Lisboa. They want to stand in its pits and bet like a bunch of floor traders on Wall Street. They love gold leaf, neon lights, and shimmering crystal. Give them bangles, or give them death.

And they gamble like sailors on shore leave. Their favorite game is baccarat, which gives them decent odds, and the ability to lose their shirts in a hurry. If enough of them manage to do that, we may yet see Macau turn into Vegas. But it's a long way off.