It’s been a while since I posted b/c in china I was unable to access my blog b/c of what is called “the great firewall” (which I thought was a really clever name) which is basically the Chinese gov blocking certain sites including facebook, youtube and of course, my blog. Why they would block my blog is beyond me, but wtvr.
I got to phnom penh and rented a motorcycle. This wasn’t a little crappy motorbike, this was the real deal. The streets were a little easier to drive in than the cities in Vietnam, although I only rented a bike in hoi an in Vietnam which is a smaller town and not one of the larger cities but since I was more confident I decided to do it in phnom penh, the capital of Cambodia. Cambodia has an awful recent history and in the 1975 a group called the khmer rouge took over and tried to move to an agricultural society and set the year back to year 0. They then killed anyone who didn’t follow them and about 15 km outside of phnom penh they have the killing fields, which is where they just killed a shitload of ppl. So I decided to try and go to that, but after driving on my motorbike for about 45 min, I wound up in the worst slum I’d ever been on a dirt road which was now wet and pretty much a mud road with puddles about 6 inches deep. I wanted to take a picture but I was too scared to take out my camera. It was the first and only time in asia that I felt threatened. I got lost for a little while, drove around some more and then decided to call it a day. I got back to my hotel, went to sleep and traveled to china the next day.
So just to give a little background on my plans for china, my dad was going to be there on business so once he was there I figured I’d meet him and get a free hotel room. Once I was gonna meet him he figured he’d take off a week or so and travel around china with me and maybe go to india (since that’s where I was heading after). Once he was taking some time and touring my mom said that she wanted to come as well and then that happened my sister wasn’t going to just be left in the US all by herself so she came along also, so it turned into a family vacation.
During world war II my grandfather lived in shanghai to escape the nazi’s and so we went to try and find the area where he lived. In past 20 yrs shanghai has been transformed from dirt roads to huge skyscrapers b/c the gov decided to just kick ppl out of their homes, knock down the old buildings and make new ones, so we were worried that my grandfathers old home wouldn’t be there. But, we went to the jewish museum there and we found the area where he lived and we even found the exact address where he lived since his roommate in shanghai (who lives in NY and was my grandfather’s good friend) was in the jewish museum’s archive and had his address. We went to the address and luckily the gov hadn’t knocked it down yet and it looked as it did 65 yrs ago. It was a total shithole but really cool to see. the ppl that lived there were as interested in us as we were of them and they gave us a tour of the apt where he lived even though we couldn’t communicate b/c he didn’t speak any English, although my dad does speak a drop of mandarin. After that we went to the world fair which is being held in shanghai this yr and it was fun walking around but the world’s fair really sucks. The line to get into any booth of interest was between 4-6 hrs so we walked around for most of the day and then left.
The next day we toured around the city, went to various markets, parks, etc. The funniest thing about china is that we were freaks. Ppl stare at you and whenever we would stop to take a photo, Chinese ppl would come up to us and ask to be in a photo with us. Stopping to take a family photo meant taking 50 pictures w/ random strangers. We were literally celebrities. I don’t know if it’s just the fact that we’re white or American or what, but it was pretty hilarious. It got old after a little while but who can complain about being too popular. Also, the t-shirts in china are hilarious. The Chinese wear English shirts that don’t make any sense. Sometimes it will just be random letters put together so it will say something along the lines of “thay grutsen yutrander”, sometimes it will spell stuff incorrectly, but most of the time it will be all spelled correctly, but it won’t make any sense so it will say something like “staten island’s largest fuel dealer”. No one that has ever been to staten island would want to be associated with it, and I don’t think of being a fuel dealer (whatever that is) as being a particularly cool job. Anyways, we were pretty much kings and it was excellent.
We then went to Beijing where we went to the great wall (which was my highlight of china) and climbed all the way to the top of the mountain until u could walk no further. One funny note – on the great wall a guy came up to me and my sister and asked to take a picture with us. My parents had already turned around b/c they got tired so I said I’d take one of him and my sister and then she could take one of me and the Chinese guy. However, when he gave me the camera it was on playback mode and I saw the last picture that he had taken, which was just him and another white guy. What is on this Chinese guy’s picture cabinet in his house? Is it just him with random white ppl? I really don’t get it. Over the next days we went on to see the forbidden palace (very cool), tianemen square and various other tourist sites all of which were interesting to see.
We then went to dubai which is in the united arab emirates. We were going to have to have a stopover on the way from china to india, so we figured that we’d do it in dubai which is a really cool place to go anyways. If you think that dubai doesn’t want any jews, well then you’d be correct. We were all stopped at customs for about an hr b/c we had Israel stamped on our passport and then all of a sudden a guy came up to us and then just pushed us through, but they clearly weren’t thrilled that we were there.
Dubai was quite hot but awesome. They built a gigantic palm-tree shaped island in the middle of the ocean which we went to go see. Then we went to the 2nd biggest mall in the world, which to me didn’t sound that impressive if only b/c the first biggest mall in the world is in Minnesota. My logic went like this: if someone told you that “the first biggest _____ is in Minnesota, but here’s the 2nd biggest ______” wouldn’t you say something along the lines of, how important can it be if the largest one is in Minnesota? Well apparently, no, you cannot. In the mall they had indoor skiing so we obviously went. It’s pretty funny to go skiing in the middle of the desert when it’s 105 outside so that was fun. Next we went to the tallest building in the world, I believe it’s around 170 stories or so and is beautifully built. Finally we went to a fountain show which was at the mall under the tallest building in the world and it was quite entertaining. The most amusing part of the day was def the skiing, but it was great being in dubai all day and just saying to yourself “I can’t believe I’m in dubai”.
We got to india yesterday and from the airport we went on what is called a “slum tour”. Basically they take you through the worst slum in all of Mumbai, which has to be one of the worst slums in the word and it was a pretty insane introduction to india. They drive you to the slum and then you walk around w/ a tour guide for 2.5 hrs. I thought we’d be in the jeep the whole time but damn, those are some serious slums. It is the place where slumdog millionaire was supposed to take place, but slumdog millionaire seems like a 5 star hotel compared to the actual thing. They showed us different industries that they have in the slums and said that this particular slum produces $665 million/yr but considering there are 1 mil ppl in the slum, that’s $665/pp each yr, and that’s not including the money that is going to the ppl who actually own the shops so these ppl don’t make much more than $1 or $2 each day and live in a big city where rent is pretty high… not a great situation. Most ppl work in recycling type jobs like chopping up plastic and cardboard, basically work that is all done by machines in other countries. One man’s yearly output of recycling cardboard could prob be done by a machine in about 5-10 min and therefore they get paid about $1/day. It was just insane to walk around and see a family of 4 living in an apt smaller than a car w/ no plumbing or electricity. There are a few toilets for the million ppl that live there and the place was as dirty and smelly as any place on earth. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures, but what an intro to india that was.
Today we went to the sites in Mumbai, a few temples, the laundry district, which is a street that’s filled w/ water and men are just standing there hitting the shirts in the water (once again, something that is done 10x more efficiently by machines) and a few markets. In Beijing and shanghai, if there were no Chinese writing on the shops you often wouldn’t be able to tell what country you are in, but there is no mistaking india. Every time I stepped out of the taxi I thought to myself, damn, this is india.
PS - I haven't shaved in about a month so i finally shaved it into a beard after we got to china... but now that i am in india i have shaved off my beard and have a full fledged stache. it is a thing of beauty but you will have to wait until the next post to see it. well worth the wait.
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