Hanoi Hilton

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

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

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.

Macau: The Other Las Vegas

The entire movable wealth of our pint-sized Hong Kong hotel room consisted of two packets of rose-scented soap and a water glass. It wasn't much of a haul, considering how we'd been swindled, but it was the best we could do. So, after turning the AC up for one last sustained blast, we shut the door on the Mirador Mansion forever.

The weeks of smog, traffic, and fighting old ladies have tired us to the degree that we've settled on two days of luxurious R & R in Macau. The former Portuguese concession, like Hong Kong, is technically a part of China, but it has its own customs and immigration policies. You reach it from Hong Kong by an hour long ferry sprint, which we passed mostly in fog, until the bridges and casinos of the New Babylon reared into view.

Macau would like you to believe it's the new Las Vegas. A formerly seedy enclave, it has reinvented itself as a hotel and casino paradise, filled with shopping, gambling, and sin. We may be travelers, but we remain patriotic Americans, and would like to inform the world, that we don't give a rat's ass that Macau turns over more money than Vegas or that its casinos are infinitely more profitable. That's merely because the Chinese are what Tony Soprano would call degenerate gamblers who don't understand that if you sit long enough at a roulette table, you will lose your home.

How is Macau not like Vegas? In the first place, we arrived at our hotel (the famous, venerable Lisboa), and were greeted with a small foyer dominated by an enormous crystal chandelier that obliterated the view of anything else. The lobby was upstairs, and had—of all things—a long, slow-moving line. In addition, they had changed our reservation from a double bed to twin singles. And, as we had arrived a mere hour early, our room was not ready. In Vegas, if you were a hotel manager and any such crimes occurred, you would be immediately taken out and shot. In fact, they might not even waste the time to take you out first.

Unlike Hong Kong, Macau is a small territory. The optimistic American company Avis offers cars for rent, though you can probably skateboard anywhere you need. Still, we are having great fun. Our hotel room faces the harbor, and there is both a Jacuzzi and a stereo in the bathroom. The in-room minibar is free, though it is remarkably deficient in potable wine and spirits.

The Macanese idea of luxury hotel is hard to describe accurately, except to say that it dovetails neatly with Saddam Hussein's notions of proper palace decoration. Every room features an explosion of crystal, fake gold, glistening glass, and faux luxury. They glitter like old Las Vaegas.

The casino floors sit behind metal detectors—none of your Vegas-style transparent security here. They consist of small, serious rooms, filled with thoughtful, intelligent people. Cocktail waitresses do not soak them in free alcohol. They don't shout and joke. But for all that, they still stand four deep, blithely wagering their children's education on red number four.

Our time so far included a turn around the Grand Lisboa, our next door neighbor and, coincidentally, the ugliest building in the world (a pear shaped, gold-bedecked monstrosity). Soon, we plan on checking out the new Wynn and Venetian casinos, both supposedly exact copies of their Vegas counterparts (this saves on architecture costs). Our goal for the evening is to find a package of linguica sausage and an honest Manhattan. If we do, you'll be the first to know.

Hong Kong: Two Tales of a City

Our first experience in Hong Kong was unpleasant. We'd booked a hotel room in a building named Mirador Mansion. Mirador is Spanish for "view," but the building is neither a mansion, nor, unless you fancy scabrous courtyards with pockmarked walls, does it have a view. Still, we are here, having secured a closet-sized room from a vicious old hag for a scandalous amount. To get her back, we have left the air conditioning on constantly and resolved to steal everything that is not nailed down. Unfortunately, she seems to have anticipated this, because most things are, in fact, nailed down.

Still, Hong Kong is a terrific city. We have seen two parts: the ultra-modern, towering Island, and the lower-rent, bustling peninsula of Kowloon.

We started out last night in Kowloon, in a neon-crazed neighborhood of restaurants and stores that mostly sell electronic goods and diamonds. There are also platoons of men with Indian accents offering you "copy watches" and tailored suits of clothes. We dealt with them by our usual method: a look that simultaneously communicates an extreme disinterest in their goods and an earnest desire to murder their grandmothers. The pace is hectic. Sidewalk vendors haggle with customers, girls tap you on the shoulder to drag you into stores, and every sign cries out that its owner is practically throwing merchandise in the street.

Exhausted by the lights and chaos, we retreated to our closet, and woke the next day to try our luck on Hong Kong Island.

This was a different city. A gorgeous, efficient subway dropped us off in a futuristic landscape of glass, marble, and steel. Impressively modern buildings reach dozens of stories in the air. They link to one another with intricate skyways, while elevated roadways snake between them at dizzying heights. As you follow signs from one place to the next , you find yourself passing through the gleaming lobby of some multinational corporation, and then, a half block later, through the kitchen of an open air restaurant serving bowls of noodles for $2. It's very fun.

After a trip up the funicular to view the city from Victoria Peak, we ate some soup and returned to our closet to plot an assault on Cantonese cuisine. Still, we already miss China. As we walked through the subway, I came within an ace of leveling a middle-aged woman with an armful of groceries. Unfortunately, she stepped aside at the last minute and politely inquired if I'd lost my mind. As Freud would have it, civilization has its discontents, and today I am one of them.

One final note: yesterday we able to check our blog stats for the first time in a while, and were surprised to find that some 438 people had viewed it in the last 24 hours. Considering that our previous best was 20, we wondered what had happened. Then we realized that our post on the Li River had contained the words "beating," "off," and "Angelina Jolie."

Our course, we deplore any additional readers brought to us by such low, underhanded means. Hot, free sex, get it here, get it now.

Guangzhuo, Night Adventure

I looked up from my morning paper (Yahoo news) to see a tour group gathered in the lobby. Its leader was urging them to take part in one of two pre-breakfast activities: painting or tai chi. Unfortunately, I'd seen several of them in the bar the night before, a bar that boldly advertises its creative cocktails, among them the Long Island Ice Tea, the Sex on the Beach, and the Bangkok Happy Slutmaker. Most of the people looked liked they'd had several of each. And they'd had more than enough of activities.

We'd managed to avoid all that, so instead, we embarked on a restful day in beautiful Yangshuo, in preparation for a late-night plane flight to Guangzhou. We sipped at a coffee, took a turn around town. Then we lunched on beer fish – the specialty of Yangshuo (excepting stewed endangered turtle and stir fried dog—and I'm not joking this time). How can I describe the complex symphony of flavors that caressed our palates? How about: "It sucked." Guanxi food is, in general, flabby, lifeless, and uninspired. Beer fish is no exception.

But beyond food, it seemed we'd been cursed. There are only a few cardinal rules in travel. You should never, for example, fly with an airline that asks if you have pilot training. You should not rely on a train's bathroom. And you should never arrive in a city after midnight without a hotel reservation.

By a long chain of unfortunate circumstances, this last thing is exactly what happened to us. Our first hotel rezzie fell through; our second never got back to us to confirm or send us directions. Any attempt to book afterwards was stymied by an inability to communicate by phone. And so, we found ourselves mulling about the Guilin airport, wondering if we should take off for Guangzhou. We did, taking odds on the likelihood we spent the night in anxious slumber on the airport floor.

We needn't have worried. Our plane arrived a half hour early, and a hotel booking service located at the baggage carousel found us a cavernous room near the airport for about $38. We woke to an excellent breakfast of noodle soup with eggs, and were soon hurtling in a taxi through old Canton (which looks like the worst parts of the Bronx times ten), and then on a very modern train towards Hong Kong. As I write, we are arriving in Kowloon, with more details to follow.

Yangshuo: Li River Trip

Nicole and I are happily ensconced in hotel in Yangshuo. ("Ensconce," by the way is a silly word, often used in travel writing. It is nearly as bad as "traipse." A sconce holds a candle, and, no, we do not feel as though we've been stuffed into a candlestick. We are quite comfortable.)

We have firmly entered China's western tourist region. Yangshuo serves a backpacking and rock climbing clientele and is overrun with Australians, Germans, French, and the odd American, who is skulking, mostly to avoid the loud anti-Yankee tirades unleashed by the others.

We have gotten here thanks to a boat ride the Li River from Guilin. One of the two Chinese poets whose names I know, Li Po, has called the Li a blue silk ribbon wandering through a forest of jade pins. His description can't really be improved upon. Unless, of course, you consider the pesky fog (smog?) that has shrouded the region in haze.

In any case, if you've never seen a karst landscape, hopefully the photos give you an idea of what we're talking about. The river rolls on for miles through these curiously tall, rounded peaks, covered with lush trees and faced with stern planks of stone. Of course, this being China, you see it all from one of a line of boats that crowd the river like a fluvial traffic jam.

But a boat trip is a very fun thing. The moment we shoved off, there was tremendous excitement. We all piled to the top rail with our cameras at the ready. For the next 20 minutes we shot everything from ducks and mountains to people picking up garbage on the side of the river. Time wears. Soon, we found ourselves standing wearily on the deck. Hours later, we had retired our seats and ordered beers. Near the end, a tour guide announced that Brad Pitt was beating Angelina Jolie to death just outside the boat. No one even bothered to look up, though someone did say, "Screw you, sir. We're going to sit here, get drunk, and read our books."

Still, I like a boat ride, and Yangshuo, though neon-bathed, is a beautiful place. Karst promontories tower above it, neatly framing a small lake and graceful stone bridges. This is postcard China, but it's also no secret. Sloppy backpackers and well-heeled Chinese throng streets lined with a familiar mix of cafes, bars, pizza parlors, and stores selling "native" art. We may not do much here but take a walk around: almost every activity involves booking a tour through an agent, and they all feature hard-sells and visits to dubious attractions. At any rate, the scenery goes well with a latte.

Future note: We've decided to fly east today to take in Hong Kong and Macau, and then shoot off an extended trip/rest in Vietnam. China has been fun but exhausting. Stay tuned.