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We met David at the Hanoi airport this morning. Waiting for him was grand – people waiting for relatives, holding bouquets, greetings with smiles and tears, hugs, happiness. I’m thinking some people together after a long time apart. Being here at the airport as well as on the streets it’s like when I’ve been in Vietnam in recent years, thinking about what a shame about the war with these people – I mean, look at them! It’s not that I think we were necessarily wrong to fight the war (remembering the exodus and pain of millions of SE Asian refugees), but more that we were caught up in a matrix of karma related to colonialism, international communism, South VN’s struggle for independence, and

other factors. Whatever the issues and complexities, it’s sad to me that we were fighting these people (as if all war isn’t sad). So there I was at the Hanoi airport, waiting for my son seeing the smiles and flowers and tears and of course tears in my eyes. Vietnam! Photo: Proud relatives of one of the new PhDs (see below). This post begins and ends with beauty.

Walking around Hanoi we pass many women’s clothing stores selling some pretty bad looking clothes, but we hardly ever see a woman who doesn’t look good, showing that the woman makes the clothes rather than the clothes making the woman. The fact is, the huge majority of Vietnamese women are very very spiff, and a pretty large percentage are very good-looking.

We passed the French-fry alley today, right past

the bun cha place on Ha Tien (according to noodlepie, one of the best). The bun cha place is closed for the day and what was a place to eat is now a living room and what was an alley earlier in the day is now a hang-out for high school or college students eating fried potatoes and fried something else – just like the last time we were here. Just like the last time it’s the wonder of the streets that calls us. Photo: As I’ve told you so many times, do not eat vegetables and fruits that haven’t just been peeled (leave ’em for me). This is bun cha, a great dish and good for you.

So, happily we’re together with David (who is tired after a stout flight SFO to Taipei to Hanoi), going to Halong Bay day after tomorrow, then flying to Hue a few days later. Trains in VN are pretty grand, but we’re getting a little old for a squat toilet on a train rocking along down the tracks.

At the moment DK and I are headed for a walk around the block and to the satay lady across the street. Well, that didn’t work out too well. Photo: The satay lady. You can dine in or take it to go.

When we first saw her she had plenty of satay left, but by the time we got around the block she only had 3 sticks and 5 pig feet left. So we got the satay on a bun for Leslie and left the pig feet for someone else. 15 minutes later the lady had packed up and left. We took the sandwich to Leslie and went back to the King Café and had pork with onion and extra garlic + rice. Can you get extra garlic in Vietnam? If you took the garlic, nuoc mam, and sugar out of Vietnamese food, the whole place would just collapse.

Listening to Jerry Garcia singing these Visions of Johanna …

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet? We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it … Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues, You can tell by the way she smiles … 10,000 or more Mona Lisas sitting straight and fine riding motorcycles through this city and if you could see the woman sitting on her tiny stool defining elegance as she fries the nem at the bun cha place on Hang Manh Street you’d know what I mean or if you’ve been to Vietnam with eyes wide open, you know what I mean. Photo above: On the street

Thursday

At breakfast I talked with two (South) Vietnamese men from, wait for this, Mississippi on their first visit to Hanoi. There was also a table with some French women on their way to Saigon to work with an NGO. We’re Americans, one of us Khmer-American. And of course the people working at the hotel are Vietnamese from the north. We were like a microcosm of the past 50 years of VN and SE Asia history,

representing a lot of shed blood – by ourselves, our families, our people.

David stayed at the hotel working on a paper while Leslie and I went to the Temple of Literature (where for a 1000 years scholars took exams for higher learning based on Confucian principles) for an hour or so of sheer magic. It was graduation day for one of the universities and there were students all over the place, posing for photographs, laughing, having a grand time, unimaginably beautiful in their ao dais and happiness. They were more than happy to share with us, posing for our photos, sharing the joy. As we

went further into the complex we came upon a group of about 8 people in their 40s and 50s – PhD candidates in the final moments of receiving their degrees. Serious men and women receiving high honors in a country and culture that honors learning, families bursting with pride, an American couple deeply moved by it all. It doesn’t get much better than this either.

Dedicated to mrmookie and the joy and beauty of Vietnam. We’re lucky alright.

We flew Dragon Air to Hanoi – a good flight, except for an obnoxious woman sitting next to Leslie doing some serious monkeyfying (playing with her toes) and complaining. We got in a little after 7pm and cleared customs/immigration before 8. Our hotel, Sunshine 2 had a car and driver waiting and were in our okay $22 room around 9. Photo below: Produce sold door-to-door

We’re staying in the “old quarter” area of Hanoi – streets ranging from narrow with room for one car to very narrow with room for motorcycles and bicycles only. The basic road rule of Southeast Asia is in place: bigger always has

precedence, i.e., buses and trucks trump cars, cars trump motorcycles, motorcycles trump bicycles, and everything trumps people. There are countless motorcycles on the road (not to mention parked packing/blocking the sidewalks) and so far we’ve seen only one traffic light. The way people cross the street is to spot some sort of a slight break and start walking, never slowing or hesitating and let the traffic flow around you. Rotten people that we are, we try to walk next to an old person or women and children, in hopes that this will increase our chances of survival.

Friday

Like most other budget hotels, the Sunshine 2

includes breakfast in the price. We had a nice, leisurely meal with strongly strong coffee, baguette, noodles, egg, fruit, but skipping the barely cooked bacon. Then out to the streets to fin

d another place to stay. It was too late to check out of our current place so

we put a deposit on a room at the Camellia 4, which is half a block from where we stayed the first time we were in Hanoi. Then it was a major expedition to change money. We’re so old-fashioned that we still use travelers checks and not many places change these, so we made our way through the maze of streets (the map makes it look straightforward, but it’s not) and part way

around Hoan Kiem Lake to a bank that does change TCs. Had a late lunch of cheese, tomato, and onion sandwiches and fried potatoes at the King Café near the Camellia. Then back to the hotel to rest. Are we getting a little old for this? Probably. We’re pretty tired. But here we are, together again. Photo: Flowers door-to-door

When we left the US, plans were being made for Leslie’s sister Becky to start chemotherapy in early December. We just got word that Becky died a few days before chemo was to start. She was diagnosed just about a month ago, so progression was shockingly fast. What a terrible thing – early 60s, seemingly healthy, big family, a good life. I’ve known her since she was 15, such a beautiful girl. It’s all too sad.

Last year we cancelled our trip to Asia because Leslie’s father was sick. This year we decided to go ahead with our plans as Becky would have gotten only 2 or 3 chemo treatments by the time we returned, so the long haul of cancer –

where we could have truly contributed – would be still to come. Another part of our thinking was that we don’t have many, if any Asia trips left in us. So here we are and there they all are and it’s impossible to return in time for the funeral. After talking with another sister and David, we decided to stay here and continue the trip because, really, what else is there to do?

No good options in this deal.

Walking in a daze around the streets of Hanoi, where people know something about death, with life and death close to the surface, we walk. Unreal.

Tuesday

We moved hotels from the Sunshine 2 to the Camellia 4 – a good move. Our room is twice the size, better breakfast buffet, an

d better (quieter) neighborhood for $25/night. Like other budget hotels in VN, the Camellia is very narrow with about four rooms on each floor. Our room is on the top/7^th floor and has a good view over the rooftops of the Old Quarter. The roof covers a work area above us and we’re treated to random pounding, clattering, and what you might call unrestrained conversations among hotel staff. Photo: Room at Camellia. Photo below: This is an entire portable cafe – they’re everywhere.

I met an internet friend at “chicken street” for a good time and good food. Chicken street, a block of nothing but places serving grilled chicken. We had 2 orders of great chicken served with cucumbers and vegetable in sweet vinegar and garlic, grilled bread, and chili sauce + beer over ice and I’m flashing back to the 1960s going to little lane-side stands in country villes and drinking beer over ice (don’t drink the ice

– they put ground up glass in it and you’ll die a horrible death – whatever, man) and one time going on a night ambush with a “civic action” squad somewhere near Danang, but what we really did was set up on some elevated railroad tracks not far from the ville where their position was and hung out on those tracks for hours drinking ba muoi ba (33) beer over ice getting pretty loaded and now in Hanoi, sitting on (what else) a little blue plastic stool next to a faded yellow stucco wall eating grilled chicken and drinking beer

and talking about the magic of Vietnam (and make no mistake about it, this IS a magic place) with an old Asia hand and then a motorcycle ride through the

matrix of motorcycles beeping, bicycles, people, people people, narrow streets, dark streets, light streets, markets, voices, voices voices and believe me when I say it doesn’t get much better than this. Someone else’s blog description of chicken street: http://www.pikeletandpie.com/2010/01/pho-ly-van-phuc-aka-chicken-street-hanoi/

All I can say about blogger.com is I wish I was using another blogging program. Sentences broken, photos lost, blech. Wednesday: Back to Fa Yuen Market for breakfast. The woman at the café where we’re eating is willing to work with us on varying orders, so Leslie ended up with soup with spaghetti, ham, egg – which was okay, and worth getting, but not twice. It was a

leisurely morning with time spent in the office, talking with an English

man about our age – a regular Asia traveler, on his way to China. Photo: Breakfast place in Fa Yuen Market

We caught a bus down Nathan Road (the main road running north/south bisecting the Kowloon peninsula) to the Star Ferry, ferry across harbor, then bus #15 to the Peak at $4.9HKD/person senior rate. Most tourists take the tram straight up, but we learned awhile back that the bus is slower, more scenic, and way cheaper. Had a long, leisurely double espresso high, high above this great harbor, a super favorite thing for us to do. Bus back along Queen’s Road and getting off at exactly the the best place to walk to (surprise) Tsim Chai Kee Noodles for another bowl of shrimp wonton soup, vegetable, and coke and Leslie making friends with a majorly cute server. Our table-mates were an old woman and her somewhat strange son. Photo: These stores selling aromatic things are all over HK

On the way to the ferry we walked through the IFC Centre, a massive shopping mall and office complex. We saw a crowd around a store and went over to check it out. It was an event, including several glam models and assorted beautiful people.

Back across the harbor I left Leslie and took na bus to the Chungking Mansions to change money and walk around among the Chinese, Middle-Easterners, and Africans. There were fewer angry looking men with beards and whatnot than in previous years. I saw the Everly Bros – one of them with his dentures out – in their little store. Meanwhile, Leslie was sitting on the couch in the Dragon office with a German woman with a roach tattooed on her ankle shouting into her computer/skype on the one side and a Brit doing the same thing on her other side, and then a crowd of Chinese people came in talking loud (no surprise there!) with an old man with them wearing a spor

t coat, cable-knit sweater, slacks of dubious cleanliness, white socks, and felt shoes and lighting up what Leslie called “a big cigarette.” Photo: Dragon office/commons area

I’m not sure about Leslie, but I’m already prett

y much outside of time by now. Later she confirms the same. Random notes: Our first room was $240HKD ($31USD) and second was $280 ($36USD).

The second room was 6.5 feet wide, 9.5 feet long, and the bath was 27 x 66 inches. Sign on the wall: “Please DO NOT use the Bath Towel as floor mat,, or clean the stain (such as curry, food, hair highlight color …”). Stenciled on trash cans on Cheung Chau Island: “Beware the shaft.” On Star Ferry: “Take care when crossing the gangplank.” We ate for <$10USD/day/person. Photo: From Pacific Coffee on the Peak. Tram in lower right of photos

Thursday

An easy departure day – same café for breakfast, with “Jenny,” the woman running the place giving Leslie another variation on breakfast noodles. We bought some apples and coconut tarts for the trip. Walked to some gold stores to look at 24K jewelry. I’d looked for in 2005 and again in 2006 for good gold, but couldn’t find any. Leslie noticed a couple of nights ago a crowd of people in a jewelry store and was thinking there would be gold there. Then she talked with a woman waiting for the ferry who said that Yau Ma Tei is the place for gold, thus confirming the reason for the crowd. Sure enough, there was all the gold anyone could want – we’d just been looking in the wrong part of HK. But the price is >$1300USD/ounce, so too much for us. Looking at all the good gold, it’s easy to see why people

get gold fever.

Back at the hostel, said goodbye to Stanley, caught the A21 bus to the airport, going across amazing bridges over deep water channels with huge ships going under the bridges, and here we are in a true world-class airport. Photo: BBQ place in Mong Kok – this is the place where I stopped on a day when I got totally lost in 2006. Check out the goose with its head hanging out.

Hong Kong photo album is here

Weird blogger program, breaking up sentences and even words and there’s nothing I can do about it. Sorry. The 14.5 hour flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong was fine, with okay seats – the first and second seats of the middle

section, with, thankfully, a nice person in the third seat. I slept some, but Leslie never was able to s

leep. We got into Hong Kong a few minutes after 6am, changed a few dollars, and caught the A21 bus to

Mongkok. We dropped our bags at the Dragon, had breakfast at the Ho Fun Café, and caught

a bus to the Chungking Mansions to change $200. Rode back up Nathan Road and

checked in to the Dragon, where sure enough, we got a room with shared bath. Photo above: Mong Kok sidewalk

We walked around the neighborhood some, including to the Sino Plaza, a very busy collection of mostly tiny shops selling electronic gewgaws. By now, Leslie was shak

y-tired, so we went back to the Dragon and she stayed in the room while I went on a fruitless

search for Wing Hub Roasties. Unable to find Wing Hub, I went back to a place we’d gotte

n take-away (what they call to-go) pork and duck before. The duck was good, but the pork was just brilliant. The best. This day, Sunday, was kind of a lost day as we’d been quite a few hours with little or no sleep. By the end of the day Leslie had gone 48 hours with zero s

leep – not bad for 65 years!!! Photo above (by Leslie): bird fancier at Cooked Foods Court, Fa Yuen (people’s) Market

We slept like logs. In the morning fixed coffee with the filter holder (kind of like a Mellita) that Leslie got for traveling), and walked a few blocks to the Fa Yuen Market. We had planned on getting dim s

um for breakfast at the 3^rd floor “Cooked Foods” food court for breakfast, but changed our minds and had a western breakfast (eggs, ham, toast, coffee)

at a place where we’d talked with the owner several years ago – and it was here that the trip seemed to really begin, with a friendly woman at a nearby table, men with so

ng birds in cages, and Leslie and I planning our day in this amazing city. Photo: random lane Cheung Chau

We took a bus down the canyon of Nathan Road to the harbor. What kind of a day would it be without a ride on the Star Ferry across the harbor? We had thought we’d go up the Peak, but it was a hazy day and so decided we’d take a ferry to Cheu

ng Chau Island. It was a nice 45 minute ride on the “fast ferry” (no smoking, no gambling, passengers must stay in the saloon) to the island. I guess if we’d not been to Lamma Island several times in the past Cheung Chau would have been more engaging. Maybe the best way to say it is it was a good trip to a kind of gritty (as Leslie would say) island town. We were tired by the time we got back to our room. We cleaned up and went out to Good Hope Noodles for shrimp wonton soup and a plate of Chinese broccoli. And finally back to our room where we are as I write this. Photo: Star Ferry, the very same ferry that Suzy Wong and her lover rode back and forth across the harbor, falling in love.

Sorry about all the broken-up sentences and words!

The trip started in Berkeley where we had Thanksgiving with David and Kevin. In a few hours we’ll take off for Hong Kong, where we’ll stay in Mong Kok at the Dragon Hostel. Photo: $4 worth of dim sum from Chinatown in Oakland. Starting the trip with a dim sum binge

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/336394/index.html

My amazing wife is fine with us staying 2 nights in a room with shared bath (hopefully without a turtle – see link above), then 2 nights with attached bath. The thing is we really like the Dragon – it’s well-run, it’s 2 blocks from the MTR and a main bus line, half a block from the Ho Fun café, 2 blocks from the Fa Yuen Market, and it’s in the most crowded area of a very crowded city with the most amazing crowds in the streets.

Then to Hanoi for about a week while we wait for David to join us. Depending on the rains, we’ll go to Sapa up in the mountains or Halong Bay. Then on to Hue (beautiful city of ghosts), Dalat, Saigon, Phnom Penh … deep into the lands of the Mekong …

“Whole generations of westerners who went out there as soldiers, doctors, planters, or journalists lost their hearts to these lands of the Mekong … there are places that take over a man’s soul.” Jon Swain

Two excellent short films by Jun, my cycling buddy. Jun did the video on Leslie and me cited elsewhere in the journal.

State Fair of Texas

Greenwood Cemetery

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Sometimes I find myself wishing I wasn‘t working. Mostly it’s just laziness, but also the fact that I’ve lost a step. I’m not as adept at keeping track of the multiple problems of multiple patients and the multiple questions and issues that come my way in a busy clinic day (I can keep only about 6-8 windows open). So I’m slower. But then there are realizations that I’m doing a good job for the patients and that I can have some fairly deep clinical insights; there is the pleasure of working with my colleagues; and there are moments like in this photo. What joy to see three generations together like this! What joy to provide care for people who really have their act together, like la abuela in the photo.

For obvious reasons I hesitated to write this, but it’s true, so … I became enlightened and nothing other than this life, including the service, would do. That’s why. Of course it was transient. But those few days spent in that state (and Leslie’s profound influence) were enough to keep me on the path for >40 years. Photo: David and me

An email from a former student, very nice to receive: “Just wanted to see how things are going. J told me he was heading to the clinic, so I asked him to get your email address for me. School is going really well. They are definitely keeping me busy here. Seems like I literally study all day. Fortunately, I am a big enough nerd that I don’t mind all the reading. I did not get a chance to come by before I left, but I did want to thank you for your support and encouragement. I remember as a nursing student the professors would always ask us about our plans post graduation. I would tell them that I intended to go to CRNA school. You were the only professor who told me I could actually do it, and supported me. I learned a great deal from you during my clinical rotation, and one of the most valuable things I learned from you was how to be a caring clinician. I admire how you reach out to the patients. Hopefully if all goes well, I can one day offer my services as a CRNA to those in need.” Photo above: Highway Colorado headed into New Mexico

Part of my answer: A nerd in understanding the patho, the procedures, the meds, etc., makes for a stud out there at the literal edge of human existence, where you’ve been spending your time.

Photo: Chocolate chunk cookies (the best recipe) and whole wheat bread (Tassajara recipe)

Like many other people I am deeply affected by the death of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide after another student posted videos of Tyler having sex with another man. I realize (sorry to be soooo slow) that discrimination of any sort against gay people is a civil rights, a justice issue – the same as the other great civil rights/justice issues of the 20th Century.

Why this time? Why not (ABC News, I think): “… 13-year-old Asher Brown, who told his parents he was gay, fatally shot himself last week after they said bullies pushed him too far. Two other teenagers hanged themselves after classmates had bullied them for years over their sexual orientations. 15-year-old Billy Lucas of Indiana hanged himself three weeks ago, and 13-year-old Seth Walsh from California died this week, eight days after trying to hang himself from a tree.” Why not Matthew Shepard? Why not others? I don’t know.

But I do know, here I am, with no more tolerance for religious bigots who model intolerance and hate and then lie about it with the old “hate the sin, not the sinner” shuck and jive. No more tolerance for people who justify prejudice because it’s part of their culture (Hispanic, Black, Redneck [everybody else gets a cap, why not us], whatever). No more tolerance for looks and innuendo. No more tolerance for really, face it, people’s own personal threat over something (same sex sex) that isn’t unusual, that lots of people do or have done, that animals other than the human animal do.

Being gay isn’t a lifestyle choice – it just is, the same as being hetero, BUT if it was a choice, then so what. Who is anyone to tell anyone else that a choice that doesn’t hurt anyone is wrong?

Here is a link to the It Gets Better Project – a very good thing for young people struggling with cruelty. From one of the vids:

There really is a place for us
There really is a place for you
One day you will have friends who love and support you
You will find love
You will find a community
Life gets better.

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Someone said to my teacher, “I want to kill myself in despair over the suffering.” And I thought…

Dan, I want to lift you up in rejoicing over suffering ended, diminished, and accompanied in your ~60 years of mercy and my ~40 years of trying and if both of us fall over dead today, we know that younger people are moving up to the line and we’ll get past a 100 years of mercy one way or another. A 100 years, a 1,000 years, we’ll hold the line.

I was talking last week with someone who works emergency about working in emergency and how it’s possible to take (literally) just a moment or not even that, just in the way you be, to be nice; to bring some confidence and comfort to people at the edge of existence – and people going beyond that. You don’t have to go anywhere to be a missionary. I was thinking about 10 or 12 years ago when I was in a room with a man in his 70s and his wife, also in her 70s who was dying and I noticed her breast was exposed in all the action and I reached over and covered her and her husband said, “It’s okay.”

My beloved wife