The Asian Winter Games: 2011

The 7th Asian Winter Games will start in 5 days. All the locals are quite excited about this. There are rumours of schools and markets and certain streets being completely closed for 7 days in order to accomodate the games. Like most things Kazakh, we won't know until the very last minute. Seriously. This is one of the purpose built venues. It's really quite impressive. But Almaty was built (unknowingly) on a very active earthquake fault line. It makes me nervous every time I look at.

A unique view of the city.

It's only snowed twice this year; a month ago and today, finally. So hopefully all the events will be well attended. Watch CNN or BBC for medal results.

Confluence 12 Degrees North, 108 East

Cody and I got up at 6:30am one day, jumped on a moped, and headed for the hills in search of Confluence 12N and 108E. Check out www.confluence.org for more info. It took us about 5 hours to ride 110 km's. Along the way, we met some coffee growers. At 3000 feet above sea level, it was quite cool in the shade, but it was perfect for harvesting and drying beans.

The image above depicts coffee beans at varying stages of being sun dried.

Almost every house, like the one above, had beans sun drying in the front yard.

Cody really doesn't like his picture being taken. We got back to the beach after riding through the jungle for 8 hours. We didn't make the confluence. It was still 60km's from the furthest point we got to. That might not sound very far, but at an average speed of 30km's an hour (fast for Vietnam), we would have added another 4 hours to our 8 hours already vested, bringing us back in the dark (and that would have been too much of an adventure, even for me).

Cuisine in Vietnam

Another enjoyable part of holidays--no cooking and lots of great food. The food was so good in Vietnam and the price was unbelievable. We didn't eat a lot of food on the street from vendors--we tended to stick to restaurants that looked reputable or road side cafes that had lots of people in them.

Cody has not eaten crab since we went to the Queen Charlottes but he remembered that he really enjoyed it so he put in a request for this one dinner. Well, he really likes it and he can eat it alot faster than his dad can open it up.

This was the view from this restaurant!!--right out to the ocean.

Breakfast at our hotel--always included with your stay!! and so far it has always been great.

Fishing Boats

This is another small fishing village near Nha Trang, Vietnam.

Almost all boats, from ferries to freighters, have a set of 'eyes' painted on the bow so that the boat can see where it is going.

But not fishing boats. Because if fishing boats had eyes, the fish would see them and swim away, scared.

Canoe-ists would really admire these fisherman. They have these cool 'dinghys' that they use to check their nets and get to shore with. They're perfectly round and handmade. If you're a canoe-ist, you're familiar with the "j" stroke. The Vietnamese "j" stroke is accomplished by attaching the paddle to the gunwale with rope, at the back, and then, by paddling and undulating, incredible speed and direction is possible.

Sleeping Bhudda

Of all of the likenesses of Buddha that we've seen in the past few years (which is too many according to Cody), this was one of the biggest. Reclining at the top of a mountain, this 161 foot sleeping Buddha was solid stone/concrete.

With a peaceful, smiling face, this Buddha lies on his right side with his head resting in the palm of his right hand. The reclining Buddha represents the historical Buddha at his death. It is said that the Buddha knew death was approaching, so he asked his disciples to prepare a couch for him in a grove.

The White Sands

For some mysterious geo-morphological reason, the sand in this beach community didn't have much of a relationship with the water. Note how the beach-front homes and the road are between the surf and the sand. We rented toboggans from some local kids and proceeded to ingest, inhale, and saturate ourselves in sand.

A Chinese jeep we rented. At first we wanted the roof to come off, but after a few minutes of +35 degrees at 80km an hour, we were thankful for the protection.

The weight of the sand forced fresh water up to the surface; this is not salt water.

Mui Ne, Vietnam

Mui Ne is a small fishing village in Vietnam. We stayed there for about a week. Great food, sunny and hot, and we swam in the ocean everyday.

Vietnam Fashion

Vietnam--Cu Chi Tunnels

We went on a tour of the Viet Cong stronghold in southern Vietnam. I thought I understood the Vietnam conflict, but it is/was quite complicated. Example: when you meet people, and you want to have more than a surface level conversation, you first have to establish (a) are they pro-American, or not (b) do they prefer to call the city Saigon or the (forced upon) name Ho Chi Minh City (after the 1970's "liberator"), (c) and, are they OK with the communist government, or not?

The guy that took us on a tour of this site was a diplomatic blend of all of the above (there were a lot of Americans in our group).
This little hatch on the jungle floor was/is an opening of a 220km network of tunnels that the Viet Cong used to hide in from the Americans and the Communists.

Kyla, showing more courage than me.

These passages led to multi-floor hospitals, bedrooms, ammo stores, kitchens, and living quarters.

Wikipedia asserts that "the role of the tunnel systems should not be underestimated in its importance to the Viet Cong in resisting American operations and protracting the war, eventually culminating in an American withdrawal."

I had a serious anxiety attack going in this tunnel, but Edna and the kids thought it was fun (the lights weren't on).