VIVA LA FRANCE!

It was with a sinking feeling—it’s hard to feel lower—that I realized I had no idea what the instructions on the back of the Nesquik container meant. By some devious pan-continental conspiracy, the instructions were in six different languages (French, German, Spanish, Monacoian, Latvian, and Aramaic) but not English! So there you have it, incontrovertible proof of the French's disdain for us Anglophiles. 

With much Herculean effort, I am finally almost maybe settled here in Fontainebleau, France. I arrived Thursday morning on a 6am flight at CDG airport and boy was it cold! And oh so very dark too. Even at 8am, the sky still looked like it was the middle of the night and it didn't lighten up until way past 9. How miserable is that?!

After picking up my car at the airport, it was an 80-kilometer drive to my new home. Driving in France is quite an adventure for several reasons: firstly, it's been several years since I last drove on the right side of the street; secondly, it's been more than 10 years since I've driven stick-shift; and thirdly, I have NEVER driven stick-shift on a right-hand drive car!

And did I mention too the microscopic parking lots, roundabouts at almost every 200 feet of the way, and thoroughly befuddling street signs. Then, there is renowned maniac French driver who, even when you're cruising 20kph above the speed limit, will sneak up behind you, cozy in real nice and close, and flash his headlights irritably. Then as soon as you duck behind the crawling overloaded truck to allow him to pass, he speeds off with a disdainful Gallic snarl of the engine, and nothing so much as a cheers or friendly smile in the rearview mirror—bienvenu la France!

Two hours and lots of detours, stalled engines, and irritated honking French drivers later, I finally arrived at my new home. The area is known as Foret de Fontainebleau—the second largest forest in Europe and former favorite hunting of French monarchs (before they were all beheaded)—and is about an hour southeast of Paris. Despite the gloomy weather and lack of foliage, the woods looked enchanting and I grew excited about the prospects of doing some hiking there as soon as the weather got warmer.

The main town in the area is Fontainebleau, which according to my severely limited French means blue fountain (although I confess that I haven’t as yet spotted any fountains there, blue or otherwise). This is where the school I’m attending is located. The town is the heart of the region and contains all the main attractions and basic living necessities like ridiculously opulent-looking chateau, banks, main post office, record shops, MacDonald’s, etc.

The place where I actually live is a village about 10 minutes away called Veneux Les Sablons (I’ve looked them up in the dictionary but I could neither find “Veneux” or “Sablons”). It’s a tiny little village; barely more than a single main cobbled street, a tiny train stop, 2 village pubs, and a local pizzeria. My house is on the main strip, right next to the florist. It’s a good-sized house, split into seven smaller apartments and self-contained studios. In the basement, there is a nicely converted cellar that looks perfect for soirees and the wine and cheese tasting and other activities one might be obliged to need to conduct subterranean.

Nearby are some truly amazing-looking villages with thoroughly French-sounding names like Moret sur Loing, Bourron Marlotte, and Nemours just to name a few. And at the risk of sounding like stating the obvious, I would just like to say how constantly amazed I am by, well, how European they all look! Seriously, it’s postcard quality stuff! Perfect rough-hewn stone cottages, ruler straight tree-lined streets, inspiring little grey village churches, quaint-looking epiceries, boulangeries, charcuteries, etc. If I carried my camera with me everywhere I went, I’d be so busy taking photos that I’ll probably never get anywhere.

After spending my first day unpacking and settling in, at the advice of my housemate, I headed out the next day to Carrefour, a gigantic supermarket about 13km away to do some emergency household-necessities shopping. If ever a market deserved to be called SUPER, this would be it! This place is massive! Row upon row of inexpensive consumer products; anything from a freshly-caught shark’s head and Asterix comic books to toilet fixtures and self-assembled furniture and stinky goat’s cheese—they’ve got it all. Someone told me that this was the largest supermarket (they actually call it a hypermarket!) in France—I don’t doubt it! It would probably even give the largest Walmart a serious run for its money!

Shopping in France for the non-French-speaking can be quite a challenge. One of the things to get on my long shopping list was a duvet cover. But rather surprisingly, the word “duvet” (despite how it sounds) is not actually a French word (or rather, it maybe it means something completely different). As all the packaging were sealed up and looked exactly identical, I had to make my best guess at what was a duvet cover and hope that I didn’t end up with a bedspread cover, or sheets, or god knows what else. Thankfully, it all turned out well.

Less successful was a packet of what I thought was frozen chicken meat. When I defrost the package and attempted to eat it, it turned out to be chicken alright but chicken gizzards! NASTY STUFF!!!

So coming back to my initial point, French—it’s painful and annoying and very trying and I often feel like an idiot, struggling to communicate the most basic of requests. But it’s a part of living in a real foreign country (unlike Scotland or New Zealand or Canada) and months from now, when I become annoyingly fluent in my command of French, I will look back at this month and laugh about it. Until then, my Nesquik will continue to taste quite bad and I’ll keep scratching my head and wondering why.

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S

This new year will likely prove to be another landmark one for me; one marked with new adventures, a new country, a new life, and who knows what else. But before I embark on this next journey, there is time yet for another big party and time enough to spend in the company of good friends, old and new.

The last two and a half months back home have been terrific. As is quite often the case, there are frequently many events and memories to mark the unhappy and horrid times in one's life but little to trace the sunny, fun-filled days and months. Such has been my life these past months. Excellent, though not particularly memoriable.

But in any case, it's the new years, I'm in a particular boisterous mood tonight (ready for another big party) so here's another unabashed chapter of Yakky's Dating Misadventures (to add to the already extensive list).

This story begins on Christmas eve when I headed off to Malaysia with some friends for a quick 18-hole round of golf (Singapore is so small that even for something like golf, we have to cross the border). In my car, I had the delightful company of an attractive 30-something corporate banker, whom we shall call Karen. The day was great, the course was almost completely empty, I made birdie on a hole, and thoroughly enjoyed Karen's witty and charming company throughout the day. The next day, we had dinner and caught a movie afterwards. Unfortunately, it's been a busy week for me so i haven't had a chance to see her since.

Then two nights ago, I was at a popular club, CLUB, in downtown Singapore with some friends, when lo and behold, I spotted Karen. It was quite dark and crowded but I was sure I recognized her face amongst the horde (afterall, I have an eye for the hunnies!). So I made my way to her table and said brightly,"Hi Karen!" What happened next took me a little by surprise. She looked at me, puzzled, and replied," Yeah? Do I know you?"

I was a little shocked but undaunted. Afterall, I did have a fairly dramatic haircut that morning and combined with the semi-dark surroundings and the fact that I'd shaved recently, perhaps her lack of recognition was understandable. So I answered,"It's Yakkie!" (still the puzzled look on her face) "Er... we played golf together recently..." I added hopefully.

"Oh... yeah... hi, how are you?"

"Good, good." Seeing as there was only her and another girl sitting at a big empty table in a crowded club, I asked, "Expecting a lot of friends tonight?"

"Yeah." she replied. "Are you here alone?"

"No, I'm with some friends inside" I countered.

"Anyone I might know" she asked.

"Nah, another group of friends."

"Oh...", she replied "So where are you working now?"

I was a shocked by this question since we had recently talked about me going away for school. I referenced that to her, but she didn't seem to get the hint. Anyhow, by now, I was feeling a bit awkward and so I told her that it was good to see her again and that I'll catch her again another time, and slipped away quickly.

The next morning, still feeling quite bewildered by the encounter, I decided to email Karen and ask her about it; perhaps she was a bit drunk last night and thus was a somewhat forgetful.

This was the email I sent her:

"Hi Karen! Good to see you last night at CLUB. Was a little surprised you took so long to recognize me. You must have thought that I was some random guy at the bar trying to pick you up?! "

This is her reply:

Was at office till late last night. Wasn't at CLUB!

Ooops!

Happy New Years everyone! May the new year bring joy and happiness and all good things to you and yours!

- Yakherder, 12/31/05

THE ROAD TO MANDALAY

This sombre song won't drain the sun

But it won't shine until it's sung

No water running in the stream

The saddest place we've ever seen

 — The Road to Mandalay, Robbie Williams

After five luxuriant and restful days in Bangkok, I bade farewell to Yong Liang and comfortable living, and reluctantly boarded an early morning Air Dakar (no kidding, it’s a real airline!) flight. The two-hour journey took me across northern Thailand, skirted around the Gulf of Martaban, and landed at 9am sharp in Yangon, capital city of Myanmar.

Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) has been under harsh military rule for the past 16 years. In 1990, after the NLD (National League for Democracy) won an overwhelming majority in the country’s first free elections in thirty years, the military abruptly stepped in and overthrew the popularly-elected government, sending most of the elected candidates straight to prison. Miss Aung San Suu Kyi, the world-renowned leader of the NLD and charismatic Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has spent much of the last decade and a half under house arrest. As a means of putting pressure on the military rulers, she has campaigned for the international community to boycott her country until it reforms its recalcitrant ways. This boycott extends all the way from international aid and to commercial investments, right down to tourism.

But while her steadfast and selfless devotion to her country is beyond doubt or reproach, many question if Miss Aung San’s boycott is the best approach to the trying situation. From a practical standpoint, the boycott has not appeared to cause any significant discomfort to the ruling military junta. Meanwhile, the living conditions of your average Burmese worsens day by day as the already-frail economy stagnates and crumbles under the boycott.

Thus it came as no surprise when I saw, on arrival, just how isolated the country was: there were precious few tourists about; not a MacDonald’s or Starbucks in sight anywhere; and none of the trademark Coke or Pepsi billboards you so often find elsewhere in other third-world countries. In fact, there were hardly any billboards at all. The one billboard that I did come across in town appeared to be advertising ball-point pens! And not even the fanciful ones with retractable tips and rubber grips, mind you; just the regular ones with blue plastic caps and cheap clear-plexi shafts. This, I thought, spoke volumes about the state of the nation.

After dropping my bags off at a guesthouse, I proceeded to wander about town. Unlike everywhere else I’ve visited so far, Yangon clearly wasn’t on any backpacking trail or major tourist package tour. For the first time in my budding backpacker career, I felt less like a tourist and more like a traveler. I walked through a teeming open-air marketplace, checked out stores selling local handicrafts and jewelry, and took a nice long hike all the way to the fabulously gold-encrusted Shwedagon Paya at the opposite side of town. Throughout the entire time, I didn’t spot a single foreigner anywhere.

Another thing I also didn’t see was street signs in English, and it was a constant challenge finding my way around Yangon, armed with only a very rudimentary and outdated street map. Everywhere around town, I noted the heavy presence of armed soldiers. On one street, a soldier with a machine gun barked at me for presumably walking too close to a military installation (which in all fairness, I couldn’t really have known since all the signs were only in Burmese writing); I smiled at the fellow apologetically, and then hurried off to the opposite side of the street—you’ll never win any arguments when the other side has guns and you don’t!

But perhaps the most fascinating thing I found about Myanmar was its people. As befitting a country bordered by India, China and Thailand (but with also small bits of Bangladesh and Laos thrown in for good luck), the Burmese people looked like a crazy cocktail concoction of one or more of the three populations. And with the exception of the men in uniform, almost everyone in Yangon wore colorful longyis (sarong-like wraps) around their waist. On their cheeks and foreheads, Burmese women applied bizarre patches of a brownish-grey powder. It seems that the prolonged usage of this jarring cosmetic endows the wearer with marble-fine complexion—that in the meantime it made the women look like rodeo clowns was, apparently, an acceptable tradeoff.

The people of Myanmar struck me as a humble and friendly sort. Not a lot in terms of material wealth, but possessed of a quiet and unassuming dignity. The majority of the population didn’t speak much (if any at all) English, but the ones that did spoke it well. Very often, they would approach me at public places to strike up a conversation. Sometimes, they would try selling me a guided tour but they weren’t pushy like elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Mostly, they were interested in talking to me and finding out about where I come from, what I do, as well as any news I had of the world outside Myanmar.

After spending half a day in the capital city, I decided at the spur of the moment that I could visit the rest of Yangon on my way out of the country and, somewhat hastily, purchased a bus ticket and set off on an overnight journey for Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city. In Myanmar, foreigners are only permitted to travel to certain parts of the country and on the bus ride north, our bus passed through police checkpoint after police checkpoint, where my passport was inspected over and over again with great interest.

While there some interesting sights in Mandalay, for me it was mainly a stopover point. Furthermore, the baking hot weather conspired to encourage me to stay indoors and while away the hours drinking beer at a local café. Also, it was soccer season and the Euro 2004 soccer campaign was on. I stayed up late and watched Greece defeat Czech Republic 1-0 in an exciting semifinal encounter in the lobby of my guesthouse with what appeared to entire staff of the hotel.

UPDATE

Apologies if my postings have dried up somewhat in the recent weeks. As some of you may already know, I'm starting my next stage of life soon--returning to school to get my MBA--and am now busy with all my pre-school preparations.

Also, there's been a particularly fetching young lady I recently befriended and with whom I appear to have been spending lots of my time with of late. As always, it's terrible timing on my part since I will be flying off again in a few weeks. But who knows, stranger things have happened and this one might just be the one that works out... we'll just have to wait and see.

Was chatting online with an old college mate who showed me photos of her 6-month old daughter! Unbelievable cute. So cute you'd almost be fooled into wanting to have kids right away... hehe... I said almost.

Anyhow, that's about it for me. Have to get up early tomorrow to sign a lease on a car and then head off to the driving range. Have my first full 18-hole golf trip on Friday and I need lots of practice. Watch out Tiger, here I come! (actually, what i mean to say is: "Watch out Tiger, my erratic swing sends balls everywhich way and you best keep your head low!")

TRAVELING COUPLES

Two drifters off to see the world

There's such a lot of world to see

We're after the same rainbow's end

Waiting 'round the bend

My huckleberry friend

Moon River and me

— Moon River, Audrey Hepburn

In lots of ways, two is the magic number for traveling around the world. Traveling in pairs (anything more and it becomes too complicated) has many advantages over traveling solo: shared equipment—you only need to bring one tent, one first aid kit, one set of guide books, etc.; lower traveling cost—it’s generally cheaper to get a double room than to pay for two separate singles; shared logistics—the work of planning out the trip can be divided; and companionship—it can get pretty lonesome traveling through third world countries where you sometimes may not meet anyone who speaks your language for days at a stretch.

And best of all, if your traveling partner happens to be your significant other, the experience can be that much more fulfilling and can help take the relationship to the next level. Of course, that’s all contingent on you getting along with your partner on the road. When traveling together for extended periods, travel fatigue and the enforced 24/7 companionship can often lead to seriously frayed nerves and very short tempers. I’ve met some couples traveling together who seem like they are one argument away from throttling each other’s neck. Others who started out on a trip with their girlfriends or boyfriends have since broken up and decided to have a go at traveling on their own.

But once in a while, you do come across couples who travel exceptionally well together—the very a picture of a healthy romance and relationship on the road. They are an inspiration to all the lonely heart backpackers and give each of us something to aspire towards.

After Saigon, I signed up for a three-day cruise on the Mekong Delta. The Mekong is the quintessential Indochinese river; starting from the heights of the Himalayas in Tibet, it makes a 2,600-mile journey through southern China, all of the five Indochina states (Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam), before emptying itself onto the vast alluvial plain known as the Mekong Delta.

Prior to visiting the delta, I had visions of lazy brown waters lapping vast rice fields; the occasional house on stilts sitting prettily by the side of the river; perhaps a crocodile or two sunning itself along the muddy banks; a farmer paddling bales of green grass unhurriedly on a tiny wooden canoe. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Mekong Delta is one of the most fertile regions in Vietnam, and as such has been thoroughly settled and colonized. In fact, it is one of the most densely populated places in the country and every square inch of riverside real estate has been snapped up and crammed with shops and towns and plantations and rice fields. The river itself is overrun with motorized boats, large and small, that ferry people and goods up and down the waterways. One is just as likely to spot wildlife in the waters as one is likely to find an unoccupied spot on the delta.

But still, a cruise about the Mekong Delta can be a fascinating experience and allows one the chance to peer deeply into the everyday daily lives of Vietnamese living off the river. Life in the Mekong Delta revolves completely around the river which serves as part highway, part supermarket, part playground, part laundry room, and even part bathroom for the locals.

In the evening time, we often saw kids young and old playing in the river. As soon as they spotted our boat steaming by, they would wave energetically at us and entertain us with acrobatic back-flips into the water—the bigger the splash, the better. As the sun turned a glowing orange-red, river traffic slowed, the air filled with the aroma of the salty river water and smells of smoke from wood fires nearby, and there a serenity and calmness all about—a lasting memory in my mind.

Equally delightful was the company we had on the cruise. I met up with a girl from Detroit, Alison, who also happened to be on my cruise in Halong Bay (you tend to meet the same people over and over again in Vietnam because everyone travels to the same places). Also, I got to meet Brett and Amanda Wass, a terrific Aussie couple from Queensland in northwestern Australia.

Brett is a lanky former professional volleyball player turned schoolteacher and Amanda, a pretty ex-geologist who worked for mining companies in the Australian outback. They were both in their late twenties, were both very warm and personable, and both extremely well-traveled. At this time, they were taking a two-month vacation to travel around Southeast Asia. During one of the many long lulls on the cruise, Brett recounted to me the priceless tale of how he and Amanda met up and got hitched.

They met seven years ago in a small town in Australia while part-timing their way through college at MacDonald’s. Amanda was evening shift manager and Brett had just started the job. That day, Brett reported in sick for work because he wasn’t feeling too well. As he began to feel better later in the evening, his friends dragged him out to a club where, to his horror and embarrassment, he bumped into his new boss, Amanda. Yet despite the awkward circumstances, the two somehow contrived to hit it off that night and ended dancing till dawn. Months later, they found themselves traveling together on an extended backpacking trip through South America. Since then, they have shared many adventures together, the biggest of which was when they cemented their partnership permanently three years ago when they finally tied the knot.

They both share a deep passion for traveling and it is this passion that has led them all around the world. After Southeast Asia, they are on their way to the UK where they begin new careers as teachers. In many ways, teaching is the ideal job for travel-addicts like them because good teachers are in demand all around the world. After a few years in England, the Wasses plan to hit Mexico, where they intend to live and work there for a few years and experience the Mexican culture.

As I observed them on the cruise, they really did seem like the perfect traveling couple: each being constantly in tuned to the other, knowing when to pay more attention and when to give the other more space; sharing their CD-player whenever either of them wanted it; each being equally responsible for their travels and itinerary. It was very much a two-way partnership with two full participating partners. And also, there were the little random acts of kindness and love to one another—sharing a sunset, a generous backrub, an arm wrapped around the waist at the right moment, etc.

A traveling relationship is a microcosm of a marriage. If you can survive the hardships of traveling with someone on a backpacking trip for several months around the world, then the relationship probably has a good chance of working out.

Watching Brett and Amanda and seeing their happy loving relationship made me at once a little lonelier for traveling by myself. But at the same time, it filled me with warmth knowing how great a relationship can be and optimism that someday I’ll find my own traveling partner on that long, winding road of life.