After The Bombs

This morning I got lost in the UNESCO cultural heritage site that is the Citadel here in Hue.

Without going on for too long about the history of this place, perhaps the most important part is that it is being authentically reconstructed by UNESCO. The Citadel had been almost completely destroyed during the Vietnam war and the effort to restore it is starting to pay off. Construction will be complete in 2015.

Dragon detail

I got lost in this place for about three hours, taking the time to soak it all in. There were little crowds and the buildings provided cover for the heat, so there was no reason not to. The entrance fee is a little steep, compared to other places (80,000 VND = a little under 4 euros) but still worth it. The chained, rideable elephants remain disgraceful.

Citadel theater. 

The horror

You can ride an elephant for 15 minutes for about 6 euro's. I really don't have any kind words for anyone who would support this.

Anyway, the citadel dates (or used to date) back to the 19th century. There was a section called The Forbidden Purple City, which used to mean that unless you were the emperor, part of his family, a servant or a eunuch, you'd be killed on te spot for trespassing. These days are long behing us, and we're all glad for it.

It's forbidden to take photo's in the Throne Room, which used to be the place where the emperor welcomed his guests. The rest of the Citadel has temples, a house for the emperor's parents and grandparents, a reading room, library, a theater and a treasury, among other things.

This were the kinds of dinasties where 7 year olds could take the throne and where eunuchs switched around babies so the next emperor would be a bastard which was brought into this world by a local concubine. Furthermore people got poisened or killed in other sorts of creative ways. It's more or less like A Song Of Ice And Fire, with dragons, but without the giant wall of ice.

This video is quite old, but finally found a way to upload it :) There is more, but the files are huge and the upload rate is slow.

Don't Feed The Trolls

We all know the feeling. You're walking down the street, minding your own business when, totally unprovoked, some stranger walks up to you and wants to sell you something. It could be spiritual enlightenment, a Greenpeace membership, some sunglasses or a tour through the city on a rusty bike.

What people usually do, is either turn around and walk away, or hear them out and walk away anyway. One must not encourage this kind of pushy behavior, which often comes hand in hand with a conversation you really don't want to be having anyway and motivate them to keep on doing it to other people. One must not feed the trolls.

Needless to say, yesterday I've fed the troll.

There was this man on one of these rusty bikes who approached me and offered to take me to the most interesting sites the old cultural center had to offer. Me being on a trip and all, doing stuff I'd never do anywhere else, so so I agreed to one hour of torment sitting in front of a guy who would be talking and talking and, in the end, who turned out to know quite a lot about his city.

The driver on the bottom left

So turns out that Hue had a big part to play in the Tet offensive in '68. Lots of people died here and the scars of bombing campaigns remain visible to this day. I went to visit a small exhibition which showed off some of the captured tanks and planes by the North Vietnamese. Went to some Buddhist temples and saw some monks and to see a place where jewelry is being made. It was all quite colorful, varied and occasionally interesting, but I couldn't help the feeling that it's just wrong for me to sit in a thing where a guys bikes you through the city. I was a little too far away from my comfort zone.

This would be a tank.

Looks legit

Truth be told, having been to the countryside, I find it difficult to enjoy the city life here. The xe oms, the guys that drive people around on their motorbikes, are everywhere and they yell and wave at you on every street corner. Now that I'm well into my second week here, my patience wears thin with these guys.

Welcome (back) To The (shitty kind of) Jungle

Anyway, today I go see the citadel and then I'm going to look for a way to get to Hoi An, which is somewhat smaller and supposedly very authentic.

Welcome To The Jungle

I'm currently in Hue, the self titled cultural hart of Vietnam. I'm waiting for my bed to become available so I'll start typing this blog thing up until it gets cleared. Pictures will come later.

So last night was interesting, where I got on my first sleeper bus, along with my two newly found Dutch friends. It looks kind of like a theme park attraction with its small bunk bed-like structures and blue neon tube lights. In the middle of the night we crashed into something, or something crashed into us, with only some minor structural damage in form of a broken window. Additional adventure was provided when you tried to use the toilet. If you think doing your number one on a plane or train is difficult, try pulling it off on a bus that's working its way through Vietnamese traffic. All in all, the ride took about 10 hours and the lucky ones slept for about 6, which includes me. The unfortunate ones got sick and participated in barf bag-testing.

Ready for take-off

Yesterday, the three of us booked another tour together which was a little more expensive (15 dollars per capita) which took us to Cuc Phuong national park. It's a 50 km drive on motorcycles, which takes a little over an hour, depending on how many cows are crossing the road along the way.

The park itself has a short trek available in which you hike through the jungle (with a stone path) to a thousand year old tree. The journey getting there was more rewarding than the tree itself, but thanks to the extensive knowledge on human psychology available in our trio, we were well aware of that before we ventured on. We came across walking branches, gekko's, colorful spiders, all sorts of bugs and two platoons of ants that were dragging worms back to the colony. 

Particular colorful specimen

Then came the monkey and turtle rescue center. This place is a tiny dot of hope in a country were conservation is about as important as stopping for a red light. Most of these animals were intercepted on the trade markets, on their way to either China or Thailand. The monkeys end up in enclosures where they get used to social life and participate in a breeding program, which sounds fun enough, even more when you consider that they don't have to go look for food. Afterwards they go to a semi-wild environment, where they need to fend for themselves, while still being isolated from human contact. The final step is reintroduction.

Meet the family

The turtles are a different story. Some get reintroduced or have a breeding program, while others are kept in isolation because they are invasive species that fare too well in the conditions the park has to offer, killing the endemic species. Most end up in the park after they're intercepted off the trade market as well. Coming here, it's really hard not to fall in love with the place and with what they are trying to do. There is a ton of information here and Vietnamese kids are invited to this place to learn and appreciate nature and, at least on a local level, it seems to work. 

Today I'm on my onesies again, having said goodbye to Naomi and Rowan, who I wish all the best, if they ever get to read this :).

Expect an update with pictures. 

Them Dutch People

Eets A Buttahflai

They're everywhere.

And we get along!

Today I met two Dutch psychology students, who are also a couple, which is interesting. We had booked a day tour together without knowing it and ended up on three motorcycles, with drivers, that would drive us around all day for 12 dollars. It ended up being the most relaxed, fun and surprising day of the trip so far. The scenery, once you get out of town, is mindboggling.




The Buddhist Temple


Chua Bai Dinh is going to be a big thing the next couple of years. The complex is huge, in construction and will be ready to recieve every Buddhist on this planet at once in about a year or two. This morning, it was pretty much empty. Below is a picture of a ten meter tall, 100 tonnes heavy bronze statue of you know who, although it really doesn't look that big in the photograph. At the time there was a small service going on which had a man banging on a bowl with a stick. The result was about ten times as creepy as what you're imagining right now. This was Temple of Doom-creepy, without the barehand-hart surgery but with the ominous chanting.

Entrance to this complex is free of charge, which was to be expected.

This statue is 10 meters high, honestly

The Old Capital




Hua Lu was the capital of Vietnam about for roughly 40 years, about a thousand years ago. Some of the old structures still stand and are in more than decent shape. This place was also pretty vacant. So more fun for us three!

Duntahduntaah!

The Cave That Really Wasn't A Cave


Well, there actually was a cave at Mau Cave, it had a statue of a tiger in it. We didn't get how this would be of any importance so we turned our heads towards the heavens and saw this shrine on top of a mountain-like structure. The only thing standing between us and that were about 500 steps and a climate that has you sweating for turning your head. In the end, it was more than just worth it. The view was stunning, the surroundings peaceful and the company enjoyable. There were also butterflies, which gave the whole experience a somewhat dreamlike feel. It's pretty much like a scene from a movie, just without the love interest. (True for 33,33333333333 % of the party set out to climb this thing)

Race you to the top

Being A Boat Among Lots Of Boats


Tam Coc is a place where you get on a boat and get steered around for 2 hours over a local river, which name escapes me. It's a lot more exciting than it sounds and the people paddling use their feet, and of course, paddles. There are these karst mountains, a burial site, angry looking chinese tourists, mountain goats, happy looking Vietnamese tourists and friendly buddhist monk tourists who waved at us and took our picture. Given the fact that these guys were bald and were dressed in orange, the opposite would have been more obvious, but it just didn't turn out that way.

Great, more boats!

I'd recommend going to my dropbox to see more of the amazing statues and structures we saw today. The photo's aren't labeled or anything, so good luck! The ones you're looking for are in the Ninh Binh folder. 

Tomorrow, the three of us venture into our first nature reserve, this one was put on the map by Ho Chi Minh himself and it has monkeys. There is no way this could possibly go wrong.

Having Your Ass Kicked, Over And Over Again

Ok, so the past few days have been quite rough and I'm pretty damn tired, so I'll make this short - ish.

Joining the armada


I made my first big mistake during my last day in Hanoi, I relied on Google Maps. Bottom line: it resulted in me going to the wrong bus station and being forced to get myself on one of the motorbike taxi's (xe om, if I'm not mistaken). Racing your way through the capital on one of these babies is kind of like attacking the Death Star with a swarm of X-wings who really don't like eachother and are all trying to get there first.

Oh look, more foreigners!

Then I had to wait five hours to get on the bus. The busride was four hours, had two passengers getting sick, saw a toppled truck next to the road and I got overcharged for being a tourist that doesn't understand Vietnamese. My bad, I guess.









Ah, the great outdoors!

Ban Lac village

When there is no power you just go all Martin Sheen.

Eventually I ended up in a village called Ban Lac. It's kind of a tourist trap in disguise, as you can book 'cheap' tours to this place for about 70 dollars for two days.  I spent about 5 getting there and 30 staying here for three. There I roamed along ricefields, saw somewhat awkward traditional dancing, experienced a power outage in a tropical thunderstorm, slept above the kitchen (in a hut, with broken wooden panels) rented a bike and ended up on a motorcycle thanks to two persuasive Dutch guys, who turned out to be great tutors as well. I kind of, sort of did burn myself on the exhaust pipe, although I really was trying very hard not to. In the end it was one of the most spectacular things I've ever done and the fact that I could do it for free made it even more enjoyable. Riding a motorcycle in this kind of scenery is a unique experience and I'll never, ever forget it. The three of us  rode up to a little place with a great view over the valley and Mai Chau village.

I met some people who are in the region for an Esperanto event in Hanoi. Two of them were Belgian and one of them has 50 hats. This is of no import whatsoever.

Pictured: mountains, ricefields and Mai Chau village

There are some perks to being a lone backpacker in these regions. One of them is that you sometimes get to climb over 1000 stairs with a guide to get to a cave, but at least you don't have to pay anything for it.

The Cave

The Journey To Ninh Binh

Next stop: Ninh Binh. This small city would be the beginning of my journey south. Because the people I was staying with couldn't get me on a bus to Ninh Binh in time, they offered me a ride back to Hanoi, so I could take a bus there. Putting things in perspective: The drive Mai Chau to Hanoi is four hours, the one from Hanoi to Ninh Binh at least three, provided there even was a bus from Hanoi at that time of day. We left Ban Lac at around three in the afternoon, so things weren't looking up for me. Even if I found a bus to Ninh Binh in Hanoi it would still mean that I would get there pretty late in the evening. So the tourguide offered to drop me of in a junction in the middle of nowhere, telling me that there was this one guy  who would flag down the right bus for me or make the trip to Hanoi and hope for the best there. I ended up agreeing to the junction and 30 minutes later I was on a bus to Ninh Binh. Sort of.

The trip on the first bus lasted four hours. The roads were practically non existent and flooded. We did manage to load aboard two brand new Honda motorcycles at some point, along with huge pieces of bamboo that were tied on to the roof. Here I, yet again, had my ass handed to me as the moneycollector had me paying almost 8 euros before he let me continue. Somewhere throughout the ride I developed a fever and was feeling quite woozy at some point. 

You know when you're a long way from home when people look at you as if they've never seen a foreigner before, or when naked kids are playing in a stream (instantly reminding me of that awful picture from the Vietnam war that has a naked girl running away from a village levelled by napalm), or when all you see for four hours are mountains, rice paddies, one street villages and cows. 

As the bus progressed, it became more and more empty. Then at last (it was dusk by now), there were just two passengers left. Then the bus stopped and I was asked to get out, or well, pulled out. The other passenger took me by the hand and offered me some tea. It was in a dark room someplace with a dog sniffing around.  Then the moneycollector showed up again, yelling 'NINBIN!', took my backpack and dragged it out to the road. There he flagged another bus and he pushed me on it. The younger fellow, the second passenger, got in as well and uttered: 'ninbin!'.

The second bus was pandemonium. The road here was decent, but the busdriver drove as if he was going for warp 9. Honking and jeering left and right he speeded us to Ninh Binh in about an hour. The younger fellow asked to be dropped off at some point and left. Five minutes later they nudged me off the bus. There I was greeted by the local pushy taxi club, I picked out one of them, gave him an adress for a hotel and got on with it. 

The thing is, is that there is no way of knowing where you are in a city or a village, so you're left to the kindness of a guy who races people around for money. You can bet your ass is that he'll take advantage of you in any way he can. So, I got overcharged again and ended up in a hotel that looked kind of shabby on the outside, but isn't bad on the inside. The guy that runs the place is really nice and the price is still acceptable. 

Last night I had more fever, woke up a couple of times bathing in sweat, but today all is well. Or better, the fever is gone at least. I took the day to pick up some much needed Vietnamese as hardly anyone here speaks any English,  update the blog and wear off the reality check that hit me over the head yesterday.

I wanted adventure, I sure as hell got adventure.  

(spellchecks will follow, again)

Alpha Through Epsilon



What can I say... I'm a geek.



Three days of Hanoi had me craving for a relaxing book. The books I have with me are either guides on how to explore a country or staying alive, while the other kind require of me to write stuff in it. So I went to this bookstore that comes highly recommended, located in the north of town and walked out with a secondhand copy of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

The store, aptly called Bookworm, has airconditioning, classical music in the background and a friendly, helpful owner. It's a complete nightmare to find because the alley leading to the store is harder to find than, say, that island from Lost, even if it has a huge sign posted over it.





Yes, those are my drying boxers, deal with it.

 

Today you will notice the lack of pictures, because my current computer gives me static - the shocks, not the fuzzy sound - when I plug my camera in it. - It's fixed - I don't know half a thing about electricity, but I'm guessing it's not good when that happens. When the pictures finally emerge in this post, -they have- you'll see shots taken in two markets which sold everything from fabric to unidentifiable parts of all kinds of animals. I also did some laundry today, so at least one person on this planet is going to be really proud of me.


 I'll be leaving Hanoi in the morning, trading it for a more solitary existence in a greener environment.



Market





Green panda umbrella, stares right back.



They Call Him Uncle Ho

Today I went to see Uncle Ho.

Gardening skill level: epic

I got up at 6.15, had some breakfast - fruit, bread, tea, butter – and walked for about 45 minutes before I got to the queue to end all queues. People were lining up for a couple of hundred meters before the actual queue began. In this pre-queue, it was more of a pushing and shoving type of moving along where everybody was trying to get in front of everybody else. Oddly enough I'm taller than most Vietnamese and I was pretty much the only foreigner in the neighbourhood so I was spared most of the shoving due to an aura of unpredictability (my guess). After 15 minutes of this, the line broke up in two queues, one for people who had brought bags and one for people that didn't.

I wished I hadn't brought a bag.

After more pushing and shoving, they let me keep the bag, but took my drinking bottle, which I was welcome to pick up three hours later at that very spot, provided that I gave them back the ticket they just gave me. It was a paper ticket, with a number written on it in ink. Just what you need on a tropical day when you're wearing long trousers and a shirt with long sleeves, as one does not show up dressed unproperly when meeting Uncle Ho.

First feline spotted.

Then came the real queue, which was really, really long. Thankfully this queue had a roof over its head, as my pocket thermometer told me we'd just passed 40 degrees Celsius -DING!-. Along with a roof, this queue had fans, tv-broadcasting, discipline, ominous looking fellows all dressed in white and a security checkpoint, where I had to give my camera away for storage, which would be waiting for me after I'd seen Uncle Ho, provided I returned a tag with another number on it. Thankfully this one was made out of plastic.

On went the queue until we got to Uncle Ho's Mausoleum, no idea how long that took. He has a mausoleum, because the thing with Uncle Ho is that he's been dead for 43 years, but his body is still on display. Only not during his annual three month maintenance visit to Russia. That's what comrades do for comrades, I guess.

Speaking of comrades, 'Uncle Ho' is really Ho Chi Minh,  the most respected figure in Vietnam today. Uncle Ho is his man-of-the-people title, which he earned in full, at least from where I'm sitting. Ho Chi Minh was born in a rural village in 1890, grew up, travelled the world and eventually returned to Vietnam after 30 years. Armed with great oratory and a firm belief in communism, he led his people through all kinds of conflict and passed away in 1969, which means he never saw his country united. (Bad students are referred to the previous blogpost :) )

Right now, he's probably the world's best guarded corpse. The closer you get to the entrance, more guys in white show up, occasionally with guns. There is a red carpet that takes you to the entrance and these men are here to make sure you're going to think about 4 times before straying from the path. Inside, you're not allowed to stand still, you most always adopt a steady pace without making any sudden movements. The room where Ho Chi Min is on display is quite large, and has four armed men in white standing beside the body. Above Uncle Ho's head are two large tiles, one has the Vietnamese star on it, the other the famous hammer and sickle. Discipline was somewhat waning at the time of my visit as one of the guards couldn't help smiling at a motivated toddler who made a run for Uncle Ho. Irony also had its moment when a teenage Vietnamese girl walked in with a long sleeved t-shirt which had 'U.S.A' printed on it.

Statue of Uncle Ho

Once out of the mausoleum, my camera was returned to me and I moved on to see the other things the site had to offer. Among those were the presidential palace, which was built by the French and is off limits to pretty much everybody. Uncle Ho's garage -with cars-, his regular house and his house on stilts, all adding to the image of a wise, down to earth father of a country. There was a huge Ho Chi Minh museum which was quite interesting, but not without irony as the building is gigantic, and a welcome distraction from the heat outside. For details, come check the sites out yourself, or read my book, if I ever get to write it ;). Coming here will cost you about 3 dollars (and a flight to Hanoi).

You bet!

SPOILER: I did get my drinking bottle back as well.

Later on, I went to two temples throughout Hanoi, one was White Horse Temple or Bach Ma Temple which, as it turns out, really does have a wooden statue of a white horse. The other one, Ngoc Son Temple or Jade Mountain Temple, has an embalmed giant tortoise and is on Hoa Kiem Lake, which obviously isn't a mountain but Hanoi's most popular lake, for recreational purposes as well as a place to ditch your plastic. There should still be a tortoise in there somewhere, but I doubt it still draws any breath. Maybe it's just a clot of plastic bags shaped like a turtle.

Throwing up peace signs in front of a dead turtle

It was a peaceful and disciplined day, forgetting for a moment the early morning shoving. The contrast with my current place of residence could not be bigger. Here, there's loud Western music, a BBQ party going on, cheap alcohol, a pool table and a large flatscreen screening all kinds of Hollywood. The most common word used is 'dude', my roommates come in early in the morning, usually around the time I'm having my last hour of sleep.

There is a letter that comes after 'w' in the alphabet. This blog post had to be made without it, because it seems to be missing from my keyboard :). Spellchecks will follow.

Every magic gate should look like this, just a thought.

'It's my first day.'



Today the first day in Vietnam where I'm somewhat conscious of what's going on. According to my thermometer we reached 37 degrees today and the much expected  rain never showed up. The sweat is dripping from all of us and all of a sudden it becomes apparent why I haven't seen one local who's overweight.

Hanoi has been nothing short of a pleasant surprise.Pollution and the Concerto for Car and A Trillion Motorcycles ©  aside, this place is a joy to get lost in. It's kind of fun to cross the street and pave your way through an armada of motorcycles, who do slow down when they spot you, so the trick is to walk extremely slow. Fellow backpackers in my hostel seem to be hell bent on getting drunk, are prevalently British or Dutch and tend to complain about everything but seem not to take notice of my presence, which is more than just fine by me.



Not an armada



Today was exploration/museum-day!

In October 1967, then lieutenant commander John McCain was shot down over Hanoi by North Vietnamese troops while attempting to destroy a local power plant. He crashlanded in a lake and was captured and taken to Hoa Lo prison, later to be dubbed the Hanoi Hilton by surviving POW's. He and every other surviving American prisoner was released after the signing of the Paris accords in 1973, ending the Vietnam war.

Today I went to the prison-turned museum and I must say it has had a profound effect on me. Having read McCain's version of the facts and having heard the Vietnamese version, where the prison is depicted as a small paradise for convicts, it's really difficult to have a decent opinion on the subject. It gets even weirder with the figure of Douglas B. Peterson, who was captured and detained in Hoa Lo, only to become the very first US ambassador to Vietnam in 1997.

For those who aren't in the know. John McCain ran for president of the US in 2008 and can't lift one of his arms over his head, a souvenir from his time as a POW.

The prison was built in the first half of the 20th century by the French who then owned the place when Vietnam was a part of French Indochina. The French used it, among other things, to test their guillotine on Vietnamese revolutionaries and the publicly displayed the result in order to affect morale. The guillotine is still there and is on display, next to the death and isolation cells, which are appropriately under lit and are unfortunately accompanied by some sort of ominous soundtrack, which give the whole thing some kind of bad theme-park vibe.

Being a geek and all, I also went to The Temple Of Literature which, depending on who you talk to, is as every bit as amazing as you'd expect. From the 11the century on, it functioned as a kind of university for scholars and it is now a shrine for Confusius and his disciples. The temple ins't just one temple, it has a huge main gate and several courtyards in which you have to attain some level of tranquility in order to enter the main buildings. I was lucky to have arrived early, so I had most of the place to myself, except for a few worshipers who prayed and left offerings (including a cigaret, oddly enough). After an hour or two the Chinese walked in like they owned the place, and it was time to head for the Fine Arts museum.  

A peek inside the Temple of Literature

The Hanoi Museum of Fine Arts was air conditioned and surprisingly beautiful. Most interesting was the very old art, which frequently depicts tortoises, unicorns, dragons and the phoenix, for a reason that was somewhat lost in translation. Most of the contemporary art was Vietnam war-related and mentioned "Uncle Ho", more about him on a later date. The damage for three museums: three dollars.

Edit: Making an awful lot of spelling mistakes, sorry about that.

Incredibly Jetlagged

Live from Hanoi!

Got here safe and sound. It's incredibly hot and humid out here. It's somewhere around 30 degrees Celsius and the air is so heavy I could hit someone with it. I haven't slept in what must be 20 something hours. Can only communicate through short sentences. The internet has wrongfully taught me that I'm now 7 hours older when I am, in fact, only 5 hours older. The disappointment is tangible. 

My inflight computer was broken. I was very sad. This way I got into a lengthy conversation with a Vietnamese girl who didn't care much for inflight computers. This experience has taught me that I stand pretty much alone on this planet in my dislike of the band Muse. So far I have what I can only perceive as good advice from an Irishman and a Dutch woman and I'm trying my very best not to pass out due to the lack of sleep.

Tomorrow brings more excitement, more crushing heat and hopefully the first batch of pictures.

The people are nice, the streets are colorful and throughout the city grow the most beautiful trees I've ever seen. The buzzing of the motorcycles is a lot less irritating than I'd feared and no vendor tries to tear off your clothes in a desperate attempt to sell you something. When a guy on a motorcycle does some insane  maneuvering in a last ditch effort not to kill you, he does so with an apologetic smile. Two hours ago I ate the greatest tofu wrap ever for 40.000 dong, which is less than two euro's. This, in fact, must be paradise.

And I might be high.

Status Report (and I haven't even left yet)

Packing.

Unpacking.

Stare.

Repacking.

While I'm currently anywhere between 'Yay, let's do this!' and 'Mom! I don't wanna go!', these past few days have been the usual kind of weird before I set out and do something as outrageous as this. Every meal is accompanied by a West Wing episode ('I'm having difficulty having this conversation with people who don't sail.'), I'm dreading the hours I'll be sitting in an airport and I still can't decide on whether or not I'm going to pack my MP3 player. Tomorrow brings my last day in Belgium, it'll be  raining -so it'll mean less crowds- and I'll be buying the last items I really won't be needing, but will be bringing along anyway. I'm packing a lot less since my last trip, eager not to make the 'overpacking mistake' again. Not sure what the 'underpacking mistake' feels like, though I have a lively imagination, and I'm not planning to find out.

In front of me lies a Vietnamese frasebook and it has taught me so far that without a shadow of a doubt, I am going to make a fool out of myself. The internet, in the meantime, has taught me that the food is going to be great, it'll probably rain quite a lot, it'll be at least 10 degrees Celcius warmer than it is here and I'll be seven hours older than I am where I'm currently sitting.

On a completely unrelated note: over the past two days I've seen both Before Sunrise as well as Before Sunset, which are movies, to be clear. Before Sunrise is the first one and is about an American and a French girl that meet up on a train somewhere and decide to spend an evening together in Vienna. The second one takes place nine years later. They come highly recommended, especially if you've 'been there before' or are 'in the middle of it right now'. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, I really can't help you, but you should watch them anyway.

Prometheus, on the other hand, is a movie I cannot get my head around. And it's been more than 3 weeks since I've seen it. The music is great, though.

I'll be missing the opportunity to see The Dark Knight Rises in a theater, which grieves me more than you could possibly know.

There'll be more. 

This was not planned

There is yet hope.

Yesterday, the Midway film project made its kickstarter goal of 100,000 dollars, which means a full length documentary is in the pipeline, which is beyond good news. If you haven't heard of what's going on on the Midway atoll these days, go here. It has to do with birds, plastic and us.

There is yet inconsistency, definitely in the way I neglected this blog idea for many months. Now I'm on the verge of leaving for southeast Asia for three months, so this thing will be used more frequently.

On another note: The Higgs Boson has been discovered (supposedly) and I don't understand the half of it, which is dissapointing, given the fact that I've read Steven Hawking's 'The Grand Design'. Good thing I didn't become a physicist. What I did become is a social worker, for which I graduated a few weeks ago.

/cheer

Here's to a new commitment of making this blog something worthwhile, although I imagine that Ankor Watt is going to help a little...