red dust & bloodshot eyes

so after encountering so much art upon arriving in saigon, i missed the swedish artist's opening after all. i did, however, make it to see her sculpture the day before leaving saigon. once you entered the front door, you were inside the installation: along with a gigantic tunnel snaking throughout the two-story space, sharp things covered the walls and furniture. there was a small telephone table with a stool in front of it covered with nails. the fridge was surfaced in tacks. saws and knives covered the tables and chairs. i talked with her at some length about it, mistakenly thinking the whole idea was a statement on the cu chi tunnels near saigon. in fact, the sculpture was originally inspired by those tunnels, but it's more a statement of the dangers inside the home and how loaded with traps a home can be. always interested in how artists make their livings, i found out that she moved in with her parents temporarily and sold tires in stockholm in order to save up the money to put together this particular show... which was also an interesting conversation.

so after researching around saigon and avoiding traffic accidents, i took a short holiday/research trip to phu quoc island. i went there two years ago on a long mekong delta trip with the most annoying guide ever (cockney jokes told over and over and then ten more times for good measure, cigarettes smoked with a long, skinny filter more appropriate for, i dunno, mae west), but this time i went with phuong and francois' dad's wife marisol and had a MUCH funner* time. instead of taking an eight-hour boat trip and having to dodge sloshing vomit on deck, we traveled in style - in a small plane. arriving this way, you can see the forest reserves below, a rare thing in vietnam where all the wood has been harvested for furniture or chopped down for firewood.

we were met at the airport by phuong's friend, who runs a little restaurant/bar with her french husband. we caught up with them for a little bit, gorged on a big vietnamese lunch on the beach - sweet & sour fish soup, rice, fried tuna with tomato sauce, and stir-fried veggies - and then passed out on the beach for several hours, swimming in the warm turquoise water now and then. dinner we had at the friend's bistro, followed by cocktails and pool and getting hit on by a very tall, drunk frenchman with a cauliflower nose. then to the one worthwhile bar on the island, and then to bed at the friend's house.

in the a.m. we rented a couple of motorbikes; phuong and marisol thought they'd tag along while i did research and they'd maybe find a good beach along the way and ditch me at some point. we started with a visit to a waterfall, which was pretty depressing as this is the dry season and no water was falling; even more sad was because, as is the vietnamese way, trash was strewn everywhere. plastic bags, empty beer cans, cardboard, remains of picnics and food wrappers littered the flat rocks and big boulders. we'd gotten lost along the way and taken some wrong turns, after which we'd picked up trash up the hiking trail and around the waterfall - so by this time we were sort of annoyed. then we headed up the red dirt road we thought led to a beach in the north, where i wanted to check out several resorts. again, we got lost and asked directions of some motorbike drivers hanging out on a corner. they wanted to show us, which meant we'd have to pay them, so we refused the offer. they waved us in one direction, telling phuong to turn this way and then that, and there we'd be.

half an hour later, covered in red dust and going in what appeared to be the wrong direction (towards mountain and forest rather than beach), we asked for more directions and found that we were on the right trail... later finding out that it did, indeed, lead to the same place we wanted but was about five times longer than the short way. vengeful motorbike drivers.

we looked at two resorts and lunched at the second (run by yet another french-vietnamese couple) at a table on the deserted, rocky beach of white sand and azure water. we trudged back up the steep hill to leave the resort and look at one more before deciding what to do next. at the third resort, i got taken to look at the beautiful bungalows with outdoor stone bathrooms and tall wooden-slat doors while phuong and marisol wandered the beach. then i chatted with the temporary manager, a hunted-looking, tanned brit raised in africa, and when i bid him goodbye had lost track of the girls. i scanned the beach and didn't find them and figured they'd probably just taken off since i'd taken so long. going back to the motorbike parking lot (a square of graded red dirt with a bamboo post-and-thatch skeleton around it), i thought i saw that their bike was gone. so i started mine back up and headed back down the dusty road. a few times i hit some really sandy sections and had moments of 'whoa. whoa! WHOOOOOAA!' but never fell down (woo!).

found out later that day that phuong & marisol were not so lucky. they'd seen me standing on some beachfront boulders and thought i was looking right at them, but when they got back i was already gone. just about half a kilometer from the resort, they hit some sand and crashed. after lying on the ground with the motorbike on top of them, laughing, they dusted themselves off and found that the bike had died. so on top of being exhausted, hot, bloody, and filthy, they were now stuck on the side of the deserted road. luckily, some guy came motoring by and happened to have a tool kit and happened to kindly stop and repair their bike, and then they happened to stumble on the shortcut back to town that i'd also found on my way home.

and that is not all!

after we'd all showered and had dinner at another guesthouse and had played a couple of games of pool at our home bistro, phuong's friend wanted to go out. she has two babies and runs the restaurant, and her husband isn't too into going out when phu quoc has very little to do. in short, she never gets a night on the town with girlfriends. so, as she was our gracious hostess and putting us up, we felt obligated to go out, exhausted as we were by the day's dusty driving. so we waited as she put the babies to bed, took a shower, got dressed, changed her outfit, and borrowed the neighbor's motorbike. the bike marisol and i took (hereafter called #1) had no headlight and the rustic island road is unlit. the bike phuong & friend took (#2) was the one that had crashed earlier in the day. so off we went together, bouncing up to the main road, and we got not a kilometer away when #2 stalled. phuong's friend got off so that phuong could attempt to kick-start it, to no avail. i half-hoped it wouldn't start so we could go home and sleep. phuong's friend left a message for her husband to come help us out. but phuong is a pro when it comes to motorbikes, and undid the fuse and messed around with the engine, kick-started a few more times, and it finally roared to life fifteen minutes later.

so off we went up the dusty island road and into town and to the vietnamese nightclub, which was closed. again, i hoped that this would end the evening so we could go to sleep (by now it was midnight and we had to get up at 6 for our flight). 'i guess we'll have to go to the rainbow bar,' said phuong's friend. so of course as we were about to leave, bike #2 died again. phuong, who has been through quite a lot in her 25 years and who rarely shows despair or frustration in trying times, was looking just about fed up as she kicked doggedly at the starter of the bike (in a skirt!). another fifteen minutes later, she got it going and off we headed to the rainbow bar. except: the friend spotted a SANDWICH CART on the corner and commanded phuong to stop. so as she's waiting for a sandwich, guess what? bike #2 died again. phuong actually came up to me, covering her face with her hands, and i thought she would cry.

but she mustered all her patience and grace and kicked at the starter some more. since we were on a street corner at midnight, there were lots of men hanging around who came over to try it themselves (because whenever you fail to start your motorbike, it means you're doing it wrong and they can do it better). no less than five men came over to try; none had any luck. then the friend's husband drove up, having received the message she'd left him half an hour before, and we all headed down the street with one helpful extra guy who pushed phuong's dead bike with his foot on one of the back footpegs, dropping her at the bar and driving off.

then we had a drink, phuong and i played exactly one game of pool with the dive instructors partying there who wiped the table with us, and then we all spent about two hours sitting around looking heavily bored as the friend chattered away with the bar owner. surely the friend would notice how tired we were and we'd leave after a drink or two. occasionally she turned to phuong and threw a smilingly oblivious comment her way but ignored the loaded looks we were giving her. compelled by obligation to stay, phuong and marisol chain-smoked and stared into space while i tried to make the best of things and grilled the bar owner about phu quoc details, which he rewarded with complaints that the guidebook was egregiously outdated and that more people needed to open more bars on the island. i smiled and nodded, drinking every cocktail he put in front of me, until FINALLY it was decided that we could leave.

we got three hours of sleep before heading to the airport, but the upside? no vomit!



* i know it's not a word. it's funner to use.

art... art... art...

Don't tell anyone, but I'm not reciting the backpacker mantra at the moment.

After arriving three hours late to find Francois still waiting for me at the airport, we hopped into his taxi-driver friend's cab and headed to his and Phuong's new place. It's about ten minutes from central Saigon but has the same feel of the neighborhood the three of us used to live in: red-tile roofs and gated 'villas' (big, airy houses), gravel roads and some empty lots. Big trees shading balconies and pretty courtyards in the gated front areas of homes. I have my own room, bathroom, and balcony with potted plants. Plus an ample supply of Jumbo - the mosquito repellent coils I came to rely upon, as my blood apparently tastes like buttah. I am so happy and relieved to find Phuong & Francois in such elevated circumstances, as they had several years of hardscrabble living before they both made it to this point. Both are exporting coveted stuff - Vietnamese coffee and vintage French-colonial tiles - and life is much easier and deservedly so.

Last night we went with Francois' father, who moved his family here six months ago after visiting F and garnering an art exhibition in Hanoi a year later. He and his wife wanted to attend an art opening to make some connections and get people to go to his show as well, and so the five of us hobnobbed with expats and Vietnamese art types in the gallery of an American Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese). After that we had a smoky, noisy, grill-your-own dinner down the street, and then to a popular expat bar afterwards for drinks and pool. Over the course of the evening I had pathetically pidgin conversations in Spanish, French, Japanese and Vietnamese, realizing how tenuous a grasp I have on the languages that I comprehend to varying degrees. Meanwhile, F's father's wife - who is Spanish - speaks fluent Spanish, French and English and very good Japanese. I'm sure she'll pick up Vietnamese after six more months. Much like my Mexican housemate in Tokyo (who is fluent, more or less, in seven languages), this woman is another reminder that I need to work harder and think less about such goals.

This morning F's father - who is French and speaks little else, but who paints like hell - took me to his gallery and studio, which he'll have to vacate once the show is taken down in February. At the moment, he's showing these wonderful large canvases painted with media he's mixed himself, using powdered pigment, a gluey painting medium, turpentine and asphalt. Now he's working on several series using asphalt paints on paper, and the subject matter of these is more abstract expressionist and use more neutral colors.

So after I post this, I'm going off to another gallery to see the computer-generated work of a New York artist I met at the opening last night, and tonight there's an opening in a private home that a Swedish woman has rented solely to construct a huge tunnel inside. This weekend is ALL ABOUT ART - so I'm willing to blow off the backpackers for that (just for now).

So off I go.

happy new year

here's hoping that 2005 brings you happiness and challenge, safety and risk, health and adventure, harmony and good times. kampai!

my prior three new year's eves:

31 dec 2001
lounging at a plastic table outside a concrete, palm-thatch-roofed shack, i clinked bottles of angkor beer with mates in a quiet cambodian beach town. a month later, was back in saigon to spend tet (vietnamese new year) swapping lucky money in red envelopes, taking polite bites of banh chung and then inching down noisy, joyful, motorbike-choked streets to a pagoda where, bowing to a likeness of the buddha, i wished happiness to all my faraway loved ones and got all teary-eyed (like i NEVER do; it was probably all that incense smoke). then in april, celebrated yet again in chiang mai, when songkran (thai new year) rolled around – as did truckbeds full of young guys shooting super-powered water rifles loaded with ice water. more like a blessing were the gentle thai men who took handfuls of jasmine-laced water from silver bowls and smilingly sprinkled them on my head.

31 dec 2002
met a long-unseen friend in kuala lumpur for the seredipitous coincidence of his jumping-off-tall-buildings competition and my first assignment as a spy. after watching several days' worth of sensorily-understimulated people taking running leaps off the 73rd floor of the petronas towers, freefalling story after story, and then yanking parachutes open and landing mere yards in front of me, the new year's eve ten-way jump at midnight did not seem as crazy as i'd initially thought it would be. with my feet in the reflecting pool, fireworks and brightly-colored canopies opening above like flowers, surrounded by a quarter of a million cheering malaysians, had one of those huh, guess i'll never see THAT again moments.

31 dec 2003
popped a bottle of minibar champagne, drank it, and thus fortified, picked my way into the frigid streets of stockholm among aloof strangers to watch fireworks go off above icy canal and dignified old town while pondering the beautiful irony of traveling alone as someone who prefers to travel solo yet has been invited to spend this particular evening with someone who manages to arrive, oh, maybe a day later. that particular someone spent midnight on new year's eve hurtling 565 miles per hour through the air, getting poured free champagne by his extremely attentive flight attendant. also acquiring her phone number. all of which makes it my special right to give him crap about it for the rest of his life, which right i gleefully exercise.

this year, dos equis caught the train on time and met me in LA on the 31st. we spent the evening hanging out with dear filmschoolgirl and her brilliant hubby, playing a movie trivia DVD game with a bunch of filmmakers. dos equis and i came in at respectable second place before the game was abandoned for unstructured champagne drinking, watching the ball drop uncommentaried by dick clark, and merciless teasing of the hostess. because that is what true friends and siblings are for.

how did you celebrate this new year?