La Habana

A jumbled sprawl of city along the crashing waves of the ocean, Havana is like a city at once lost and found. It is old and new, crumbling and reconstructed, colonial and Western, dilapidated and grand.

The only billboards or advertisements sell not products, but ideas -- a revolutionary quote here, a catchphrase touting the benefits of socialism there. Lacking are the chain restaurants of the West, the Coca-Cola placards rampant worldwide. The only advertisements to be seen are quarantined to the airport, pushing big brand rum and cigars on arrival.

In touristic Havana Vieja, fresh coats of paint cover colonial buildings, souvenir stands sell bags and shirts covered in iconic images of Che Guavara, and ritzy hotels and restaurants sprout like mushrooms. Tourists in shorts and large floppy hats watch street musicians blaring Afro-Cuban jazz. Iconic cars and bicycle rickshaws roll by.

Blocks away in Havana Centro, buildings crumble in various states of rundown disrepair like some post-apocalyptic version of 1950s Americana. Art deco buildings, neon signs, and beat-up antique cars line major streets, while narrow one-ways are full of life. Women in bright spandex cluster on stoops and sidewalks and stray dogs roam. Men chat and smoke while elderly folks gossip through window and door grates. Young boys play makeshift games of football and tiny restaurants sell peso pizza to go.

Much like the duality of shiny tourist Havana and real life Havana, Cuba’s dual economy provides for harsh disparities. In an attempt to allow for tourism and still maintain a communist system, tourists spend one currency, locals another. The tourist dollar, or CUC, worth 25 pesos, is just as widely jostled for and fought over as in any tourism center. It’s a slow permeation of capitalism, a steady leak that will almost assuredly increase with the loosening of American barriers to tourism and business in Cuba.

But to see it now, with regulations and relations in limbo, before that creeping change that will inevitably happen, was quite fortuitously timed. To see it while it is still a country that requires unplugging and disconnecting from the endless internet obsession.  To see it while the classic American cars are part of daily life and not just a remnant maintained like museum pieces. To see it while the tourist throngs are still relatively small. What splendid timing.

Contrasting Colors

Though teeming with tourists, Antigua is one of Guatemala’s more picturesque towns. Once a grand capital of Spanish colonialism in Central America, today Antigua’s restored glory mostly benefits the tourism sector and the tourists it serves.

That being said, it is a wonderful place to while away a day or two, and hunker down under a blanket or two at night. Ringed with volcanoes, crisscrossed with cobblestone streets, and smattered with churches and cathedrals, Antigua is brimming with photo opportunities and steeped in history.

Massive ruins of once great churches destroyed by earthquakes punctuate Antigua, a glimpse into the Spaniards’ reasoning behind abandoning the city and moving the capital to modern-day Guatemala City. Ruins rest alongside newer cathedrals, past and present hand in hand.

Throughout the city, local indigenous Mayans in native dress, colorful and hand-woven, pedal goods to tourists. Baskets effortlessly balanced atop their heads, they offer everything from fruit to jewelry, stopping here and there in the shade to rest.

And, as in many towns across the world, the real commerce takes place not in stores, shops, or through street vendors, but in the local market. A sweaty, hectic labyrinth, aisles of the market weave and intersect, leading one onward. From shoes, live chickens, and fake flowers to shampoo, produce, or raw meat, all necessities are available at a price. Hawkers call out their wares, voices mingling repetitive calls like so many birds.

The market sits in stark contrast to Antigua’s artesian market, with its wide, clean aisles of stall upon stall of similar goods. The artesian market is a place of tranquility, a sudden silence, shut off from the chaos of the market next door. Souvenirs and trinkets in vibrant hues are pushed at tourists, t-shirts and purses, hammocks and toys.

It is this that strikes me most about Antigua: its contradictory natures coexisting side by side. It is Burger King in a colonial-style building, an ancient church facade in front of a modern structure. The old and the new mingle. The genuine and the artificial mix. In Antigua, the modern dress and the indigenous garb walk down the same streets, harmonizing beautifully. 

So Long and Thanks for All the Arepas

For our final Colombian destination, we chose Cartagena. After two months of calling Colombia home, a much shorter time than anticipated due to some very unexpected changes in our plans, we were down to our last couple of days.

Cartagena oozes old world colonial charm. Buildings, facades crumbling and faded, repainted in vibrant hues, wind along narrow streets throughout the old quarter of town, a UNESCO World Heritage gem. The walled old city, surrounded by the coralstone protection of once-great fortress walls, maintains an air of Spanish colonialism infused with a taste of the Caribbean.

We roamed the city, took in the sights and the history. We indulged in our final Colombian arepas, corn-flour pancakes essential in the local diet, piled high with cheese and eggs. We sipped on juice made from local fruits. 

Church-studded, flavored with diverse history, Cartagena makes for a beautiful place to laze about, stroll around, and generally take in bit by bit. Scorching heat, high humidity, and a perplexing lack of water (of our three days in Cartagena, we only had water for a day), and heavy afternoon showers drove us into the hostel’s shady patio for much of the time.

Maybe not ideal by most postcard holiday standards (I certainly could have used another shower or two), but Cartagena served as a lovely sendoff in its own right, a beautiful goodbye to Colombia. And it gave us a bit of calm before our Central American whirlwind tour

Where Time Slows Down

Ah, old colonial towns. Whitewashed buildings, nearly blinding in the sun, topped with red-orange tiles, doors and windows painted in vibrant colors. A town square, complete with bubbling fountain, a magnificent church, and plenty of stands peddling foods, hats, ponchos, and produce of every shape and variety. Cobblestone streets make their way from house to house, leading onward dogs and cars alike. Residents recline about in shady patches.

This quaint scene has repeated itself time and again in our Colombian travels. The midday sun, soon to be quenched by afternoon rains, drives people into the shade and under the brims of hats. It makes you feel the need to slow down, to adjust to the siesta-loving pace of the locals. Here, time works at the speed of molasses, slow and sticky, irresistible. It is the time of slow-cooked meals and freshly made juice.

Nestled in among mountains and greenery, these are towns and cities built in clusters, settled into their individual nooks and crannies. They stack together, tumbling and climbing around hills and valleys. And, though each of the towns are so similar, each time we crest a hill the blues and greens that wrap themselves around these colonial towns, entangled with gauzy white clouds, catch me off guard. I am reminded that, although it may be difficult coming from a Western perspective, it is important to stop, appreciate places where time runs a bit slower, and just sip it all in. 

Rewind: Christmas in Laos

Christmas 2010, Win and I were given an incredible, unexpected gift: a week off from teaching, contingent on our doing a “visa run” to Laos. Your typical visa run involves going to a Thai consulate in another country with a massive envelope of paperwork (Laos, apparently on best consular terms with Thailand, is the country of choice among teachers), waiting x number of days, and going back to Thailand with a Non-Immigrant B visa in-hand. However, having decided to get yearlong multiple entry visas, our visa run was a cake walk: leave Thailand, see another country, come back to Thailand and get a new 3-month entry stamp. So to Laos we went.

Twelve hours on a train, an hour waiting around at the border crossing, and a single sign telling drivers to start driving on the right, and we were in Laos. Flat, dry, and rundown, Laos’ capital city of Vientiane made for a lackluster first impression. Buildings, storefronts, even the stray cats, everything was sparse, dismal.

Aside from the presence of a bowling alley and the city signage having French flair – a trait that carried over to street, restaurant, and hotel names – Vientiane was very much like a small Thai city. The manner and language were similar; the architecture and tuk-tuk drivers much the same; there were the same orange-robed monks, the same women hiding from the sun beneath umbrellas, the same stray dogs rummaging through garbage. We navigated the city on foot, walked its streets, saw its museums. We ate its food, drank its beer, and spent its devalued kip (worth so little, I was withdrawing a million kip from ATMs the whole time, which was bizarrely satisfying in its own right).

After a day and a half, in what would turn out to be a moment of poorly executed planning, we boarded a bus to head into the heart of northern Laos.

Having been told that there wasn’t a bus leaving for Luang Prabang until evening, we were surprised when the ticket seller told us a bus would be leaving at 4 pm. As we stowed our backpacks and climbed aboard, it seemed a positive turn of events, catching a bus right as we arrived at the station. As the passengers were finding seats, the driver and some helpful hands started filling the aisle with packages, copious amounts of luggage, bags of rice, and all manner of freight, including three pieces of PVC piping, a foot in diameter and at least 12-feet long. In order to reach our seats, we now had to clamber and balance our way over piping, walking along armrests at times.

And so we set out, luggage shifting precariously in the aisle, Lao karaoke blaring and crackling from the speakers. Up and around steep, jutting hills, through luscious jungle foliage, encroaching thick and dark along the roadside, pushing its way toward the bus windows. As mid-afternoon gave way to evening, we passed through meager villages, clusters of single-room homes, many without furniture or front doors. The countryside wore its poverty openly. Bonfires served as stoves, simple elevated bamboo platforms as beds, possessions were few. Late into the night, long after the small village clusters went to sleep, the bus lumbered jerkily along half-finished roads, karaoke still blaring.

After twelve cramped hours, we arrived in Luang Prabang at 4 am. The whole town, all guesthouses and hotels, was sound asleep. We tried knocking on doors, calling phones, checking to see if anything was unlocked, all to no avail. So, we sat down somewhere well-lit to read and nap and waited for Luang Prabang to rub the sleep from its eyes.

Ill-timed though it may have been, our 4 am arrival had two unexpected benefits. First, as the sun started to peek over the mountains and the town stirred to life, we got to start our day off with fresh fruit-filled crepes, a treat one would be hard-pressed to find in Thailand. Also, we got to witness Luang Prabang’s famed procession of monks, numbering into the hundreds, lining the streets every morning bowl-in-hand, going from storefront to doorway, collecting alms, something many tourists wake early to see.

After schlepping around and scoffing at prices (“Only 40 US dollars a night”), we finally found a place to bed down for several days. It was a dank little hole of a room next to the guesthouse kitchen, but it was affordable. Luckily, as we discovered after napping well into the day, Luang Prabang was a lovely town, giving us little reason to spend excess time in our room.

Nestled between the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers, The Unesco World Heritage city of Luang Prabang sits high above the flowing waters on its hilltop peninsula. It was my first tryst with a World Heritage City, a first fling that would, unbeknownst to me at the time, turn into a travel love affair.

Roaming around town, the architecture is awash in French colonial remnants; beautiful balconies, wooden shuttered windows, massive homes mixed in with smaller, more Southeast Asian structures. Cafes, baguettes, creperies, Luang Prabang embraced its heritage as part of the French colony Indochine, using it as a tourist selling point surely, but also full of genuine relics of its past.

French remains Laos’ dominant second language (though it is being steadily overtaken by English), and to hear the Laos (plural of Lao, referring to the people of Laos) speak French was a surreal experience. There was none of the harsh, nasally, pretentious quality that you get when listening to French or other Europeans speak; instead, the words were tranquil, a calm, steady flow, all rounded edges and curved letters. It was delightful to listen to, as if the Laos spoke French as it was intended, a beautiful, delicate language.

Mixed in with its French heritage, an abundance of Buddhist temples stood their ground, solidly announcing Luang Prabang’s Buddhism. Although, with the highest number of Buddhist monks per capita (a statistic I might be making up, but there were certainly an impressive number of monks), the predominance of Buddhism in the area announces itself. Everywhere we walked, groupings of orange-robed monks, from small male children to wrinkled elderly men, meandered along the streets. In all of Thailand, never had I seen so many monks, especially child monks, all in one place.

Despite the attempts around town to appear more festive, garland and lights and trees appearing in large numbers, it wasn’t a particularly Christmasy Christmas. And, with near-tropical temperatures, it certainly wasn’t a white Christmas (although I don’t know that Southeast Asians would know what to do with themselves if it ever did snow).

In fact, we spent Christmas Day flying back to Bangkok through Luang Prabang’s ‘International Airport’ (a building so small it resembled a bus station more than an airport). The flight was my Christmas present to us, a way of avoiding 24 hours on buses and trains. Buying airline tickets also gave us time enough to spend three days soaking in Luang Prabang: enjoying its dichotomous culture, eating French, Lao, and French-Lao food (I even ate some buffalo), and most of all, just relaxing, reading, and relaxing some more. 

Old World Splendor

The old city of Galle, located on the southern coast and the final World Heritage Site on our itinerary, is a neighborhood surrounded by massive fortress walls. Elsewhere along Sri Lanka's southern coast, the vacant shells of former homes, piles of cinderblock rubble, stand ghostly tribute to the havoc wreaked by the tsunami. But, in Galle’s old quarter, colonial-style buildings, all shutters, archways, and balconeys covered with flowering vines, flank the streets.The fortification, serving little modern protective purpose, actually saved the old quarter from damage during the devastating 2004 tsunami.

A meandering gridwork of cafes, guesthouses, and giftshops, Galle is also graced with walk-able fortress walls. We walked the majority of the walls, perched high above the crashing waves, taking to the streets whenever construction prevented passage. A beautiful vantage point for watching the sunset over the ocean, the fortress walls seemed popular with tourists and locals alike.

Wandering through the local Antiques Museum, we witnessed local men hand carving gems, something done by machine these days. But Galle strives to keep alive traditional handicrafts. We were lucky enough to see an elderly woman making lace by hand, sun-wrinkled fingers flicking bobbins over and under each other, a craft that is quickly fading away as the older generation disappears in Galle.

Full of textiles, antiques, tea houses and beautiful ocean views, Galle was a lovely place to waste several days roaming, looking for local knickknacks or napping the day away.

Melaca, Melaka, Melacca

Coming from Thailand, Malaysia was remarkably clean. The roadsides weren’t dotted with litter. There wasn’t a trash pile in sight. And, at regular intervals, you could see trashcans! The buildings still have the mascara-streaked look of age and weather; patchwork roofs with panels in various shades of rust and rot popped by. But overall, Malaysia seemed to be a remarkably clean country. 

Bahasa Malay turned out to use roman characters. After so long without seeing much even resembling English, it felt like we could read everything. However, there is no common link that makes any of it decipherable. Signs were also in Tamil and Chinese, as there are large populations of Indians and Chinese. Luckily, everyone seemed to speak English as a common language. 

Having only limited time in Malaysia, we decided that our time would be best spent in the World Heritage City of Melaka.  Melaka (Melacca? Melaca?) has a rich mixing of cultures, past and present. You can see the colonial remnants from the Dutch, Portuguese, and British. Like the rest of Malaysia, you have Indian, Chinese, and Muslim Malaysians, each with distinct neighborhoods and cultures. (But, unique to Melaka, you also see the intermarrying between Indian and Chinese.)

We stayed on the edge of Chinatown, listened to the Call to Prayer from the mosque across the street, and watched a Hindu parade.

Galleries and museums mingled with the guesthouses, restaurants, and trinket shops. The galleries boasted friendly owners and high price tags. The museums were full to the brim with mannequins dressed in traditional garb (and little regard to proportion or ethnicity), posed in various dioramas explaining colonial or cultural history. 

Melaka was awash in rich, vibrant colors. Chinatown was draped in red lanterns. Doors and shutters were painted in yellows and blues. Maroon brick poked through crumbling white.

Trees and plants infused the homes with splashes of green in interior courtyards below skylights. 

Walls, doors, and even all the chainlink and barbed wire fences were painted turquoise.

At night the city was on full display. Houses were lit in reds from every angle. Neon lights illuminated bridges and trees. Tourist boats rushed up and down the river that winds through the middle of the city, adorned and flashing. 

Our four days were spent just meandering around the city, walking up and down the river, wandering through the neighborhoods, and then napping in the afternoons. Good food, friendly people. If the beer hadn’t been so expensive it might have been perfect. Hats off to the World Heritage folks, they’ve proven themselves to us once again.