Phu Quoc Island

I don't know who chose the name Superdong for a fleet of fast ferries that go from the Mekong Delta to Phu Quoc, but it doesn't look like they'll reconsider. Anyway, Phu Quoc is a mostly forested Vietnamese island off the coast of Cambodia. They have a small town, Duong Dong, remarkable only for being about 50% night market. From there Long Beach runs down the western coast.

The beach itself is a little narrow, and almost completely covered with resort, restaurants, and bars from end to end. Like on Thai islands, the only way to reach a public beach is through a bar. It's all quite low-key and pleasant, but the first concrete hotel towers are springing up at the edges. Usually, in southeast Asia this is a sign that runaway development is about to start and the only guests likely to put up with that are the Russians. But now I hear French more than any other language here.

The fresh jumbo shrimps in lemongrass garlic sauce are truly delicious!

Duck Duck Go

Deep delta

Venturing deeper into the delta. Villages are small and dedicated to a business. One buys coconut bark and spins it into ropes, another buys rice and boils it to make rice paper. Often these are very narrow niches that are intricately linked by fleets of scooters and fragile-looking boats. Today some guys set a folding table on the roadside, put a dead pig on it, cut it into pieces and sold them. There is no doubt in my mind that the face was sold too.

Roads are often no wider than a meter, and waterways are everywhere. Coconuts are a big trade here and no part of them is wasted. I am told these people do quite well, and always have big smiles and friendly words, but of course there is no safety net in this country at all. I am feeling alien.

Rat jerky

There is a guy here by the roadside with a huge mesh cage with giant rats that he caught in the rice fields. You can buy them live, or sliced open and dried. Rat jerky. I am hoping for barbecued rat because rat jerky is essentially roadkill, except that the moment of truth for the rat comes on the edge of a table, not on the road. I am also not certain how familiar a guy who catches rats in the field is with meat inspections. Looks no worse than beef jerky though.

Mekong Delta

The Mekong is the world's 12th largest River. Its source is in Tibet; it flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia just before spreading into a huge delta south of Saigon. That's where I am headed. The delta is extremely fertile, and everybody here is always busy working in intricate chains growing, transporting, processing and selling rice, fruit, and vegetables. Taking time off from work is an idea for us Western wimps that has the locals completely puzzled. If your job is splitting coconuts, that's what you'll do for every single day for the next 30 years.

This being a delta, travel involves lots of bridges and ferries. There are villages and markets everywhere, and cottage industries that process fruit. They are all connected by ridiculously overloaded scooters zooming between them. There is no reason why a scooter can't be wider than a road lane, and sometimes it's hard to identify the driver in the middle of all that cargo.

Saigon

The last time I had time to see much in Saigon was 2008, just after the US subprime crisis, and it had hit the city hard. Many half-finished high-rise then. All that is now forgotten, they build like crazy and big sections of downtown are closed for construction. We'll see if this improves the city, but it certainly shows that the city is expanding again.

Fortunately scooters far outnumber cars, or the traffic would be impossible. That's because of the 100% import tariff - if you want a car that's like buying two and giving one to the government. The exchange rate is also not in favor of the Vietnamese going shopping abroad.

But it's great to be back in Asia! Tomorrow I'll leave Saigon for the Mekong delta.

Saigon

The last time I had time to see much in Saigon was 2008, just after the US subprime crisis, and it had hit the city hard. Many half-finished high-rise then. All that is now forgotten, they build like crazy and big sections of downtown are closed for construction. We'll see if this improves the city, but it certainly shows that the city is expanding again.

Fortunately scooters far outnumber cars, or the traffic would be impossible. That's because of the 100% import tariff - if you want a car that's like buying two and giving one to the government. The exchange rate is also not in favor of the Vietnamese going shopping abroad.

But it's great to be back in Asia! Tomorrow I'll leave Saigon for the Mekong delta.

Calcutta

The name Calcutta evokes images of squalor and emaciated servants, living in a giant slum. That might have been the case when the British made Calcutta their capital, but today's Kolkata is just a huge modern city. A lot of the colonial architecture has survived, and so did the huge park in the center. Much of it is a cricket field, and there is the Victoria Monument in a manicured garden at the south end. This being India, the park is cut into sections by large streets packed with thundering honking traffic, protected from pedestrians by fences. Sikkim was so peaceful...

Near the park is the New Market, an enormous covered market crowded with tiny stalls selling mostly clothes but also food, jewelry, toys, and various household goods. There is also a dark smelly cavernous meat section that probably hasn't changed much since the time of the British. The market spills over to much of the surrounding city blocks. Unfortunately it's infested with touts more than usual.

Jeepsy

Yuksam is the site of the first Kingdom of Sikkim. There isn't much left though, there is a Buddhist shrine at the site of the throne. It's very scenic there though - Tibetan temples, lakes, waterfalls, beautiful views of the valleys and mountains and the beehive villages built up steep slopes, narrow winding mountain roads in catastrophic condition that are navigable only by jeepsies (Indian copies of old US jeeps), and a singing stone.

Which is a large rock that, when struck with a stone, makes a sound as if it were metal. Quite astonishing. Consequently, the region is called Ting-Ting.

Himalaya views

When I woke up at dawn in Pelling and opened my eyes, there was the mountain panorama of the Himalayas, dominated by the Kangchenjunga massif. Kangchenjunga is at 8586m India's highest mountain and the third-highest in the world, only some 250 meters lower than Everest.

The mountain views are even moire spectacular at Rabdentse, Sikkim's second royal city, now in ruins. It's location with the backdrop of snow-capped Himalaya peaks is fabulously scenic. I was the only visitor so early in the morning. Nearby is the Pemayangtse Gompa, one of the most important Buddhist monasteries.

The mountains around Rabdentse are criss-crossed by unmarked paths. There are many ways to discover these paths: logs worn smooth by passing feet, broken branches, exposed roots, lack of rocks... But I used none of those and simply followed the discarded candy wrappers. Sikkim is very clean, in fact smoking is forbidden in the state, but the tourists can't seem to break the habit.

Little Tibet

Across the valley from Gangtok is Rumtek, a small village that is essentially a Tibetan monastery, founded by Tibetan monks exiled by the Chinese cultural revolution. Atypcally, it's guarded by the army, and entering requires a passport and inner line permit.

They have a large beautifully appointed prayer hall, and the monks were sitting in four rows, chanting. The chants were punctuated by Tibetan horns, bells, and drums. The ceremony was no different from others I have seen in Tibet. I watched and listened for a long time.

Sikkim

The ancient kingdom of Sikkim is now part of India, but requires a special "Inner Line Permit" to enter. Sikkim is a large rectangle, neatly boxed in by West Bengal, Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan. It's up in the Himalayas and is essentially all mountains. The culture is entirely Tibetan, except less rustic than Tibet. People have cars here, not yaks. And the momos (Tibetan dumplings) are not made with fermented yak butter.

The main city is Gangtok, like Darjeeling climbing up a mountainside, all the way up to the ridge and spilling over to the other side. It's more orderly and less charming than Darjeeling, but there is still a lot to see here. It's more modern when you walk the streets, but almost rural in the spaces in between, which are reachable only by interminable narrow stairs.

My cup of tea

Back in the Himalayas, this time near Tibet! Darjeeling in West Bengal is another hill station, at 2100 meters, built on the side of a mountain. I can see the 8500m Kanchenjunga mountain from my hotel. The suites in the Dekeling Resort are incredibly comfortable, in 130-year old wooden buildings. During a heavy thunderstorm I had fires going in both fireplaces, listening to the rain drumming on the roof.

Darjeeling is in India, but almost all the faces here are Tibetan or Nepali. The dominant religion is Tibetan Buddhism. The two main roads wide enough to carry traffic are unbelievably choked with SUVs, but since the place is so steep there are narrow alleys and loooong stairways all over then place.

The main attraction - beside tea - is a British-era 60cm narrow-gauge train called the Toy Train. Its steam locomotive is wheezing down the hill to Ghum, just a few km away but the train is slow and the scenery pretty. At one point, it does a 360-degree loop to get over an especially steep section.

To burn in Varanasi

Varanasi is the most holy Hindu city. It is here where Hindus bathe in the Ganges, and where bodies are cremated in open fires on the Burning Ghats, stairs that lead down into nthe river. Much of Varanasi's waterfront is a series of ghats, often backed by palaces. Boats go out on the river with a great view of the fires - I saw ten of them going - and the daily celebrations with chanting and dances. Bathing, praying, and dying in Varanasi is a ticket to Nirvana in Hindu belief.

The old town begins on top of the ghats. It's narrow in the south and widens to a large neighborhood in the north. It's a dense maze of narrow twisting alleys, often so narrow that I can touch the walls on both sides. It's very easy to get lost even with GPS. The buildings are very old, poorly maintained - I saw some that have collapsed - and very uneven. The alleys are crowded with people at shop fronts, cows, and of course motorcycles. Lots of trash, because there was no collection during the Holi festival they say, but I am not sure I believe that.