Day 2 of the Loi Krathong Festival…

Get to know what Loi Krathong actually celebrates here in Thailand and witness one of the MOST INCREDIBLE NIGHTS EVVEEERRRR!!!!

PS: This was on my List of Things To Do Before I Die. Swish!

Our grandparents live in Hawaii so Perrin and I have seen enough volcanoes and dried lava to be skeptical about the appeal of the 2,000 year old ruins of Pompei, a thriving Roman town that was buried under 13-19 feet of pumice and ash when Mt. Vesuvius exploded in 79 A.D.  Since we were living in the Napoli region we decided to embrace history and check it out.

It was well worth a trip and the 11 euro entrance fee.  We were amazed at how preserved the city was and how vividly you could see what life was like for Romans in the 1st century.  You can easily spend a full day crawling through blasted doorways. I recommend the audio tour (6 euro) since there are no signs on any of the sculptures and the guide is a wealth of interesting information, from basic building facts to in-depth chapters on subjects like wool weavers and calendars.  Here are just five reasons to visit Pompei.

1. You can eat lunch in a dining room from 79 A.D.
Ok, so we’re not sure if this was really socially acceptable or not. But to preserve some cash, Perrin and I brought lunch from home. Around noon we found an ancient ruined house with some shade and spread out our Tupperware in what was once the dining room. We were even joined by an adorable dog, who ate the pasta we shared like a true Italian. While we all refueled, about five tourist groups stopped to take our picture and look us up on the map. While they searched for our audioguide number we struck a number of mid-eating poses so we wouldn’t disappoint.

Just trying to blend in.

2. The brothels.
It is surely by some sort of divine intervention that lava filled every inch of the main town brothel but you can somehow still see Karma Sutra images — with creative recommendations for clients — painted perfectly above each room.  A session with a prostitute here was the same price as “a glass of medium quality wine and went straight to the pimp” – according to my audio tour – and graffiti on the wall indicates rampant complaints of venereal disease.  Not ideal conditions.

(more…)

A game I would play in one of my English classes was to give students a list of questions that they had to answer (and then guess each other’s answers). One of the standard questions I had devised was “Name a Hero”. With the first group I tried this with, every student’s response was “Ho Chi Minh”. “Wow”, I thought. “Unanimous”. In the next class, one student responded with “Spiderman”, and everyone else said Ho Chi Minh. Results in my other classes were the same.  I began to understand the reverence Vietnamese people have for this legendary man…

Educated in Paris and influenced by Stalin and Mao, “Uncle Ho” was a Communist revolutionary who forever changed the face of Vietnam. He led the Viet Minh independence movement and was leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 until 1969, when he passed away. He is an integral part of Vietnam’s history in the 20th century, and to say the people admire him is an understatement.

I cannot emphasize the love the Vietnamese people have for this man. His face appears on every banknote, the city of Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after his death, and the vast majority of locals speak lovingly of him.

His body is on display at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi, in a granite structure modeled after Lenin’s tomb in Moscow. Interestingly enough, Ho Chi Minh wished to be cremated and his ashes spread across Vietnam, but he also expressed his wish against being canonized and, well, that didn’t quite go as requested either.

Jen and I made a visit to the Mausoleum while in Hanoi. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’m seen quite a few mummies in my time so it took me by surprise to see how well-preserved his frail little body was. It honestly looked like he was simply taking a nap. The visitors stream past him quietly and reverentially, paying their respects. It is truly like a pilgrimage for many, and a highlight of Vietnam for myself.

"It is better to sacrifice everything than to live in slavery!"