That’s how you say it, not Hway, though I could be getting it wrong. There’s the language barrier and then there’s the accent barrier. Pronunciation aside, you have to like a place that’s rich in imperial architecture. The King’s tomb was a grand place, lined with a row of stone mandarins (not the orange fruit, silly), elephants, and horses. The tiled rooftops, the dragons, the sculptured gardens, the red, you know that color, it’s everywhere in various stages of decay.
The whole country seems to be in varying states of decay actually, along with varying states of development. Along the highway there are billboards for beautiful planned communities, the broad avenues already making grand strides into the graded landscape, but the buildings seem to have been abandoned before the windows were installed, before the exteriors are complete. There are shiny banners on border fences suggesting the future completion of glitzy shopping centers and then, behind those fences, a twisted mass of rusting rebar and crumbling concrete.
It’s enough to make a person feel a little schizo. The guidebooks would surely call this a land of contrasts, but that’s hardly worthy of a country where you will see a guy on a scooter with the hindquarters of a pig in the rear basket, the front quarters in the front basket, and a cell phone in his hand while he sends text messages at the rare stoplight.
I’m happy to report that the group part of the group travel thing is the least of my annoyances. Our group is congenial and rather older than I’d expected it to be – there are two 20ish British girls who must find us rather a bore. Everyone is easy and sympathetic, experienced travelers all – though I suppose a low budget trip to a rather challenging part of the planet would screen out the whiners by default. So yes, the group thing, a-okay.
But the scheduled thing? Not so great. As a person who likes to meander, I find it constantly frustrating that we are rushed away from, say, the Buddhist temple because we have to be at the tomb before it closes. There is no time to feel crappy, even though there’s a good deal of that going around. We have to be on the bus, on the train, at the gate, in the lobby, everything is on the clock. I get it, I really do, but I died a little today when I had to decide between using the loo or watching the junior monks (heh, that sort of reads like Junior Mints) practicing their calligraphy. Guess which one I chose.
I did love the magical (and nearly empty) tomb and I realize that there is no way to see that place without a guide – though a solo traveler could book their own guide/driver and take as long as them damn well pleased wandering about the grounds. Instead of considering this my Grand Tour, I shall just have to shift my thinking to considering it a buffet, an introduction, the in-person slide show highlights instead of the slow observation I’d prefer.
- Weather: misty, gray, no longer cold. I’ve packed my fleece and was able to wear shorts today.
- Health: Improving. Still a little rocky, but definitely mending.
- Snapshot: Our train cabin, pale institutional green, four bunks. I unpacked the uke and played Folsom Prison Blues.