Biscuet.com

I learned a lot while i was in Hanoi last week.  One of the things i learned was about a motorbike helmet law that went into affect in Vietnam a few years ago.  Something you have to understand about Vietnam is that motorbikes are everywhere.  I’m serious, they’re everywhere.  During rush hour the motorbike crowds even take over all the sidewalks throughout the city.  I know it’s a hard thing to fathom, especially if you’re from the west and don’t have much of a concept of large crowds, much less of large motorbike crowds.  Hang on, let me find you a picture… Here:

Now that you get the picture, let me tell the story of this law.  I was riding in a taxi with my friend who’s been living in Hanoi for several years now and this is the way he told the story of the new helmet law.

A few years ago, Vietnam issued a new law requiring all motorbike riders to wear a helmet.  Smart, right?  Well, not according to many citizens.  There was an outcry among the Vietnamese saying that requiring very young children to wear a helmet will put them in danger because of the weight of the helmet.  They claimed that if they were in a motorbike accident then the weight of the helmet would cause bad whiplash that would hurt the child much worse than if they were wearing a helmet.  So the law changed.  The law states something like if a child is under 3 years old then they should not wear a helmet; if they are under 10 years old then the helmet is optional.

When driving through the city you might see a dad driving his motorbike with his 2 young children riding with him.  The dad will have on a helmet and the other two will not.  Looking at this through western eyes we might think this dad is very selfish, protecting his own life, but not his children.  The truth to the situation is actually quite different: he believes not putting a helmet on his children is actually safer than using one.

Also learned in Vietnam that 30-40 people die per day from motorbike accidents.  That’s a lot.

A nice driver picked me up at the Hanoi airport the other day to whisk me and my luggage to the Sunny Hotel on the west side of the city.  I’m not sure why it’s called the Sunny Hotel because it’s never sunny in Hanoi.  Never.  Anyway, the traffic in Hanoi is what most westerners would call insanity.  Motorbikes are wizzing by on all sides and large trucks are barely missing each other and pedestrians and motorbikes by mere inches.  We are one tiny mistake away from a really big problem.  While zipping from lane to lane and weaving within inches of guardrails and motorbikes my driver is cheerfully beeping his horn at everyone he passes.  Somewhat used to this nonsense, i’m just cruising along looking out the window and wishing i was in bed after the long, torturous day of travel.  After a long while of this style of driving the driver looks at me with a smile and we have a memorable conversation:

Driver: “In America, no beep beep?”
Me: “No.  No beep beep.”
Driver: Laughing. “In Hanoi, if no beep beep then boom.” As he makes a motion with his hands like two objects colliding together.  He goes on, “Beep beep no boom.”
Me: “Then i guess you should beep beep.”

We smiled at each other and i went back to staring out the window as he jerked the wheel to barely miss slamming a motorbike into the concrete median.

I learned that “downtown” Hanoi is a cool and vibrant area of the city that many foreigners and locals alike enjoy going to for food, shopping, and sightseeing.  I was there the other day with my friend Jeremy as we were looking for cool shots for our film we’re making.  We wanted things that would show the craziness of the traffic and the liveliness of the city.  We spent several hours shooting throughout the winding alleyways, markets, and busy streets.  We shot some slow motion stuff and some very cool time lapses.  We took a break for dinner so that we could shoot some beautiful night shots as all the neon lights lit up the streets.  We were not disappointed.

At the end of our shooting spree we decided it was time to go home so among the throngs of cars, people, bicycles, more people, and peddlers, we looked for a taxi.  I saw a guy standing outside his car very close to us so i walked over and showed him the address to our hotel on a business card.  When he nodded and agreed to take us i thought in my head that this was not going to go well and would end up costing us a lot of money.

Within minutes of our drive the nice driver was asking where we’re from, how long we’ve been in Hanoi, and if we like it there.  We had a nice chat as i was sitting next to him in the front seat.  A few minutes later i noticed the taxi meter was increasing in price rather quickly.  I told Jeremy in the backseat and we both kind of laughed.  There’s nothing we can do about it now.  We drove through the city and who knows if we went the long way, the short way, or just any ol’ way, but along the way i was giving Jeremy updates on the price of the taxi fare and we would just laugh and laugh at the ridiculousness that we’d gotten ourselves into.  As we eventually pulled up to our hotel the taxi fare was far more than double the amount that it should have been.  With a smile i pointed to the meter and said to the driver, “It’s so expensive.”  He replied, “Huh?”  I said, “Why is it so much? Should be a lot less, right?”  Again he said, “Huh?”  I tried one last time, but got the same response.

I found it fascinating and hilarious that he had fantastic english the whole way home, but as soon as we talked about the price of the taxi he suddenly couldn’t speak or understand a word of english.  And so that’s the way it often goes in small third world countries.  Oh well.  In the grand scheme of things it’s just a couple of bucks.

Earlier today i was researching something online completely unrelated to traveling and completely unrelated to Asia.  I was looking for some information about something in Atlanta, GA.  I glanced to the sidebar of the page i was reading and noticed an ad that caught my eye.  There, in big bold letters was an advertisement for a travel booking service and the places it listed were the 2 cities that i need to travel to in a few months and had been researching several days ago.  Okay, so that’s not THAT weird, i guess.  But then i clicked on the ad to see what kind of flight deal it could give me.  The page that pulled up showed me fares for flights on the exact dates that i need the flights!  Okay, so that’s a little nuts.  My computer is storing all sorts of information and feeding it to advertisers on completely unrelated websites.  I’m sure weirder things have happened in the world, but come on, that’s weird.

I took a screenshot of the ad that popped up.

The other day i had a string of emails going back and forth between quite a few people that i work with that was discussing our opinion on the best cities in the world.  The purpose of the emails was just to provide some distraction and entertainment while we were working.  As more and more emails were flying around the final consensus of our top 10 favorite global cities included 3 Asian cities:

Hong Kong
Shanghai
Chiang Mai

Those 3 cities are fabulous places to visit and i would recommend them to anyone visiting Asia.  Here’s my one-sentence reason for visiting each of those cities:

Hong Kong – Hong Kong is nestled on the water and simultaneously in the mountains, making it a spectacular site to behold from the top of the Peak to the bustling restaurant and business district in Soho.

Sunset from the harbor in Hong Kong

Shanghai - Shanghai is an example of what modern China aspires to become; from it’s riverfront “Bund” to the French Concession, Shanghai boasts an enormous variety of food, sites, and entertainment.

Chiang Mai – Chiang Mai is in the heart of the jungles of northern Thailand making it a beautiful place to visit year around to ride an elephant, raft down a river, or just sit at an outdoor cafe with an iced Thai coffee soaking up 85 degree rays under a bright blue sky.

One of my favorite cafes in Chiang Mai

If you find yourself traveling frequently, want to travel, or like to travel, here are a few apps i use on a frequent basis to help me stay organized and up-to-speed on the road.  I use an iPhone, but i believe most of these apps are also available on Android.

TripIt

TripIt is a one-stop shop for organizing all your travel plans.  Just booked a fight on Expedia? Forward the confirmation email to TripIt and it will take care of the rest.  Booked a rental car? A hotel? Same thing: just forward your confirmation emails to TripIt and it’s all organized and done.  Then all your arrangements are in one place, including confirmation numbers, flight times, gates, maps, directions to your hotel, and more.  And with TripIt Pro ($50/year) it will alert you when your flight has been delayed or canceled allowing you valuable time to change flights.

FlightTrack

FlightTrack is my main app for coordinating plans with other people.  If i have an airport pickup then i save their flight in FlightTrack and check it periodically to make sure they are coming in on time.  It tells me which gate they are arriving at and exactly what time they touch down.  It’s the perfect app if you often have visitors and need to pick them up.

United (or whatever your airline of choice is, they all have apps)

I use the United app to double check all my plans before leaving.  Making sure my seat assignment is what it’s supposed to be and making sure all my flights are running on time.  It’s also a good app to use to keep track of my mileage points.

XE Currency

This is great for the global traveler.  XE Currency lets you check the exchange rates for as many currencies as you want.  For example, if i’m in Thailand and i want to buy a shirt and the vendor tells me it’s 200 baht then i can quickly input 200 baht into XE Currency and it will instantly tell me how much USD, HKD, and CNY that is.  It’s very handy when traveling to make sure you’re paying what you want to pay and not getting confused by all the different currencies.

Skype

This is another fantastic app for the global traveler.  With Skype and a wifi connection you can quickly and easily call friends and family anywhere in the world for pennies per minute.  I don’t think Skype is a stranger to many people, but i’ve found that many people don’t know how useful it is an app on a smartphone. I’m not sure about other places, but in China Skype will make calls over the 3G network which is pretty amazing.  While riding in a taxi i can make a call to the States and it only costs me a couple of pennies a minute.

Blockwick

I don’t care how busy you think you are, it’s important to stay entertained while traveling.  There tends to be a little more downtime while in transit: waiting at the airport, riding in the airplane, commuting to the hotel, etc.  During those downtimes life can get pretty slow, but not if you have a brain-stimulating game like Blockwick to keep you busy.  The goal of Blockwick is to make the like-colored blocks touch.  It’s takes strategy and problem solving skills.  It’s addictive and a lot of fun.

DoodleJump

DoodleJump is another companion for those commutes.  DoodleJump seems incredibly easy, but once you get started you’ll quickly find that it’s not nearly as easy as it looks.  I have found it to be so addictive that i had to scale back on how much i let myself play.  But it’s still a great app to have on the road.  A few rounds of DoodleJump will quickly kill an hour or two on a long flight.

Celebrating our 30th anniversary with our friends in Hong Kong was a unique challenge.  The first challenge to tackle was the venue.  Our event was held in a permanent tent structure at a country club.  This was a challenge because it didn’t have typical features of a normal venue such as: lighting, power supply, and high ceilings.  We had to improvise on many levels to pull together a beautiful night.  Another challenge was the timing of the entire event.  We had to squeeze in a lot of programming content while feeding our guests at the same time.  The final, but uncontrollable challenge, was the weather.  It often rains this time of year in Hong Kong so we just had to hope and pray for a dry night (and it was).

Our improvising for the unconventional venue was a success.  We had to use some of the house lights because of a lack of stage lights, but it still looked fantastic.  The programming of the night was a B+.  It was very challenging to keep the audience engaged while simultaneously serving them food.  Given the option to do it again i would highly recommend that we divide the night into two distinct segments: food first, then the program.  Doing both together was very tough.

Despite the challenges, the event was an overwhelming success!  Our audience was a group of successful business leaders in Hong Kong who have a lot of interest in the type of educational work we do in Asia.  They were fascinated by the stories we told and the success we’ve seen throughout our 30 years of cooperation with China.  Again, none of this would be possible without the help of a world class team.  My friends Stephen Proctor, Nate Griffin, and Jeremy Stanley never fail to impress!  So thankful for their generous help and genius creativity!

As many people know, putting on an event is no easy task and can take months of strategic planning.  Also, generally speaking, the more excellent you want the event to be then the more planning you need to do.  I’ve been to some really bad events before.  I don’t think they were bad on purpose, i think they were bad because someone didn’t put enough emphasis on strategic planning.  I’ve recently done a lot of events as the organization i work for is celebrating 30 years of successful partnership with China.

One of our most recent events took place in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  A team of us worked together to put together a banquet and a program that would display our 30 years of work in a compelling and unique way.  There were many moving pieces to this puzzle for our team to sort out: securing the venue, ordering the food, organizing a team of producers and technical directors, and lining up the stars so that everything comes in under budget.  At the end of the event in Chiang Mai i’d say it was a huge success.  The food was good, the program was compelling, and even the Thai band we hired for background music during the meal was a big hit.

One of the biggest difficulties with these types of events is the cross-cultural communication that must take place between our team and the venue contacts.  Our contact in Chiang Mai was fabulous to work with despite language barriers and our understanding vs. their understanding of what makes a great event.  They were patient with us as i’m sure we were frustrating to work with at time.  And, i hope, we showed patience with them as we went back and forth in communication with the things we wanted to do for the event.  At the end of the event i told our venue contact how pleased i was to work with them and that they were awesome!

Although we had a professional photographer on hand, below is a photo i snapped on my phone during the event.  Once the event starts it usually flows semi-flawlessly as i’ve learned to trust the team that i’ve put in charge of executing everything we spent so much time and energy discussing and planning.

I spent a few days in Ao Nang unwinding after a season of business trips, events, and more work work work.  It’s nice to take just a few days to clear our heads and getting ready to start again.  While in Ao Nang (a small beach that’s part of the greater Krabi area) i was able to spend some time eating.  I might be a wee person, but i love food.  Here’s a short list of some of my favorite places to eat in Ao Nang:

• Aning Restaurant – Located on the main strip by the ocean, this restaurant features a broad menu and great prices.  The pizza here was especially delicious.
  
• The Last Fisherman – This is great for a midday break from the ocean for an easy lunch.  The burger was simple, but delicious.  The tables are in the sand with a view of the ocean. Awesome!  They also have a BBQ every night, but at nearly $20 per person i never made it over to try, but it looked and smelled great!
• The Longtail Boat – After being in Ao Nang for a few days we finally found the tiny hideaway of amazing seafood restaurants.  With about 10 restaurants all in a long row we decided on The Longtail Boat.  The food was deliciously fresh and beautifully prepared.  The atmosphere was great too as we were right near the water and could feel the breeze blowing off the ocean.  For the freshness of the seafood, the prices were very fair.  Oh, and the mango juice was superb!
  
• Lei Lay Grill – This may be one of the best restaurants in all of Ao Nang.  It sits high on top of a hill overlooking the town and the beach.  Beautiful scenery, polite staff, and delicious food makes for a very fun evening! Call for a reservation to be sure to get a great table for sunset.  The menu is quite expansive with fair prices.  The food was perfect!
  

I’ve been to Thailand a few times and with each trip i look forward to much of the same things: warm weather, blue skies, great food, and the smiles of the wonderful Thai people.  If you’re so lucky as to fly Thai Airways into Thailand then you’ll be greeted with their polite bow and big smiles when boarding the plane and then you instantly know that you’re now in the land of happy.  But, wait, i found the catch. I found the trouble in paradise.  I went to Krabi, a southern beach town, and discovered something that has changed my perception of Thailand.  I found all the locals in Krabi to be cranky, rude, and eager to rip off the tourists.  Okay, so ripping off tourists is not uncommon in any tourist trap anywhere in the world, but come on, at least steal my money with a smile and one of those cute Thai bows.  Here’s the thing: i don’t want to deter anyone from traveling to Krabi because it’s a beautiful place, but be warned, the locals are not happy people.  So much so that the first few cranky people i encountered i just assumed that they were having a bad day and i have grace for that because we all have bad days.  But then i started being more observant and i noticed that everyone is rude and in a bad mood.  I’d probably go back to Krabi if given the chance, but i wish i had known in advance that Krabi isn’t full of the smiling kind-hearted Thai people like in Chiang Mai and the Thai Airways flight attendants.

Anyone have similar experiences in Thailand?