Escape from New York

February 2020, one week pre-pandemic

Dottie and I managed to make it in and out of NYC in February, just before the town started succumbing to the virus. While we were there, warnings floated faintly across some media, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way people behaved during our stay (Feb. 18-23).
Oblivious to the danger, we crowded in elevators and  drifted along Broadway between the Hudson and East Rives in Midtown, rubbing elbows, shoulders, and various other body parts with thousands of folks, some of whom were undoubtedly already infected. Then we went from theater to theater on our bi-annual quest to squeeze as many shows as possible into our stay.
Our music feast started with Ain’t Too Proud, The Life and Time of the Temptations, followed by Tina, the musical.
The opening numbers of Ain’t Too Proud took me back to the 1950s when I listened to a rhythm and blues radio station out of Vallejo after dark because that was when its signal could reach Sonoma.  The quality of the voices in this show and the classic old tunes they brought forth made this a delightful first night experience in the Big Apple.
The bittersweet story line in the musical Tina in no way dampened the energy and incredible talent of Adrienne Warren, who plays Tina Turner. If you get to NYC while she plays the lead, Tina is worth it just to see and hear her perform.
From those concert-like shows we time-warped out of the rhythm and blues of the mid 20th Century to the Moulin Rouge in Paris during La Belle Époque of the late 19th Century, which was strangely infected with pop tunes of the early 21st.
This was the 2001 movie, which starred Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, brought to the stage with great glitz, glamour and lots of lovely women in bustiers. Knowing the plot didn’t diminish our enjoyment of the music and dancing performed by talented artists clearly committed to their roles.
Next, as if by magic, we found ourselves in a Saturday double-header bewitched by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a two-part play based on an original story by J.K. Rowling.   I expected something like the movie versions of her books, but the play was uniquely adapted to the stage and enhanced by great acting and amazing stagecraft.
We understood it as a tale, told in charming fashion, about relationships between parents and their children.  Our grandkids would have understood more about Hogwarts and all of its key characters, but we did our best to follow along.
And speaking of the best, we saved it for last.
It was hell – Hadestown to be more precise.  Who would have thought it has such heavenly music?
The characters are derived from Greek mythology, but attired in New Orleans/depression era costumes and hang out somewhere near a coal mine.  There, the great Andre De Shields, playing the winged-messenger Hermes, introduces us to the Road to Hell, and we meet the main characters, including Orpheus, whose voice and songs are irresistible even to Hades himself, and the lovely Eurydice, a wood nymph with whom he falls desperately in love.  While Persephone, the seasonal wife of Hades, tries to soften her husband’s wrath, the chorus keeps us abreast of the plot.
I feared it would be all Greek to me, but like most critics and the judges for the 73rd Tony Awards, I was beguiled by the action, the talented cast, and especially the music, which reminded me of what one might hear at a really good jazz club on Frenchman Street in New Orleans.
It was the winner of eight Tony Awards. Dottie and I agreed that Hadestown is the best musical we have seen in several years.
There is not much fishing action in Manhattan in February, although one can fish in a large lake in Central Park.  Instead, we cast our eyes on some interesting art at several of the city’s museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim and the Met. We could have spent our entire five-days in any one of those and not seen all within its walls.
I like the Guggenheim the best, but Dottie favored the Sandy Schreier fashion collection at the Met.  In any case, we had a generous helping of the arts that New York City has to offer, and left lots of things for our next trip.
And speaking of filling up, we enjoyed several excellent dinners, including one with Dee Tomasetta and her boyfriend Pete Fox.  Dee was our houseguest last summer while she was one of the leads at Transcendence Theater’s dance show.
Until the pandemic sideline virtually every musical artist in the country, she continued to shine as a dancer/singer in the Big Apple.
Our last night, we visited Brandy’s Piano Bar, 235 E. 84th St, on the Upper East Side, where the wait staff and bartenders are also talented musicians and singers.  We loved the vibe and the music. This tiny, hole-in-the-wall place is well worth the taxi ride.
The next day, we escaped New York City, not realizing at the time that we were just hours ahead of the alarms sounded all over the world that a plague was descending upon us,
A few days later, I came down with a really bad cold that lasted for ten days.  No tests were available. Dottie had no symptoms at all. By mid-March our governor locked us all down, and we’ve been there ever since.

Return to SE Asia

October 2018, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore

A half century ago I departed California for South Vietnam.

In October of 2018, for the first time since then, I went back. 
The trip took only a matter of hours. In November of 1967 it took me just a little longer.
I was a young ensign aboard the USS Jerome County (LST 848), a relic of World War II, when it was used for amphibious landings. In the mid 1960s, the Navy pulled her out of mothballs and sent her back to war.
Her shallow draft (15-feet aft and four feet forward) and large cargo capacity made her useful for plying the shallow coastal waters, bays and rivers of Vietnam.
More than a thousand LSTs were built in the early 1940s.  They were used for landings in both the European theatre and in the Pacific.
My ship departed San Diego on November 4, 1967.  In addition to our crew of six officers and 100 enlisted men, we carried 11 Marines, several trucks, amphibs, gear and supplies destined for offloading in Danang, South Vietnam.
Unlike the very nice Cathay Pacific jet that carried me and Dottie high above the Pacific at 600 mph, the Jerome County wallowed along at about eight knots (approx. 9 mph), often less.
Our ship didn’t have enough food, water and fuel to go directly to Vietnam, so our route took us to Pearl Harbor, then Guam, then Subic Bay, Philippines and finally, after 48 days, Danang, Vietnam. We arrived three days before Christmas. Along the way, we were becalmed several times because of mechanical failures.
There were no navigational satellites or high tech radios in those days. We navigated the old-fashioned way, with a sextant and compass. The only long-distance communication we had at sea was CW (low frequency morse code).
Because of breakdowns, we ran short of food and fresh water. We took to looking for squalls and then steering toward them to collect rainwater.
Boredom was the most common complaint. We only had a dozen 16mm movies on board, mostly B-grade westerns staring Rory Calhoun.
One of the bosun mate’s and I did attempt to fish off the stern while we were becalmed. We didn’t see a fish, let alone catch one.
The most exciting thing on that crossing was riding out a typhoon.  Our hollow, flat-bottomed, coffee-can of a ship bounced and tossed on the huge waves so violently that we had to tie ourselves to things to keep from being launched overboard.
Sleeping was impossible.  Baloney sandwiches and other cold food were all the cooks could manage. Pots, pans, and other kitchen items could not be trusted loose on any surface, let alone a hot stove.
All these memories came back to me at 35,000 feet above the Pacific as I lounged in my comfortable Cathay Pacific, Boeing 777-airline seat, while charming attendants served me cocktails and warm food and I watched the latest movies on the airline’s digital entertainment system.

Part II

Dottie and I have landed safely at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, after a two-stage, 20-hour flight from San Francisco. It had been 51 years between visits. The memories were mostly bad. Nevertheless,  I hoped to be pleasantly surprised.
Preparing for this visit, I re-read all of the letters I’d written from Vietnam in 1967 and ’68, which my parents saved for me. I also kept a journal during those times and re-read it. By choice and natural passage of time, what I’d experienced more than a half century ago was tucked far back in the recesses of my brain.  Reading the letters and journal brought them back to the front and reminded me of how naive I was then.
I went there as a young Naval officer believing the hype that we were saving the South Vietnamese people from the cruel tyranny of communism, and that they (the people) actually wanted us there. It didn’t take me long to be set straight. 
I wrote my first impressions in a letter I sent home on January 15, 1968. It included this observation:
“I am glad I wasn’t born Vietnamese.. These beautiful people are forced to struggle in poverty, disease… in a country wasted by war. They are caught in the middle of a political struggle they know little about and could care less for…And we’re not helping… We’re making it worse.”
Those were the first impressions of a 25-year-old with virtually no experience in the world outside his very comfortable California wine-country bubble, a bubble I happily returned to once my military obligation was done.
I was curious to know how those beautiful, struggling Vietnamese people are doing today, and wondering how they feel about what we did to them and their country back then.
Of course, the Vietnamese  who actually experienced it and survived will be as old as me.
I expect our hosts have designed an experience that will address at least part of my question.
Ho Chi Minh City sits on the banks of the Saigon River. I have done some research about fishing in the waters of the Mekong Delta, specifically fly-fishing.  Apparently there’s not much of that around here, but I was referred to a guy who specializes in a rather extreme version of it.  Where as, we stateside fly-fishers use the feathers of ducks and other fowls in our lures, he uses an entire baby bird.  I didn’t fish with him, but watched a video. While watching, I had to keep reminding myself that this guy was fishing to live, not for sport. 

Part III

Any assumptions that I might have had about Vietnam today resembling the country from my last visit more than a half-century ago were shattered during an initial short stroll from our centrally located, Park Hyatt Hotel.
Vietnam’s population is about 95 million. Most of them appear to be driving scooters and other vehicles on my street. Bullets and artillery may have been the biggest hazard in 1967-68, but today, crossing the street is more dangerous.
Ho Chi Ming City (formerly Saigon) is a booming Asian metropolis, the economic and financial center of the country. It is has a growing, dynamic, educated work force that is attracting lots of multi-national corporations to locate here.
The cityscape is marked by modern high-rise buildings, while glitzy clubs and restaurants cater to an increasingly cosmopolitan population. A young urbanite couple can buy a very nice two-bedroom apartment here for around $250,000 (USD).  Penthouses are selling for $1.2 million. 
Based on these first impressions alone, I’m thinking maybe the people of Vietnam have moved on.
More than half the population was born after the war ended. Today 40 percent of the people are 25 or under.  Only about six percent of the people are over 65, which means my chances of meeting someone who was here when I was are slim.
We’re off this morning to the “War Remnants Museum,”  where at least temporarily, I will be an additional remnant. Established in 1975, its original name was the “Exhibition House for US and Puppet Crimes.”  In 1990, its name was changed to “Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression.” 
Are you picking up a theme here?
With the establishment of U.S. relations in 1995, Vietnam dropped the Crimes and Aggression and gave the museum is current handle.
Name change or not, the point is blatantly clear.  The exhibits include U.S. military equipment, like a UH-1 “Huey” helicopter, an F-5A fighter, a M48 Patton tank, a couple of bombers and unexploded shells.  In one building are replicas of “tiger cages” in which the South Vietnamese government kept political prisoners, and there are exhibits of human fetuses allegedly deformed by exposure to Agent Orange.
Our next stop was the former South Vietnamese governor’s palace, now called Reunification Hall.
In 1975 a North Vietnamese tank crashed through its main gate, ending the Vietnam War (which they call the American War by the way). 
According to the story, General Minh, who was the de facto head of South Vietnam, was in the reception chamber when the VC officers leading the assault entered the room. “I have been waiting since early this morning to transfer power to you,” Gen. Minh said.
“There is no question of transferring power,” replied the VC officer. “You cannot give up what you do not have.”
Reunification Hall is an ornate time capsule frozen at 1975. Two of the original VC tanks that broke through the gate are still in place.
Our final visit of the day was to the United States Consulate and former site of the U.S. Embassy.  It was attacked and overrun during the 1968 Tet Offensive and figures prominently in my memory even though I was 30 miles south of that city when all hell broke loose.
I was on a neighboring Mekong Delta river at My Tho, which was overrun the same night.  Attacks took place all over South Vietnam that evening and for several days and nights following. 
A visit to the embassy and a re-reading of my post-set letters brought it all back in a flash.

Part IV

I didn’t return to Vietnam after 51 years so I could re-live the war. However, it appears that first-day welcoming tours in the city formerly known as Saigon are designed to remind us.
After visiting the War Remnants Museum and the former South Vietnamese Palace, frozen in place at the time it fell to the north in 1975, our third stop on this first-day tour of Ho Chi Minh City was the United States Consulate, formerly our embassy.
There are many scenes  that come to mind here, not the least of which was the terrible days when the last helicopters left with the last Americans, abandoning many South Vietnamese citizens who had helped us.
More prominent in my memory however are the attacks that took place around midnight on 31 January 1968, during the Tet Offensive.
It was shortly after midnight that Viet Cong sappers began an assault on the Saigon embassy by blowing a hole in its exterior wall.  Close to 20 VC made it inside the compound and a battle ensued between the few Marines guarding it and the invaders.   Marine guards were killed in the first wave.  The VC managed to get inside the embassy building and held it until U.S. reinforcements arrived and took back the embassy after an all-night fight, killing all of the invaders in the process.
My ship was downriver from the embassy headed up The Tien Giang River (one of the branches of the Mekong) near My Tho, a large provincial city about 35 miles south of Saigon.
The whole town appeared to be in flames.  We could see artillery rounds exploding inside the city and hear and see tracers from small arms fire.
Battles raged on both sides of the river.  It was a hellish scene filled with smoke and fire and punctuated by explosions.  There was no easy way to tell who was friend or foe, and no safe place to be.  The supplies we were carrying to that base were needed, but we had no clear way to help our troops in the battle raging around it. We did not know their positions.
Base command ordered us to anchor in the middle of the river under black-out conditions and man our guns. Had we been attacked directly, we could have defended ourselves. 
We were reduced to the status of frustrated spectators, while overhead helicopters swarmed like angry hornets, spitting out machine-gun rounds toward the jungle so fast that there was no space between the the tracers, giving the impression that they were using ray guns from which glowing red-hot beams burned anything and anyone they touched below. 
Red, green and brilliant white flares lit the sky and tracer bullets criss crossed through he air around us and in the jungle on both sides of us. 
Our ship was incredibly lucky.  Not a single sailor was wounded that night. 
The attacks were repeated all over South Vietnam.  The Marines and soldiers in many outposts and in Saigon and cities like Hue, took the worst of it.
In a couple of days we’re due to take a drive south for a sampan tour of the Mekong Delta near My Tho. It’s a thriving city of close to 200,000 people with an economy that includes a significant amount of tourism. 
The last time I was there it was still burning.

Part V

After our stays in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and our visit to the Mekong Delta, Dottie and I visited Hue and Hanoi. The latter included an overnight cruise on Ha Long Bay.
Hue, the former capital of Vietnam until the early 20th Century, was where several generations of the country’s royalty lived in the “Forbidden Purple City” inside the walled fortress known as the Citadel. This was also the scene of some of the most brutal fighting during the Tet offensive in 1968.
Compared to the traffic jams and frenetic atmosphere of Saigon, Hue appeared relaxed. Its residents seem content sharing their historical legacy with visitors who make this stop halfway between Saigon and Hanoi.  Much of what was damaged during the war has been restored and a tour of the once forbidden city palace included some recounts of what happened there in 1968.
Hanoi, on the other hand, was nearly a mirror image of Ho Chi Minh City, showing no signs of the tons of bombs we dropped on it during the war.  There is building going on everywhere. Commerce is booming and there are thousands of people on scooters in the streets and thousands more shopping along the narrow, old-city blocks, made even narrower by market stall after market stall.
While Hanoi’s famous street markets were crammed, crazy and chaotic, there were also many new high-rise business buildings, high-end retail stores, beautiful parks and signs of gentrification, including luxury hotels for the country’s growing tourism industry.  We visited Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, where his embalmed body can be viewed on certain days of the week (but not on the day we visited). And we saw the modest home from which he directed the decades-long successful effort, first against the French and lastly against the USA, to win independence for his country.
Like apparently every one of the thousands of visitors to Hanoi, we made the two-hour drive east to Ha Long Bay for an overnight cruise among nearly 2,000 limestone islets of every shape and size imaginable and overgrown by tropical vegetation.  The bay is beautiful and the islets make for a very dramatic scene. Our Orchid Cruise boat, with nice hotel-style rooms, followed many dozens of others in a virtual conga-line of ships, jamming this UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site and making it somewhat unnatural by its overwhelming popularity.
I did get to fish for squid off the stern of the boat after dinner. Unfortunately, the squid weren’t biting.
On the way to the airport, we stopped at the Trung Tam Giao Luu Van Ho Dan Gian Folklore Center, a village dedicated to preservation and continuation of an ancient Vietnamese form of block painting. There, we met Nguyen Dang Che, an artist in his 80s who is the 20th generation of his family to create the Dong Ho folk block art.  Next to his studio is a school in which village youngsters are taught this art form.  As we were talking to Che, the school day ended and dozens of beautiful children, ages eight to ten, gathered around us to shake our hands, say hello and practice their English.
In their bright, welcoming smiles and gestures I was reminded once again of why I was so beguiled by the Vietnamese people more than a half-century ago.
Regardless of good intentions and the mistaken belief then that we were saving them from Communist tyranny, I felt guilty for the part I played in the horrible devastation that war caused them.
To have had the opportunity to return, to meet so many genuinely friendly, sweet and welcoming Vietnamese people and to see the youngest of this young united country so clearly full of joy and life gave me the sense that those of us who were sent here, so young ourselves so long ago, have been forgiven.
As our plane lifted off the runway in Hanoi bound for Laos, it was clear that the burden I’d carried for 51 years was lighter by considerable measure.

Part VI

First impressions of travelers to a new country aren’t always reliable indicators of what one can expect, but from the moment we arrived in Laos, Dottie and I fell in love with its people. 
In fact, what impressed us most about all five of the countries in Southeast
Asia that we visited during our recent trip, was the naturally open, friendly, kind and welcoming nature of the people.
One example:  While waiting in the Hanoi airport to board our plane to Laos, I browsed the airport shops for a case for my glasses, the snap on the one I brought having broken off.
The shops had vast selections of many gift items, but nothing quite so pedestrian as a glasses case. The proprietress of one of the shops, after showing me several types of little purses that were just not the right size, put up her hand, gesturing me to wait for a moment.
She went over to her cash register, picked up her own glasses case, and handed it to me, indicating I could have it. She would not take any money for it. Of course, I thanked her, but it was such an unassuming act of kindness, I wanted to hug her. However, unsure if that would be appropriate, I found something in her shop to buy, just so she would at least have made a sale.
Every time I open that case, it reminds me of the best part of our experience – the people who beguiled us with their sweetness everywhere we went, and especially in Laos.
It began with our arrival when we were greeted by virtually everyone we encounter with a sort of prayer gesture known as a “nop,” usually done with both hands pressed together in a prayer in front of your body and accompanied with slight bow or nod and a smile.
It was, of course, how our guide Chou greeted us as we exited the airport baggage area, and how we were greeted at our lovely hotel, The Avani, in Luang Prabang, and everywhere thereafter.  It was the gesture that went with hello, and thank you.
There is something quite disarming about this practice. It is more personal than a simple verbal greeting, and oddly more intimate than a handshake.
It was early evening when we arrived, so after settling into our room, we decided to take a stroll through the special “night market,” located just across the street from our downtown hotel.  After 5 p.m., several blocks of the main street are cordoned off for pedestrian traffic only, and hundreds of local vendors spread their hand-crafted wares on the sidewalks and tables, in hopes that visitors like us will do some serious shopping, which we did.
The people of Laos have good reason to dislike Americans. From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of bombs on that poor little country, making it the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.  The bombings were part of the U.S. Secret War in Laos to support the Royal Lao Government against the Communist Pathet Lao and to disrupt arms traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  The bombs destroyed many villages and killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.  And a third of the bombs did not explode, leaving Laos contaminated with many dangerous remnants, which killed an additional 20,000 people since 1973. More recently we have taken steps to remove and destroy the unexploded bombs, but each year they still cause dozens of casualties.
Nevertheless, the people welcomed us warmly.  They were friendly, engaging and quite interested in knowing all about us, and open to sharing their life stories in return.

Part VII

Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is nestled in northern mountains of Laos. It is the former royal capitol of this primarily Buddhist country. A lush, green, peaceful place on the banks of the mighty Mekong River, it is attractive to visitors and noted for its beautiful scenery and glittering gold temples.
The Mekong, which begins in the Tibetan plateau many miles to the north, was high and muddy upon our arrival, but not too high to be used by locals as the primary transportation corridor for other parts of the region.  Small passenger ferries busily transferred residents from one side to the other, while barges, fishing boats and a fleet of visitor craft moved north and south.
Laos is a poor country and people work hard for their basic necessities.
We saw many examples of their enterprise once boarded our small boat on the first morning for an upstream cruise to a small village known for its many handcrafts.
In spite of the strong current and muddy water, I saw lots of local fishermen tending their nets and pulling in their lines as they harvested the day’s catch.
Recycled plastic water bottles are part of their tackle.  They attach a line, weight and baited hook to the empty, capped bottled and place it in a likely spot.  We saw hundreds of these fish markers set near the bank along our way.
Our first stop of the morning was at an open-air distillery set up under a tin roof on the riverbank just above the high-water mark.  The proprietor appeared to be doing a booming business making rice-whiskey with very crude-looking paraphernalia, including a 55-gallon drum.
He offers tastings of his wares, with or without the snake.
To add some kind of extra zing to some of his beverages, including rice wine, he adds snakes (including cobras) and/or scorpions. We chose the one sans snake.  It tasted a lot like the Italian “moonshine” we know as grappa.
Just upriver from the distillery, we visited a thatched hut village in which women were weaving and creating the many colorful scarves and blankets that they sell in the open-air markets in the city.
Many of the women had small children playing nearby.  Unfailingly, we got a smile and a wave from each person we encountered.
Our next stop was formerly a 16th Century monastery set in steep vertical cliffs of limestone. The Pak Ou caves, popularly called the “Buddha Caves,” are filled with thousands of Buddha sculptures in various sizes; some are made of wood and centuries old. It’s a popular tourist stop, but well worth the two-hour cruise upstream from Luang Prabang.
Vanh, our guide for our stay in Luang Prabang had been a Buddhist monk for five years. He was born in a poor mountain village and chose to leave home and join a monastery at the age of 13.  While the life is hard with strict rules, he said he received a much better education, including learning English, than he would have gotten in his remote village. Many boys choose this path out of poverty, and apparently there are no hard feelings against those who choose to leave life as a monk after taking advantage of the educational opportunities.
While Luang Prabang is a small modern city, the mountain villages we visited, including those of the H’mong and Khmu minorities, are not.
The roads are dirt, as are the floors of the thatched huts in which people live and work.  But even in the most basic of dwellings there was at least one electric outlet to which a television was connected.  We noticed small satellite dishes nestled among the lush tropical growth surrounding the homes.
We also visited the two-room schoolhouse where the children of the villages received their basic education.  The teachers welcomed us as guests in their classrooms and we were able to converse with the children, who all knew at least a few words in English.
Without exception every man, woman and child we met during our stay in Laos seemed interested in talking with us and wanted to know where we were from and if we were enjoying their country.
It was with some regret that we bid farewell to the people we met in Laos and boarded our plane for Siem Reap, Cambodia, and the world-famous ruins of Angkor Wat.

Part VIII

It was 5 a.m. in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Dottie and I were following our guide Mr. Sohun (pronounced “Sun”) in total darkness down what appeared to be a deserted dirt road surrounded by jungle.
Sohun had picked us up at our hotel at 4:15, taken us to get our photo I.D. passes for Angkor Wat at a central pass office, then he and our driver took us off into the jungle.  Our quest was to be in position to photograph the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous at Angkor, built as the funeral temple for Suryvarman II, who ruled there from 1112 to 1152.
As we trudged along, I inquired, “Where are we?”
“This is the back way.  We avoid the crowds,” Sohun replied.
So, we marched on, hoping not to step on a night-hunting cobra or fall into a bog full of crocodiles.
Suddenly a large shape, materialized out of the darkness, silhouetted by a million stars – the imposing walls of Angkor Wat.
Sohun led us around the side of the enormous temple to where several thousand tourists had already set themselves up, shoulder to shoulder, on the shores of a pond in front of the temple entrance.
Shortly after elbowing our way into the gathering, the eastern horizon began to glow red and orange.  Then, the grand, surreal essence of Angkor Wat appeared before us, and in a mirror image reflected off the pond.  A cacophony of cricket sounds created by thousands of photographers followed, until the sun itself rose from behind the ruins.
As dramatic as the sight was, I couldn’t help yawning and looking to see if there was a Starbucks nearby.
We spent the next several hours walking up and down ancient stone steps in awe of the skill and intense labor that it took to build this massive structure to host the remains of just one person.
Walking about one temple was excellent exercise, but by the time we made it through a few others, including nearby Angkor Thom and the Ta Phrom temple, built in 1186, it was early afternoon. The temperature was in the 90s with humidity to match. 
Awe gave way to “Aaah! This heat is killing me.”
Nearly 11 hours after rising in the dark, we made it back to our room at Phum Baitang, an amazing hotel resort built in the style of a Cambodian thatched-hut village surrounded by rice paddies and water buffalos. There, we fell into a sleep nearly as dead as that of the original Angkor Wat inhabitant.
There is a whole lot of Wat to see in Siem Reap, but the ancient temples and ruins are not the only highlights.  Once again, we found the best parts of our experience were the people (of Cambodia), unfailingly friendly, considerate, and interested in engaging with us.
 
Part IX

Dottie and I completed our adventure in South East Asia in Bangkok, Thailand followed by a couple of days in Singapore.  Of the two last places, we much preferred Singapore.
Bangkok is a very big, busy, crowded city. Even the rivers and canals that are central to the city’s transportation system are jammed with barges, tourist craft, floating restaurants and ferries of every shape and size.  In fact, there are so many boats on the water that it is nearly as rough as a windy day on the ocean.
The streets and highways are also clogged as are the sidewalks.
The day of our arrival, there was a huge, multi-story, modern shopping center holding its grand opening just a few doors down from the Peninsula Hotel, which was where we were staying. The streets were so jammed with people and traffic our car from the airport had to take us to a ferry landing on the opposite side of the river. Then we took a boat to our hotel.
Bangkok is interesting, the food fantastic and we really enjoyed the Buddhist temples and Royal Palace tours.  But the chaos, plus the warm, humid climate wore us down quickly.
In Singapore, the climate was warm and the population huge, but everything was neat, clean and very orderly.  This very modern city seems almost like a science fiction spaceport. There are lots of very modern high-rise business buildings and spectacular hotels.
And the streets, sidewalks, storefronts and parks are spotless.
A former British colony, this island-city-nation was established in 1959 with Lee Kuan Yew as it’s first prime minister.  This incredibly dynamic and brilliant leader is credited with transitioning Singapore from the “third world to first world in a single generation.”  A graduate of the London School of Economics, with a law degree from Cambridge, he forged a system of  effective and incorruptible government that ours could learn something from.
The economy of this little nation is booming and attracts many multi-national companies to establish a larger presence there.  The downside includes some rather harsh restrictions on personal and press freedoms. The highly educated, multi-national workforce seems to thrive nevertheless.  Virtually all of the people we spoke to seemed very proud of their city.
What impressed us most was the total normalization of a multiracial, multi religious citizenry.  There are Catholic and Methodist churches, on the same block with Buddhist temples, Hindu temples and mosques.  We witnessed a wedding in a Hindu temple between a Buddhist woman and a Hindu man, which our guide said was quite common.
A major Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, was holding a conference in Singapore during our visit, and Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, and his entourage where staying at our hotel, The Fullerton.
Prime Minister Yew also loved flowers, particularly orchids, and a trip to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, include the National Orchid Garden, is worth the trip just by itself.
Of course we also visited the fantastic Gardens by The Bay with is Supertree Grove, lush gardens and domed conservatories.
There was a lot to see and do, that we didn’t get to because we ran out of time and energy.  Dottie and I agreed that Singapore is one of the places we’d go back to if the timing was right.
In three weeks we managed to visit nine cities and learn to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you in five languages.  We saw many ancient sites, and marveled at the rapidly expanding free-market economies, even in what are supposedly communist countries. 
We enjoyed the variety of foods, and the unfailing top-level hospitality of our host hotels and guides.  And most of all, we loved meeting the citizens of each place we visited.  Everywhere we went, the people were engaging, kind, generous and sweet.
If you’re considering a trip to Southeast Asia, we highly recommend it. 

Murmur on the Orient Express

September 2017, Orient Express, Venice, Verona, Vienna
  

It was two o’clock on a 21st century autumn’s day. After departing from London on the Belmond British Pullman luxury train, followed by the English Channel crossing on the ultra-modern mechanical conveyances of the “Chunnel,” we were in Calais, France.
What now stood before us was an apparition from a distant past – the elegantly restored and grandly appointed Orient Express. Its devotees call it the “King of Trains.” Each coach a gleaming royal blue and gold jewel, it consisted of kitchen and dining cars, bar cars and sleeping cars, and others whose purposes are shrouded in mystery.
As Dottie and I handed our carry-on luggage to the uniformed porter and crossed the gap onto the narrow steps leading up to our coach, we were engulfed by a cloud belched forth from a steam engine.
“That’s odd,” I thought. “The locomotive is a diesel.”
There was a slight buzzing in our ears for a few seconds, then the cloud cleared and we found ourselves walking through an elegantly-appointed, polished-mahogany paneled parlor, highlighted by cut glass art, tapestry and plush Victorian furniture. Smartly dressed passengers were scattered throughout, some in pairs sipping tea and chatting quietly, while others sat singly reading the Times.
One of the men, a strange looking fellow with black, well-oiled hair and a tightly waxed handlebar mustache, looked up, eyeing me suspiciously.
As Dottie continued to follow our porter toward our cabin, I felt a small hand grasp my left arm. It was attached to the slender bare limb of a beautiful woman with long red hair and deep blue eyes looking pleadingly into mine.
“You must help us, sir. My friend and I are in great danger,” she whispered in a sexy but desperate voice at least an octave below most women’s usual range.
Startled, I stumbled over the chair in front of me and felt her hand fall from my arm.
I turned back and she was gone.
“Had she ever really been there?” I wondered.
Behind me, the guy with the slick hair and mustache, mumbled, “It is possible that the impossible could not have happened, yet the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
“Huh?”
I dropped out of character to get my bearings and remind myself that try as I might, I’m not in the middle of a story by Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming or Alfred Hitchcock. I’m just a passenger on the 21st century version of the Orient Express.
Its roots date back to its first journey from the west to the outposts of the east in 1893. During those early days through the golden age of rail travel in the 1920s, the Orient Express was the world’s most elegant model of gracious travel, living and cuisine – complete with oysters, champagne and boudoirs fit for royalty. It captured the imagination of story-tellers starting as far back as 1927.
The fortunes of the original Orient Express rose and fell, then rose again through two world wars, the Great Depression and other challenges before finally starting a long decline in the 1960s, which led to its final demise in 1977.
Then the last of its elegant sleeping, parlor and dining coaches were auctioned off to collectors.
In 1982, the Venice-Simpson Orient Express was re-established as a private venture with beautifully restored carriages from the 1920s and ’30s.
Today it continues to attract train buffs and nostalgia addicts, prompting us to dress up and pretend we’re in a different century on a mysterious journey with Hercule Poirot, Mary Hermione Debenham, Colonel Arbuthnot, Princess Natalia Dragomiroff and company.
So here we are, tucked into a lovingly-appointed anachronism, dressing for dinner one at a time because our authentically decorated, but tiny, stateroom limits movement.
The wheels quietly rumble below the floor and the carriage sways as we roll toward the Alps.
I wonder if the beautiful Countess Andrenyl, with her long dark hair, captivating eyes, scarlet lips and long lashes, will be at our table.
Of course she will. She’s standing at our tiny little washbasin mirror brushing her hair as I lounge next to her typing the last sentence of this chapter.
“You look positively smashing, my dear.”

 Part II  
The Orient Express, this elegant rolling anachronism, simply cannot be enjoyed to its fullest without transporting oneself from present reality into a romanticized, cinematic, but not necessarily realistic, version of the past.
While it was the most preferred choice for travel in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is no longer. Airplanes and modern high-speed trains get you there faster and a lot cheaper.
Passengers on the early Orient Express donned their best apparel for their journey while today’s travelers on fast modern conveyances dress for comfort.
Therefore, when boarding the 21st-century version, a mindful shift in attitude is required. Time must slow down, better yet, the clock must be turned back, disbelief suspended, and imagination tuned to the twilight zone. We are, for the next 36 hours or so, acting in a fantasy of our own making.
Our destination is Venice, but for now, we are in a moment from a time long ago.
I lounged on the lower bunk, while the countess finished brushing her hair. When she was finally ready, I stood up and slipped on my tux jacket. She straightened my tie.
“After you, my dear,” I said, allowing her to squeeze by me to exit our cabin. Although the tiny mirror over the equally tiny cabin sink didn’t offer much of a view, I thought we looked pretty spiffy as we strolled toward the Orient Express bar car for a before-dinner cocktail.
The train, restored to its early 20th-century elegance, is like a palace on wheels, all polished brass and chrome, etched glass, gleaming marquetry and plush fabrics.
The bar car was crowded with women in cocktail dresses and men in black tie. We found some standing space just in front of the grand piano.
There was a guy in a white dinner jacket telling the piano player, “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine…”
“Excuse me sir,” I said. “I think you’re in the wrong movie.”
The man ignored me, and the woman with him turned to the pianist and said “Play it again for me, Sam.”
The piano player’s name tag read “Siegfried.”
Giving up, I ordered a martini, “Shaken, not stirred.”
We can be whoever we want to be, whenever we want to be, for this evening.
Later that evening, as the Orient Express shook and stirred us in our bunks on creaking vintage train shock absorbers, I dreamed I was back in the Navy, but Sean Connery was our captain and we were riding out a storm on the South China Sea.
It wasn’t the most restful night’s sleep I’ve ever had, but as the morning sun’s first rays hit our cabin, we were greeted by the magnificent view of the Alps rising steeply on both sides of us. Then our cabin steward brought us steaming coffee and fresh croissants on a silver tray and we sipped and munched our way as the trained wound its way along a very trouty-looking, glacier fed river that tumbled down the steep pass toward which we were climbing.
“I bet there are some nice trout in that river,” I said to the countess.
“Hmn,” she responded, her thoughts clearly not connected to my fantasy at all.
And so we rolled along, in and out of our dreams, breaking only for an elegantly presented lunch in the “Etoile Nord,” one of the coaches of the early 1920s brought back from the previous century

Part III - Sinking in

Alas, the spell was broken in late afternoon when we pulled into Santa Lucia train station in Venice and saw the crowd of 21st century tourists wheeling their bags toward a fleet of diesel spewing water taxis.
It is very hard to imagine yesteryear in today’s Venice.  It is proof that people can love something so much they squeeze it nearly to death. Unless you enjoy shuffling back-to-back, belly-to-belly with mobs of strangers, there are places in this most romanticized, ancient Italian city that you simply should not venture into. Unfortunately, some, like Santa Lucia train station, are unavoidable.
Our adventure on the Orient Express brought on us here, but upon our decent from 19th Century fantasy to early 21st Century reality we felt like we’d been dumped in the middle of a forced evacuation zone.
The once scenic Grand Canal was so thick with diesel-fume-spewing water taxis and ferries that an agile rock hopper could cross to the other side by jumping from boat to boat.
Confused and frantic new arrivals wheeling bags across the cobblestones dodged grim-faced soon-to-be ex-visitors departing through the same portals.  If you could read their minds, the common thought would be ‘Get me out of here!”
This was not the Venice I remembered from our last visit 20 years ago. 
Then, I was in awe of the grand palazzos, their lowest floors stained by lapping water,  and rising elegantly on both sides of the canal, knowing most were centuries old.  There was water taxis then too, just not so many.  The pace was slower, the people more serene. I could hear music.
So this time, like everybody else, Dottie and I escaped the chaos of Santa Lucia Station as quickly as possible on one of those water taxis. Fortunately, our destination was the Palazzo Abadessa, a former 16th Century abbey and sanctuary for orphans, restored now as a museum-like boutique hotel, well away from the noise and crowds of the Grand Canal.
And that’s the thing about Venice.  You can find the quiet side canals, narrow streets, and the small hotels and out of the way restaurants that still make it the city that has beguiled visitors for centuries.
Our room had 20-foot frescoed ceilings.  The walls and floors, marked by time, accented by paintings, ancient rugs and decorated with antiques, held tales of mystery and romance. Nights were so quiet and the air so fresh we slept with the large windows wide open.
Excursions would often find us temporarily lost, but we’d eventually find our way through narrow back alley’s, across old stone bridges to restaurants recommended for their crowd-free location and excellent cuisine.
Only once did we venture toward Piazza San Marco so that Dottie could return to a table linen store she’d visited long ago.  Huge gaggles of tourists from scores of cruise ships moved shoulder-to-shoulder in every direction following their designated flag bearers.  All we could do was press ourselves into doorways until they passed then scurry ahead until the next gaggle appeared.
Dottie found the store, but it took several stops at other shops around San Marco before she found the exact tablecloth she sought.  Then, as quickly as possible, we escaped through side streets to the serenity of our hotel’s neighborhood.
Nighttime in Venice is not nearly as bad.  At least half of the cruise ship folks are back on board and you can actually move around without being jostled.
Venetian guide Alessandro Schezzini, an effusive advocate for the local vino sfuso, led us on a delightful twilight tour of small, out-of-the way bars. We also took in a concert performance of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” in an ancient palazzo alongside the Grand Canal.
Our next stop was Verona.

Part III - Spectacle in an ancient arena

Two rivers run through or around Verona, an hour’s train ride west of Venice.  It would be just another lovely, formerly Roman village in Northern Italy were not for William Shakespeare.
The rivers have trout in them, but they were very high and cloudy when Dottie and I arrived. Any thoughts I had of fishing were blown out.
But Shakespeare didn’t write about the rivers or fishing. Instead, he took an old Italian tale about star-crossed lovers from two opposing families in Verona and wrote his most famous tragedy, Romeo and Juliette.
The characters were fictional, possibly based on the internal politics of medieval Italy during the 12th and 13th Centuries. Within the city-states, locals had to chose to support the Pope (the Guelphs) or the Holy Roman Emperor (Ghibellines). Feuds between the two groups were fierce and bloody. 
Verona has been cashing in on Will’s play ever since.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors are drawn to Verona every year believing Romeo and Juliet were real people. 
Dottie and I visited what was touted as Juliet’s home. This fictional house of a fictional character was a multinational mob scene. A young woman on a balcony yelled out for Romeo but was drowned out by the din made as hundreds of tourists jammed into the small patio. The romance was lost on us.
But Verona has a lot more to offer.
It is also the site of many well-preserved remnants of the Roman Empire, including a coliseum built in AD 30 that is said to be the model for the one built in Rome years later. In its gladiatorial days, it could accommodate 30,000 bloodthirsty fans. 
It is still used today, but for safety reasons, gladiators are banned and the maximum crowd allowed is 15,000. Instead of battles to the death, the entertainment includes a world-renowned summer opera series and popular concerts in between.
We managed to reserve tickets for a Friday evening concert by the “Father of the Italian Blues,” Adlemo Fornaciari, more commonly known as Zucchero (Sugar). His four-night series in the ancient coliseum was sold out.
Not knowing anything about him or his music but wanting to experience a concert in the ancient Roman arena, I purchased for Dottie and I and our Sonoma friends, Fred and Pam Gilberd (through Stub Hub), four of the cheapest tickets in the nosebleed section high up in the coliseum. We assumed that we would stay only as long as our eardrums could stand it.
While we were in transit from the USA to Italy, I got an email from Stub Hub offering to upgrade our tickets at no additional cost. I accepted the offer and was told to meet a guy named Max at a bar near the arena two hours before the show. 
The dingy little hole in the wall where I met Max had a sinister feel but the transaction went smoothly and we got our upgraded tickets.
Joining the thousands of fans entering through ancient gates, we expected to be directed to some spot midway up in the steep seats above us. Instead we were directed down and forward toward the stage.
Much to our amazement, our upgraded seats were in the front row.
The Italian guy seated next to Dottie wanted to know how we got such fantastic seats.
“We’re friends of Max,” I told him.  He blinked. Said, “O.K.”  No further explanation necessary.
It has been decades since any of us had been to a rock concert, let alone one in an ancient Roman ruin.
It was a 21st Century spectacle in a 1st Century setting. All across a huge stage that could accommodate all the bands in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, were banks of huge speakers, giant video screens, spotlights, klieg lights and whirling, flashing gizmos of every color.
When Zucchero finally came on stage the crowd went crazy, but what was even crazier and totally surprising was he was good.  In fact, he was great.  His music, clearly inspired by gospel, soul, blues, and rock with some heavy Latin influence, was more like something you’d hear in New Orleans.
We stayed for the whole show and the several encores.

Dottie spent the last five days of our trip alongside the Danube, in which live more than 100 species of fish, but for which almost nobody fishes.
In fact, I had a very difficult time finding out if there was any place to fish nearby.    Laws regulating fishing in Austria appear to be very strict and individually administered region by region.  Access to fishable water also seems to be limited; so much so, that I gave up trying and concentrated instead on the best that Vienna has to offer – great food and wonderful music.
Vienna is said to be the birthplace of classical music. It was home to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss and so many more. No day goes by without their music played live somewhere in the city
We also enjoyed an Italian opera, Puccini’s “La Bohéme,” at Vienna’s magnificent state opera house.
The highlight of our experience though was a concert at the Musikverein, Vienna’s gilded concert hall, where Vienna’s Mozart Orchestra took us back to the 18th Century with a delightful program that one could call the “greatest hits” of Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss. 
We followed that concert up with a half-day-long self-guided tour of the Haus der Musik, a high-tech museum featuring all of Vienna’s greatest composers.  We could have spent another full day there just listening to their music.
Vienna is a pretty compact city, but getting around was made even easier by its extensive and pedestrian-friendly public transit system that includes trolleys, a subway and buses.  They operate on an honor system that assumes riders will purchase the inexpensive passes sold everywhere.
Vienna is a city we want to re-visit, perhaps next time I will be able to go fishing.

Immersion in Basque country

(April 2016, Hendaye, France)

Part I

I’m on a quest to find the world’s oldest fishermen, catch some fish, and eat some good food.

France has caves with evidence of prehistoric human habitation that dates back tens of thousands of years. Most of those caves have drawings of mammals, such as deer, bison and horses, but in the caves of Basque country, scientists found drawings of fish, presumably caught by prehistoric anglers.

Voila! 

French Basque country also has numerous rivers flowing out of the Pyrenees into the Atlantic.  These waters are home to large wild trout, Atlantic salmon and shad.  The region even hosts the annual World Salmon Fishing Championships.  

C’est si bon!

Finally, Basque Country was praised recently in the New York Times for its excellent cuisine.  It has more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than any other place in the world. 

C’est magnifique!

Our destination is Hendaye, the southernmost town on France’s Atlantic coast, from which, one can look across the River Bidassoa and see Spain. In 20 minutes we can be in San Sebastian.  This is the heart of Basque Country.

Dottie and I, and our Sonoma friends, Fred and Pam Gilberd, will be fully immersed in this small coastal village, where we are compelled to speak French. 

We are staying in an apartment adjacent to the home of a retired French professor. Every day we have breakfast with her, followed by several hours of formal French lessons, followed by hands-on French cooking classes, followed by afternoon field trips to learn about the local culture and practice our French.  

In the beginning, our conversations will be quite simple, like one might use with a four-year-old.  

Sink or swim, we’re here for a month. Let’s hope we can graduate from kindergarten and start talking to first-graders.

Our host also has friend who is a local fishing guide on the rivers that flow out of the rugged mountains that rise dramatically behind us. 

Fortunately, I speak trout, and so does he. 

Part II

Here we are in Hendaye, the most southwesterly town in France. Last night, we drove from our apartment overlooking the Bay of  Biscay, across the river Bidaossa to the old

Basque city of Hondarribia,  a few miles south of us. It was a lovely evening for our host, Jacquelin Duperrin, a retired professor, to show us around. We walked through a sixth-century castle built for King Carlos V, now fully restored as one of many government Paradores (hotels) in Spain.

In the town center, a dozen or more tapas bars served hundreds of locals gathered in the plaza to socialize, eat, drink, and enjoy live music. Many couples brought their children. It was like a big neighborhood party. The tapas were fantastic.  

A very important football (soccer) match between Barcelona and Real Madrid was displayed on large TV screens inside and out.

While immersed in learning more French, Dottie and I and our friends, Fred and Pam Gilberd, had crossed the river to where everybody was speaking Spanish and many of the stores had names in the Basque language.  Suddenly my mind was a tossed word-salad mixing four languages. Talk about culture shock. It was simultaneously stimulating and challenging.

Jacquie is not only a great teacher, she is also a wonderful guide, chef and a truly kind and generous host.

We've learned some things about French cooking; mostly how to eat it, and we actually got a lesson in how to make galettes and crepes.

Right now there's a race between the growth of my French vocabulary and my waistline.

This is Basque Country and Basques have fought long and hard to keep it that way.  After centuries, during which Basques were persecuted for maintaining their culture and independence, it seems respect and acceptance by the governments of France and Spain has been achieved.

Perhaps most noted by visitors like us is the food. Today we went to the open-air market and spent a half-hour tasting and buying several Basques cheeses.  We also got a couple of Basque cakes. So much to learn, so much to eat.

The Basques were perhaps the earliest commercial fishermen in history.  They started with whales in the fifth and sixth centuries. Later they built better boats and became the world's greatest sailors, traveling distances to the far northern banks of

Newfoundland and Labrador to catch cod and bring them back to be salted, dried and sold all over Europe.

I'm more interested in what they are catching in the rivers of their own Pyrenees and hope to make that connection soon.

There is a lot of history here too, including the fact that Hendaye was the place in 1940 where two brutal dictators met. Spain's Gen. Francisco Franco met Adolph Hitler hoping that the nasty Nazi would accept Spain into his Axis.  Hitler thought Franco was an untrustworthy clown and chose to keep him at arm's length. Franco was lucky. When Germany lost, Franco claimed it was he who declined to join the Nazis and he

continued his brutal fascist control over Spain for another 30 years.

Today the border between France and Spain is wide open and the area is home to three cultures, including the Basques, although they would prefer this area to be an independent Basque state. Still, they all three apparently co-exist in relative harmony.

And contrary to the doom and gloom impression one may get from American television news, the folks here in France and Spain seem to be doing just fine.

Part III

Our teacher and host, Jacquelin Duperrin,  took us on a  very Basque/French Sunday morning drive to the small village of Urrugne, located a few Kilometers from our place here in Hendaye, France.  

As we drove along winding country roads in the foothills of the Pyrenees, we had to stop and make way for a large "peloton" of cyclists riding by.

The narrow road took us to the center of the village where an old stone church was by far the largest structure. Next to the church was a bar decorated with memorabilia related to pelota, the most popular sport in Basque Country. We went through a small door at the back of the bar, then up a narrow staircase to a platform above a covered "fronton" (pelota court) in which there was a doubles match being played.

Later we would watch a different match in a bigger court between teams from Spain and France. The action was fast and intense.

We attended part of a mass at the old church, which was followed by Basque folk-dancing in the outdoor courtyard next to the church.  A caller accompanied by a live band cued each move. It was sort of like line-dancing except it was in a circle.

Pam stepped in without hesitation, mastering the steps quickly even though all the calls were in Basque.

While the entire region is Basque, our village and those just north of us, St. Jean de Luz, Biaritz and Bayonne; and just south of us, San Sebastián, are all summer beach resorts for thousands of vacationers and surfers.

It is definitely not summer here yet, and the weather is constantly changing from some sun to lots of rain, then back.  So far, the local rivers are too high for fishing.

We got a window of fair weather yesterday after the folk dancing and went for a walk on the beautiful beach that runs for several kilometers. A dozen or so surfers in wetsuits were catching smallish waves and other locals, bundled up in jackets like us, were trying to get a few semi-warm rays of sunlight on whatever skin left uncovered.

I watched a couple of guys with long surf-casting rods as they eyed their lines for signs of a bite. Nothing.

We're spending several hours each day with our wonderfully patient professor trying to learn French. Fred and Pam are the stars. Dottie and me? Not so much.

Sunday morning before our drive, Jacquie was telling us, in French, about the best pelota players in the region and referred to them as "Les meilleurs champions."  I thought I heard "champignons," French for mushrooms, which meant we were going to a special farm where they grow these prize champignons. Imagine my surprise when we ended up at a pelota court.

C'est la vie. Every day is an adventure and a few more words become familiar enough that we dare use them around town.  When I speak to store clerks here, and a puzzled look comes over their faces, I tell them my well-practiced explanation, that I am trying to learn to speak French. They appear to understand and give me a sympathetic response, politely correcting my grammar. I just hope I don't order a salad  with champions on it.

Part IV

The Nive River, swollen by daily rain storms, rolled and tumbled along our route to St.-Jean-Pied-Port as we took a two-day break from our French immersion classes to test our newly formed linguistic wings.

The Nive is home to trout and possibly Atlantic salmon. But on this day it appeared to be too high and fast to fish.  I did see a small private trout hatchery that raises trout for restaurants along side one of many tributaries that feed the main stem.  

Two guys were fishing with spinning gear in the creek next to the hatchery, but neither had caught anything. There was also a campground nearby with a sign that read "Trout Camp," giving me a clue that at least sometimes anglers catch trout here.

The Nive flows through St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, an ancient and charming walled-village that sits at the foot of a pass that has been used since before the Romans to cross the rugged Pyrenees between France and Spain.

It was also a main stopping point for early pilgrims following an 1800-kilometer route from the French village of Vezelay to Santiago de Compestela, where St. James was supposedly buried.

Today this little village is a bustling tourist spot and the main starting point for people from all over the world who want to begin their 500-mile walk along the path of Saint Jacques de Compestela.

Our Sonoma friend and neighbor, Hank Martinson, made the pilgrimage several years ago and has written a wonderful book about his experience, which I hope he will have published one day.

There is also an interesting movie starring Martin Sheen entitled "The Walk," that was filmed here.

We visited the office where all hikers register to begin their journey and were told that the main route over the pass was still blocked by winter snow. Pilgrims were being directed to an alternative trail that kept them below the snow line.

Our companions, Fred and Pam Gilberd, wanted to walk part of the path. Dottie and I settled for a stroll down the cobblestone street (technically part of the pilgrim trail) for a block or two until we found a cozy cafe where we waited for them and enjoyed croissants and coffee.

The path up from the village gets steep after a kilometer or so and it was raining. We didn't have to wait long for Fred and Pam to return.

St. Jean Pied De Port is a lovely place in which to spend a day and has many fine places to shop and to dine.

We stayed in a small auberge down the road in the tiny hilltop village of Biddaray where we were the only guests, Across the courtyard was an old stone church.  The window of our room opened onto. a brilliant green pasture in which sheep, some with newborn lambs, grazed peacefully. The rugged peaks of the Pyrenees, shrouded in mist and cotton-puff clouds rose dramatically behind them.

All along the road there were small farms offering cheese made from sheep's milk - delicious.  

We also stopped at a Basque espadrille shoe factory where Dottie and Pam each found the perfect pair.

It rained off and on both days but that didn't stop us from stopping to explore several small villages along our way.  Still, I couldn't help noticing that the Neve River kept rising. Not a good sign for my fishing plans.

Part V

Almost every morning here in Hendaye, we have breakfast with our host and teacher, Jacquie Duperrin. The conversation over fresh-baked croissants and bread is all in French. Jacquie patiently corrects our grammar and helps us find the words we can't remember.

Dottie and I differ in our approach. While she proceeds cautiously to find the correct words, I babble in a mish-mash of French, Spanish, plus assorted English words delivered with a French accent.

Jacquie looks puzzled when I do this, like I do when she speaks French to me at normal speed. But, after three weeks here, it is clear that French fluency for me is out of the question. So I babble on.

Breakfast is great, but then we have a real French class for two hours.

We work on tenses and conjugation: I eat, you eat, etc., I ate, you ate; we're going to eat, I will eat.  There are beaucoup tenses for each of hundreds of verbs, 80 percent of which are regular with rules that you can memorize. But the irregular verbs – "Zut alors!"

Il est l'heure de dejeuner? (Lunch time?)

Fortunately, Jacquie rewards our meager progress with afternoon excursions, one of which was across the border and up a rugged canyon carved by the Bidasoa River.  There, in the tiny, rustic village of Echalar, alongside a very "trout-friendly-looking" tributary of the river, is "The Bar Basque," that serves an incredible Basque-style steak dinner, including wine,, for about $15 per person.

The restaurant decor is genuinely rustic, so much so that you expect the three musketeers to burst through the door at any moment and cross swords with some nasty enforcers of the Spanish Inquisition.

Instead, we shared the dining room with a gang of Spanish bikers with the name "Los Tronchos" emblazoned across the backs of their vests.

They turned out to be polite and amiable fellow diners, enjoying every bit as much as we did the huge plates of salad, fries and enormous steaks placed in heaping platters before us.

One night we drove to Eglise Saint Jean Babtise in Saint Jean De Luz, the site of the marriage of French King Louis XIV to the Spanish "Infanta," Maria Theresa, in 1660. The Russian Army Red Star Chorus, in full uniform, delivered an impressive program of Russian songs standing on the alter in full view of the many gilded figures of saints watching from their perches next to the church's tall stained glass windows. On another night at the church we were blown away by two amazing Basque chorale groups.

From singing Basques to motorcycle gangs in rustic Basque inns to communists singing in Catholic cathedrals, our cross-cultural adventures continued.

And, I finally got to fish.

Part VI

I finally went fishing – French style.

April is a rainy month in Basque Country.  I spent the better part of our month-long stay watching the rivers rise.

Finally, in our third week here, Antoine Sanchez, the neighbor of our host, Jacquie, said we should try anyway.  Antoine, who was born in Spain, has spent most of his life on the French side of the border and is an avid fly-fisher.  He is a great guy and loves to talk about fishing. He doesn’t speak English, so we communicated with a blend of French and Spanish.

From the start, I could tell that our day of fishing would be more about the journey, than actual time streamed.

He picked me up at 9 a.m. on a Friday. Our route took us on winding country roads east into the Pyrenees.  Along the way, we passed Espelette, famous for its artful use of little red chili peppers called “piments.” Antoine insisted on a drive around the village center to show me the sites.

Eventually, we met up with his fishing buddy, Jacques Bogieu, at a grocery store parking lot about halfway to our destination.  After they had a lengthy discussion as to the best place to find fish, we continued our drive for a little while longer until we got to the small village of Osses, where we stopped at the local boulangerie for some fresh baguettes.

We reached Saint-Jean-Pied-De-Port a little before noon where I was able to purchase a fishing permit at a local sport shop.  Antoine and Jacques spent a some time discussing fishing spots with the proprietor before we headed toward our destination, which was up a narrow canyon along a tributary of the Neve River.

A few miles further,  we pulled into the parking lot of a large wholesale nursery. Antoine wanted to shop for some tomatoes and squash for his garden.

The road narrowed and wound along the creek and through steep, green, hillside pastures filled with grazing sheep. Finally, we reached a wide spot in the road near a sheep rancher’s barn and pulled to a stop.

“At last,” I thought, “We’re going do some fishing.” 

“Mais, non. Il est temps pour le déjeuner.” (Lunch time).

Antoine and Jacques had brought a veritable feast, complete with tablecloth, wine glasses and utensils. We leaned on some logs, draped with the tablecloth, and, while watching sheep graze across the road, we enjoyed quiche, paté, cheese, fruit, fresh bread, and dessert, plus lots of good French wine and a special home-crafted “vin noir,” made by Antoine.

Three or four glasses of wine and an hour and a half later, lunch was done and I was ready for a nap.  But then, it was actually time to fish.

By the time I put my waders on and assembled my rod, it was mid afternoon .

We walked through a sheep pasture, then a corral where two donkeys took a great interest in what we were doing, and finally got to a very small and extremely brushy creek, with tree branches and berry vines very close along both banks and overhead.

The water was clear however, and a short sidearm cast got my fly onto the water in a likely looking riffle.  There was nothing rising and no fish rose to my offering.

For the next couple of hours we waded, bushwhacked and fished between branches and snags.  None of us hooked or even saw a fish.  I tried every fly I had; so did Antoine and Jacques.  We stopped fishing around 5 p.m.

Back at the car, over beers, cheese, fruit and bread, Jacques taught me a new French expression – “Retrant bredouille.” (Coming home empty-handed). The fish, it seems, were still on “les vacances.”

Empty-handed or not, it was a very enjoyable day with my new French fishing buddies.