Open Door Travel

04/29/2024

I love visiting Vietnam’s fishing villages - listening to the waves, soaking up the breezes and watching life unfold there.

04/28/2024

Today, I’m riding the rails in Central Vietnam! I’m taking a 6 hour train ride from Hoi An to what used to be my “secret beach” (it’s now showing up in a couple guidebooks though) to prepare everything there for my October tour guests.

I adore traveling by train in Vietnam.

The countryside is so beautiful and bucolic with its gorgeous green rice fields, neatly planted vegetable gardens, farmers, water buffalo and other country critters doing their thing.

It’s like taking a drive in the countryside, but getting to look out of a giant picture window and not having to worry about the driving. A real treat!

03/28/2024

A Quintessentially Vietnamese 90 Minutes

There are certain things that, to my knowledge, only happen in Vietnam.

I’ve experienced each of them before on a number of occasions, but never overlapping the way that they did tonight. And it made me giggle like crazy.

It all started because my hair was dirty.

In an attempt to travel lightly - which I am not very good at - I do not carry shampoo, conditioner or any other hair accoutrements with me. It’s easy and inexpensive enough to find a salon and get a shampoo/blowout.

And in Vietnam, it’s quite a treat to do so because every shampoo comes with a complimentary scalp massage. And I mean a seriously delicious scalp massage! Many places even include neck and shoulder massages in addition!

As if that weren’t enough, even the most humble salons in Vietnam utilize lie-flat beds that connect to their shampoo bowls with head supports coming up through the middle of the bowl.

Getting a shampoo in Vietnam is one of the most relaxing experiences you can imagine.

Except for tonight.

The neighbor next-door to the salon I was patronizing was throwing a birthday party.

In Vietnam, a party isn’t a party without karaoke. In fact, the Vietnamese love karaoke so much that it isn’t even necessary to have a party to do karaoke. It’s pretty much a nightly event that someone is going to be doing karaoke.

And the Vietnamese don’t do karaoke behind closed doors. Karaoke is a very very very public event sung over microphones with the volume always turned up to 10.

Two nights ago, I was eating dinner at the pier. Cruise ships were going by hundreds of feet away. My dinner was serenaded by karaoke.

I have a love-hate relationship with Vietnamese karaoke. I love that this culture encourages everyone to sing. And I mean everyone. Even the very very bad singers.

Ever since I witnessed Sister Margaret Marie instruct a tone-deaf second grader preparing for first communion to only mouth the words because he made the song sound bad (some nuns are particularly good at inflicting this kind of lifelong trauma), I have had a particularly soft spot for those who invite everyone to sing.

Singing is good for the soul. And those who rob others of the gift of singing are stealing something precious.

So when I first realized that the Vietnamese were not shy about singing loudly off key, it added, yet another layer of endearment in my heart for this country - even as it also made my ears hurt.

And based on the hundreds, if not thousands of times I’ve heard karaoke performed in my 3+ years of time spent in Vietnam, I can attest to the fact that there are many many bad singers in this population. lol. God love them.

There are great ones also to be certain. But the vast majority of karaoke singers I hear are terribly tone deaf. And don’t care. And I love that last part.

So even though I don’t know the songs that they are singing, I can recognize a flat note when I hear it, and man, do I hear them often!

On top of the ubiquitous loud flat notes, the most frequently chosen songs to be performed during karaoke are sappy, drippy, love songs. I love a good love song and I’m sure these are quite sweet, but, without understanding the words, they simply sound cloying to my ears. Add 10 million very loud flat notes to those and you’re starting to get the picture (or audio) of the Vietnamese karaoke experience.

So there I was - relaxing into my scalp and neck massage when, rather frequently, hard loud flat notes would pierce the veil of the spa experience - along with my ears.

Truly, it made me giggle.

But that wasn’t all.

In addition to karaoke, a Vietnamese party is not a Vietnamese party without cheers.

The Vietnamese are, largely, heavy drinkers and they love to draw others into their drinking. And there’s no better way to do that than to start a toast. And like karaoke, these are also performed at volume 10.

The cheer most often heard when drinking here is Mot Hai Ba Zo! Which translated means 1 2 3 drink!

It’s an unwritten rule that as soon as anyone utters the word Mot, everyone else at the table must join in yelling the rest of the cheer.

I absolutely love on big holidays like Tet that you will hear this cheer going up all over the neighborhood at random times. First from this house, then from that one. Over and over, all day and night long. It creates a very festive atmosphere.

Festivity was certainly the theme next-door to the hair salon tonight.

So basically the picture was me on the lie-flat bed relaxing deeply into an excellent neck massage when a Mot Hai Ba Zo cheer would erupt and break the tranquil silence.

I’d settle back in again and notes so loud and flat would stab the air and my eardrums, sometimes so terrible that they would cause me to involuntarily wrinkle my nose and squeeze my eyes even further closed.

Quite often the two sounds of bad karaoke and drinking cheers overlapped.

And when they weren’t overlapping, the lady giving me the excellent massage would say “sorry, my neighbor throwing birthday party.”

I enjoyed the comedy of it all.

And it’s all good. My hair will be dirty again soon enough and I’ll have another chance at a more peaceful shampoo blowout.

03/11/2024

Nyepi - The Balinese Day of Silence & My 3rd New Year’s Celebration in 71 Days

It was for exactly this holiday and Kuningan which precedes it that I interrupted my travels/work in Vietnam to come to Bali.

Nyepi - March 11 in 2024 - is New Year’s Day (by the Saka calendar) in Bali. It occurs every 210 days.

4 times I have experienced double New Year’s celebrations - every January 1 by the western calendar coupled with 4 Tets/ Lunar New Years in Vietnam.

This is the first time I’ve experienced 3 New Years in a row. I like it. 3 clean slates. 3 opportunities to reset. The magic of the number 3.

And gosh does Bali’s way of observing the New Year strongly encourage resetting!

Nyepi, known as the island-wide day of silence, comes with some interesting rules.

No working. No fires/cooking/turning on lights. No traveling. No pleasure - this includes s*x. Many people keep strict silence and fast from eating as well though these are not required.

To enforce the “no traveling” restriction, no one (locals or tourists) is allowed out in the streets. Police patrol to make sure the prohibition is being followed.

You may not check in or out of your hotel on Nyepi.

The airport … the international airport … is shut down. No flights in or out of Bali today.

Everything is closed today. Travelers, like me, who depend on restaurants for food, had to stock up yesterday to have food for today. By 3pm when I ordered my take-away from the last open restaurant on my street, I heard other travelers already being turned away. “We’re closed now.”

Foreign visitors are cut a little bit of slack on these rules. For example, no one is allowed to turn on any lights today. But the owner of my guesthouse informed me that, when it got dark, I would be permitted turn on one of my bedside lamps (not both and definitely not the main overhead light) as long as I closed the blackout curtains. Definitely NOT ok to sit on my balcony with even the one bedside light on though.

Some travelers are unaware of Nyepi and are caught by surprise about it when they arrive - like the delightful Portuguese couple I met last night. They were good sports and have decided to embrace it. I admire their attitude, particularly since they are only here for 5 days.

Other travelers, like me, come here specifically for this experience. Actually, it was the Ogah-Ogah demon parades that night before Nyepi that brought me. (that’s another story for later) But I also wanted to experience the energy shift behind an island-wide day of silence.

The reasoning behind all the extremeism is threefold.

First, the day of silence gives Mother Earth an opportunity every year to reset from the weight of bearing humanity.

Second, the purpose of Nyepi customs are to promote meditation, calming of the mind, relaxation and reflection that are often at odds with our constant running around.

The third reason is my favorite. The Balinese believe that demons and evil spirits, when observing no people in the street and no sounds or lights coming from homes, will conclude that the island is deserted and leave. ❤️

I recently befriended a few Balinese policemen the other day while I was waiting for a ceremony to start at the beach. I’ve become What’sApp penpal buddies with one of them - Komang. He’s helping me learn Balinese (a different language than Bahasa Indonesia - the official language of the country. Because mostly only the people on this tiny island speak Balinese, it is very difficult to find courses in it). I’m helping him with English.

Incidentally, last night when I was returning home with my motorbike after watching a group of men in another village throw burning coconuts at each other (ANOTHER story for later), I ran into police barricades just 1/4 block from my street. The semi-terse “Stop! You can’t go there!” … became a smiling “Oh Putu! Hi! Quickly quickly … go on past!” as Komang and I recognized each other. Yay for friends!

As I was writing this story, I became curious about what happens to people, locals or tourists, who violate the rules and go out into the street or turn the lights on at night. Someone earlier had made gestures indicating beatings were involved so naturally I wanted to know if this was true.

Komang’s reply to my What’sApp query came quickly in 3 messages. Per Google Translate:

“The traditional rules in Bali during Nyepi Day are that if you leave the house you will be fined or pay the money that is determined by the custom of not being hit 🙏”

“Putu, you are NOT allowed to leave the house or travel - ok?”

“Only police officers can go out or sick people go to the hospital. Understand, Putu?🙏”

With my question, I had clearly created some anxiety that I might be considering going outside. I hurriedly reassured Komang that I was merely curious and not weighing whether going outside was worth the penalty. I hated the extra few seconds it took to run my reassurance through Google Translate into Indonesian given the angst he was clearly feeling at my question.

After several reassurances, I ventured another question … how much are the fines?

“The fines for each custom are different, some are 50,000 (about $3), some are 100,000 (about $6) and so on. It doesn't matter the size of the fine but the morals or shame if we make a mistake. We have to respect and obey the existing rules 🙏”

I sensed he might still be a little anxious that I was asking, fearing I might be considering getting into trouble. No more questions, I decided.

It’s been raining softly all day long. The first day that’s happened since I arrived 12 days ago. Seems Mother Earth is adding extra incentive for everyone to play by the rules and sending her gracious “Terima Kasih!” (Thank You!)

Photos with my buddy Komang and with the police gang when we met at Masceti Beach the other day. They are all working today patrolling the streets; keeping the entire island safe from demons of all stripes.

03/07/2024

Morning in Ubud

There’s a rooster who lives about 2 doors down from my guesthouse. I really enjoy this rooster. Particularly because he doesn’t start crowing until at least 8 AM. He is singularly responsible for recalibrating my feelings toward roosters.

15 years ago, I came to Bali for the very first time. I arrived in Ubud after dark so I couldn’t see any of my surroundings.

A rooster cock-a-doodle-doo’d early (maybe 5 or 6 AM?) and woke me up. It was the first time I had ever experienced that and I found it utterly charming.

A tiny bit later, someone started playing Puccini on a loudspeaker. I found the idea of Western opera in eastern Bali an interesting and delightful contrast.

This combination finally roused me from bed even though it was earlier than I cared to rise.

I stepped outside my door onto my balcony and, for the first time, discovered to my wide-eyed astonishment, that I was surrounded by shockingly green rice fields in full, mature growth. An ocean of green all around me. Blades of rice leaves were nodding and bobbing in the breeze like waves.

I realized in that moment that a person has never seen green until they’ve seen rice fields. It’s a totally different shade on that spectrum.

The combination of the rooster crowing, Puccini trumpeting and the rice leaves swaying inspired me to write a haiku.

I am not a poetry writer, much less a purveyor of haikus. But travel has way of revealing facets of ourselves we never knew were there.

Morning in Ubud.
Puccini and roosters blend.
I inhale the sounds.

3 days passed.

The rooster continued to rouse everyone in the morning. He apologized profusely for his terrible delay that first morning and promised me it would never happen again. He’d simply been out too late the night before.

From that point on, he was prompt with his 4 am alarm calls. Ugh.

The guest house I stayed in had the same lovely mosaic’d sidewalks in its compound that are prevalent throughout Ubud. Small black rounded river stones make up the bulk of the paths with white and sometimes tan and pink pebbles inserted at regular intervals to create beautiful floral designs.

It was the job of the grandmother in the family compound to sweep them each morning so that they were clear of the leaves and flowers that fell daily from the gorgeous jungle-y garden on the property. She did a VERY thorough job. At 4:30 or 5 am. Every morning.

Perhaps the rooster woke her up daily and, knowing it was futile to try to return to sleep, she would give in, get up and start her chores. Maybe aching hips were the source of her early wakings. I can certainly identify with that at this point in my life. Whatever the reason, her sweeping started VERY early. And she seemed to start at the back of the property on the sidewalk just underneath my room.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced the sound of a broom on mosaic’d stones. I'm here to tell you, it’s NOT quiet. And something about hearing it while trying to sleep amplifies the sound. And did I mention how VERY thorough she was?

Morning in Ubud.
Roosters crow. Brooms scratch sidewalks.
I miss a good sleep.

10 days later.

Cock-a-doodle-doo.
Mr. Rooster, I hate you.
Roosters have no charm.

That month, I tried to eat chicken every day. I always requested that it be a rooster. I was determined to eat every rooster on the entire island of Bali.

Happily, I did not succeed and I can now appreciate this lovely guy who clearly got the message from his ancestors. Cock-a-doodle-doo’s no earlier than 8am, please.

Roosters are, once again, so charming.

03/05/2024

Quintessential Bali style … gardens (even tiny ones created in cracks), offerings on the ground, incense in the air, sculptures elevated with flowers, an exquisitely carved wooden door … with a nod to Hobbit style! ❤️❤️❤️

02/20/2024

Although these came out in 2022, I just now learned about the coolest new stamps celebrating and featuring Vietnamese culinary culture. They are issued by Vietnam Ministry of Information and Communication in conjunction with Vietnam Postal Service.

Three sets have been issued now featuring the cuisine of North, Central and South Vietnam.

I will definitely be picking some up to bring home!

https://vietnamnews.vn/life-style/1343897/new-stamps-on-vietnamese-cuisine-released.html

02/17/2024

I love that, throughout Vietnam, you can buy eggs by the dozen in these adorable little bamboo baskets.

02/14/2024

It’s a bia hơi kind of night!

Just next-door to the apartment I’m staying in in Hanoi, there’s a little street food shop that serves a variety of Vietnamese food along with one of my favorites… bia hơi.

Bia hơi is, among other things, the cheapest and freshest beer in the world! It’s made on a daily basis with no preservatives so whatever is not drunk from the keg that day is tossed.

One glass will usually set you back between 15 and 50¢! Mine tonight was 11,000 d**g = $.47 a glass! Drinking on the expensive side tonight! 😂

Bia hơi was born in the 1950s after the Vietnamese kicked some French butt and sent them packing from their colonialist ways in this land.

The French had brought beer culture to Vietnam, but locals didn’t partake because it was really expensive and it was the drink of their occupier … that’s just bad juju. Also, the Vietnamese preferred to drink their own homemade rice wine at that point.

But during the 1960s, there was a huge rice shortage in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh (known as Uncle Ho or Bac Ho in these parts) banned the use of rice for making alcohol, preserving it exclusively as a food source. But the Vietnamese are drinkers! What were they to do?

They took over the old French brewery - that’s what!

But they couldn’t bottle their beer in glass bottles the way the French had because materials like glass were expensive and extremely scarce at that time. So they started storing it in kegs.

Turns out, the Vietnamese adored this fresh affordable product and beer culture among the everyday citizens was born. It’s a national staple now and with an alcohol content of less than 3%, it’s easy for everyone to partake.

In addition to its history, price and fun fresh taste, I also love the wonky, imperfectly shaped glasses in which it’s served. As I mentioned, glass was at a shortage during the time when bia hơi hit the scene. So everywhere, people collected and recycle the broken glass all around the country. The recycled glass was used to hand make every single drinking glass and that’s still the case even today as all aspects of the tradition of bia hơi continue.

So … cheers! Or as the Vietnamese would say … một hài bạ đó!

10/12/2022

Now that Vietnam has fully reopened their borders, Open Door Travel looks forward to relaunching its tours there in 2023.

Right as the pandemic hit, we were on the verge of expanding our tour offerings to magical Bali and we plan to continue with that in 2023. As with all our tours, the focus will be heavy on culture. And nothing is more important to Balinese culture than spirituality which permeates everything.

Balinese Hinduism is a distinct blend of animism (the belief that each plant, tree, rock and other inanimate objects has a soul), Hinduism and ancestor worship that is quite fascinating. The Balinese believe that demons as well as gods inhabit their island.

And just how does one protect herself from demons??!!

Many of you have expressed to me your great interest in travel to Bali. Until our tours there are up and running, here’s a taste of some of that fascinating culture for you where you can learn how the Balinese keep demons at bay.

All the subtle ways traditional dwellings offer spiritual security.

10/05/2021