Touchdown London
I landed this morning in London Heathrow, 45 minutes early, at 645am on a red eye in from San Francisco. The first half of the week is going to be in Cambridge for a set of meetings facilitated by ARM Limited with the various partners and customers of their IP. Should be quite interesting, and as a bonus I've never been to Cambridge so I'm looking forward to seeing the town. The second half of the week is in London, meeting with various media partners, which is always fun. As always it'll be hectic and somewhat exhausting and jetlag is already starting to slow me down, but I'm looking forward to this week.
Short Trip to Asia, Starting in Beijing
I'm in Beijing at the moment, typing away on my laptop tethered via my Blackberry to the CHN-CUGSM 3G network. Technology is something, isn't it?
We got in to Beijing last night for two customer meetings we have today, then we're off to Korea this evening for a workshop with another customer of ours on Thursday. Beijing is an exceptionally short trip as we kind of tacked it on in front of our meetings in Korea. Since we got in last night we did a quick run through of Tian'anmen Square and then had a fantastic dinner of northern food (including some great knife cut noodles and some amazing jao zi).
I miss China a bunch. The sights, sounds, people and everything about it makes me think back to the times I lived in Shanghai. What I don't miss is the pollution. I've only been to Beijing once before and I don't recall it being this hazy and, well, gross.
Trip to Bangalore
I returned from India on Sunday, after leaving Bombay at 420am, a two hour layover in Dubai, and then a 16 hour flight back to San Francisco. Of my two bags, one was lost and at last check Emirates doesn't know where it is yet. Well played Emirates, well played. I managed to get 10 hours of sleep in last night so we'll see how the jetlag goes.
On my flight from from Bombay to Dubai, I was on the same flight at John Abraham, who apparently is some huge Indian movie star. I had no idea who this guy was except there was a crowd of men and women flanking him everywhere he went. I was in the boarding line with him and the only way I figured out who he was was by reading his name off of his boarding pass and then Googling it.
I left Bangalore on Friday and spent the weekend in Bombay with my sister and my grandma in Santacruz. On Friday night we went to this place called Escobar(great name, eh?) to hang out with and meet my sister's friend. Quite fun.
Spending time in the Bangalore office reminded me a lot of the first few trips I took to the Microsoft Shanghai office in 2005. The team is full of energy, excited and eager to work on cool technology. I love getting to spend time with motivated and excited engineers. The office there is full of talent and I hope to be able to mke it there a few times this year. It's almost alluring enough to make me want to move there for a while. I also had a chance to give a tech talk on Packager for iPhone to the teams there, which was also great.
Getting to Bangalore
I'm in Bangalore this week to work with our engineering team here. That's worth a post on it's own at some point (tons of job related stuff that I should get around to posting). What I wanted to post about how incredible it is to get all the way out to India from the states, and the incredible complexity of travel this far. Our flight from San Francisco, on Emirates, was delayed four hours since the arriving flight from Dubai had not made it in yet. Since there was a huge delay, we ended up missing our connection in Dubai that would have taken us on to Banglore, thus we stayed in the Dubai airport for six hours waiting for the next flight. Made it to Bangalore Monday ~8am, an hour and a half ride later we were at our hotel then went on to the office.
Bangalore is a pretty impressive city. For one it feels a bit more progressive than other Indian cities I've been in. I was last in India January 2009, in Mumbai. The streets are quite clean, and there's signage everywhere that says "don't drink and drive" (in English). In fact, at this one round-a-bout, there's a (for lack of a better word) sculpture of a guy who hit a tree on his scooter that says something like "don't let this be you." There are apparently four subway lines coming to the city, with one supposed to be opening this year. Given how bad the traffic is here, that should be a godsend. It takes us ~30m to travel the ~5km to the office. Yikes.
We're here working with the team to design a bunch of the major components of the product that will be made here (again, I should blog on the latest job news) and to kick off our next few sprints. It's fun to work with energetic thinkers and spend time brainstorming on the whats and hows of our work.
I'm here till Friday, when I leave for Mumbai to spend the weekend with my sister. From there, it's back to the states on Sunday.
Hue and Halong Bay and Hanoi
On Wednesday we started the journey from Hoi An to Hanoi, via Hue. Our bus left at 730am and we managed to get the prior day's shopping shipped out from Hoi An via mail so we didn't have to lug it around. The bus ride was quick and we met some Australian girls who we ended up spending time with on and off the rest of the trip.
Hue was nice, with large leafy streets, but brutally hot an humid. We had a total of four (yep) hours in the city during which we in effect chartered a AC'ed taxi and saw the Citadel, the Tu Duc Tomb, and the Thien Mu padoga. It was a whirlwind tour through the city and we even had enough time to book our return flights from Hanoi to Saigon.
Back at the bus by 5pm, it had started to rain a little bit so that among other reasons (which were totally opaque to us), the bus took off late for the 15 hour ride to Hanoi. The buses were the sleeper type, which meant there were nearly lie flat individual bunks to sleep on. While that may sound somewhat comfortable, it's not at all. They were barely padded and the start and stop traffic all through the night meant I probably put in 6 hours of sleep.
While on the bus, we managed to find a Halong Bay tour operator which said we had to get to their office by 9am sharp to make the bus to Halong Bay. As soon as we arrived in Hanoi we found the first cab we found and hightailed it across town to catch the next three hour bus to the bay. Total time on a bus in transit from Hoi An to Halong Bay was roughly 30 hours!
Thankfully we made it on time, and set out for the two day, one night cruise along the bay and the lime outcroppings in the UNESCO-protected Halong Bay. It was a beautiful day to be on the water, and the geology of the surroundings is something otherworldly. One of the other passengers on the junk was a Dutch oil geologist who we went part of the evening chatting with on how the formations came to be, which added bit of color to the picture.
On the bay, we rented kayaks and paddled about two hours (or so) total, first out from our junk to a beach where we climbed some 450 steps to a pagoda at the top of an island. From there we paddled for a while until we finally came to an opening in one of the mountain facs that was maybe 10 feet high and 30 feet across. We paddled through it which lead to an incredible open lagoon. By the time we paddled out, our junk at arrived at the opening and the crew lashed the kayaks up as we went in to the water for a swim.
The water in the bay is bath tub temperature. Given the surroundings are in the 90s it's not terribly surprising. While that sounds idyllic, we had heard from our tour guide that the waters in the area have some box jellyfish present, and unfortunately they managed to sting both Brendan and Dan. The jellyfish isn't poisonous, but it's as described by them "it felt like an scalpel cutting your leg". Apparently there was a jellyfish sitting near the ladder that was used to climb out, and both of the guys had the misfortune to get their a leg each wrapped in the tendrils.
They sat writhing in pain for a few hours that eventually subsided, we slept in our cabins on the junk and made our way back to land by mid day. Our return put us back in Hanoi around 4pm, after which we explored the old town and made bookings for an evening water puppet show.
Old Town Hanoi is quite lovely. It's bristling with motorcycles and bicycles and more than once I was nearly clipped by one, but it and the city seem like they'd be a great place to spend some time. By the time we got back to the hotel, the aforementioned Aussie girls had left us a note to hang out later since we were at the same hotel. We went to the water puppet show, which was fantastic. There was an 8 piece traditional Vietnamese orchestra playing music to the water puppetry.
After the show we met up with our friends and ended up stumbling upon an all you can eat ice cream buffet that happens the first Friday of every month. Needless to say, that ended up being our dinner. After walking along the lake back and taking photo booth pictures in the night market, we returned to the hotel and everybody has turned in for the night.
Tomorrow begins the return leg of our journey. We fly from Hanoi to Saigon at 11am, then Saigon to Tokyo at 11pm. There's a ~10 hour layover in Tokyo on Sunday, during which I think we're planning on going to Tokyo proper via the JR Express. We're also planning during the day to meet up with Justin in Saigon for the afternoon and do any last minute shopping.
Hoi An
[originally posted Tue June 30 2009 at 5:44pm]
We've been in Hoi An for two days now, after arriving Monday morning via train. We settled in to our rooms at a nice little budget hotel right off of the main town area and got on our way to explore the old town. I'd heard tons of the bespoke shoes and suits that are made here so purchasing one was on the agenda, as well.
After winding our way through the maze that is the old city, we finally settled on a suitmaker whose recommendation had come from some New Zealanders we'd met in Nha Trang. I ended up purchasing two suits (one three piece gray and one black pinstripe) and two shirts. We picked them up for a fitting today and they both turned out great. The best part? The price -- the whole package was just over $100! After (or before?) shopping we stopped in to a restaurant along the waterfront to try Cau Lau noodles, a dish that Hoi An is famous for. They're basically grittier (texture-wise) and thicker pho noodles that were in the same soup, but served with fried dough (like croutons). Needless to say, they were delicious.
The rest of the time in between was interspersed walking around the town and alleyways exploring the area. After clothes shopping (and the guys stopping in a few other stores to get some other jackets and the like), we met up with Rachel and her sister for dinner at a waterfront and finished the evening up a few beers (and working to avoid some rather annoying young American and British backpackers).
Today we went to the My Son ruins, about 45km outside of Hoi An. The weather was easily in the high 90s and probably crossing in to the 100s. The sites were beautiful, old Hindu relics that reminded me of a little version of Angor Wat. We explored the ruins for a few hours until the crushing heat sent us back to Hoi An.
We spent the afternoon getting the alterations done to our clothes, and then afterward sat outside of a sandwich cart (Bánh mì) while eating our sandwiches (vegetarian of course). While sitting down, the women who owned the store we got our clothes at came over and joined us for over an hour talking about life in Vietnam, her family, the store, life when she was a kid and when she opened the store. It was truly fascinating having a conversation with her and talking about the two worlds we came from.
The trip is entering the back half of journey. It's already Tuesday here, and our flights out of Saigon are on Saturday evening via Tokyo. We've got bus tickets tomorrow at 7am to Hue, where we have a four hour stop over in order to catch our 16 hour bus to Hanoi, thus putting us in Hanoi Thursday morning. Hopefully we'll get the chance to do a day or overnight tour through Halong Bay, and if not enjoy Hanoi. We've got to get on an airplane from Hanoi to Saigon Friday or Saturday in order to make our flights out (and meet up with Justin for a day in Saigon as he starts his trip).
Diving in Nha Trang and Leaving for Hoi An
[originally posted Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 10:16pm
We woke up this morning at 7:30am to catch our ride to our dive boat for a day of diving on the islands off of Nha Trang. I've never been diving before so I signed up for a "discovery" dive, which is basically a tandem dive with a dive master. The ride out to the dive sites was ~50 minutes and the diving was fantastic. There was a ton to sea underwater and the ocean was really clear. I did two dives, and in the in between time we snorked the waters. The diving pretty much like snorkling, only you're a lot deeper and about a thousand times closer to the coral and sea life. Saw some moray eels and a lot of other fish I'll never be able to identify.
After about four hours out on the water we returned back to the city at 2ish and made plans with some of the other people we'd met diving to have dinner later in the evening. We had some pho as a late lunch and then hung out for a while, bumming around. We had a lovely dinner with the people we met which provided perhaps the culinary hilight of the trip so far -- an order of monitor lizard.
We also decided to try to find transport out of Nha Trang to continue our trek north, but as it turned out the sleeper train to Da Nang was sold out tonight, and all the sleeper buses were also sold out. For a brief moment we had hopes that seats in the sleeper bus avaiable, but by the time we pulled the trigger, the tickets were sold out. Long story short, we're on a upright seat train tonight to Hoi An / Da Nang. We'll see how it goes -- we leave at 11:18pm and arrive at 9ish in the morning. Sitting in a seat for that long with a pack does not seem like it'll be fun, but I'm looking forward to seeing Hoi An tomorrow.
Nha Trang
We reached Nha Trang this morning after taking the overnight train from Saigon. Our time in Saigon was brief and towards the end of the day we got caught in a monsoon type of storm. The rain poured from probably 5pm to 10ish, by which time we were on the train heading to Nha Trang. The ride was pretty uneventful, given that our trip was from 11pm to 530am. On our way out, we almost were stuck on the train at the Nha Trang station as we missed the cue that said when people deboarding and people boarding swapped and had the conductor yelling at us to get off the train before it left the station.
Nha Trang itself is a lovely beach town. Given how early we arrived as soon as we had our first room available we managed to catch a few naps, and then went out to eat and lounge by the beach. In the evening, we caught up with a old coworker of mine who was also in Nha Trang, Rachel, and her sister before they were about to leave for Hoi An. After walking the beach for a while, we bought overnight sleeper bus tickets for Monday night for Hoi An as well as signing up for a discovery scuba trip tomorrow morning.
It's not too late here, maybe 10pm, but the train ride's house and jetlag are catching up so it's an early night for our group.
Landed in Saigon
We landed in Saigon late last night after our flight was 40 minutes late but we were picked up by the hotel in our only plannned thing of the trip. We checked in and met Dan who had arrived in the morning. After taking a few minutes to freshen up we went on a walk and found ourselves at a late night pho joint. The place was very cool. They had 30 of so plastic chairs outside and a fleet of waiters (and also what appeared to be a very make shift cyclo valet service). We ordered pho and beers and hung out for an hour or so. After eating we came back to the hotel and did some light planning. Looking like today we're thinking of going to the market to visit the "noodle lady" who is apparently serving lemongrass something today. After that we're planning on going to Sinh Cafe to book either an overnight bus or train to Nha Trang.
Heading to Vietnam
I'm at the airport heading to Vietnam for basically summer vacation. We've got a couple of friends going and others who are meeting mid trip and at the end. The goal is to make of from Saigon to Hanoi in about 8ish days and fly back at the end for our return flight back. I'll be blogging hopefully most of the trip. Should be fun!