GOOD MANNERS AROUND THE WORLD

All is good, but with the bump in my tummy I was afraid I'd start talking only baby stuff or football so, I decided to take a break until things calm down in the bump department.:) We know now the little one is safe and bouncing.

Moving along, Ake passed down to me an interesting article that appearred in several newspapers around the world - A GOOD MANNERS survey in the world's biggest cities.

World of Courtesy: Ranking of 35 Cities

Below is a ranking of the most courteous to the least courteous -- 35 major cities included in RD(Reader Digest)'s Global Courtesy Test. Figures reflect the percentage of people who passed in each city. When multiple cities had identical scores, they are listed in alphabetical order.

New York USA 80%
Zurich Switzerland 77
Toronto Canada 70
Berlin Germany 68
São Paulo Brazil 68
Zagreb Croatia 68
Auckland New Zealand 67
Warsaw Poland 67
Mexico City Mexico 65
Stockholm Sweden 63
Budapest Hungary 60
Madrid Spain 60
Prague Czech Republic 60
Vienna Austria 60
Buenos Aires Argentina 57
Johannesburg South Africa 57
Lisbon Portugal 57
London United Kingdom 57
Paris France 57
Amsterdam Netherlands 52
Helsinki Finland 48
Manila Philippines 48
Milan Italy 47
Sydney Australia 47
Bangkok Thailand 45
Hong Kong 45
Ljubljana Slovenia 45
Jakarta Indonesia 43
Taipei Taiwan 43
Moscow Russia 42
Singapore 42
Seoul South Korea 40
Kuala Lumpur Malaysia 37
Bucharest Romania 35
Mumbai India 32

Note from the Editors:

Our Three Tests

We sent out undercover reporters—half of them men, half women—from Reader’s Digest editions in 35 countries to assess the citizens of their biggest cities. (In Canada, we tested the people of our two largest population centres, Toronto and Montreal.) In each location we conducted three tests:

• We walked into public buildings 20 times behind people to see if they would hold the door open for us.

• We bought small items from 20 stores and recorded whether the sales assistants said thank you.

• We dropped a folder full of papers in 20 busy locations to see if anyone would help pick them up.

To allow us to compare cities, we awarded one point for each positive outcome and nothing for a negative one, giving each city a maximum score of 60. We did not attempt a strict scientific survey; it was the world’s biggest real-life test of common courtesy, with more than 2,000 tests of actual behaviour.

So, which city emerged as the most polite and which as the rudest? Here’s what we discovered:

The Top Three: New York, Zurich, Toronto

Carmen Says...

Bucharest - No surpise for me here, Bucharest hanging onto a 34th place, just ahead of Mumbai...Romanians are gonna be the first to say that people in our capital are used to bossing everyone around and wether you speak Romanian or not, getting proper directions or a decent taxi is a huge struggle there. Everytime foreigners tell me 'Oh, you're from Romania? I've been to Bucharest!'...I'll go ' Boy, that must have been awful, cause for me it is...every time..'

Bangkok - Yeap, I can totaly see how Thais would fail the 'hold the door for the next person' test...Everyone just marches in, not to mention squeezes in trains, buses...and, boy, getting a seat on the sky train in Bangkok at rush hour is a challenge EVEN if your 8-9 months pregnant. That's so far one of my biggest disapoitments with Thais..Rats! My friend was in labour several months ago in the BTS (sky train) and NOT ONE person stood up, until Jen made a loud remark...Having said that, Bangkok's 45 points were prabably Thank yous and helping hands in picking up stuff..

New - York - I'm a fan! I love the city...although I must say it didn't strike me as THE MOST POLITE, I can't also remember any incidents when people weren't polite.
Am I getting old? :)

I'm surprised that Budapest and Warsaw are highly positioned...I expected them to be Bucharest's better buddies. Good on them!

Times online - source

What's up...

1 - We've been on baby routine for weeks now...but hurray as the first trimester comes to an end I'm getting my strength back, though I'm not out of the 10 hour sleeping patterns.

2 - It's agreed, there'll be no flying this year, so the coming summer holiday we'll rely on the car, maybe train. North of Thailand is the number one destination, however that looks a bit far, and our 20 year old Toyota has long lost any hill challenges, so maybe just NORTH of Bangkok will do. :)

3 - Number one on the waiting list is Merryl Streep's movie, 'the devil wears Prada'. I've always loved her. I could watch Out of Africa a million times. Ahhh, when Robert Redford washes her hair...:)

4 - Of course, the world cup. Betting has started at work and we're all up to our neck in statistics...It's great! The football fever!. I've put in my dad's predictions as well and boy, there was a bit of dissapointment on the Englishmen side when he predicted England out - second round ('He's serious? England out so early? - We'll , you'll be crossing blades with Germany and Sweden).

I haven't put in my predictions cause I'm stuck with the African teams. All those newcomers that'll be there to give their best shot ever, Togo, Angola, Ivory Coast.

Dad's no 1 contender is still BRAZIL...I'm hoping Czech Republic or Argentina.

Not too much hope for France, Italy (sorry Roberto :)), Japan.

Curious about Spain and England, always aiming high but hardly making it to quarter finals.

Da da da...

Just feeling a bit nostalgic today, checking some traveling sites. Yeap, no more traveling this year. My rucsac will be all 'rusted' over.

But then again who has the energy. One of the great things about having a bump in your tummy is that you sleeeep a lot...I'm basically like a 3 year old. I need my naps, my 10 hour nights, I'm spoiled rotten...and... IT'S GREAT!!

pouring...

We've entered the rainy season, so the fun is officially over. We stacked our cameras on the shelf after our last failed attempt to shoot on Sunday Ake's cousin becoming a monk ceremony. It's was pouring again. In fact reasonably clear skies will have to wait till September. To get an idea, it rains heavily pretty much every day, so guess where we're hiding? Cinemas...

After all the controversies, The Da Vinci Code made it to Thailand, funnily enough with constat Thai subtitles reminders "Be advised : It's fiction!"...I know probably half the world read it, but I just started reading a book so I saw the movie with no reading comparison. While it isn't one of my favorites, I really liked it..a well paced, intriguing enough....an Indiana Jones feeling.

The sad/funny thing was that just as the movie started this guy sat next to us. He had the 2 smelliest feet ever...to the point where Ake dropped the Thai politeness and said to the guy :"Oh, God!!! Man , you totally stink!" Don't know what he did...but the overwhealming odor seemed to diminish and we watched the movie in peace. :)

Woman in HANOI


Hanoi's Old Quarter in home to all the tourist guesthouses with a cool Vietnamese touch serving excellent bread and cheese for breakfast and to large number of the old Vietnamese generation.

The Lake that rests in the middle of the quarter is just gorgeous looking...you've got the lovers (by Asian standards I thought Vietnamese guys were quite up front and confident), the retired bunch and office gang looking for a mid day break.

I couldn't help thinking that all these old guys were the ones that fought in the war and the women the ones that fed the country throughg those rough times.
They looked very peacefull and contemplative smoking their cigars, reading the comunist papers, playing Chinese Chess...

Mission Impossible III

The actually did it!!! They made Mission Impossible without showing the mission. All you know at the end is that Cruise gets in and puff puff a bunch of guys and steals the rabbits foot which we're left to guess it's some chemical weapon.

Bottom line is...among several dodgy survival scenes (Yeap, Cruise has just about 9 lives), there some good moments which truly resemble original idea of the movie. The first half is captivating, but the second one is more like 'the hero saves the day, and darn it, we don't even know how'. The bad guy, Philip Seymour Hoffman is an ace. Best point about Cruise, he's unbelievably fit, or we're left to believe so, but anyway, it looks good.

MI I stays a classic. MI III overtakes MI II, which I thought was a disaster.

Entertaining!

Hanoi - The Water Puppet Theater

Fabulous really!

We got first row seats and my only regret was that I could not see any of the kids behind. The show was magical. Bright colored paper-mache puppets, live Vietnamese folk music, few words and great simple stories, plating rice, catching fish, going to school and getting married -Vietnamese style.

The absolut highlight of Hanoi for us. As we read in Lonely Planet, the water puppet theater is one of the UNIQUE things about Vietnam. Superb!

What else is new? ...nothin' much really...another jam in Bangkok.

Hill People - Cat Cat Village - Vietnam

Here's our favorite Vietnamese. This old guy was peacefully walking the hills around the Cat Cat village near Sapa, minding his own bussiness, stoping at time sipping the cold air and enjoying the scenery.
We managed to get up close when, as we were chatting with some guys around they called him in Vietnamese to check out how Thai coins look like. He took one, turned over and handed it back smiling. We told him that he could keep it as a souvenir if he wanted to. He nodded as to say 'Thank you' and walk away happy, tossing the coin around.




Best of all, out on the hills the villagers around Sapa were casually following their daily routines. People approached us rarely and it felt like being a fly in a Vietnamese village.

The Hills of Sapa - Northern Vietnam



Some of the most pitoresque hikes in Vietnam are those around Sapa. Gorgeous place indeed. Poor foreigners catching their breath while patroling the rice paddies while, naturally, the Hmong think nothing of it.


The lower hils are so wonderfully sectioned in rice paddies, higher past 2000 m the jungle rules. We were considering hiking Fansipan, the tallest peak in Vietnam but once we read the requirements (fit chaps = 2 days, regular guys (like us) = 4 days) we decided strolling around on the lower hills (1500 m) was good enough for us.



As I said, our first stop at Bac Ha we were pretty much ignored by the locals. Sapa was strange and funny most times, cause 70 year Hmong grannies were shouting stuff in English at us, normally selling all kinds of embroidery (good looking stuff - I cracked under pressure and I bought some in the end - actually I really loved colors), and kids were either innocently charming (again running empty bottocks through the rice paddies) or ferocious entrepreneurs chasing us for miles to sell us stuff. I believe they must hold the world record here: we had 2 10 year old girls walking behind us with merchandise for 30 min. Patience is a virtue, right!

Food in Vietnam


Although we never had a bad meal in Vietnam, in fact all our meals were from 8-10, we missed the spices. One thing we were convinced of was, that pretty much all South East Asia indulges in spices. Not Vietnam! I know Thais are literally nuts when it comes to chilli, but Vietnamese chilli is even weaker that Hungarian paprika which is pretty much the European Standard for spicyness. Nevertheless, you gotta try the PHO BO and PHO GA (noodles) and the absolutely delicious fried bamboo (forgot how it's called).

More on vietnamese food later with some of our hottest bakery picks.

Again - our first stop - Bac Ha Market...

Blasts at Dahab - Egypt

No, we're not in Egypt, but a good friend of ours is, right in the heart of the last bombings...He's a pretty good observer and not one to loose it over small things. His story follows:

"It's been about 3 hours since the blasts went off. Still shaken up but things are quiet and people around me seem to be calming down. The huge window to my left has been blown out.

I was just getting ready to go out for dinner and was sitting on my bed when the first explosion went, five seconds later another and maybe 2 seconds later another. My eyes were closed and just remember asking for the Lord's protection. I stood up and waited for a moment , then heard people screaming. Went to the window and saw a crowd running away from the boardwalk which is lined with shops and restaurants. Looked around the room to decide what to take , grabbed my napsack and opened my door. My hut is on the roof and 2 huge plumes of smoke greeted me about 50 metres
away, the scene of the 2nd and 3rd explosions. Looked down into the courtyard and people were frantically running through the camp in an effort to get away from the
carnage.

Ran down the stairs and tried to listen to what people were saying. Some had blood on their clothing ,people were crying and everyone was in shock. I was thinking bomb at that moment but I also hoped that maybe a gas cylinder or something exploded. When I saw the Egyptians who work at our camp running and screaming I thought to myself ,"You need to get out of here now".

Dahab is so isolated though , there's nowhere to go except out into the desert. Decided to stay put , others were rushing to the scene but I learned a very important lesson from terrorists bombings in South Africa during the 70's and 80's , never flock to a bombing scene. If terrorists are looking to maximise casualties then another bomb near the scene is waiting to explode.

All the foreigners were now grouped together in the courtyard. Standing amongst them I thought to myself that if I was a suicide bomber that this is exactly where I'd be , so I moved away. An Egyptian guy walked up to me with a confrontational frown and asked me what my room number was. I realised how suspicious I looked with my complexion , carrying a knapsack and wearing a shirt with Hebrew writing on it. Tried the internet but the lines were down , didn't have a phonecard and still refuse to carry a cellphone so couldn't call anyone.

An Israeli guy shouted if anyone was from Israel , he was planning on heading out immediately back to the border. I went to stand next to him to find out what he saw. He was in a restaurant on the first floor of the building next to the blasts. He said he saw at least 2 people lying on the ground after the bang and the white light. 2 other Israelis were with him , one of them had a grandmother killed in the suicide
bombing in Tel Aviv a week ago. Thought about mobs wanting to take out their anger on someone and moved away from them and turned my shirt inside out. Loud music from the shops and restaurants were shut off and the only regular sound was the call to prayer from the mosque. Thought that was quite ominous really since fundamentalism had struck again.

Two guys were wounded in the camp and they were carted away , one was bleeding badly but he was conscious. Finally I ventured up to the entrance of the camp and looked at the damage. Things were cordoned off by now and I decided to walk down the promenade in the opposite direction. Came to my favourite restaurant with the owner and his staff and family standing outside. Stopped to see how he was holding up. He rushed out after the explosions to check on his 4 kids who usually play outside. I was just talking to him the night before while paying my bill about them. Once he knew they were safe he went to the bombing site. He told me that he thought he could handle it but he ended up throwing up at what he saw. Body parts were strewn all over the place. While we were chatting an Italian lady came by looking for her son , she was
beside herself and kept muttering that Tarriek was dead. The restaurant owner told me that she was married to an Egyptian , I hope that wasn't her son.

I wondered off to the rest of the promenade , few shops or restaurants were open. Flickering lights across the Gulf of Aqaba from Saudi Arabia can be seen , wondered
if Al Qaida had anyting to do with this. I hadn't eaten for the day yet but found a store open near my camp , the window was also shattered by the blast. Back at the camp now , roads around Dahab have been sealed off , nobody's is going anywhere tonight.

Might as well stay put and get some sleep."

Be safe!

Vietnam - Bac Ha - Hmong Tribe Market


First thing that striked me in Vietnam was the comunist propaganda in Hanoi...It felt like a trip back in time, seeing the same old mother, child and daddy with the ax working together for a better future.

Fortunately for us, we'd read about the Sunday's locals market in Northern Vietnam in a tiny place called Bac Ha. It was said to be one of the most colourful in Asia. Who can pass that out? Airport - train station - tickets to Bac Ha - 4 hours roaming around Hanoi - overnight train to Lao Cai - 50 year old bus to Bac Ha...

In less than 24 hours we were in the middle of these fascinating people, children running around empty bottocks at 10 C. men casually smoking pot and driking the local firewater (looked and smelled just as our Palinca), 2 month old piggy backs, everyone selling everything but the shirt on their back. On of the cruel things was that puppies were sold alongside with piglets and chicks (i don't mean to say I don't care about baby pigs, but, please, not the puppies...)

Funny enough they were ingoring us most of the time with a few exeptions of women trying to sell me knitted bags. That part was the best, being ingored I mean (that turned to be a pest in later in Sapa where we couldn't get the locals off our backs). We had our cameras and without being too obvious, we were snapping away...

This was my abosolute favorite thing about Vietnam, so following are some of my shots!:) - Carmen

Language Trouble

Last minute details. I was checking the train fares between Hanoi and one of our Northern destionations as I remembered it, Lau Chai...Strangely enough, it seemed difficult to find any buses taking us from Lau Chai to Sapa, our main base up North. Why? Cause I bloody got lost between Lau Chai and Lai Chau...;) While Lao Chai is the last train stop in Vietnam before entering China and some 30 km from Sapa, Lai Chau is in the middle of nowhere, but still, in Northern Vietnam. That was a close one!:)

We've exchanged our money into USDollars which are just as easy to trade as in Vietnamese Dong. Apparently most foreigners can't keep track of the thousands and thousands of Dong you need for a decent meal. But, hey, I'm from Romania, where all are millionaires there, so BRING IT ON! :))

A last batch of photos from the Thai Red Cross Event couple weeks ago. Great fun! Excellent food!

Signing off... Carmen:)

Ake for [PhotoSharks]


Street Made food in Thailand.

Countdown to Vietnam

2 days to Vietnam, so, other than work which has been good, we spend our evenings reading up our Lonely Planet guide and soaking up of whatever photos we can find on the web. Our best find was www.terragalleria.com Check it out! It's worth it!

Camera-wise, we bought this cool two camera bag. Looks like a maze inside and everythings fits in so nicely. Add couple more side pockets for big lens and a tripod support and there you have it! Ake will do the honors and carry our treasure pack, while Carmenuca will do... what women do these day in SE Asia: shop and sip ice tea.

Songkran - [intro]

I've finished an arduous week of work, and now it's time to play. Actually I was running on auto-pilot for couple of days. 5 days to Vietnam!

It's the end of term 2 for international schools here. That translates into reports and certificates and Thai New Year Parties. The Thai kids, on the other hand, have been on holiday for weeks now, and there all out in the streets with water guns and water buckets (No kiddin and No mercy). I love Songkran, the Thai New Year, but occasionally things get out of hand (happens everywhere right?) like last year for ex. we had drunk Thais (poor guys had a beer or two ;)) serenading us until dawn. :)