From China with love

We are now in Northen China, in an amazing little fortified town named Pingyao, placed on the UN World Heritage List, that comes right out of medieval times.
In addition to its obvious attractions for tourists, we love it for being a small town, the first one under a few million inhabitants since we entered the country.
China has surprised us again and again. Our expectations and preconceived ideas have been blown away, in proportions not matched by any other countries.

Major constructions seem to compete everywhere. We saw impressive brand-new highways with just a few cars on them, new buildings, and not to forget the publicized projects we won't have time to see, like the Three Gorge Dam (largest in the world; 1.5 million people relocated) and the recently completed railroad to Tibet (a feat of engineering, great PR for China, although may be not that good for Tibetans). Beijing is said to be under major work for the Olympics of 2008.
Cities are huge, with broad modern avenues that make one wonder how many people were relocated to create that (I saw this sad reality in Lhassa, Tibet, a few years back; how an old historical city can be defaced. Of course, the Baron Haussmann was both hailed and lauded for doing the same to Old Paris). For instance the town of Xi'an, famous for its terra-cotta army, has now within its ramparts a broad avenue that reminds me of Paris' Champs Elysée, with most luxury brands present. That in a country that massively produces cheap copies of all products displayed in their windows. Who here can afford the originals?

More to say, but I won't bother you with it. I will just finish this post by mentioning that the language barrier sucks! Although one nice aspect of "Chinenglish" is found in signs like the ones posted here.

Photos from Cambodia

(En Français plus bas)
We are in Hanoi, back from three relaxing days in the magnificent Ha Long bay.
Since Vietnam's capital itself is nothing relaxing, and we already spent too much time here to obtain our chinese visas, we are very much looking forward to crossing the border tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, here are our pictures from Cambodia.


Nous sommes a Hanoi, de retour de la magnifique baie de Ha Long ou nous avons passé trois jours très reposant.
La capitale du Vietnam n'étant absolument pas reposante, et puisque nous y avons déja passé trop de temps pour obtenir nos visas chinois, nous sommes prets a franchir la frontière demain. Malheureusement, il ne nous reste qu'une douzaine de jours pour visiter cet immense pays, donc nous serons tres sélectifs.

En attendant, voici nos photos du Cambodge.

Vietnamese Big Brother

It's been about a week since I was last able to view my blog. I can still post new entries or edit existing ones, but that's all.

As a basic end-user, I could only blame it on these lazy computer guys at Blogger.com who don't seem to realize the seriousness of my predicament. What about my numerous readers who, no doubt about it, await with anguish my prose?

Then it came to my mind to check other blogs at random. None of them could be viewed either. It downed on me that the censorship had struck!
My parents confirmed it by viewing as usual the SimplyThierry page, from their vacation house in Normandy.

The way it works is that entries are done on Blogger.com, whereas the viewing is on Blogspot.com (don't ask me why), and the later site seems to have been blocked about a week ago by the Vietnamese authorities.

Although I know Blogger.com can't do much about this, the ironic thing is, I shouldn't expect much sympathy from them, since their parent company Google has been bashed again recently for its support of governmental censorship in China, along with its competitors Yahoo and Microsoft.

I thought about using Anonymizer.com to circumvent the blockade and view my blog, but unlike Iranians who are in the thoughts of the US government, the Vietnamese people don't have this option.

---

Update 18/08/06
Not sure who is playing with the plug, but now Blogspot is viewable again in Vietnam... We'll see how it goes in China.

Delon qui rit

Cela fait du bien de voir que la France exporte. Nos deux figures nationales les plus présentes dans ce que l'on appelait l'Indochine sont, a ma grande surprise, Alain Delon et la Vache Qui Rit.

Au Cambodge le beau Alain, est visible sur des panneaux publicitaires géants, pour vendre ses cigarettes au "goût de Paris". C'est impressionnant, les paquets bordeaux portant son nom se trouvent partout.

Mais la véritable star est notre vache rouge préférée. Sa couleur a peut être aidé ses ventes auprès des Khmers Rouges, et du Vietnam socialiste. Toujours est il que c'est le fromage le plus commun, et de beaucoup, dans ces deux pays. Heureusement ces ex-colonies françaises ont eut la bonne idée non seulement d'obtenir leur indépendance, mais aussi de garder la recette des baguettes, dont la consommation est très fréquente, et les vendeurs de rue offriront donc un sandwich a la Vache Qui rit et concombres, et autres legumes verts. Delicieux !