Year of No Flying

Travel, it seemed, was all about avoiding tourists. During our trip so far, we often got advice like "don't bother going there" or "go there, it hasn't been discovered yet." Travel tips that wrote off whole countries particularly made me cringe. Tourists just like us had used and abused these poor countries, chewing them up and now spitting them out. Anirvan describes it as the virgin/whore complex, applied to countries.

Pioneering international travelers may have have had a lighter footprint (when they weren't wearing the boots of colonialism), but in being unable to keep their "discoveries" a secret, they opened the door for mass market tourism, and for the creation of cringe-worthy places like Khao San Road in Bangkok and the beaches of Sihanoukville in Cambodia. Places like this seemed to have emerged out of a vacuum, utterly unrelated to the spaces they were located, targeting a certain kind of tourist, who wants to be hundreds of miles away from home, and be the same person (but more cheaply, with less supervision). To these tourists, I wanted to say, please stay home, and stop embarrassing us.

There were also places that were crowded with tourists, but for good reason, having been blessed (or cursed) with natural or architectural wonders. It would be difficult to keep the Taj under wraps. A friend recommended a tour guide at Angkor Wat, saying "At sunrise he took us to places that people go for sunset, at sunset he took us where people go at sunrise." We weren't able to book the recommended guide, but we liked the idea, and we tried to keep it as a guiding principle in our travels, as we too learned to appreciate the complicated pleasures of avoiding tourists. We first put it to use when we visited the My Son temples in Vietnam. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 4:00 AM so we could be one with the ruins at 6:00 AM--the bus hordes arrived at 8:00 AM. Not being morning people, we were both irritable, wondering if it was worth losing sleep. Our group was the first to arrive at the site, just eight of us in the small area that contained the ruins. We wandered and photographed at our own pace, finding ourselves alone in the quiet silence of the stones, and mused about how we seemed to like the temple better in ruins, than as the gaudy temples they might have been while active. As we were leaving, we saw busload after busload of tourists arrive right behind us. We were converted.

But there is consolation yet for those like us who enjoy late nights rather than early mornings. Our first day in Siem Reap, we headed out to catch Angkor Wat at sunset. We alighted from the tuk tuk only to see masses of tourists heading out of the complex to the wall by the moat to watch as the silhouette of the temple emerged. It was tempting to join them to watch the sunset, but instead we headed right in. There we were by ourselves again. We wandered the corridors and courtyards, taking in every precious moment of solitude, even more pronounced by the deafening song of the cicadas. We were in a dream until the guard came to find us to escort us out; we were among the last to leave before closing time.

We returned to Angkor the next day, with another guide. We were lost among the larger temples and the tourists, culminating in a sunset-watching orgy with what seemed like every tourist in town. We needed a change in strategy. So the next day, we headed out early for a more intimate experience with the gods. Predating Angkor Wat by 200 years, Kbal Spean is the site of a charming river that flows over at least a thousand lingas carved into the river bed, along with images of Vishnu and Lakshmi. The lingas were carved here in the belief that the water that flowed over them would be purified, very similar to the belief among Hindus in India that pouring water over a Shivling makes the water holy. In the morning light, we were two of only four people at the site, making this a most memorable experience. That evening, we returned to Angkor Thom, knowing that everyone else would be watching the sunset elsewhere (as we had the night before). The striking giant four-sided smiling Brahma heads smiled upon us, assuring us we had made the right decision.

In running away from other tourists, we discovered the joy of local shopping malls. This was particularly shocking to us, because at home we avoid malls like the plaque. Unlike the tourist sites, where we ran from crowds, at malls we reveled among crowds of locals. We joined locals buying clothes, getting haircuts, sampling mall food, watching movies, and avoiding schoolkids running to play video games after school. In a Hiroshima mall, we saw a local boy band selling cosmetics to crowds of young women. In a mall in Bangkok, we stumbled upon an evening of free Thai boxing. The drama of everyday life unfolded before us, and we took it all in, and yet aware that only certain segments of society could inhabit these palaces of consumerism.

But that most elusive experience of truly being in a place was found along the banks of the Tonle Sap in Phnom Penh in Cambodia. We were caressed by the lovely breeze as we sat by the river at sunset. Street kids played along the banks of the river, stopping to shake hands with foreigners, some of whom refused, but the children were unfazed. The reflection of the full moon shimmered in the water and lit tourist boats making their way down the river, along with boats that were part of the Photo Phnom Penh art installation. And then out of nowhere there was Western 80s pop music playing, and a crowd of Cambodians, men, women, children of many ages and sizes, about thirty in total, following an instructor leading the group through what was dance, exercise and aerobics. It looked like so much fun that I almost joined, but shy as I was, I moved to the music only at a distance. Even the presence of sex tourists nearby could not spoil the moment. Here, local needs and tourist needs confluenced and conflicted, but in a most interesting manner--and it was evident that the locals were still winning. As lovers of public space and the delicious slices of life it offers up, we were in heaven.

Related slideshows:

• Kbal Spean--valley of a thousand lingas
• Stilt houses of Kompong Phluk in Cambodia,
• Monk Stalking in South East Asia

It had been more than a decade since I had been on a long distance train. Long train journeys are woven into the fabric of my childhood. Every summer Ma, Daddy and I would make the annual trip from Bangalore to Kolkata to see our families. When Anirvan and I talked about traveling by train instead of by air, all the old memories came flooding back, the excitement and the trials. We took high speed trains all over Japan, but the romance of train travel really kicked in in while traveling from Shanghai to Hanoi.

We'd always travel in summer--hot, humid and crowded. You went expecting to spend maybe an hour at the station before boarding your train, then ended up spending a day on the platform, never knowing when the delayed train would actually leave. Meanwhile, family members who had waited a year to see you consoled themselves by saying that they could wait one more day, as you consoled yourself in the hope and anticipation of seeing them. The train journey from Bangalore to Kolkata took 3 days and 2 nights with a stop in Chennai for a change of trains. It was here that everything fell apart. Our train would arrive late and we would miss the connecting train and would have to wait until the next day to catch it. Once we caught it, it would somehow go slower than expected and arrive even 12 or more hours late.

JAPAN: We discovered high speed train travel in Japan, with the Shinkansen, running at speeds of 300 km/h (186 mph. You could set your clock by the departure time, and the frequency of the trains allowed us to book our tickets the same day or the day before. The best part was the lack of security checks; we took the local metro to the train station, arriving 10 minutes before the train departure time. Trains and bathrooms were always clean courtesy of the ladies in pink. Train seats were turned around to face the direction of travel--great for avoiding motion sickness. Each seat had a little map of the train showing the nearest exits, bathrooms, etc. We loved these small design details. Kyoto to Hiroshima in 2 hours! Only one complaint: with high speed train travel, getting to your destination is so quick, there's really no time to explore train food!

SPEED: While in Shanghai, we took a 40 yuan ($6) joyride on a train pitched as the fastest you can go without flying: 431 km/hour (268 miles/hour). The maglev journey took us from the city to the airport, the first of a planned series of high speed rail lines around China. Electronic displays inside the train showed the current speed; the whole car buzzed in excitement as we hit the maximum speed. We covered the distance in a speedy eight minutes, so fast that we didn't get a sense of what was happening. We paid more attention on our trip back to town. We were two backpack-laden tourists coming to town from the airport (the irony wasn't lost on us). High speed rail is amazing; at these speeds, Bangalore to Kolkata would take about 4.5 hours, and San Francisco and Los Angeles could be covered in about 1.5 hours.

SHANGHAI: The shimmering South Shanghai train station was not what we expected after the aggravating experience of buying tickets in a city that prides itself as being global and tourist-friendly (pushing and shoving in long lines, incredibly limited English skills). But the station was grand, with high ceilings, rows of seating, good signage, and bustling with people. Before we knew it, we were on the train, on our way to Nanning. We settled into our cabin, a small room with four bunk-style beds, and few enough passengers that we had the cabin to ourselves. The cabin had blue-gold upholstery that was starting to show its age, reasonably clean but for a few baby cockroaches we ignored. I was also thankful for the Asian squat style toilets, which always seemed more hygienic that the western style ones.

IMMIGRATION: We arrived in Nanning late that night, and checked into a hostel; we bought our tickets for Hanoi the next day, and got on the train that evening. This was a newer train, but virtually empty. We dozed off in the glowing cream and gold berths, but before we knew it, it was 11 PM: we had arrived at the Chinese border. Groggy-eyed, we took our backpacks and lined up to be let out of the country. The procedure was quite simple and we were soon back in our cabins, waiting for our passports to be returned. An official passing by stopped and asked to see the book I was reading, flipped through it (a Mishima novel), and handed it back. (I later read that Chinese immigration officials would sometimes confiscate Lonely Planet guidebooks at the border.) An hour later, we stopped inside the Vietnamese border, to do immigration. Crossing an international border by train had been surprisingly uneventful--just the way it should be.

Tangy curd rice and the reddest hottest mango pickle, wrapped in banana leaf: heaven! We never failed to pick up this treat from Vijaywada, a small station somewhere between Madras and Calcutta. The curd and rice were rumored to be set together, giving it its unique taste. Oranges in Nagpur, biryani in some station in Kerala, milky tea in mud pots in Kolkata--every station had it's unique culinary delights. Watery rasam, spicy sambhar, rice and puris, potato curry, curd and pickles. Train meals were simple but satisfying, one of the best parts of the trip If you were lucky, your fellow passengers would share the food they had brought with them from home, usually dry, spicy treats, built to last the journey. Days were spent eating, playing games, sleeping, chatting, reading and looking out at the verdant scenery. River crossings were especially enjoyable and eagerly awaited by young and old alike.

FOOD: We had ramen for dinner that first night; we filled our cheap dried noodle bowls with boiling hot water out of the tap in our train car. Not the meal I had dreamed of, but it was warm and comforting. We went to bed early and slept in. The next day we ventured to the food car and managed to order boiled cabbage and an omelet. The cabbage was much tastier than we imagined, and we scarfed it down with white rice. The food car was a mess. It was customary for passengers to put fish and chicken bones on the tablecloth; either the servers couldn't keep up, or nobody really cared. (I have to admit that this challenged my sense of hygiene like never before.) For dinner, we had ramen again. Only a true Bengali can handle fish, two ways for breakfast: white rice with fish cake and sprinkled with dried fish. It delivered on the promise of what everyday train food was supposed to taste like. On the train to Ho Chi Minh City from Danang, we ordered the train meal and again we were served up rice, omelet, fish curry and greens in a yummy broth that they poured onto the plate from a kettle--wholesome, simple, delicious and affordable.

VIEW: Train journeys never had a soundtrack before. But in Vietnam, the music was everywhere. We had watched children, farmers, dragons, ducks and water buffalos dance, skip and play on the water puppet stage in Hanoi. The music was high pitched, rhythymic, and haunting, and it followed me everywhere. In cities, it was soft, but when we boarded the train and passed by green rice fields with water buffalos, egrets, and ducks, it became so loud that that it overwhelmed my emotions in a most pleasurable way. The Vietnamese countryside is stunning, and it glistens in the rain. I had heard that it was particularly breathtaking between Hue and Danang; our train hugged the coast and ascended the mountain. Waves thrashed on one side and the green mountains rose on the other. We couldn't decide which way to look, but one never knows what the window will frame.

WONDROUS: We saw our favorite view out the window near Nanning, China. As the train proceeded, we suddenly found ourselves in a magical landscape. The sun was setting and in that orange glow, limestone karst formations rose near and far. The karst forms themselves seemed mythical, changing into silhouettes. The sun set slowly and we took many deep breaths, in disbelief that we were watching this wondrous view from our humble train car. Sights like this are what train journeys are made of and the experiences and memories of which wash away those other minor inconveniences. Highly recommended.

Related slideshow: Train travel in 30 photos

Happy new year! We've been busy playing tourist in Thailand, while learning about the Tourism Industrial Complex from an inspiring researcher. We took the bus from Sihanoukville, Cambodia to Bangkok, Thailand, where we ran into a huge celebration of the king's 82nd birthday, the city in lights, with thousands wearing matching pink t-shirts in his honor. We explored temples, wandered through markets, and watched Thai movies. Then on to Ayutthaya, littered with every kind of Buddha figure we could imagine and north to Sukhothai, where we biked around lovely ruins. Finally, back in Bangkok, where we ran errands, watched free--and occasionally bloody--Thai boxing matches, hung out at the mall, and celebrated Christmas with new friends from Focus on the Global South.

We capped off our trip meeting Anita Pleumarom, a researcher studying the economic and ecological impacts of tourism. She's a German geographer, living in Thailand for 22 years. We were deeply inspired by her decades of work on tourism-oriented development, trying to pose a critical counterpoint. In her latest publication, Change Tourism, Not Climate!, she discusses the role of tourism (including air travel) as a major source of greenhouse gases, while often failing to provide promised economic benefits.

As a landscape architect, Barnali's privy to the intensive internal debate in her profession about golf course design: it's well-paid work, but often entirely at odds with the profession's mission to create environmentally and socially sustainable spaces. Anita completed the story for us, telling us about her involvement with the "Golf Wars" of the early 1990s. Golf's popularity in wealthy nations like Japan generated led to a huge golf course construction boom, stretching from Southeast Asia to Hawaii. Courses were being built on fertile, ecologically sensitive, or indigenous lands, while encroaching on forests, guzzling local water supplies. A Global Anti-Golf Movement was formed in response, sharing information, and using media and shaming tactics to take on the golf tourism juggernaut. The US Golf Association went the defensive, making noises about "sustainable" golf courses. The Asian economic crisis finally cut demand for golf tourism, leaving Asia littered with underused golf courses.

We've seen tour operators across Asia tout eco-tourism and cultural tourism products, targeting nice western liberals like us. Anita took us behind the scenes, telling us about communities forced to continuously "stage authenticity" for outsiders, mass-scale home-stays becoming an immense intrusion on locals' privacy, tour operators creating sex and drug trades by providing women and opium to tourists. She argues that tourism can be a self-destructive force -- the initial wave of benefits from new tourism end as mass operators move into the market, mass community economic benefits decrease, and the destination becomes "too touristy," leading travelers to look elsewhere for new "undiscovered" spots.

Anita's work focuses on the failure of tourism-oriented development in developing nations, which she describes as "sheer economic exploitation," with most of the money going to corporations (airlines, tour operators, hotels) only trickling down to local communities. We were struck by the role of aviation in this -- as airlines can be the biggest beneficiaries of overseas travel, including "responsible" tourism, "eco" tourism," and "voluntourism." Anita and her allies around the world are engaged both in local community planning debates, as well as international campaigns like fighting for civil society participation in the UN's World Tourism Agency.

And what about aviation? "Air travel is an elitist activity", she begins, enjoyed by only a few percent of the world's inhabitants. "At the end of the day, it's about an equal distribution of resources, including the atmosphere....Aviation and tourism don't reflect the real price, which includes exploitation of third world communities." And maybe that means "the industry needs to shrink." Anita's been working to limit her own personal air travel, including canceling her frequent flyer miles, but quickly points out that "as individual consumers, we can't do much--we need to change the system." This means better transportation policy, but reducing unsustainable discretionary travel will also mean changing the way we feel about our jobs, our lives, and our communities, to address what it is that makes so many people in developed nations feel like they so desperately need to escape their everyday lives with that overseas resort holiday.

On our trip, we've been doing a lot of thinking about what a world with less unsustainable aviation would look like; it almost invariably means less travel, less tourism, less contact with the wider world--the very experiences that we're enjoying right now. Though Anita's far too polite to bring it up, aviation's part of a larger system, and we can't pretend that we're not implicated, even with our year of no flying. Travel has its temptations and enormous power to shape our views about the world, but we will all need to hunker down and think twice before jumping on that plane--the new regulations are certainly one reason to not want to. And maybe we will look closer when we need that break, look deeper at the places we live in and learn how to develop love and empathy for places and people without having to go there. The new year seems to be the perfect time to make that resolution.

To us, Copenhagen felt like a failure in every way that mattered, the triumph of suicidal business-as-usual aboard a sinking ship. We asked some friends for their initial reactions:

Naoyuki Yamagishi, WWF Japan (Tokyo, Japan):

"I have to admit, this was the worst COP that I ever experienced. The outcome was nowhere near with what we hoped for, i.e. nowhere near securing the pathway to "below 2 degree C." In fact, it is hard to say there was an outcome because the so-called Copenhagen Accord was not adopted as "decision" but parties only "took note" of it because of the lack of consensus. After more than 100 Heads of State gathered, this was not something we expected for. The conference shut out civil society in the second week and we only had limited access to it. The whole process was not transparent either to Parties or NGOs, which I believed contributed to the the lack of a meaningful outcome.

However, we have no time to be "depressed" and to stop our efforts. Climate change is a matter of survival and giving up is simply not an option. And the UN process is the only legitimate process where we can build a multilateral framework to combat climate change. I'm worried that the result of this conference will affect our domestic discussion negatively and people might have doubts about its validity. Those forces which hate ambitious actions will exploit this. A year of hard work is waiting for us. But, then again, what did we expect? This is one of the most severe environmental challenges we could have. The difficulty to solve it naturally requires matched efforts. We will get our global agreement next year."

Tom Kelly, KyotoUSA (Berkeley, USA):

"COP 15 demonstrates, once again, the failure of humanity, especially those of us in the industrialized North, to fully comprehend the ramifications of continued inaction on climate change. We can spin Copenhagen anyway it pleases and soothes, but the very fact that we have again walked away without the resolve to act is another indication that we are willing to put the planet and all that inhabit it at risk.

Now is not the time for hope, now is the time for action! It starts with all of us and demands that we all act on behalf of the planet. If we can demonstrate this type of resolve, we will force the diplomats and politicians who continue to fiddle while the planet heats up, to muster the courage to act where they have now failed us."

Climate change program developer, Vietnamese environmental NGO (Hanoi, Vietnam):

"The outcome was deeply disappointing and many people are understandably angry that the world leaders let our planet down. The final days of COP15 saw an unprecedented number of world leaders gather to tackle one problem -- the planet's survival. That was an achievement in itself. However, some of them could have saved the trip as they did not go to cooperate, but rather, impose on others. The spirit of cooperation was lacking and it contributed to the failure to reach a FAB agreement. Some think that such an agreement was never going to be possible. We can only speculate about politics.

However, I firmly believe that youth and civil society were not foolish in advocating for a FAB [fair, ambitious, and binding] agreement. Especially at important points in history as now, it is imperative that the masses tell the politicians what is required of them and set the standard for them. Left to themselves, politicians would have different agendas. Civil society really did set the agenda, changed the mood within the Conference Center and mobilized millions around the world to speak up. And we need to continue to do so--to push leaders from where they are now, 2nd gear, into the top gear.

Viet Nam is in the top 5 most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change, so a FAB deal would have been ideal. However, with the current deal, a portion of the adaptation funds would not go astray. It is yet to be seen what the national government's approach is post-COP15. I know that my work in environmental education amongst young adults is pivotal in informing them of what is at stake and to promote proactive initiatives to build a stronger green movement."

Our friends seem to be realistic about recognizing the size of the setback, while being clear that we have to keep fighting. Our collective survival remains at stake, with the least responsible first to take the brunt of the impacts.

Planes and ships are responsible for more greenhouse gases than the entire nation of Germany, and growing -- but they were totally ignored in the Kyoto agreement. In Copenhagen, we have a chance to correct our huge mistake.

Aviation and shipping suddenly jumped into the news from Copenhagen via something called "bunker finance." We first heard the term "bunker fuel" during a tour of the engine room of our container ship, in the middle of the Pacific. Turns our that it's dirty low-grade fuel, used by ships and planes, and that it's a big deal at COP15.

"Bunker finance" means cutting plane and ship emissions (either via a tax or cap and trade), and using that to fund critical climate projects in developing countries. A European Commission projection says bunker finance could raise $25-37 billion a year by 2020 -- vital new funds for climate work. (Exemptions can be built in for ships and aviation serving developing or underserved areas.) Various groups have been pushing the idea (see the FAQ and handout for negotiators), and some form of bunker finance has been in many negotiating documents, including the leaked Danish text, the splashy joint UK-France proposal, as well as text touched by Mexico, Norway, Australia, and Ethiopia.

But then Obama's American negotiators blocked discussion of bunker finance, breaking with every other industralized country, earning them the unpleasant Fossil of the Day "award" from the Climate Action Network:

"The United States took home another first place Fossil of the Day Award today. This one is for being the only industrialized country to block 'bunker finance' -- the idea that you could pass measures that cut emissions from international aviation and shipping ('bunker fuels', in the UN jargon), and in doing so raise revenues to fund adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. It's hard to see what's not to like in this idea -- you tackle the fastest-growing sources of emissions, and turn them into money to help poor countries in the fight against climate change. Over the last few months, every other industrialised country, even Canada, has come around to the idea. It's high time the US put some long-term finance on the table, and this is one blindingly obvious way of doing so."

Addressing the climate impact of aviation is important to us, and what happens at Copenhagen will set the blueprint for the future. John Maggs of Seas at Risk, author of the Bunkers in Copenhagen 2009 blog (where I'm keeping up with this), is unsure of the future of bunker finance. We've got our fingers crossed as negotiations proceed in closed-door meetings.

P.S. If you're like us, you're following the Copenhagen climate talks daily. Here are our favorite news sources:

• Live updates from Twitter
• The Guardian
• COP15 news site
• Mobilization for Climate Justice
• Youth climate activists

We knew only two things about Cambodian history before our visit: it was home to Ankgor Wat, a very old abandoned temple, and that after US bombings, it was ruled by Pol Pot, a Very Very Bad Man. Coming to Cambodia knowing so little about the Khmer Rouge period would be like someone going to Germany in 1975 without being quite clear on what that whole Holocaust thing was about. As we visited the sites of a major Khmer Rouge torture center, and the infamous killing fields (where the pile of skulls gave me a very physical reaction), we found ourselves furiously backfilling history, through books, websites, and conversations.

From 1975 to 1978 (and in some areas, afterwards), Cambodia was ruled by the Khmer Rouge, a group who thought China's Cultural Revolution didn't go far enough. They turned the whole nation into a prison camp, separating families, killing about two million, and destroying the nation's cultural, professional, and transportation infrastructure. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge lost power after a Vietnamese invasion, but their legacy exists in the hearts of a deeply traumatized population, as well as in the millions of land mines they left behind. Stories came up repeatedly as we interacted with locals as tourists: the cab driver who'd lost several family members, the museum guide who lost her husband and children, the tour guide who defused land mines while working in the military. It was jarring to hear these matter-of-fact stories first-hand.

The Khmer Rouge period and the associated civil war helps explain some of the development differences between Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries. In Vietnam, we had a comfortable train system to take us from city to city, but in Cambodia, it's all long-distance buses, traveling highways of middling quality; the nation's train system was made unusable by the Khmer Rouge, in the proud tradition of destroying the village to save it.

As tourists, we've also been seeing our share of older white men and youngish Southeast Asian women hanging out around town, which gives us the creeps. Sex tourism is complicated. We've been trying to figure out what's wrong with it: is it creepy, unethical, or oughta-be-illegal? (Or some combination of the three.) For Barnali, the biggest ick factor was the difference in age. For me, it's the difference in power, economic and based on passport privilege. This led to some really interesting conversations.

What surprised me was the extent to which some sex tourism was publicly framed as "relationships." We'd see couples smiling, holding hands by the river, eating at restaurants, walking with children -- a very different image from that of run-down brothels, dangerous clients, exploitative pimps. (Which obviously exists here too, just not in mainstream public places.) In Pico Iyer's Video Night in Kathmandu, he interviewed a number of women working in the Thai sex trade, where many of them referred to their "boyfriends," who'd come to see them from abroad. It's obviously a convenient framing on all sides, but it's hard to feel solely anger or pity for a sex worker when she's smiling, holding hands by the water with some relatively well-to-do older man, as her kid plays next to her. The sex work climate here may be broadly exploitative, but peppered with areas of consent and happiness. And what the hell are you supposed to do with that? How can you be supportive of sex workers, but not of sex work? Or supportive of sex workers, while strongly disapproving of sex tourism and trafficking? We just chose to look away, explicitly avoiding hotels and areas that seemed to attract sex tourists (not easy, given that they mixed in with other tourists).

This reminded me of one of my favorite political songs, Consolidated's "No Answer for a Dancer", a male feminist take at trying to figure out how to deal with sex work. Barnali and I sat by the river in Phnom Penh, listening to Consolidated on my phone, trying to figure out how we felt.

I was also irritated by the fact that as soon as I started visually reading older-white-man-and-younger-Southeast-Asian-woman pairs as sex-tourist-and-sex-worker, it largely shut down my capacity to read it as any other kinds of relationship. A visiting professor and his local research assistant? A white man and an Asian woman visiting from abroad? A white grandfather traveling with his multiracial or adopted granddaughter? I was stunned by how quickly I learned to build and act on a new stereotype (however true).

Oh, and yes, Cambodia's lovely. We enjoyed seeing innovative use of public space in Phnom Penh, mind-blowingly cool architecture in Angkor, and lovely beaches in Kep and Sihanoukville. The people are very nice -- do consider visiting if you're in Southeast Asia.

(Further reading: The Asia and the Pacific Network of Sex Workers' blog deals with labor and human rights issues in Cambodia and the region; I discovered the group via a post on Global Voices Online. And ECPAT Cambodia, which works to end child prostitution and trafficking; we saw tuk-tuks running their ads all over Phnom Penh.)

-- Anirvan

Climate change will ravage Vietnam. If we let sea levels rise by 1 meter, 5% of Vietnam may drown, impacting 11% of the population and a huge chunk of the rice crop. Poor coastal communities already face more typhoons, salination, flooding, and drought. But in the midst of the gloom, a new wave of young urban Vietnamese environmental activists are getting organized. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), we met almost fifty teen and twentysomething green activists--interviewing new friends over long meals, learning Vietnamese dances with young leaders, braving insane rush hour motorcycle traffic, watching students do water quality testing, and speaking at a gathering of local green clubs.

SCENE: Oh, to be young and green in Vietnam. No matter who you are, there's an environmental group for you. Athletic? Cycling for the Environment did a 5-week awareness-building ride across the country. Inspired? RAECP trains young climate educators. Arts-minded? GreenZoom uses photography to help communities document their environment. Bilingual? Practice English at the Talking Green Club. Student? Join one of the umpteen local campus environmental, biology, or social service clubs doing environmental consciousness-raising work. There are 100+ local volunteer environmental groups in Vietnam, most under three years old. Something very big is happening here.

ORIGINS: Our interviewees typically discovered environmental action online, or as part of college biology, environmental, or service clubs. The college years are a window of opportunity to think about something bigger than school, jobs, and family. Internet access boosts environmental awareness, often from international media (one interviewee literally set her homepage to Grist.org). Local groups are trying to expand Vietnamese-language access to green media, translating print materials, and creating and screening subtitled versions of An Inconvenient Truth, The Story of Stuff, and The Age of Stupid.

DISEMPOWERED: Vietnam has a single-party Communist government, where for cultural and political reasons, young citizens have limited access to institutional power. We were told that it would be very hard to meet local officials, and that the need to get permits for public events with 20+ people felt like a barrier to action. The government of Vietnam is planning around the climate crisis, and a number of international NGOs have been helping run local greening and climate adaptation projects that help influence national policy. Green urban youth have neither the power of the government, nor the credibility or access of international NGOs; they make up for it by working in universities (where they have autonomy and support), and by building better networks.

RAECP: Anirvan's favorite group was RAECP, a year-old climate education training group from Hanoi. Its mostly college-aged members train climate awareness educators, arming them with curricula and pre-tested games and exercises. What's remarkable about RAECP is how driven and professional members are. It's led and founded by Hoàng Đức Minh, a charismatic and articulate young networker. His dad does climate policy work for the government, but Minh says they don't talk very much about work; for all the reports, he's not seeing enough action. Minh surprised us with his insistence that while adaptation aid was important, it was more critical that Vietnamese people ensured that aid was used appropriately and strategically. "We're responsible for our own future," he told us, and mass climate education was a step in that direction. He's headed to Copenhagen, excited and anxious about making his case for global climate action.

RAECP's #2 is La Minh Phuong, a college student spending 3-4 hours a day on RAECP work. Phuong described to us how learning to talk to family members about global warming helped her hone her messaging: abstract science alienates, storytelling and personalization empowers. Hanoi residents won't suffer directly from rising sea levels, so when talking to locals, she focuses on impacts like mass urban migration. She's also a great example of how important it is to talk across national borders; at a recent green youth leadership conference in Singapore, she met Indonesian delegates who helped convince her that young government officials can substantially impact national climate policy, working from the inside. For Phuong, a student at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, this is cause for hope.

GREENZOOM: Barnali's favorite group was GreenZoom, which works at the intersection of arts, environment, youth empowerment, and environmental justice. One GreenZoom project involved their working with a village community to help test water quality, then supported residents in getting funding to rebuild a historic temple; Greenzoom brought in kids from Hanoi to photograph the village, while local leaders gave cameras to community elders, to help create a graphical community history. We really enjoyed talking to co-founder and entrepreneur Luu Duc Hiep, who's in Copenhagen with images from Vietnam's Red River Delta, where the coastline has moved kilometers due to a changing climate. "If this were Manhattan, it would be news all over the world," he exclaims. He'll be bringing images of the climate-embattled Red River Delta area to Copenhagen for COP15. "I'm not an activist," he tells us. "I just want people to know the facts."

CONTEST: In Ho Chi Minh City, environmental engineering students are running a city-wide contest to help raise environmental awareness. The contest, organized by the Faculty of Environment, at the Polytechnic University of Ho Chi Minh City, has been running for over seven years now. It brings together almost a hundred teams every year, ranging from school to college aged. Teams solve crosswords based on environmental themes, take part in quiz contests, and even compete to determine who can separate recycling correctly in the shortest time. Questions change every year, to keep up with current themes and issues of interest. Winners get a cash prize, the media gets an angle, and everyone walks away a bit more clueful.

NETWORKING: Bringing all these groups together is a new group called the Green Generation Network (The He Xanh), a project given critical support by environmental education NGO Live&Learn. There are over 100 environmental clubs in Hanoi, Danang, and Saigon, but most don't collaborate outside of one-off activities. The Green Generation Network's come together to help member groups share resources, and coordinate actions. We discovered it when we started emailing youth activists in Hanoi; most of the groups we were talking to were in touch with each other, and helped set up meetings for us. In 2010, the Network's chosen to focus on six bimonthly climate-related outreach themes for 2010, including biodiversity/deforestation, disaster management, and the poor. The network's membership is still very oriented around Hanoi and northern Vietnam. When we were in southern Vietnam, we met members from a number of local groups which are only now starting to come together, with most still not yet connected to the Network (we're looking forward to seeing that change).

WHY? We sometimes asked our young interviewees to explain the point of green consciousness-raising, hoping to hear them tell us that knowledge was a first step to popular mass action. The answers sometimes felt unsatisfying; some suggested that awareness was an end in itself, while others just weren't sure. Some of the more thoughtful answers came from folks in RAECP. Minh hoped education would help Vietnamese society work towards more sustainable paths to development. Phuong had a more modest vision. She explained to us how perfectly reasonable green government policies, like her hometown's new recycling program, could sometimes feel arbitrary, and how there was a critical need for mass environmental education in order to get buy-in for good policy. It's not enough that some NGO suggests a policy, which the government passes as law; people need to be involved, and green education activists can help prepare communities. "You can't tell someone how to behave," she told us. "You need to make people understand the problem, instead of just giving solutions."

ADULTHOOD: Young Vietnamese greens are at an exciting moment, but we hope it'll grow beyond a youth thing. Most young people we talked to won't end up working environment-related jobs. A green generation will need institutions that allow busy working adults to participate in a new green civil society, as workers, neighbors, and citizens turning their awareness into action -- climate adaptation, preventing deforestation, urban cleanups, fighting pollution, preserving biodiversity, greening businesses. At this moment of crisis, Vietnam needs not just an uprising, but a sea change.

Learn about climate change in Vietnam:

• New York Times story (2009)
• Oxfam report on poverty and adaptation (2008)
• World Bank overview (2007)

Current Vietnamese climate change headlines:

• From the environment ministry
• From newspapers

The ferry left Osaka at noon. This would be our second international passage by ship, sailing from Osaka, Japan to Shanghai, China. Having crossed the Pacific by container ship, we felt prepared for the two-day voyage.

ROOMS: Our rooms were dingier than I expected, with the only window looking right onto a busy deck. The shared bathrooms were close by, a curse and a blessing. When we had booked our tickets four months ago, we had felt that second class lodgings would be sufficient; each cabin had four berths and a small common space with a TV. The overall living situation was very dorm-like. Third class consisted of two big halls, separated by sex, with tatami mats and futons for the women and carpet with futons for men. The two third class rooms were large, airy, and well lit, and if I were traveling by myself, I would have picked this option. While we longed to make contact with the locals, we were glad no one else showed up to occupy the other two berths in our room. The next day, a small cockroach appeared, making me wish for the joys money can buy (though there was no guarantee the little fellow wouldn't have found us in first class as well).

PACE: The ferry would take a little over 48 hours to get to China. I couldn't help but compare this to what flying might have been like. We would probably have made a mad rush to the airport on the edge of town, endured senseless immigration and security procedures, breathed recyled air, eaten bad plane food, and been nagged by the general feeling of just wanting to be there already. I like getting there too, but on this journey I didn't envy travelers arriving in Shanghai in 4 hours instead of 48, with no time to reflect on what they were leaving and what they were about to experience.

PASSENGERS: There were only about 30 passengers on board and about 10 staff. I tried to learn some Chinese phrases but I still kept speaking in pidgin Japanese to the trilingual Chinese crew; I'm sure they wished that I would just speak in English. We soon became familiar with the faces of the people on the ferry. We spoke to other travelers like ourselves, exchanging stories of our countries and travels. We had heard that the ferry was used by Chinese immigrants to Japan, to visit China. We met an older gentleman whose parents were Chinese and had moved to Japan. He was born there and continued to live in Yokohama. His wife was also born of Chinese parents in Japan. He had taken this journey a few times, the earliest voyage about forty years ago, when the ferry did not pull into harbor, but instead passengers were transferred from boat to shore in small boats. We shared our photos of traveling on the container ship over the Pacific and he brought his wife back to look at the pictures. Our fellow passengers were people wanting to experience the romance of traveling by sea, older folks with time on their hands reliving nostalgic memories, groups of friends taking the journey together, and others who took the boat for the practical reason that they could carry more things with them between Japan and China.

LIFE ON-BOARD: The general atmosphere on the boat was lively. People chatted and made friends with the crew and other passengers.Action movies played on the TVs in common areas, speaking the universal language of violence, needing no translation. In the evenings after dinner, karaoke tunes wafted into the common spaces.We spent time in the reading room when we wanted some quiet. Water and hot tea flowed freely from a dispenser, and vending machines sold ramen, beer and sweet coffee. The food on board was delicious and cheap. We had watermelon for dessert everyday for less than a dollar. Anirvan discovered the joys of cold bean curd skin and I was amazed by how delicious tofu could be--soft, silky, melt-in-your-mouth.

ARRIVAL: As we were leaving Japan, we couldn't help but notice trash in water. We'd sometimes been shocked to find orange swirls outside Japanese waters, which, though lovely to photograph, were probably chemical spills.But none of this prepared us for the water turning a muddy brown as we approached the constantly developing shores of Shanghai. It took more than two hours along the river to reach the ferry building. We watched the floating scenery of boats carrying building materials, and other boats big and small whose purpose was not obvious to us. As Shanghai drew nearer, the brown of the waters, though still existent and omnipresent, seemed like a distant memory as our eyes soared to behold the famed Pudong skyline and the new ferry building. Welcome to China.

Related slideshow: Duo Lun Street's markets and art, Museum magic in Shanghai

Next post: Climate activism in Vietnam

The streets of Tokyo were filled with many delights. The paths through the train stations were a geography we began to get familiar with, though the overall layout of the city remained mostly theoretical. We navigated stairs and escalators, following arrows, learning how to stay on the right (i.e. left) side of both. When we were let out into the streets we marveled at the rush of humanity. In Shibuya, we watched them from a third floor coffee shop, overlooking an intersection that brought in waves of people and took them out like a tide controlled by traffic lights. The colors were mostly black, even more pronounced in the light of the screens of moving color surrounding the intersection.

In Harajuku, we mistakenly walked wide tree-lined Omote-Sando instead of Takeshita-Dori, on the hunt for the fabled Harajuku crepe. We obviously didn't see any that day. When the green of the trees could no longer soothe our eyes from looking at brand after brand, we took a detour into the quiet back streets and wandered there until the sound of drums pulled us back to Omote-Sando. We watched silently as groups of people carrying colorful banners flowed in a lane that once had cars. The No Nukes Festa, seven thousand demonstrators strong, made its way along the street, as we stood on a pedestrian over-bridge looking down upon it. For hours we admired the elegant cloth banners that were only possible in a culture with a vertical script, feeling hopeful and delighted that we had stumbled upon a protest in a country not known for people "impolite" enough to shout on the streets.

Another night we walked hurriedly in Ginza to make it to a Kabuki performance, awed by the scale of the lights and the wide lanes. We returned on Sunday to see what Sunday Streets in Ginza felt like. The main road that runs along the Matsumaya department store was closed to traffic from noon to 5 pm. Umbrellas and tables were set up in the middle of the street. We stood observing as some people by the force of habit still crossed at the crosswalk. Others walking on the sidewalk would suddenly bound over planters when they realized that they could indeed walk in the middle of the street. A blind man crossed. We wondered if the sounds of  this Pedestrian Heaven with its lack of traffic messed up his cues.

My favorite walking around was in Nakano, where we stayed for ten days. Narrow pedestrian streets held delightful restaurants, Japanese food galore punctuated by other cuisines. Noodle shops, curry, and yakitori abounded. The streets smelled of warm rice. As we walked deeper towards our house, the streets grew darker, while the vending machines glowed, their flickering lights letting us know that we were on the right path to home; the fact that almost all streets had a vending machine or two did nothing to dim our affection for the three we would see walking home. The only thing that stressed us out while we walked the streets was the lack of trash cans and the feeling of being judged whenever we ate on the street "American style," as we rushed between meetings and tourist sights.

But Tokyo does not define Japan. Our 14-day Japan Rail pass provided us access to the Shinkansen (bullet train), allowing us to experience a Japan beyond its biggest city. Our itinerary would include Kyoto and Nara--Japan's old capital cities, Hiroshima--a necessary pilgrimage for any devotee of peace, Beppu--Hell on earth but heaven for the body with its many hot spring resorts, and a visit to Hida-Takayama where the vernacular architecture of the Gassho-zukuri houses can still be experienced with the added attraction of fall colors thrown in.

Click for slideshow:
A month in Japan, in 20 photos

Of our walks in Kyoto, our most sublime memory is of being blissfully lost under the infinite orange gates of Fushimi Inari. We followed the trail through the woods for four kilometers, encountering serene lakes, candlelit shrines, and views of Kyoto. For me, this is what Kyoto was all about, and why ever since that first visit two years ago I was compelled to return.

Navigating the Hiroshima Peace Museum--its halls so big, the material so powerful, was a slow journey through time and memory. Reading memos that revealed the way Hiroshima was chosen for the bombing surprised and shocked my brain. Seeing the nails, skin, and clothes of victims broke my heart. This walk was hard.

In contrast, Beppu, an onsen Vegas, provided waters that soothed our souls and bodies, though the bright lights did not. Most rewarding were the hot spring waters and sands of Takegawara onsen. On the way back from Beppu's "hells" (volcanic ponds of colorful water), we walked a street that must have been Beppu's auto row, in search of a promised delight of an onsen. Though steam seeped out of pipes and chimneys all around us, the onsen was never found. But with a tip from friends, we found our own private outdoors onsen for two, just minutes from home.

By the time we reached Takayama and Shirakawa, fall had arrived. We accompanied masses of Japanese tourists for a visit to Shirakawa-go, a village in the Japanese alps and walked around in a living museum of Gassho houses. Back in Takayama, we wandered in the hills, discovering shrines and lusting after the reds, yellows, and oranges that I had wished so much to see my whole life. I could barely contain myself.

And then we returned to Tokyo, the contrast even more evident. We gasped in delight at being back in the ocean of life--walking with the people, feeling as if we had come home.

Related post: Anirvan, lost in the crowd at Shinjuku station

Related slideshows: Food and friends, Sunday Streets in Ginza

Next post: Our slow boat to China!

Japan's cherry blossom season is changing. The blooming of the cherry blossoms used to coincide with the traditional start of the fiscal year, but it's been slipping back over the past few decades. There's public awareness of a changing climate; the challenge is figuring out appropriate policy responses. With the election of a new government, it looks like Japan may finally be ready to get on the right track.

We spoke to a number of people about Japan's response to the climate crisis, including climate activists Kenro Taura (Kiko Network) and Naoyuki Yamagishi (WWF Japan), as well as a host of other local activists, academics, environmentalists, and acquaintances. Here's the story, as we understand it. (All mistakes are our own.)

KYOTO: Kyoto's role in the global spotlight as the host of the 1997 climate change summit had a big impact in Japan. While the resulting Kyoto Protocol turned out to be a mixed bag, the conference galvanized national attention around the issue, inspiring new climate activists around the country. Hundreds of Japanese groups launched a Kiko ("climate") Forum during the conference, which was later turned into a permanent Kiko Network, now made up of about 150 member groups.

INACTION: Again and again, we were told that Japanese citizens often expect the government to resolve problems, and the climate crisis is no different. Awareness doesn't always translate into political engagement or action. Local environmental NGOs do an amazing amount with a relatively small base of support -- not because the issue doesn't resonate with people, but because in a group-oriented society, even sympathizers are sometimes uncomfortable with direct engagement.

ROADBLOCKS: While citizens haven't spoken out in a big way, the corporate sector hasn't been shy. After the Kyoto agreement, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, supported by major business interests, seemed to look the other way on tackling Japan's emissions. At one point, the government was spending an astounding 80+% of it's climate change budget on road-widening. The Keidanren, the largest industrial association in Japan, has been consistently pushing the government to look for cuts elsewhere, or risk harming industrial competitiveness. While the Kyoto Protocol required Japan to set a midterm target of reducing emissions by 6% over 1990 levels, the Keidanren was reportedly lobbying to increase emissions by 4%. The environmental ministry has been reasonably supportive of stronger climate policy, but they've been fairly powerless compared to the trade and industrial ministry. Rules that have been put into place are often toothless; for example, local government agencies are required to create, but not implement, climate action plans.

SECRETS: Since the 1970s, Japanese companies have had to report on energy use to the government trade ministry. This high-quality data was never made public, even to the environmental ministry, but activists got their hands on the energy use data after Japan passed a freedom of information law in 2000. The shocking disclosure? 200 industrial sites are responsible for half of Japan's carbon emissions, and just 14,000 companies are responsible for 70% of Japan's emissions. A tiny number of major players do most of the harm -- and the data names names and allocates responsibility. Unlike the situation in most countries, the Japanese people now know who the nation's biggest carbon polluters are, their names and addresses. The next step? Action.

OBAMA-ESQUE: Japan's dramatic 2009 national elections marked the electoral loss of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), in power since 1955, to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). While voters focused much more on the economy than the environment, the DPJ used climate policy as a way to clearly distinguish themselves from the incumbent government. New DPJ Prime Minister Hatoyama recently announced that Japan was ready for a 25% cut in greenhouse gas emissions over 1990 levels by the year 2020, which falls within the IPCC's 25-40% reduction guidelines. The local climate action community's happy at signs that the new government's taking the issue seriously, but are worried that vague early promises will be whittled down. While the industrial lobbies have less sway with the DJP than they did with the LDP, they're working overtime to block meaningful action.

COPENHAGEN: Japanese climate activists are hoping to hammer out a number of issues in the Japanese negotiating position before December's Copenhagen climate talks. There's a commitment to 25% greenhouse gas reductions (over 1990 levels) by 2020, but it's not clear how much of the 25% will come from genuine domestic reductions, as opposed to buying offshore offsets, REDDs, and emissions trading. The government's discussing financing schemes for developing countries' climate-related projects, but specific numbers haven't been announced. And there's still limited support for licensing of essential green technologies to developing countries, in part because of bad experiences licensing technology to nations like China.

HOPE: We celebrated October 24th, 350.org's international day of climate action at two Tokyo events. First we met up with young concerned community members for a picnic in Yoyogi Park, then we hit the "Make The Rule" symposium in a crowded Tokyo conference room. A broad swath of the Japanese climate action community's come together around a national campaign to "Make the Rule" -- develop sweeping national climate change legislation to pin down specifics, and give industries and communities the basis they need to start taking action. It was exciting to see a room full of Japanese environmental movers and shakers, from their 30s to their 70s, strategizing on how to transition Japan to a low-carbon economy. It's going to be a tough fight, but Japan's green policy advocates seem ready to take on the challenge.