Colors of South Africa 2010

We've had a blast in South Africa. Almost everything has exceeded expectations. The roads are drivable and high quality, Kruger national park has animals that you can see on your own self guided tour, the cape of good hope is stunning.

Stunning views on the Cape Penninsula

A mission we began on this trip was to get a picture of us with one of every fan from every team. See the gallery below. We have pictures of all but one team- email me if you can guess the missing team and you'll be rewarded with ten points.

Unfortunately I have not blogged sufficiently during this period. We were in South Africa traveling with a friend of mine who works at the WashingtonPost, however, and who has helped start there blog- Please feel free to back read all of his posts to get an idea of what we were up to!!

http://wapocup.posterous.com/tag/mattbrooks

Italy Corner Kick Right in Front of us

USA USA DEUTSCHLAND

Woo! The party is raging in SA. I will have to post more pictures in the coming weeks as for now we are constantly on the go. Had a great time at the USA England match in a central square in Cape Town. Happy to get a fluke goal and a 1-1 USA England Tie. And no english hooligans later, just arrogant comments.

Had a spectacular drive down to the cape fo good hope along the coast yesterday. Unbelievably beautiful. Following which we headed to the Pauler brewery (a German brewery based in Munich) for the Serbia and Germany matches. Serbia lost unfortunately (Jel (girlfriend) is serbian), but we quickly rebounded with a live band and signing and dancing. The bar went nuts when I had Jel switch from a serbia jersey into a Germany one. In fact, we were soo animated that all of the german national network television cameras came to our half of the bar to film the pre-party. Deutsche Familie- habt ihr mich im fernsehen gesehen? ARD, RTL und RTLII?

Germany pummeled Australia 4-0 (sorry Barto) to the ecstasy of the hundreds of germans packing the bar. I was happy to see some goals.

As far as my allegiances, I stand by the US all the way, but can't help but have loyalties to the Germans as well. I am hoping that those two won't have to play each other..

By Request, the games I am slated to see next are:
Italy Paraguay (cape town) (GOOOO PARAGUAY)
USA- SLOVENIA (Johannesburg) (USA USA USA)
Italy- New Zealand (nelspruit) (GOOO NEW ZEALAND)
Spain Honduras (Johannesburg) (VIVA HONDURAS)

West of SouthEast Asia...

Across a massive ocean is South Africa, home of the 2010 WorldCup. I had made arrangements to attend the WorldCup quite sometime ago, having made a vow to try and get to every WorldCup for the rest of my life. Some 30 hours in transit from Bangkok found us here, in beautiful CapeTown. Having concluded the temporary job I was doing in Bangkok, we've come halfway around the world to meet some friends and celebrate sport and humanity.

The atmosphere here in Cape Town is unreal. South Africans are trying to unite and soccer/football is helping. Everyone is excited- locals and the countless foreigners from all corners of the world that are here. The opening concert on the streets of CapeTown was awesome. Dancing and Singing and celebrating with tens of thousands of South Africans. We are trying to get a picture with a fan from every team at the worldcup! So far we have most of the African Nations, but not all. We'll see how far we get- we know that places like North Korea may be the hardest!!

The first day of matches was electric. After a morning of climbing table mountain, we were treated to stunning views of the cape of good hope, the city of capetown and the cape flats. We could hear the vuvuzelas all the way up the mountain!!

Later, when South Africa scored the first goal of the 2010 worldcup to take the lead over Mexico, the city and the nation exploded. Bafana Bafana! The South African team ended up with a tie, but the country was proud beyond belief. We walked to the stadium in Cape Town for the France Uruguay match amidst a massive celebration- the game was great- highlighted by some Irish Fans who sat behind us and heckled the French Team and Henry (the French "cheated" to get into the world cup). After the match the whole of capetown was paralyzed by street parties. We found a bar with a balcony and watched the chaos on the streets below as everyone toasted the start of a new WorldCup.

I will write some more on the legacy of apartheid and the other cultural stuff we've been looking at at some point but for now I am off to the fan park where I can watch the US-England match with 25,000+ others!

Vietnam

Last weekend we hopped over to Vietnam for 3 days, empowered by another Thai holiday! We spent time in magnificent Halong Bay on an overnight boat trip, and a few days in Hanoi. Vietnam appears to be halfway between Thailand and Laos in terms of development.

Halong Bay

The people are considerably more curt and less smiley than in Thailand, which I kind of appreciated, until I got punched by a cab driver.

We were leaving the temple of literature, a very cool temple dedicated to knowledge and education, and called a friend to consult on the appropriate taxi fare back to his side of town. He told us a price and what cabs to get into and we naturally hopped into the first car without considering what was written on the side. Well, when the fare had exceeded what we were told to pay within the first 2 blocks we asked to be let out, which the driver refused. He stopped after loud protests from us somewhere on block 3. When we didn’t pay he continued to shout “Money” after us, but then surprised us both by leaving the car in traffic and running after us only to curse at us in Vietnamese. It was somewhere there that he started jabbing me with his fist. Luckily I have been taking Muay Thai lessons in Thailand and was able to paralyze him with a nifty trick using a lonely planet guidebook and my big toe. No, truth be told he left after an awkward 2 minute standoff where we just watched him curse at us and jab me in the stomach (note to others reading this- punching me in the stomach is not an effective way to get me to give you something).

Temple of Literature Courtyard

I only relay the story here for humor, otherwise everything in Vietnam was splendid, including the delicious food (the French influence in the area is not without its merits). I love Vietnamese food and really enjoyed our quick trip.

Bangkok Smouldering

We returned from Hong Kong once the violence subsided in Bangkok. The atmosphere here is tense but getting back to normal. Downtown has some charred remains of malls and other buildings that were lit on fire as the red-shirts retreated. Despite a large scale cleanup effort, signs of conflict linger in some places (sandbag fortifications, black stains on the streets, the singed shell of one of the largest malls in SE Asia). Everyone went back to work on Monday like nothing happened. The future is uncertain for the country, but for now the protesters have left, piled on trains by the military and shipped back to the country. In this context I enter the last few weeks of my job here.

Returning to Bangkok- Bad Idea?

I realize now as I approach the end of my temporary job (aka internship I suppose) that I have neglected to spend any time explaining what I actually do for 40 hours a week (when not traveling or fleeing).

I work at a small company that does all sorts of environmental investments. The company essentially develops small scale projects for investors. There are several segments to the company- some people focus on renewable energy- constructing biogas or biomass plants or using hydropower. Others focus on the water business- wastewater recapture and recycling for industrial facilities is the most common project there. There are carbon projects involving reforestation as well. All of these projects have to promise a return, as the word investment implies. The company will not build a biomass plant unless the local farmers want a biomass plant and agree to purchase electricity (in all cases the cost of the power or water we provide is significantly less than the prevailing cost before a project is implemented). As a 3 month intern, I was able to assist with many of these projects in various stages, but did not get a chance to visit project sites. On the whole it was very interesting and refreshing to climb behind the cliché of “sustainable development” and see what that actually entails. The projects rely on profit motives and careful assessment of local conditions. I am thankful for the opportunity I've had here.

Hong Kong and Macau

Please note that I do not intend to make light of the violence in Bangkok, which has upset me and I am hoping for a expedient and peaceful resolution.
What better place to be a refugee than Hong Kong? A delicious remnant of colonialism, the city is nestled between the hills of a few islands and the Chinese mainland. Luckily for us we had friends with places for us to stay on the beach and in a town called Stanley. Hong Kong is a very cool place and very different from other parts of SouthEast Asia. We spent several days exploring islands, beaches and the urban core. A highlight was the bun festival, which on initial appearences consists of all 7 million of residents cramming onto an island that normally has a population of 10,000 in one of those wierd 'how many people can you fit in a phonebooth' types of stunts. What the festival is actually about is eating those chinese buns filled with red bean, or sesame, or something else you don't want to know about. The highlight of the festival is when several young men climb up a large pole covered in buns, gathering as many as they can into a bag. We came for the crowds, but didn't stick around until the middle of the night to witness the scaling of the bun phallus (see slideshow for pictures).

One day we did a daytrip to Macau, a former Portuguese city that has a very funny dynamic with European influences. The food was fabulous- we had some delicious egg tarts and a great steak and seafood dinner prepared in Portuguese style. I particularly enjoyed the greyhound race track, which was a depressing collection of gambling junkies and a few tourists stuck in a several thousand person stadium. (We did not go to the Macau casinos, which are the main source of revenue for the tiny island state). Dog Racing is quite funny, and we lost a few dollars placing bets on losing contenders as we were unaware of what we should be looking for. The dogs are paraded around the track once so that everyone can get a good look at them and then place their bets (each race had tens of thousands of dollars riding on it, not bad for a group of ~100 people). What is funny to me is that all the dogs appear to be trained to relieve themselves on this display lap. I didn’t know this the first time and thus put my $0.50 bet on the first dog I saw break out of line with its handler to fertilize the track. I ran to the bookies and placed my bet. Only on the next race did I note that ALL of the dogs do this. As you can see from the pictures, this was an amusing venue and makes me question what greyhound racing elsewhere might look like (this was billed as “world class greyhound racing”).

Bangkok Burning

On the day we were set to return from Chiang Mai we got word of a curfew in Bangkok due to escalating violence and scrambled to change our flight to the next day as fighting between armed troops and protesters increased…

Red Shirt Barricade On My Morning Commute

We made it back and learned that our offices were closed until Wednesday as part of a declared national holiday. This was fine and we worked from internet cafes… but as the violence escalated we began to plan a trip outside of the country. When the “holiday” was extended through the end of the week, we booked a flight to HongKong. As my American colleague said “Thailand finally makes up for not having any snow days” – but not in the way you want it to.

We fled on the morning of Wednesday, May 19. I say fled mostly because my girlfriend got a call from someone telling us that the army was moving into the center and that most roads in the city were being closed. In a panic she ran into the room and told me to get everything together and that she was going to try and find a taxi although she couldn’t be sure that she would find one. For my part, I was a bit startled: Partly because I had just discovered a small salamander on my sandal, but mostly because I was expecting her to be getting breakfast for the two of us and she had returned empty handed. But she insisted that I hurry, so I collected our pre-packed luggage and met her in the taxi, where to my relief I discovered that she had cleverly placed two ‘to go’ brunches. As I munched down some sausage and toast in the cab I realized that she was still very concerned, but had calmed considerably since we now had a car. Once at the airport things were easier, although we could see the troubling news on the tvs everywhere: Central Bangkok was a mess- protesters, military, fires. As we lifted off from the Airport I watched the dark smoke clouds rising above downtown and was grateful that we had left in a bit of a hurry.