Dar El-Hajar January 2011

In January 2011 I traveled to Sana'a Yemen on a work assignment. On the weekend, however, I was able to drive outside the capital to Dar El-Hajar, the famous summer palace of Iman Yahia (1911-1948). Dal El-Hajar is also known as the Rock Palace because it rises 5 stories from a base atop a rock outcropping.

The palace is located in a lush valley called Wadi Dhar. From the palace's upper stories there are wonderful views of the valley and the steep cliffs of the surrounding mountains.

The interior of the palace has been maintained with much of the original artwork and furnishings of Iman Yahia. There are many photos from the 1930s and 1940s showing scenes from the life of the last traditional ruler of Yemen.

In contrast to Sana'a with its bustling streets and markets, the palace in Wadi Dhar and the nearby village are quiet. Here there are no political demonstrations attracting global headlines. From the palace rooftop, you look out over a scene hardly changed since the early years of the last century. At Dar El-Hajar, it is still easy to imagine a Yemen from years gone by, remaining in spendid and peaceful isolation from the rest of the world.

JFK House August 27 2009

"He was a man with, among other things, a great gift for friendship. He was a guy born with a lot of advantages, and then maximized his ability to use them on behalf of other people. He was a very powerful, wealthy guy who would reach out to help others in ways that are really very unusual in politics — politics tends to be a kind of jealous business — and Sen. Kennedy really was above that in ways that almost nobody else was." Representative Barney Frank

On my way back from work last week I decided to stop by the house in Brookline, Massachusetts where President Kennedy was born. Even though it was about 7:00 PM and this national historic site had closed at 4:30, a National Park Ranger was still there to greet people who had come to leave flowers and sign a condolence book for the family of Senator Ted Kennedy.

I spent some minutes talking with the Ranger about the Kennedy family. I was somewhat surprised that a family which touched the world started their journey from a small house in a modest residential area. The Ranger noted that this was the first home for President Kennedy's parents. They lived here until 1920 but moved to a larger house after four of the children were born. John Kennedy was born in the house in 1917.

Although, Ted Kennedy had never lived in the Beals Street house, this was a place where neighbors from near and far came when they learned that Senator Kennedy had died after his year-long battle with cancer. Like many others who arrived here after hearing the news, I was drawn by a sense of both sadness for the loss of a great man and gratitude for a family who never looked on their wealth as way to wall themselves away from others. Instead they offered a life of service for the nation and the world.

As I stood on the porch, I wrote down my thoughts in the condolence book about our favorite senator and what he's meant to me over the years. Here at the Kennedy house on Beals Street there were no crowds; it was a peaceful way to remember Ted and the family that has given so much for our country.

Hawaii 1981

Honolulu View of Diamond Head

Hawaii was a place that I had known in my imagination long before I arrived there. During WWII, both my father and my uncle were stationed in the Hawaiian Islands. While my father returned to Massachusetts after completing his service, his brother settled in Honolulu, married a lovely Filipina and raised a family there. Over the years we received pictures of my cousins playing on beaches framed by palm trees, gift packages of tropical food items and colorful flower arrangements of sweet-smelling plumeria and bird of paradise.

In the years before statehood, Hawaii seemed more like a distant foreign land than part of the United States. It wasn't often that we heard from the Hawaiian side of our family as phone calls were too expensive and letters would take a week or so to arrive. In those days before commercial jetliners and budget travel, the idea of visiting our Hawaiian relatives hardly seemed possible.

It was not until the spring of 1981 that, together with my wife and son, I finally got to Hawaii during a short leave taken while we were relocating from Indonesia to Cameroon. After so many years of seeing their photos and hearing about them, I was finally able to meet my aunt and my cousins. As my uncle had passed away some years before, my aunt had struggled to raise their three boys on her own. She soon remarried and the family now included a daughter. My cousin Mackie and his wife Annie picked us up at the airport and gave us a traditional Hawaiian welcome with garlands of fragrant leis. The few days we were able to spend with them were memorable. Mackie and Annie and their three children had a home in Wahiawa which was near where Mackie worked at Schofield Barracks. Like my father, Mackie was a carpenter. Also like my father, his building projects made his house a "work in progress." So I felt right at home.

Annie showed us around Oahu. Although we soon found it was possible to make a circuit of the island within a few hours, our trips around Oahu always took longer. Everywhere we went there was something new to see and experience—from looking over fields of ripening pineapples alongside the Kamehameha Highway, to enjoying shave ice with sweet azuki beans at a roadside stand in Haleiwa, to swimming in the cool, clear water at Waimea Bay, to standing on the Pali Overlook where we could lean against the wind while viewing the valley below and the ocean in the distance. While we did visit some tourist destinations, we found the daily pleasures of "talking story" and making family outings to local markets, parks and quiet beaches far from Waikiki much more enjoyable.

All too soon it was time to leave but we knew we would be returning again. In Hawaii, my wife and I found a multi-cultural lifestyle rich in Asian tradition where we felt at home. Within a couple years we became Hawaiian residents and before the decade was out we had bought our first home there.

Hanauma Bay

Concord Massachusetts — Patriot's Day

Minuteman Statue 1968

In Concord, where the first shots of the American Revolution rang out, Patriot's Day is always celebrated on April 19th. While the official state holiday may now fall on the third Monday of the month, residents of Concord and neighboring towns keep with tradition in commemorating that particular day in 1775 when Minutemen engaged the Redcoats in Concord and Lexington. Today, as residents play the role of local militia and British soldiers to re-create the fight by the bridge, crowds of onlookers will once again thrill to the crack of muskets and the smell of blackpowder smoke.

Growing up in a town that neighbored Concord, on Patriot's Day I often went to the Old North Bridge to witness the re-enactment of the battle. Sometimes, I would walk with local Minutemen as they made their way from Acton to Concord. On those early spring mornings, the weather was typically cold but everyone's spirit was high as we followed the militia on their 7 mile march to Concord. Wearing tri-corner hats and shouldering muskets, our neighbors tried to act the part of 18th century farmers called to war. Accompanied by fife and drum, they gave the appearance of being a determined if not a disciplined lot.

During my youth in the 1950s, the Old North Bridge was not yet part of the national park system. Although world famous for the fight that took place there, the park itself was small. From Monument Street you walked down a short, tree-lined path to the bridge. Across the bridge stood the famous Minuteman statue by Daniel Chester French. Here, a hedge marked the park's limit. You could take it all in within the few minutes it took to walk from the street to the statue. Or you could spend a quiet afternoon pondering what happened here while sitting on a bench overlooking the scene. Except in the summer, the park was seldom busy. Most of those who came by were, like me, local visitors who enjoyed the park's tranquility and natural beauty. If you looked across the river, the Buttrick estate dominated the view. The Buttrick mansion stood on a rise overlooking the river. During spring and summer, flowers on the hillside created tapestry of color flowing from the grand house down to the riverbank. Today, the flowers are mostly gone as the National Park Service has tried to restore the landscape of 1775. The Buttrick mansion itself has become a visitor center where you can see exhibits describing the Concord and Lexington battles. The Old North Bridge is now just a small part of Minute Man National Park which covers all of the battleground from Concord to Lexington.

With Patriot's Day transformed into another Monday holiday in Massachusetts, for most residents of the Bay State Patriot's Day now means being able to enjoy the first long weekend of spring—a harbinger of the carefree summer days to come. For many, Patriot's Day has become synonymous with the Boston Marathon, a wonderful event celebrated by runners and sports fans around the world. For me, however, Patriot's Day will always be the 19th of April. Wherever I am, this holiday always brings me back to thoughts of Concord and my many visits to the Old North Bridge.

Bangkok and Chiang Mai Summer 1971

As the summer of 1971 approached, some friends in my Malaysia Peace Corps group suggested that we should use our annual leave to visit Thailand. It sounded like a great adventure. None of us had ever been to Thailand or even had much information on what we could do there. But Thailand promised to be a great change from Malaysia, a country that was becoming very familiar.

At the Peace Corps office in Kuala Lumpur, we were able to read information sheets written by PCVs in Bangkok and beyond. These brief reports provided us with a lot of local information about Thailand: where to stay, where to shop, what to see and how to do it all on a PCV allowance. Armed with this intelligence, we coordinated our vacation schedules and prepared for our holiday.

We began our vacation in Kota Bharu in the Northeast corner of Malaysia. To cross into Thailand, we had to walk on a railway trestle over the river that marked the border between Malaysia and Thailand. After passing through Thai immigration and customs— a fairly impromptu set up— we boarded pedicabs for the short trip to the train station. Here we faced our first problem. None of us spoke Thai and nobody we met spoke English or Malay. While the train schedule was prominently posted, we couldn’t read it because it was written in Thai, a script that gave us not even a clue as to which of the many stations listed was Bangkok. All we could decipher were the departure and arrival times. Knowing that the trip took about one day from the border to Bangkok, we made a guess concerning which station should be our destination and, with a bit of trepidation, bought our tickets. We rationalized that, after all, we were traveling up the length of the Thai peninsula. There was no place for the train line to go but to Bangkok. At least, we hoped so.

Train to Bangkok?


When at last the train ended its journey at a major terminal, we disembarked and walked out into the sunlight still not quite knowing where we were. “Bangkok?” we asked a taxi driver standing outside the train station. He gave us a quick look and said, “Thirty dollars.” As our train tickets all the way from Malaysia had cost only a fraction of this amount we began to grow concerned that we perhaps had missed our mark by some distance. An attempt to negotiate a lower fare did not reduce the requested tariff by much. In his own way, the taximan indicated that Bangkok was a long drive. But as thirty dollars was more than any of us were willing to pay, we sought another solution.

We soon realized that few people leaving the train station were getting into taxis. Most headed across the street to the river and were boarding long, narrow boats powered by big engines fitted with a long-shaft to the propeller. We picked up our bags and followed the crowd down to the river. When we got to the pier, we again asked, “Bangkok?” The boatman pointed at the city skyline across the river. We quickly piled into the river taxi and within a few minutes arrived in Bangkok. The cost? Half a baht: about three cents!

We found Bangkok fascinating. With its klongs and temples, crowded markets and jumping nightlife, we enjoyed exploring the city day and night.

Erawan Prayers


After several days of seeing the sights in Bangkok, we talked about where else we might go. Some suggested we ought to cross over into Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. Others recommended we travel north to see Thailand’s hill towns. In the end, we agreed to visit Chiang Mai which we thought would be a comfortable change from Bangkok’s heat. We put Angkor Wat on our destination list for next year. As it turned out, however, the war that soon came to Cambodia closed the country for many years. It was not until 2005 that I was finally able to see the wonders of Angkor Wat.

An overnight night bus took us on the 700km journey (about 435 miles) from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. I called this the Thai Gourmet Tour as our bus seemed to stop every few hours at another all-night eatery where every passenger took the opportunity to feast on grilled Thai chicken, fried noodles and other delights.

Our first view of Chiang Mai was memorable. The rooftops of Chiang Mai glimmered half hidden in the shadows of early morning. As dawn turned to daylight and the mist dissipated, Chiang Mai’s houses and temples gradually came into view, as mystically as Brigadoon, framed against a mountain backdrop. Instead of Bangkok’s din we heard cocks crowing and the quiet sounds of Chiang Mai—spirit house bells tinkling in the breeze like wind chimes.

Lovely Chiang Mai


Chiang Mai, although the provincial capital, had a small town feel. It was easy to get around and meet residents, particularly students who just wanted the chance to practice their English. One student was kind enough to act as our guide in Chiang Mai and tell us something of its history.

As much as we enjoyed visiting many of Chiang Mai’s temples, there was much more to see in and around the city. We had a lot of fun going into various shops selling everything from Thai silk to carved furniture. Each shop seemed to employ a former Miss Chiang Mai as a sales girl to attract customers into buying their goods such as these hand-painted umbrellas.

Chiang Mai Umbrella Shop


I think the highlight of our visit was our trek to Wat Doi Suthep high in the mountains overlooking the Chiang Mai valley. The temple was built in the 14th century on a spot chosen by a sacred white elephant. For the people of Thailand, this temple is an important pilgrimage site on major Buddhist feasts. There was a spectacular view from the temple down to the fields of rice covering the valley floor. On seeing the endless irrigated padi fields stretching to the horizon, I had to remind myself that each of the millions of rice stalks had been planted individually by hand. Thailand’s bounty of rice is truly a miracle of man and nature.

Peace Corps Volunteers at Wat Doi Suthep

Singapore Old and New

Over the years I’ve often traveled to Singapore. My first visit was in late 1970 when I was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia. At that time, Singapore had only been independent for five years. There was still something of a colonial atmosphere about the place. In part it was the architecture and in part it was the presence of longtime expats at the old pubs and other British hangouts. The pace of life was definitely slower then as there was no reason to hurry and air conditioning was far from universal.

While Orchard and Tanglin Roads had already become the main destination of foreign visitors, there were relatively few tourists. Most visitors were businessmen looking for an opportunity in Singapore’s newly independent economy. Unlike today, there were no broad walkways and megamalls in this part of town. As pedestrians ambled along the crowded sidewalks, they had to edge past snake charmers and other touts trying to cage a few tourist dollars. During the monsoon season, Orchard Road regularly flooded and visitors moved between the hotels and shops in trishaws pushed by men walking through the water. Most of the city at that time consisted of two story shophouses. The few skyscrapers that existed were found along Shenton Way.

The heart of the old city, around the intersection of Temple and Trengganu, was still an area where a visitor felt alien. This traditional Chinatown center remained a world apart. Nearby Sago Lane was still remembered for its houses where the dying were brought. Such traditional death houses had only been banned a decade earlier. The area’s many shops catered to the traditional needs of the local community and not to tourists seeking Singapore kitsch. For a visitor interested in exploring the crowded markets along Singapore's back streets, an ability to speak Hokkien or Malay was more useful than English or even Mandarin.

In the years immediately following independence, an important link with Singapore’s past remained an economy driven by shipping and trade, dominated by a few old established firms. Ships, anchored in the roads just off the coast, could be seen offloading their cargo into lighters tied up alongside. As soon as one lighter would fill, another would take its place.

Lighters not only had a strong engine below deck but also had eyes painted on their bow to guide them as they chugged their way from the outer harbor past the Merlion to godowns lining the Singapore River. There was a constant procession of lighters entering and leaving the river's boat basin. Along Boat Quay, lighters could be seen three and four deep as they jockied for a berth. Night and day, coolies unloaded everything that Singapore traded. Whether the cargo was precious or common, much of it was carried ashore on the backs of men. With practiced effort they balanced their loads across rickety planks laid from the lighters to the roadway. The shift to containerized shipping was still some years ahead. Today’s diversified economy of electronics production, investment banking and international tourism remained a dream yet to be created by Singapore’s leaders.

When the sun set, Singapore was transformed as the city’s car parks became impromptu dining emporiums with dozens of hawkers setting up their push carts to prepare an amazing variety of local food favorites. Whether you were looking for satay, mee goreng, murtabah or even more elaborate dishes, there were many choices. For expats and local elites wanting to enjoy typically British fare, dinner at the Raffles Hotel promised an atmosphere of raffish charm along with its signature cocktail, the Singapore Sling. Many visitors and expats completed their evening by wandering over to Bugis Street to gawk at the nightly parade of transvestites known for their remarkable beauty. The opportunity of sharing a drink, a dance or something more with one of these "girls" made Bugis Street one of Singapore’s more notorious nightspots.

Singapore is a very different place today.

Singapore today is as shiny and up-to-date as the brightest capitals of Europe and North America. Singapore’s growing economy has brought prosperity to its population. The country’s education and healthcare systems are second to none. Crime is low. Employment is high. On Singapore’s Metro you can move comfortably and swiftly to almost any destination in the city. New construction continually updates Singapore’s skyline. To best London, Singapore now has its own giant ferris wheel, the Singapore Flyer—the world’s tallest at 165 meters.

From Benetton to KFC, from Starbucks to Versace, international logos are highly visible throughout the city. And yet, in this rush to a future closely intertwined with other world capitals, a sense of Singapore’s unique and storied history is vanishing as the country reinvents itself for the modern world.

Images from the past remain and yet they’re different somehow. You can, for example, still spend a pleasant, if expensive, afternoon over drinks in the Raffles Long Bar. But with the Raffles transformation into an international tropical resort a decade ago, a great deal of its earlier charm has been lost along with the polished patina of the old woodwork and fixtures. Bugis Street, once infamous as a licentious entertainment district, has now become the site for yet another shopping mall. And at night along Boat Quay, the waterside is bright with neon as visitors and young Singaporeans while away the evening in restaurants and shops unaware that this area used to be a working river where coolies humped sacks of copra and spices from lighters to godowns.

I enjoy the efficient and entertaining city that Singapore has become. I feel at home there. With its modern facilities, Asian hospitality and wonderful Peranakan cuisine, Singapore remains a destination worth traveling halfway around the world to visit. But I also miss the Singapore I have known: comfortably colonial, mysteriously oriental, gritty, tawdry and vibrantly on the cusp of a new age.

When I think of all these changes—not only what has improved but also what has been lost—I take comfort from the wisdom of Buddha who teaches us that all of life is impermanent.