Houlton, Maine

I spent three days and two nights in Houlton, Maine, the red spot on this map. Here's what wikipedia says: Houlton is a town in Aroostook County, Maine, on the United States-Canada border, located at 46°07′32″N 67°50′23″W / 46.1256°N 67.8398°W / 46.1256; -67.8398. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 6,476. It is perhaps best known as being at the northern terminus of Interstate 95 and for being the birthplace of Samantha Smith. (Samantha Smith was that precocious peacemaker who died in a plane crash when she was 13 in 1985. Also, I was up there to help the 2010 census get an updated people count.)

I left yesterday evening, and as I was driving down Route 95 at dusk, looking at the orange slanted sunlight hitting only the top of the trees, I thought I would like to live up here. The roads have so few cars you can practically do a u-turn without bothering to check for oncoming traffic. (But the occasional semi-trailer does come around, barreling along at 80 mph.) The low hills are covered with fields, patches of blue forest and solitary old farmhouses. The people have this funny habit (as do other people in small towns): They'll note you as a stranger somewhere doing something ordinary -- like working out at the gym or taking a walk or having coffee at a cafe -- and then, if they happen to run into you again, they'll say, "Hey, I saw you at ____!"

Houlton has a different feel from southern Maine; or rather, it's more intensely southern Maine except with fewer trees. But it's really far from intense!

Downtown Houlton.


It was bitterly cold when I was there.


This picture below was taken of Route 1 in Houlton 10 years ago. Today, just a decade later, this strip looks like Route 1 anywhere: it's built up with chain restaurants, gas stations, expanded car dealerships and motels, a Wal-Mart, Shop N' Save, Mardens, et al. The latest economic boom is really obvious in this rural outpost. That illusory economic boom, rather. The photos below are of the big Irving gas station and truck stop on the strip.


This kid below is the third generation of Yorks running the biggest car dealership in Aroostook County (on Route 1). They just invested $3 million to add an addition to handle their rapid growth, which, this guy told me, has been based on giving out subprime loans over the last five years to cash-poor car buyers. Revenues (up to now, that is): $20 million. Employees: 50.


Here's Houlton's town manager (below) holding up hand cuffs made at the local handcuff factory, Smith & Wesson. Ten years ago he was given these cuffs, the factory's 3 millionth made in 20 years. Smith & Wesson just made its 6 millionth cuff a couple weeks ago. They're the biggest supplier of handcuffs in the world, helping policemen, totalitarian regimes and S&M devotees everywhere!


This guy below, along with three other businessmen who became friends at Iraq war protests in northern Maine, are starting a new company. They plan on buying canola and mustard seed from local farmers to press into oil for salad dressings and tractor biofuel. (The oil is exactly the same for both uses.) This man was lovely, gentle and mild, with a hint of humor.


This young couple, who both have engineering degrees from a respectable university, are starting a potato Vodka company in Houlton to rival Maine's second potato Vodka maker, Cold River Vodka. Their potato vodka, they say, will have no flavor. I like the idea of starting a company with a product that has no discernible characteristics -- is invisible, odorless and flavorless, and yet still sells for $19.

A Graham Ave. restaurant

Vanessa's mom and Lebanese boyfriend Bo last summer opened a restaurant on Graham Ave. in Williamsburg called Odara, which serves a mixture of Brazilian and Lebanese food. Vanessa and I went in tonight -- stopping in for a respite from the rainy, cold night -- and just asked for some hummus and spinach and chickpeas, but we left with about seven pounds of food. The restaurant is struggling in the recession though, and Bo says he needs to sell it.

Clara, Vanessa's mom, said tonight that all of life's experiences come with some price, and sometimes the price is really big, almost unbearable. But she didn't make us pay any price for our dinner, and the food was delicious!

Watery rhythms: the Saigon River, the lunar calendar, floods, flowers and Tet

While not as frequently romanticized as Vietnam's Mekong River or the Red River maybe, the old Saigon River forms a pretty ribbon through the city. And because its current is relatively brisk, its smell is not as heavy and rotten as the smaller city canals.

I took a bicycle ride down a crumbling, narrow and peaceful lane alongside the Saigon River today (my last day in Vietnam). The lane's in District 2, or Quan 2 on the map. (You'll have to click on the map and then zoom in for a better picture. I can't find a better map unfortunately.)

Waiting quietly on the river were both oceanic vessels and a few smaller boats carrying coconuts, bonsai trees and other agricultural goods for sale at the millions of street markets in Saigon. I biked this lane yesterday, too, and as far as I could tell, none the boats had moved at all during that time.

Funny how sea trade is so mysterious from an outsider's perspective. It's impossible to figure out what's going on behind the hulls and inside the steel containers being loaded on and off the ships. But I imagine the worst -- as I bet Maine State Senator Susan Collins, who's head of the Senate Committee of Homeland Security, does as well: the trafficking of humans beings, drugs, weapons and crude radioactive material for bombs, among all the other black market goods sneaking in under the tax radar.

The most active object on the river was this boat above moving at Mach 2, skimming the top of the water in its rush. I've never seen anything like it, but I presume it's not an uncommon kind of speedboat. I just wonder who was riding in the thing. Maybe a politician? Perhaps a Vietnamese smuggling tycoon?

The lane next to the river was quiet and shady, with an occasional bicycle or motor scooter passing me. People were drinking cà phê and green tea by the (deliciously non-smelly) river, under the trees lining the road, sitting on a sidewalk turning into mud due to the stress of being regularly flooded.

This house, across the lane from the Saigon River, still hasn't dried out from the recent full moon and high tide.

Vietnamese calendars list both lunar and solar dates because both are still important and practical here. (Lena's dad, for instance, didn't know his solar calendar birthday until he was quite old and looked it up on the Internet.) The traditional lunar calendar is vital in Vietnam for a couple of reasons. First, families need to know the phases of the moon so they don't miss the date they must lay out food and burn incense for the ancestors (the 15th and 30th of the lunar month).

Also, for those living in flood-prone areas -- and as far as I can tell, most of Saigon is in chronic peril of flooding -- it is somewhat reassuring to be able to predict when their living room will become a rice paddy, even if they can't do anything about it. Lena's dad says that the river rises with the tides two or three days after the full moon, the seas being dragged along by the fading, falling moon.

The most recent full moon was the 11th, and when I opened our gate two mornings ago I saw that the alley across from us had turned into a long rectangular pool. In Lena's house (which belongs to her parents and is about 500 meters from a river), the floor had to be raised three feet to protect it from the river water, which simply rises up from the sewer through the earth and into people's homes. Lena's parents got so frustrated they eventually moved out.

This poor home below is across the lane from the Saigon River, and next to a stinky canal -- double trouble.


Tet is coming up at the end of the month, Jan. 26, the first day of the new lunar year. (This is Lena's calendar below. If you click on it, you can more easily read the lunar and solar dates.)

People are already starting to get ready by buying traditional sweets and food to serve guests (manic socializing goes on during Tet). Even more lanterns are being strung up on the streets and flower sellers are bracing for their busiest time of the year. Lena says many wild flowers blossom after Tet. A few are already out, like these yellow trumpets.

Tet doesn't just bring in the new year, it also marks the start of Vietnam's so-called spring. It's quite funny to me that spring is heralded here with such fanfare, despite the winter being so mild and warm, and fresh fruits and vegetables being so plentiful all year round! (But spring is exciting everywhere I guess. Perhaps it's the concept of renewal and temporal change that's most interesting.) Also, although I am hardened by the extreme seasons in Maine, here the spring does mean less rain, clearer skies, more sun and hotter temperatures.

Anyway, goodbye wonderful, fascinating, difficult and eternally strange Vietnam!

The environment

Recycling here works like this: a woman comes around with a wheelbarrow to collect what you have so she can turn around and sell it to factories for their operations. Like all the street peddlers, she announces herself with a unique call. The peddlers' calls form a kind of street music, and when there are several working close by, like early in the mornings and between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., the calls become especially melodic. (The roving masseuse, though, comes after dark and roams the streets until about 11 p.m., rubbing what sounds like cymbals together -- which are actually beer bottle caps on strings tied to his bicycle wheels.)

This woman does this work to supplement her and her husband's income as farmers. They're raising two young children.

Going native: And this is what I wear to combat the city's pollution when I ride on the back of a motorbike. I also optimistically wear this mask, despite it being completely ineffective according to local doctors, when I ride my bicycle. Plus sunglasses. It's the mosquito look. (For the full mosquito effect, check out Lena below!)

More street scenes

An almost full moon -- it was a like a scene out of the movie The Letter! Except Bette Davis did not have to deal with all the droopy, dangling electrical wires all over the place. (Here they are relatively taut and straight.)


A shrine still smoking in someone's doorway. The shrines to ancestors, or perhaps a god or two, are set up in the middle of the month and the end of the month, on the full and half moon. Last night was the full moon, but sometimes the incense smokes for two days, according to my source. The fragrant smoke cleanses the air, allowing for renewal and better luck next time.


A woman preparing a few bagfuls of che, which should be lighting these girls' faces up with anticipation, but they are unmoved for some reason.


All different types of delectable che ingredients (che being a good synonym for the ability to turn any food into a dessert), from chestnuts and water chestnuts to rice balls filled with mung beans (I think), to rice and beans, everything loaded up with sugar! Good thing the Vietnamese eat so many herbs and drink so much green tea to counteract the possibility of contracting adult-onset diabetes!


Rice probably absorbs extra glucose. (I mean, to be fair, our diet contains oodles more sugar.)

These young boys play Vietnamese music loudly from a pushcart filled with discs in hopes of selling CDs to people who, inspired by hearing the tunes blaring outside their windows, come running out in their nightgowns to snatch up a newly pirated CD for 5,000 dong. The brothers say they're 17 and 18, but they look younger. And they mentioned their parents live in the country, so they're not technically "street kids." They make about 70,000 to 100,000 dong (17,000 dong equals $1) a day. Lena and I bought some hardcore dance numbers.


The banana lady down the alley. Actually, she's not just a banana lady, she's got all sorts of specialties, like little shriveled eggs that look like miniature yellow boats that are really boiled eggs fried with herbs and meat. And she cooks up a good and greasy banh xeo, the Vietnamese crepe, which is made from rice flour, turmeric and coconut milk, and filled with shrimp, fatty pork and bean sprouts before being fried. She also makes fresh spring rolls; a thick banana-and-coconut pancake that fits into your palm and only hints at sweetness; and a roasted banana treat that's wrapped in sticky rice and banana leaves before being set on a portable grill. Often, she's grumpy. But tonight she's in a good mood. By the looks of it, she has very little nibblers left after a successful day of feeding!


The ladies who run this stand -- they cook up fried rice and stir-fried stuff -- have the best display around. Although those leaves could use a bit of refreshing.

Street scenes, night, Binh Thanh district

Down the street from us, and across the big thoroughfare, is a couple of lanes with cafes and pubs strewn with Christmas lights and lanterns.

A study in blue!

And a study in green.


A study in red.