Woof!

Hi all, 

Last weekend Isabel and I went to Tra Vinh to spend some time with our friend Vincent. Vincent is a fellow volunteer, and is working at Tra Vinh University. He has a beautiful, modern two room appartment with kitchen and AC. It made me jealous. The town of Tra Vinh is very pretty, with low buildings, tree-lined streets, and lots of farming and space. 

I tried to go to Tra Vinh on Friday, but arrived at the bus station at 415 to learn that the last bus of the day left at 4pm, who knew? So, i decided to take the first bus Saturday morning, at 5am. I woke around 4:15am, wandered around deserted Can Tho until i found a cab driver sleeping in his car, and caught a ride to the bus station. Upon arriving i was told that the bus actually leaves at 540! I grabbed a Banh Mi (sandwich) for breakfast, and watched the sunrise in the bus, while reading Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The bus finally pulled out around 6am, stopping constantly to pick up more riders, and passing right by the corner near my house. It turned out I had caught the super local bus. The ride took about 3.5 hours, and very very bumpy, yet pretty. 

I arrived around 9:30am, and we were supposed to have left to go to Vincent's student's house at 8:00am, so we promptly downed some cafe, and headed for the countryside. We then were given the Tra Vinh life experience!   

We spent the afternoon at a beautiful house and farm in the countryside. The woman of the house is known as one of the best cooks in the province, and she prepared her specialty for us: dog!!!!  I have been interested in trying dog since i have come to Vietnam, and i was not disappointed. Dog is a dark, tender meat. Somewhere in between lamb and pork and beef. We also had a ton of other great dishes: hot pot, cari ga, and fresh plums for dessert. We also downed about 6L of rice wine, locally made. Traditionally you are given a shot glass, you drink half and ask someone else to finish it for you. A very social and fun drinking tradition. 

After lunch we wandered around the farm. We saw the 600 some chickens the family is raising, and their vast sugarcane, coconut, and rice fields. We all had a go at climbing coconut trees, which is much harder than it looks! Luckily our host had a big pole-arm, and we chopped down plenty of young coconuts. Their juice was especially refreshing after all the rice wine we had consumed at lunch! 

After lunch some of us took naps on the plentiful hammocks around the family's courtyard. Others went and played volleyball in the local dirt court. Needless to say, we got annihilated by the local competition. After a wonderful afternoon at a country house, we hopped on moto's to take the 45 min ride back to Tra Vinh. We timed our trip perfectly with sunset, it was truly a spectacular trip back. I felt as though i really took a journey through both the rice fields and the spirit of Vietnam. It was cool. 

After a quick nap, we went out for a great night on the town. We visited three different night spots, with food and drink at each. The first we had rice wine and snails. The next was fried tofu with black beer. Finally we went and had Bia Hoi( local draft beer, about 65 cents for 2L) with grilled okra and beef. It was a great night, and we all sampled healthy from the local food and drink! The black beer tasted surprisingly like all the other beer in Vietnam, i am a little suspicious that the color was added. 

The next day we visited a few Pagodas, Tra Vinh has about 140 Khmer pagodas. Then we hopped on a bus back to HCMC. The ride was supposed to be 3.5 hours, it took 5. Such is travel in Vietnam. 

This weekend Isabel and i are going to Da Lat! I am super excited, as i have heard so many great things about the town. Da lat is located in the highlands, has a temperate climate, and was the favorite retreat for the french in colonial times. All my students tell me it is a very romantic place to visit. After the weekend Isabel has to go back to work in HCMC. I am off until January, so i am spending the week in Nha Trang, the most famous beach town in Vietnam. Finally i will head back to HCMC by friday, to welcome my father back to Vietnam, after many years. 

Thats all for now, I hope you enjoy the photos!

Moto ride to the countryside!

 Nothing but rice.

Some of the roads were quite narrow!

Tra Vinh has 140 Khmer pagodas.

Yum, springrolls, braised tofu, lots of spice.

We had about 6L of rice wine throughout the day.

The dish of dark meat on the table is dog, as is the meat in my chopsticks. Don't tell the cute pup on the floor!!!

A few of the family's compound from their fields.

It was a perfect afternoon!

Climbing a coconut tree is a lot harder than i thought!

I love coconut juice!

Don't tell the cute puppy on my lap that i just ate dog...

More rice wine!

Black beer

Grill-your-own beef and okra, with cheap local beer!

The pagodas had great facades. 

The inside of one of the pagodas. 

Lot's of beautiful carvings.

More from halloween and my birthday.

Hi all, Here are some photos from my birthday weekend, as promised.

Lunch on my birthday, Veggie Pho for me, Com Chay for isabel. Here i am sporting my new "333" tank-top. "333" is a very popular, and cheap, Vietnamese beer!

  Enjoying the sights from one of Can Tho's pagodas.

Birthday Dinner! We has Cari Chay (curried veggies), Rau Chien( veggies sauted in garlic), and Ga Chien Nuoc Mam( chicken wings fried in garlic and fish sauce). The chicken wings are the best i have ever had, anywhere!

  I was a vietnamese lottery ticket seller. Danielle was Pikachu!

Isabel was a never-nude.

My friend and fellow volunteer Jessica was a pumpkin!

The cake!

Make a wish! ( a small hangover?)

Late night happiness

This was the brunch i had the next day at my students house. I was so incredibly full afterwards, it was uncomfortable! The food was great though. Fried fish, crab, tons of fruit, spare ribs. and a few cases of beer!

Stay tuned for a post on my trip to Tra Vinh last weekend.

On going rooming saga, lots of food, and a birthday!

Hi everybody,
It's been awhile since i posted, i know. Please forgive me for my delinquency. I have been very busy these past several weeks.

My birthday was three weekends ago! And i turned 23, i think. See, in Vietnam a newborn is already 1, thus their first birthday they turn two. So according to the Vietnamese i am 24, but i would like to think I'm 23, so you can decide.  We had a really great birthday/Halloween party for expats and locals alike. The weekend started with the arrival of my lovely girlfriend Isabel. She is living in HCMC, and took the bus to spend the weekend with me. We spent friday running around town, attempting to find Halloween and birthday decorations, costumes, and the necessary ingredients to make Halloween treats! We ended up with some birhtday balloons, banners, and tablecloths, a few large squash we carved into jack-o-lanterns, and lots of fruit and candy for the
"trick-or-treaters" (ie inebriated expats and sober locals). We had some really enthusiastic vietnamese students and teachers show up for our party. Most Vietnamese love candy and believe in ghosts, so naturally they are enchanted with the idea of trick-or-treating!

I dressed up as a lottery ticket seller. I wore one of those conical hats you have seen in pictures of Vietnam, and bothered people all night with a stack of lottery tickets i had picked up. Lottery ticket sellers in this country, mostly old women, children, and disabled folk, will come up to you at restaurants, on the street, or in stores and tap you on the arm until you shoe them away. There was also a zombie in attendance, a few cowboys and Indians, a pumpkin, lots of domesticated animals, and a picachu. Isabel and my roomate Danielle got an awesome birthday cake, which was a great addition to the copious amounts of fruit and candy. Needless to say, i woke up on sunday feeling like i had way too much candy and beer.

I have also been very busy finishing up the semester teaching at the university. I am giving finals this week and next, so i will be done by Nov. 23rd, giving me a 6 week "winter" break before second semester. I say "winter" because it is still 75-80 degrees here. However, i will be traveling with my parents and Isabel, and we will be up north around Christmas, so it might get down to 40! My kids this semester have taught me a whole lot about teaching English, managing a huge, unresponsive classroom, and life in general.I know what to plan for next semester, and i think it will be a lot easier than this one was.  I am looking forward to the next group of students!

I have also started teaching at a new private language school, called Clever Learn. They pay well, $14 an hour, and seem much more organized than my previous center, and have much nicer facilities. Most the other teachers seem to be older expats from NZ, Australia, and Great Britain. The students also seem to be great so far, and i love the 13 person class size!

I moved into house two about two weeks ago, after our house ( house six) was burglarized for a second time in three weeks. This time the robbers came in between 9:30am-11:30am, a small window in broad daylight! They had obviously been watching the place to see when both Danielle and I were going to be gone. House two seems safer than house six, it also has a safe for valuable, although at this point i don't really have anything left! The robbers managed to steal everything the second time they did not get the first. The exceptions were my ipod and headphones, which I lazily stashed under my pillow that morning. Had i put them in their usual "safe" spot, they would have been taken. Thank god for pillows! My passport, credit cards, and cash were not taken either time. Luckily Vietnamese are short, and i stashed everything on top of my closet! After a third robbery next door last weekend, the university has finally agreed to take some measures to improve security at our housing. We are moving into safer accommodations at a guest house, while they instal new locks, build fences, etc. It's obvious the bad guys in this town know where we live, so hopefully we can make the places safer! We thought about moving to a new location, but we will be targeted as foreigners anywhere in this town i think. Oh well. I am pretty sad and annoyed, and a little bit troubled by all these break-ins, but i am still having a good time here!

It is the height of green mango season right now, so i have been eating at least two a day!!! I also enjoy making mango, papaya, or custard apple Sinh To(smoothies). I use some ice, fruit, and coconut milk, they are awesome! Speaking of food, i accidentally ate frog the other day. It was amazing! I went to grab some lunch one morning after my usual swim at the public pool. I pointed at what i thought was curry chicken. As i was eating my chicken, i grew suspicious. The legs of the thing i was eating didn't look like chicken parts, and there were also small ribcages in the shape of a frog. It did taste pretty much like chicken though!

The next few weeks i will only be teaching Tuesday-Thursday! I am planning on spending the long weekends traveling around the delta and visiting Isabel. There are many beaches and cool towns in this region, so i am looking forward to it!

I will post some pictures as soon as i get them, not having a camera is not very convenient. Luckily some friends still have cameras, so i just need to get their pictures. I will also finally be receiving my new net book this Thursday, so you can expect more posts from me after that!

Much love,
T

A light "snack"

The other day one of my students asked if he could take me out for a snack, around 4 in the afternoon. I have been making a point of always taking up my students offers when I can, so I heartily agreed to go on a culinary adventure with him. Little did I know the two day eating saga I was about to embark on.

(Note, please forgive the lack of pictures, they were on the camera that got stolen, see below…)

For the first part of the snack, we drove downtown to a little restaurant that specialized in the food of Hue. (See two posts previous for information of Hue.) We sat down and had three dishes. The first was Banh bo, a sort of rice pancake with shredded meat and veggies, all covered in delish croutons and coconut milk.  Next we had a different sort of Bun, noodles with more shredded veggies and coconut milk and lots of fish sauce. Finally we had shrimp spring rolls, wrapped with mint and green onion and lemon grass, with an awesome dipping sauce. At this point, I was rather full, but was informed we were going to eat “dessert.”

Turns out dessert was snails, along with the half developed duck eggs the Vietnamese are so fond of. The former consisted of tender, delicious snails boiled in a sweet pepper sauce. They were quite good. The latter are hard boiled duck eggs that have been allowed to partially develop into ducks. You end up eating the yolk, white, as well as a soft baby bird. The first time I tried to eat one; I couldn’t get past the whole idea of eating a duck fetus. This time, I just tried not to think about it. They are actually quite good. Dessert having been eaten, I was finally taken home. Needless to say, I didn’t eat dinner.

The next day the same student, with a few others, took Danielle and me to breakfast. We had an awesome Chinese dish of Fried eggs, meat ball type things, lots of yummy sauce, and rice pancake type things. All with a mini baguette to sop everything up. It was really good, and would have been perfect on a morning after a few too many cocktails. Afterwards we were taken to Karaoke, at 9am, on a Sunday. We were not given much say in the matter. I had a great time, singing such classics as “Barbie girl”-Aqua, “you make my dreams come true”-Hall and Oates and “my heart will go on”-Celine Dion.

Afterwards my body was very confused, as we had spent 2 hours in a dark room, doing what I normally consider a nighttime activity. It was an interesting start to a Sunday. Later Danielle and I played volleyball with some German volunteers we have met, as well as a lot of very talented locals. Even though I am at least a foot taller than most these Vietnamese men, they can jump very high, and are excellent at sending that ball. I had a good time making some blocks and spikes that were hard to counter, given one of the German girls and myself were the only two above 6feet in height.

Police and Thieves

One disadvantage of being a foreigner in Vietnam is that everyone assumes, and often rightly so, that you have nice things like a laptop and digital camera. Also unfortunate is the fact that a lot of people in the town of Can Tho know that volunteers like myself live in a row of guest houses on campus one of Can Tho University. Still more unfortunate is the fact that our house got broken into three nights ago, whilst my roommate and I slept. The thief or thieves made off with my laptop, my digital camera, as well as several of my roomies possessions. They either got in through the roof or the backdoor, but certainly left by the back door. All the doors had been locked, but they were sneaky and managed to open the lock from the outside. All the things were stolen from the living room, and 3 nights ago was the first time i had ever left my laptop in the living room over night. Needless to say i am rather frustrated and bummed out about this. My number of blog posts might drop, at least until i get a new laptop and camera. If only i was not trying to live on $150.00 a month...

The cops came to my house, about 7 or 13 of them, and made detailed reports, etc. I would be infinitely surprised if they ever recovered anything.  Such is life. I am still having a good time here, despite this major pain in the ass.

Thoughts on Hue

In reference to my previous post, Hue really was hue too cool! 
After a 3.5 hour bus ride from Can Tho to Saigon, followed by an hour cab ride to the airport, and an hour flight, i finally made it to grey, rainy Hue on Friday. 


I found Hue to be a very pretty city. The climate was much different from Can Tho. The terrain was more mountainous, with a few big hills here and there, and there were dense stands of trees and forest. All this along with the cooler climate and the beautiful perfume river stood in contrast to the hot, flat, mostly treeless delta i have been living in. 


Being a big tourist town, Hue had a really great backpackers district with neat bars, overpriced restaurants, and lots of vendors. I did my best to avoid the tourist restaurants, opting instead to eat from street carts and places that looked to be crowded with locals. I had some amazing pho the first night, which i suspect contained high levels of MSG, a "seasoning" found everywhere here!


My first night i was able to meet a great group of other westerners, a mix of Brits, Aussies, Canadians, Scots, and Americans. We did a nice little bar crawl, making our way from the hostel, to the DMZ bar, to a bar called "why not?." The second night i was joined by some friends from up north, and we had a great time eating veggie food, and going out on the town. We even got free beer one night!


Hue is the former imperial capital of Vietnam, and has a ton of beautiful tombs, temples, arenas, and pagodas to explore. We were fortunate enough to get two days of rain and two days of sun. Turns out October is the rainiest month of the year in Vietnam, and Hue is the rainiest city in Vietnam!! It rains an average of 24.5 inches in October in Hue, so you can imagine.  Everyone looked at me like i was crazy when i told them i was going to Hue this time of year, but it ended up being a really great time. 


The day we explored the citadel it was pouring rain the entire time! Most of the "forbidden purple city" lies in ruins, so we spent a lot of time walking from building to building, checking out what remains of the mighty dynasties that called Hue home. I was dripping wet almost the entire time, but still had a good time. Luckily it was warm enough to be comfortable still. On our way back to our hotel after exploring all afternoon, we encountered several flooded streets. Almost the entire area around our hotel had 1-2 feet of water in the street, i wish i could have taken a picture. I was too busy trying to stay on my bike, its quite a workout pedaling through that much water!! I luckily got a nice shot of a local riding there bike in the alley near our hotel. 

In addition to the citadel, we visited the tomb of Emperor  Tự Đức, and the Thiên Mụ Pagoda, the largest pagoda in Hue and its official symbol. The temple also houses the Austin motor vehicle in which Thich Quang Duc was driven to his self-immolation in Saigon in 1963 against the Diem regime, so that was pretty interesting. 

Our hotel was a great deal, for 8 bucks a night! We were certainly the only folks staying at the place, which made for some hilarious interactions. Before i had even checked in, i had already been asked by the hotel manager if i wanted do book a city tour through her. I declined because the tour attempted to squeeze 6 landmarks into 7 hours, and i wanted more time than that! We got breakfast every morning, and fresh fruit and coffee in the afternoon. 

Both the accent and people were also different in Hue. I found them to be just as friendly as in Can Tho, but maybe a little more eager to take my money. The food is also slightly different. The Nguyen Dynasty is famous for its gluttonous emperors, and extravagant food. I did not sample anything too crazy, but i had some awesome dishes while in Hue. The central market in Hue was also HUGE, and had every possible item you could ever want, from toilet bowls, to towells, fresh crab to tumeric to rice wine to "north face" backpacks. They had it all! 


I found it really refreshing and encouraging to meet up with Isabel and two other friends in Hue. I think it helps to be able to do some touristy things, when i have been getting used to just teaching all the time. The climate, city, and people were all different enough to really make me feel like i was in a new, but still familiar, place.  


Perfume River and Dragon Boats

One of two main bridges over the Perfume River, this one usually being choked with moto traffic.

Central courtyard at the Citadel.

The aptly named "long hallway" one of the largest remaining structures in the imperial city.

It was a wet day!

 We really wanted to go on an elephant ride, but they were not doing them when we visited!

 This is the courtyard in the Emperor's mother's palace. You can see a monumental gate behind the pretty yellow wall.

Flooded streets!

This beautiful pagoda had a very peaceful courtyard, and very friendly monks.

Hue too cool

I'm going to Hue(whey) this weekend! It's going to be Hue out of control. Hue is the former Imperial capital of Vietnam. It's chock full of ruins of a big citadel, tombs, and temples.
In other news, its sunny here! The rainy season makes for cloudy days usually.

More soon.

Kids Everywhere!!

I wanted to share two experiences i have had recently involving small children.
The first was a few weeks ago, just after the mid-Autumn festival. I was invited by a Vietnamese friend to a ceremony for children about the festival. I didn't have any more details. What it actually turned out to be was a performance organized by this famous Vietnamese singer's fan club. There were games, a dance number to some American hiphop, and lots of food and toys for the kids. Eventually,  Danielle and I were coaxed into singing in front of the whole crowd! We sang Edelweiss, and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The main act was a young Vietnamese singer, who turned out to be a Vietnamese version of Raffi. She sang a bunch of kids songs, and then a bunch of us handed out candy and lanterns to the kids. It was a pretty fun experience. It all took place in a People's Committee building, so Uncle Ho was presiding over everything.

The second expereince was today. I had gone one an hour bike ride to explore a few areas around where i live. It turned out to be a great little ride. I found a lot of peaceful and picturesqueness streets, lined by houses, banana trees, and little canals. It was remarkable that there was such a peaceful neighborhood in the middle of bustling Can Tho. Sadly i did not have my camera.
On the way back from my mission, i ran into my neighbors, Bill, Dan, and Jun. They were on their way to an orphanage, where they do volunteer work once a week, and invited me along. I had a great time seeing the Pagoda/school/orphanage where these kids live. The first floor of the 4 story building was the temple part, followed by classrooms on the second, then hammocks and sleeping quarters on the third, and finally a big open eating/playing area on the fourth floor. There were about 30 hammocks on the third floor, for all the kids, along with the largest mosquito net i have ever seen! The thing was big enough to cover all 30 hammocks.
On the top floor i was greeted by a ton of screaming kids, as well as a few other volunteers, both local and foreign. I met four Dutch volunteers, ranging in age from 18-22, and a few Vietnamese university students as well.  The kids were so much fun! A lot of them just wanted to be picked up and carried around, we also tried to play a few organized games with them. The only one that seemed to work was teaching them the Macarena. We stayed with the kids for about an hour, and gave them some fruit and bread as treats. We left when it was time for their dinner, and i can't wait to go back!
I again didn't have my camera, but next time i will!

I also found an awesome pool!!! Its only 75 cents for a day pass, and its usually empty! 

My House, in the middle of a swamp?

It has been raining a lot here recently, not surprising as its the middle of the rainy season! Every time it rains heavy our front yard and walk flood. A lot of times we get water on our living room floor, along with earthworms and toads and frogs trying to escape the deluge.

The other night my students took my to Karaoke at this ridiculous club called Queen. The place was about 8 stories tall, with really nice private Karaoke rooms with big wrap around couches. The dozen students and I sat around the couch and sang a ton of different songs, all while consuming copious amounts of Bia Saigon, grapefruit, and green mango. Some of my favorites were "Brown Sugar", "You Make my Dreams Come True." and "My  Heart Will go on." They love Celine Dion in this country!!! It was a completely hilarious experience, and sadly i didnt have my camera on me.

Danielle(my housemate and fellow volunteer) and I finally got some kitchen supplies last week. Our apartment was supposed to be fully equipped with a stove and utensils, etc. But, someone took them out of the place during the summer, and everyone claimed to not know where everything was, so we got a few pots and pans and a stove. It has been really nice being able to cook. We live right across the street from a little market, that has people selling pretty much everything you could ever want to eat! Its nice to run across the street for eggs, or fresh veggies, or fruit whenever i want. It also makes it possible to cook up almost anything on a whim, provided the market is selling it.

I have a few pictures here of our apartment, thankfully dried out from the last storm.

My bed and skeeter defeater

Our deluxe kitchen

Foyer and Living room, kitchen and bedroom beyond

Front yard!

Pouring Rain and Power Outages

All last night and this morning it dumped rain. Our house has a tin roof over part of it, and it sounded like we had 4 elephants jumping up and down on our roof all night. This morning, i awoke at 6am, and flipped on the hot water maker first thing. I cannot function without my morning cup of tea! To my dismay, the electric water kettle did not turn on, nor did the kitchen lights, and the ceiling fan was off. That's when i realized our power was off. Don't worry, we have a propane stove, so i was able to make my tea!
Traffic in Vietnam is insane on a good day, so you could imagine how it is on a day with pouring rain and no traffic signals. Surprisingly enough, i made it to school in one piece, regardless of the 4 intersections i had to navigate with no traffic lights. The traffic might have been a little better than usual, as everyone slowed down a bit  due to the lack of electricity.
Luckily my University has their own generators, so i was able to turn on the lights in my classroom. By the time i got home, our power was back on, as were the precious ceiling fans! I am currently at an internet cafe, and its pouring rain, again. That's the rainy season for you!!
A good result of the rain and cold weather is that about half of my class did not show up this morning. I usually teach about 55 students at once, so it was a nice change to only have 30 or so. Teaching here is so unlike any classroom environment i ever experienced in the US, or France for that matter. Trying to get my students to answer a question, or raise their hand to volunteer, or to think independently is like pulling teeth. Today, after trying in vain to get more volunteers for a game i was trying to play, i taught my class the expression, "like pulling teeth." They thought that was hilarious! Usually i bring candy to class, my students respond well to bribes in exchange for participation.
The bright side, a few days ago i found a public pool right next to my school! It has about 6 lanes, 25m long, and it costs just 75 cents for a day pass! I didn't go today on account of the monsoon, but tomorrow for sure.

My weekend getaway to Ho Chi Minh City!

Weekend in  HO CHI MINH CITY!!!

• Stayed at the Saigon Mini Hotel
• Went to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum
• Went to the Opera House
• Ate at Zen, a vegetarian restaurant in District 1
• Went to the War Remnants Museum
• Ate at Phap Hoa 1, a vegetarian restaurant in District 1
• Visited the Reunification Palace
• Went to the Post Office
• Saw the Notre Dame
• Shopped at the Ben Thanh Market
• Ate at Vegan Saigon
• Exercised in Cong Vien Van Hoa Park
• Visited Pagodas in Cholon(China Town, District 5)

                    -Quan Am

                    -Phuoc An Hoi Quan

                    -Thien Hau

                    -Tam Son Hoi Quan

                    -Ong Bon

                    -Nghia An Hoi Quan

                    -Ha Chuong Hoi Quan

• Saw the Cholon Mosque

I hear blogging is appreciated

So, I am going to attempt to maintain a blog. It should be interesting because i don't have internet in my house, even after a month of pestering my university. So, i either go sit on my neighbors porch and steal their wifi, or i go to a nearby internet cafe. I hope i can inform you all of the cool and interesting and bizarre things i see while in Vietnam, and share some pictures.

Me at the Khmer Temple in Can Tho

Phu Quoc Island has sweet beaches.

Sharing a birthday dinner with one of my students' families.

I love how spicy the food is here!!!

Rural road on an island in the middle of the Mekong, near Long Xuyen.

More to follow.