After a month of back and forth with a Habitat for Humanity Affiliate here in HCMC and countless other emails to other NGOs, I'd given up on working in my field and turned to the fallback profession of all English-speaking, want-to-be, temporary residents of non-English speaking countries - ESL.
Ms. (names ommitted for the sake of privacy),
Hello. My name is Sharon Brown and I recieved your information from (another teacher) who is currently teaching at AIS. He reccommended you highly.
My husband is also teaching at AIS and I am living here with him and interested in finding a job teaching English to adults, if possible, in HCMC. I worked at AIS temporarily as a third grade teacher until they found a permenant teacher and have also taught English in Thailand as a volunteer with Cross Cultural Solutions. I am a social worker by profession and worked with refugees from all over the world as a refugee resettlement case manager, and have a lot of experiece working with people to whom English is a second (or third or fifth!) langugae. I am interested in working with adults because the majority of my experience is with adults and I feel that I would be able to successfully meet their needs in all levels of English
learning.
If you are aware of any teaching opportunities available, or would be able to speak with me futher, I can be reached via email at this address or on my phone at
01234453656.
Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And then the fun began.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Ms !
I am from Englishhome.
Where are you from?
Englishhome company need one teacher teach Talentnet company.
If you need, I will take you going Talentnet company meet student's.
Are you free day?
Thanks. Have a nice day.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I am from the United States. I would be happy to meet the students from Talentnet Company. When do they need me to start? How many students? Anything else you can tell me?
I am free this afternoon or tomorrow. Let me know what time we should meet.
Thank you!
Sharon
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Ms !
Can you send me your CV ?
Thanks .
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I have attached my CV for your review. Please let me
know if you have any problem opening it.
Sharon
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Ms !
Are you free on morning ?
Can you teach on morning?
Thanks !
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I am free in the morning. What would the hours be? What day do they need me to start?
Sharon
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Ms !
I will call for you when they answer for me.
Can you teach Wed on morning at 8 hour AM to 11 hour AM?
Thanks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I would be free to teach on Wednesday morning from 8:00 - 11:00 a.m. I will wait to hear from you on the start date and other details. Do you know if it would be today or next Wednesday? Do you know how many students there are or what their level of English is?
Thank you!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Ms !
I will wait and I will answer for you beacause Talentnet not answer for me. I new sens Cv of you for they.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
No worries. I will just wait until you hear from them. I am going out today, so if you need me today, please call my cell 01234452083. Otherwise I will check my email when I return.
Thanks, again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Ms !
When was you born ?
How long are you stay VN?
Have you teach school ?
Thanks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ms. Tram,
I am 31 years old. I was born in 1977. I will be in Vietnam until May 2009.
I have not taught school to children, but I have taught English to adults.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Ms !
Are you free today?
I will take you going Super kid at 14 hour PM.
I and you meet at 163 Pasteur - Ward 6 - District 3.
You will teach demo today .
Thanks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ms. ,
I will meet you at 2:00 p.m.
Thank you. I look forward to meeting you!
Sharon
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
(Cut to Ms. Sharon in a room full of Vietnamese 2-year-olds singing Old MacDonald had a farm... by herself).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
(The next day)
Dear Ms !
Ok, thanks.
Today at 2 hour Pm , you no teach super kid .
I will take you going to Talentnet company when Talentnet call me.
Have a nice day.
(Whew!)
Monday, October 27, 2008
Normalization Processes
Every morning, I get up with Steven and begin my daily process of normalization. With my t-shirt and running shorts, I stand out more in my neighborhood than I do in pants, but since dailing running is one of the ways I stay healthy, both physically and mentally, not running is not an option, so my neighbors are just going to have to get used to me.
When we see strange things for the first time, we often can't help but to look (stare) at them, but once we've seen something every day, we stop feeling the need to look (stare) and it just becomes part of the scenery. I am working on becoming part of the scenery.
Each morning, I walk out of our apartment and down the alley next to our building; right at the next street and walk about a block to the main road, which I have to cross to the park. I've stopped looking at people as I pass because more often than not, I find myself at the end of a hostile stare.
I run over to the park, dodging couples sleeping on the sidewalk, yipping dogs, crowds of nursing students, low hanging tree branches; crossing the street multiple times, each time winding through crowds of honking motorbikes; turn around and head back through the gauntlet and I've been running for 10 minutes. To get to twenty, I turn around and repeat the sequence, but for the last 10 I have to be creative. I run around the block, to calls of "HELLO!" sidestepping fresh piles of dog poo, wishing myself invisible. By this time, I am dripping sweat from my face, elbows and legs, making me even more of a spectacle to the Vietnamese, whose women regularly wear pants, long-sleeved shirts, jackets, hats, facemasks, gloves and flip-flps (with socks) in 90 degree weather and don't break a sweat.
By the time I get to my dark smelly entrance way, I am thrilled to be home.
A few more weeks of this and maybe I won't be "What IS that thing!?" and I'll just be, "Oh that's just the sweaty American who runs in the park every morning."
When we see strange things for the first time, we often can't help but to look (stare) at them, but once we've seen something every day, we stop feeling the need to look (stare) and it just becomes part of the scenery. I am working on becoming part of the scenery.
Each morning, I walk out of our apartment and down the alley next to our building; right at the next street and walk about a block to the main road, which I have to cross to the park. I've stopped looking at people as I pass because more often than not, I find myself at the end of a hostile stare.
I run over to the park, dodging couples sleeping on the sidewalk, yipping dogs, crowds of nursing students, low hanging tree branches; crossing the street multiple times, each time winding through crowds of honking motorbikes; turn around and head back through the gauntlet and I've been running for 10 minutes. To get to twenty, I turn around and repeat the sequence, but for the last 10 I have to be creative. I run around the block, to calls of "HELLO!" sidestepping fresh piles of dog poo, wishing myself invisible. By this time, I am dripping sweat from my face, elbows and legs, making me even more of a spectacle to the Vietnamese, whose women regularly wear pants, long-sleeved shirts, jackets, hats, facemasks, gloves and flip-flps (with socks) in 90 degree weather and don't break a sweat.
By the time I get to my dark smelly entrance way, I am thrilled to be home.
A few more weeks of this and maybe I won't be "What IS that thing!?" and I'll just be, "Oh that's just the sweaty American who runs in the park every morning."
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Random Thoughts from our life in Vietnam
Whichever one of our neighbors locks the padlock on the highest lock deserves some sort of punishment. I'm not sure what, but it should be annoying and force them to stand outside the building for 10 minutes when they desperately need a bathroom.
60,000 dong is way too much for a meal, but never too much for a decent beer.
Cold showers are never cold enough.
Crackers and cheese and microwave popcorn make for a pretty appetizing dinner.
Furnished apartments are not as appealing as they sound aka just becuase it looks comfortable doesn't mean it is.
It is worth 4000 extra dong not to have to lug five liters of water four blocks.
In Vietnam, it only costs $11 to run the internet 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
You never realize how much you appreciate squirrels until you don't see them every day.
If the end of rainy season means the end of cool afternoon thundershowers, I hope it never ends.
Saturday night live episodes that weren't funny five years ago, are somehow funnier in Vietnam.
60,000 dong is way too much for a meal, but never too much for a decent beer.
Cold showers are never cold enough.
Crackers and cheese and microwave popcorn make for a pretty appetizing dinner.
Furnished apartments are not as appealing as they sound aka just becuase it looks comfortable doesn't mean it is.
It is worth 4000 extra dong not to have to lug five liters of water four blocks.
In Vietnam, it only costs $11 to run the internet 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
You never realize how much you appreciate squirrels until you don't see them every day.
If the end of rainy season means the end of cool afternoon thundershowers, I hope it never ends.
Saturday night live episodes that weren't funny five years ago, are somehow funnier in Vietnam.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Life on the Mekong
Last weekend, Steven and I went to Ben Tre, a village on the Mekong River on the recommendation of a friend. We were up at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday and at the but station by 9:15 a.m. for our 9:30 a.m. bus. Sinh Cafe has numerous Mekong tours, but we decided to go the local transport route to avoid the back packer crowd and get a better feel for this new part of Vietnam. Our bus was a Mercedes mini-bus packed to the limit, with Steven and I comfortably packed in one seat behind the driver.
Two hours after we began, our van stopped in a line of traffic and two-thirds of the van's passengers got out. Steven soon realized that we were sitting in line for the ferry between My Tho and Ben Tre and that the other passengers left the van and walked to the ferry to cross on foot. After a failed attempt to communicate our destination to the van's driver and other remaining passengers - although one woman said, "We wait... four hours. Because........" before giving up, we decided to take our chances on foot.
We took our bags and left the van sitting in line. We followed the other pedestrians toward a waiting area and just missed our opportunity to board the ferry before a guard closed the accordion gate barring us from the dock. We watched as a line of cars and motorcycles drove off another ferry that had just arrived and were then allowed past the gate onto the ferry. We immediately climbed up past the vehicles on the first floor and the passengers on the second floor to the top of the ferry which we had all to ourselves. From our perch on the top, we had a 360 degree view of the famous Mekong River.
To my surprise the Mekong is very brown, not because it is "dirty," as we later learned from our guide, but because it is "nutritious" with all the minerals and silt in the mud draining into the river with the frequent rains. The Mekong is the 11th longest river in the world, beginning in Tibet, running through China,Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia before it gets to Vietnam where it leads to the South China Sea. As with most rivers in developing countries, the Mekong is not just a river, but a way of life. For the people on the Mekong, it is a source of transportation, irrigation for their crops, a constance source of protein from its fish, a place to bathe and a playground for their children.
Our Guest House, the Thao Nhi Guest House, bills itself as an "ecological" guest house and it at once a guest house, fruit orchard, restaurant and family home. When we disembarked from the ferry, we walked past a row of local shops, took our first left and walked down another local road to the second left, which led us down a residential "jungle" path of palm trees and a variety of small wooden and concrete single family homes, with the occasional rooster scratching in the dirt in the front yard. When we turned in the gate, we were immediately greeted by a young Vietnamese man who offered to show us to our room.
He led us over a small bridge and back to attractively tiled buildings to the left of the main gate. Our room was in one of the three buildings, the farthest to the back, with rooms built in a U-shape around a central dining area set with a table for eight. Our room was the first room on the left and was almost half the size of our current apartment. It was huge! It had a double bed and a queen, a wardrobe, a television, two lounge chairs with a table in between for tea and a small desk. All of this and a full-sized bath, we got for the bargain price of $15 US.
After a post-travel shower and a few minutes of relaxation in our air-conditioned room, we made our way out to the dinning area for lunch. While we waited for our squid and noodles, "Dai," the young man who had shown us to our room, told us about his Mekong River tour, which would take us on a five hour tour of the river including stops at the Coconut Candy Factory, Honeybee Farm, Fish Farm and Coconut Monk Temple.
I wasn't thrilled about the tour because it was the same tour that the tour agencies take that we had tried to avoid by coming the way we did, but we did want to get out and see the river and I wanted Steven to see the coconut candy factory, which I remembered fondly from my first trip down the Mekong. We bargained him down to four hours and one stop for $30 and spent the next few hours relaxing on hammocks after a tasty lunch.
At 3:00 p.m., Dai came to lead us to the boat. Accompanied by the resident dogs, Tiger and Pepsi, we walked down a twisty palm jungle path to a small dock where a man awaited us in a long, narrow covered motorboat. We stepped from the dock to the boat and took our seats in small wooden schoolhouse chairs that Steven quickly realized were not nailed to the floor. The engine caught on the first try and we were off.
The canals off of the Mekong were my most vivid memory from my first trip. The canals are about 10 feet wide and lined by palm fronds sprouting directly up from the water to heights of over 8 feet. The thick frond walls part in areas to reveal a quick glimpse of a wooden house surrounded by a muddy yard and sometimes equally muddy children, before closing up again in an opaque wall of greenery. This time around the glimpses of houses revealed more tile and concrete houses than I remembered from three years ago, possibility hinting at a more prosperous time. But the silence was the same. Apart from the chug-chug-chug of our motor, the only sound was the wind through the palms.
Our first stop was a the same Coconut Candy factory I remembered from before, but unfortunately we were too late to catch the process in the works and only had time to catch a sample of the last batch of the day. I explained to Steven that what had impressed me so much the first time around was how they utilized every part of the coconut in the candy making process. The hull was stripped and used as the fuel to keep the fire hot, above which the pressed coconut milk was cooked with sugar and other ingredients depending on the batch. The shell was used to make crafts sold to visitors. The meat, pressed of all of its milk, was used as feed for fish and chickens and the milk was processed into some of the most delicious candy I have ever eaten. We bought a package of candy and a few gifts made from the coconut shells and boarded our boat for the rest of our trip.
Even though we thought we had negotiated out of all of the other stops, it soon became apparent that we were in for a shortened version of the full tour. Our next stop was a honey-bee farm, where we were treated to a glass of tea with fresh honey and a plate of fresh fruit after touring the gardens and meeting the resident boa constrictors. We also saw our first "jumping guppies," which look like over-sized tadpoles with two legs in the middle of their body, that can't swim, but get around by jumping around in the mud. Over tea, we talked a bit more with our guide, Dai, who explained that he did not live at the Guest House, but simply worked there. He talked about wanting to continue work in the tourist business and explained how the families in the area owned the land they lived on and passed it on from one generation to the next with family members buried on the family's land to continue their part in the lives of succeeding generations.
After tea, we headed back out to the river, this time in a small canoe rowed by a woman and her daughter. Without the noise of the engine, we could truly get a sense of the natural silence of the river. As we rowed silently down the canal, I thought about how different life is for these families who live on the river compared to the average American family. I thought that these families must be so calm and peaceful just by the nature of their surroundings and how growing up in modern American society has made me almost uncomfortable with silence wanting to be constantly in motion. I was looking forward to my hammock in the garden. When we got back out to the main river, we transfered to our larger boat and the ladies rowed back to the bee farm.
As the sun began to begin its journey behind the low hanging clouds, we docked at our third stop, a red snapper farm on the river. In less trafficked areas of the river, you could make out what looked like floating houses made of wood and corrugated metal. These 'houses' were actually shelters on floating wooden frame, to which hung large nets containing thousands of fish being fattened up for someone's dinner.
The farm that we stopped at had three separate areas with fish in different stages of development. We stepped off of our boat and onto the frame of the fish farm, careful not to slip and fall into the nets. We watched as the fish farmer walked out on a plank in the middle of one of the holding areas and the fish began to gather en mass underneath where he stood. As he threw out round brown pellets, the fish swam frantically over one another to get to the food. The hungry fish formed a layer of wriggling pink flesh so thick that you couldn't see where one began and the other ended, much less the water below. As the farmer fed the little fish, his wife went around feeding the bigger fish and his son, the fish in the far net, which seemed just as anxious to feed as their smaller counterparts.
After taking leave of the fish farmers, we headed to Phoenix Island, home of the late Coconut Monk. By the time we got to the island it was almost dark and it was hard to make out the temple, which to Steven's amusement was the "amusement park" we had seen from the ferry. We walked around the temple which was a fascinating eclectic structure made of what looked like crushed sea shells formed into stairs, railings around a five story temple. From the temple we walked to the Crocodile Farm where the islands residents breed crocodiles for the lucrative sale of their skin and other body parts for food and handbags. Standing on the bridge looking down, Steven and I pondered what would happen if we fell in. Steven reasoned that they probably wouldn't know what to do with us since they are used to being fed chucks of dead animal and not killing their own live prey, but I maintained that their survival instincts would likely kick and I would be in pieces soon after hitting the water. Not wanting to give that thought any realistic possibility, I quickly left Steven and Dai on the bridge and wandered back to the boat.
The highlight of Dai's tour, which he says all of the day trippers miss, is viewing the rivers resident fireflies which are, "same same Christmas lights." As we coasted along back towards our Guest House and came up on rows of trees with what looked like tiny blinking white lights, we saw that he was right. The fireflies sitting in the trees very much resembled while Christmas lights.
Steven and I sat in the boat as Dai climbed to the bow of the boat and plucked fireflies out of the trees and put them in a bottle for us to keep. Not wanting to take the fireflies so far from their families, Steven and I wasted no time opening the bottle top and letting them back out into the night sky. We felt bad for all the effort that Dai had gone to to get them in the bottle, but hoped he would understand. Although, I felt even worse after arriving back at our hotel and seeing how he had poked holes all over the bottle to allow the fireflies to breathe.
After our trip, we thanked Dai and went back to our room to shower before dinner.
The Thao Nhi Guest House is known, according to the Lonely Planet, for its Elephant Fish and greens with rice, so for dinner, that is what we ordered. Earlier that day, we had noticed two big fish swimming in a concrete tank on the grounds of the Guest House, along with a soft shell turtle, also awaiting his fate on the plate of some gastronomically adventurous tourist. After we had ordered our dinner, we saw Dai walking over to the tank and reappear with our fish in a net. He walked over to the kitchen and dumped the flopping fish out onto the cement floor. Just before I heard the whack, I turned my head to avoid watching the fate to which we had condemned our poor fish.
Our Elephant Ear fish was served in a stand like a display, from which one of the lades working in the kitchen scraped the meat and served it on our plates of rice, then making fresh spring rolls at the table. After dinner, we went back to our rooms, exhausted from our long day of travel.
The following day we planned to take advantage of the free bikes on offer from the Guest House and explore the land portion of Ben Tre. With a parting admonition from Dai that 11 km was a long way to ride on a bike, we began our ride out onto the main street. Ben Tre is not the lazy backwater that I pictured, but rather a relatively modern Vietnamese town with modern streetlights, well-paved roads, office buildings, homes, shops and the ubiquitous impeccability landscaped parks. After a 40 minute ride in the unforgiving Vietnamese sun, I was ready to admit Dai had been right and that the best part of the Mekong is the river.
We made a quick turn around the river front and bought some fruit, my cheapest rambutan purchase to date, 4000d a kilo, or about 25 cents, and then decided to head back. I had two goals for the ride home. The first was to buy a hat, because my face, with its paltry 15 proof sunscreen was beginning to feel hot and I could imagining it frying to a crispy red right on my face and the second was to follow my nose to another coconut candy factory, a few of which we had detected on our ride in. Since our previous stop at the candy factory, I had reduced our stash of candy by at least half and Steven was staking the successful future of our marriage on the equal distribution of the remaining twenty-six pieces of candy. Knowing my lack of self-control when it comes to sweets, especially those days when I am home along and he is away all day at work..., I knew I had to buy more.
We stopped at the first hat stand we saw and I bought a "Gucci" safari hat (I didn't know Gucci made safari hats...) for 2,500d or about $1.50, giving me some peace of mind for the condition of my face, and continued on. A few minutes later, the unmistakable smell of freshly baking coconut wafted across the road and I turned immediately into a roadside shop filled with a myriad of candies, including our coveted coconut variety.
Steven and I picked out some candy and drinks and we about to get back our our bikes, when we were approached by a young Vietnamese man who asked Steven if he could speak English with him. After a polite conversation about where we were from and why we were in Vietnam, the man revealed that he was the manager of the factory and asked us if we would like a tour. We happily agreed and walked into the factory that was a larger reproduction of the factory on the river. The presses and stoves were all rustic, but sturdy and well able to perform their specific functions. The stove consisted of a long wooden box, into which were laid large iron bowls filled with the coconut candy mixture. The coconut husks were burned in a fire in the box, heating the bowls from below. When the mixtures were ready, the bowls were passed from the back to the front room of the factory through a large window and the mixture was then poured onto a long table, that served as a continuation of the production line that began with the stove on the other side. Each stove of six bowls had a corresponding table in the front room, which ran about eight tables deep.
Once the mixture had cooled, a woman would smooth it out with a plastic spatula like the bottom layer of a cake. She would then cut off chucks which she would lay in a one of the narrow rows of a wooden cast. Once in the cast, the mixture would be stretched out lengthwise into multiple footlong strips. The strips would then be passed to the next working in the line who would cut the strips into bite-sized squares and pass them on to the next woman who put them in two layers of wrapping, the first an edible rice-paper wrap and the second layer with the name of the factory.
As we watched, the factory owner asked if we wanted to try some of the hot candy. Not at all letting on that we had already tried it hot as well as having eaten plenty of the cooled version, we readily agreed. He said something to one of the women in the factory, who put a huge chunk of candy on the plate and passed it through the window. I have lost about 10 pounds since being in Vietnam, but I am sure that I gained at least half of it back in one weekend thanks to the lovely coconut candy makers in Ben Tre.
After our tour, we rode back to our hotel, where Dai had arranged for a return bus to Ho Chi Minh City in the next 30 minutes.
With a tummy full of sugary coconut, I settled into our seat in the back for a nice nap, while Mr. Steven got down to business grading papers and getting ready for another week at American International School HCMC.
(I had too many pictures to post on the blog, but you can click HERE to see pictures of our Mekong trip. If you don't have/want a Shutterfly account, you can email me and I'll give you my password).
Two hours after we began, our van stopped in a line of traffic and two-thirds of the van's passengers got out. Steven soon realized that we were sitting in line for the ferry between My Tho and Ben Tre and that the other passengers left the van and walked to the ferry to cross on foot. After a failed attempt to communicate our destination to the van's driver and other remaining passengers - although one woman said, "We wait... four hours. Because........" before giving up, we decided to take our chances on foot.
We took our bags and left the van sitting in line. We followed the other pedestrians toward a waiting area and just missed our opportunity to board the ferry before a guard closed the accordion gate barring us from the dock. We watched as a line of cars and motorcycles drove off another ferry that had just arrived and were then allowed past the gate onto the ferry. We immediately climbed up past the vehicles on the first floor and the passengers on the second floor to the top of the ferry which we had all to ourselves. From our perch on the top, we had a 360 degree view of the famous Mekong River.
To my surprise the Mekong is very brown, not because it is "dirty," as we later learned from our guide, but because it is "nutritious" with all the minerals and silt in the mud draining into the river with the frequent rains. The Mekong is the 11th longest river in the world, beginning in Tibet, running through China,Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia before it gets to Vietnam where it leads to the South China Sea. As with most rivers in developing countries, the Mekong is not just a river, but a way of life. For the people on the Mekong, it is a source of transportation, irrigation for their crops, a constance source of protein from its fish, a place to bathe and a playground for their children.
Our Guest House, the Thao Nhi Guest House, bills itself as an "ecological" guest house and it at once a guest house, fruit orchard, restaurant and family home. When we disembarked from the ferry, we walked past a row of local shops, took our first left and walked down another local road to the second left, which led us down a residential "jungle" path of palm trees and a variety of small wooden and concrete single family homes, with the occasional rooster scratching in the dirt in the front yard. When we turned in the gate, we were immediately greeted by a young Vietnamese man who offered to show us to our room.
He led us over a small bridge and back to attractively tiled buildings to the left of the main gate. Our room was in one of the three buildings, the farthest to the back, with rooms built in a U-shape around a central dining area set with a table for eight. Our room was the first room on the left and was almost half the size of our current apartment. It was huge! It had a double bed and a queen, a wardrobe, a television, two lounge chairs with a table in between for tea and a small desk. All of this and a full-sized bath, we got for the bargain price of $15 US.
After a post-travel shower and a few minutes of relaxation in our air-conditioned room, we made our way out to the dinning area for lunch. While we waited for our squid and noodles, "Dai," the young man who had shown us to our room, told us about his Mekong River tour, which would take us on a five hour tour of the river including stops at the Coconut Candy Factory, Honeybee Farm, Fish Farm and Coconut Monk Temple.
I wasn't thrilled about the tour because it was the same tour that the tour agencies take that we had tried to avoid by coming the way we did, but we did want to get out and see the river and I wanted Steven to see the coconut candy factory, which I remembered fondly from my first trip down the Mekong. We bargained him down to four hours and one stop for $30 and spent the next few hours relaxing on hammocks after a tasty lunch.
At 3:00 p.m., Dai came to lead us to the boat. Accompanied by the resident dogs, Tiger and Pepsi, we walked down a twisty palm jungle path to a small dock where a man awaited us in a long, narrow covered motorboat. We stepped from the dock to the boat and took our seats in small wooden schoolhouse chairs that Steven quickly realized were not nailed to the floor. The engine caught on the first try and we were off.
The canals off of the Mekong were my most vivid memory from my first trip. The canals are about 10 feet wide and lined by palm fronds sprouting directly up from the water to heights of over 8 feet. The thick frond walls part in areas to reveal a quick glimpse of a wooden house surrounded by a muddy yard and sometimes equally muddy children, before closing up again in an opaque wall of greenery. This time around the glimpses of houses revealed more tile and concrete houses than I remembered from three years ago, possibility hinting at a more prosperous time. But the silence was the same. Apart from the chug-chug-chug of our motor, the only sound was the wind through the palms.
Our first stop was a the same Coconut Candy factory I remembered from before, but unfortunately we were too late to catch the process in the works and only had time to catch a sample of the last batch of the day. I explained to Steven that what had impressed me so much the first time around was how they utilized every part of the coconut in the candy making process. The hull was stripped and used as the fuel to keep the fire hot, above which the pressed coconut milk was cooked with sugar and other ingredients depending on the batch. The shell was used to make crafts sold to visitors. The meat, pressed of all of its milk, was used as feed for fish and chickens and the milk was processed into some of the most delicious candy I have ever eaten. We bought a package of candy and a few gifts made from the coconut shells and boarded our boat for the rest of our trip.
Even though we thought we had negotiated out of all of the other stops, it soon became apparent that we were in for a shortened version of the full tour. Our next stop was a honey-bee farm, where we were treated to a glass of tea with fresh honey and a plate of fresh fruit after touring the gardens and meeting the resident boa constrictors. We also saw our first "jumping guppies," which look like over-sized tadpoles with two legs in the middle of their body, that can't swim, but get around by jumping around in the mud. Over tea, we talked a bit more with our guide, Dai, who explained that he did not live at the Guest House, but simply worked there. He talked about wanting to continue work in the tourist business and explained how the families in the area owned the land they lived on and passed it on from one generation to the next with family members buried on the family's land to continue their part in the lives of succeeding generations.
After tea, we headed back out to the river, this time in a small canoe rowed by a woman and her daughter. Without the noise of the engine, we could truly get a sense of the natural silence of the river. As we rowed silently down the canal, I thought about how different life is for these families who live on the river compared to the average American family. I thought that these families must be so calm and peaceful just by the nature of their surroundings and how growing up in modern American society has made me almost uncomfortable with silence wanting to be constantly in motion. I was looking forward to my hammock in the garden. When we got back out to the main river, we transfered to our larger boat and the ladies rowed back to the bee farm.
As the sun began to begin its journey behind the low hanging clouds, we docked at our third stop, a red snapper farm on the river. In less trafficked areas of the river, you could make out what looked like floating houses made of wood and corrugated metal. These 'houses' were actually shelters on floating wooden frame, to which hung large nets containing thousands of fish being fattened up for someone's dinner.
The farm that we stopped at had three separate areas with fish in different stages of development. We stepped off of our boat and onto the frame of the fish farm, careful not to slip and fall into the nets. We watched as the fish farmer walked out on a plank in the middle of one of the holding areas and the fish began to gather en mass underneath where he stood. As he threw out round brown pellets, the fish swam frantically over one another to get to the food. The hungry fish formed a layer of wriggling pink flesh so thick that you couldn't see where one began and the other ended, much less the water below. As the farmer fed the little fish, his wife went around feeding the bigger fish and his son, the fish in the far net, which seemed just as anxious to feed as their smaller counterparts.
After taking leave of the fish farmers, we headed to Phoenix Island, home of the late Coconut Monk. By the time we got to the island it was almost dark and it was hard to make out the temple, which to Steven's amusement was the "amusement park" we had seen from the ferry. We walked around the temple which was a fascinating eclectic structure made of what looked like crushed sea shells formed into stairs, railings around a five story temple. From the temple we walked to the Crocodile Farm where the islands residents breed crocodiles for the lucrative sale of their skin and other body parts for food and handbags. Standing on the bridge looking down, Steven and I pondered what would happen if we fell in. Steven reasoned that they probably wouldn't know what to do with us since they are used to being fed chucks of dead animal and not killing their own live prey, but I maintained that their survival instincts would likely kick and I would be in pieces soon after hitting the water. Not wanting to give that thought any realistic possibility, I quickly left Steven and Dai on the bridge and wandered back to the boat.
The highlight of Dai's tour, which he says all of the day trippers miss, is viewing the rivers resident fireflies which are, "same same Christmas lights." As we coasted along back towards our Guest House and came up on rows of trees with what looked like tiny blinking white lights, we saw that he was right. The fireflies sitting in the trees very much resembled while Christmas lights.
Steven and I sat in the boat as Dai climbed to the bow of the boat and plucked fireflies out of the trees and put them in a bottle for us to keep. Not wanting to take the fireflies so far from their families, Steven and I wasted no time opening the bottle top and letting them back out into the night sky. We felt bad for all the effort that Dai had gone to to get them in the bottle, but hoped he would understand. Although, I felt even worse after arriving back at our hotel and seeing how he had poked holes all over the bottle to allow the fireflies to breathe.
After our trip, we thanked Dai and went back to our room to shower before dinner.
The Thao Nhi Guest House is known, according to the Lonely Planet, for its Elephant Fish and greens with rice, so for dinner, that is what we ordered. Earlier that day, we had noticed two big fish swimming in a concrete tank on the grounds of the Guest House, along with a soft shell turtle, also awaiting his fate on the plate of some gastronomically adventurous tourist. After we had ordered our dinner, we saw Dai walking over to the tank and reappear with our fish in a net. He walked over to the kitchen and dumped the flopping fish out onto the cement floor. Just before I heard the whack, I turned my head to avoid watching the fate to which we had condemned our poor fish.
Our Elephant Ear fish was served in a stand like a display, from which one of the lades working in the kitchen scraped the meat and served it on our plates of rice, then making fresh spring rolls at the table. After dinner, we went back to our rooms, exhausted from our long day of travel.
The following day we planned to take advantage of the free bikes on offer from the Guest House and explore the land portion of Ben Tre. With a parting admonition from Dai that 11 km was a long way to ride on a bike, we began our ride out onto the main street. Ben Tre is not the lazy backwater that I pictured, but rather a relatively modern Vietnamese town with modern streetlights, well-paved roads, office buildings, homes, shops and the ubiquitous impeccability landscaped parks. After a 40 minute ride in the unforgiving Vietnamese sun, I was ready to admit Dai had been right and that the best part of the Mekong is the river.
We made a quick turn around the river front and bought some fruit, my cheapest rambutan purchase to date, 4000d a kilo, or about 25 cents, and then decided to head back. I had two goals for the ride home. The first was to buy a hat, because my face, with its paltry 15 proof sunscreen was beginning to feel hot and I could imagining it frying to a crispy red right on my face and the second was to follow my nose to another coconut candy factory, a few of which we had detected on our ride in. Since our previous stop at the candy factory, I had reduced our stash of candy by at least half and Steven was staking the successful future of our marriage on the equal distribution of the remaining twenty-six pieces of candy. Knowing my lack of self-control when it comes to sweets, especially those days when I am home along and he is away all day at work..., I knew I had to buy more.
We stopped at the first hat stand we saw and I bought a "Gucci" safari hat (I didn't know Gucci made safari hats...) for 2,500d or about $1.50, giving me some peace of mind for the condition of my face, and continued on. A few minutes later, the unmistakable smell of freshly baking coconut wafted across the road and I turned immediately into a roadside shop filled with a myriad of candies, including our coveted coconut variety.
Steven and I picked out some candy and drinks and we about to get back our our bikes, when we were approached by a young Vietnamese man who asked Steven if he could speak English with him. After a polite conversation about where we were from and why we were in Vietnam, the man revealed that he was the manager of the factory and asked us if we would like a tour. We happily agreed and walked into the factory that was a larger reproduction of the factory on the river. The presses and stoves were all rustic, but sturdy and well able to perform their specific functions. The stove consisted of a long wooden box, into which were laid large iron bowls filled with the coconut candy mixture. The coconut husks were burned in a fire in the box, heating the bowls from below. When the mixtures were ready, the bowls were passed from the back to the front room of the factory through a large window and the mixture was then poured onto a long table, that served as a continuation of the production line that began with the stove on the other side. Each stove of six bowls had a corresponding table in the front room, which ran about eight tables deep.
Once the mixture had cooled, a woman would smooth it out with a plastic spatula like the bottom layer of a cake. She would then cut off chucks which she would lay in a one of the narrow rows of a wooden cast. Once in the cast, the mixture would be stretched out lengthwise into multiple footlong strips. The strips would then be passed to the next working in the line who would cut the strips into bite-sized squares and pass them on to the next woman who put them in two layers of wrapping, the first an edible rice-paper wrap and the second layer with the name of the factory.
As we watched, the factory owner asked if we wanted to try some of the hot candy. Not at all letting on that we had already tried it hot as well as having eaten plenty of the cooled version, we readily agreed. He said something to one of the women in the factory, who put a huge chunk of candy on the plate and passed it through the window. I have lost about 10 pounds since being in Vietnam, but I am sure that I gained at least half of it back in one weekend thanks to the lovely coconut candy makers in Ben Tre.
After our tour, we rode back to our hotel, where Dai had arranged for a return bus to Ho Chi Minh City in the next 30 minutes.
With a tummy full of sugary coconut, I settled into our seat in the back for a nice nap, while Mr. Steven got down to business grading papers and getting ready for another week at American International School HCMC.
(I had too many pictures to post on the blog, but you can click HERE to see pictures of our Mekong trip. If you don't have/want a Shutterfly account, you can email me and I'll give you my password).
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Evolution of a Teacher
Steven has been teaching 6th and 7th grade math for seven weeks now. He was initially a little wary, given that his math teaching experience was limited to teaching 3 to 4 hours a day of GED math in an informal setting. His first few weeks were characterized by typical the first year teaching roller coaster of good day/bad day/good day/bad day. But over the past two months, I've watched him evolve into a more organized, prepared and conscientious teacher. And most importantly for me, he is enjoying his classes, although the roller coaster still has its rapid turns.
Steven's biggest obstacle to the teaching profession was its demand for organization and preparation. Steven, by nature, is not exceptionally organized or prepared. But throughout the past few weeks he has instituted a myriad of classroom managers (points managers, homework managers, time monitors...), he has kids coming in early grading papers, he has an excel spreadsheet for his grades on top of the school's online system, he has homework charts, structured groups, and weekly lesson plans written ahead of time. He still has his rough days and "learning moments," but he is teaching!
Steven's biggest obstacle to the teaching profession was its demand for organization and preparation. Steven, by nature, is not exceptionally organized or prepared. But throughout the past few weeks he has instituted a myriad of classroom managers (points managers, homework managers, time monitors...), he has kids coming in early grading papers, he has an excel spreadsheet for his grades on top of the school's online system, he has homework charts, structured groups, and weekly lesson plans written ahead of time. He still has his rough days and "learning moments," but he is teaching!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Discrimination
Finding a job in Vietnam is not as easy as some had led me to believe. Most of the job postings here say, "A Vietnamese National is preferred." Understandably, most of the positions here require you to speak Vietnamese. But still. I feel discriminated against because of my nationality. And my uni-lingualism!* If anyone knows anyone in Vietnam who needs an English speaking social worker, please send them my way.
*(Like that one Mom? :)
*(Like that one Mom? :)
Learning Vietnamese
Steven and I had our first Vietnamese Lessons this past week, Friday and Tuesday. Our teacher's name is Phuc, pronounced "Phuh-uh (with an upward intonation), which I had to ask her to pronounce before attempting it myself. She is a 51-year-old, single mother of two and a full-time Vietnamese teacher.
For our first lesson, we practiced pronouncing the Vietnamese alphabet, "A - Ah, A with a "u" on top - Ah (like you are surprised), A with a hat - uh-uh, B - Buh, C - Cuh, D- Yuh, D with a line through it - Da, E - Aye, F - Fuh, G - Guh, H - Huh, I - ee, K - Guh, L - Luh, M - Muh, N - Nuh, O - Aw, O with a hat - Oh, O with one ear - uh, P - Puh, Q - Guh, R - Ruh, S - Shruh, T - Thuh, U - ooo, U with one ear - uh with your jaw out like you have an underbite, V - vuh, X - suh, Y - ee. Most of the letters are easy enough, but the vowels are a little tough.
After going over the letters, we practiced the tones. Vietnamese is a tonal language, which means that one word can have six different meanings when pronounced differently. The six tones are 1) mid tone or Khong Dau ("No accent"), 2) rising or dau rac, 3) falling or dau huyen, 4) low rising or dau hoi, 5) high broken or dau nga and 6) low broken or dau nang. My cheat sheet says, 1) flat, 2) "surprise", 3) "sinking into the couch after a long day, 4) long up and down, 5) short up and down, 6) stacatto. It is as difficult as it sounds. By our second day, Steven had the tones down, but I'm still struggling.
On Tuesday, we learned basic greetings. "Chao" means hello, but it is followed by a different pronoun depending on who you are saying hello to. So if I were saying hello to a man, close to my age, I would say "Chao, Anh." If he were older, "Chao, Ong." A woman my age, "Chao, chi." Older woman, "Chao, ba." Or a kid, "Chao, em." This all gets that much more complicated when you want to move beyond hello.
"Chao, Anh. Xin Loi. Anh ten la gi?" - Hello, sir. Excuse me, what is your name?
"Chao, Chi. Xin Loi. Chin ten la gi?" - Hello, ma'am. Excuse me, what is your name?
"Chao, em. Em ten la gi? - Hey kid. What's your name?
"Toi ten la Sharon" - My name is Sharon. "Rat vui doc gap anh." - Nice to meet you.
"Chao, Ba. Ba co khoe khong? (Baa co kwe kong)" - Hello, ma'am. How are you or literally you are fine, no?"
"Cam on. Toi khoe. (Cam ern. Toi kwe)" - Thank you, I'm fine"
Now let's practice that on the street...
For our first lesson, we practiced pronouncing the Vietnamese alphabet, "A - Ah, A with a "u" on top - Ah (like you are surprised), A with a hat - uh-uh, B - Buh, C - Cuh, D- Yuh, D with a line through it - Da, E - Aye, F - Fuh, G - Guh, H - Huh, I - ee, K - Guh, L - Luh, M - Muh, N - Nuh, O - Aw, O with a hat - Oh, O with one ear - uh, P - Puh, Q - Guh, R - Ruh, S - Shruh, T - Thuh, U - ooo, U with one ear - uh with your jaw out like you have an underbite, V - vuh, X - suh, Y - ee. Most of the letters are easy enough, but the vowels are a little tough.
After going over the letters, we practiced the tones. Vietnamese is a tonal language, which means that one word can have six different meanings when pronounced differently. The six tones are 1) mid tone or Khong Dau ("No accent"), 2) rising or dau rac, 3) falling or dau huyen, 4) low rising or dau hoi, 5) high broken or dau nga and 6) low broken or dau nang. My cheat sheet says, 1) flat, 2) "surprise", 3) "sinking into the couch after a long day, 4) long up and down, 5) short up and down, 6) stacatto. It is as difficult as it sounds. By our second day, Steven had the tones down, but I'm still struggling.
On Tuesday, we learned basic greetings. "Chao" means hello, but it is followed by a different pronoun depending on who you are saying hello to. So if I were saying hello to a man, close to my age, I would say "Chao, Anh." If he were older, "Chao, Ong." A woman my age, "Chao, chi." Older woman, "Chao, ba." Or a kid, "Chao, em." This all gets that much more complicated when you want to move beyond hello.
"Chao, Anh. Xin Loi. Anh ten la gi?" - Hello, sir. Excuse me, what is your name?
"Chao, Chi. Xin Loi. Chin ten la gi?" - Hello, ma'am. Excuse me, what is your name?
"Chao, em. Em ten la gi? - Hey kid. What's your name?
"Toi ten la Sharon" - My name is Sharon. "Rat vui doc gap anh." - Nice to meet you.
"Chao, Ba. Ba co khoe khong? (Baa co kwe kong)" - Hello, ma'am. How are you or literally you are fine, no?"
"Cam on. Toi khoe. (Cam ern. Toi kwe)" - Thank you, I'm fine"
Now let's practice that on the street...
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Vietnamese Pizza
I have decided to do a little culinary exploring in our neighborhood to scout out the best places within a few block radius for those evenings we don't feel like cooking or for a leisurely weekend lunch. A few days back, I had seen a some lunch displays out on the street one block behind our building, but when I walked down the alley (my new favorite route home - off the bus, through the park and up the alley), I didn't see any. So I decided to see if I could find the Vegetarian stand that Steven and I had seen last Friday on our way down Nguyen Trai, a street that runs perpendicular to ours and into the heart of Cholon.
When I got to the corner where I thought it was, it was not there, that corner was also home to a pizza restaurant and since it has been a long time since I’ve had pizza, I thought I would check it out. The restaurant was a small space set on the corner between two perpendicular streets, with large open “doors” on either side, a kitchen lining the back wall and a row of tables against the window opposite the kitchen partially occupied by a group of Vietnamese school girls. When I walked into the restaurant, I felt somewhat on display as I glanced around looking for some sort of menu. After about 30 seconds a waitress walked up to me and asked if she could help me. Not sure what was on the menu, I asked if I could have a small pizza with no meat and she confirmed my request with a yes and a smile. Having placed my order, I walked outside, sat down at one of tables next to the window, pulled out my Lonely Planet Vietnamese Phrase Book and turned to page 1.
After a minute or so, I felt a presence very close to me and I turned my head to see a man’s face about four inches from mine. I must have visibly pulled away because he immediately did the same before asking me if I wanted a one-hour cyclo tour around Cholon. "One hour. See temples. I take you." I smiled and shook my head. After about 10 "no's" and 60 seconds of head shaking, he finally walked away. A few pages on, I felt a tap on my arm and looked up to see a small, elderly Vietnamese woman holding out lottery tickets. I shook my head and smiled and she went away without further protest. Soon after, my pizza was delivered.
Before my pizza arrived, I wondered for a minute what it might have on it. I could pick off broccoli and black olives. Baby corn, I could handle. Mushrooms and spinach would be divine.. When it arrived, I was surprised to see pieces of strawberry and pineapple peeking out from under the cheese; My first fruit pizza.
Wondering where I was going to get my next lunch as I took a tentative bite of my pizza, I was shockingly surprised to find that it really wasn't that bad. I had never been a big fan the Hawaiian pizza with pineapple pieces that my brother has always enjoyed, but I presumed that it must be something like this, except with strawberries instead of ham.
As I was pondering my lunch, I again sensed a presence and looked up into the eyes of a short Vietnamese man whose facial features seemed to give away an underlying mental impairment. He stood and stared at me for a good minute and so I, not enjoying the feeling of being an exhibit in a zoo, stared right back. After a minute or so, he took out a 10,000d note and waved it at me pointing at my plate which had two slices left. Pretty sure that he was offering to buy a slice of my pizza and equally sure that that wasn't something that was normally done, one selling portions of one's lunch to a secondary market, I pointed him in the restaurant, my way of saying, "You want some pizza. Go buy your own pizza." His eyes followed my finger into the restaurant and then back to me, before shaking his finger at me and shaking his head. "No" his finger said, "I don't want to go in there. I want to give you THIS 10,000d note and have THAT piece of your pizza right there!" My finger responded, “Your pizza is in there.” And his responded, “No. I don’t want to go in THERE, I want to give you THIS money for THAT pizza.” This went on for another five or six rounds, him shaking the money and pointing at my pizza, me shaking my head and pointing into the restaurant. Finally, he followed my suggestion and walked into the restaurant.
I watched him walk into the restaurant and begin talking to one of the pizza chefs and pointing out at me. The chef looked out at me and back at him and gave him a questioning look and then of one of friendly amusement.
The man then came back and resumed his position a few feet in front of my table. At this point, my plate was empty. He pointed at me, then pointed at himself and then mimicked my pointing into the store. He repeated his sequence of gestures a second time for emphasis and then shook his money at me and pointed at my empty plate. At this point we were obviously attracting the attention of various people in the street.
"You told me , ‘Go in there! Go in there!’ But I didn’t want to go in there. I wanted to buy YOUR pizza." Unsure has how to gesture a response, I just looked at him with a shrug and pointed at my empty plate - that last gesture probably not so nice given the context of the conversation. He repeated his sequence of gestures one last time before giving me a big smile and walking off the way he came.
When I got to the corner where I thought it was, it was not there, that corner was also home to a pizza restaurant and since it has been a long time since I’ve had pizza, I thought I would check it out. The restaurant was a small space set on the corner between two perpendicular streets, with large open “doors” on either side, a kitchen lining the back wall and a row of tables against the window opposite the kitchen partially occupied by a group of Vietnamese school girls. When I walked into the restaurant, I felt somewhat on display as I glanced around looking for some sort of menu. After about 30 seconds a waitress walked up to me and asked if she could help me. Not sure what was on the menu, I asked if I could have a small pizza with no meat and she confirmed my request with a yes and a smile. Having placed my order, I walked outside, sat down at one of tables next to the window, pulled out my Lonely Planet Vietnamese Phrase Book and turned to page 1.
After a minute or so, I felt a presence very close to me and I turned my head to see a man’s face about four inches from mine. I must have visibly pulled away because he immediately did the same before asking me if I wanted a one-hour cyclo tour around Cholon. "One hour. See temples. I take you." I smiled and shook my head. After about 10 "no's" and 60 seconds of head shaking, he finally walked away. A few pages on, I felt a tap on my arm and looked up to see a small, elderly Vietnamese woman holding out lottery tickets. I shook my head and smiled and she went away without further protest. Soon after, my pizza was delivered.
Before my pizza arrived, I wondered for a minute what it might have on it. I could pick off broccoli and black olives. Baby corn, I could handle. Mushrooms and spinach would be divine.. When it arrived, I was surprised to see pieces of strawberry and pineapple peeking out from under the cheese; My first fruit pizza.
Wondering where I was going to get my next lunch as I took a tentative bite of my pizza, I was shockingly surprised to find that it really wasn't that bad. I had never been a big fan the Hawaiian pizza with pineapple pieces that my brother has always enjoyed, but I presumed that it must be something like this, except with strawberries instead of ham.
As I was pondering my lunch, I again sensed a presence and looked up into the eyes of a short Vietnamese man whose facial features seemed to give away an underlying mental impairment. He stood and stared at me for a good minute and so I, not enjoying the feeling of being an exhibit in a zoo, stared right back. After a minute or so, he took out a 10,000d note and waved it at me pointing at my plate which had two slices left. Pretty sure that he was offering to buy a slice of my pizza and equally sure that that wasn't something that was normally done, one selling portions of one's lunch to a secondary market, I pointed him in the restaurant, my way of saying, "You want some pizza. Go buy your own pizza." His eyes followed my finger into the restaurant and then back to me, before shaking his finger at me and shaking his head. "No" his finger said, "I don't want to go in there. I want to give you THIS 10,000d note and have THAT piece of your pizza right there!" My finger responded, “Your pizza is in there.” And his responded, “No. I don’t want to go in THERE, I want to give you THIS money for THAT pizza.” This went on for another five or six rounds, him shaking the money and pointing at my pizza, me shaking my head and pointing into the restaurant. Finally, he followed my suggestion and walked into the restaurant.
I watched him walk into the restaurant and begin talking to one of the pizza chefs and pointing out at me. The chef looked out at me and back at him and gave him a questioning look and then of one of friendly amusement.
The man then came back and resumed his position a few feet in front of my table. At this point, my plate was empty. He pointed at me, then pointed at himself and then mimicked my pointing into the store. He repeated his sequence of gestures a second time for emphasis and then shook his money at me and pointed at my empty plate. At this point we were obviously attracting the attention of various people in the street.
"You told me , ‘Go in there! Go in there!’ But I didn’t want to go in there. I wanted to buy YOUR pizza." Unsure has how to gesture a response, I just looked at him with a shrug and pointed at my empty plate - that last gesture probably not so nice given the context of the conversation. He repeated his sequence of gestures one last time before giving me a big smile and walking off the way he came.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Our Weekend at the Beach
Steven and I left to Mui Ne on Saturday from the Sinh Cafe Office in Pham Ngu Lao. The bus was a long distance bus with comfortable seats, but lacking an on-board toilet or television, both of which could be pros or cons depending on your experience with smelly on-board toilets and raucously loud Chinese movies. Soon after we started off, at 7:29 a.m., we were handed a Sinh Cafe bag with a bag of peanuts, bottled water and a wet towelette, the kind served at many local restaurants to wipe your hands before you eat. I was very much looking forward to seeing the countryside with its brilliant green rice fields, free range livestock and quaint little houses, so for first two and a half hours, I was somewhat disappointed at the seemingly endless scene of city streets passing by my window. Rows upon rows of shop fronts backed by houses of varying height and design eventually transformed into fields of young trees planted in straight rows, plots of banana trees surrounding small block one-room houses and increasingly larger squares of bright green rice seedlings.
When we turned on a road leading closer to the beach, I recognized the fields of dragon fruit trees that had struck me as so strange on my last ride down this strip except this time they were not as spectacular out of season without their bright pink blossoms of dragon fruit. High hills appeared and disappeared, as did gray storm clouds, as we traveled closer to the beach.
During our bus ride, a man from Sinh Cafe came around with a clip board asking us to write down the hotel where we would like to be dropped off. Since we hadn't yet decided on a place, Steven wrote down, Small Garden, one of the three places we had looked into and we decided that if we didn't want to stay there we could walk to the other two. When we arrived in Mui Ne, the bus began intermittent stops, dropping passengers at various hotels and resorts along the main street. The third or fourth stop was ours and as the bus rolled away, we walked up the drive of the Small Garden Hotel into a small courtyard with steps leading up to a reservation desk in a newly built/renovated wooden cottage. We inquired as to the availably of rooms and were quoted three prices, $25, $27 and $30, a little higher than the $10 we had found on a traveler's website, but not incredibly expensive either, so we asked to see a room on the beach.
We were led down a path through a beautifully maintained little garden, past a koi pond and identical wooden cottages with wooden recliners set on small front porches. When we came to the cottage at the end, we were shown inside a room well worth the $30 price tag, with attractive decorations, air-conditioning, and a large bathroom with hot water. Not wanting to make a decision until I had seen the beach, I walked down the path a little further to the beach, past a raised restaurant with low tables and two inviting hammocks. The path ended with a view of a long, white sandy beach and a brilliant blue sky above crystal clear water. Just steps from the end of the path, wooden beach recliners sat under a thatch umbrella, with a clear view of the water.
We decided to stay.
After changing into our bathing suites, we headed straight out to the beach. The water was warm, but with pockets of colder currents, and the view was great. Mui Ne is a long stretch of beach ending in two pointed jetties at each end, too far for us to make out without a day of exploring. The street is not visible from the beach because the hotels, resorts and restaurants take up all of the land between the road and the beach, but the hotels and resorts are small and attractive, none over four stories high, the majority only one story of attractively designed huts set back from the beach and d0 nothing to detract from the natural beauty of the area.
After an hour or so at the beach, we decided to walk up the beach to find something for lunch. We stopped at a family run Vietnamese restaurant, passing by the restaurants in the hotels and resorts, figuring them to be well outside our budget, and had an enjoyable lunch of grilled fish and lemon pepper and chili squid. After lunch we walked down to a tour office and bought our tickets for the bus back to Saigon the following day at 1:30 p.m. and wandered back to our hotel along the street checking out the various shops and restaurants and looking into the price of a motorbike rental for the following day. Afterward, we headed back into the water.
That evening, we decided to go for a walk down the beach before stopping somewhere for a pre-dinner cocktail. We walked down the beach away from the fishing village of Mui Ne to the Coastal City of Phan Thiet where the resorts got bigger and fancier, yet still not overbearingly so. After some time, we turned back and stopped in for a cocktail at the SunSea Resort next to our hotel, lured in by the beer menu, which, unlike most bars in Saigon, offered more than Heineken, Saigon, Tiger and 333. We had a few drinks and then walked out to the road where we found a restaurant that looked like a glorified tree house with a boat filled with various types of seafood on ice displayed out front. I picked out a dozen mussels and an oyster and Steven chose a whole Red Snapper, before walking up the wooden staircase to our table on the second floor overlooking the main road. We had a enjoyable dinner and then walked back to our hotel where, not used to late nights on the town, we crashed in the hammocks by the beach.
The next morning we got up and headed straight to the beach. After some time, our growling stomaches pulled us in to the restaurant at our hotel, where Steven had a flavorful banana pancake and I had a traditional Vietnamese breakfast of Pho Tom or Shrimp Soup. After breakfast we decided to see if we could rent a motorbike for a few hours to get to see a little more of Mui Ne and to get out to the sand dunes for which the area is famous.
We inquired at the front desk and the woman at reception began a conversation in Vietnamese with a man in the parking lot on a motorbike. Steven soon arranged for us to rent the man's bike for 40,000d or about $2.50 for an hour, which would give us time for another swim before we had to pack up and check out to catch our bus back to Saigon.
It has been over three years since I have driven a motor-scooter and just as much time for Steven. I was a little nervous about getting on both as a passenger and a driver, but convinced myself that if anywhere, Mui Ne, was the perfect place to get back on the horse, given that it is only one straight road with little traffic. Steven drove first and I asked him to take a test drive before speeding off down the street with me in tow. He took off smoothly and I watched him disappear into the distance thinking that I would be able to hear the commotion in this sleepy town if anything happened, even if I couldn't hear it. But soon, he came roaring back down the street, looking quite comfortable in the driver's seat, so I fastened my helmet and climbed aboard.
The trip from Mui Ne to the sand dunes is one I became intimately familiar with in 2005 having, unaware of the total distance and annoyed by the ceaseless hawking by the xe om guys, spurned all offers of a taxi and walked the some 5 - 8 kilometers (we estimated the distance as we rode) to the dunes. This time, on the back of a bike with Steven as my driver, it was much more pleasant and I remembered the few turns that took us straight past the dunes. Knowing we didn't have the time to dismount and explore, we rode a little further along the road with stunning views of the ocean and coastal islands, before turning back and heading back to our hotel. On the way back, after a quick stop at an ATM, Steven asked if I wanted to drive and so, we switched positions and we were out on the road. My first time on a motorbike in Thailand ended up with me in a tree, but my first time back after all this time was less eventful and I immediately remembered how to pull back on the gas while stepping on the clutch to change the gears and was surprisingly comfortable with Steven's extra weight on the bike. The cars made me a little nervous and turning around and down shifting weren't as smooth as simply driving forward and up-shifting, but it was good to remember how easy it was and gave me enough of a taste to look forward to the freedom of "next time."
We arrived in time for a leisurely swim and a leisurely lunch at our hotel's restaurant where we again found the food delicious and affordable. We were packed and ready for our bus at 1:30 p.m.
The bus ride back wasn't quite as pleasant as our ride there, us having purchased from a competitor company to Sinh Cafe, one of many who sell tickets and put you on any bus heading to your destination, but we made it well enough and in one piece.
Upon our arrival back in Saigon, we treated ourselves to an Indian dinner at Royal India, picked up a few DVDs and then caught a bus back to our apartment on Nguyen Tri Phuong. It was a lovely weekend and we look forward to going back, but we were glad to be home.
The path to our room, Small Garden Hotel, Mui Ne, Vietnam
Koi Pond
Steven on the path
Me on the path
Our neighboring cottage
Our room
Inside of our room
Our foot bath
To the beach
Our chairs on the beach
Mui Nei beach
Fishing boats on the beach
Steven at lunch at a restaurant on the beach
Me at lunch
Who is that masked man?
Steven on the bike
Fishing boats off the coast
Fishing boats closer up
Local fisherman walking away from his little boat
Local fisherman in his little boat
When we turned on a road leading closer to the beach, I recognized the fields of dragon fruit trees that had struck me as so strange on my last ride down this strip except this time they were not as spectacular out of season without their bright pink blossoms of dragon fruit. High hills appeared and disappeared, as did gray storm clouds, as we traveled closer to the beach.
During our bus ride, a man from Sinh Cafe came around with a clip board asking us to write down the hotel where we would like to be dropped off. Since we hadn't yet decided on a place, Steven wrote down, Small Garden, one of the three places we had looked into and we decided that if we didn't want to stay there we could walk to the other two. When we arrived in Mui Ne, the bus began intermittent stops, dropping passengers at various hotels and resorts along the main street. The third or fourth stop was ours and as the bus rolled away, we walked up the drive of the Small Garden Hotel into a small courtyard with steps leading up to a reservation desk in a newly built/renovated wooden cottage. We inquired as to the availably of rooms and were quoted three prices, $25, $27 and $30, a little higher than the $10 we had found on a traveler's website, but not incredibly expensive either, so we asked to see a room on the beach.
We were led down a path through a beautifully maintained little garden, past a koi pond and identical wooden cottages with wooden recliners set on small front porches. When we came to the cottage at the end, we were shown inside a room well worth the $30 price tag, with attractive decorations, air-conditioning, and a large bathroom with hot water. Not wanting to make a decision until I had seen the beach, I walked down the path a little further to the beach, past a raised restaurant with low tables and two inviting hammocks. The path ended with a view of a long, white sandy beach and a brilliant blue sky above crystal clear water. Just steps from the end of the path, wooden beach recliners sat under a thatch umbrella, with a clear view of the water.
We decided to stay.
After changing into our bathing suites, we headed straight out to the beach. The water was warm, but with pockets of colder currents, and the view was great. Mui Ne is a long stretch of beach ending in two pointed jetties at each end, too far for us to make out without a day of exploring. The street is not visible from the beach because the hotels, resorts and restaurants take up all of the land between the road and the beach, but the hotels and resorts are small and attractive, none over four stories high, the majority only one story of attractively designed huts set back from the beach and d0 nothing to detract from the natural beauty of the area.
After an hour or so at the beach, we decided to walk up the beach to find something for lunch. We stopped at a family run Vietnamese restaurant, passing by the restaurants in the hotels and resorts, figuring them to be well outside our budget, and had an enjoyable lunch of grilled fish and lemon pepper and chili squid. After lunch we walked down to a tour office and bought our tickets for the bus back to Saigon the following day at 1:30 p.m. and wandered back to our hotel along the street checking out the various shops and restaurants and looking into the price of a motorbike rental for the following day. Afterward, we headed back into the water.
That evening, we decided to go for a walk down the beach before stopping somewhere for a pre-dinner cocktail. We walked down the beach away from the fishing village of Mui Ne to the Coastal City of Phan Thiet where the resorts got bigger and fancier, yet still not overbearingly so. After some time, we turned back and stopped in for a cocktail at the SunSea Resort next to our hotel, lured in by the beer menu, which, unlike most bars in Saigon, offered more than Heineken, Saigon, Tiger and 333. We had a few drinks and then walked out to the road where we found a restaurant that looked like a glorified tree house with a boat filled with various types of seafood on ice displayed out front. I picked out a dozen mussels and an oyster and Steven chose a whole Red Snapper, before walking up the wooden staircase to our table on the second floor overlooking the main road. We had a enjoyable dinner and then walked back to our hotel where, not used to late nights on the town, we crashed in the hammocks by the beach.
The next morning we got up and headed straight to the beach. After some time, our growling stomaches pulled us in to the restaurant at our hotel, where Steven had a flavorful banana pancake and I had a traditional Vietnamese breakfast of Pho Tom or Shrimp Soup. After breakfast we decided to see if we could rent a motorbike for a few hours to get to see a little more of Mui Ne and to get out to the sand dunes for which the area is famous.
We inquired at the front desk and the woman at reception began a conversation in Vietnamese with a man in the parking lot on a motorbike. Steven soon arranged for us to rent the man's bike for 40,000d or about $2.50 for an hour, which would give us time for another swim before we had to pack up and check out to catch our bus back to Saigon.
It has been over three years since I have driven a motor-scooter and just as much time for Steven. I was a little nervous about getting on both as a passenger and a driver, but convinced myself that if anywhere, Mui Ne, was the perfect place to get back on the horse, given that it is only one straight road with little traffic. Steven drove first and I asked him to take a test drive before speeding off down the street with me in tow. He took off smoothly and I watched him disappear into the distance thinking that I would be able to hear the commotion in this sleepy town if anything happened, even if I couldn't hear it. But soon, he came roaring back down the street, looking quite comfortable in the driver's seat, so I fastened my helmet and climbed aboard.
The trip from Mui Ne to the sand dunes is one I became intimately familiar with in 2005 having, unaware of the total distance and annoyed by the ceaseless hawking by the xe om guys, spurned all offers of a taxi and walked the some 5 - 8 kilometers (we estimated the distance as we rode) to the dunes. This time, on the back of a bike with Steven as my driver, it was much more pleasant and I remembered the few turns that took us straight past the dunes. Knowing we didn't have the time to dismount and explore, we rode a little further along the road with stunning views of the ocean and coastal islands, before turning back and heading back to our hotel. On the way back, after a quick stop at an ATM, Steven asked if I wanted to drive and so, we switched positions and we were out on the road. My first time on a motorbike in Thailand ended up with me in a tree, but my first time back after all this time was less eventful and I immediately remembered how to pull back on the gas while stepping on the clutch to change the gears and was surprisingly comfortable with Steven's extra weight on the bike. The cars made me a little nervous and turning around and down shifting weren't as smooth as simply driving forward and up-shifting, but it was good to remember how easy it was and gave me enough of a taste to look forward to the freedom of "next time."
We arrived in time for a leisurely swim and a leisurely lunch at our hotel's restaurant where we again found the food delicious and affordable. We were packed and ready for our bus at 1:30 p.m.
The bus ride back wasn't quite as pleasant as our ride there, us having purchased from a competitor company to Sinh Cafe, one of many who sell tickets and put you on any bus heading to your destination, but we made it well enough and in one piece.
Upon our arrival back in Saigon, we treated ourselves to an Indian dinner at Royal India, picked up a few DVDs and then caught a bus back to our apartment on Nguyen Tri Phuong. It was a lovely weekend and we look forward to going back, but we were glad to be home.
The path to our room, Small Garden Hotel, Mui Ne, Vietnam
Koi Pond
Steven on the path
Me on the path
Our neighboring cottage
Our room
Inside of our room
Our foot bath
To the beach
Our chairs on the beach
Mui Nei beach
Fishing boats on the beach
Steven at lunch at a restaurant on the beach
Me at lunch
Who is that masked man?
Steven on the bike
Fishing boats off the coast
Fishing boats closer up
Local fisherman walking away from his little boat
Local fisherman in his little boat
Sightseeing in Chinatown
When Steven got home, we decided to do a little sight-seeing in Cholon, which is Saigon's China Town, a neighborhood with an enormous amount of history, of which we live just on the fringe.
We walked down Nguyen Tri Phuong to the next block at Nguyen Trai and took a right. We walked about four blocks before we came to our first temple and then seemed to pass one every other block. I have not yet learned to distinguish one temple in Vietnam from another. Unlike in Thailand where the majority of the temples, or wats, are very distinctly Thai Buddhist, the temples in Vietnam could be Taoist, Cao Dai, Buddhist, Hindu, or a combination of any of the above with traditional animist beliefs, but they are all fascinating to see, both inside and out.
After visiting a few temples, we wandered through Cholon's traditional herb market where storefronts overflowed with burlap sacks filled with various dried herbs, mushrooms and other contents indistinguishable to the untrained eye. As we walked further on, we found shops selling dried snakes, pickled snakes, snake skins, alligators skins, various horns, teeth and other body parts along with entire bodies of animals we could not identify, both in jars and dried.
After we had walked past the herb market, we came upon some more modern shops and markets on the street where we purchased another umbrella for me, since I'd been using Steven's and he'd been getting wet, a map of Vietnam for our wall, batteries for the camera, some coffee and tea and a mosquito zapper shaped like a tennis racket that Steven had been wanting.
We walked back as the sunlight began to fade, tired and hungry, but satisfied with our excursion. We stopped into Ga Ran Kentucky for some soft serve ice cream, which to our delight, and my surprise, was very tasty soft serve ice cream, and walked the rest of the way home munching on our cones.
A village scene carved out of the top of a temple in Cholon, Saigon's China Town.
An ornately carved wooden boat above the entrance.
A nature scene on one of the walls of the temple.
One of the temple's many alters.
A bell inside the temple.
An insane amount of incense hanging from the ceiling.
Buildings in Cholon
A fountain in a park
A fruit stand outside a market in Cholon.
Inside the Market
Inside the Market
Vegetables for sale
We walked down Nguyen Tri Phuong to the next block at Nguyen Trai and took a right. We walked about four blocks before we came to our first temple and then seemed to pass one every other block. I have not yet learned to distinguish one temple in Vietnam from another. Unlike in Thailand where the majority of the temples, or wats, are very distinctly Thai Buddhist, the temples in Vietnam could be Taoist, Cao Dai, Buddhist, Hindu, or a combination of any of the above with traditional animist beliefs, but they are all fascinating to see, both inside and out.
After visiting a few temples, we wandered through Cholon's traditional herb market where storefronts overflowed with burlap sacks filled with various dried herbs, mushrooms and other contents indistinguishable to the untrained eye. As we walked further on, we found shops selling dried snakes, pickled snakes, snake skins, alligators skins, various horns, teeth and other body parts along with entire bodies of animals we could not identify, both in jars and dried.
After we had walked past the herb market, we came upon some more modern shops and markets on the street where we purchased another umbrella for me, since I'd been using Steven's and he'd been getting wet, a map of Vietnam for our wall, batteries for the camera, some coffee and tea and a mosquito zapper shaped like a tennis racket that Steven had been wanting.
We walked back as the sunlight began to fade, tired and hungry, but satisfied with our excursion. We stopped into Ga Ran Kentucky for some soft serve ice cream, which to our delight, and my surprise, was very tasty soft serve ice cream, and walked the rest of the way home munching on our cones.
A village scene carved out of the top of a temple in Cholon, Saigon's China Town.
An ornately carved wooden boat above the entrance.
A nature scene on one of the walls of the temple.
One of the temple's many alters.
A bell inside the temple.
An insane amount of incense hanging from the ceiling.
Buildings in Cholon
A fountain in a park
A fruit stand outside a market in Cholon.
Inside the Market
Inside the Market
Vegetables for sale
A Neighborhood Tour
On Friday, I met Steven for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant near his school, where you can order from a variety of dishes, on display on a cart for your viewing pleasure, for less than a dollar. And it was delicious. Vietnam has a leg up on Atlanta in the tasty cheap food department.
After lunch, I walked home from the school taking pictures along the way, thinking again what a good decision it was (Steven's) to live close to the school.
When I got close to the apartment, I decided to continue my walk down through the park we walk to to get to Hung Vuong Plaza where our local movie theater is and see what else the Plaza had to offer.
One of the biggest perks of our location is this park and our proximity to the movie theater, which is one of our favorite pastimes (although since we've been here our movie viewing has decreased substantially due to the sad selection of movies that make it to Vietnam).
Hung Vuong Plaza is a very upscale mixed residential/commercial development to rival any think similar in the states. The first three floors are one huge department store selling everything you'd find in a Macy's at home at similar prices (I saw a dress I liked for over 2 million dong (or $120)). The fourth floor houses a bowling ally/video arcade and the most enticing food court I have ever seen, complete with Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Japanese/Sushi food stalls, along with the requisite "Ga Ran Kentucky." The entire fifth floor is comprised of the largest fitness facility I have ever seen, "California Wow" a gym based out of Thailand, with what I estimated as at least a hundred stationary bikes, treadmills and elipitical machines. At 1:30 on a Friday afternoon, I saw three people working out, but perhaps over 300 do come at once to use all of those machines around 6:00 p.m...
The next floor consists of a fancy looking Chinese Restaurant, The Royal Garden and the next floor houses the MegaStar movie complex.
During my tour of the Plaza's fancy bathroom facilities, I received a call from my husband informing me that his principal had taken ill and that their afternoon of professional development had been postponed; so I made my way back down through the over-priced merchandise and back through the pretty little park to our apartment, where Steven and I planned our next adventure.
The beginning of the park around the corner from our apartment.
The big pink church around the corner - which is unfortunately surrounded by a barred fence so I couldn't get in on Friday - maybe on Sunday...
Our walk to the movie theater through the park.
More Park
More Park
More Park
The Hung Vuong Plaza (and movie theater) through the trees on the right.
A sink in the bathroom on Hung Vuong Plaza that was so fancy I had to take a picture. Yes. I am easily impressed.
After lunch, I walked home from the school taking pictures along the way, thinking again what a good decision it was (Steven's) to live close to the school.
When I got close to the apartment, I decided to continue my walk down through the park we walk to to get to Hung Vuong Plaza where our local movie theater is and see what else the Plaza had to offer.
One of the biggest perks of our location is this park and our proximity to the movie theater, which is one of our favorite pastimes (although since we've been here our movie viewing has decreased substantially due to the sad selection of movies that make it to Vietnam).
Hung Vuong Plaza is a very upscale mixed residential/commercial development to rival any think similar in the states. The first three floors are one huge department store selling everything you'd find in a Macy's at home at similar prices (I saw a dress I liked for over 2 million dong (or $120)). The fourth floor houses a bowling ally/video arcade and the most enticing food court I have ever seen, complete with Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Japanese/Sushi food stalls, along with the requisite "Ga Ran Kentucky." The entire fifth floor is comprised of the largest fitness facility I have ever seen, "California Wow" a gym based out of Thailand, with what I estimated as at least a hundred stationary bikes, treadmills and elipitical machines. At 1:30 on a Friday afternoon, I saw three people working out, but perhaps over 300 do come at once to use all of those machines around 6:00 p.m...
The next floor consists of a fancy looking Chinese Restaurant, The Royal Garden and the next floor houses the MegaStar movie complex.
During my tour of the Plaza's fancy bathroom facilities, I received a call from my husband informing me that his principal had taken ill and that their afternoon of professional development had been postponed; so I made my way back down through the over-priced merchandise and back through the pretty little park to our apartment, where Steven and I planned our next adventure.
The beginning of the park around the corner from our apartment.
The big pink church around the corner - which is unfortunately surrounded by a barred fence so I couldn't get in on Friday - maybe on Sunday...
Our walk to the movie theater through the park.
More Park
More Park
More Park
The Hung Vuong Plaza (and movie theater) through the trees on the right.
A sink in the bathroom on Hung Vuong Plaza that was so fancy I had to take a picture. Yes. I am easily impressed.
Friday, October 03, 2008
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