Keep on running (to the tune of "keep on swimming" from Finding Nemo)

Today, Sunday April 18, I went for my first long run. Normally a long run is 8-10 miles but today my 5-6 mile run just felt like 8-10. I felt like an old lady last night when I hit a wall at 9 and was in bed by 9:30. My volunteer friends came back from the nightly Hoi An beach party (starts at 11:30, ends at 3:00 or 4:00) at around 2:30 a.m. Getting up at 4:45 a.m. (which we did this morning) does not especially facilitate a late night. This morning I woke up (sans alarm) at 5:30 and was out for my run by 6. Running in humidity feels a bit easier than running in dry heat. I'm not sure why but I don't feel the heat as much. That being said, I still feel like I'm running through water. Usually 5 miles takes me 45 minutes and 6 miles takes around 54. I know it was at least 8 km round trip but I someone else said it was 10km. In any case, it took me more than an hour and 15 minutes to finish. After all the food I've enjoyed in Hoi An, however, I'll be running as much as I can. It's between 75-85, which really isn't bad, with about 75% humidity. We'll see how I do this summer though!

I'm getting better at bargaining, but I know I'm still getting charged high prices. Oh well, I now have some beautiful clothes for teaching.

Time to go eat breakfast, rent a bicycle and go lay on the beach with Eat, Pray, Love.

And the adventures continue

Good morning (well for me anyway),

It's almost 10:00 a.m. and I've been up for 5 hours. For all of you who know me well, I would normally choose to be up by 8 or 9. However, this morning my volunteer friends and I chose to get up at 4:45 and drive out to My Son, a Cham religious site for followers of the Hindu religion. It was still dark when we left but we were treated to a nice sunrise and cool (!) weather on the drive out there. If you want more info, Wikipedia "My Son". The temples were built out of bricks without mortar, and scholars are still trying to determine how they were constructed. Unfortunately the largest temple was destroyed when a US bomb hit it in the "American war" after withstanding more than a thousand years of everything else. The temples were built between 400-1400 AD by the Champa Hindu people. This group now lives in the Mekong Delta in the south.

In the past several days I've seen a good quarter of Vietnam from Saigon to DaNang, I taught my first lesson at Duy Tan University, I rode on a motorbike (driven by someone else, with a helmet), I moved to "homebase" in DaNang and I've had several items of clothes made for me in Hoi An, south of DaNang. My volunteer friends, all from Australia, and I are in Hoi An for the weekend. Today I'll be getting a good book and going to the beach. Life is rough.

I'll post additional photos in the next week, including one of me in my new Au Yai (the traditional long dress and pants outfit that I'm having made right now). Hope all is well!

~E

And I thought I was supposed to be backpacking!

Chào buổi sáng (Good morning),

I thought I was supposed to stay in hostels and "rough it" on this trip, but right now I am sitting on a chaise lounge at a 4 star hotel 


with an ocean view. I promised myself when I took this trip that I would take every opportunity (as long as it's safe) that presents itself.
So when Jen (the operations manager of Global Volunteer Network) invited me to travel back with her and 3 Vietnamese guys to map


the route for a charity bike ride they took last year, I jumped at the chance. One doesn't have many opportunities to see a country by
private car very often. When we arrived at our first destination, it turned out to be a 4 star resort that has only had a "soft" opening. 


Because they're trying to drum up business, they provide free rooms to tour guides. One of the guys is a tour guide who booked our
trip of the Mekong Delta and is Jen's Vietnamese "brother". So Jen and I have a beautiful "bungalow" with a view of the ocean, a


HUGE bathtub and a gorgeous pool. This is definitely the life.

In other news, I'm feeling very lucky because jet lag never really hit me. I think this is a good omen for my trip :-). It's quite warm here,


I think about 90 with high humidity right now, but many places have a/c and fans. I'm wearing a lot of sunscreen and a lot of bug spray!
One of the other volunteers who went on the Mekong Delta trip visited a city called Dalat in January and ended up getting Dengue


Fever from a mosquito. It was a fairly mild case but she was sick for several days. 

Let's see, the food is quite different than back home. If I see another MSG-flavored mushroom, I'm going to hurl. On my Mekong Delta

trip I was the only vegetarian and they made 10 or so dishes just for me each meal. SO MUCH FOOD! A lot more fried food than I 
anticipated so I'm trying to limit that. I think I'm really going to be craving some American (!) food pretty soon. There was a ham and

cheese sandwich on the menu last night and I was really thinking about getting one without the ham. I'm drinking a lot of bia (beer) and 
enjoyed several great cocktails. At one restaurant, margaritas were $2.50 each and buy two get one free. We all had a lot of fun that night.


Today at 9:00 we are headed to Nha Trang to check out another resort for the bike ride. While there, we will be enjoying "massage beauties",
the English translation for massage (but definitely not that kind of massage). I'll upload photos soon. Hope everyone is doing well.


Mot, Hai, Ba, Yo! (1, 2, 3, cheers!)
Erika

Arrived safely

Hi All,

I arrived safely on Friday after a long, but very easy flight. Thus far my jet lag has been minimal but my allergies are in full swing! So thankful for allergy pills. The first day I got here, I was picked up by Jen, our operations manager and a bunch of other volunteers. We drove around Saigon and visited a market and the War Remnants museum. The photos there are really hard to look at but necessary to see anyway. When I was waiting in line for the restroom, two women came up and started "stroking" my arm. They LOVE my skin. After 27 years of hating my blue-white skin color in the US, it finally has an advantage here. I guess I finally found the place I should be!

We spent the night in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) on Friday night and had Mexican food and margaritas. Not bad for a country 6,000+ miles from Mexico. The other US volunteers were craving it and I imagine I will be too. This past weekend we visited the Mekong Delta and spent the night at a house built in 1888 with open-air rooms (with mosquito netting). They prepared all our meals, which turn out to be much greasier than I had expected. As the token vegetarian, I was given enough food to feed an army! We also took a boat to a floating market, visited "factories" that make several types of candy and soy sauce, cycled around an one of the islands, fed alligators and held a python. Today I'm headed to Nha Trang and then will arrive on Wed. in DaNang for my orientation.

Hope all is well. Will write again soon.