There is something intensely satisfying about walking in the rain. I arrived in Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand, today, and I've already fallen in love with the city. I got a bed in a dorm room (with no other occupants) for $3 per night and dropped off my things then hit the city. Within 10 minutes, I had already talked to Tony, from Vienna, Austria, who was extremely helpful, and four women who were working in an NGO down the street from my hotel who have invited me to visit a few places with them. One of them is from Santa Rosa and another from San Leandro, California. Small world!
The night market is amazing, with everything you could possibly want of Thailand and more. I passed several western food places charging fairly high prices and wondered why someone would go there, when in the night market you can visit a food stall and have freshly made curry or Pad Thai for $1 or less. I guess they must have a large Indian population because they sell a lot of Indian food, roti, naan, etc. I decided not to buy anything and was pleasantly surprised that I was allowed to browse without someone saying "you buy something?" over and over. I love Vietnam, but the sellers in the stores and markets can be a little too much at times. Apparently the real time to buy is during the Sunday night market when the locals buy things. The market I went to today is for tourists. I'm definitely staying through the weekend to experience that!
I found a great place for a 30 minute foot massage combined with a 30 minute back/shoulder/head massage for less than $5. It was heavenly. I will be enjoying many more of those in the weeks to come. I discovered it had started raining when I came out of the massage, but after 3 months of being hot most of the time, the rain was a wonderful respite from the heat. I decided to walk back to my hostel. Just because. It's a wonderfully liberating experience to decide what I want to do and just do it. I love traveling with other people too, but sometimes it's nice to have the option to set my own itinerary and decide what I want to do based on how I'm feeling that day. I think I could get used to this.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
"Hard core" traveling
Yesterday I spent my last day in Vietnam (until Nov.) in Ho Chi Minh City. I took the overnight bus from Nha Trang last night and I actually slept the entire way. We left at 9:00 p.m. and I was so tired from the day that I crashed soon after we left the station and only woke up once or twice until 6:00 a.m. when we reached HCMC. I was warned that the sleeping buses were not very comfortable and I should take a train with a sleeping berth instead. The train was 380,000 dong, or about $20, compared to 170,000 or about $8.50 for the sleeping bus and the bus dropped me off in the middle of town whereas the train station was not nearly as convenient. I was really happy with my choice because the hotel I'm staying at with my friend Rebecca was only 1 km. from where the bus dropped off. Easy choice. After my trip from Tam Ky to Nha Trang, I was really grateful for a comfortable journey.
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is really fun and quite easy to "do" quickly. Rebecca and I visited the zoo and botanical gardens, Notre Dame Cathedral (modeled on the original) and French Colonial style post office, got some laundry done and ate at a really nice restaurant called Quan An Ngon recommended by both one of my friends (Jerry) and a volunteer (Benat). The post office is beautiful and has lots of old phone booths with names of various cities around the world and one labeled "California" as well. I guess California now qualifies as a city. I laughed at the translation for "postal life insurance". I guess if you are afraid your package is going to die before it reaches its destination, then you can purchase life insurance for it! I don't like zoos but the only thing that really bothered me here was some very small cages for the monkeys and an elephant tied to a post so he couldn't move. He kept stamping his feet with boredom. I did enjoy watching the orangutan, who was wringing out a washcloth and washing himself with it, and the goats and sheep. There was a new-born baby goat with his umbilical cord still attached. The otters were also really cute; they actually reminded me a lot of my cats!Last night we went to the Water Puppets show, which was a lot of fun but I quickly realized how tired I was when I couldn't keep my eyes open for the show. I got the gist of it and enjoyed what I did see, but found it just impossible to stay awake. We also went to the night market near our hotel
In Nha Trang, I went scuba diving for the first time, which was a blast. At first I was a little nervous because they go over quite a few instructions at first, but once I was in the water it all started to make sense. I had a lot of trouble "clearing" my mask but once I figured out that I need to tip my head back, press on the top of the mask with two fingers and blow out through my nose, it was okay. The mask gets foggy pretty quickly, so you have to allow some water in and then tip it back and blow out to get the water out. It's tricky. Vietnam is not known as an amazing place for diving, but it was still such a wonderful feeling to get up close and personal with fish I'd only seen in aquariums. I saw a moray eel, held a starfish and saw the most amazing sea creatures. I did two dives, one at about 5 meters for 45 minutes and the second at 12 meters for about 50 minutes. It was quite the high. Breathing with the oxygen was actually a lot easier than I expected and I felt really safe with the guide. I was lucky, because I was the only one doing the "discover scuba diving" course, I had my own guide. He was great to work with. I hope to get certified either with SSI or a PADI course sometime on this trip so I can continue diving. I can certainly understand the thrill now!
Sunday, I went on the "four islands" tour. It was $6 and included swimming, snorkeling, an all day boat ride, lunch, fruit, a "floating pineapple bar" and more. It was SO touristy but a blast. The lunch was pretty decent for the price, we went to an aquarium (not great, but not horrible), and I met a great group of people: Lisa and Anne from Holland, Kate and Matt from Australia and Darren from England traveling with Sabina from Wales. We had a wonderful time swimming together, watching the "Nha Trang Boy Band" made up of tour guides and staff from two of the boats, and attempting to snorkel. I don't think I've laughed so much in a long time.
Today I'm heading to Chiang Mai via Bangkok for several days of trekking, exploring and having fun. I'll keep the updates and photos coming.
Before I forget, the Vietnamese have an interesting way of kissing friends. They show affection not by kissing on the cheeks but by sniffing. They give you a "sniff" on both sides of your face and often say "I love you". It's wonderful how many people have said "I love you" to me (platonically) here. I feel like I've made so many great new friends. Now, time for Thailand!
The water puppets performance!
Outside the Water Puppets theater.Erika's update
Xin Chao everyone,
I haven't written in a while so I have a lot of updates! Bear with me. I'm almost 3 months into my trip (!) and having a blast. I'm currently in the coastal city of Nha Trang, about halfway between DaNang and Ho Chi Minh City. Yesterday, I took the train down from Tam Ky and I don't think I'll be repeating that experience again. I bought my ticket with a volunteer who speaks substantially more Vietnamese then I do, but we still managed to purchase a "2nd class, hard seat" instead of a "1st class, soft seat". I realized this when I boarded the train, which was already an hour and a half late. The seats are hard, slatted wood and very uncomfortable. I shared my seat with a family. The woman laid on the floor for much of the trip (on newspaper) so her kids could sleep on their seat. This didn't leave me much room for my legs, but I shifted position constantly anyway and sat on my traveling pillow for a lot of the trip. The kids were probably two and a half and seven and were very well behaved with big dark eyes and beautiful smiles. You could tell the woman was very poor. By the look of her bicep muscles, I'd say she was probably a rice field worker or did some heavy labor to earn her income. The ticket was about $6.50 (128,000 dong) and I should have guessed that the ticket was too inexpensive to be a first class ticket. 12 hours later, and with a very stiff neck/back, I arrived in Nha Trang. According to the schedule, we were supposed to arrive at 2:30 but we finally pulled in closer to 7:00 p.m. Oh well, TIV. I found a hotel on a road next to the beach with my own room for $5.50 per night with fan. It was $9.00 for a/c but I decided I'd rather spend that money on a massage today. I'll need it! The little map made the train station look very close to Hung Vuong road, where all the hotels are, but it turned out to be quite a ways. I needed to stretch my legs after that train ride but it was definitely a challenge to find! I was so happy to arrive and get a nice shower. I think next time I'll just take a taxi.
I spent the last two days visiting another GVN placement in Tam Ky. I had a great time visiting their orphanages, playing with little kids and disabled babies and teaching a class at a "fishing village" nearby. I was impressed with how eager the fishing village kids were to learn and participate. I hate to say it, but it was far easier to teach the kids then it was to teach the university students. Teaching a class for two hours where no one willingly participates can be a bit frustrating.
Last weekend, I visited Hoi An for the full moon festival and to visit friends. The festival was low key but fun. I went by myself because the other volunteers were in Hanoi/HaLong Bay/Ninh Binh and in DaNang. I went to a restaurant more popular with the locals than the tourist crowd and struck up a conversation with two expat Brits who left their jobs a few years ago and live all over the world. They are currently living in Hoi An for three months. This is actually quite easy to do in Asia because it's cheaper to live in Asia then it is in England or the U.S. The fact they don't have kids helped ;-) I also had a lovely 90 minute massage with my friend Van, and then we both went to my friend Mai's house for lunch. I was planning to take Mai and Van to lunch for Van's birthday, but when Mai's husband's family found out I was leaving, they drove from DaNang to take us all out for lunch. It was a really nice gesture. They also brought a single friend, and repeatedly told me he was single, but I assured them I'm not on the market. I think I'm going to start telling everyone I have a boyfriend in the US so they stop trying to set me up with all of their friends. I know it's just because they want to keep me here, so it's a compliment. It's still not going to happen (especially with their friend because he was NOT handsome in the least!) I love spending time with Mai and Van, even though we can't always communicate everything. They are wonderful people and great massage therapists! I'll be enjoying massages with them when I come back in November.
I'm done with my volunteer work with GVN for the moment. I still plan to return for a few weeks later in the year because I postponed my last two weeks. I want to switch to the orphanage program for my last two weeks and right now they have a lot of volunteers, so I'll do it later. The last two and a half months have been amazing. I have really enjoyed getting to know the students and teachers and I love DaNang. I received so many beautiful silk scarves as parting gifts that I'll never have to buy another scarf again! I've realized that this volunteer work really is more volun-tourism than volun-teerism, but I still feel like I made some impact. I know I've made some great friends and I got to see a lot of the country. I'm hoping that my next volunteer project is more volunteer than voluntour, so I can experience that too, and I think it will be. I've enjoyed the teaching program, but my heart is really in the children's program. I love playing with the kids, teaching them, working with the disabled ones and, most of all, seeing their smiles. Many of them will never be adopted because they are "too old" and I want to bring them all home with me. They have such wonderful personalities and they seem to be doing okay, considering their situation. At one of the orphanages, a toddler they call "Buddha" came right up to me, arms outstretched. I spent most of the morning holding him and playing with him. Children who don't have parents look for love anywhere, so it doesn't matter if they've never seen you before, they just want love. Before doing this program, I was pretty sure I didn't want children because of the cost of raising them and because I want to work internationally, and children can complicate that. Now I'm sure I do want children, but I want to adopt from another country. Vietnam and the US do not have an adoption agreement, but maybe I can still adopt from here someday.
Next, I'm heading to Ho Chi Minh City for two days of exploring with my friend Rebecca, then I'm flying first to Bangkok then to Chiang Mai (on the same day). I'll be in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Chiang Dao for 10 days to two weeks and then heading to Laos for 2-3 weeks. While in Laos, I'll be visiting the "Butterfly Children" project and hopefully helping out there for a few days. The project was started by my Mom's childhood friend's pediatrician (how about that for degree of separation (!) and when I said I would be there, she invited me to visit. I'll be heading from Ventiane back to Bangkok to visit my cousin Nicki in August and then flying to Phnom Penh to begin my leadership residency on August 15th.
Thanks for all of the emails. I'm glad you are enjoying my updates. Photos to come shortly
Tam biet!
Erika
I haven't written in a while so I have a lot of updates! Bear with me. I'm almost 3 months into my trip (!) and having a blast. I'm currently in the coastal city of Nha Trang, about halfway between DaNang and Ho Chi Minh City. Yesterday, I took the train down from Tam Ky and I don't think I'll be repeating that experience again. I bought my ticket with a volunteer who speaks substantially more Vietnamese then I do, but we still managed to purchase a "2nd class, hard seat" instead of a "1st class, soft seat". I realized this when I boarded the train, which was already an hour and a half late. The seats are hard, slatted wood and very uncomfortable. I shared my seat with a family. The woman laid on the floor for much of the trip (on newspaper) so her kids could sleep on their seat. This didn't leave me much room for my legs, but I shifted position constantly anyway and sat on my traveling pillow for a lot of the trip. The kids were probably two and a half and seven and were very well behaved with big dark eyes and beautiful smiles. You could tell the woman was very poor. By the look of her bicep muscles, I'd say she was probably a rice field worker or did some heavy labor to earn her income. The ticket was about $6.50 (128,000 dong) and I should have guessed that the ticket was too inexpensive to be a first class ticket. 12 hours later, and with a very stiff neck/back, I arrived in Nha Trang. According to the schedule, we were supposed to arrive at 2:30 but we finally pulled in closer to 7:00 p.m. Oh well, TIV. I found a hotel on a road next to the beach with my own room for $5.50 per night with fan. It was $9.00 for a/c but I decided I'd rather spend that money on a massage today. I'll need it! The little map made the train station look very close to Hung Vuong road, where all the hotels are, but it turned out to be quite a ways. I needed to stretch my legs after that train ride but it was definitely a challenge to find! I was so happy to arrive and get a nice shower. I think next time I'll just take a taxi.
I spent the last two days visiting another GVN placement in Tam Ky. I had a great time visiting their orphanages, playing with little kids and disabled babies and teaching a class at a "fishing village" nearby. I was impressed with how eager the fishing village kids were to learn and participate. I hate to say it, but it was far easier to teach the kids then it was to teach the university students. Teaching a class for two hours where no one willingly participates can be a bit frustrating.
Last weekend, I visited Hoi An for the full moon festival and to visit friends. The festival was low key but fun. I went by myself because the other volunteers were in Hanoi/HaLong Bay/Ninh Binh and in DaNang. I went to a restaurant more popular with the locals than the tourist crowd and struck up a conversation with two expat Brits who left their jobs a few years ago and live all over the world. They are currently living in Hoi An for three months. This is actually quite easy to do in Asia because it's cheaper to live in Asia then it is in England or the U.S. The fact they don't have kids helped ;-) I also had a lovely 90 minute massage with my friend Van, and then we both went to my friend Mai's house for lunch. I was planning to take Mai and Van to lunch for Van's birthday, but when Mai's husband's family found out I was leaving, they drove from DaNang to take us all out for lunch. It was a really nice gesture. They also brought a single friend, and repeatedly told me he was single, but I assured them I'm not on the market. I think I'm going to start telling everyone I have a boyfriend in the US so they stop trying to set me up with all of their friends. I know it's just because they want to keep me here, so it's a compliment. It's still not going to happen (especially with their friend because he was NOT handsome in the least!) I love spending time with Mai and Van, even though we can't always communicate everything. They are wonderful people and great massage therapists! I'll be enjoying massages with them when I come back in November.
I'm done with my volunteer work with GVN for the moment. I still plan to return for a few weeks later in the year because I postponed my last two weeks. I want to switch to the orphanage program for my last two weeks and right now they have a lot of volunteers, so I'll do it later. The last two and a half months have been amazing. I have really enjoyed getting to know the students and teachers and I love DaNang. I received so many beautiful silk scarves as parting gifts that I'll never have to buy another scarf again! I've realized that this volunteer work really is more volun-tourism than volun-teerism, but I still feel like I made some impact. I know I've made some great friends and I got to see a lot of the country. I'm hoping that my next volunteer project is more volunteer than voluntour, so I can experience that too, and I think it will be. I've enjoyed the teaching program, but my heart is really in the children's program. I love playing with the kids, teaching them, working with the disabled ones and, most of all, seeing their smiles. Many of them will never be adopted because they are "too old" and I want to bring them all home with me. They have such wonderful personalities and they seem to be doing okay, considering their situation. At one of the orphanages, a toddler they call "Buddha" came right up to me, arms outstretched. I spent most of the morning holding him and playing with him. Children who don't have parents look for love anywhere, so it doesn't matter if they've never seen you before, they just want love. Before doing this program, I was pretty sure I didn't want children because of the cost of raising them and because I want to work internationally, and children can complicate that. Now I'm sure I do want children, but I want to adopt from another country. Vietnam and the US do not have an adoption agreement, but maybe I can still adopt from here someday.
Next, I'm heading to Ho Chi Minh City for two days of exploring with my friend Rebecca, then I'm flying first to Bangkok then to Chiang Mai (on the same day). I'll be in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Chiang Dao for 10 days to two weeks and then heading to Laos for 2-3 weeks. While in Laos, I'll be visiting the "Butterfly Children" project and hopefully helping out there for a few days. The project was started by my Mom's childhood friend's pediatrician (how about that for degree of separation (!) and when I said I would be there, she invited me to visit. I'll be heading from Ventiane back to Bangkok to visit my cousin Nicki in August and then flying to Phnom Penh to begin my leadership residency on August 15th.
Thanks for all of the emails. I'm glad you are enjoying my updates. Photos to come shortly
Tam biet!
Erika
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About Me
- Erika
- My life goal is to visit a minimum of one country for every year of my life. If I live to be 100, then I hope to visit 100 countries! My first goal is to visit 30 countries by the end of my 30th year in February 2014. This blog will chronicle my journeys.
