Recharging my batteries

It's funny how life always gives you what you need, even if you don't know you need it. I loved Chiang Mai, it was a wonderful city filled with things to do and people to see and food to eat and things to buy (to stuff into my already bursting backpack). However, by Monday I was feeling like I needed to leave. I wasn't quite sure why but when I arrived in Chiang Dao, I understood. I'm a country girl. I grew up in a town of 2 or 3 thousand people and the largest city I've lived in was maybe 100,000 people. For the last three and a half months, I've spent all of my time in cities. When I reached Chiang Dao, I realized how much I had missed nature and natural beauty. I spent almost three lovely days at Malee's Nature Lover's bungalow, enjoying walks through the forest, hiking up to the monastery and remembering what it feels like to wake up to the sound of the rain on a tin roof. I realized I had also been missing Idaho- my family has a cabin in northern Idaho and my parents are there now. Chiang Dao is so much like our little spot that I almost couldn't believe it. There's no lake, but wildflowers, birds, butterflies and trees aplenty and I had a hammock right outside of my room.

The monastery was built into the limestone mountain and has 510 steps from the base to the top. They had words of wisdom posted at various points on the way up in both Thai and English. My favorite, and the one that currently defines me is "There is a chance to get refreshed, once you are tired. But there's not chance to relive your life, once you are dead." I take that to mean live life to the fullest. I plan to do just that!

Walking home in the rain

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.

"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

And on the road I go...

This is my last week in DaNang... for the moment. I know I will return here many times again in the future. I have to, I've made so many wonderful connections and relationships with people here. Last weekend, I went to Hoi An, but spent most of my time visiting my new friends there. I visited my Vietnamese "daughter" Ginger and "sister" Mai (Ginger's mother) and Minh and her daughter Nha and Van (who gave me an amazing massage) and Mai's family.

Photos from top right: Vocational College teachers Tai, Lien and me. Center: One of the tailors with me with many bolts of fabric behind us. Bottom left: Tai and me on one of the bridges in Hoi An
Bottom right: One of the tailors showing me how they kill the silk worm to get the silk (my silk blouse wasn't looking so great as I watched the silk worm s wriggle in their cocoons in the hot water). 

On Thursday, two teachers took Rebecca and me to Hoi An (yes, twice in two days!) and we had a wonderful afternoon there. They took us to the best place in the city for Banh Xeo (similar to Vietnamese spring rolls), which are a local specialty and took us to a tailor to pick out a gift as a thank you for everything we've done for their country. They kept saying it was so wonderful that we came to help their country, but I wanted to tell them that no, I should be thanking them! I've had such an amazing experience here. I can't wait to come back!

Next Sunday (6/27), I leave DaNang and head down the coast of Vietnam to Tam Ky, Tuy Hoa, Nha Trang and finally to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). I will be training volunteer teachers on a new spreadsheet system and a new teacher training job manual I created with input from Rebecca, who is a teacher trainer in New Zealand, and other volunteers. I'm excited to visit the other "placements" and meet other volunteers. I'll be in each city for about two days and then I'll meet Rebecca in Ho Chi Minh for two days before I fly out to Bangkok and Chang Mai in Thailand on July 6th!

From July 6th-August 6th I'll be in northern Thailand and northern Laos. I plan to visit Chang Mai, Chiang Dao, Chang Rai and villages around them in Thailand and then will cross the border to Laos and go all over Thailand, hitting the major cities of Luang Prabang and Ventiane during my time there. I'll keep updating my blog regularly!

Here are a few photos from the last two weeks:
1) The amazing mixed fruit tart at Cargo Club in Hoi An. This dessert includes fresh kiwi, mango, dragonfruit and strawberries. It is to die for.

2) Cargo club has really great food, but their desserts are the main event. 

3) Several of the volunteers at Cargo Club. From left: Andrea, Kaye, Ellen, Andrea (2), Patrick, Lisa, Henry, Jessica and me. There are a few others whose names I don't know in there as well.






Hue Photos from Rebecca's camera
1) A spectacular Hue sunset after a storm
2) A volunteer dressed up during the Hue festival
3) My gargoyle. I call him Pete. 
4)  Tommy, a volunteer who was incredibly excited when he learned Rebecca and I teach at Duy Tan University, where he went to college. He asked us to take photos with him and send him the photos after. It was cute ;-)
5) They had this strange exhibit of technicolor Popsicle-looking things,  lit up cartoon characters and Winnie the Pooh. TIV (This is Vietnam).
6) Rebecca and I went on a personal river cruise and watched a dragonboat race from the water. It was a lot of fun. This is Rebecca on the boat.
7)  Me on the boat. This is also a family's home so there were lots of kids swimming up to the boat, hopping on for a bit then jumping back in the water. 
8) The aforementioned family. The kids were cute but very energetic!
9) Go teal team go! (They won)
10) Dragon boats ahoy!

Life in the fast lane

Photos: 1&3) Hoi An at night; 2) Me with my "niece" Ginger; 4) The view from our hotel (the Hoi An Pacific); 5) Our group at the beach; 6) Mai, Ginger and me;  7) A round fishing boat; 8) An Bang beach; 9) Our hotel pool; 10-13) our day at the beach with the kids from social support; 14-15) volunteers Brigette with Tam and Kaye with Khan at the beach

The photos below are from my trip two weekends ago to Hoi An, which is about 20 miles away from my house. I went with one of the other university volunteers, Rebecca, who works in New Zealand, has lived in Melbourne and Istanbul and grew up in England. We had a great time and were able to stay in a beautiful hotel for only $30 per night! My friends Mai and Jen arranged a special volunteer discount for us. It's usually $70-80 per night. The breakfast was amazing and so was the pool. We also received 50% off coupons for massages and I got a 90 minute massage for $15. You can't really
beat that! We had a great time visiting friends, including my friend Mai and her new baby Ginger, relaxing at the beach and exploring more of Hoi An. This is definitely my favorite place to spend my weekends!

I am leaving in two weeks and the reality is suddenly hitting me... hard. Vietnam has become my home and now I am leaving. I decided to postpone my last two weeks of volunteer work to either November or January, partially because I don't want to face the idea of not living here again and partially because I want something I can return to if I become too exhausted from constant travel.

Tonight I went out to look for dinner and realized that I'm finally feeling really comfortable here. For a while I was nervous about going to get food without a Vietnamese-speaking person because as an "an chay" (vegetarian), I was worried about conveying that I don't eat meat. Tonight I went out on my own and got a banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich), banh bao (Vietnamese dumpling), an orange and a mango, all from people who didn't speak a word of English, and all for under $1.00. I asked for an an chay banh mi and the woman put two spreads on it then started to wrap it up. I asked her to put some cucumber and herbs on it, but she protested in Vietnamese. I told her I did really want them so she added a little. I got home, added some cucumber and tomato and some chili sauce (my Vietnamese obsession) and bit into it. It turns out my an chay banh mi had peanut butter, sugar and jelly. She was trying to tell me that the vegetables wouldn't work with it. Amazingly, the combination was absolutely delicious (nam qua)! The sweetness of the jam combined with the veggies and chili sauce created a really tasty sandwich.

I've discovered more Vietnamese dishes that I love. Banh bao are amazing. They are steamed rice buns filled with either mung beans (sweet beans), pork and egg or just solid dough. I love taking them apart and giving my meat-eating friends the meat inside and then eating the dough. I have to be careful about the calories, but oh my god they are delicious. Ban kiep, or Vietnamese pancakes are also really tasty. Last night, I had some of my friend's fried aubergine (eggplant), which was seasoned with garlic and spices and pan-fried. I don't usually like eggplant, but this one was perfectly flavored. I think I could eat my way through Vietnam very easily. I love to try the Pho (pronounced fuh-uh), in each city, because they all have a different combination. They all have broth, rice noodles and meat (which I eat around), but some have lots of veggies, some have none, others are spicy and some are more mild in flavor. The regional differences in food can be quite marked.

I decided last week that I'm starting to get burned out from the amount of teaching I'm doing, so for the next two weeks, I'm splitting my time between the orphanage program and the teaching program. Last Wednesday, I took some of the orphan kids to the beach with several other volunteers. We got caught in a torrential rainstorm but it was still a lot of fun. The giggles and smiles of the children were so wonderful. I don't think I've ever seen children so happy from something so simple. They frolicked in the water and jumped off a little pier. On Friday, five other volunteers and I took
three of the disabled kids from "social support" to another beach. One of them has cerebral palsy, one has down syndrome and the third has another mental disability and he never speaks. They were all clearly enjoying the water and the opportunity to be out of their home for a while. I love teaching, but spending time with the orphanage program makes me feel like I'm really contributing to the happiness of other people.

Whirlwind trip, happy to be back in DaNang

On Sunday, I returned from my whirlwind week trip with my vocational school students to Vinh, Lang Son, Hanoi, HaLong and HaLong Bay, back to Hanoi, Tam Coc, back to Vinh and finally back to DaNang. We traveled well over 2000 km. averaging 60-80 km./hour with 150 second year tourism students and ten teachers. It was quite the experience. I'm glad I went because I got to see many things I probably wouldn't normally see and I was the only foreigner at many of the sights we visited. There were several great highlights of the trip. That being said, I will never do a bus trip of that length again.

The pros of the trip:

1) It was only $100 for seven days and most of the places we stayed were pretty decent, just far away from the city centers.
2) The teachers and the students were gracious hosts and really tried to make sure I was comfortable and enjoying the trip.
3) The places we visited were stunning beautiful, especially Tam Coc and HaLong Bay.
4) I got to see so much of the countryside on the trip: LOTS of rice fields!

5) I was the only foreigner at many of the sights, which means that I got to see so many things that other foreigners don't see!
The cons:
1) It is really hard to moderate how much you drink in a hot country, but when you only stop every four hours, you can't drink very much.

2) I thought my students were quiet, but that's just when they speak English. They can be extremely loud, especially when singing Karaoke on a bus.
3) I thought the students would be doing their tour guiding practice in English, but they were actually doing it in Vietnamese so I learned less than I wanted to. That being said, one of the teachers did an amazing job of being my own "personal tour guide" and summarizing a lot of what the students and tour guide on the bus were saying.
4) It is completely exhausting to travel 2000 km. in 7 days. I will be taking the train or a plane next time!

We left early on Monday for Vinh, wake up time, 4:45 a.m., stopped once for lunch and got into Vinh about 6:00 p.m. The hotel had a pool so I had a wonderful swim. I was instructed that I had to first go into the pool house and change and shower, then go to the pool, then go back to the pool house and shower and change, then back to the room. The teachers were adamant that I must follow this pattern.

The following day, we left for Hanoi at 6:00 a.m. and stopped to visit Uncle Ho's (Chi Minh) homeland. We saw the place he grew up and the houses where he lived in his father's hometown and his mother's hometown (she died when he was 11). We arrived in Hanoi on Tuesday night and tried several of the local foods. On Wednesday, we got up early for the flag raising at Uncle Ho's mausoleum, then visited Uncle Ho's body (which looks like it is made out of wax) in the morning. I'm still doubtful that the body I saw is actually his. I think it's just a wax replica. He died in 1969 and I don't know that 

they had the technology to embalm him for the 1,000 years they say he will be preserved for future generations to see. After the mausoleum, we saw Uncle Ho's "House on Stilts", his cars and the presidential palace, where the president of Vietnam works. In Hanoi we also visited the College of Literature, the oldest university in Vietnam, founded in 1070 and a museum focusing on the ethnic groups in Vietnam. There are a lot of ethnic groups (over 50)! We also visited the oldest pagoda in Hanoi, which is filled with Chinese characters. China ruled Vietnam for many centuries. After that we got back on the buses (which were nice and air conditioned, but it was difficult to sit for so many hours), and drove to Lang Son. In Lang Son, we went to a night market, which just had lots of very cheap, made in China products.

Thursday, we drove from Lang Son to Tam Thanh Cave. One of the rocks that can be seen from Lang Son (near the border of China) looks like a woman carrying her child on her back. The story is, this woman was married to a soldier who went away to war. Every day she carried her child up to the mountains to look for her husband from the highest peak. All of the other men eventually came back and they told her that the husband had been killed. She didn't believe them. She continued to carry her child to the mountain every day until one day she turned into stone. The woman can still be seen looking for her husband from her perch on the mountain top.

After the cave, we drove up to the border of China and the students went to Đông Kinh market, another market that imports from China. I didn't really want anything, so I looked around the town instead. The people looked slightly different than most of the people I encountered in Vietnam, probably because they had a more Chinese/Vietnamese heritage than people from the "central" of Vietnam. The teacher I was with was afraid I would be kidnapped and taken to China because I am beautiful (read: I am beautiful because of my fair skin). No one tried to take me, although there were some pretty persistent moto drivers following me around. That night we went to the city of HaLong, and went out to an island where we watched a dolphin/sea lion/seal show and a water lights show. The dolphin show was a lot of fun, it reminded me of Marine World when it was still fun. The water show was pretty, with lights and a short film about a Vietnamese myth projected on a wall of water, but the dolphin show was better.
 
On Friday we went to HaLong Bay for a cruise and to visit Cat Ba Island. It was incredibly beautiful. I can't wait to return for an overnight cruise. We visited a cave and sailed around the bay for a few hours, had lunch and then went back to HaLong. What an amazing place!


Friday night, we came back to Hanoi and visited some of shops to buy foods, such as fish sauce, dried fruit and preserves from some shops. One section of the city is divided up by street into several sections and shops on each street sell something different. The street names reflect what is sold at each shop. That night I went with the teachers to eat local foods. The teachers here are tiny but they eat a TON of food. We went for dinner, and they all had several bowls of the meat soup (I had noodles) and then went around the corner to another shop to try the "specialty foods of Hanoi". It has got to be genetics because they don't exercise. I'm definitely envious.
 
On Saturday morning, we had the earliest wake up, 3:30 a.m. and left by 4:00. After not getting to bed until 10:30 or 11:00, the 3:30 a.m. alarm was brutal. We drove to the largest pagoda in Vietnam, Bái Đính Pagoda, which is still being built and is MASSIVE, and also visited an ancient temple from approximately 1000. The highlight of the day, and probably of the trip, was visiting Tam Coc, which is considered the HaLong Bay of Ninh Binh province. It is a spectacular 3 km. waterway meandering through rice and lotus fields and surrounded by high mountains, populated by mountain goats (the specialty food of Ninh Binh). My teacher friend, Chi Sang and I had our own boat with a young rower. He rowed with his arms, but some of the other rowers used their feet! 

The waterway has three caves and the rower said something to Chi Sang, who told me to touch a rock hanging down in one of the caves. She laughed with glee and told me that now I will have a boyfriend, because that rock is special and touching it will make me fall in love. The teachers were trying to set me up with the owner of the tour company, Lam, but I am 1) single by choice, because this is my year of self discovery and 2) he can speak only slightly more English than I can speak Vietnamese. He told me I am very beautiful but then said he is very handsome. That made me laugh! My Vietnamese friends find it absolutely crazy that I don't have a boyfriend and do not understand my reasoning. Self discovery just doesn't really happen in this country (they must already have everything figured out) so they don't understand why I don't want to be in a relationship. Relationships make you happy, and marriage and children makes you happier. Oh well.


After the boat ride, we went back to Vinh for the night (and I had another wonderful swim in their pool) and then back to DaNang. To give you an idea of how long it took to drive over 2000 km, the trip from DaNang to Vinh started at 6:30 and ended at 6:00 with about an hour and a half in breaks, or 10 hours to drive 454 km or 282 miles. 

The weekend before I visited Hue with a group of volunteers. I met this great girl from Scotland, Claire, who I will be meeting up with when I go to Europe next year. She was so much fun! We also saw two tombs, several pagodas, and took a boat ride up the river. It was a very nice, relaxing weekend, before the craziness of my 7 day tour. 

I hope you enjoy my post and photos!