Beautiful Da Lat...Rented a Moto!!!!

Today was really nice.

The owner of the hotel is making it easy for me to enjoy myself.  6 bucks a day to rent a 110cc moto.  Oh yeah!  It was like driving through Chadron State Park or any other beautiful place.  It was just interesting to see tropical trees mixed with pine trees.  The views on the way to the manicured park we visited brought tears to my eyes.  It was so nice to see natural beauty.  The buzz that nature gives you is a completely different buzz than what the fast loud city gives you.

LeAnn felt like she was in a fairy tale.  She warned me that a witch might be setting a trap for me while I was approaching an inviting swing.  

Oh yeah I have to add these...

Oh yeah! This was my first trip by myself.

Oh and I must say, today was the first day my dream came true of riding a moto through the mountains with a beautiful girl on the back.  Agent 99 and I were cruising the countryside! Ha!  Sorry no pics... 

Da Lat Week of Contemplation

LeAnn and I went to Da Lat this week.  She wanted to get out of the city and spend some time thinking about her life.  It was about a 7 hour bus ride here.  We took the lounge bus, it was nice to be able to lay down and nap as we rode through the countryside.  I noticed some seats in the back were open so I jumped up on the upper deck...

and sprawled out.

It was a like a king sized bed up there.  It was nice until the driver slammed on the breaks and I rolled forward into the other bed in front of me.  Ha!

It was a beautiful ride here.  The wide open spaces and the mountainous views were mesmerizing. 

Da Lat is suppose to be a romantic place where most Vietnamese go on their honeymoon.  We haven’t went out and adventured yet.  I brought by backpacking equipment and I am itching to get by a lake and have a campfire. 

My room is nice.  I have a relaxing view of a tree-covered hill with temples and dragon statues scattered throughout the trees.  It’s calming.   I can see why a guy stayed here for two years writing a book, says the hotel manager. 

LeAnn and I are here seeking refuge from the buzzing city and doing some soul searching and praying for an encounter with the living God.  LeAnn is ready to head home.  She wanted to take one last trip to see another part of Vietnam and then…well…leave. 

I’m not ready to go back.  I was offered two part time jobs back in Ho Chi Minh City.  Tutoring a medical student (teaching English) and teaching English to Vietnamese math teachers so they can teach math in English.  I accepted both jobs. 

I’m walking into the unknown.  I’ll update you on how this week of contemplation turns out.

Passed the TESOL training!

Graduation!  Oh yeah!  We are finally finished!  These last two weeks were very busy.  I just finished writing pages of recaps and journals for the class so I don't feel like going into all the boring details, but I passed my Vietnamese test and completed all the student teaching tasks that they required of us.  I am now ready to start applying for jobs.  I'm not all that excited to start that grueling process, but maybe it won't last long.

I will be staying in the hotel that I have been in since we got here in Vietnam.  It's a nice place with great service for about 16 dollars a day.  I've created a couchsurfing account just in case; I also have my tent if all else fails, I saw some really interesting places in the urban utopia of District 7 (no joke, this place looks like it was designed in SecondLife or something).  They say that it is cheap to live there as well because it is a little ways from downtown.  You can get a really nice brand new 2 room apartment for $400 a month in a district that is closer to downtown.  I'm not sure what you can get in one that is further out.

We ate at the Indian restaurant for our graduation dinner, oh yeah!  LeAnn and I had to stake it out the other night to see if it was going to be any good.  It was.  It's so much more appetizing to me than noodles in a bowl of dishwater -- sorry thats what pho has started to look like now, especially when you always see people eating it on the sidewalks and then see the ladies washing the dishes in the street.

I don't feel like partying for my graduation.  I feel like sleeping.  Phew!  What a month!

Sad to see our California friends head home for a few months.  It was nice to have them here.

Finally in Vietnam!

We got here Sunday evening.  It was surprisingly easier and faster coming into Vietnam than leaving when we were going into Cambodia.  The lines were quicker and the system was smoother.

You could really notice the drastic difference in the roads and the trashy streets as we entered into Vietnam.  It is a lot more modern and advanced than Cambodia.  The streets seem to make more sense. There are divided one-way roads, one for cars and larger vehicles and one for motorcycles.  You will still see people driving on the sidewalks but not as much as Cambodia.  I haven't seen too many people driving up the wrong way of the street like they did in Cambodia, but I haven't traveled around the city much yet either.  And no tuk tuks!  That is kind of sad, those things are cool.

I started my student teaching yesterday.  I started with 60 mins with adults (18+) and today I taught small kids for 90 mins.  The kids were a bit chaotic.  I probably should have went with my gut and started class playing my guitar.  They just needed to chill out after a long day of school and then around 5:30PM they go get a free class of English with me.  I work with the group of adults I had on Monday for the rest of this week and the next.  Then I start interviewing and looking for a place to live.

I wish I could start exploring the city a bit more.  I'm just too busy during the day and I'm tired by the time I'm done with the school work.  But we were able to find a place to exchange money at the market close by.  The ladies selling watches were able to give us change in dong ($100 USD = 2,000,000 VND)  Pizza Hut cost me 93,000 VND (less than 5 dollars) for one regular sized pizza and a water mellon drink (it was also half off day so it's usually twice that much.   But we were able to find good places that sell Vietnamese food for around 45,000 VND (a little over two dollars).  But man!  I tried two scoops of ice cream yesterday and it cost me about $3.50 -- I thought that was a bit too much...but now that I look at $3.50 I think, that's about what I'd pay in the states.  It's been interesting to see the value of the dollar go way up here!  It's also been fun to bargain.  I like laughing at seller's initial price and working them down to a more reasonable price.

I think I'm going to have to buy a motorbike.  I'm looking forward to exploring Ho Chi Minh scooter style.

I'll post pics and other misc. details later.

Sihanoukville!

We finished our second week!  We are now at the beach in Sihanoukville.  It was about a 4.5 hour drive from Phnom Phen, so on Sunday it will take that long to get back and then another 6 hours to Vietnam.  Finally!  I've been looking forward to getting to where we are going to be teaching.

We have two more weeks of training but we will be student teaching and doing projects instead of intense 8 hour days of classes.  Were heading to a BBQ, but I thought I'd quickly say what is going on.

Fashionable Disco Flight...?

This neat drinking establishment was unfortunately closed while we were here.

On the Road to Angkor Wat!

First week of training is complete!  We were given quite a bit of information and don’t worry I won’t bore you with my notes (but if you are interested I can send them to you, once I type them up).  We were given models for how to teach English to people without knowing any of their language.  Most of the process is like Rosetta Stone, show them a picture and then given them the word.  That is the most basic, there is dialogue practice, while introducing new vocab.  My theatre background is going to come in handy!  (I actually hope I can find a school to eventually hire me to teach some theatre classes.) 

We were also reminded of all the grammar we were suppose to have learned in high school.  Thankfully I had a refresher 5 years ago when I needed to teach 9^th grade English.

Headed to Angkor Wat this weekend! 

We were advised to eat a tarantula on one of the pit stops.  I stayed away from the body but tried a leg.  It was fried.  Nasty...  I bet raw is better.  

I feel good here.  The experience thus far has got me thinking that I could do a lot more traveling like this. 

I will end with a cathartic poem about a bouncy bus ride.

Bang, boom, boom, ouch!

Hurt, butt, ting, tang

Bing, bang, wrong, rung,

Love, joy, junk, gin,

Hope, read, run, shun

Ton, cun…ing…ring, sing

Free, Lee, Me, He, Tea

400 Mile Trek Through Nepal.

Killing Fields

We made it out! 

 But I still had LeAnn take a picture of me in front of the large building full of human skulls, just in case it was my last goodbye.

This place showed the results of a tyrannical ruler who wanted everyone in Cambodia to blindly follow him (1975).  He had almost 1/4 of the population executed.

It was a bit depressing.  I guess there is a building in the city where they executed mass amount of people as well and they have not cleaned anything up since the killings.  I guess they say that it is very shocking and graphic.  I have other pictures of the Killing Tree and other grave sites but I think I will stop posting them.  

I figured out why most of the people in Phnom Phen are young.  Wiki says that 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a population of around 8 million were killed.