Day 3

Back on the bus bright and early for another tour.  This time a 2-day tour to the Mekong Delta.  This one sounded really interesting in the brochure, but after the day before we realized that there would be a number of different tour groups doing the exact same thing and we would probably only spend 30 minutes to an hour at each stop.  There were however some interesting stops along the way, and some time for us to do our own thing.  I may mix some things from day1 and day 2 of the tour, but if I remember correctly day one included.  Many boat trips, some on large tour boats across the Delta and others on small fishing boats paddled by 2 Khmer people.  We also stopped at a bee farm, as well as a coconut candy factory.

During Lunch, which was 'on the house' but barely enough to curb the hunger that we were feeling, we were able to grab some bikes and explore the island we were on.  There was not a lot happening in the village except for a few tourist shops along the road.  If my memory is correct that was it for day one except for the bus ride to the city we would be staying at for the night.  Turns out the city was another 3 hours away.  It was dark and the streets were completely flooded  when we arrived.  After we dropped off our bags at the guest house we went on a journey to fill our growling stomachs.

We basically had 2 choices.  March through the water to what seemed to be the downtown area or head the other way away from the water,  and seemingly away from any chance of western food.  We chose the later and ended up in a small local Vietnamese restaurant.  Normally I would not be so worried about this, but we were not in Cambodia anymore, and the only Vietnamese word that I had learned was “Kamma’; Thank you( a good word to learn I figured).  Through pointing and some broken English we were able to order, and we all came out alive and well.  We wandered through the streets a bit more and eventually found our way to the river front and night market.  The markets were another highlight of the entire Vietnam trip.  They sellers spoke enough English that you could barter and joke with them at the same time.

A Catholic church we came across during our exploration of the city

Day 2

On our first full day we took a tour bus out to the Cu Chi tunnels.  We were quickly rushed from site to site, and I when they brought us up to the souvenir shop I thought that we might not get the chance to crawl through the tunnels.  That would have been a great disappointment even though we only had to pay 4 dollars for the tour.  But after a quick stop at the souvenir/shooting range we were marched back to a set of tunnels that they lets us crawl through.  The couple of minutes we spent underground were definitely worth the 3 plus hours we spent on the bus.

On returning to Ho Chi Minh we put our walking shoes and headed to Water Puppets show.  If you ever read the Vietnam Lonely planet it is a highly recommended show.  The puppeteers were amazing and we were treated to some traditional Vietnamese music which we had been looking for all afternoon.

Day 1

We left the great city of Phnom Penh for the metropolis of Ho Chi Minh at 7am (I believe this was the only bus of many that we took during the trip that left on time!).  Anticipating a 5-6 hour ride we settled into our somewhat comfortable seats on the Mekong Express, ate our pre-packaged breakfast and watched the new Planet of the Apes.  Things rarely seem to go as anticipated here though.  The second stop was the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.  You may be wondering why I failed to mention the first stop, but it was rather uneventful (just lunch and you can probably guess what we ate).  Getting through the Cambodian side was easy enough.  We got off our bus flashed some official our passport and then got back on the bus.  The Vietnamese side was a completely different story.

So here is how they deal with border crossings in Vietnam.  First we gave all of our passports to our bus attendant who runs them into the custom office.  All of us then made our way into the building with hundreds of other travelers.  We were packed in like sardines and you couldn’t move even if you wanted to.  Every few minutes we would take a step or two forward and after doing this for about half n hour we reached the desk where they had the passports.  Instead of giving us our passports when we got to the desk they just waved us through and told us to wait on the other side.  I should mention that as all this was happening the custom officials were just holding passports up and shouting peoples name.  It was almost too much!  After probably another half n hour on the other side of the customs desk Phil and I finally got our passports.  Turns out they don’t have a scanner so they have to type everybody’s info in one by one.  I could say something about communist countries here but I’ll leave that out.

After that gong show we were back on the bus and only a couple hours outside of Ho Chi Minh.  Or so we thought.  30 minutes outside of Ho Chi Minh there was a huge bang that sounded like a gun shot.  At first the bus kept on rolling, but people quickly started to wave it down.  As we came to a stop a large crowd quickly gathered around the back of the bus.  Turns out that we had blown out one of our back tires.  The humorous or I guess for the motto driver unfortunate part was that the pressure from the tire knocked down a motto that was on the side of the road.  As we exited off the bus the poor motto driver was standing there with his hands on his head staring at his broken motto.  After close to another hour delay fixing the tire and appeasing the motto driver we were back on our way and arrived at our guest house about 25 minutes later.  That evening we spent a great deal of time wandering around the city, including visiting the market.

For the next few days we put on our tourist caps and explored some of sites around Ho Chi Minh.  Around in this case is really a relative use of the word as the one tour took us 5 plus hours away from the big city.

Vietnam day by day

So I last left you off with the anticipation of a Vietnam adventure.  If you were expecting crazy and possibly near death experiences you may be disappointed with this post.  Nonetheless, I will put fingers to keyboard and give you some highlights from the trip that was Vietnam 2011.

To make it a little easier to digest I am going to split each day into a different post.

One more interesting thing

There was one other story that I was supposed to add and my mother has graciously reminded me about it.  Last Friday I was driving back from the MCC office, when I passed a man on a motto with a couple of pigs strapped to the back.  I think I stared at these pigs for a good 15 seconds to make sure I wasn't dreaming.  At first I thought they were dead, but when I looked closer I could see one of the pigs breathing pretty heavily.  They were as calm as calm could be, probably unware that their lives may be coming to an end in the near future.

There is always an adventure on the street!

Holiday's Galore

One thing that Cambodia definitely has right is the number of holidays that occur in a calendar year.  I think there are close to 17 national holidays spread throughout the year.  And when I say spread throughout I mean clumped together from September-November, and then again in April and May.  We just finished celebrating the kings fathers birthday here in Cambodia, which was ironically on the 31st.  I would like to say thank you to kings father for being born on that day as it gave us another couple of days off.  Tiya (fellow MCCer) and I headed down to the beach for the weekend with a number of other Khmer and Expats (21 in all).

It was all planned by Daleap who was an IVEPer in California last year.  It was nice to not have to worry about anything from transportation to lodging and just go and have a relaxing time at the beach.  We left early Saturday and came back late Sunday, and of course were treated to a number of Khmer music videos along the way.  I was hoping to catch up on some sleep during the trip, but inevitably that did not happen.  However, on Monday I was able to sleep until 11 which is nearly impossible in Cambodia.  Not sure how, but somehow I did it!

And just as soon as we finish celebrating the Kings fathers birthday we have the Water Festival.  Another holiday and this time the destination is Vietnam, specifically Ho Chi Minh City.  I am headed there for 4 or 5 days with a couple of other MCCers, definitely looking forward to it.   Look for some photos an adventures on the next blog from the trip.

Now I know that it sounds like all I am up to is fun and games (some truth to that), but I am actually teaching.    I believe that I just finished up my 6th week of teaching, really can't believe that it has been that long already.  After Water Festival we will be into midterms and then we will have to start thinking about finals.  I am not sure if I mentioned it in earlier posts, but the hardest thing has been trying to communicate grammar rules to the students.  Sometimes I just want to say "That is just the way it is".  That and also explaining directions to my 201 class have caused me to stop and think about patience on many different occasions.

We have started listening to music to practice listening.  At the end of every week we listen to a song and I either have them fill in some blanks or, get them to put the verses in the right order.  It is a great way to end of the week and the students are really engaged.  I may have to start picking the music myself however because I have had some requests for Justin Bieber, and that ain't gonna fly with me.

I continue to experience new food here i.e.

When I ordered spiders I expected them to be covered in batter and deep fried.  These things still had hair on their legs, but not too bad.  The legs were really crunchy and the body actually had some meat on it.  Still trying to convince Mikaela that she has to try one when she comes out this way.

Well looks like it is time to head to the market and see what else I can find!