Monday 22 June 2009

Saigon, Vietnam

Dear Ethel, Family and friends,

We arrived in Saigon last night at about 10pm local time. It was a long day of travelling having started at 5AM. Both flights were uneventful and no problems with baggage weight, which has been our biggest worry. We don’t officially start work until Thursday, but wanted to get here to acclimatise before we start and also because we found some cheap tickets.

We were last in Saigon about 6 years ago and it’s a nice surprise to find it so clean. It is so different to India and the other Asian countries we have stayed in as well. It’s 34 degrees out so finding book shops, Cafes and Restaurants with air conditioning is a must. At lest it is cloudy so we can avoid the direct sun. We have been out and about this morning looking for textbooks for our classes. We sampled the excellent coffee and pastry on offer and had lunch at a nice restaurant serving traditional Vietnamese food, mmm.

Kim the founding director of Sea English Academy was here in Saigon last week arranging the new school, and she told us the school and our accommodation was being painted and organised, we hope to see the school later in the week. We will be living in a flat above the school about 5 km from the centre of the city. We will have address, phone and mobile numbers soon, so we’ll post them as soon as we have them to hand. So all the best for now.
Ric & Louise