[Postcards to Ethel] Nha Trang, Vietnam

Dear Ethel, Family and friends,

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog and a number of things have changes since then. The main one being that we are no longer teaching at Sea English Academy. In short the school didn’t have the correct licenses to carry on and couldn’t afford to keep us both. We are still disappointed with the way things transpired but have moved on now, literally and metaphorically.

We left the school at the beginning of the month and waited around in Saigon for a week or so collecting our thoughts. During this time we attended a number of social functions with the students who gave us a lot of mutual support, we have all become good friends as a result. We attended a food and hospitality trade show which was great for the students as most of them are Bakers or Chefs. It was great to see their reaction to things they had never seen before and eat things like olives, capers, cheese cake and many other things on display. Also it gave them a good chance to talk to the exhibitors in English. We were also invited to one student’s houses, Mr Ha. The other students attended as well and we feasted over spring rolls and seafood hotpot. Following this was a trip to a Garden district area, Binh Quoi, popular for weddings and wedding photography. It is a very picturesque area with photo opportunity spots every few feet. The students then treated us to an 84 course buffet. Talk about food overload. Between 8 of us we only managed about 22 courses. Louise and I were stumped after about 8 of them but I have never seen anyone eat as much as skinny 4 foot tall Vietnamese girls!

We had another Australian visitor as well, Dianna form Noosa and an ex-postie as well. It is always good to catch up with friends but also good to get another prospective on things. At nearly 70, Dianna is a particularly brave and gutsy woman doing a month long trip to Vietnam Cambodia and Laos by herself. I gave her a lift on the back of the motorbike; I think she was thankful for my Australia Post experience. Following our meeting with Dianna, we decided to do a trip down to the Mekong Delta. It was a 3 day organised trip on the busses. In hindsight it would have been better to do the 2 day trip as the 3 day version was an excuse to take half the group to the boarder of Cambodia. Also the Delta Floating Hotel is possibly the worst hotel in Vietnam, but definitely the worst hotel we have stayed in. Day 1 and day 2 of the sightseeing was fine, visiting the Mekong River on a variety of different river craft and seeing Floating markets, Floating villages, Coconut Candy Factory, Rice paper factory, Rice Husking Mill, Pagodas and temples. The Hotel on the first night was good enough for a one star but getting there proved an adventure. Getting in and out of Vinh Long can only be achieved by river at this stage until the new bridge is completed in 6 months time. Until then however, ferries service the river continuously 24 hours a day. Despite this there is always a 2 hour or more delay to cross the river unless its dusk when its 4 hours and coincidently when the tour organises to cross every day. The guide helpfully pointed out that if we all chipped in, we could afford to rent a boat for the 20 of us. We all agreed as it was only 10,000 each (80c) but involved a 1 mile hike to the river and a river crossing in the dark. Still it was a fun adventure although badly organised on the part of the tour operators. Of course we had the 2 hour wait the following day. Day 3 included a very brief local minority village visit and the fish farm stop then an 8 hour trip back to Saigon, plus a compulsory 3 hour stop in My Tho to gather the remaining one and two day trippers. All in all, we saw a lot of the Mekong which is what it’s all about. However we won’t be doing any more organised trips here based on our experience.

We booked train tickets from Saigon to Nha Trang. The train was a great way to travel. It was an 8pm train and arrived in Nha Trang in at 5.30am the following day. The train itself was clean and comfortable, one of the best train journeys we have done. We took the soft sleeper which sleeps 4 on double bunks and cost about $25AUD each. We were in Nha Trang very early but as we walked the short distances 1 Km or so to the tourist district, we were approached by the hotel touts. We were lucky enough with the one we followed, or did he follow us? Anyway the hotel is $10US a night with a view of the beach, 4th floor and Wi-Fi included. Great value 1 star! We haven’t done much since arriving, Louise caught a cold and has been house bound for 3 of the last 4 days, but it looks like a great spot, I’ve done a bit of investigating on a bicycle and we hired a motorbike today. There is food from everywhere in the world here so we will eat our way around the world one night at a time. Our friend Dianna is due here in about 4 days time, so look forward to catching up again.

As for the future, well that’s out of our hands as usual, we have a few interviews when we get back to Saigon. We still have return airfares to Australia that we booked 2 months ago, so the plan is, if we can secure some proper work before we leave here, we will return on about 16th of November if not, we will leave Vietnam on the 5th of November and look elsewhere.
Sorry this has gone on so long, but it took a while to get back into the mood for writing, but I think that’s cured and I hope the next post is a bit more entertaining.
All the best until next time.

Ric & Louise

... and speaking of Vietnamese haircuts. (Week 6 Saigon)

Dear Ethel, Family and friends,

As many of you will know, I appreciate a good mullet haircut, having grown up in the 80’s. And it was by chance that riding down Nung Van Dao, our street, that we passed what could only be a hairdressers Studio. Standing outside was a guy with a perfect mullet (Bill Rea Cyrus style), another with a great muppet heavy metal cut and another two who could be dead ringers for the Pet Shop Boys from the hairline up! We have been looking for somewhere to get our hair cut and I could see that these 17 somethings had all really done their homework when it came to cutting hair, I mean they weren’t even born in the 80’s.

Getting your hair cut in a foreign country while your travelling is always a bit risky, but as no one knows you, it usually doesn’t matter, you wear a hat for the first few days when you get your photo taken. We have had our hair cut in Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey and India and not one of them spoke any English. Louise is a bit smarter on this issue, she takes a picture to show them. On the other hand, I am really good at charades. It’s amazing how much information you can impart with the scissor signal applied to various parts of your head, they all understand and in general I’ve had no problems.

Styles vary from country to country as well, the most creative barbers I have found are in Turkey. From a traditional cut throat shave to hair removal using rubberbands and naked flame, they really do a great job and finish off with a talcum powder frenzy and a shoulder rub as well. In Thailand, cutting hair is mainly a woman’s job, but in Turkey and India, It’s defiantly Men who cut Men’s hair. In Vietnam we have walked passed a lot of hair dressers and there is a lot of ear work going on, I mean they are probing around in peoples ears with long acupuncture needles, I don’t need that!

However as respectable teachers with standards to keep, we have to be a bit choosy, the Pet Shop Boys it was. It must be a generational thing, In my Father’s day everybody combed their hair forward, In my day we all combed our hair back or up or out or something? Anyway I was in the chair and the young fella kept coming my hair forward straight down my forehead. Not quite the mulletesque cut I was hoping for. In any case Louise says it was a good cut, and she’s the one who has to look at me. They finished me off with the mandatory product in the hair. and asked me if I was happy about the cut with the txt function on their mobile phone. I don’t know, what is the young generation coming to?

PS: See my Youtube video, Shave and a Haircut Istanbul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waPJZJy6oYA

All the best for now
Ric & Louise

Saigon Week 2

Dear Ethel, Family and friends,

Well here we are two weeks after arriving in Vietnam and still living in the hotel. Things happen slower here than at home. When we had a look at the school on the Thursday after we arrived, nothing had been done to the place since Kim had departed. Our Vietnamese host here, Minh assured us that all would be done by Wednesday 1st July for the ceremonial opening. I must say that we were very sceptical. In Australia we would hire 3 or 4 men for a renovation project like this and it would take 2 weeks. In Vietnam they hire 20 people and it takes 2 days. Amazing, although the smaller details seem to take forever. Ingrid, one of the Directors from Sea in Australia arrived on Monday to help hurry the process along.

We did indeed have our ceremonial opening on Wednesday as Minh had promised. We had perhaps 20 students attend as well to meet and greet with the teachers and staff. Ingrid, Louise & I were presented with bouquets of flowers and welcomed to the school. Afterwards we all attended a buffet lunch provided by Minh and his staff.

Since then the school has been taking enrolments and getting the office in shape. We have also been doing some heavy duty shopping, buying everything we need to set up our new living quarters upstairs from the school. Our living area comprises a large bedroom area 4 x 4 metres and a balcony lounge/dining area about 2.5 x 4 metres. Across the hall we have a kitchen and bathroom. It will be quite an adequate living area once it is finished. It still has no hot water or a kitchen and the whole site needs to be thoroughly cleaned before we move in, or before school starts tomorrow.

We have walked almost every inch of the city by now and have eaten in a lot of the restaurants and cafes. We went to the Reunification Palace, the Art Gallery, Cultural Museum and of course the dozens of markets around town. So we are really keen to start work now and look forward to the day to day challenges that teaching brings. All the best for now.
Ric & Louise

PS we have phone numbers, so email us and we'll send them.

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