Day 1 in Saigon

view from a cafe at breakfast...this seems a tad unsafe

Where I spent my first day in Saigon...I wanted to work out and found this club that has a huge gym plus this nice pool.  And it only cost me 45,000 VND for the entire day (about US$2.50)

and then I found Yogenfruz!! this is the first food place I've found in Vietnam that I also ate at in DC, so of course I had to go there. It made me miss DC a ton, even though it reminded me of work (the only time I went to Yogenfruz was during my lunch breaks at Lionbridge)

Let the traveling begin!

After a final, crazy weekend in Hanoi, I hopped on a plane to Ho Chi Minh city this morning.  Arrived to sunny skies and hot, humid weather.  I've only been here a few hours, but I think I might like Ho Chi Minh better than Hanoi. That's not a conclusive decision yet, just my first impression.

Since lots of people have been asking, here's my tentative travel schedule for the next few weeks...

Ho Chi Minh City/surrounding area: March 29 (today) - April 3

Mekong Delta, Vietnam: April 4 - 6

Traveling between Ho Chi Minh and Phnom Penh: April 7/8

Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat and various other places in Cambodia: April 8 - 22

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: April 22 - 24

Malacca, Malaysia: April 25 - 26

Pulau Tioman, Malaysia: April 27 - 30

Bangkok, Thailand: May 1

This itinerary can and probably will change, so if anyone has any suggestions of places I shouldn't miss let me know!

Last day of volunteering

Today was my last day of volunteering!  It was a good experience and I'm glad I did it, although there were some bumps along the way.  The main thing I'm happy about is that I won't ever have to walk down our dusty, muddy road and wait for the bus in the middle of a construction zone anymore. A few pics to commemorate my last day of bus riding/dusty road walking...

waiting for the bus, face mask on

Libby, Sandrine, Mike, and Camille....fellow busmates, waiting for the 201

bridge construction

construction

Peace House!

Giao Xuan - weekend workcamp

Background: Giao Xuan is a small town in Nam Dinh province, where the Red River empties into the South China Sea.  One of VPV's NGO programs focuses on Giao Xuan: they are trying to improve/maintain the fragile ecosystem while also promoting ecotourism in the area.  Part of the work is currently focusing on sending groups of students and volunteers to Giao Xuan for weekend workcamps, and that's what I did this past weekend! There were six foreign volunteers and about 12 Vietnamese volunteers, so it was a pretty big group.

Getting to Giao Xuan is a hellish five hour ordeal, over what is definitely the bumpiest road I've ever been on. The pic below was taken at the very beginning of the journey...the bus got a lot more crowded at each stop!

After arriving in Giao Xuan about 6 PM on Friday, we were divided into small groups and sent to our homestays.  After a quick walk around town, we all headed to one house for group dinner.  The rest of Friday night was spent playing icebreaker games and preparing materials for the weekend.

roomies 

Saturday was great, although I would have preferred waking up a little later - 6 AM on the weekend is just not my cup of tea.  We had breakfast, and the foreign volunteers had some free time while everyone else went out to collect the bikes we would use all day.  Around 8 AM we got on our bikes and started a tour of the village.  We also used the tour to hand out flyers advertising a town meeting we would be holding later that evening.  We stopped at a temple, the dyke that separates the town from the river delta, and the "beach" where there are hundreds of tiny stilt houses that fishermen live in.  On the way back from our tour we stopped at the only school in Giao Xuan to have a meeting with some of the students and sign them up for the new Giao Xuan environmental club.  

Saturday afternoon was supposed to be the main activity of the weekend - planting trees. And we did plant them, it's just that the things we planted barely qualify as trees. They were more like sticks with sprouts.  And the location was less than ideal - we planted them in this very grassy area where some trees had already been planted and a lot of them were dying.  So I'm not sure that our efforts will produce lasting results, but it was still great fun and all the Vietnamese students were so enthusiastic.  After planting "trees," we went on a leisurely bike ride through the countryside - my favorite part of the weekend.  This is exactly what I pictured myself doing in Vietnam, and it totally met my expectations.  The scenery was pretty, locals were friendly and the kids were always excited to see us. They would run after us shouting "hello! hello!" So cute. 

Sunday we held a town meeting to encourage locals to be more environmentally responsible, and raise awareness about the ecotourism project. Since it was all in Vietnamese I'm not totally sure what went on, but there was a skit, speeches, interactive games, a video and lots of singing. Basically the message was "take pride in your town and don't litter everywhere because it harms the environment and tourists won't want to visit."  The foreign volunteers participated in a few activities, including a very unharmonious rendition of Michael Jackson's "We Are the World."  After the meeting we went back to my homestay where we had an amazing lunch along with some incredibly strong home-made rice wine offered (read: forced upon us) by one of the locals.  Then it was back on the bus for the long ride back to Hanoi!

While Giao Xuan was neither the prettiest nor the most interesting place I've been (although it was both pretty and interesting), it was by far the most authentic.  There are still very few tourists so the town and the locals remain quintessentially Vietnamese.  That is to say, there are no ventures that specifically target tourists, and the locals don't try to hawk their goods because they have nothing out of the ordinary to sell.  I liked that a lot.  If this ecotourism project succeeds, I hope Giao Xuan is able to retain its culture and attitude or, in my opinion, the best part of Giao Xuan will be lost.  

ready to ride!

quick break

stilt houses

peace

Vietnamese pride

biking the countryside

high tide

singing "We are the World"

Bat Trang - Ceramic Village

Yesterday I went to Bat Trang, a traditional village known for its ceramics, located about 10 kilometers from Hanoi.  The story of why I went there is long and complicated so I won't bore you with those details, but suffice it to say I had a great time.  

The town makes a significant percentage of the country's ceramics, and also exports its wares to other countries. The old part of town is very cool with really small winding alleys, and random doorways where you can see locals making pottery.  We even got to make our own ceramic creations! I felt like I was at a children's birthday party or something.  I made a flower vase - literally, a vase shaped like a flower - that turned out surprisingly well given my lack of artistic ability.   

prepping my clay

ready to make ceramics

cooking our creations over hot coals

ceramics factory

Bat Trang pagoda

a family honoring their ancestors on the banks of the Red River

the finished product! (and please ignore my hair...it was very windy)

Cultural Activities

I had a very cultural week last week.  On Wednesday, I went to see the Vietnam Youth Orchestra perform at the National Opera House. It's probably not something I would normally do, but some friends were going and I decided to tag along.  The entire orchestra was very good, although some of them didn't seem very young...a few of the men were clearly balding so I'm not sure what their definition of "youth symphony" is. There was a 13 year-old girl who was particularly good; she was so full of expression and movement even though she was sitting at the piano.

                                    Hanoi Opera House

                      adorable 13 year-old pianist; she was amazing!

On Friday, Camille, Sandrine, Bich and I went to this live art event at the Centre Culturel Francais. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures; I really, really wish I could show you photographic/video evidence of what happened. Basically, a guy painted three almost-naked models with his bare hands and then they danced around. The "music" was this really weird guy making nonsense noise into a microphone...he sounded like a cross between a dying cat and a goblin.  Stuff like that is way beyond my artistic appreciation. The body painting was cool to see, but my favorite part of the event was definitely the free open bar - unlimited mojitos and wine!

Saturday three of us went back to the Centre for the movie festival.  They are showing lots of free movies the entire month - mostly French movies, but also some Vietnamese movies with French subtitles. We watched three movies in a row.  The only movie I liked was the last one which dealt with African immigrants in Paris.  The second movie, a kids' movie about horses, was so ridiculous it was hilarious. There were a lot of sad parts, and whenever there was a scene where a human might typically cry the camera would zoom in on the horse's eye and just stay there an inappropriately long time, as if the horse was really going to cry. Yeah, right.  But I guess a lot of the kids bought it because I could hear a lot of them crying or talking back at the movie screen (i.e. "oh nooo!" or "the poor little horsie is so sad").  I was mainly happy that I understood just about everything in all three movies since they were all in French.

Overall, I felt I had a very cultural week(end) and now I can go back to my normal non-artistic, non-cultural activities like drinking with friends and watching episodes of NCIS online.

On an unrelated note, I had really good pizza and cheesecake this weekend - two things I'd been craving for weeks, so that was great as well.

Mai Chau

This past weekend, Camille and I went to Mai Chau in the northwest part of the country.  In the northwest part of the country, it's basically a mountainous area with gorgeous scenery, and a few small montagnard villages.  It's a very peaceful place...so different from the craziness in Hanoi!

                                       sunset in Mai Chau

There isn't much to do in Mai Chau, but we were okay with that - a relaxing weekend was definitely needed.  After a long bus ride, we arrived in Mai Chau and were immediately amazed by the scenery; it's absolutely beautiful.  Unfortunately, it's also quite hazy most of the time which is reflected in the photos. We spent the weekend doing pretty much nothing, and it was great.  We spent a lot of time walking around the area, talking to locals, reading magazines/books, eating delicious food, exploring the villages, and of course, sleeping.

The only places to stay in the immediate area are homestays - the White Thai hill people (an ethnic minority) live in stilt houses, and they offer rooms to travelers.  We walked around a bit until we found a house we liked, and settled into our room.  Addtionally, there aren't really any independent restaurants in the area, so wherever you sleep is also where you eat. I had been told that the quality of food varies a lot, and it just depends on which homestay you choose.  Luckily, our hostess was an amazing cook and all the meals we ate at the homestay were delicious! The view was also amazing. Overall, it was a nice, relaxing weekend!

                                       a table with a view....

       view of the village from behind...our homestay is the house to the left of the palm tree

ride paddies and mountains

farmer herding his cattle down the road...typical

traditional Thai clothes

our homestay

Camille and I

Where do most volunteers come from? (Hint: definitely not the U.S.)

Nothing much new with me lately...I'm back at work, and have a normal routine going.  

However, there have been lots of changes in Peace House recently.  To start, Lynn, one of my roomies from the beginning, just left yesterday.  She's headed back to cold, snowy Canada, and didn't seem too pleased with that.  I'm going to miss her!! Not only because she spoke some Vietnamese (which made things so much easier for us, not going to lie), but she was so sweet and awesome to hang out with.  We plan to travel together sometime in the future and be total foodies and eat at all the best restaurants...of course, we plan on having a lot more money by then. A few of the long-term volunteers are leaving at the end of this week as well, and it will be weird without them around. 

To make up for the departures, fifteen(!) new volunteers arrived last weekend, so Peace House is completely full again.  It's been fun getting to know the new volunteers and they seem really cool for the most part.  Just like the volunteers I arrived with, these new guys are from all over the place. But, I've noticed that there are a few particular countries that most people seem to hail from. The rankings below were conceived through the very mathematically accurate process of counting the number of people from each country in my head. I lost track a few times and had to start over, but I'm still pretty sure it's accurate.

#1 Australia. By far the dominant nationality overall in Peace House. And hearing them all talk about Australia non-stop has moved that country way up on my list of places to visit.

#2 Germany. Did you know that the German government pays recent high school graduates to volunteer abroad for a year? Lucky bastards.

#3 Denmark (tie) For a country with a small population, there sure are tons of Danes here...

#3 U.K. (tie) Brits are everywhere, no surprise finding a lot of them in Vietnam

Best of the rest: Canada, Japan, Spain, Sweden, France, Switzerland, South Korea

Notice the U.S. isn't on the list? Yeah, that's because until yesterday I was the only American volunteer here. And I've asked around...a few Americans have volunteered through VPV but they were few and far between. Also, since I've been here I've only met three other American volunteers, as opposed to the scores of volunteers I've met from every other developed country.  It doesn't really surprise me...most Americans who have the means to travel abroad go purely for vacation; international volunteering is just starting to gain popularity. Case in point: As of yesterday, the percentage of Americans in Peace House went up by 50%...now there are two of us. 

The best part about having another American in the dorm? Well, two things really:  I can finally talk about the weather in Fahrenheit again, and she knows who the Cubs are without any explanation needed. Amazing.