Back in Vietnam

I am staying in Saigon until my volunteer program starts in Hanoi. I found a small guess house in a back alley. The owner charges $12 USD per night, and so the price is very good. The room is very clean and spacious compared to some others I have stayed in. Also, it is very quiet, which helps a great deal because this city is quite noisy all the time. At first, I stayed in a different hotel. The noise and the ants were too much for me. In the morning, I walk into the alley and find Pho, the mainstay of VN. This breakfast cost me less than a dollar. Then I walk a short distance for my "cafe sua da" which is ice coffee with milk. I find the black coffee way to strong, so this helps. The coffee only cost about 33 cents. Of course, I could buy it in a nice cafe or restuarant but then it would cost me more than a dollar and I am too cheap. It tastes the same to me.

I was lucky to get out of Cambodia without delay. The sky started to cloud up and I knew it would only be a short time and the heavy rain would begin. It might not have caused a flight delay but I didn't want to find out. I was flying VN airlines, and my flight was scheduled for 1:55 pm. The weird thing was there was an exact same flight with VN airlines only 10 minutes before and my plane was quite empty. In SGN, Thanh met me and we went by motobike to the hotel.

The other day, I went for a walk but without my map. I normally have a fairly good sense of direction but this round-abouts always seem to cause me a problem. Well, I knew I could take a moto back to the hotel, but again I am too cheap. So, I tried to ask someone for directions. I knew they would not know the hotel but they should know certain landmarks... Well, this didn't work too well. Most people didn't understand me or didn't know. Finally, some young people took pity on me, and told me it would be easy to take the local bus, which I knew but I just didn't want to travel in the wrong direction. So, for about 20 cents, I rode the No. 1 but to the Binh Thanh Market. It took about 15 minutes. I was at least 4 km from the hotel. From the market, I could walk a short distance to the hotel. Before I got on the bus, I was actually walking in the wrong directions. How does that always happen????? Ha!!

Before going back to the hotel, I walked through the park. This city is probably one of the safest cities in the world. Anyway, I sat on a bench to watch the local high school PE class. The teacher brings his class to the park because the school has no gym. The students sat attentively for the most part during his instructions but there were lots of distractions. Other people using the park, walk right through the class, or venders selling food, or tourists!!

As I was sitting there, a young college student approached me and wanted to talk English. I like to do this but I am always on guard because sometimes they want something too, like money, or they are selling something. Before long there must have been at least 15 students standing around me, listening and asking me great questions. One student told me he really understood me because my accent was so good. These students had just come from their school and often come to the park to see if their any native English speaker that would be willing to converse with them. I must have talked to them about hours. I told them I would try to come back another night. I found it very enjoyable too.....

Well, I know this is not very exciting. I am relaxing, waiting for my transfer to Hanoi and working in the school there. I did get invited to Thanh's teacher house the other day for dinner. That was nice. More later.

Have a good Day.....

Random Thoughts about Cambodia

I am still in cambodia. I will leave soon to go back to VN. I was going to try to go to Laos but I am slightly behind in my schedule and I know it takes a long time to travel from place to place in Laos, so I will save that country for another time. It also a money factor too. I have already spend a small bundle, and I am not sure I have enough to travel to Laos... Ha!!

In Cambodia there is garbage service, but you would never no it. You can see garbage everywhere. Sometimes, the smell will knock you over. Ravy, my friend in Phnom Penh, says the smell is from bad water. I think he means open sewers. Yesterday, I saw a young boy collecting dead rats. Too much for me!!! I couldn''t get away fast enough. I have seen workers cleaning the streets, but most of Cambodia looks dirty, strewn with litter everywhere. I always look for the trash barrel but they can be hard to find. They do a certain amount of recycling here, only because the poor have no jobs. I often see bike riders with gunny sacks filled with empty plastic bottles that they take in for small amount of money.

Dogs and some cats roam the street freely. I am think most of the dogs do stay with a family, but they they go everywhere. How they keep from getting hit in the street is beyond me. I often eat at a local restaurant and you never know what will rub against your leg while you are eating. Yesterday, I had some ducks eating the crumbs off the floor next to the table I was eating at. Generally, it is dogs and sometimes cats. Like in VN, they often just throw debris on the floor, and sweep at the end of the day.

I had one shared taxi ride and one bus ride that I thought was a little too close to the edge. In the shared taxi ride, there were 6 of us in the car. I was in the back, but next to the oncoming traffic. In the front seat, the driver sat but there was a passenger between him and the driver's door. I mean, there were really two people sitting in the driver' seat. This was a bucket seat, so the driver wasn't really too comfortable, I am sure. Now I rode in this car for about 4 hours, in heavy highway traffic, with the driver, sometimes, talking for long periods of time on his cell phone. Then there was this quick but short stop in the middle of the road with another car, that were either police or maffia. The driver took a small bag from this car and put it in the trunk of the other car. All I could think of was drugs.... Ravy said it was a bribe-beer- to the police. I was just glad to get out of the car.

My other ride was on the bus from the beach back to Phnom Penh. We caught the bus early in the morning, for a long 5 hour ride back to PNP. The bus was full and I sat in a seat, next to the back. My seat was good but the longer I rode with this driver, the more I worried. For one think, I thought he was going exceedingly fast. When we stopped for lunch, Ravy confirmed my thoughts. He had called the bus company to complain about it already. Yet, he didn' t seem to slow down after lunch, and I could always feel a rather ominous sway , like we might tip over on any curve. The km markers along the road are in the form of tombstones, and looked a little too prophetic . I counted each marker and only really relaxed after I saw the 20 km sign, because I knew we were close enough to the big city now that he would have to slow down, due to heavy traffic...

The traffic in Cambodia really has no rules. I know it is worse than VN. Cambodia has the highest death rate of all the SE Asian countries. You would not believe how some people travel here!! They sit precariously atop a loaded van or truck, sometimes as many as 10-20 people. First, I cann't envision how they got up there to start with. Then, it seems to me, at the first quick tap of the brakes, they would go flying off. I do have a photo of this. It is unreal. Cambodia has a very poor bus system, so maybe that is why people travel this way, but I am sure it is very cheap too. And along the highway, everywhere, you will see, these roadside umbrellas, with liter Pepsi bottles filled with gas. NOT filled with Pepsi, but with gasoline.. These people buy gas somewhere, then fill empty Pepsi bottles and sell to moto drivers along the highway. You see them everywhere. There are gas stations too, but not eveywhere. Gas is expensive here, about $1.45 per liter.

I bought a good umbrella because it rains at least once a day. I mean heavy downpour. Streets flooded. I will probably give it away when I leave. Ok, that is all for now. Enjoy your life. I am good and thankful for everything....especially after being in Cambodia.......

In Cambodia now

It is Sunday evening and I am sitting in an internet cafe drinking Lao beer. And it is raining cats and dogs outside. Luckily, it didn't rain during the day as I was out all day. And I had a great day. In Cambodia, I think the poverty is worse than VN. I was here two years ago, and I think it is worse economically. A good example was on the bus ride here from SGN. It was about 7 hour ride. Most of the bus riders were part of a Korean tour group. When we crossed the border, you have to get out and claim your luggage, then just put it in the scanner. I don't think they even looked at the scanner, just a formality. You do have to fill out a small bit of information but the bus company then collects the paper and your passport. Later it is handed back to you and you get back on the bus. You never really see the customs official. The bus then stops for lunch, the last stop before Phnom Penh.

Oh, yes they did stop again to cross a river by ferry. We probably sat for about 30 minutes. It was here that I saw some very poor children. Hundreds of them, standing, begging, outside the bus window. It was very disturbing, and gut wrenching. Many without clothes. I don't remember seeing such blatant poverty before in Cambodia. Maybe my memory is poor(I can hear the snickers now!!) or it is worse. In the city of Phnom Penh, there are some very expensive condos, apartments, and office building being constructed, but I can't see many people here being able to afford then. They do have lots of foreign investment companies in Cambodia.

That Lao beer is tasting better as I drink more. Ha! It is raining but it is hot too..

This morning I took a tour on a motobike with a guide as a driver. Twenty US dollars for all day. You can't beat that. The guide first took me to the dolphin lake. This is about 20 km out of town, on a long narrow palm filled road. The lake is a protected area supported by the Australians. You are taken out on the lake by boat for two hours to see these dolphins jumping in the water. I shared the boat with two French tourists and two local Cambodians. We did see some fish jumping and they do look like dolphins, but I am going to have to do more research about this because some other people told me that they are dolphin-like fish. And why are they only here? It was relaxing on the water, and just sitting still, waiting for the next jumping fish..

After that, we went to a small village. There was a very large and beautiful pagoda there, with 100 columns. J have seen many pagodas now, and this might be the most impressive. It was filled with very colorful painting inside. And there are always monks praying, generally quit old though. Outside, there were some young boys being taught to use some ancient musical instruments, so there was this mystic music resonating through the area. I don't know if my photos will do it justice. This pagoda is in a very isolated area, so it get few visitors, yet it was truly awesome...

After the pagoda, we stopped for lunch. I had pork and bamboo. I think bamboo might be the most unique plant around. You can eat it and it is used for building all over the world.

Then we climbed a small mountain, where there was another pagoda. I enjoyed the exercise and to my amazement, I could climb these stairs better than my 30 year old guide. He said I was strong. Ha!! This pagoda was not that impressive, but I thought it would be cool at the top, but the air was very still and the humidity seemed extreme... The view was nice. You can see the Mekong river. This is an amazing river, that effects at least 5 countries. Again, water is such a key part of life...

Then we rode through the countryside. We stopped at the farms, where they were stripping the rice from the stalk. Then it goes through a different machine to clean the rice. The residue is collected and fed to the pigs. Many pigs and cattle in this area too. We were often riding through large herds of cattle on the road. The children, spend most of their day watching the livestock. In one place, I saw the children riding the cows like horses, to easy their boredom, I'm sure..

We ended the day, going to a local home, and watching them cook some local food-noodles with vegetables. It was interesting being inside a stilt house. These are the main structures you see here. I thought it was because of flooding, but it is to keep the livestock under the house during adverse weather conditions. Also for feeding or grooming. They do wash the cows and other animals. No electricity in most of these country homes. They do use car batteries for power a few hours a night....

Oh yes, then we watched the sunset... Sunsets are big here. The sunsets do seem to be more impressive here. I think because of the open land area, and not large cities.

Well, back to Phnom Penh tomorrow.... Have a good night......

A few more daysIn Vietnam

I lied. I said my next blog would be in Cambodia. Not yet. In Saigon yet, but for probably only one more day...I rode a sleeper bus 11 hours from Nha Trang to get here. The sleeper bus travels at night, so I left at 8:30 pm and arrived in SGN about 7 am. The seats recline and are fairly comfortable. You have to take off your shoes to get on the bus. The bus did look very new. I must have slept better than I thought because I don't remember a lot. The bus was not full which is unusual for VN. This is the high tourist season in VN too. You see lots of Koreans and Japanese tourists, some Philippians' too, plus Australians and Europeans.

Before I left Nha Trang, I went with Dung's brother in law for a hike to see some waterfalls. This took a while on the motobike to get there as the road was unimproved. There was a small admission price and the trail started off easy enough. But as we walked on, the trail got less defined, and more like blazing our own trail. Then, we got to a very rocky area, more like small boulders or large rocks. It here that it got interesting. To see the waterfalls, you have to physically climb over/through the large rocks. There were red arrows painted on the rocks to show you the best path. There were some vendors-women- who decided that I needed help in climbing over these rocks, so they literally led me by the hand as we navigated through the rock trail. These women were very agile and like mountain goats on a side of a cliff, constantly assuring me that I could do this. As we forged on, the path got more difficult, and then it started to rain. I was already ringing wet from sweat, and now with the rain, I felt that I had less traction for scaling this rocky boulders. And if I was to twisted an ankle, who would medivac me to saftey? These 80 lbs women? Hardly, even though they possessed remarkable talent. I went as far as I could but not all the way. I had to turn back. Going back wasn't any easier. I did pay my guides well for they much needed help. It was quite a workout.

In Vietnam, when you eat at the restaurant, you often just throw any trash on the floor. Later, they sweep the floor, collecting and putting it in the street. Then, late at night, the trash collector comes. But before the trash is collected, the recycler comes. This is a poor man or woman, who looks through all the trash, looking for plastic, cardboard, metal, or glass. These are people who are very poor, and don't really have a job, just do this to eke out an existence. Once in a while, they find a treasure.

During the day, in all the major cities of VN, you have people who ride through the streets on their bikes, selling their stuff. This can be food, to household items like dusters. Of course there are others who walk around selling tourist items, like sunglasses, books, hammocks, etc... Some of these people probably walk all day and never make a sale. There are some shoeshine boys too, but I am generally not approached by them because I am wearing sandals.

I will sign off for now. I am will go to Cambodia tomorrow or Wed. Today is Tues...Hope everyone is well. Enjoyed talking with my brother David on Skype today...