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.....