Traveling!!! Vietnam: Hanoi and Ha Long Bay

Travelling – March 23-26... Hanoi and Ha Long Bay

Sooo it’s been quite a while since my last post. I have been traveling around since March 23 – basically 6 weeks. I’m now back in my apartment/Thai home, and it’s time to play catch up. I think the best way to go it to go week by week. Starting at the beginning:

On March 23, I flew from Bangkok to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. I arrived in Hanoi at 9 or so in the morning and even though the flight was short, I was already feeling pretty frazzled. Getting my visa took a long time and my bag took forever to come up. I had arranged a pick up from the airport to my hostel – I figured it would be easier than taking a taxi, seeing as I had no idea where I was going. Unfortunately, the person picking me up was nowhere to be found (they were supposed to have a sign with my name). So after wandering around for about half an hour, I found a phone and called the hostel. Eventually, the driver found me. Not the smoothest start to my travels. 

Driving in Hanoi is a nightmare – i’m just going to say that right there. When I first got to the car, I was very disoriented as we were driving on the right again. In Vietnam, people use their horns CONSTANTLY. It’s usually a way of alerting people around them they are passing or what not, but a lot of the time, I couldn’t see any reason... Signs and traffic lights are seen more as suggestions – at one point our driver was driving in the on-coming traffic lane for quite a while. It was slightly terrifying, but made it to the hostel in one piece.
 

On the first day, I just wandered around the city with a map from the hostel. This is my favourite way to explore a new place. Hanoi is a very nice city – many old and small buildings. Many of the streets have massive trees on the sidewalks. Although it is the capital, it had a bit more of a small city feel. Except for the thousands of motorcycles...

The first place I stopped was the Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the “Hanoi Hilton” among American POWs  during the Vietnam War. The prison was originally built by the French, and used to hold Vietnamese while the country was a French colony. During the Vietnam War, the north Vietnamese used the prison to house American POWs, mostly pilots who had crashed in the north. One of the most famous Americans to pass through was Senator John McCain. However, the museum focuses mostly on the Vietnamese held there by the French. One thing that is fascinating about Vietnam is you realise how subjective history is. For example, the museum described the Vietnam War as an attempt by the Americans to take over the country, like the French imperialists. It is also very one sided – at one point, I was watching a video that LITERALLY said the American POWs should have considered themselves lucky to be held prisoner in this prison, as they were treated so well. However, while I was there, a guided American tour group was there. I followed them around a bit to get some free info: the guide was ONLY talking about the Americans who had stayed in the prison. History is a funny thing...

How the prisoners were held

Senator John Mcain...? McCain?

 

After that, I continued to wander around, past the Opera House, and Hoan Kiem Lake. On the lake, there is a small island which has a temple on it, Ngoc Son Temple. It was beautiful – temples in Vietnam have much more of a Chinese influence than those in Thailand. I then sat on a bench to enjoy the view. While I was there, a few young Vietnamese people came up and asked if they could chat with me for a while (so they could practice their English). They were very friendly – although, like many Vietnamese people I would meet, they kept asking “Are you married?”, followed by “Why aren’t you married?”. Haha. 

 

Opera House

 

 

 

Traditional dress for women

That night, my friend Anna and I went to dinner and beer in a nearby restaurant. Beer and food is pretty cheap in Vietnam. Beer Hoi is super cheap... but super gross... In the evening, we wandered around the city some more.

 



Sunday the 24^th was much the same. In the morning, I wandered over to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. The line was ridiculously long, so I decided I didn’t want to see it that badly. After, I wandered through the city back in the direction of the hostel. I found the old citadel of Hanoi, which was really neat to walk around in. In the afternoon, we met up with a friend Anna had met who lived in Hanoi (a Norwegian working at the embassy). So it was fun to meet up with someone who knew the city. He took us to a nice restaurant and showed us some good things to order. We then went to his apartment, and drank a few beers on the roof. The view was amazing! After, we found a bar and hung out there for a while. For street food in Hanoi, everyone sits on these tiny little plastic stools on the sidewalk/spilling onto the road. Everyone also eats a ridiculous amount of sunflower seeds. So we followed their example. Fun times!

Temple of Literature

 

Ha Long Bay:

Monday morning, I left Hanoi for a tour of Ha Long Bay. I signed up with the tour offered by my hostel, Central Backpacers. The tour started with about 4 hour bus ride from Hanoi to the coast. Not especially exciting. There were about 16 people on the tour I believe: a family from Malaysia, a group of teachers (American, Scottish, Welsh) from Korea, 3 Danish girls, a British pair, and 3 other Canadians, 2 parents and their daughter. We boarded our ship, “The Imperial Junk” (haha), and set off towards the bay. For those of you that don’t know, Ha Long Bay is considered one of the natural wonders of the word: it consists of 3000+ limestone islands in the Gulf of Tonkin. Although the weather was overcast, it was still amazing! You don’t feel like you are on the ocean at all...We cruised around the islands for a while, then stopped at the main cave in the Bay... Can’t remember the name. It was massive though and had many neat rock formations. After that, we paddled around on kayaks. It was lovely.

The next day, they took us back to the Harbour. On the way, our guide gave a demonstration on how to make Vietnamese spring rolls, one of the most popular Vietnamese dishes. MMmmmm...

I stayed the night of the 26 in Hanoi – I was departing early on the 27^th for my trip to Ba Be National Park, which you can read about in my next post! This one is long enough alrea

 

I can't believe I forgot about English Camp!

English Camp

ZOMG I just realised I never wrote about English Camp with my school! Blogger fail...

English Camp at my school took place from February 8-9 in Rayong Province.  In the days leading up to English Camp, we (the foreign teachers) were given very little information about what would happen and what we would need to do. So as usual, we went in having no idea what was going on. 

 I arrived at school on Friday the 9^th at around 8am – all the students were gathering in the hall/auditorium area. English Camp was open to students from P6 to M3 (grades 6-9), and I think there are about 200 or so students attending. All the Thai English teachers were going, as well as a few other teachers to help manage the students and run activities. I think around 9 or so we all boarded our non-air-conditioned buses... lovely. Needless to say the ride was very hot, and involved much napping. Needless to say, when we got off, we were all sweaty, sticky and disgusting.

Our first stop was at the Pattaya Floating Market for lunch. It was quite an elaborate set up of boardwalks, bridges and shops. Very maze-like too. We somehow managed to find a restaurant, and wil the help of the Thai teachers, were able to order lunch. We aren’t incompetent I swear. We didn’t do any shopping as we were only there a short while, and everything was super expensive. Our next stop was at the Silver Lake Vineyard. Like the vineyard we stopped at for teacher retreat, it was very picturesque and beautiful. We walked around and took pictures. It was also SO hot, so we didn’t do much running around. Lovely spot though.

We arrived at the hotel around 3:30/4 I think. It was actually quite a nice hotel, and I’m pretty sure the school had rented out the entire place. It was right on the beach, and our room faced the water. Very nice. In the evening, we had activities for the students, involving singing and chanting and whatnot. There was a water balloon passing activity, which was quite fun. It also degenerated into a water balloon fight, naturally. Then we all went in the water. After a little bit of swimming, we realised that the boys and girls were swimming in different sections, separated by a line of Thai teachers. Midly amusing. We had also been told before that “swimwear” meant shorts and a t-shirt. But we still had a blast, including splashing and sand-fights with the students and teachers. Also buried our friend Bank in the sand. Teehehehe. 

In the evening, we had dinner and more activities. The students were divided into groups, and each given a theme. We weren't told to do anything in particular, so we wandered around aimlessly for a little whille. Then, Laura and I decided to join a group of p6es who were doing a fashion show. We helped make a fisherman, bikinis and a ghost out of balloons, construction paper, newspaper, garbage bags, and tape. It was a lot of fun! Other groups presented stories, songs, sports, ASEAN, and more. Each group then presented their scene. Then the English teachers gave a special... presentation. This was a dance to a song called “I’m the best”, made popular by a group of Thai lady-boys on “Thailand’s Got Talent” (If you are curious, refer to the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFGTMSSLKNQ) . So their presentation involved lots of outrageous costumes, hilarious make-up, and Deaw and Bank dressing up like women. I nearly fell off my chair I was laughing so hard. 

After all the presentations were over, the students headed to bed. We all decided to hangout in our room for a while. We may have jumped on the bed. Laura, Anna and I also went to sit on the beach, which was completely deserted. We were staying near Ban Phe, which is the port you leave from to go to Ko Samet. You could see the island from our beach, which was kind of cool. It was lovely to be able to see the stars...

Sunday we got up early to have breakfast. Afterwards were more activities: the students rotated through various stations about homonyms, acronyms, synonyms, and other grammatical... things. We ended the morning by all singing and dancing to “Sha-lalalala” on the stage. 

We then had lunch, and left the hotel. On the way, we stopped at one of these giant shopping market stores, so the students and teachers could buy snacks and gifts for their families. I had been passed out on the bus, so was incoherent for much of this stop. We eventually made it home around 6:30pm, only 3 hours behind schedule! Hahaha! But it was a fun weekend for sure! And hopefully the students learned something...

Ko Samet Yet Again

Ko Samet Take 4

On the weekend of February 23-24, the foreign teachers and I decided to go to Ko Samet for our last hurrah as a group. It was also a holiday weekend: Monday was a Buddhist holiday, so no school! I thought it was very fitting that we go to Ko Samet, as this was the first place Anna and I travelled to together after arriving at our school. I have also now been to Ko Samet 4 times, and 3 of those times were since January. Haha...

Friday:

Anna, Laura and I decided to leave Friday night – as it was a long weekend, we were a bit worried about finding a room. We left our apartment at around 3:20pm, and caught a taxi to Ekemai bus station. The taxi took FOREVER – the traffic was ridiculous (I guess because it was the long weekend) and our driver took a slightly weird route. We ended up doubling back and going on another road with hardly any traffic. Grrrr... We eventually got out of the taxi about a block away from the station, and speed walked the rest of the way – we thought we would be able to catch the 5:00 bus (yes the taxi ride took about an hour and a half). However, when we arrived at the bus station, we discovered the next bus didn’t leave until 6:30pm (all the other buses leave on the hour). Lame. We then went for dinner at McDonalds.

We boarded the bus at 6:30 and were on our way. We managed to make friends with the little Thai boy sitting in front of us by making faces and explosion noises. He was very cute! I slept for much of the ride – I had had a really long week and was exhausted. The bus ride also took a long time – 4 hours. We finally arrived in Ban Phe around 10:30pm, and caught a speedboat to the island. Once we arrived, we spent a looooong time walking around looking for a room. Many hotels’ reception desks were closed, and the rooms we did find were like super-VIP rooms, and very expensive. Eventually, we found a room a bit on the pricey side, but it was all there was. We dropped off our stuff and got ready to go out. At this point I also had a massive headache, and it was about 1:30am. I walked on the beach for a bit with the girls, but decided I was feeling to lousy to stay out. So I went back to the room, and went to sleep.

Saturday:

I woke up at 8am on Saturday – the plan was to scout for another room early on. When I woke up, there was no sign of Anna or Laura. There had been talk about sleeping on the beach the previous night, so I wasn’t worried. I got ready and decided to start searching for a room while I waited for them to call me back. I was just walking up to Naga Guesthouse (where we have stayed before), when I ran into the two of them. They had decided to sleep on the beach on a couple of chairs. So we started our search together. Naga was full, and so was another hotel. The third place we checked, Jep’s, had ONE free room, and it just happened to be a fan room for 700B (for 3 people – pretty decent). So we snatched that up, and then went to ask around for Erin and Thomas. While we were having lunch, Thomas called and said he was feeling sick, so wouldn’t be able to come. But Erin was still planning on coming – yay girl’s weekend!

We spent most of the day sitting on the beach, eating snacks and drinking beer. The weather was cloudy, which I didn’t mind as I wouldn’t burn as easily. Erin arrived around 5pm and joined our beach party. Shortly after, we went for dinner at the Silver Sand Resort restaurant, which I have frequented several times now. While we were there, we made friends with an Italian guy and a British guy travelling together. After dinner, we went to the bar at Naga Guesthouse, where we found body paint and some other OEG participants. We painted ourselves up and danced like loons. The bar also had a muay-thai/boxing ring – we climbed in and practiced our “Body Combat” moves. Classy... Fun times were had.

Sunday: 

We all woke up pretty hung over, but dragged ourselves out of our bungalow for breakfast. We spent the rest of the day sitting/napping on the beach. It was very nice and relaxing. In the evening, we decided a slightly more relaxed night was in order. So we took our drinks and sat on the beach for a while. We found the most adorable puppy – sooooo cute! I always seem to run into the cutest baby animals on Ko Samet. We also ran into our Italian/British friends from the night before. Later on, the bar near us closed, so we moved to the bar at Naga again. We contented ourselves by ordering more drinks, then playing “Never Have I Ever” on the beach.  So nice...

Monday: 

We got up, checked out of our hotel, and headed for the beach. The sun had finally decided to come out: it was glorious. Our original plan had been to leave relatively early... This was scrapped by the beautiful weather. So we sat at Jep’s beachside restaurant, had lunch, then drank beers on the beach and in the shallows. It was lovely – just what a beach vacation should be like. I’ll just post some pictures now:

Eventually, we went to the ferry and back to Bangkok. We were all exhausted and sunburnt, so we pretty much passed out on the bus. Awesome weekend!

 It was a really great final weekend with the foreign teachers. As I’m writing this, they have all goen their separate ways to travel: Laura and Thomas are in Myanmar, Erin is in Laos and Anna is in Cambodia. I already miss having them around! We became quite close during the semester, and I hope that we will be able to remain in touch, and catch each other when we can. Talk of road trips across North America are already in the making. As for myself, I’m definitely glad I decided to stay another semester. I can’t imagine leaving now... I’ll be leaving in a couple weeks myself to go travelling, and I’m quite excited. But until then, I’ll be hanging around school. But I’m ready for my next adventure!

I Choo-Choo-Choose You!

Valentine’s Day

 

In the days leading up to Valentine’s Day in Thailand, we were wondering how widely the “holiday” was celebrated. It turns out that Valentine’s Day is a pretty big event in Thailand, with students and couples alike. A few days before the 14^th, I started using Valentine’s Day vocabulary in games with my students. They were quite excited... more than you would expect. 

There was supposed to be a special Valentine’s Day assembly in the morning, and a couple friends of ours were supposed to sing the song “Lucky” by Jason M’Raz. The Thai teachers had asked both Laura and I if we wanted to sing with Deaw (Thai English teacher), but we both declined because we are terrible singers. Those of you who have taken sight-singing with me can attest to that fact. But one of the other foreign teachers said they would sing, so we were off the hook. 

SO on the 14^th, I got to school around my usual time. I was sitting at my desk in the office, when Deaw comes up to me, slightly panicked, and asks if I will ask the students a question about Valentine’s Day.  I said “suuuuure...” and we decided I would ask what the sings of Valentine’s Day were. Then, Deaw said, “Ok, we go to the assembly NOW”, and left. So I chased after him downstairs to the assembly. Asked our question, a few students answered – it was fine. Then they started setting up for the song – I didn’t see the other teacher around. I asked our friend Bank where she was, but he didn’t know (as it turns out, I think she wasn’t feeling well). So two of the Thai English teachers, Phi Oi and Phi Jenny, were going to sing with Deaw. They beckoned me onstage too... I thought “to hell with it” and ran up with them. I will also take this time to mention we hadn’t rehearsed the song at all, and KIND OF knew how it went. We were reading print outs of the lyrics. So yes, I sang in front of all the Mattayom students. Embarassing. We definitely fell apart a little bit a few times... But it was fun. I guess.

Anyway, the first class I had was 4.2 – this was when the stickering started. So, how students (or prathom students at least) celebrate Valentine’s Day is by plastering the teachers and each other with stickers. They were a little shy so, I didn’t get too many stickers in class. However, the next class I had was 4.1... As soon as I walked into class, the students started cheering and basically all ran up to my desk. And there were a lot of stickers. Students would bring an entire sheet up with them, and stand beside me, putting on one sticker after another. There was definitely a lot of boob poking hahaha. 

It was the same story the rest of the day. In the cafeteria, random students would come up and put stickers on me. In grade 3, the students were nuts. I was even more sticker swarmed, and so was my co-teacher, Phi May. Then we started taking pictures. I basically didn’t care about “teaching” – had all my students make Valentine’s Day cards anyway. But it was SO MUCH FUN. I took a lot of pictures, so I think I will dedicate the rest of my post to that. Enjoy!

 Mid-Day Sticker Count

 Final Count: 2 gazillion