Last two days in vietnam

My last night in peace house was a bit of a mixed bag. When I got home there was no water or internet which immediately pissed me off. There were also a ton of new Vietnamese and korean volunteers. I was extra mad because their first exposure to this organization was so bad. I tried to be as welcoming as I could so they would feel at home. The power went off for about and hour during dinner which was about the last straw for me. I made a few angry phone calls to people who ran peace house, but had no luck. Eventually the power came back on I spent most of the night talking with a new female Vietnamese volunteer about America. She loved America, knew about our constitutional rights, and was concerned with the poverty in country!!! It is amazing how many foreigners know and care more about America than Americans.

My last day teaching was really great. All the kids were really well behaved. I got to them have their gym class for the first time. One of the students plays a beat on a huge koto drum and the entire school lines up military style and exercises in unison. It was so cool. Every school should start out it’s day that way. The order and togetherness are what most school in the states are lacking. At the end of the day the principle wanted to see me to give me a gift. She gave me several boxes of tea, some kind of candy, and what I think might be sugar covered greenbeans (I’m not sure how accurate my translator was, I’ll find out more when I open the box.) I couldn’t believe how thankful she was even though I only taught at her school for a few days. Almost everyone in Vietnam was like this, friendly, kind, and appreciative. I really expected lots of hostility and attitude being from the west, and especially being an American, but it never really happened.

There were more knew volunteers at peace house after school so tried to give them the run down while I packed all my stuff for my flight to korea. After dinner one the female volunteers can back to peace house in tears after being pysically thrown out of a cab in the middle of the night. She was crying and all shook up. It was terrible. We all ran out and started arguing with cab driver. He was a real aggressive jerk and I was positive that we would have to fight him. The Vietnamese volunteers didn't really seemed phased by it, and tried to justify it by saying that it was understandable because gas prices recently went. After everything called down two car loads of us went into town to party at the dragonfly. It was a lot of fun, good music, good people, good conversation. I was pretty sad to have to leave. I got a ride to the hostel that I was staying at by my German roommate on his motorbike and went to bed. I spent the next morning walking by the lake in Hanoi and drinking at Bia Hoi corner. I haggled with some locals and got a few cool bracelets ate a cool vegetarian resturant and then took a shuttle bus to the airport. The airport sucked. It was super hot, nothing to do, and it had cockroaches. The food on the plane was inedible (asian airline food is absolutely disgusting, even the smell make me want to vomit). I’ll post about my first few days in korea tomorrow night.

kids at recess



view from my hostel window


bia hoi corner



my foot after nam (a combination of trekking, mosquito and ant bites and possibly leprosy)

in korea

i made to korea with no problems. i'll fix the pics from my last post, and give the low down on my last fewdays in nam later tonight.

sapa, skinny white man, mudlsides, and the best 12 dollars i have ever spent

pictures fixed, new update asap

this weekend we took a night train to sapa. i decided to let morgan the 17 year old from new york book the entire trip becuase i was too lazy to do it myself. she actually did an excellent job and the crazy stuff that went wrong on the trip was certainly not her fault. we barely made it to the train station on time, we had to pick up some stuff in town and we had to go back becuase morgan left her passport at peace house. we met two shady dudes who had our train tickets to sapa and nothing else. i was about 90% sure that when we actually got to sapa the hotel and tour would all be a scam. on the train they sold way too many tickets, so the locals were sitting in the eisles on those little plasics seats that are all over vietnam. they had to sit on them for like 12 hours!!! when we got into sapa our hotel and tour turned out to not be fake. the hotel was beautiful with a balcony and incredable view. when you go into town all of these cute little h'mong girls chase you around, ask you tons of questions and try to sell you the crafts that their mothers make. unlike the people on the street in tanzania who make you want to choke them as soon as they open their mouths, these street saleswomen are so cute and funny that you never seem to get tired of them.

we went into a small village near the hotel on our first day. our guide took us to a water fall and showed us how most of the traditonal people live off of the land. sapa is very hilly, so the locals carve steps into the hills to grow rice. they also grow lots of indigo which they use to dye the awesome traditonal clothes that they wear. the trek into the village was pretty light, so we had lots of energy left to hang around sapa town that night. a bunch of little h'mong girls were watching some people play pool through the window of a local bar and i made the mistake of pointing them out to my friends and refering to them little girls. they got real offended and started arguing with me. i told them that i was just a skinny man, so they shouldn't be offended. they thought that was hillarous and followed me around all night calling me "skinny man". another h'mong girl came up to me and kept offering to buy all of my clothes. i kept telling her that i didn't want to be naked in sapa, but she kept trying anyway. i think that she might have been drunk, or maybe just crazy. i got a few videos of her that i'll try to post when i get to korea.

the second days trek was pretty intense. we hiked up and down these huge slippry and muddy hills. everyone kept falling. i had a little old woman holding my hand half of the time so i didn't fall of a cliff and die. we went to the village that our tour guide was from first. they only got elecetricty two years ago. the villiage was like something out of a movie. a river running through hills filled with stepped rice paddies, water buffalo and chicken everywhere, and of course a posse of cute little h'mong girls chatting with you and trying to sell you stuff. i actually broke down and bought a ton of stuff. their bags and blankets are so cool and cheap that i could not resist. the one blanket i bought turned my hands and neck blue from the indgo. my tour guide thought it was pretty funny. when we got back to town we showered and got ready for our bus ride to the train station. it turned out that there was a huge mudslide that wiped out the railroad tracks, so we had to take a bus to the next station. as we were getting on the bus my favorite little h'mong girl ran up and gave me a free braclent to give sunni, and her gmail adress!!! the fact that these kids who only got power 2 years ago have gmail already is just mindblowing. i gave her mine too, so now i have a h'mong pen pal.

the bus ride was long, hot, and kinda scary. the roads were pretty bumpy and it was clear that they were nearly washed out from the storm. when we finnaly go to the next train station it was total chaos. people everywhere pushing and trying to pick up their tickets. it turned out that our tickets were purchased by the travel agent for the wrong day!!! we all started freaking out becuase the town was very dark, unfreindly and unsafe, there were no hotels, and no one spoke english. i tried several times to get tickets from the ticket window, but every time the staff would slam the window shut in my face and pull down the shades. after a ton of effort we were able to buy three scalped tickets for 200,000 dong each. i was about 60% certain that the tickets were fake and would leave us stranded in nomans land. after a 2 hour, blisteringly hot wait we were able to get on the train. an american couple that sat in from of me were thrown out by their bus driver and had to walk like 3 miles up to their wastes in mud. they were filthy, their feet were bleeding and look sooo depressed. i tried to cheer them up, but they were too far gone.

after the night train i got another massage and crashed a cool hostle in downtown hanoi. peace house was a mess when i got back, but í'll save my last two days in hanoi for my next post. i'm currently killing time at a hostle in hanoi, i fly out for korea in a few hours. i'll update when i get there.

night train


hotel


h'mong pen pal


sapa trek



indigo dye


crazy snake wine medicine


more sapa trek







the old woman who helped me from falling to my death on the trek


rice fresh from the paddy


my tour guide


backpacker hostel in hanoi

the past few days...(pics at the end)

Military museum and temple of literature-

The military museum one of the many strange things I have encountered so far in Hanoi. Even though it is a Vietnamese museum most of the artifacts, weapons, and vehicles are american. There tanks and planes all captured from the US, and a huge monument built out of US planes that were shot down. It a very uncomfortable sight to view as a American. There was also a huge tower with a narrow stair case that you could climb up and view the entire museum from above. It was so hot that I nearly passed out when I got to the top. Even though there were signs that said it was a camera restricted area I still took some cool pics.

The temple of literature was quick xe om ride away from the museum and had significantly less American plane wreckage. The temple dates back to 1070 and served as vietnams first university. The doctors who graduates from the university had their names carved on to slabs that are on the back of big stone turtles. The entire temple was beautiful and relaxing even though it was hot and full of tourists.

More teaching-

I was able to teach for an entire day. There were several of us, so were took turns and tried to help each other. It was a lot of fun. I was able to experience my first official 2 hour lunch break. We ate lunch, got iced coffee down the street, and still had time for an hour nap in the library. I only get to teach one more day, I’m going to try and gets some pics of the students if the teacher will let me.

Ho Chi Min Mausoleum and Museum-

This is by far the craziest, most surreal thing to do in Hanoi. You stand in a huge line side by side and slowly move toward the huge mausoleum. You have to check your camera and if you are not wearing pants you can’t come in. It took about 20 min of waiting to get to the entrance. They have inside of the mausoleum super cold. As you walk in armed guards in white uniforms make sure you don’t stop moving. I had my hands cupped behind my back (which I though was a respectful way to walk) and a guard smack my are and make me walk with my hands at my sides. You get about 20 feet from uncle Ho. He is light with strange orangish lights so it looks like he almost glowing. It is extra weird because he specifically requested to cremated and instead he is embalmed behind class for thousands of people to see everyday.

The museum was even weirder. The entire second floor a strange modern art take on ho chi min, and the history of vietnam. The entire place was filled with overtly symbolic statues and installations that would not be out of place in the museum of modern art in nyc. There were lots of references to picasso and other well known artists and it made wish that I remembered a little more of my art history to figure out what the hell the connection was. At every turn all I could say was “I just don’t get it”. I may not have gotten it, but I loved it. What cool modern art and architecture has to do which the father of Vietnamese independence is beyond me, but if they decided to build a Jackson pollock inspired George Washington museum, I’m sure I’d visit it.

Political compass with Laum-

Me Morgan and Laum sat and took the political compass survey last night. The survey asks a bunch of opinion questions and then puts you on a chart to show where your political views lie. We had to explain most of the questions because they are pretty complex. I was surprised by a ton of the answers. There were some clear cut communists questions that Laum was against and quite a few that were pro capitalist free markets that he was in favor of. When we finished the survey he ended up be just slightly left of center. He clearly values hard work and respects personal wealth as good motivator for hard work (super capitalist for someone who studies marx) but also is clearly dedicated to fighting for the average person and a deeply patriotic and proud of his country. I think that there is whole generation here in vietnam that are clearly looking for progress and change. If they can keep the tourist coming to this country then the standard of living is going have a massive increase over the next decade or so.

I still have not figured out what I’m going to do this weekend. I do not want to stay at peace house. Wish me luck finding something exciting to do.

military museum


cool tower



crazy crashed plane statue


yep that's lenin


temple of literature




school



school bell (drum)


mausoleum


guards (marching away, i was afraid to let them see me take their picture)


ho chi min museum






crazy home made motorbike

school + communism

yesterday morning i got to teach 4th grade english. the school is quite breathtaking. it has a huge open courtyard that the kids play in. instead of a bell they us a huge drum that echos through the entire school. i covered basic pleasantries and then we did some abc's and basic words. the classes were only 25 minutes long with 45 kids to a class!! the kids are so cute and friendly. their hand writing in almost like calligraphy and all use quill instead of ball-point pens. the teachers lounge is incredible. it has a big glass oval table with flowers in the middle, a big white statue of ho chi min and plasma tv. they even cooked a special lunch for me because they knew that i was a vegetarian. one of the other teachers told me that the whole staff was buzzing with questions about me. i must look very strange to them: super skinny, long hair, dressed in black. i go in tomorrow for a full day so hopefully i'll have more school stories. i'm gonna try to take some pics and videos as well, but i want to get permission first, which will be hard because the english teacher barely speaks english. i took me 3 hours to get them to understand that i needed to find a bathroom. she also asked all kinds of personal questions: how old am i, am i married, to i have any kinds, how much money do i make. personal questions are very normal here. she told me that she makes about 200 usd a month as a teacher, which might seem insignificant, but i bet it provides a comfortable living here.

last night i spent a good two hours talking politics, philosophy and government with my Vietnamese roommate and a high school girl from new york who just flew in yesterday. it was a fascinating conversation. my roommate has no problem with government censorship (which is surprisingly rare in here), is ok with religious freedom, and thinks that having more than one political party can only lead to instability. It was kinda of weird that the only philosophy they study in university is communist, (they all read marx, lenin, trotsky, ho chi min, and mao, stalin doesn't seem to be very popular though) but i guess that shouldn't have come as a surprise. i spent alot of time trying to explain why it good to allow political decent, but i don't think i was able to get my point across. i think i am going to find him a copy of mills on liberty and maybe that will do a better job. for the first time since i have been in peace house it didn't rain! it is so hot today. it was 90 at 8am this morning and is going to be at least 98 by midday. i helped teach an english class in peace house today and really enjoyed it. i think i'm off to the army museum and temple of literature after lunch. i'll post again tomorrow.

teachers lounge!!!


coolest lunch box ever

Fri,Sat,Sun (hanoi, ha long bay, massage)

hanoi at night

I had an amazing weekend. Friday night 6 volunteers went and stayed the night at a hotel in downtown Hanoi. The city is incredible at night, so full of light, color and motion. We had dinner on a a second story balcony cafe. The dinner cost over a million dong (which isn't much in USD), but it is still cool to pay a million dollar bill. We spent most of the night on Bia corner, where tons of people sit in little colored plastic chairs and drink 20 cent beers. The people flow out into the street and you can find people from every where on earth sitting there. I spent some time talking with a group of Australians and then a crazy local guy who was selling guide books. He was very animated and spoke excellent english. If he came to the states he would be star. He kept trying to kiss the girl volunteers, he was hilarious. he looked about 14 but he showed me his id and he was 21! Every one in this country looks so much younger than they really are. After Bia corner we all went to a great after hours club called the dragonfly. They had awesome music on itunes so i picked a bunch of jams. It is technically illegal to be out in Vietnam after 11pm, but every seems to break the curfew so i did too.

ha long bay

a bus picked us up at our hotel Saturday morning and we headed out to ha long by which is about 3 hours away. when we got there we boarded a beautiful "junk boat" (an ancient Asian sail boat). The lunch on the boat was sea food, but since i'm a vegetarian they had nothing to give me. what they came up with was the absolute worst meal i have ever had. gooey, chewy corn patties, deep fried canned corn, and rice. it was disgusting. after that we took the boat to a beautiful cave and then went kyaking. the bay has almost 2000 mountainous islands and it we kyaked around a few of them. after that we swam by the side of the boat. the water was bath-water warm and very salty so you float like a cork. they played and sang some traditional music after dinner and then we all sat up and watched the sun set. i'm not sure if i have ever seen anything so beautiful. the entire night the landscape just didn't look real. i felt like i was inside a movie or a painting. even the pictures i took look to good to be real. at night the moon came out and you could see lighting from storms off in the distance. it was incredibly romantic, i wish sunni could have been there to share it with me.

sunday


more swimming sunday. i jumped off of the top of the two story boat into the water. it was great, there was a group of Australians cheering me on. one of the volunteers took a pic of me in mid air (i'll post it later). the bus trip back was very bumpy so i couldn't sleep very well. when we got back the girls i was with wanted to get pedicures in hanoi, so i went with them and got my first ever massage. it lasted for 1 hour and only cost 12 dollars!!!! i was so relaxed afterwards that i could barely move. after that we had dinner at a fancy indian restaurant and then made one last stop a Bia corner before heading back to peace house and calling it a night. the weekend felt a little touristy, but that didn't make it any less great. i have a few stories and pics that i'll post about teaching at the school in hanoi that i'll post tomorrow, so check back soon.

view from dinner


1.2 million dong!


hanoi at night


our junk boat


ha long bay from amazing cave island


floating store


inside cave


ha long bay