Hai Phong and Do Son Beach

Wow… I have been without internet access for several days! It feels like I am cut off from the rest of the world!

The internet in the hotel I’m staying at is dodgey at best but I have finally found an internet café . Hooray, two days before I leave Hai Phong! Ha ha

My first days here were spent designing a new logo for the local Primary school along with a banner for their web site. Designing a logo via an interpreter in a country who’s culture you don’t quite understand is a bit of a challenge. Somehow I have come up with something they are happy with. Whew!

I have also had a tour and meeting with the local Hai Phong Community College. The principal and staff there were just wonderful and would love to have a relationship with a Canadian College.

Linda (another Uniterra volunteer) came to visit me for the weekend. We visited Do Son Beach with our translators and went to a traditional Vietnamese play Saturday night! All fun and exciting adventures! Do remind me to tell you all about Linda’s adventure trying to find a bathroom!

My workshops start early in the morning but break for 2 -2.5 hours during lunch. Most teachers have to go home to feed their families and people here don’t mind a little cat nap at lunch. I usually have enough time to eat at a café and cool off in the air conditioned hotel room. There is not a deodorant that has been invented that can withstand the Hai Phong challenge! Yesterday it was sunny and 38. Toasty!

My students ask great questions. They are engaged but feel apprehensive about letting me know if they don’t understand something. Fortunately I have the best translator in Vietnam. Hung is awesome! Each evening I teach him the Flash lesson plan and the next day he translates with a full understanding of how the software works. I really lucked out when I got this kid. He is only 22 but amazing! If any of you ever need a Vietnamese translator I have his deets!

Hai Phong is a great city. I feel pretty safe walking around. I’m careful the streets are well lit as it gets dark about 6 – 6:30pm here each night. The streets are super busy and full of interesting people. Shopkeepers, vendors, locals, vagrants, children, teenagers – It’s awesome! I usually eat at the same café each night, the staff is getting to know me. Last night they brought my mango juice before I even ordered it. I can say hello, thank you and your welcome and I’m sorry in Vietnamese. But I can order about a dozen different dishes in Vietnamese. Guess that tells you where my priorities are!

I have two days of workshops left.

Not sure when I will be able to post again but hopefully soon!

Linda and I have planned trips to Cat Ba, Halong Bay and Sappa.

delicious fishes dishes!

Yesterday, Brady, a Canadian Volunteer who has been here for about 8 weeks, took us for a bit of site seeing. I cannot believe he is driving a motorbike here in this crazy traffic – I feel like calling his mother!

Brady was a great tour guide. We visited a huge catholic church in the old quarter with some fantastic art surrounding it. It was sweltering hot so Brady suggested a small coffee place that was nearby. How he remembered where it was is a miracle to me. We walked down a narrow alley that looked like something from a very bad movie and then travelled up a narrow flight of stairs that were also the stairs to small apartments where people were living. Dark and dreary with laundry on lines hanging to dry. Low and behold we made it to a quaint and authentic Vietnamese coffee shop that caters to locals. We were the only ones there and were treated to yogurt coffee and fruit juices. It was absolutely fabulous!

After a brief rest we took a cab quite a distance from Central Hanoi to the museum of Ethnology. A fascinating collection of art and everyday objects gathered from Vietnamese tribal people. There are outdoor exhibits, displays of weaving and fabric, videos depicting traditional ceremonies – totally fascinating!

Hanh our WUSC coordinator finished off the day by taking us shopping for eyeglasses. They were so cheap that Linda, Dorota and I all bought prescription glasses. They were only about $30 cdn per pair. I got prescription sun glasses and I just love them! They can be ready in as little as two hours. Amazing!

Lat night there was a typhoon. (I totally slept thru the whole thing, not unusual if you know me at all!) The street were flooded this morning so travel was a bit slow. We had to wait for the water to subside so our meetings started a bit late.

We met with Geza Radu from CIDA and another gentleman who’s name escapes me right now. Dorota, Linda and I each explained our assignments and both gentleman offered us some advice on working in Vietnam.

After that we had a delicious lunch back at the WUSC office and met with Hanh to discuss our individual projects. Everyone has a better idea of the goals and objectives for their individual projects. We leave tomorrow morning for our individual destinations. I will be in Hai Phong, delivering a series of workshops to elementary school teachers. Linda will be in Hai Duong and Dorota will remain in Hanoi.

We were getting a bit hungry so we thought we would try a very popular restaurant that is quite well know for it’s fish. We walked in and were guided upstairs. (It goes without saying that no one spoke English). After we were seated, our waiter came over and handed us a piece of laminated paper that said in English “We have only one dish:Fish. 100,000 Dong. So you guessed it, we had fish!

Off to Hai Phong tomorrow!

Hooray – I’m a millionaire!

Before I get started on what we did today I want to mention that I am now officially a millionaire! 20 dollars US gets you 340,000.00 Vietnamese dong. So yup, I am a millionaire. In fact today I had a million dong in my pocket!

How cheap is it to eat here? Crazy cheap. Yesterday at lunch we ate at a local outdoor roadside stall. Three meals, two beer and one pepsi. Less than 6 American dollars – how cool is that?

Tonight we ate at a very posh traditional Vietnamese restaurant. Five people ate and drank absolutely amazing food and it was less that $25 US. Just makes you want to pick up the bill and say “Hey, no problem…it’s on me!”

This morning Linda and I got going around 6:30ish to take a power walk around the Hoan Kiem Lake. The streets were buzzing with a variety of exercise classes and out door gym like areas. The place was packed!

Two students from the local university tourism program volunteered to give us a tour of the city’s must see sights.

First stop: Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum complex. In the traditional of Lenin and Stalin we found a monumental marble edifice that is a mecca for many Vietnamese. We walked through and viewed Ho Chi Minh’s corpse. Most of the visitors are Vietnamese and show deep respect for Ho Chi Minh. They refer to him as Uncle Ho (a sign of respect). After that we wandered thru the Ho Chi Minh stilt house and palace and then the Ho Chi Minh museum. Gotta say.. it was all pretty cool!

Next we ventured over to the One Pillar Pagoda. A Hanoi landmark which was built by the Emperor Ly Thai Tong.

We still had some energy so the girls took us to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum. This site is all that remains of the original Hoa Lo Prison nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton”. It was absolutely fascinating! Built by the French in 1896 it was originally intended to house 450 inmates. By the 1930’s there were close to 2000 prisoners.

Some of the stuff is pretty gruesome, dark chambers and a French guillotine. Pictures of beheaded revolutionaries with their heads chopped off and placed in baskets as a warning to others.

After lunch the girls took us to the Temple of Literature. It was a relaxing retreat from the noisy streets of Hanoi. Founded in 1070 and dedicated to Confucius in order to honor scholars and men of literary accomplish.

And that was the end of the history lesson.

Finally for a little light-hearted fun we took in the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. A must see if you are in Hanoi! All of the puppets are controlled by long sticks and appear to be floating, swimming or boating on water. That’s right, the stage is like a small pond. Very fun!

Lastly we enjoyed a fantastic traditional meal of clam soup, bamboo, catfish, chicken, spring rolls and rice. I don’t know how the Vietnamese make everything taste so delicious but somehow they manage!

Our guides today were super! They somehow managed to keep us going for 11 hours. I am now just about ready to drop!!

Snail Springrolls and Swedish Massages!

This morning we caught a cab to meet our hosts at the WUSC office across town. It is a miracle that we found the place considering all three of us have zero sense of direction! We met Ngoc the senior program director, Uyen our financial and travel advisor, as well as Brady and Allison, two student volunteers from Calgary and Montreal. WUSC lent us cell phones to use while we are here and gave us a lesson on working with the Vietnamese. We learned a few key phrases to help us get by and were served a lovely lunch of snail spring rolls (which were delicious!) as well as noodles, vegetables and exotic fruits. Mmmmmm yummy!

After our meetings were over we went to Just Massage. Just massage opened in 2007 and trains young adults with visual impairments to become massage therapists. Just massage provides economic opportunity for these young people, personal empowerment and dignified work.

We had a Swedish massage complete with a series of what seemed like karate chops and ending with some sort of Vulcan mind meld. It was awesome! We will definitely go back and try the shiatsu next time. One hour for 6 dollars. Best money I have spent in a long time!

We cabbed it back to our hotel to find a fabulous night market setting up. After exploring the market we stopped at a sidewalk eaterie and had a yummy supper of vegetables and noodles. The menu had everything from snake and snails to frogs legs and pigeons! We followed our busy street as far as it went and found a beautiful lake and park. I’ll have to check tomorrow and find out the name. The streets were bustling and still are. The market goes on until midnight!

What a great day!

First day pics...

We landed in Vietnam a few hours ago. Just enough time to get to the hotel, shower and get ready for our first traditional Vietnamese meal! Hanh our WUSC contact and my translator Hom took us to a nearby restaurant and ordered oodlels of noodles! Yummy spring rolls and lots of other Vietnamese treats. It was absolutely delicious! They were wonderful hosts. Lots of laughs as well as valuable information!

I’ve been up since about 4am on the 15^th so I’m getting pretty groggy... Tomorrow we meet at the WUSC office for our orientation. We then have the weekend for site seeing before we start our workshops. By we, I mean Dorota, Linda and I. Dorota and Linda both are from Guelph University. At the beginning of the week we will all go our separate ways to complete our various assignments. I’ll be in Hai Phong, Linda in Hai Dong and Dorato here in Hanoi.

The weather is hot and humid as you can imagine. It was raining pretty hard when we landed and many of the streets were flooded. We saw some beautiful rice fields on the way from the airport and the architecture is amazing.

Here are a few photo from the sidewalk of our hotel. The streets are crazy busy, almost everyone has a scooter or a motorcycle. The only thing I am nervous about is crossing the street!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles!

I leave tomorrow morning at 6am for Toronto. From Toronto the flight to Vietnam is 15 hours. Another couple hours from Hong Kong to Vietnam! My work shops are ready, and I'm totally excited!

I just got the name of the hotel I will be staying at in Hanoi. Looks like there is an internet connection so I will make a post the day we arrive. I will be in Hanoi for 3 days before traveling to Hai Phong. Hopefully I will be able to get to the weekend market and take lots of pics!
Wooo Hooo! The adventure begins!