GV 1

It’s a new chapter for the blog. After a brief month of self-reflection and escapism the blog has returned as a travelogue newly baptized in the name of The Innocents Abroad. On a personal note I think the hiatus was mainly induced by the very basic need of R & R. Literally, “Goodmorning Vietnam” is expanding its borders to the greater Asiatic region (The final list: Philippines, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand/Laos, India) . After some contemplation, the blog elected to keep the misleading name in tribute to the early foundations on which the newly baptized blog rests upon. Albeit condensed to GV. Personal note, I’m excited at the virtually limitless amounts of experiences with which to feed the blog. GV’s life feels like a weather forecast: cockfights in Manila, underground river in Puerto Princesa, sea kayaking to hidden lagoons in El Nido. Speaking of cockfights, we had a basement in our college house that could have held dead bodies, and I wouldn’t have known.  I think I went down there once. Anyways, I & the housemates had unrealized dreams of holding a cockfight of our very own in the basement, ideally for my 21^st birthday.  Libby even tried buying a rooster on craigslist.  Thankfully, that idea stayed a dream because it would almost assuredly have turned into an awful idea. Two years later the dream is being realized in a more mature form. I doubt the sight is going to be any less shocking and hopefully I don’t come away from the arena with a mild case of PTSD.

Back to the then and now. It’s only fitting that I write my last blog post in Vietnam in a coffee shop across the street from Libby, who is teaching. I would talk about how bad teaching sounds right now but I can’t even get myself to think about it. I figured as the time teaching was drawing to a close, it would get easier and easier since I’d be so happy it was almost over. Turned out the complete opposite, but oh well. Teaching wasn’t a bad job at all, and overall it was a fantastic experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything; though it’s kinda sorta a grind.

Packing for a four month trip seems impossible. Especially since we’ll theoretically be in the searing heat of Burma/Myanmar in early summer and potentially? Cold weather of the Himalayan foothills in India. I say potentially because I don’t actually know how cold Darjeeling and northern Rajasthan/ Kashmir region but they seem like they’d get cold. That’s also slightly frustrating since I really like planning for things and there’s a lot that’s simply still left in the air. Christine, super traveler who we did our Tesol course with, managed to do like 6-8-10 weeks in a 30-35 liter backpack. That would have been awesome if I could have managed that but I’m filling up like a 60 liter backpack with an 18 liter daypack. I’m blaming it on the weather.  BTW, I have a weird interest in bags and the 18 liter Arc’Teryx is an amazing bag which I would highly recommend for roughly 1,000,000 different things. It’s probably the bag we’ve used/will use the most here and is “bombproof.” Anyways, we were packing a bag to store here in Saigon and Libby & I were faced with a vexing packing question (at least to me). Is it better to fold dry-cleaning clothes over themselves with the hangars on or off the clothes? I’d like to reach out to the audience for some thoughts? Libby of course made the final call and took the hangars off due to a weight decision. I thought the hangars would help make for a perfect fold and make a minimal weight difference. Anyways, it doesn’t matter.

WE SOLD HO PHUC IN LESS THAN TWO HOURS. In a complete shocker Ho Phuc was sold for $150 USD in less than two hours on Facebook. Who would have known that we underpriced our Chinese knockoff at $150. We were ready to just take it on a roadtrip to the Delta and simply leave it wherever we ended. I have to thank Libby for deftly taking the initiative in selling our dear Ho Phuc. Also I can pat myself on the back for a nice buy back in June. Overall it cost us around $130 to drive our moto for our whole time here. Even better than the tiny amount we had to pay for transportation in Vietnam, my favorite part about Ho Phuc was we never had to worry about getting pulled over by the police and extorted or having our moto stolen because our moto was so ghetto we got to pretty much ride around incognito. Because we didn’t realize our moto would be sold so quickly we’ve spent the past two days walking everywhere. We walked the whole city during our first weeks in the city so it wasn’t exactly a new thing getting to do it again. We managed to harbor our bitching temporarily with hopes of getting in walking shape before our trip.

                Well, stay tuned. Next step: Manila! 

Currently

Currently sitting in perhaps my favorite space in Saigon-La Fenetre Soleil. It would probably be the perfect hipster paradise back home. Everything is “distressed” enough to make the place feel fully authentic. The cracked marble tables, old barn plank style wood floor and the cobblestone floor curtained verandah with faded exposed brick walls and lightly stained crown molding that runs around the entire premise, allowing for a cool and naturally lit center room. All are perfect design touches, my favorite design touch of the French colonial period though is the roof with its sloped ceiling and exposed wood beams providing an uncertain amount of support but a great amount of aesthetic value. It’s already slated into my dream room.

We went to the only truly “American” BBQ joint in town with a bunch of friends. We had only been once a few months prior and afterwards we realized why we had only gone once before. BBQ is on the very short list of things that are more expensive here than in America: wine, ice cream, BBQ. I used to eat BBQ a minimum of twice a week for four years in college but I’ve done an amazing job of moving past my BBQ addiction since coming to Vietnam. I’m afraid once the shock of the spending what would probably be like 3-4x Memphis BBQ prices wears off, I might have awakened the metaphorical dragon that is my love for BBQ. In fact I’m kind of craving it right now.

Anyways on our walk back home from the restaurant we had a totally Vietnam moment that Libby suggested go in the blog. We walked past a group of guys sleeping in their hammocks or on a mat just on the side of a busy street, a man with a literal peg-leg that seemed more at home in a pirate movie and two street-cleaner/garbage workers finishing up their shift. It’s crazy to get glimpses at the large side of Saigon that sleeps on the street day after day and the fact that the only reason the city maintains a semblance of cleanliness is because an army of workers go out day after day and do quite a meticulous job of picking up boatloads of trash by broom and hand. Most everywhere in the city can be considered a trashcan.

I can tell that I’m getting burnt out of teaching because the weekends keep leaving me feeling emotionally and physically drained…the sad part being that my hours keep going down. I did 8 on Saturday and 8 on Sunday for a total of 16. When I was doing 22 hours in a 48 window, 16 would have felt like a breeze. But for some reason it doesn’t…don’t know what to make of it… Maybe it’s the cold-that-never-quite-leaves-you-once-you-catch-it syndrome (I’m pretty sure can be attributed to pollution and possibly the festering tropical heat that never leaves). But it’s only 2 weeks and 2 days until we’re boarding a flight for Manila and then on to Palawan. Pretty sure the cold will vanish the second my eyes touch the beaches of Palawan.  Which leads us to our trip update.

We kind of had an awkwardly long time between us ending the pay-period (Jan 28^th) and our flight to Bangkok (17^th) and on to Burma…which we had initially centered on Tet. It  definitely won’t take three weeks to fully explore the delta so we decided to switch things around a little and use this sizeable chunk for Palawan, with a stop in Manila along the way of course.  

Jan 30^th-February 16^th  : Philippines (Manila, Palawan)

February 17^th-21^st : Bangkok

February 21^st –March 7^th : Burma/Myanmar

March 7^th-21^st : Vietnam (Sapa, Halong Bay, Hanoi, Saigon)

March 21^st- March 27^th : Vietnam (Delta, Vung Tao, Mui Ne, ect)

March 27^th -29^th : Kuala Lumpur (Formula One Grand Prix)

March 30^th – April 20^th : Indonesia (Raja Ampat, not sure where else)

April 20^th – May 4^th : Northern Thailand (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Pai)

***Up in the Air portion***      

May 5^th- May 12^th : Laos???

May 10^th – May 27^th : Nepal???

May 5^th – May 27^th : India???

Also, I celebrated my birthday yesterday.  I was feeling very self-pitying because I had to work that night, but my amazing girlfriend made the day meaningful.  She started with my favorite breakfast food: bagels which are hard to come by here and a blueberry muffin.  Breakfast in bed was completed by freshly squeezed orange juice mimosas.  Then, I was whisked away to my favorite spot: Cat Moc Spa where I enjoyed over 3 hours of treatment! The Rejuvenation package includes a 90 minute Thai massage, 60 minute essential facial, and 30 minutes of sauna/steam room; the perfect combination.  But because it was my birthday, they threw in a complementary 40 minute foot massage.  All this for under $40.  My body feeling great, Libby picked me up to go to my favorite pizza restaurant, 4P’s.  They have homemade burrata cheese (super fancy mozzarella that spills out onto the pizza).  Then, it was naptime before getting to VUS at 5.  I walked into my classroom to a bunch of wild kids bopping each other with balloons and big letters spelling out Happy Birthday in the background.  I was touched thinking the 11-year-olds with no TA did this themselves when I learned that Libby came to school to set up while I was getting my massage.  She then walked in with a cake and we sung happy birthday.  Although she provided me with Big Hero 6 to watch during my class, I felt that went a little too far in totally giving up so we just played games all class instead.  I got food delivered for dinner, and after class, met a bunch of friends at Bia College, a bar with cheap and large beer towers.  The day was completed with a homemade leather bound book and silk boxers! 

Quick Update!

The blog is back by popular demand.  I’ve had something north of four requests for a blog post so I’m feeling reenergized! Either that or I’m feeling great after just finishing up the two week pre-school Christmas camp. The Korean pre-school Libby had been teaching for the past month had a two-week Christmas camp and was in need of an additional teacher. Of course before I knew it, I had been volunteered to fill that position. After Libby showed her a picture of my face (thank god I don’t have a “scary face” –at least according to Ms. Shim), I was in. I never thought I would have been so intimidated stepping into a classroom full of 2, 3, and 4 year old Korean babies, but they are a hard lot to please. I probably learned a lot more than I taught in the past two weeks. Mainly, my ability to sing AND do attached hand motions to what I before had thought of as humiliating songs increased exponentially. I developed a “pre-school” voice-extremely loud and incredibly slow. It was a fulfilling experience, halfway through I even thought they were all cute. By the end, some of their “toddlerness” started wearing on me and I’m just glad it’s over-mainly them learning they could say no to me. With two days to go, my two bad kids were being super difficult and I was venting to Libby about them on the moto-ride home….The venting included a lot of expletives and Libby was like, she’s four years old. I told her I didn’t care. We got paid in 100 dollar bills so it was all good.

Christmas here was OK. We had a Grade-A buffet on Christmas Eve which was by far and away the most decked out buffet either of us had ever seen. It was almost overwhelming...almost. Free flowing champagne, brandy eggnog and mulled wine. Pretty much all the bases were covered on the seafood and meat section. Solid cheese, salad, desert (chocolate fountain, ice cream stand), this place literally had it all. We stayed until it was too uncomfortable for us to sit in a seat any longer. We had walked to the buffet but walking back was simply impossible so we took a cab. I don’t think either of us ate the entire next day-Christmas day. Christmas was very uneventful, we had to work at the preschool, and Libby worked at VUS that night.  Honestly, we should have done the buffet on Christmas day, because it made Christmas Eve so amazing that Christmas Day was bound to be sort of a letdown. Christmas day just sort of turned into a day of digestion, and not much more. Oh well, right now we’re in our prime money-saving season, as well as on the money-saving homestretch. New Year’s Eve was more of the same, nothing special. We hung out with a group of Aussies which was fun, first time ever hanging out with a group of them, so it was a fun first experience.

Before I forget, Libby was in a wedding last weekend. She was technically a bridesmaid. I’ll let her talk about it. She slept over with the bride on the night before the wedding. I had to work both days otherwise I think they would have made me been a groomsman. She said she felt like she was in middle school at the sleepover and there were like 5 girls who all slept on the same bed that night.

We are on the homestretch of teaching right now. As of now we only have 4 weeks of teaching left. Around October when I had a handful of nightmare classes I was honestly asking myself if I could actually continue on for a few more months. At this point teaching is quickly becoming a point in repetition. I still stand by my assertion that a good class makes teaching fun and a bad class makes teaching a nightmare. I’m not sure I’ll be sad when I finish teaching, but I might miss it now and then in the future. That’s not super important though because once we finish teaching we get to go on the greatest trip of our lives. A 14 week trip tentatively dubbed Le’Expedicion. Once we actually get underway with Le’Expedicion I expect the blog to really grow into its wings and take off…primarily due to the limitless amount of awesomeness that I’ll be able to talk about. I will continue to fill in the itinerary details as they get nailed down. But here’s the itinerary/highlights(bolded) in its roughest form.

I.                    7-10 day motorbike tour of the Vietnamese Delta

II.                  Ferry to Phu Quoc-7 days on the beach

a.       We may cut the time period of I and II and spend some time camping and hiking in Laos

III.                4 days in Bangkok

IV.                14 days in Burma (Myanmar)-Hot air balloon ride over the thousand temples of Bagan

V.                  Sapa, Hanoi, Halong Bay (1 week) with my family

VI.                Central/Southern Vietnam (1 week) with my family (too bad Libby’s parents don’t love her as much to come visit)

VII.              Malaysian Grand Prix

VIII.            Indonesia (Diving in Raja Ampat-considered to have the highest marine biodiversity in the world)

IX.                Palawan- Voted by Conde Nast’s readers to be the number 1 Island in the world

X.                  Laos (if not done previous)

XI.                Thailand

XII.              Back to HCMC for about two days to visit the Korean spa and say goodbye