I’m Still Here…

Obviously I never intended to go this long without posting, but these things happen…right?  I know it’s cliche, but I can hardly believe we’re over halfway through this calendar year!  It seems like just a few weeks ago we were celebrating 2010 with a bottle of bizarre Russian sparkling wine and a very Vietnamese cake.  We’re also well over halfway through our intended time in Vietnam.  We arrived at the end of September, and we plan to leave midway through December. 

(celebrating the Fourth of July with burgers, french fries, corn on the cob, and—spring rolls!) 

Things have been incredibly busy lately.  Our other full-time foreign teacher had to go home for medical reasons at the end of May, and we’ve been desperately seeking his replacement.  Right now Joey and I are teaching around 25 hours a week, which may not sound like much—but it is.  I’m sure EFL teachers with years of experience under their belts have a wealth of resources to pull from for their classes, but we spend a ton of time on lesson preparation.  All of our classes have textbooks, but nobody wants to spend all their time in the book.  Additionally, we’ve been working on all sorts of things we really aren’t qualified to do: course development, writing syllabi, tests, and placement tests.  There are lots of improvements that really need to be made here, but it often feels like an uphill battle.

We also just moved from our tiny studio apartment (with horrible shared kitchen) to an enormous 3-bedroom house.  The house has actually been empty for over a year, but you wouldn’t know it—I think the owners’ sons lived here, and basically left all of their stuff in place when they moved to the US.  Since then, the house has been used primarily for storage. 

Technically we have three bedrooms here, but only one of them is usable.  The gorgeous, light-filled master bedroom downstairs is filled to the brim with…no lie…vodka.  Cases and cases of it, piled taller than I am.  There’s another stash under the stairs, and instead of a kitchen table we have another mountain of vodka.  When we came to see the house, I asked our boss what they were going to do with all of it, and she said it’ll be donated to the church.  What?  Yes, the giant Catholic church that’s been under construction since we got to Bien Hoa will enjoy some—I don’t know, 200?—cases of vodka for their grand opening.  Hmmm.

There’s all kinds of other strange stuff here, too.  Right now I’m sitting in the upstairs front hall, just inside the balcony, across from 25 feed bags stuffed with fabric.  The pile is a solid 4 feet high in some places.  In the kitchen, the higher shelves in our cabinets are unusable because they’re filled with shoes.  Actually, one of them is filled with hats, but you get the idea.  The second bedroom is packed with all kinds of furniture, clothes, etc. that I assume they moved from other rooms to make space for us.  It’s bizarre, and I would love for the weird stuff to be gone, but I’m not really complaining.  The owners asked our boss how much we were paying for our apartment, and offered us the house at the same rate, including utilities—unheard of! 

We’re still trying to get the place clean, which is a huge task—most people here seem sweep and mop several times a day.  Everyone leaves their shoes outside the door, and it isn’t uncommon to sit on the floor while preparing meals, eating, etc.  We have a lot of floor space to cover, and after two thorough cleanings in two days, I still can’t walk around barefoot without turning the soles of my feet black.  I think there’s just so much dust everywhere that it’s going to take a while.  Ironically, our tiny little apartment came with completely unnecessary maid service. 

There are so many little things to share—funny, strange and endearing parts of daily life in this country, but I’m working on a bunch of posts to cover the high points: teaching, where we live, weather, future plans, etc.  I also have a few long, long overdue posts on our trip over Tet (February!) and another one we took in April.

All in all, we’re doing well and I have lots to share!  Let me know if there’s anything specific you’ve been wondering about, and I’ll try to cover that, too.

We’re Off!

I’m a little embarrassed that it’s been over a month since I’ve posted here—but I guess that happens.  Right now it’s 5:20am here, and in 10 minutes we’re headed out the door to find a taxi and get to the airport.  We’re neatly packed into one little carry-on, with another stowed inside for souvenirs and such.  We fly into Bangkok and head south from there, passing through Malaysia to end our trip in Singapore on the 24th. 

I promise updates after we get back!

The Good Life

It was only a few decades ago that Vietnam was the last place any Americans wanted to be, so it isn’t surprising that some friends and family were a bit baffled as to why we would want to come now.  But there were a lot of reasons.

First and foremost is the opportunity to experience another culture and travel while we’re young.  Although we hope to find ways to travel all throughout our life together, things will never be so uncomplicated as they are now.  Once we go back to the States for good, there will be grad school, jobs, and eventually kids to impede our wanderlust.

Teaching English is not something either of us ever aspired to do, but it’s a perfect vehicle for travel, especially in southeast Asia!  There are so many opportunities here for native English speakers, with or without teaching experience. 

Southeast Asia is also a perfect place to be, because once you get past the initial flight cost, travel is very cheap.  Basic guesthouse accommodations can be found in most parts of the region rather easily for under $10 per night.  While traveling, we budget about $25 per day for food for both of us (and that’s very generous--you can usually eat for much less than that if you choose to).

In addition to being ridiculously cheap, there’s so much to see in southeast Asia!  We’re having a really difficult time narrowing down the list of countries we’ll visit while we’re here.  On the heels of our Christmas trip to Cambodia, we’re already planning for our 17 days of vacation during Tet in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.  At some point we’ll need to do some traveling within Vietnam, since Joey hasn’t seen the rest of the country yet.  Neighboring Thailand and Laos are on our list as well, and we’ll probably take some time off work later in the year to visit them.  We also plan to travel for two or three weeks at the beginning of December before flying home for Christmas—but where to go?  India and Nepal?  The Philippines?  Japan?  Australia and New Zealand?  Round trip flights to Perth can be found for well under $300.

Although Joey and I have dreams and plans that will most certainly take us back to the states, teaching English in Asia is not merely something for young 20-somethings who are trying to work out their traveling bugs before returning to the real world.  Lots of people choose to settle down and make a life here, and for good reason: one can live very comfortably on an English teacher’s salary here.

The work week in the U.S. is an often-grueling 40 hours, possibly more for those who are trying to get ahead in demanding careers, single parents, or those working to support large families.  Here, 20 hours of teaching is more or less considered a full-time position.  It’s possible to work as many as 30 hours per week without making overtime, but it isn’t necessary.

Here, an English teacher can afford to eat dinner out every night, take taxis everywhere, go out drinking often, and have any sort of clothes, shoes or accessories custom made.  From Saigon, a weekend trip to the mountains of Da Lat or the beaches or Mui Ne or Nha Trang is easy and inexpensive.  It’s also common (for Vietnamese and foreigners alike) to employ some sort of domestic help: a housekeeper, and perhaps a cook or nanny.  On a teacher’s salary! 

If you chose to, you could spend a few hours teaching each evening to support yourself, and spend your days pursuing artistic endeavors.  You could write your memoirs or a novel.  You could spend most of your days around the table of a restaurant with other Westerners and a Saigon Green in your hand (many do).

The Holiday

We’re home and heading back to work after spending 6 days in Cambodia…and it was lovely. 

After a grueling day of bus travel, we arrived in Siem Reap, home of the incredible Angkor.  I really enjoyed Siem Reap—even aside from all of the temples, the town itself is full of cute little restaurants, cafes and bars.  Since it’s a pretty small town, everything is pretty easily walkable. 

We started exploring Ankgor’s temples on Tuesday, beginning with the Angkor Thom complex. It was a very surreal sort of experience.  It also doesn’t hurt that the weather was amazing.  Brilliant-blue cloudless skies, bright sun, cool (compared to Saigon, at least) air, lovely breezes, lots of green.  I found myself taking picture after picture, trying to capture just how vivid the colors were—it never worked, of course.

Bayon turned out to be, by far, my favorite.  It was such a maze of passages and rooms—every time I thought I had seen all of the first floor, I turned the corner to discover something new!  On the upper terrace, there are some 200 huge stone faces on the many towers.  Where Angkor Wat is huge and impressive, Bayon is compressed and mysterious, tucked in the center of Angkor Thom among the trees.

We were there right at midday, when the sun was at its hottest, so things were pretty cleared out.  I could have sat there for ages, enjoying the breeze and wondering about the incredible civilization that built all of this.

After lunch we headed to Angkor Wat itself.  It was incredible, to be sure—especially the bas reliefs—but I didn’t feel as overwhelmed as in some of the other temples.  Some sections were under construction, and it was more crowded than other areas.  Lots of big tour groups to dodge.

 

Around 4:30 we climbed Phnom Bakheng to get a spot for the sunset.  I knew it would get pretty crowded, but it was a circus by 5:30!  I’m glad we got there when we did, because we had a perfect spot on the ledge to watch.  The view was incredible even before the sun began to lower.

On Wednesday we set out super early to get back to Angkor Wat for the sunrise.  Approaching the temple in the dark was very eerie, and I half expected a zombie to come flying out of the side.  It didn’t, thank goodness.

Most people head down off of the main walkway to stand in front of the pond and watch the sun come up over one side.  Something about the reflection over the water and “Tomb Raider”…I don’t know.  We stayed on the walkway, and it was almost like having the place to ourselves!  That is, apart from the food vendor barking at anyone who passed by to visit his restaurant after the sunrise.  Oh, and playing some ridiculous Asian hip hop at full blast from his cell phone.  Thanks, dude.

A funny side note on vendors at Angkor: there are people in and around all of the temples selling all kinds of souvenirs.  Among them are some children, especially little girls.  When you say you don’t want to buy, one of the first things they do is ask where you’re from.  “USA?  Oh, Washington, D.C.!  The President is Barack Obama, and his wife is Michelle, and they have two daughters named Malia and Sasha, and their dog Bo is a Portuguese Water Dog…Do you live in Chicago, Washington, D.C. or New York?”  I expect they have an equally impressive (and random) list of facts for many of the other nations that send tourists to Angkor—often in their native languages, too!  One girl started demonstrating to me her abilities in five languages.

It’s interesting to see the sales techniques utilized by different regions—for instance, here, children seemed to emphasize knowledge (“I need money for school!”).  In Sapa, Vietnam, where children also tend to speak a little bit in several languages, it seemed like the emphasis was more on guilt (“You’re my friend—you buy from me!”).  Maybe that’s because in Sapa they can follow you around for several days and find out everything about you and your fellow travelers…just interesting.   

After breakfast we wandered through a bunch of the minor temples, which was wonderful.  Most of them had only a few other visitors, so we felt like we were exploring on our own.

Ta Prohm was the last major temple we visited.  It was built in the same style as Bayon, but has been overgrown in many places by enormous silk-cotton trees.  I had heard a lot about this one, and fully expected it to be my favorite.

Although the trees were breathtaking to be sure, it was just too crowded there to be a very enjoyable experience.  Crowds make me super grouchy (is this a surprise?), and the ones at Ta Prohm were impossible to avoid.  There were probably five or six large (and often smelly) tour groups moving through sometimes-small spaces, and it was just a little too claustrophobic for me.  Still, gorgeous.

We went to Siem Reap’s night market that evening, which was a total tourist attraction, but lots of fun.  It was much bigger than I expected—rows and rows of stalls filled with some really gorgeous souvenirs (nothing different from what was at the Old Market, but still).  There were also several little bars, massage stalls, live music, and a ton of Mr. Fish/Mr. Massage/Fish Massage tanks—the ones where little fish eat the dead skin off of your feet!  We chose one based on its awesome sign:

I don’t know about “feel differentiate,” “relief” or “global affairs (here)”, but I can safely report that there was plenty of ticklishness, which I guess makes it a funny incident?

Those fish loved our feet.  We felt really silly giggling like kids, but you wouldn’t believe how that tickles!  Unavoidable.

We caught the end of a performance by a group of young adults with disabilities (mostly due to polio or landmines), and bought a few things before we left.

 

Cambodia’s currency system is a strange combination of the U.S. dollar and Cambodian riel—prices are often listed in dollars, with small change given in riel.  I’ve quickly become accustomed to thinking in Vietnam dong, so seeing prices in dollars was a little jarring!  Somehow everything seems more expensive in USD.  I found myself mentally converting into VND frequently, trying to determine how the prices compared to what I would pay at home.

On Thursday we spent a lazy morning around town, picking up a few more gifts and enjoying the breeze from the cafes before hopping on a bus back to Phnom Penh.  The highlight for me was finding someone selling cotton candy  by the side of the river!

Christmas Day itself was sort of a downer.  I had some bacon with breakfast that tasted a little funny, but I chalked it up to the differences in the way meat tastes from one country to another.  We had planned to spend the day visiting the genocide museum and killing fields (festive, right?) before finding somewhere fun for dinner.  Unfortunately, I only made it through about an hour of the museum before I started feeling sick.  I spent the rest of the day waiting for the stuff to work its way out of my system!

Tuol Sleng is a former secondary school that was used by the Khmer Rouge regime as a prison, and for torture and extermination.  It’s very eerie: the Khmer Rouge fled very quickly, taking time only to kill the remaining prisoners.  A photographer documented the complex as it was left, including the rotting corpses chained to beds in each cell.  Today, visitors to the museum can wander through the classrooms-turned-cells, most of which contain only a rusting bedframe and mounted photograph of the room as it was discovered. 

The museum also houses a collection of photographs taken by the Khmer Rouge of S-21 inmates.  It seems to go on forever, but we know that the collection is incomplete: an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 were prisoners at S-21, and there are only 12 known survivors.

Joey saw the rest of the museum, but this is about the point I realized I was sick and headed home.  

He continued on to Choeung Ek, one of Cambodia’s many killing fields.

The day’s highlight was chatting with family (immediate and some extended) later that evening.

After another long day of traveling, we were back at home by Saturday evening.  I can’t wait for our next trip (probably to Malaysia and Singapore over Tet), but I’m glad to be back for now!)  I hope your holiday was as wonderful as ours.

Christmas in Cambodia

We're here, and I think I may be falling in love with Siem Reap! Tonight we watched the sunset from the top of one of Angkor's beautiful temples. Tomorrow we'll be back for sunrise. :)
Have a wonderful Christmas--I'll be back with pictures and updates after we get home on Sunday!

Home Sweet Home and Christmas Plans

I keep meaning to update, and then putting it off…by now I have a ton of little things to tell you about.

First, we’re finally moved out of our hotel and into our home!  It took forever—we only moved in last Wednesday, which means we were in Bien Hoa hotels for about a month and a half.  Definitely not what I expected.

We ended up settling on a “studio” in a brand new building, just a block away from school.  We chose the fifth floor, which has a great view and the largest balcony (although it’s still only big enough for two small chairs).  There’s also a rooftop deck just above us, which is perfect for early-morning yoga. We share the kitchen on the first floor, which I mind far less than I thought I would.  It’s sometimes a little awkward, and I’m pretty sure the family who owns the house pities Joey for having a wife who’s such a poor cook.  But those funny, awkward interactions are part of what we came here for.

(sunrise from our balcony)

So far, I’m in heaven.  Whereas in the hotel (sans sunlight) I was sleeping in easily until 11 or 12, here I wake up no later than 7.  Joey tends to sleep until 9, so I have a few hours to enjoy the sunlight (and the sunrise, if I wake up a bit earlier) and the quiet.  And the coffee!!  I’ve missed coffee so much.  It’s a pain to make it by the cup, but it makes me smile every time I sip that wonderful stuff.  We’re still waiting for our couch to arrive, but the change in morale is already huge.

We also went into Saigon the other day to meet up with a friend from college!  He’s currently a junior at Queens, and has been studying in Hong Kong this semester.  He’s doing some travelling before he heads home, and stopped in Vietnam on the way through Cambodia and Thailand.  It was so nice to see someone from home!

(Joey Smith and Joey H)

We went with Joey H to Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum—I hadn’t been to either of them since my trip last May with Queens, and my second visit was very different.  The War Remnants Museum in particular was a really shocking, emotional and draining experience for most of our group last year, and certainly was for me.  This time I think I felt more sadness and disappointment in the things human beings do to other human beings than utter shock and horror.  I intend to talk more about the war at some point, and the damage done by Agent Orange, but that will take more space and thought than I want to devote to a short update post.  If you’re interested, Joey took some pictures the first time he visited (be forewarned, some of it is very graphic).

We also paid a visit to our favorite ice cream place.  Their menu has grown since the last time we were there—I’m pretty sure it will take us the entire year to get through it.  This time I ordered the sushi, which was adorable AND delicious!

Right now, we’re trying to decide what to do for Christmas.  We were planning to go to Da Lat, a town in the central highlands that’s popular with honeymooners.  It’s a moderate bus ride away, and promises a cooler climate (sweaters and scarves, even!) in addition to mountains and waterfalls.

We ended up with almost a week off of work, though, and Da Lat is really only a few days worth of touristy stuff.  We could spend a few days at the beach, but we could just as easily go to Cambodia and mark off some of the spots on our list. 

We’re casually talking about going to Cambodia—tomorrow!  Increasing the number of stamps in my passport from two to three.  No biggie.  Without any real planning (or much money, either), we may be walking through Angkor Wat in less than 48 hours.  This is one of those times that I feel overwhelmed (in a good way) by how incredible it is to be here. 

In the end, I think we’ll just head to Saigon after our classes tomorrow morning and spend some time perusing our options at the many tour companies in the Pham Ngo Lau area.  I’ll let you know where we end up!

3 Months and Counting…

We’ve been married three months today!  I’ve been meaning to post a recap of our wedding for a while, and now seemed like a good time. :)

We had a hard time deciding what we wanted to do for our wedding, and for a while it felt like we were continually changing our minds.  Both Joey and I have large extended families, and we could hardly imagine getting married without everyone present.  At the same time, Lebanon and St. Albans are over 6 hours away from each other, and choosing one location over the other would most certainly cut some people out.  We really liked the idea of getting married in Charlotte, but that would have been an 8 hour drive for family in PA, and 4 hours for those in WV.

As we solidified our plans to move to Vietnam, the need to see (and spend time with) everyone became even more important—we really wanted a chance to celebrate with all of the people we’ve been so loved and supported by.  And so we began thinking about a relatively small wedding in Charlotte, with larger, informal celebrations in Charlotte (for college friends), West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

This felt right, but narrowing down our friends and family to a short list of 50 or even 75 for the wedding itself was incredibly difficult and stressful.  The moment we began talking about a teeny-tiny ceremony limited to immediate family and a very few close friends, I felt a huge sigh of relief.  It just felt exactly right, and very us—to keep it very small and simple for the wedding itself, but to later allow ourselves a chance to celebrate informally with our families.

I think in some ways I probably expected our wedding day to be immune to the little quirks that shape our everyday lives.  It wasn’t.  Lots of things that I intended to spend time on were left to the last minute, and our families and friends were always asking questions we probably should have had answers to (like, what time do we need to be there?).  Lucie hemmed her dress after the rehearsal dinner, less than 12 hours before the wedding.  I was trimming our table runners (bought three days prior) that morning, in my wedding dress.  Just like any other day, it was a big event to get everyone in the right place at the right time. 

But it was perfect.

Everyone walked in to “Down to the River to Pray” from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.   My dad walked me down the aisle to the Iron & Wine version of “Such Great Heights.” 

We had chairs, but at the rehearsal the night before it felt exactly right to have everyone standing around us.  So we left the chairs.

Our moms read for us.  First was an excerpt from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, read by my mom:

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your root was so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”

 

Joey’s mom read Ruth 1:16-17:

“But Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave you or return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God; where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.  May the Lord do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you.’”

I was more or less holding it together until Adam (Joey’s best man) sang.  It was perfect.  He sang “Offering” by the Avett Brothers, and it broke everyone up.

 

I’ve thought a lot about how to describe the experience of saying those vows—a lot.  And there’s really no way to convey the hugeness of it.  I think there were times  in the process that I tried to downplay the hugeness—honestly, I was very self-conscious about being one of those girls who gets married straight out of college.  But it was big.  And wonderful.  The stillness and serenity of those moments—it’s something I’m trying hard to imprint onto my memory.  The pictures of our ceremony are wonderful, but they don’t even come close to expressing the joy and certainty I felt.

And then we were married. 

 

Dr. Mowrey tried to send us down the aisle without kissing—we were having none of that!  After the ceremony, we had brunch in the garden.

Adam made us all cry again with his best man speech!  I feel so lucky to be spending my life with someone who is loved by such good, genuine, wonderful friends. 

One of my favorite moments was after Adam’s speech.  Dad looked down to the end of the table and said, “Okay, Isaiah—your turn.”  Everyone played along, and Isaiah was pretty flustered, but he stood up, raised his glass (cup), and said, “Strength to your marriage.”  I think Sammy fed him the line.

It reminded me a lot of the first time our families met—my family came to Charlotte for Joey’s graduation in 2006, and we all went to a favorite restaurant for lunch.  Our server, who’s also one of the restaurant’s owners, convinced Isaiah that she would milk the goat for the goat cheese fritters in the back.  She even took him back into the kitchen to prove it to him!  Isaiah came back in and said, “I thought she was just kidding!  We actually went to milk the goat, but she forgot that it’s Saturday, and the goat goes out to the farm on weekends.”

In lieu of a cake, we all walked a few blocks to Joey and I’s favorite ice cream place. 

  

The day was exactly right for us—simple, intimate, and surrounded in love and sunlight. 

(Our photos were taken by Seth Snider, and you can find more pictures on his website.  There are also a few more on our flickr.)