Busy, busy.

About a month ago, Joey and I booked a trip to the lovely town of Hoi An.  It was one of my favorites on the JBIP trip in 2008, and both of us are in need of some new clothes (Hoi An is famous for its many, many tailors).  At that time we were both about at the end of our ropes.  Since the last time the school was closed (for one day) in April, we’ve worked more or less non-stop, six days a week.  We were super burnt out and a little desperate to get out of this town for a while, so we booked a trip for as soon as seemed reasonable—the end of the month.  Between then and now, however, things got surprisingly busy outside of work: two visits, one beach trip, and two extra days off…

Two weeks ago we went to the beach in celebration of a friend and co-worker’s birthday.  It was a characteristically Vietnamese trip, which means the transportation was uncomfortable and very indirect, time spent on the actual beach was minimal, we made two trips to cafes, and were back home within 24 hours. :)

We were in Bien Hoa just long enough for Joey to teach an important class Tuesday morning, then hopped back on the bus for our first trip to Saigon that week.  We had a wonderful visit with the Beattys, and again, were back in Bien Hoa within 24 hours.

This time we slept in our own bed for a few nights before I left for Saigon again, this time to meet up with Brekke and her lovely friend Sara.  We spent the evening wandering around the city before they returned to Cambodia the next morning.

I made it back to Bien Hoa just in time to enjoy an extra two days off while a group from the school traveled to Mui Ne (a trip full of kids we politely declined to go on).  I spent most of that time sitting on the balcony (with a fan pointed straight at me, naturally) reading or sleeping.  It was lovely.

After less than a full week of work, we’re leaving this morning for Hoi An, where we’ll be staying halfway between the beach and old town center.  It feels a little ridiculous to be going away again, given the amount of class time we’ve missed lately, but I’m sure they’ll survive without us….

I’ll be back soon with pictures and a recap!

The Great Unknown

Our plans for next year are largely up in the air, but I can give you an idea of what we do know.  Our contract at the school runs until the middle of December, and includes airfare home.  We expect to leave around December 17th, probably flying into New York.  My parents will pick us up at the airport, and we’ll have about a week with them in PA.  On Christmas Day they’ll drive us to WV to spend a week with Joey’s family there.  Then we’ll head to Charlotte for New Year’s, and probably Atlanta after that to see my aunt.  Assuming we know where we’re going next (which is sort of a big “if” at the moment), we’ll fly out of Atlanta for our next destination.

The big question, obviously, is where.  And the truth is that we don’t have a clue right now.  Joey really wants to find an international non-profit/NGO to work with, so that’s sort of how we’ll make our decision.  I plan to continue teaching English, which there are opportunities for pretty much everywhere.  The problem is that five months out, there isn’t a whole lot we can do.  Additionally, there isn’t really any easy resource to connect with loads of possibilities.  Joey checks Idealist pretty regularly, and has found a few other regionally specific sites, but nothing super promising.  So if you happen to have any connections, we would really appreciate it!

A few months ago I would have said that we’ll definitely spend another year somewhere in SE Asia.  It’s been really difficult deciding where to travel, and there are a bunch of places we really want to see that we couldn’t fit in this year: Australia, India and the Philippines especially.  After our second year, we would ship the majority of our stuff home, then head to China for a few days before taking the Trans-Siberian Railway from Bejing to Moscow, via Mongolia.  We’d take our time through Europe, and probably fly to the US from London. 

That will still be the plan if we end up somewhere in Asia next year, but where we go will really depend on what we can find for Joey.  We both loved Malaysia and Thailand when we were there, and Indonesia is a possibility, too.  But there are so many other possibilities—Joey’s been talking about Turkey lately, and I keep finding myself looking into Morocco.  We both love the idea of Argentina.  So who knows!

What I can say is that neither of us are ready to be back in the US, starting “real” careers and grown-up lives.  There’s too much we want to see and experience before we’ll be ready for that. 

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!