Back to Reality

I'm sitting in an empty house desperately waiting - in fact, counting the minutes, until I can head down to the train station to meet my good friend Ryan (one of my bridesmaids).  I have the Workman family house to myself this weekend.  The parents are on a weekend away together and Simon is down in London for his bachelor/stag party.  This will be the first (face-to-face) contact I will have had with a female friend in months!  And an even longer time since I had 'girl time!'  We are planning to do nothing more than cook at home, watch a girly movie and drink wine.  I personally cannot think of a better date!

These last couple weeks, since arriving in England, have felt like a heck of a lot longer than the 2 weeks they've been!  We are struggling a bit.  We're coming down off of an extremely intense high of traveling for 10 months (!) and are now living stagnant, unimpressive days on end.   Of course it's hard - impossible really - to beat waking in a new town or even country every morning and looking forward to adrenaline that comes with exploring a new world.  SE Asia was incredible.  All of our travels were.  I feel like I just graduated from an intense graduate school program.  The knowledge, the compassion and understanding for different cultures, and the appreciation of other ways of living that I gained during my travels is priceless.

We sit and wait now, for our next adventure.  We have a one-month gym membership at the local fitness center which is helping get us out of the house and stay a bit active, but aside from that, we have little to do.  I have contacted numerous volunteer organizations but none have shown any interest in our help.

Luckily, our next adventure is not far off.  We are getting married in just 3 months, which is so exciting!  And we start graduate study at the University of York (in England) in October.  We will both be working towards our masters - mine in Social Policy, Simon's in Public Policy.  Our plan is to complete these 12-month programs in October 2012 and then move back to the States to look for jobs.

Since we have so many fun things coming up, we have decided to keep the blog going so that we can continue to share our lives with you.  For the next couple months you'll probably be hearing about nothing but the wedding, so prepare yourselves!  We're both having a great time planning for it, and we will most certainly want to share both the excitement and the struggles of the planning process!

Journeys end: Heading to the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Vietnam: Beaches galore!

We like Vietnam.  But for both of us, it was the country we 'connected' with the least.  We were not as entranced by the natural beauty as in Laos, welcomed by the locals as in Cambodia, nor fascinated by the Buddhist values, customs, and beliefs as in Thailand.

What Vietnam did offer though was a loooong coast, home to some beautiful beaches (and some not so beautiful!). Much of our stay consisted of lounging around on sun loungers, absorbing the suns rays, and splashing around in the warm waters of the South China Sea.

Hoi An, a World Heritage Site, was our favorite town.  It is home to over 100 tailor shops sitting door-to-door on a narrow cobble-stone-like street.  The small streets remind me of those in Prague, and the center of the Old Town does not allow car access.  Therefore the main street is always bustling with tourists, many of whom have come to have clothing made at insanely discounted prices.  I noticed a dress hanging in a store window, inquired, got measured, picked out fabric and had a beautifully made dress waiting for me 24-hours later!  All for 20 bucks!  Once we got shopping out of our system, Si and I rented bikes and peddled the 20 mins to a beautiful beach, with comfy chairs, clear blue water, and white sand.  The town and the beach were excellent and I recommend it to everyone!

Nha Trang is advertised as the beach town that has everything to offer.  Although I would disagree with that (there was NO shopping!) we did find another great beach, comfy chairs (oh so important!), a woman who gave excellent massages on the beach, and tasty fresh seafood.  We stayed for 4 days which was hardly enough, but eventually tore ourselves away from the sun and sand keeping in mind that we had our last and final beach to come.

I wish we had stayed in Nha Trang!  Our last stop before heading back to Saigon was in Mui Ne.  It is the closest beach to Saigon, and we had heard it was a great place to take a break from the bustle of the city.   I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.  Aside from a sunset walk on the beach, we never touched the sand.  There was hardly a beach, the sand was littered with trash, and at low tide there were literally 100s of jellyfish left lounging on shore.  This is a great beach for kite surfing, but for those that want to chill, no way.  There werent even chairs set up along the beach.  Expensive resorts provided their own, but had them set on concrete above the beach.  Lame.  Si and I decided to splash out a bit and get a nice hotel that had a huge pool.  Despite our disappointment in the beach, we spent 3 days lounging by the pool which was wonderful.   We also visited the famous white sand dunes, 40kms from Mui Ne, where local children sell tourists sheets of plastic that are used to 'ride'/'slide' down the steep hills of sand.  It was a blast riding down, but so so hard to climb back up.  Sand can create a very hard workout!

Heading back to Saigon to get ready to fly back, was mixed with excitement and dread.  We were both looking forward to getting back to the western world and planning our big day (August 27th!!!), but also very sad to leave a part of the world that we grew to love so much!

So, I want to apologize in advance for the extreme jealousy you must be feeling after seeing our golden tans, but in case you're not feeling quite bad enough yet, here are a few more!!! :)

A Break from the Heat in the Midst of the Mountains

For us, Vietnam has basically amounted to a long stretch of beaches, but our one and final inland spot was in a beautiful town called Dalat. The name is derived from one of the largest local 'minority tribes' in the area, Lat. We learned about this group from our tour guides on a beautiful 1-day trek up to three peaks in the area. One of the peaks is the highest in the southern part of Vietnam, reaching an elevation 2,160 ft. We learned that most of the minority tribes in the area migrated from northern Vietnam (near the capital, Hanoi) after the 'American'/Vietnam War. These tribes were struggling to survive under harsh living conditions in the north and were offered a lot of land for farming, in addition to some 'start-up' money if they were willing to relocate their families south. This was the government's attempt to re-allocate its people to all parts of the country in order to repopulate areas damaged by war and to establish resistance and support where it was lost.

Each minority tribe brought with them specifc skills. Most were farmers, some experts in coffee and tea plantation, others for flowers and crops. We visited a variety of these farms on an additional tour, where we learned that Vietnam is the second highest exporter in coffee after Brazil and is also one of the front-runners in floral, tea, and silk exportation. We visited an incredible silk farm, where production begins with a natural coccoon made by silk worms that produce over 300 yards of silk string. 

The town in general was nothing special, although it is a popular place for Vietnamese honeymooners. It is expeditions to the farms and surrounding land that people are drawn to Dalat to visit. We saw some beautiful sights during our visit, some exceptional pagodas and big Buddha statues as well, and were also able to enjoy a break from the unbearable heat along the shore in a place where the daytime heat never went above 20 degrees and dropped to close to 10 degrees in the evening!

BEST PIC EVER!  ...thats my sweetheart! :)

Vietnam: Hanoi to Hue - Cooling down

After our grueling 24 hour bus ride from Laos, we spent 4 days chilling out in the Vietnamese capital of  Hanoi.  We found a great guesthouse that included a computer and free internet!  unfortunately it also had a gap in the window letting in small moths every evening, leading me to prance around the room on a killing spree, leaving decapitated bodies and moth wings strewn across the room.  My mania only abated when I smashed my hand into the light shade, sending shardes of glass across the room...oops!

Two big things we immediately noticed on arriving back in Vietnam.  First, the traffic... we had almost forgotten just how crazy it was here and how much courage you need to cross the road each time!  Secondly, the weather.  After the 40°C sauna of Laos, the cool  20°C that welcomed us in Hanoi was a real relief.  Unfortunately, this temperature also bought some very drizzly very British-esque rain with it for the second two days of our stay. 

  

Hanoi being the capital of Vietnam, we made an effort to see some of the big sites, as well as taking our time wandering around the city.  The most interesting site we visited was Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum.  Despite his known wish to be cremated, after his death in 1969 Ho Chi Minh was preserved and put on display in the capital city (apart from a 3 month 'vacation' each year to Russia for 'touching up'!).  Every day, thousands of visitors line up to file respectfully through the room where his body lays, surrounded by guards, with eerie lighting and the sound of shuffling feet.  It was quite a bizarre experience - his face is everywhere in this country, so to actually see his real dead body lying in the room was quite a site.

The other highlight of Hanoi was visiting the prison where US POW's were interned during the Vietnam War.  Known as the "hanoi hilton" back home, Hoa Lo Prison was previously used by the French colonialists to house revolutionaries.  It was interesting to see the part of the prison that has been preserved where the US POW's were kept, including John McCain, whose original flight suit they have on display.  The prison also included some interesting propaganda from the Vietnamese, showing pictures of the US prisoners leading 'happy' lives and notes about how well looked after they were...

From Hanoi we started our decent south through Vietnam.  First stop was Hue, about 550 km away, and we decided on a long overdue break from the buses, opting instead for the overnight sleeper train.  Splashing out for the a/c soft bunks, we boarded our train at 7pm and settled into our cosy bunks, along with two Vietnamese guys up top.  We had a little table and a good view out the window so a huge improvement on our previous experience with the sleeper bus.  Settling down for the night, we put up the table and started playing cards, until i caught something scuttling out of the corner of my eye... after a closer look, yes, there it was again, a mouse!  I guess you can't have it all... what a fun life those mice must live, traveling up and down Vietnam on the train.  Apart from being a little bit creepy, our recurrent visitor didnt cause us too many problems... although i did make sure to check inside my shoes before I put them on in the morning.  Even descending south, the weather stayed pretty wet and miserable, ruining the possibility of a beautiful sunrise from the train.  Despite the mice and the rain though, it was pretty cool to wake up on the morning of my 27th birthday in a Vietnamese sleeper train!

It's MY birthday!!!

So my birthday was spent exploring the city of Hue, which was the former imperial capital of Vietnam.  There was not a great deal to do, but being home to to the Nguyễn Dynasty (who ruled from 1802 to 1945, when the Emperor Bao Dai abdicated in favor of Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary government) we were good tourists and headed across the river to explore the remains of the palaces, which were interesting enough, especially considering they were still in use with a real Emperor as recently as 65 years ago.   After a lovely birthday dinner at the local Indian restaurant (we needed a change from Asian!) we packed up and got ready for our early start the next day to head further south, to finally get some better weather and find a beach!