THE REST OF 2013 (INCLUDING VIETNAM) PART I

Well, this really lowers the bar. I mean, really. It was bad enough when I was blogging in December about things that had happened in August. Now I'm six months behind schedule. That is half-a-year! It's April and I've got to tell you about October. There is, in fact, more to tell of  2013. I'd like to tell you about the rest of last year, after my August holiday in Lombok up until I went home in December. The main focus of the blog post will be Vietnam, since that was the most interesting thing to happen in the 2nd half of 2013, though I will also share a little bit about work and life and going home.

We only had three weeks of school before the two-week August Lebaran break, so it was almost like starting school over again when we came back for Week 4. Overall, I've got to say that everything has been better and smoother this year than last. Last year I was a brand new teacher in a system I didn't understand with minimal guidance and a lot of pressure to perform. I've downplayed the extent of my struggle in the blog, but there were times I seriously considered if I should just go home. I'm glad I didn't, because Year 2 has been loads better. First of all, I have one year of experience under my belt, which is simply necessary to ever move up and on. Second of all, I know the Singapore system (as interpreted by Bina Bangsa) now. Some things are still very frustrating to deal with, but these are not unpleasant surprises, they're just your run-of-the-mill, normal frustrations. I can deal with things, I can cope, and in fact, I can do well. I know how the game is played. Getting through the first year was the key.

So, the school year is progressing pretty well I would say. I am teaching three of the same subjects as last year (4th grade science, 4th grade English, and 5th grade English) but also have two new classes: 3rd grade health and a year-long research project class called Young Investigators (YI) with my 4th graders. 

It's nice that I have the same class of 4th graders for English, science and YI. I've really gotten to know that particular class and form a closer bond with them, which isn't always possible with this school model. I also love the 5th grade English class too because it is a pull-out class with 8 students who particularly struggle in English. I really enjoy working with them. And who can complain about an 8-student class? I get to give them lots of individual attention. Health is easy to teach. There isn't actually enough Health curriculum to last the whole year, so I just extend lessons. A two or three-lesson set about nutrition got turned into the entirety of Term 2 (10 weeks) because I've seen what our kids eat for lunch (noodles, chicken nuggets, hot dogs with mayonnaise, etc.) and I figured this would be worth spending more time on. 

YI is a little bit more challenging, but not too bad, and the 4th grade science is as enjoyable as ever. We just finished our units on Heat and Temperature and The Effects of Heat. These two are probably our most dangerous units because of the activities we do. I always need to boil water in an electric kettle or cool it in the Science Lab fridge. And the first lab of The Effects of Heat has me heating a metal ball over a Bunsen Burner to show that a metal ball will expand when heated and contract when cooled. (It's the old pass the metal ball through a ring, heat it in a fire, it no longer fits through the ring, wow, that's amazing, now let's cool it and look, it magically fits through the ring again. I don't remember doing anything like that in elementary school, but maybe others have.) 

I've been generally lucky, dealing with all this heat and fire, but not so terribly long ago, during Term 3, I was boiling some water in the plastic electric kettle and pouring a bit out into a beaker when the kettle exploded! It was truly frightening because I felt a shock and heard a blast and pivoted away to protect myself instantly. Plastic shards flew across the lab. Some hit me. I burned my thumb and got a decent-sized bruise on my thigh. Fortunately no students were around, I was only doing prep. Another science teacher and a cleaner were the only other ones present. But now I can say I've survived a lab explosion. I hope it's the last time. 

So that's the school situation at the moment. Suffice to say, I think things are going well and I'm happy that I feel myself improving as a teacher. Right now we've got 6 more teaching weeks left in the school year. Week 8 of this term starts year-end exams. No teaching, just exam after exam after exam. (Those poor kids...) 

Leaving school, let's move on to the holidays. 7 weeks after Lebaran and it was already time for term break. For this trip, it was off to Vietnam!

Going to Vietnam for term break was an idea hatched in my mind back in June. I proposed the idea to Aasha, who was on board, so we started planning. A few weeks before we left, Nicole and Claudia (a new teacher this year who has quickly become a friend of mine) were also looking for something after their plans to go to Malaysian Borneo didn't work out. They joined us at the beginning and end of the Vietnam trip, which was from 4 October to 13 October. Aasha and I were also joined by Aasha's boyfriend, Dipesh, who's from London and has an insane number of Indonesian visa-on-arrivals in his passport (he's travelled with Aasha a few times before for term breaks. They met online and their first "date" was going to Thailand together! I don't know how he manages to make it over here so often.) 

This trip involved a whole lot of plane travel since it was the most efficient way to see all the parts of Vietnam we wanted to in 9 days (which really wasn’t enough to do it justice; might have to go back someday.) We flew to Singapore on Friday night and slept in the airport. Fortunately, Changi airport in Singapore is just about the nicest airport you could hope to kill time at. Turns out it’s true that armed guards patrol at night and ask to see your boarding passes. If it turns out you’re just crashing and have no onward flight, you get caned on the spot. Just kidding. But that part about armed guards is true. 

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City the next morning. (For anyone who cares about these things, Ho Chi Minh City is the new name of Saigon.) My first impression of Vietnam was that it is not as spotless as Singapore, but not as littered as Indonesia, making it... fairly normal. Our arrival was smooth. Fortunately we had prearranged our visas. Vietnam is one of the few countries in SE Asia that doesn’t offer visas on arrival for US citizens. We just so happened to run into a friend from another campus at the HCMC airport. He was also spending break in Vietnam, but had neglected to get approval ahead of time and ended up paying an outrageous amount for a rushed visa. We didn’t stay in HCMC but got a connecting flight to Da Nang, which is in central Vietnam. 

At the Da Nang airport someone from our hotel picked us up and drove us to Hoi An, a town next to Da Nang. Da Nang is more industrial and has resorts and an airport. Hoi An has a smaller, quainter, more cultural feel. It reminded me a lot of Chang Mai in Thailand. Both places were beautiful, charming, and relaxed. After checking in to the hotel, we walked around and found dinner. I was totally psyched to eat authentic Vietnamese food. It’s one of my favourite cuisines and I always love eating Vietnamese food in Minnesota. I figured it would be even better from the source! Sadly the pork and noodle dish didn't sit too well with me. I’m not too used to the fatty pork and my stomach was pretty suspicious of it. That didn't stop me from trying new (different) foods after that however.

We were completely enchanted during our walk around Hoi An that night. The city comes alive at night. The old quarter is really meant for walking and the streets are lit by a rainbow array of Chinese lanterns. There was late night dining and night-markets and cute little kids dressed in traditional clothing selling little candle boats to float down the river. Their overwhelming cuteness is a marketing ploy of course, but it worked on us. We got some info on a cooking class for the next day before exploring the night markets and heading back to the hotel. Nicole and Claudia had arrived by that time and we saw them at the front desk just as we were coming back. We all decided on the cooking class for the next day.

Our cooking class took us on a market tour to pick up the ingredients we would need. I guess it wasn't the first time I had seen a wet market, but I loved it all the same. It was interesting to see the women binding the claws of live crabs with bits of plant-fiber string. Then it was back to cook up some delicious Vietnamese food. The thing I learnt about Vietnamese cooking is that it’s the fresh ingredients that make all the difference. Without super-fresh ingredients, the food wouldn’t be the same at all. We made a "mother-in-law" soup (meant to impress said relative with your culinary skills), a special sort of pancake, chicken, and green mango salad (the last was probably my favourite.)

After our cooking class, we walked around and explored the city, including an ancient Chinese bridge and lots of little shops. Something I noticed which really surprised me when I got to Vietnam was that people really, legitimately, wear those conical hats. A lot. I always figured these were such a stereotypical piece of clothing that nobody really wore them in everyday life, but it’s simply not true. They’re everywhere, which is awesome. Nicole and I tried to take a picture of two women in conical hats carrying fruit baskets, but of

course they saw us. Next thing we knew, we were being made to put on said hats, carry said fruit baskets, have our picture taken and pay the women five bucks. Crafty old ladies. Well, that’s what we get for trying to sneak photos of them. (FYI, those baskets they carry on the yokes over their shoulders are really heavy!) Besides making tasty food, my other accomplishment for the day was the purchase of two light-weight, hand-made shirts, perfect for travel. Tailor shops are everywhere in Vietnam. I almost regret not getting something tailor-made, like a dress or pair of shorts. Still, I was pretty pleased with the shirts. (I did make a quick trip to a roadside tailor though to get the straps on my backpack mended.)

For our 3rd day in Vietnam, Nicole, Claudia, Dipesh, Aasha and I hired a driver through our hotel who took us to the ancient site of My Son. Yes, it's really called My Son (or, Mỹ Sơn) though I don't think it's pronounced just like that. After ambling over our first ruins we heard music and found a traditional dance performance going in a shelter area. The rest of the ruins were well populated with tourists, though it wasn't overwhelming. The ruins are mostly temples clustered by date and style and location and are made of crumbling red brick. I saw some of the same interlocking block features that I have seen at Borobudur and Prambanan. The setting of My Son is also very beautiful, with rolling green hills all around. I also enjoyed seeing some of the information placards in French. (Turns out my French professors weren't exaggerating: there is actually a noticeable French influence in the former colony.) We also saw our first references to the Vietnam War (called the American War in Vietnam.) Namely, big craters in the ground where explosives fell. It was sobering, but nothing compared to the things we were going to learn about later.

The second part of the day was spent at Marble Mountains, a truly breathtaking place where huge, beautiful Buddhist statues have been carved into the caves of mountainy-hills. Our journey took us at a leisurely pace for a couple of hours, climbing up and into the hills on winding, stony paths. Alters and statues surprised us as we turned corners and climbed hills. The first temple we saw was pretty building with a very big, white Buddha statue. I snapped away at my camera, admiring it. Turns out this was nothing in comparison to what we were about to see. Tucked away inconspicuously along the path was a small detour to the right, leading under a low-hanging rock. Following it we discovered a rough-hewn temple in... Well imagine a forest clearing where light pours in around a thick circle of surrounding trees. It was like that, but made of rock. A... clearing in the rock. The stone rose up on all sides, but not in the middle. Around this clearing were a few caves with large statues set back in dark recesses. One statue in particular took my breath away. I suppose I use that phrase, "breathtaking" quite a lot. But here it's totally justified! It was the effect of seeing such a beautiful, tall statue set back in such a quiet, unassuming spot. Just waiting for you to turn the corner and find it. Light was streaming in from an opening in the rock high above. It was heavenly. And I don't mean delightful. I mean heaven-like.

As we made our way, we continued upon statues, shrines and alters. Some paths lead up rather sheer hills, but the views from the top were worth it. We also ambled up some caves. We entered one where a small hole led to an exit on top of that cave. (It was sort of like a hollow hill, in some ways.) Nicole and I found we could shimmy through it, and ended up in a secret kind of spot where no tourists were. We wandered out to a small lookout perch and enjoyed the view all to ourselves. Eventually we decided we should probably rejoin the others. The view of the hills and Da Nang and the sea was beautiful though. Most surprisingly, there were cacti growing on the hills! I kid you not.

The highlight of the Marble Mountains came towards the end of our hike however. An unassuming path led to a huge cave that even made those that had come before it seem lacking. Let me use a nerdy sort of reference: imagine from the Lord of the Rings movies the great, cavernous halls of the dwarf kings, towering pillars carved from raw rock to make a huge, lofty arena. That's sort of what this was like. No pillars, but instead, some alters and shrines set around a spacious, cool, damp, dim cave. Most breathtaking of all was an enormous Buddha sitting serenely in the towering wall of the cavernous cave. And he looked so... peaceful. As if he had merely plopped down in a quiet, cool spot, away from the noise and light of the world to meditate and reflect. I wondered how in the world anyone had ever carved such a thing in so remote and tricky a spot and yet it looked so utterly natural. It had the weird effect of looking small and distant, and at the same time, unmistakably gigantic. Imposing, yet calm. The center of attention, but undemanding in its attention, as if you had just happened to come across him, quietly keeping to himself in his secret spot. I could have stood there all day, drinking in the sight, and still not have gotten tired of pondering that statue. I'm putting in a picture to give an idea of what it looked like, but it doesn't do it justice. At all. (Sadly my camera had died at this time, so I've only got pictures from other people.

Of all the steep hills, lovely temples and towering statues we saw that day, nothing else - in my opinion - compared to the giant Buddha in the cave. I really think, and hope, that image will be sealed in my mind. We made our way down the hills, through the marble-ware shops (bought a statue for my parents; it broke in transit home in December... boo!) and met our driver.

That night we went back to our favourite restaurant, Morning Glory, for more glorious Vietnamese food. Since I don't always have a big appetite (despite loving food,) I didn't order anything. Instead I just got a plate and everyone gave me a bit of their food and I chipped in a fair amount at the end. I think I got the best deal of the night that way. The next morning there was a little time to walk around Hoi An one last time before Aasha, Dipesh and I went to the airport to fly to Hanoi. I walked around for a bit by myself.

As I meandered, I knew I was headed in the direction of the market, but approaching it from a different angle. I ended up in an area that was chock full of locals eating lunch. I only saw two or three other tourists at all. I wanted to take pictures, and I did, but felt a little funny, the Westerner snapping away at townspeople as if they were exotic animals at the zoo. I mean, I was more subtle than that obviously, but I felt compelled to at least buy and eat some rambutans to make up for the picture taking. And then I thought, well why not eat lunch here too? This was one of my proudest accomplishments: sitting down and ordering chicken rice like a pro, wielding chopsticks like a local, finishing my plate, and walking away with not so much as a hint of suspicion or unrest in the digestive tract. Street food conquered!

After lunch, followed by a coffee and a pastry at a French cafe (sigh... the memories of such good food...) we headed to the airport, only to find that our flight was delayed by three hours. It used to be at one point in my life, I cherished every time I got to go to an airport for the promise of an exciting journey ahead. And that feeling still exists for me, but given the amount of time I just spend sitting in airports on terribly long layovers and delays (and the delays on the budget airlines are frequent, almost regular)... I spend so much time sitting in airports! (*Cough! First-world-problems! Cough!*) On the plus side, we met two girls from Australia with whom we chatted and exchanged travel notes. Might not see them ever again, but we are friends on Facebook now. Funny how that works.

Once we (finally) landed in Hanoi we met our driver at the arrival gate. (I've learnt that hotel pick-up is a wonderful thing. Many hotels seem willing to do it for a very reasonable price and it's nice not to have to worry about finding your hotel in a new city.) Our hotel was a great find. We had only planned as far as Hoi An, and were using my new mini-tablet and the computer at our old hotel to find and book our new flights and hotels. This one was tucked away on a modest but busy street only a few minutes from the main backpackers' area. And it had hot water and a bathtub and comfy beds and everything!

That night we discussed options with the hotel manager for going on an excursion to Halong Bay (the main reason we went to Hanoi in the first place.) We pored over options, including one boat called the Imperial Junk (a name that always makes me giggle.) In the end we decided not to get up and leave early the next morning after having only arrived in Hanoi around midnight; instead we explored Hanoi the next day and went to Halong Bay the day after.

Hanoi is a bustling, crazy city. It is an almost impossibly perfect melange of people in traditional conical hats on bicycles, pushing carts and carrying wares on yokes mixed with even more motorbikes than Jakarta (who would've thought that was possible?) cars, taxis and pedestrians. In Hanoi, the streets bustle and teem with life. In Jakarta, they just bustle and teem with vehicles. In Jakarta, the cars are on the streets and the people stay in the kampung or at the mall. In Hanoi, and HCMC as well, the street is the most important social sphere. This makes walking around a terrifying, exhilarating, personal experience. In Jakarta, the traffic is never ending, but if you boldly stick out your hand you can halt traffic and cross the street. In Vietnam, the traffic doesn't slow down for you ever. They merely swerve around you. There is no good time to cross the road in Vietnam. You will stand there forever deciding when to cross. You just have to close your eyes and take the first step (except don't actually close your eyes.) As for the social aspect, people seem to live their lives on the streets. I'm not sure if dining rooms exist in Vietnam. Everyone seems to eat on the street at low tables, sitting in low chairs. From evening well into night-time, everyone and their mother (and their children and their cousins and their uncles and their friends and their uncles' mothers' cousins' friends) are out on the street.

On our day out and about in Hanoi, we saw a temple in a lake, walked up and down the streets, stopped for some cheap, "fresh" beer (that's just what it's called) and went following some mysterious rumor about a "Dim Sum Market" which turned out to be total bogus (some sort of miscommunication there.) We ran into another traveller on our fruitless dim sum quest who was also wandering around. He was an architect from Winnipeg who was working and travelling at the same time. We decided to all have lunch together. Unfortunately I can't remember his name but I recall he was a nice, funny guy. I have found that 99% of travellers you meet on the road are.

After lunch, we visited the Temple of Literature. This temple is set in a Chinese garden and was a pretty interesting place to check out. There are large stelea with Chinese inscriptions set around the perimeter of the garden. A placard tells you you are looking at "The Doctor's Stelea." *Cocks the head, raises the eyebrow...* The Doctor's Stelea? Well, obviously this points to the mischief of Time Lords. But then again, should we be so surprised that the Doctor has been intervening in medieval Vietnam? I think not.

We visited the National  Museum of Fine Arts for 30 minutes before it closed and, failing to get a taxi back, ending up taking a loooong walk back to our hotel. (Passed a mannequin souk - that was creepy...) The night ended with going to a water puppet show. There was a series of short stories told with half-human-sized puppets controlled from underneath a layer of water set to music played by a traditional orchestra. The best was when puppets - sometimes fish, or a phoenix - would suddenly pop out of the water and start splashing around.

And... you know what? I'm feeling really tired and this blog has been a huge undertaking because I write so damn much, so I'm just stopping for tonight. Anyway, I'm sorry I'm so bad at blogging. I actually enjoy blogging but it always takes time. That's the darn thing. So when I next continue this tale, it will be to tell about Halong Bay, Ho Chi Minh City, and going home for Christmas. And then I'll be done with 2013! Stay tuned.