Christmas in Cambodia

There is only one day of the whole year where I can accurately say I've been in the same place, with the same people and eaten the same dinner for the last 26 years. That changed this year. Instead of sitting down to a massive turkey and ham dinner on the 25th December and having an argument about what to watch on TV, I had some Khmer food in a tiny Cambodian village and ended the evening drinking beer and rice wine on the roof of our school. I was a bit sad to be away from my family but it will be a Christmas week I'll remember forever even though we worked on Christmas Day. Actually at my most homesick this week, a little girl from my beginner class gave me a present of chocs. It made my heart melt because she said she was sad I wasn't getting any presents from my family this year. Children are so thoughtful sometimes. Below is a pic of her gift to me...after I ate the snacks....

As part of our school year here at SCAO we threw a Christmas Celebration for the students just to treat them and have a bit of fun. The party started at 11.30 on Friday morning and went on until 6.30 the same evening. I have to give ourselves a good pat on the back; it was epic. We had a good schedule of events starting off with the obligatory speeches, giving out some food and snacks, dancing, games, more dancing, a singing competition and then even more dancing. I have no idea where the kids got their energy from. They danced from almost noon to 6.30 and we had to shut the music off, they didn't want to go home. But the best part of the day for the whole school was the singing competition. You couldn't pay an Irish child to get up in front of their whole school to sing a song but these kids signed up with such enthusiasm it made me dizzy. We told them a week in advance about the competition and they had to sign up with their names and a particular song. We then divided them into four different categories, X-Factor style of course, 7-11, 11-14, 14+ and duets and they sang their hearts out. Us as volunteers were given different categories to judge. I had the 11-14 group, much to my relief because the 7-11 group had about 10 different versions of BINGO and Twinkle-Twinkle to go through. It was amazing and the whole contest lasted at least 2 1/2 hours. We also had a little Xmas present for them, we gave each student toothbrushes and toothpaste. And then apart from that we just went crazy dancing. At one point I saw two of our tiny pre school students doing all the actions to the 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' song. I couldn't believe it because they wouldn't do it for us in class. Little feckers. All in all an absolutely fantastic day for everyone. 

The pic below is of the preschoolers before we opened the gates for the Xmas party. Too cute. 

The day before the Christmas celebration we were scheduled to give our students an exam. I had two classes to make tests for and even though it cost me an extra two hours in prep work I made two versions of my exams. I'm such an asshole. I made them appear to look the same but slightly different. I did it to see the panic in their eyes when they couldn't copy from their neighbor. It was brilliant. Overall they went well but there were some surprising observations. There are two girls in my class, one extremely chatty and one quiet. The chatty one I expected to pass with flying colors but her grammar was awful. The quiet one I thought had a pretty low level of English but her grammar exam was graded at 100%. Just goes to show that there isn't one way to gauge intelligence of a language. I will be rethinking my approach for the next round of exams in January..

Other notable items from this week:

- Myself and Sophie went to the next village over to see the Buddhist centre of Cambodia. We ate street food we should have died from. Was a good day. 

- We had an origami class from the monks. Took an hour and a half for me to learn to make a swan. 

- A preschooler peed on the Buddhist altar in the school. 

- Another preschooler peed on the floor. A volunteer walked in it. 

- Our resident 2 year old peed on the bathroom floor. His dad walked in it. 

- We ate another volunteers chocolate that was sent over from his grandad. In fairness, he left it in the fridge with no note on it. 

- I spent an hour hand washing clothes only for them to stink of the local water. Couldn't wear any of them. 

Right now I'm having a really nice coffee in Battambang in the north west of Cambodia. I've a week off due to New Years and myself and another volunteer headed out of the village for a couple days but this will have to written about in a couple of days. But safe to say I'm loving this city a whole lot more than Phnom Penh. 

By the way, rice wine is evil and pretty sure it would be more at home in the tank of motorbike than in a human body. Never again.

Hair-cuts and House Building

Friday evening. Such a nice part of the week. I love it here in the school but there is a certain feeling of achievement when it gets to Friday evening and the teaching is done till Monday. This week was a good one. We started it off by saying goodbye to two volunteers and then welcoming two new ones into the family. I have to admire the set-up of the school in this regard, the turnaround of teachers is so high it's an amazing thing to be able to foster learning and progress regardless. One consequence of the new volunteers was that I had to give away one class to the new volunteers. I gave up the preschool class even though I love their little souls and all the crazy noise they make. Without really thinking about it I found myself this morning in the middle of the class singing along to 'Bingo' and doing all the exaggerated gestures. Cecile, the head teacher of the pre-school class, was laughing and asked if I missed the little faces. I really miss them. 

I had a hair cut this week. I've went the last three months without so much as blow drying my hair so when a student of the upstairs hair and beauty class asked if I wanted my hair done I thought 'why not?' I had to laugh at myself. I've refused point blank in the past to get my hair cut at hairdressing academies back in Ireland and Holland but here I was in rural Cambodia, where I don't speak the local language, getting my gruaig cut by students. I needn't have worried though, the cut turned out fine and my hair is much happier and healthier. It was the crimping that didn't suit me. Actually, the cut turned out so good in fact that Cecile, who I mentioned above, had her hair cut today as well. I think I'll stop by more often.

Fridays at the school are not ordinary Fridays. Here they are Creative Fridays where we try to think outside the box for our lessons. This can either lift a volunteers heart or strike fear into the body of those who relaxed a little too much on a Thursday evening. This week I had it sorted. After a tough week of introducing the family members to ABC beginners by use of 'The Monkey Family' my creative Friday task was building a house for them. It's possible that I was a teeny bit more excited than the class was, having spent a good four hours preparing for a one hour class. I pre-prepared a lot of the materials, the vine floor, the banana wallpaper, the bamboo walls and the 'timber' roof. Let's be honest here, all the students had to do was color all the bits and pieces and glue a few things together. In the end I was happy and they were happy, so a big win-win all round.

So now it's Friday evening and I'm relaxing with two other volunteers watching a movie. I said in my last post that we were challenged with the all night blaring of music from a local funeral. Well, this week we had the 7 day memorial from last weeks funeral and also two more funerals starting today. Not to make fun of another cultures customs but it's quite interesting trying to steer classes with three different loudspeakers blaring music and speeches all day. Not to mention trying to sleep at night. Why all the funerals? The temperature dropped quite suddenly the last week. I know it's quite common at home in Europe for elderly and infirm people to pass away with extremes of weather but here the temperature 'dropped' to about 20 degrees. It's almost unthinkable for me to hear people died because of the 'cold' at 20 degrees. It's really strange. This means that music blares all night when the person dies for three days, then again after 7 days, 30 days, 100 days and 300 days and then every year after that. Basically music just blares all the time, day and night, in Cambodia. A nice idea. In theory. 

Life in Som Roung

Where to start on the last ten days, I just don't know. I've had great, satisfying classes where I felt the students gained a lot. Then I've had one or two tough classes. It's getting easier. I'm gaining a technique or probably just getting better at robbing the other volunteers techniques. One or the other. 

Generally life in the village is good. It's so much more preferable than being in Phnom Penh. We had a day off there last Tuesday and myself and my new roommate, Sophie, stayed in the village. We took the schools bikes and cycled round the village and out into the rice fields. We did freak ourselves out thinking about snakes emerging from the flooded fields, a totally valid fear since a cobra was found outside the school during the week. When we got back to the village we were met by a few children playing outside. One enterprising boy made a drum out of scrap and was belting out the beats. A few of the others had old Buddha masks and we all had a little dance. One of the best days I've had in Asia so far I think. 

And then I was introduced to Cambodian culture last Friday night with a rude awakening. Literally. I stayed behind in the village Friday night to catch up on some sleep but at about one in the morning the whole house was shaken awake with a loudspeaker blaring out local music and such. So strange. I didn't know what was happening. After a while it faded out but not for long til it started up again at around 4. I went down for breakfast at 8 and was laughing about the music. Well, I was laughing until I was told it was a funeral and playing music all night is a way to honour the dead. Awkward. 

Last week we also had our first tablet lesson! So the school has wifi (I've been online more than off the whole time I've been in Asia) but a couple weeks back 14 tablets were donated to the school. The intention is that we lead the students in self learning. We hand picked 14 students across all age groups to attend the first few weeks of classes to see how we structure this. The first classes were great but unfortunately we had to cancel towards the end of the week because we couldn't get all tablets to connect successfully to the wifi. It's a pity but we should sort it out this week and then on we go again. 

And then the last word on the last couple of days is this, the inevitable has happened. I had to visit the doctor. Before I came to Asia I never ever felt the need to talk about any toilet habits. However, here in Cambodia, it's the main topic of the day. All day. Everyday. The doctor told me plainly I'd eaten something dirty and have a lovely intestinal bacterial infection. And that's not all folks, I've probably got a nice little tropical parasite to boot! Not to worry, it happens to everyone and easily fixed. I just hope I never have another day in my life where I have 26 'successful' visits to the bathroom. One for every year I've been on this earth. Below is a pic of all the medicine myself and another volunteer were given to fix ourselves. It was either that or go on a drip for 3 hours. 

That's about it for the moment, just a short and sweet round up. This weekend I'm planning on staying in the village, avoiding Phnom Penh and getting ready for Christmas here in Cambodia. 

Week No. 2

My second week at the school has flown by. The days are action packed with something happening all the time but being a teacher is not easy. I only have a few classes a day and between planning ahead, preparing myself, doing the class, evaluating, evening activities, meetings, etc, l am exhausted. 

I'm starting to settle into a routine now. My teaching day begins at 11am when we take in about 25 local children for preschool hour. This is a new thing in the school but I can already see how successful it is. For example, one little boy called Visa, aged three, was afraid to come into the school on his first day and didn't want to talk to the other children. Now he struts around the school yard like he owns the place, has a best friend he can't live without and has acquired a few necessary English words. Young children are amazing. They just soak up information without realizing it. I don't think they understand just yet that the words we teach them aren't what their parents use and yet they repeat everything you throw at them. The best part of my week was making hats with them. We got some scraps of paper, got the kids to color them, folded the papers into little sailor hats and popped them on their heads. I didn't think the hats would last long but they loved them! It would melt any cold heart to see the smiles on their faces. Well, maybe until it's playtime and you see they've all built guns from the Lego blocks and are taking immense pleasure at the thought of killing 'teeeecha'. We also showed them the intro to the Lion King to have a look at all the animals. They went bananas.

From 12-1 I assist a beginners class with another volunteer. This is the toughest class of the day. It's tough mostly because the children are loud, a bit unruly and there's a bit of an age gap between younger and older. And then of course there's the customary group of pre-teen 'lads' down the back that are just too cool. It's funny, you can go all around the world and no matter what, teenagers will always be teenagers. Anyway, this class is hard to manage but they are impressive in their learning capacity. Despite the howling laughter, students trying to crawl on the floor, minor arguments and constant chatter they all seem to know the answer to the question even before you've asked it yourself. I admire every single student in this class but combined they are a nightmare. 

I hate to say it but the class at 2-3 is the stuff of a teachers dream. They are quiet(ish), fun, eager, full of personality and not afraid of doing new things. Last week I got to see them read their first English book. It's a huge deal for a 7 year old to learn a whole new alphabet and remember a complex system of new sounds, not only to memorize but to be able to take meaning from the words too. I wasn't able to do it when I was 7 with Irish so I have huge admiration for them. I'm looking forward to seeing their progress over the next two months.

My typical day here then ends with a grammar class with high school students. On my first day one of these students asked me how old I was. I said I was 26 of course. He asked why I wasn't married yet and what was wrong with me? He actually sounded a bit like my gran here. Anyway, I think I have to work to win these students over, I don't think they trust me. One student, a monk actually, asked me after class why we didn't do number 1, number 2 and number 3 on a particular page, in that particular order. I don't think they trust me going 'off the beaten track' so to speak. In that case I'm going to work extra hard to get them out of their comfort zone. I set some listening exercises for them at the end of the week, you know listen to this and answer specific questions afterwards, blah blah blah. I thought it was too easy for their level of conversational English but none of them got even one answer right. So Mr. Know It All Monk, we aren't going to do question 1,2,3 in that order, you are going to have to think I'm afraid.

That rounds off week number 2 as a teacher in Cambodia. I am in love with the village. It feels homely somehow and familiar. Right now I'm back in Phnom Penh but I'm not sure why. I really don't like the city. I think it's filthy and seedy. You can't turn your head but there's some creepy white guy with a Cambodian girl much too young for him hanging off his arm. Or for example, last night I was in a bar that would have been too posh for Amsterdam and yet across the road I saw a mother trying to get her infant children to sleep under nothing more than two plastic bags tied together for a roof. Also, I'm sitting in a restaurant here as I type and I can see from my chair a poster warning against the consequences of getting caught sexually abusing a child here. I knew it was going to be like this but the reality of it is something else. I think I'm going to spend a lot of my weekends at the village from now on. 

Teacher training

My first week of teaching in Cambodia is complete! I won't lie, it was a long week. I was nervous to begin with but really started gaining confidence after 2/3 days. I'm not a natural teacher, it's challenging working with children. It's not easy and it's definitely not any easier when the children are from a different cultural background. However, it's so amazingly satisfying to hear a preschool child frantically call me 'teacher' if they see me in the village or hear a student use a new word you know they just learned that week. To be completely selfish, it feels great and it's more than enough to see me through this challenge. 

The school is located in Samrong, 18km outside of Phnom Penh. I've no idea how many people live here, I thought I heard someone say 500 families but I could also be making it up. There are 5 other volunteers along with myself and a few local Cambodian (Khmer) teachers. The Khmer teachers are there to explain in the local language. The students attend English lessons for all levels, computer classes, PE class, football coaching once a week and there's also a hair and beauty course which is quite unique. The aim is to teach local children skills to keep them away from hard labour. Like I mentioned in my last post, a locals wages in a clothing factory here amounts to little more than 75 US dollars a month. Every skill they can acquire in their youth, particularly English, will stand to them getting a better job in the future and keep them out of the sweat shops or worse again, the rampant sex industry here. 

I won't go into too much detail on the classes themselves but below is a quick round-up of my highlights and struggles in my few days so far. 

Highlights:

- preschoolers recognizing me and calling me 'teeeecha' in the village,

- 6 year old girl helping me teach her classmates the 'teddy bear' song (I didn't know the words OR the obligatory dance moves) I thought it was so sweet and brave of her. 

- evening conversation class with some teenage Buddhist monks who are obsessed with the champions league,

- helping 8 year olds read their first English book,

- giving a PowerPoint class to teenagers. PowerPoint has never been so exciting. 

Struggles:

- I've actually no idea of grammar. You may have noticed from my writing. Present perfect, past continuous, conditional 1 and 2..... These sound like names of 80s girl bands to me. Nevermind making lesson plans, I need to study.

- Being tough. Contrary to what my brothers might say, I'm finding it hard to dish out the discipline. 

I'm living in the school itself on the top floor. I've a comfy bed, mosquito net and my own toilet. There's only cold water in the shower but believe it or not, it isn't a big deal. More importantly, you cannot understand the joy I feel at having a room in one place for the first time in over two months. I've basically sprinkled my stuff in all 4 corners of the room which I realize now was a mistake since I'll be sharing with a new volunteer Monday onwards. Ah well. Although, I did get a bit of a rude awakening about my new home. One of the German volunteers across the hall from me said he had an infestation of cockroaches from leaving his window open. Sure enough, that night I woke up to a baby cockroach crawling on the top of my mosquito net. I now feel I have the potential to be a sadistic serial killer. I sprayed that baby cockroach with my most pungent insect repellent and I swear I could hear him choke. I watched him struggle for a long time with a pang of guilt in my chest, his legs stuck to the mosquito net with the repellent. Half of me wanted to free his sticky little legs from the net but the other half won and I beat his lights out with the end of the repellent can. I don't like elephants being ill treated but I swear I will beat that baby cockroaches brothers and sisters should they ever dare into my room. 

And that rounds off my first week in the school. I was wrecked come Friday evening but somehow found the energy this weekend to visit numerous markets, cycle around the city (scary), visit the Olympic park, try find a non-existent silk factory and assist a German colleague in purchasing copious amounts of Xmas gifts. I'm also eating lots of tasty, tasty food, albeit western. The food in the school is great but let's face it, there's only so much rice and fish sauce a solid Irish girl like myself can consume in a week. 

P.S. A baby snake was caught outside the school in the dark this week. No one would/could confirm for me if it was poisonous. 

Introducing Cambodia

It's going to be hard selling you Cambodia after this post, I think. I'm feeling good about the country, I really am. But I'm overwhelmed. About everything. 

It was probably a mistake but the first thing I did was to take a Tuk Tuk out to the Killing Fields, 13 or so kilometers outside of Phnom Penh. I was emotionally exhausted after it. For anyone that doesn't know, the Killing Fields were the places (about 300 in total throughout Cambodia) where during the 70's the Khmer Rouge government tortured and executed more than 2 million of its own citizens including, students, religious persons, opposing parties and then all their families too in case they might want revenge in the future. That would have been one person in four slaughtered in the space of three years. Why? Oh you know, just a small sacrifice to create the perfect peasant society. I usually detest audio tours but in the case of the killing fields it couldn't have been done better. For two reasons; 1. To paint a clear picture of the situation. 2. To keep the grounds quiet and respectful and 3. (I just thought of this reason) to let everyone take in the horrible details and process them in their own time. I know for me it was incredibly difficult to listen to how children were killed by having their heads smashed on a tree, swung around by their ankles because bullets were too expensive. And then just to bring it all home, when we visited the S-21 museum in the city, there were pictures of each and every single person tortured and sent to die in the killing fields. It seems the Khmer Rouge were as meticulous at keeping records of their crimes as the nazis were. I had zero energy after that and just spent the rest of the day reading. The picture just below is of the memorial stupa at the fields. It's filled with the skulls of those who were murdered here. 

Then there's the blatant sex tourism. Maybe I've been going around with blinkers on for the last two months but I am genuinly shocked here. I went out with the other volunteers from the school on Friday night and we ended up at a night club. Before we could even see the doors of the club the pavement was packed full of horrible, wrinkly, old men salivating over gorgeous, young Cambodian girls dressed up to the nines. I spotted one fella on the street, I'd say he was in his sixties at least. He was giving a hard time to a young girl who couldn't have been more twenty. She was doing her best to get away, him holding her wrist. Once she was free she dashed passed us with him close behind. Me being me, I stuck my foot out and tripped him up which was risky because the potential was there for him to break a hip or two. Himself told me to be careful and watch my temper and I know he's right. I'll have to get over it a bit here but it made me sick to my stomach. Actually, I don't know who I feel more sorry for; the auld lads who come half way across the world to feel wanted by a woman or the girls who are looking for a few extra dollars. I think the girls are doing the most logical thing. The auld fellas are just pathetic. You know, the average factory worker here gets 75 US dollars a month for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. It's the bulk of their family income and they are 'lucky' to have it. If you were struggling to feed, shelter and educate your family, you can't say you wouldn't do the same. 

I went out to visit the school and apart from everything else I wrote above, it's the reason I'm here and I already love it. The village is beautiful. It has a massive Buddhist temple where I think the most senior monk in Cambodia lives. It's incredible. And then on one side of the village there is a lake and on the other side are flooded rice fields, so actually, I can't tell the difference between the two. The children all run out of their houses to shout 'hello, hello!' along with any other random English words they can muster up. The women in the village all give you massive smiles and seem genuinely delighted to see you. The school building itself is quite nice. It has a few classrooms, a back kitchen and bedrooms for us volunteers. The best bit is the roof with its incredible view of the village. Apparently there's no water though and I'll have to wash my clothes by hand. More about that in the next few days. 

The group of volunteers seem like a great bunch. There's just one thing though...when I was working in Amsterdam I was the youngest in the company, apart from the interns but they don't count, ha. Well, here I'm the oldest and I don't like it. I'm with a few other Irish who are in their early twenties and then a million German students who are no more than 19, on a gap year between school and college. Anyway, one of the German girls asked me what age I was and when I told her I was 26 she said 'Aw great! You can be the mommy of the group!' Eh yeah...no thanks. 

Other items of interest would be the following list. But for the love of god, don't mention any of it to my mother. 

- two girls from my hostel had their bags snatched in broad day light,

- two of the volunteers have small but painful injuries from mopeds,

- another of the volunteers had his laptop robbed, 

- a poster in my hostel advertising a shooting range that says 'decide what you want to shoot'. 

And then that's me for the last couple days. I don't want you to come away with a bad image of Cambodia. If anything, this country is amazing. It's been to hell and back and while it has a long, long way to go the people have proved they won't be dragged down by the past. They are extremely loving. If you smile at anyone on the street you will get the most heart warming smile back in return, whether it's a child, a woman or an old man. I can't wait to start work there. 

Wrapping up Vietnam

So Lorna has left me. She's boarded her flight to Bangkok and in two days time will be back in Ireland with her family. What an incredibley fast two months that has been and it makes me just a teeny, tiny bit homesick. After two months living out of my bag it would be amazing to go back home, wrap up beside the fire and harass my dad into making the tea. But then, on the flip side, my trip is changing. After a nice week rounding off Vietnam, I'm now sitting in a great little hostel in Phnom Penh. I'll be starting volunteering in the school in 6 days time so it's nice to have a couple days to get used to the feel of the city. 

Since I last wrote we made our way down from Hoi An to party town Nah Trang. Overnight bus. I'll be honest, that was our last overnight bus and I'm very glad for it. The other trips were fine but on this occasion I was awake the whole way watching the driver on the wrong side of the road, overtaking whatever he could and in the most dangerous way he could. We only had one day in Nah Trang but we were efficient and booked a days snorkeling out near the islands. The area has been named as one of the most beautiful areas in the world by unesco and it was incredible to be able to snorkel around the coral reefs watching the tropical fish go about their business. All the same though, I saw loads of rubbish and scuba divers touching the coral. Not so cool. The rest of the day was spent out on the beach with an overwhelming amount of Russian tourists and getting a pedicure in what could only be described as a brothel. 

The following day we took a bus down to Mui Ne. Now, I had high hopes for Mui Ne as a beach destination but I was disappointed. There was no beach as far as I could see. I think the string of hotels and 'resorts' the length of the beach have destroyed the natural lay of the land. The waves come right up to the hotel walls leaving little distinction between high and low tide. Anyway, we spent a day by a hotel pool soaking up the sun which took the sharp edge off the disappointment. Not much else to report apart from a fair evening ripping up the dance floor in true Daddy Kenny style. 

And then we reached Ho Chi Minh. I wasn't looking forward to it since I found Hanoi so extremely busy and completely overwhelming. Lorna was joking she'd have to put me through Ho Chi Minh training; run around me screaming while throwing stuff at me, getting me to dodge or 'die'. I almost considered it. But I loved the city. It is fantastic and much greener and cleaner than I expected. We took a tour out to the Mekong Delta, learning all about the farming activities out there. Our second day, we booked a tour out to the Cu Chi tunnels where the Viet Cong waged guerrilla warfare on American soldiers with 200km secret tunnels. It was an incredible, a huge insight into how the local people survived and fought tooth and nail. We also saw the most biased, propaganda video ever. Later in the day we went to the war remnants museum which is a must see. But again, very biased, unbalanced and conveniently leaving out a lot about the Vietnamese own actions and north vs south. But then saying that, I'm no expert. 

And that's that for Vietnam. Ready now to dive into my Cambodian adventure! 

Storm chasing in Hoi An

Times were tough in Hoi An. We'd already been faced with the tail end of a typhoon two days before in Hue but this time we were up against the real thing in Hoi An; SUPER TYPHOON Haiyan. And yes, it was exactly as scary as it sounds. It was recorded as being the worlds most intense storm at its peak, absolutely battering the Philippines.  

We were told by everyone and their mother to stock up on food, make sure we were in a good, sturdy building and cancel all travel plans for Saturday and Sunday. I had wanted to create a detailed diary of the typhoon hitting, record everything as we heard it and finally become the journalist I've always wanted to be. Joke. 

I  got off to a good start as you can see from the list below. 

- Thursday 7th Nov, first rumors of super typhoon hitting Vietnam. Ignored rumors. 

- Friday 8th Nov, guest-house confirms rumors.

- Friday 8th Nov, 18.00, rte reports storm, family bombards us with with messages. 

- Saturday 9th Nov, 8.00am, tour guide tells us it's worst storm ever and not to be late back to the bus or we will all die. Or something to that affect. 

- Saturday 9th Nov, 14.00, some rain. Bought food. Start sit-in in room. Local people sandbag houses and nail shutters closed. 

- Saturday 9th Nov, 18.00, no rain. We go for a walk.

Surprisingly, I started to run out of exciting content fairly quickly. After a few rounds of pool we settled ourselves in for the long haul watching Terminator 3, The Amazing Spider Man and Snow-white and the Huntsman, all three torture in themselves. We fell soundly asleep with our torches in our hands and a full fridge of food in our room. Expecting to be woken up by catastrophic winds around 4am, we cracked an eyelid the next day at 11am with not so much as a breeze in the air. The storm had not only downgraded in strength but it had stayed out to sea. Not the most exciting journalistic coverage of a typhoon but the relief was epic. 

There is a little bit of a perverse disappointment floating around tourists that the storm didn't hit. Granted, we - the tourists - would have been perfectly fine in our sturdy hotel buildings. Actually, our hotel, the owners brought their extended family to stay in the rooms to wait it out which I took for a good sign. But over a hundred thousand people were evacuated from their corrugated iron-roofed, bamboo homes along the coast of Vietnam alone. They would have lost everything and the coverage of the storm in the Philippines is horrific. All I know is that the hum of local people back to work the next day was especially sweet.  

And then the rest of our days in Hoi An were only mildly influenced by the talk of the Typhoon. We mostly lounged around the old town exploring the lovely streets, art galleries and souvenir stalls and the big food market. We got to spend a day out on Cua Dai beach. We got stupidly sun burned all over after Lorna instigated a sandcastle building contest. I'm not joking now when I say this, I might not have won the competition but the muscle pain I had in my gluteus the next day after digging an award winning sandcastle foundation was un-be-liev-able. A 1,000 squat session has nothing on building a sandcastle.

We also managed an excursion out to the Myson Holyland site. This is a site built by the same people as Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Really worth taking a look if you are in the area. Not least has it ancient temples and statues but it's full of altars to the Hindu god of fertility and/or destruction. See picture below. Our tour guide took no shame in telling us that his wife is a very, very happy lady on the days he gives that altar a hug. And he hugs it everyday.

Hazy in Hue

We were in a strange mood when we got to Hue. We'd just spent 13 hours mangled in a sleeping bus 'bed' all the way from Hanoi so we were both delighted and exhausted when we finally got there. The day started off reasonably well. Trying to avoid all the accommodation touters at the bus stop, we veered into a little bakery. Turns out it's a training bakery where they educate disadvantaged youngsters in the food industry. I think we are developing a highly accurate radar for these kinds of places now.

After dropping off our bags we headed into the citadel. We were casually followed by a cyclo driver shouting at us 'you from Roy Keane, you take Cyclo!' We legged it away but within 5 minutes we were kicking ourselves for not hiring him as the old centre turned out to be a lot bigger than expected.

We didn't dwell too long on it though, we just gave in and went for a drink. I think we had/have some travel weariness going on. Turned out to be good timing though as the rain started bucketing down. We waited for it to stop (about two beers each worth) and then set off to find the sights.

And then everything changed. We discovered the imperial citadel which, in reality, isn't difficult but in the mood we were in we were ready to just go camp in a cafe for the day. We were made speechless though. It's an old palace grounds that was used by the Nguyen dynasty during their 150+ year reign. It's massive but terribly damaged after the war with the US in the 60's. Such a shame it all hasn't been restored just yet but it's still an amazing place to see.

At this point the only thing I have to complain about is the constant feeling of being screwed over. And much more so here in Vietnam than any of the other countries we've been to. And while I'm at it, not even in a way I can't afford. We keep paying prices that we feel are reasonable and cheap but turns out later on we've been bamboozled. For instance, earlier in the day we were conned into paying 20,000Dong (in fairness it's less than a euro) for a 15,000Dong pizza, price written on the wall. Their justification was that they put a tiny piece of sausage on top that we didn't even ask for. Then, our ticket into the imperial citadel was 105,000Dong (just under 5 Eur) but turns out it's really only 55,000Dong. The ticket seller obviously pocketing a nice little profit for herself from the two of us. We are ever so slowly learning to ask more and more questions upfront....

Our evening was spent watching the rain teem down in a family-run Vietnamese restaurant, Lac Thanh. The owner, MR. Lac is both deaf and mute and you can see him and his family communicate in their busy restaurant in their own special way. The food is amazing and the family are extremely friendly. Of course, they are trying to sell you tours on the side but at least they are nice about it.

The last thing I want to mention then is the fact we somehow caught the tail-end of a typhoon here in Hue. The weather has been rough with extreme amounts of rain and wind. We headed out to a bar but the streets were flooding really quickly. We literally had to wade back up the street in shin-deep water without thinking too much about the rats and cockroaches scrambling for their lives along the sides of buildings. I also did a good job of not thinking about leeches. We rounded off the night watching the worst rom-com ever on a fuzzy screen munching on M&M's.

The next day we took it easy. The rain eased off and we set up camp in our new favourite cafe, the French Bakery, for the day. We missed out on a lot of sightseeing in the area but the weather was being really tempermental. Lorna booked her flight out of Asia in two weeks time (sad face) and I just started researching ideas for my 'creative Friday' sessions for when I arrive at the SCOOP/SCAO school in Cambodia. Have to say I'm feeling just a but overwhelmed at becoming a teacher overnight...hmmmm....

Right at this moment we are sitting in our hotel room in Hoi An, stocked up on food for the next day or so. Reason being that the worlds strongest storm on record is about to reach us after battering the Phillipines. Wish us luck! 

To pack or not to pack....?

I am now 8 weeks into my Asian adventure. I'm here in my guesthouse lobby on an old Samsung computer waiting for my iPad to be restored with only a quick 88 minutes to go! I know, I know, first world problems...

Anyway, since I am trying to distract myself from my iPad crisis I thought I'd write a note about how I would pack for 6 months in Asia knowing what I know now. Let's be honest, I wasn't very clever about it.

First of all, things to take with you: 

• A good torch. You will use it far more often than you might think. 
• An OCEAN proof bag. Because even though the vaccination nurse told you to stay out of the water, we both know you are going to live in it, whether you want to or not.
• A waterproof camera. You might have your ocean proof bag but you are going to want to use a camera while kayaking, sailing, tubing, swimming, waterfall chasing....etc, etc, etc. And/or take a Go-Pro. 
• A decent rain coat. Doesn't have to be big or expensive, just enough to keep your body and head dry and last a couple months. I am sick of buying crappy 'ponchos' and I will not buy a fake North Face raincoat, I just won't. 
• Good walking shoes. Trust me, even though you might only do a couple days trekking over a few months it will be worth it to have a good pair of hiking boots - or for the love of God - a good pair of trainers to avoid having mangled, blistered feet for days on end afterwards. 
• Excessive amounts of underwear as your 'wash days' will depend on what supplies you have left.
• Imodium and more imodium. And just when you think you might have possibly have too much imodium in your bag, pack some more.
• Moisturiser. I can only find whitening cream and I do not need that. 
• A deck of cards. You will come across more situations during this period where drinking games or just plain entertainment will be needed. 

Things to forget about:

• Any sort of high heels or any sort of clothing that could be identified as 'Going Out Clothes'. Ask anyone from the UK or Ireland if you don't get me. 
• Nope, you don't need three different sweaters/jeans/tracksuits, etc. Just the one of each will do.
• Hair dryers and hair straightners. Embrace the wavy. Trust me, you'll put in the effort maybe twice. I haven't even plugged mine in in two months. I don't even know if it still works. 
• Jewellery options. Unless you are reliably trendy I just wouldn't bother. And definitly not anything of value.
• Excessive amounts of clothes in general. You aren't going to the moon and there will be many, many bits and pieces you will want to buy but won't if your bag is too full. 
• Anyone who isn't enthusiastic. I haven't had this problem but I've seen it a few times the last few weeks - one person constantly trying to talk the other one into stuff. Cut them loose! They'll either sink or swim but they'll survive and you'll get to do the things you actually want to do. 
• A backpack bigger than 55 Litres. Don't even give yourself the opportunity to pack more than you need. Think strategically! 

And that's all I can think of for now although I have to admit I sound like I've been doing this for a while. Nice.

I just looked at my iPad restoration progree, good to see I've only 83 minutes left on the clock. I think I might go up and purge my backpack now. Then I'll have to think of something to do for the remaining 80 minutes. 

Sapa

We caught the sleeping bus from Hanoi to Sapa, an eleven hour journey overnight. I've never been on a sleeping bus before in my life. Imagine three rows of 'beds' lengthways down the bus with a row on top and a row on the bottom. We were herded like prized cattle into the rows and there we stayed for just over eleven hours. It was actually fine. I slept reasonably well waking up now and then with a jolt of the bus. My only complaint was the lack of leg space and not for my own legs. You see, the guy behind me had nowhere to stick his feet and plonked them at either side of my ears. They did not smell good. Ah well, the smell faded after an hour and I dozed off to sleep. 

In short, Sapa is unbelievable. Not just the scenery but the town itself is so familiar and European in feeling we could easily imagine we were in some sort of Swiss Ski resort - apart from no snow. Compared to Hanoi it is a dream come true. Our first adventure was to hire a scooter and driver to take us to the silver waterfall through a fantastic valley. The waterfall was incredible. It looked almost as if the water was coming from nowhere. The whole way round the waterfall we were followed by a whiskey vapored Vietnamese tourist. When we got back down to the bottom he asked for a picture together and casually slipped a hand on our behinds. We shouted at him and then we laughed. 

Our second and third days in Sapa, we spent with a local tribeswoman called Lis. She had approached us on the street the day before and invited us to trek to her house and stay the night in her village. Normally I would refuse such offers for fear I'd never be seen again. On this occasion however, Lis seemed like a bit of craic so we couldn't really pass it up. We met her the next morning at the local Christian church (I took a picture for my gran) and started out on our trek to Lis' house. And what a trek it was. It ended up being about 4 1/2 hours, about 12km in total (25km counting day one and two). Which isn't so much apart from the fact a clear path was absent about 70% of the time. We went up ditches, across rivers, climbed rocks, jumped stones and navigated our way through slippery rice paddies. We did it with our runners and backpacks but Lis and her two companions managed it in little flip flops, full traditional outfits and heavy bamboo baskets strapped to their shoulders, no bother. Me and Lorna on the other hand were struggling just a tiny, tiny bit and our feet came back mangled in blisters. Nice. Our consolation being that the view is unbelievable. I will never see anything quite so stunning again I am sure. 

But let me talk a bit about Lis. Lis is a black H'mong tribeswoman. I say black because these people wear black pants as part of the traditional costume. She is 26 and married with two children. She can speak her tribes language, Vietnamese, English and French, learned from interacting with tourists. Lis is nothing short of amazing. She literally hasn't a moment to herself. She goes to town everyday to try sell her handmade items. If she can, she takes tourists like ourselves on a trek to her house to make a bit extra. She makes all her family's clothes herself, weaving, sewing, dyeing. She and her children feed all their farm animals, they grow crops and she cooks dinner for the whole family every night. She said her children will continue school until they are 19. Then they find a job for themselves or if they want to be a teacher or doctor or whatever she will find a way for them to do that. That won't be easy as it seems pricey for education in Vietnam. Lis seems happy and it appears her family are doing quite well for themselves andI hope that will continue as they are really beautiful people. 

Oh, and she has a social life! The next morning we got up and found her holding her head after too much rice wine at a neighbors little shin dig. So, we aren't so different after all!

After our trek, we managed to negotiate a free shower in a hostel and we are now sitting back on our respective sleeping bus ready for another nights driving. The only thing about taking the bus back from Sapa in the evening is the fair chance that a lot of other Trekkers didn't have the opportunity to negotiate a free shower somewhere. Welcome to stinking sock central. 

Oh and P.S. Myself and Lorna only had one blanket to ourselves when we slept in Lis'. Which ended up with me trying to cuddle Lorna in my sleep. Awkward. I think I must be missing himself....

Hanoi and Halong bay

So much has happened in the last few days I'm not going to be able to fit it all in, just not possible. We got to Vietnam after a fairly uneventful flight (I'm not complaining) and were introduced to Hanoi by taking the shuttle mini-bus into town with about 5 people too many squeezed in together. Maybe it was a mistake coming from lazy and chilled Laos into Vietnam - we were just a teeny bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of traffic and its organized mess of a system. I'll be honest, Hanoi isn't for me. Don't let me taint your perception though, it's a beautiful, bustling city with a distinctive rhythm all of its own. I just can't dance to it.

We found a fellow Irishman working in a travel agency. It is the 5th best travel agency in all of Hanoi. I know this because I was reminded several times. Anyway, he did us a decent deal on a 3 day trip on the 'Party Cruise' around Halong Bay and sold us two tickets on a sleeping bus to Sapa, which I wrote about already. Our hostel manager, Tony, wasnt very happy with us for booking with someone else and decided he didn't want to be nice to us after that. Lucky we didn't book with him as we met two Canadians later in the week that did and they were screwed over, promised the party boat but stuck on a family cruise with hundreds on non-English speaking families. 

Our few days at Halong Bay were filled with kayaking, visiting floating villages, jumping from rocks (not me!), swimming and exploring caves. The second night of the tour we stayed on our own private beach, only 8 of us tourists together. Brian, our tour guide, let us know he had 'scheduled some fun' for us at 9 and since we were all seeing hundreds of our friends dressed up for Halloween at home we said we'd have our own little costume party. We literally scoured our backpacks for any costume we could potentially put together. And the result wasn't too bad! We had a geek, a gypsy, a cat, zorro, a Hawaiian lady, an Arabian lady, a Mexican man and a Buddhist monk. Brian's 'scheduled fun' ended up being a beauty/talent contest which suited us down to the ground. We all had to run the cat walk, show off a talent and answer a question. Brian just didn't expect us all to do it in character. The evening ended up with a few too many vodkas, myself screaming down the karaoke mic and a swim watching the plankton light up around us. 

The next day was a bit of a struggle but when you've got 2,000 beautiful limestone karst islands to look at it it makes things just a little bit easier.