Illinbodia

Going on vacation, we'd like to think that we're leaving the rest of the world behind. But one thing you can't drop at the bus station is that chest cold you've been nursing for two weeks.
I was sure that I'd be better by the time of the trip but I was still feeling quite sick the morning we had to get on the bus. Hopefully, I thought, the rest of a long bus ride will help me feel better. But 12-hours with air conditioning that could not be turned off only made things much worse. By the time we got to Siem Reap I was a mess, and my health would only get worse as the week went on. Tuesday morning, after our complimentary breakfast of tea and toast, we took a tuk tuk[its a carriage hooked to a motorbike, what passes for a taxi around here] out to the Amelio School where Daphne used to do NGO work with Caring for Cambodia. Looking at the people and state of the country, Cambodia really made Vietnam look like a first world country. Their saving grace would be that those that owned motorbikes kept them very shiny and pristine, unlike in Saigon. But the roads were a terror, people get spine injuries from driving on less.





We helped Kaye, the director of teacher training, with some odd jobs around the school. I taught her how use a new program she had just gotten for making picture books.






At siesta time, we went to the pool that the hotel owned to have ourselves a very long nothing. There were a lot of very long nothings on this trip in fact, because I was too ill and too low on energy to do anything. Plus, my appetite for most foods had gone which made it hard to be talked into meals. I failed horribly that night when I tried to have a burger.
The next day we went back to the school and did a small photography project for Kaye. She gave me a driver and we went out to find examples of littering so that she could make a picture book about it for the kids. All I have to say is that the river is very, very dirty and people burn their trash. But I don't know what else they can really do when there is so much more that they need in their lives than a better public trash utility. We spent another siesta in sloth and then met up that night with Kaye and Fionna, the owner of our hotel, at a tapas bar. I managed to find a couple things I could swallow. When we parted, Daphne and I stopped by The Blue Pumpkin, which makes really good ice cream and desserts and got some green tea ice cream. Not as healthy as a pot of green tea, but still very yum.
We had planned to do the temples on the third day, standard tourist protocol, but Daphne was feeling apprehensive about my health and kept asking if I was sure I wanted to go. Had I looked at my health with some clarity I would've said no, but instead I shone with the arrogance of a drunk who's convinced he can still get behind the wheel. My memory of the temple trip is hazy, but here are some picture that prove I must've been there:









After we had done most of Angkor Thom I threw in the towel. I could barely breath with every step back to the tuk tuk. It was absolutely miserable. When we got back to the hotel we talked about going to the doctor and decided we should. I was already planning on going when we returned to Saigon and had called off of work for the weekend. But then Daphne asked if I would mind being quarantined if it came to that. The issue wasn't one of minding, but of my visa status. My Vietnam visa expired the following Wednesday and I had to get my passport to HR stat. What if I was quarantined passed the visa date? Would I be stuck in Cambodia for two weeks, trying to get a new visa?
We finally decided that the hospital would need to wait until Saigon and we didn't leave the hotel room that night[Daphne left for a bit to get a small, but crucial, road item, a blanket, and some soy milk since I was passed eating solid food] or until our pick-up for the bus the next morning.
At the bus station a little beggar boy was biting at our heels and Daphne gave him our leftover breakfast, which he sits down on the spot to eat. On the bus I manage to circulate a thought through the haze of my fever and ask her, 'Did you just give that boy my half eaten banana chocolate pancake?' She looks back at me with an 'oh shit' look. Luckily, I would find out later that what I have isn't contagious, but it was a worrying thought. Well, not so much for me, I was emotionally cold going on frigid by this time in my illness. The only thing I saw was a stretch of road with the hospital on the finish line and reaper racing me there[bound to feel that way when you spent the morning coughing blood into the toilet seat].
So, twelve hour trip, dropped stuff at the house, and taxi to the hospital. Walking through the doors I was relieved to see that there weren't alot of people to wait for, but was less than thrilled that they made me fill out paperwork. Worst hospital ritual ever. What I can say about the hospital, well, I don't have much experience with hospitals but I definitely think the nursing staff's english and service definitely has some ways to go. But the doctors were generally helpful and their english and knowledge was very good. I spent the next two nights there at the hospital on an IV being pumped with antibiotics and fever reducer. With me I brought a stack of tests that I had to grade and have at the school the next day, but thankfully Daphne took on that grueling task for me.
So... Today. I'm at home, I'm on antibodies, and I'm barely moving a muscle. But I'm eating, I'm breathing and I can even smell things now too. So the reaper will have to wait for a rematch.
Expect to see me out and about very little the next couple weeks, I just spent the better part of the month being sick and acting like I'm not and I'm exhausted. I'll write again after that. Wish me health.

Hoi An: Conclusion

Delay delay delay. For some reason my internet's been giving me grief, blocking only my blog site and nothing else. But without any further further delay I bring the conclusion of the Hoi An trip, thanks to the wifi in the Highlands Coffee downstairs in my building[no, nothing like the one in Cincy, this place is like the Starbucks of Vietnam].
Instead of boring you with minute details I'm going to shorten this last entry by focusing on the most entertaining chapter, our trip to the Marble Mountains.
The Marble Mountains are five small mountains in an otherwise flat landscape that have seen centuries of Buddhist temples, shrines and statues as well as marble excavation. Five mountains for five elements. Our plan was to visit all of them, having lunch after the first one. It was an uneventful 22 km drive north, just outside of Danang, and the mountains weren't hard to spot. But the entrance was. We passed a thin concrete bridge facing one end of one of the mountains. It certainly didn't look like much of an entrance, but we figured it was worth a shot. We parked the bike on the side of the road under a tree and went to have a look. There was a Buddha sculpture in a shabby state that made for a pitiful entrance and it didn't match the description in Lonely Planet for any of the five mountains. We didn't even know which one we were on. The strangest thing we noted was the lack of tourists, in an otherwise touristy location. But as we walked towards the base we found even more sculptures, covered in some family's drying laundry.


Under one structure there was the family, keeping shade and having a meal. Daphne and I debated over what mountain we were on, how to get up and whether we would have to turn back and find another route. We approached the family and pointed to the guide book.


The family pointed straight to the mountain and then nominated their three year old daughter to lead the way. The little girl, who was absolutely adorable, led us to the sketchiest little climb.

[Daphne didn't even see this sign]

When we reached the top we found...a lot. First there was a serene little Buddhist temple tended by a wide grinning midget monk and a couple other care takers. Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, looked over the remaining Marble Mountains and the town below.


As we climbed on, tourists started to appear as we found more temples, statues, caves and even someone dressed as Monkey God trying to charge for photo ops. We later realized that the reason nothing in the guide book seemed to make sense was because we were doing the mountain backwards[and not paying the admission fee, apparently]. It's hard to give the mountain the justice it deserves, there is just too much stuff on it. Hopefully some of these pictures hint at its beauty.

[Caretaker napping in the temple shade]

[Daphne tries to find out which mountain we're on]

[Entrance to a really cool cave with a giant Buddha carved into it]

[Guanyin carved into the rock face]

[We crawled through a tiny cave system to come out the top of the mountain and got a private view of the ocean and the surrounding countryside]

After four hours of hiking up and down the mountain, which we finally realized was named Thuy Son for the Water element, we knew we wouldn't have time to even set foot on any of the other Mountains.
And having done the whole mountain on only breakfast and in immense heat, we dragged ourselves back down the mountain to the bike and went on the hunt for a very late lunch. Choosing the beach road back we finally found the dingiest little hole in the wall, where they dipped the glasses in a tub to wash them clean. The food was cheap and pretty good, I left a tip bigger than the price because it seemed like no one had been to this place in ages.
That night, after a bowl of wonton noodle soup, Daphne and I sat at a river side bar in Hoi An, reflecting on the last week and writing notes to help me remember what to write in this blog. Drinking our 4000 VND[.2US] beers, we laughed when we remembered the Salsa Club, not noticing that the American who worked there was right behind us. As was the French couple we had met at the cockroach restaurant. 'Ici il n'y a pas des cancrelats, ne c'est pas?'
This was also the first night I noticed I was feeling sick. The next day I drugged up and went to the beach where I felt fine doing nothing but laying out and swimming. But that night, which was our last, we went to a wine bar and that's when I really started to feel it. It was an otherwise pleasant evening, the music was good, we had the place mostly to ourselves, a bottle of champagne and the power in the city kept going out adding to the charm and romance of the evening. But after a couple glasses I felt pitiful and spent the rest of the bottle with my head in Daphne's lap. The climax of my illness was the next morning when I woke up with the biggest fever I've ever had. Daphne ran downstairs and got some Ameflu from the front desk and brought it back with a cup of tea. Luckily, two of these did the trick and my temperature was back down with the quickness.
Ok. That was a not-so-brief entry I suppose, but there it is, that was Hoi An. Unfortunately, I'm sick again just two weeks later and after having completed my induction for school I'm starting my first class on Tuesday. I hope to be in better health by then.

Illin'

It was bound to happen eventually. I'm sick. Don't worry, I haven't caught anything exotic or serious. I merely got caught out in the rain and didn't dry off properly. At the very least, it could have happened at a worst time. It's a weekday, school doesn't start until Monday and yesterday I bought bedding and a tea set at Ben Than Market. So I'm pretty good to chill at home and lay low. I've stepped out once today for some Pho and that was it. I do have to make at least two more trips today though, one over to the supermarket for more supplies and another probably for dinner, if I have an appetite.
Yesterday I completely moved into my apartment, not that I had a lot of stuff to move, and went on a shopping trip[I don't like the word spree and I won't use it]. I was determined to avoid the large supermarket which I figured would be more expensive, and decided instead to venture between hole-in-the-wall shops in my neighborhood. This became utterly useless, like a bad scavenger hunt, and I had too much of a headache from being sick for all the fuss. While turning the corner in one secluded alley, I heard several beckoning calls from a table of men having lunch. Usually, when someone call out on the street I just ignore it, unless I need a ride on a motorbike because that's what it usually means. This time I didn't, my free beer sense was tingling.

[Mot, Hai, Ba, Yoooo!]

I joined the table of men, only one of whom could speak English[barely] and was made to drink at least three beers with them before I was allowed to leave. The lot of them were already quite drunk[it wasn't even 1pm], the ground below the table was littered with Saigon beer bottles. The table was covered with all sorts of yummy looking foods. They were insistent that I help myself, going so far as to literally shove the food in my face, and I would've been tempted, too, had I not already eaten.
By the time I left them I had a good buzz going and my headache was gone, but I was no longer in any mood to go on with my scavenger hunt. I went back to my hotel and grabbed my moto and an empty bookbag[not having a proper trunk really limits your shopping capabilities] and headed for the supermarket. It's a good thing too, as I found that, at least for household stuff, this was probably the cheapest I could get. I got hangers, towels, bedding, and a couple pillows, which I had to strap to the outside of my bag. After dropping everything off I made it to Ben Thanh Market just in time to buy my tea set[230,000VND~$13] before they closed and zoomed back to the supermarket get an electric kettle that I couldn't fit last time.
I've gotten much better at driving here. As I told a friend earlier today, if you've every played a driver based video game you're ready to drive in Saigon. The same principles apply, you drive in the direction you want to go and every time you hit something you lose points.
Anyways, as promised here are pictures of my new place:

[Living Room. The light up top changes color]

[Kitchen]

[Bedroom. Pardon the mess]

[View outside my window]