Flying back to England

 

Today is the day that I'm flying back to England. I'm leaving for the airport, which is only 20 minutes from my house, in a few hours time.

 

I'm flying with Emirates who I've flown with before and are very good. I fly from HCMC to Dubai, wait a couple of hours then get another plane to Gatwick.

 

Total flying time is about 15 hours and I arrive at about 7am London time. I come back to Ho Chi Minh City on 2nd January 2013.

 

Not sure how much updating of the blog I will do when I'm in England as the whole purpose was to let people know how I was getting on in Asia. I suppose now I will let people I know in Asia know how I'm getting on in England.

 

One thing I'm intested to see is how used to the heat I've got since I've been away. We will see....

 

 

 

Getting ready for England.....

Erosion of the sand dunes by thee fairy springs in Mui Ne

I got back from holiday from Mui Ne yesterday. The journey took about 7 hours which was much longer than it should have. The Ho Chi Minh City traffic was particularly bad on the way into the city.

 

For the next few days I'm going to be sorting all my stuff out and getting ready for my flight. I fly at 2025 on 10th December. I change in Dubai before moving onto Gatwick. Then its the National Express back to Poole.

 

 

Cham tower in Mui Ne. Picture makes it look quite good

I'm getting myself ready for the cold, it will have been 572 days since I left England when I arrive home. 

 

I've added a few pictures from my recent holiday. Both places would be great to go back to for a holiday.

 

The first one is of some of the sand at the fairy springs. It was fascinating to see how the sand was been eroded away.

 

The second is of one of the Cham towers in Mui Me and the final picture is of our chilli plant in our garden. Its a great plant, it makes so many chillis!!!

 

So many chillis!!!

 

Mui Ne and Pham Thiet, Vietnam

Nha Trang to Mui Ne

 

 

Red sand dunes.

We travelled from Nha Trang to Mui Ne a few days ago. Mui Ne is a little bit closer to home and somewhere I've wanted to visit for a while. The beach is no way near as nice as Nha Trang but there are some good things to see.

 

We hired a motorbike as a lot of the sights are spread out. There are some red and white sand dunes which may not sound very interesting but they are just in land and not next to the sea. We had to visit them early as the sand gets too hot. There were locals who you could hire boards off to slide down the dunes which was pretty cool.

 

Fairy Springs

There is also a place called the 'fairy springs' which is a small stream next to some red and white sand dunes in Mui Ne . The spring flows to the sea from a waterfall avbout 1km in land. As its next to the sand dunes the river is red with the sand and you can walk all the way to the small waterfall. It was great walking up this stream in bare feet.

 

We also visited the town Pham Thiet which wasn't anything special and a few Cham Towers. The Cham people lived in Vietnam around a thousand years ago and built some towers in various places. There are some in Nha Trang too. The towers aren't that visually impressive and I feel bad saying that as they were built by some people about 1000 years ago but they were still good to see.

 

It's back to HCMC tomorrow to get ready for m return to England on 10th December.

Nha Trang, Vietnam

Nha Trang beach

I've been in Nha Trang for the past 5 nights. It's a great small town with a fantastic beach. We've done all the sight seeing things and have relaxed on the beach. The weather, as always, has been great.

 

We went out on a snorkeling trip yesterday. - which was amazing with the best fish I've seen in Asia. We hired a motorbike to see the sights around the town the day before and went to a water park / arcade / theme park place called Vinland the day before.

 

 

 

 

View of Nha Trang from Vinland

Most nights we have eaten in the local night market where they cook fresh seafood. One of the other nights we went to a place where they put a BBQ on your table and you cook beef. It was excellent.

 

It's a great place and definitely somewhere I'd want to come back to. I'm off to another beach town tomorrow for a few nights called Mui Ne then after that it's back to HCMC before flying to England.

Holiday begins....

Tonight I leave Ho Chi Minh City for Nha Trang. I'm in the process of packing all my stuff from my house. I'm quite impressed with how little stuff I've accumulated over the past year so packing has been quite easy.

 

Ho Chi Minh City - Nha Trang

 

We're getting an overnight sleeper coach which is said to take 9 hours. From my experience in Asia a good idea is to add 20% time on to the estimated journey time so I'm expecting about an 11 hour trip. This is fine as we leave at 9:30pm so should get there around 8am having had a nice sleep.

 

Nha Trang is a nice beach town with a great beach, good diving, snorkeling, sea food and entertainment. There are also mountain close by. We've got just over a week so are going to chill out and perhaps move to one of a couple of other town close by but will just see how we feel.

 

Tourist map of Nha Trang town centre

 

No more work till January!!!!!

My 'jumpstart' class at Halloween

I've just finished my last weekend working at my school until January. So now I have five weeks off. Two I will spend on holiday in Vietnam and three I will spend in England. It was sad to say goodbye to my classes as all but one of them I will not be able to carry on teaching due to having a long break. I was given some 'goodbye' cards and was even told by one student I was the best English teacher they ever day (I hope I've not been their only teacher)

 

The HCMC skyline from ILA's teacher room balcony

It was also 'teachers day' last week in Vietnam. This is an annual day in the year where to say thank you to the teachers the students buy presents. I got 5 presents this year for teaching the Queens English to my students which was very nice. This included two ties, some fresh coffee, a story book and a toy train (!?).

 

I'm also moving house in the next few days. I'm in the process of packing my stuff up and getting ready for my 10 day holiday.

 

 

See you in January ILA!!! taken from the school balcony

After my 10 day holiday I'm back in HCMC for a few days, I'll stay in a guest house before flying to England on 10th December. I arrive on 11th December at 6am so should be home around lunchtime. I'm flying with emirates which is good for two reasons, firstly they're a great airline and secondly they sponsor Arsenal FC so it feels like I'm contributing to them buying new players.

 

Tomorrow I'm off to Nha Trang which is a beach place on the coast. I'm probably going to stay there for a while but there are a few other places I want to visit but will just play it by ear.

 

Saying goodbye to my class.....

Building the towers

Last week I had to say goodbye to one of my classes. This class is one that I have had for over a year now. They are high level juniors (9-11 year olds with pretty good English). The course had come to an end and as I'm not working for five weeks the class will be handed to a new year. It feels quite sad but it will be good for them to get a new teacher with new ideas.

 

For an end of course party I bought pizza and put you tube on one of the interactive whiteboards.

 

 



Adding the sweets

We also played a pretty cool game which involves building a tower. They have to build a tower out of 10 sheets of A4 paper and some sticky tape that can hold sweets a certain height above the ground. I've played this before with other classes and the find it quite fun.

 

Once they've designed the tower I put sweets into it one at a time until it falls over. However many sweets get put in the tower before it falls the students get to keep. As I've played this before I know a good amount of sweets is 40 and I built a tower with 50 once.

 

My student with all his sweets in the tower

This time I underestimated one of my kids who may well be the next Christopher Wren as he built a tower that managed to hold 150 sweets. Not even the older kids managed this. I had to call it a day at 150 sweets because he'd cleaned me out. It was great fun though.

 

I will miss this class but promised I'd get them a souvenir from England. I might be able to find something in poundland over Christmas.

 

 

 

The towers under construction

I've only got one more week to work now then I'm going on a 10 day holiday to a couple of places in Vietnam. I thin k its going to be Nha Trang and Mui Ne as well as a couple of other little stops.

 

Yesterday was 18 months since I left England. It doesn't feel like that long. It's also only three weeks now until I fly back to England. I'm looking forward to a nice long Christmas break. Below is a Video of one of the towers being filled up by my students.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Motorbike

Here is a picture of my motorbike. I've been riding it every day now for the past 5 months and its great fun! Not bad for $200.

 

It's a Honda wave and its red. I've no idea about any of its other specs and frankly don't care. I'm not sure how fast it goes for two reasons, firstly the speedo doesn't work and secondly getting the opportunities to drive faster than 30mph in the city are few and far between. It cost $3.50 to fill it up which lasts me about 10 days (35 cents a day). It's great fun driving around the city and parking your bike outside restaurant for free.

 

My motorbike

 

It's been pretty good to me so far. It did get a puncture a month or so back, I took it to some lady on the street to fix it. After overcharging me for a new innnertube she ending up not putting the brakes back properly which resulted in her doing more damage to the bike. This meant I had to get new back bits for my brakes from another chap just over the road from her. Though charades he suggested I should walk out the road and do harm to her for her incompetence (I didn't) This fiasco set me back about $20 - a lot cheaper than the highwayman at Renault Megane.

 

Not much else has happened as I've been doing lots of hours this week. I saw an albino Vietnamese chap which was good. Next week is my last week of teaching before my nice end of year break. Holiday planning is still in progress and now only one month until I fly to England!!!

Kids on bikes

 

In a lot of places in Vietnam there are dangerous things that we would never consider doing in the west but are pretty normal for most people here, there are lots of examples and you see all the time but today I thought I'd so a special edition of the blog called 'kids on bikes'.

 

I've got some good photos of kids being put on bikes that would probably make front page news in England. Sorry for the quality of some of the photos but I had to take them whilst on the back of a bike which was moving, which is itself pretty dangerous.

 

 

The first picture is the familiar 'foursome', this is a whole family on the bike. It's surprisingly common to see four people on a bike. I have seen five before but this is quite rare. Notice the lack on space means the kid in the middle has to stand up and of course there are no helmets for the kids.

 

Positives are they're only using one bike which is good for the environment.

 

 

 

 

Front seat kid with hoody helmet

The second picture is the front seat kid. This one does not have a traditional helmet but has instead gone for an all on one jacket with hood.

 

Lot of families build a high chair in the front of the bike for the kids which is very clever and more comfortable for the child.

 

The kids do look like they enjoy the front seat view around the city.

I don't do helmets

This is probably my personal favourite photo. This guy just doesn't do helmets. Not for him nor the family. 

 

He's got that look on his face that he doesn't really care what people think either. The kid here is in the traditional front seat position and looks quite comfortable.

The lady is also in the traditional side saddle position due to wearing a skirt. Also very common to see this and quite sensible.

 

 



Small child

The final picture is of a very small baby being carried on the bike. Due to wriggling around alot he's kept in the middle to keep him safe. Again no helmet but a white hoody.

 

Sorry for the poor quality on this one but they were driving quit fast and we couldn't catch them up.

 

I have seen better ones but its all about timing and having a camera available to get a picture. I've seen three dogs on a bike before which was pretty cool. We watched them get on the bike, they all knew where to sit as they'd just been for a walk and were loving it. My mate as also seen a lady breast feeding on the back on the bike which is pretty unique.

 

Only three more weeks of work, then two weeks holiday and then back to England for three weeks.



 

 

 



Halloween poster competition

The finished poster

The Halloween poster competition has been taking place over the past few weeks. Each of the junior classes had to make a Halloween poster where prizes would be awarded to the best three. As this was my second year in the competition I wanted to win a prize which I sadly failed to do last year.

My class are a bit older than the other junior classes which I hoped would give me the edge of the other teachers. I thought my poster was pretty good, It was a big house with ghosts in the windows and a big spire with a clock on it and lots of pumpkins in the graveyard in front of the house but sadly, for a second year running, I didn't win a prize.

Making the poster

The kids were, in most cases, pretty good and helpful. Some of them were intent on just mucking about and not helping which did try my patients during the project management process. I think I'm just going to have to come to terms with the fact that I'm not very creative.

We also had the haunted house this past week which was pretty good. It basically a big room made up to look like a haunted house which has loads of teachers dressed up with the sole purpose of terrifying the kids. It was pretty cooI and very creative.

 

My class with my teaching assistant

I covered one class of 10 / 11 year olds at the weekend who were really scared and just grabbed me the whole way round. When I took one class to the haunted house, one young kid had come out so scared that he puked all over the floor. I think the objective to scare the kid was a success in that case.

Nearly Halloween

Some traffic police taking a well deserved rest

I'm coming to the end of my teaching e-commerce. Next week will be my last week at ERC until at January so I will have some more free time. As I've said before I will be working at only one of my schools after next week until 26th November when I stop work and have a 6 week holiday in Asia and England.

 

As I've been working not much exciting stuff has been happening. Halloween in upon us and we have a Halloween party soon. We also have the traditional poster competition at the school which I'd like to do well in this year.

 

Balls on the back of a bike

Also a few more of my mates are leaving in the next few weeks so there will be a few leaving parties to attend.

 

Quite sad saying goodbye to people but it kind of goes with the job. Some of them are going home and others are looking to go and work in Europe and South America, it all sounds quite exciting and something I could do in the future.

 

I'll make sure I get some pictures of my Halloween posters that my kids make and put them on the blog.

 

 

Crazy Traffic Videos

Thought I'd upload a few videos that I took recently whilst travelling on the back of a motorbike. They show how crazy the traffic is in the city.  These were taken around the time of the mid autumn festival so shows the city at its most manic.

 

 

Currently my lectures finish at 5:30pm and its rush hour. Rush hour is always pretty mental. Most people use motorbikes so although its bumper to bumper and slow the traffic still moves. There are a lot of 'amber gamblers' in HCMC on motorbikes but usually it works ok as people anticipate this, however when cars try it its a different story as they get stuck in the junctions dude to not being quick enough and work as a road block of all the motorbikes. Usually at this point its gridlocked and one of the traffic police has to come along and sort it out. This usually involves waving a stick and blowing a whistle but it does seem to work.

 

 

Driving around the city when its busy is still an amazing experience. You see so much crazy stuff. The city is so alive and fun. I'm talking about riding with a few makes from HCMC to Dalat in the hills in November, then to Mui Ne and maybe Nha Trang over 5 days which would be awesome. It's still not confirmed but there is a good chance it will happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid Autumn Festival

 

 

 

Shop selling lanterns

One of the big festivals in Vietnam is the mid Autumn festival. This took place on 30th September this year. Its a Chinese holiday and quite important to Vietnamese people.

 

There is quite a big build up to the event (about a month) and they sell things called 'mooncakes' all over this time. There quite expensive and not very tasty. Saying not very tasty is a bit of an understatement because the ones I had were nasty. They put anything into them, meat, veg, egg, cake mix and other unidentifiable flavours. I had one which was ok and taste like a cake until I got to the middle where I bit into an egg.

 

 

The reason for the event is explained below courtesy of wikipedia:-

 

'The Vietnamese version of the holiday recounts the legend of Cuội, whose wife accidentally urinated on a sacred banyan tree. Soon after desecrating the tree, Cuội sat on one of the tree branches and the sacred tree began to grow and continued until it finally reached the moon, leaving him stranded there. Every year, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, children light lanterns and participate in a procession to show Cuội the way back to Earth.'.

 

Kids with lanterns going down the street.

 

The good thing about this event is the lanterns. They are pretty cool. I bought some where where two of the characters from the TV programme 'mokey magic' from back in the 70s, there pretty cool. They are made of paper and come with candles. I lit one (pigsy) and it caught on fire but managed to blow it out before it took my bedroom with it. They shall be for decorative purposes only from now on.

 

 

 

 

Busy traffic

 

I went on a cruise around the streets to China town with a friend, the roads were very busy and I've got some great video footage for a later blog. We saw lots of lanterns and some street processions (see the video). One thing is the Vietnamese know how to celebrate. It was a great experience and a great evening.

Still working!

Sunsetting

Just trying to think what I've done over the past week that is worth mentioning and I really can't think of anything. I've been working 6 days of the week and relaxing on my day off. That's pretty much it. I payed football but that is as exciting as it gets.

 

As I've mentioned before I'm stopping work at one of my schools at the end of the semester which is on 2nd November 2012. I'm then working until 26th November at m other school. In the three week period before I leave for England I only work 2 days so I'm going to have a lot of time to relax and go and see places.

 

Some of the tropical trees

I'm in the process now of deciding where to go. The North of Vietnam is one option (Hanoi, Sapa and Halong Bay) but the middle of Vietnam is quite appealing too (Huy, Hoi An and Danang). There is also a beach place called Nha Trang which is supposed to be really good which I've not been to yet.

 

The rain has been getting heavier and more frequent but I'm happy to report that my house has not flooded. I officially move out of my house on 19th November so will be back in a guest house for a few days before going on an adventure and then returning to England.

 

Traffic

Pictures this week are some random ones I took as we came back into HCMC from Mui Ne earlier this year.

Flights booked home for Christmas



End of course party with my class

Today I booked my flights home to England for Christmas. My flight leaves Ho Chi Minh City on 10th December and arrives in Gatwick on 11th December. I've booked my return flight for 3rd January. At this point it will be a week short of 19 months away from England.

 

I finish my semester at one school on 2nd November and will not return there until the new year. My last working day at my other school is on Sunday 25th November which will give me two weeks to go for a pre holiday holiday and to sort my stuff out. 

 

As usual I've not done much exciting stuff. I'm just working hard and saving as much as I can before the end of the year. Pictures this week come from my class I have at the weekend. This is my class of 11-12 year olds. There English is quite good. At the end of the course there is a party. I put them into groups and told them they had 30 minutes to build a tower that can hold as many sweets as possible. There was a height requirement and they were only allowed to use 10 sheets of A4 paper and a small supply of sticky tape.

 

I made one too and I'm pleased to report I beat all the kids! My tower held 33 sweets until someone threw a shoe at it and knocked it over.One of the other towers did hold more sweets but I disqualified them for using too much paper and tape. My game, my rules.

 

Also, one of my 4 year old student's parents bought me a present the other day. Two very large grapefruits from her home town. I needed some help in preparing them but they were very tasty.

 

 

 

1 year teaching

Sunset at out house

On the first of September it was exactly one year since I started working at ILA. It feels quite nice to have done one full year of teaching and I've learnt so much in this time. I've signed a new part time contract at my school, they asked me to sign a new full time contract but I'm happy working part time in two schools at the moment. 

I'm pretty certain I will be coming back to England over Christmas, Our one year contract expires at our house on 20th September, we've decided to stay for two more months and then I'm going to move out. 

Sunset at my house

The timing is pretty perfect for me as it means I can move back to the guest house which I stayed at when I first came to Vietnam before stopping work at the end of November. I'll then go on a two week holiday and then coming back to England for Christmas. I'm planning to come back to Vietnam in early January and starting work again.

It will be nice to use the time to over Christmas to reflect on the past 18 months and make decisions about the next few years. At the moment I don't feel I've missed England so I can't see me moving back there in the near future.

As Ive been working so hard I've not really done much fun stuff. I'm still both teaching English and lecturing e-commerce. Only news is that we have a new beehive at our house. They've made it on our ladder on the roof of our house which is good because it means burglars can't use it to break in!

Balloon day at ILA

My class of 'jumpstarts'

Last Sunday was a special day for my class of 4 and 5 year old children at ILA. The balloon modelling man came to the school. Halfway through the lesson I took them to a room where a man had made lots and lots of different balloons. Before going I taught them how to say 'one balloon please', as you can imagine they were really happy to get given a balloon. Most of the boys opted for a sword and the girls for a flower.

 

I thought it was a good chance to take some pictures of my students.

 

I've had this class since April and for a lot of them it was their first time in a classroom. I must say they are an absolute pleasure and joy to teach. They are all keen to learn, all want to play and they laugh at anything. I usually teach them about 5 words a lesson and play games around the new words for an hour before getting them to do some colouring in. We also do lots of singing and colouring in pictures. Its great fun and at times I can't believe I get paid to just play around for two hours.

 

It's so rewarding because you see them learn every week and know its because of what you have taught them. This class has about 14 students and they all play nicely together. 

 

I hurt my shoulder in class yesterday, I made the mistake of picking one of them up and throwing them in the air. The others saw this and all wanted a turn. After about 20 lifts I got a pain in my shoulder and think I pulled a muscle, it hurts today so I may think twice before doing that again.

Big house flood

Me and my flatmates were chatting the other day about how little rain we've had in the rainy season compared to last year. Its not rained for days. This changed a couple of evening back..... big time.
 

I'd just walked to one of my favourite Vietnam eateries - Pizza Hut when it started raining, it got heavier and heavier and more intense, then it started thunder and lightening too. It got worse and worse and just kept going. The street was flooded but as it wasn't stopping so after about 30 minutes I though it take a drenching and walk home.
 

When I got home our ground floor was flooded. The water was coming from the top floor. I took this video footage attached of our living room. You can see the waterfall like water coming from the roof and down the stairs.

 

 

 

It appears our top floor drain got overwhelmed and blocked so when I went to the top floor it was covered in water and flowing off the balcony into the house and down the stairs.

 

Only one of my other flatmate was is who I awoke from his sleep and we started filling buckets of water from the roof and trying to unblock the drain in the middle of the thunder storm. It wasn't very sensible as we were stood in a few inches of water with lightening above us.

 

 

 

We must have filled about 80 buckets before the rain stopped and we got it under control. We then did the same to my other flatmates room after as we noticed the water was coming up through her balcony drain and flowing back into her room.

 

We then had to clean up the house which took us only a few hours which was pretty quick considering the mess. Nothing got ruined so it was ok and it was quite a good bonding experience with my flatmates. Its a good job we didn't have carpets but then its probably one of the reasons they don't have carpets in Vietnam.

 

Back to work

A fine piece of art

Sorry I've not updated the blog for a few weeks. After getting back from Kuala Lumpur I've got straight back into work. Pictures this week are from various places around HCMC including the beautiful concrete flower roundabout. Its very popular with locals in the evening.

I'm going to be very busy again for the next 12 weeks. I'm teaching 24 hours of English a week, both adults and children and 8 hours of English which doesn't sound like a full time working week but you need to plan your lessons so it works out I'll be working pretty hard.

Back of the Notre Dam church

I think I've made a rough plan for the imminent future. Next week (1st September) will be my one year anniversary as a teacher which is quite a nice milestone for me. My e-commerce semester ends on 2nd November so I'm going to work hard till then. After this I'm going to cut down my hours, then at the end of November go on a two week holiday (location to be decided) before coming back to England for 3/4 weeks for Christmas then coming back to Vietnam again.

Vincom shopping centre in HCMC, its not that good

Long term I'm not sure if I will keep working in Vietnam. But it will be a good place for me to work whilst I look at the next place on my list. Korea, China and Taipei are all places that appeal but I'm just going to play in by ear.

Still enjoy living in Vietnam so I'm in no rush to move on. Our house contract is up in mid September which means I'll have to move house which I'm not going to look forward to but we might be able to extend it for a few more months which would work out perfect for me.

Options of places to go are Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Sapa, Huy and Hoi An all in Vietnam. Bali in Indonesia. Dubai, or Ko Tao in Thailand to get a diving certificate. Nice to have these options!!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I've just got back from a four day trip to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I flew from Ho Chi Minh City airport to the city with Air Asia which took about 1h 30mins.

Its a nice city with some good things to see. It's alot more modern that HCMC which was quite nice but at the same time it still has some good old areas with street food. We had a nice hotel which was near a city monorail which could take use to the busy areas pretty quickly.

Me by the Petronas Towers

There was a little India and Chinatown, which had some good old buildings as well as some more modern areas that had skyscrapers. Its also the city which has the Petronas Towers which are one of the biggest buildings in the world. They were pretty impressive.

We spent most of the four days going around the city looking at stuff. We spent one day in a park which was pretty cool. It had lots of jungle forest and looked like the place in Jurassic park.

Sultan Abdul Samad Building

The shopping malls here are pretty amazing, there is lots of them and they are huge. You could probably spend most of the day looking around them. I think four days was enough to see the whole city. It's somewhere I'd like to go back to at some point in the future and I'd definitly want to see more of Malaysia.

I've added a few videos below. One of them is showing the Petronas Towers and the other is of a view from the Kuala Lumpur tower which is a communications tower but very tall and one of the biggest in the world.