Working hard and the cat

Policeman hard at work

Over the past few weeks I've been working pretty hard which means I've not been up to that much interesting stuff. I've picked up lots of extra teaching hours which will last until the end of July when the semester finishes. I'm working 7 days a week until this time but Its OK as its my choice and I quite enjoy the work. It's also good as whilst I'm working hard I'm not spending money so I'm saving a nice bit of money. I have two weeks off after the end of July so am already looking at my next trip. I will probably be to the north and / or central Vietnam. 

Gardeners hard at work

I'm still playing football twice a week and darts. Both are good fun. We had a work social yesterday and which had a raffle with some excellent prizes. I won a voucher for some posh tea at this shop called 'Operation Tea' I shall look forward to going to cash that one in.

Pictures this week are just random ones I've taken at various points over the past month or so. Rainy season is here and we are getting some great down pours!

Shifty looking man

Probably the only news work mentioning is the cat is back to its old tricks. Since it can't get into our house its taken to dumping in the corner of our porch. I've found two to date. Fortunately they are outside the - what I like to call - walking zone so I took the decision to leave them and see what happens in the hope that some sort of magic fairy would clean it up. 

I'm pleased to say this worked! However it turns out it was our cleaner who cleaned up the mess. This made me feel a bit guilty as although we pay her the going rate its not nearly enough to deal with things like this. Plus it must have been the first thing that greeted her as she pulled up outside our house. It's not what you want first thing in the morning.

The sugar cane industry

The one and only sugar cane man

I've been very busy at work this week so have nothing new of interest to report.

One thing people are fascinated by and that I frequently get asked about by people who read my blog is 'sugar cane man', seen in the picture to the left doing his rounds. This chap goes around the city selling raw sugar cane from the back of his bicycle. It looks like tough work but I used to see him lots which means there must be a big demand for the stuff. This has led many people to ask me questions. Who buys the sugar cane? where does he get it? what happens to the sugar cane?

typical sugar cane retailer

Due to these questions, over the past several months I've been researching the sugar cane industry to get some answers.

Well, it turns out that sugar cane man sells his raw sugar cane to the numerous sugar cane stalls across the city. The picture to the right is of a typical sugar cane retail outlet. Notice the sugar cane retailer happily posing in the right of the photo.

What happens is they buy the sugar cane and put it through the machine which crushes it down to a white liquid called sugar cane juice.

Sugar cane consumer

You can see the rotating arm on the left side of the sugar cane machine above.

The sugar cane juice is then stored, mixed with ice, orange juice and sugar to make a refreshing drink. It retails for about 25,000 VND ($1.25) for a cup.

This is then sold to the sugar cane consumers as demonstrated by me with some sugar cane juice I had on monkey Island recently.

The locals here love this stuff. It is quite nice but pretty sweet.

typical sugar cane farmer

The only question I can not answer is where sugar cane man gets his sugar cane from. I know that sugar cane is grown by the sugar cane farmer as shown in the picture to the right. but I'm unsure as to whether sugar cane is purchased directly from the farmer or some type of intermediary such as a wholesaler. I'm not sure how to find this out.

I could ask sugar cane man but he doesn't speak any English and was not happy with me posing in a photo with him when I saw him last.

So just to summarise. We can see below the sugar can supply chain which gives us a good idea as to how the industry works.

The sugar cane supply chain

As you can see the only missing gap is the uncertainty of the step between the sugar cane farmer and sugar cane man. I'll ask some questions and see what I can find out. As always, I'll let you know when I know.

Mui Ne - ILA's annual outing

View from the restaurant

I've just got back form a trip to  Mui Ne which was an annual outing provided by my school ILA. We left HCMC on Monday morning for the 6 hour journey to the coast. There was a total of 6 coaches full with staff and support staff.

I must say the school looked after us very well as the 4 star hotel we stayed in was possibly the best I've visited.

I shared a room with two other teachers that had a sea view and its own private pool. (See the video below).

Gardens at our resort

The gardens at the hotel were beautiful in addition to having its own private beach. We had lunch upon arrival and after a little rest there was beach games organised throughout the afternoon. I played volleyball, where my team lost in the final which was great fun and other silly water / beach games. One game involved trying to protect a bucket from having balls chucked into it whilst having your leg tied to another person. Again I got to the final and lost.

BBQ men hard at work

Beer and food was provided. In the evening we had a bar-be-cue which was probably the best I've ever had. Fresh fish, chicken, kebabs and rice dishes.

Sadly it was only an overnighter and we had to come home the next day. I didn't get to see much of Mui Ne so its definitely a place I will go back it. It was great to spend some quality time with my teacher buddies.

Garden at the resort

I'm going to be very busy for the next 8 weeks. I'm working everyday which is OK (it was my choice). Then I'll get two weeks off work and go on another trip. I may well come back to Mui Ne then as there are some cool things to do however I do really want to see the north of Vietnam at some point.

It's still pretty hot at the moment but I'm not feeling it as much as last year. Also rainy season has arrived so we are getting some pretty impressive downpour which are like walking under a shower.

The video above is of my hotel room at the resort in Mui Ne. I could have happily stayed their all week.

Monkey Island and the Mangrove Forest

Monkey news

I went on another day trip on Friday 25th May to a place called Monkey Island with an additional trip to a mangrove forest. I wanted to go on the trip as I thought it would be cool to go to an Island called 'Monkey Island' - I wasn't that interested in the Mangrove forest and in all honestly had no idea what one was. The trip lasted the whole day and took us on a coach trip about three hours south of Ho Chi Minh City.

Mangrove Forest

I had images of getting on a little boat and going across some water to a nice tropical island that had thousands of monkeys on it, however the reality was very different. The Island was only separated from the mainland by a few meters of water which we got to by a bridge which if you looked down you'd probably not even noticed you crossed. We arrived at this place on our coach and went to this park were there were many be a few hundred monkeys. It was pretty cool feeding the monkeys and watching them try to nick peoples stuff.

Mangrove Forest

The more impressive thing was the mangrove forest. Its basically low lying land making it pure mud with trees (mangroves) growing out of it. It also has lots of muddy water ways that you can get down in a boat. We took a boat ride down these water ways through the forest to a place where the VC used to hide in the war. They spent a total of 10 years there and used to make attacks on the Americans back in HCMC.

At a VC style camp in the mangrove forest

It also used to have loads of crocodiles (which have all been relocated to a crocodile farm). The Americans didn't want to go in after the VC (I don't blame them) so as usual just bombed it instead. Lots of the VC were eaten by crocodiles. The boat ride was great fun (see the video below) and I'm told if you stay at this place that at around 7pm you'll open your mouth and be able to eat thousands of mosquitoes.

It was a nice day out and I was pleasantly surprised by the mangrove forest. 'm off to a place called Mu Nui next week with my school, ILA for an annual outing / team bonding session. It's supposed to be a nice beach place.

One year since I left England

Today is exactly one year since I left England. I can't believe it was one year ago on 17th May 2011 that my brother dropped me at Poole bus station early in the morning to get the bus to Heathrow to get a flight to Bangkok. I remember thinking to myself 'what am I doing?' as I boarded the plane. Looking back now, which I didn't realise at the time, its one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Night out on Tuesday

So much has happened in that time. I've seen a part of the world I'd never seen before, I've retrained and become good at a new career, I've met some amazing people, I've seen some amazing things and learnt a lot. Below are just some of the many many things I've learnt.

1. You can make a living from selling sugar cane - all you need is a bicycle.

2. Never underestimate how much you can carry on a motorbike.

2. Cats are just as unlikeable in Asia as they are in England.

4. I will never complain about being cold again... ever!

With some ILA friends

Seriously though I've learnt so much and I'm not in a rush to go back to England although I will try and visit at the end of year for Christmas. There are some thing I do miss, see the list below - one of them however is not true - see if you can guess what it is.

1. Family and friends.

2. Real Ale.

3. Monster Munch (roast beef flavour) and crisps in general.

4. The cold.

5. Banking.

Originally I wanted to stay a year and see how I feel..... and I've done that! I think I want to stay in Vietnam for longer. I'm still keen to work in other countries such as China, Japan, Korea and I'm keeping an eye on Brazil for 2014 but will just go with how I feel. It's nice to know I can work in most places in the world!

Below is a picture of the Bangkok skyline which I took on day one. That place used to scare me a bit but now I'm used to Asia I'd like to give it another visit.

Day one - the Bangkok skyline

Not much else has happened. I'm still having fun, I've had a hangover, the cats stayed away, darts was cancelled this week and the bees are continuing to making honey - albeit very slowly.

Vietnamese Driving Test

Yesterday I took my Vietnamese driving test and I'm happy to report I passed. However in all honesty its not the hardest test I've ever taken.

As I mentioned before it involves driving in a figure of 8 and then driving in a straight line followed by weaving in and out of some lines before finally driving over some small bumps.

The test course

The only time you can take your test is a 1pm on a Sunday, not bad for a city of 8 million people, at a centre about 20 minutes drive outside of town. There was about 80 people there and they read your name out one at a time. There was some confusion with my papers so I had to wait about 2 and a half hours to take my test which was over in about 1 minute. They have a row of 3 judges like in X-factor who mark your paper then after they read out over the tannoy if you've past or failed for everyone to hear.

Most people in Vietnam don't have a driving licence however I wanted to get mine so I am covered on my Insurance. If you get pulled over by police without a licence you have to bribe them to let you go (about 50 dollars is the going rate I'm told). So this is an additional benefit of having a licence.

I spoke to one of my friends who took his test last week who paid a $15 bribe to one of the judges to guarantee he passed his test. He thought it was good value for money so paid it although after he said he would have passed it anyway.

Not much else to report. I saw the cat the other day and chased it again - its a fast runner. I think it knows its done wrong but frankly I don't think it cares and will take great pleasure in doing it again given half a chance. We have been extra vigilant with locking both sets of doors at night so it doesn't repeat the senseless crime.

Cu Chi Tunnels and Cao Dai Temple

Inside the Cao Dai Temple

This week I've been on a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Temple which are both about 3 hours outside Ho Chi Minh City.

The trip started with a visit to the Cao Dai Temple which is home to the Cao Dai religion. Which was started in 1920. These people pray at the temple 4 times a day every day at 6am, 12pm, 6pm and 12am for about 45 minutes. This works out that they spend about 45 days a year praying. I'm not really sure what else to say on this one.

Cao Dai Temple

I got told off for forgetting to take off my hat and there was a big eye at one end of the temple like the one in Mordor. Also we all had to take off our shoes at the entrance and as there was over 150 people in the temple finding my shoes took a few minutes and as the floor was really hot from the sun you had to keep jumping to stop your feet burning. We stayed to watch about 10 minutes of the 12pm praying session before moving onto the Cu Chi Tunnels.

Giving us information on the tunnels

The Cu Chi Tunnels were pretty cool. There are over 200k of tunnels built by the VC in the war with America and we were given a tour around one of the areas and given information on the area, the tunnels and the war. I've uploaded some pretty cool videos below. We were shown a small secret escape hatch which the VC used to hit and hide the Americans, which was very small although I'm pleased to say I managed to fit into it.

Inside the tunnels

We got to go into some of the tunnels although these were specially built for tourist as its unlikely many Western people would fit into the holes as the VC were alot smaller than us. It was a great trip.

Apart from my trip, I played darts again last night and lost. Can't complain the guy was really good and I'm please to report the cats not been back to the house.

Check out the Videos below as they are pretty good.

This first video is of a secret hatch hidden in the ground. Its very well hidden and very small.

The second video is of one of the traps they set for the Americans. They used lots of different types. All of them were pretty nasty.