Well I'm writing belately about this adventure but I'm going to attempt to keep the writing in order of my appearance in these places!
The sleeper bus bounced into the beaches of Natrang early in the morning. This was apparently the site of one of the bigger and early beach invasions that the US took part in. There are definately no remnants of that as the curling waves and beachside resturants produced mellow hawaii like vibes. I do believe that exiting a sleeper bus is a prime example of the lowest functioning brainwaves possible. Most people are looking around dazed as the sleep you hopefully snatched in fitful spurts has been interrupted by bumps on the road and honking that never ends. Watching myself and the students wake up as we stumbled into a courtyard to begin bathroom breaks and breakfast. This organizing takes all mental abilities I have and I soon realize that I will have to treat myself to a strong local coffee...
As the sugar and caffiene surges into my body I eat a omlet and look at the beach. We shuffle along to another bus which takes us past huge hills covered with granite boulders and cliffs. Then the travel gets vertical as we begin the ascent to Dalat, a mountain town of about 5000 ft in elevation, resting in a beautiful valley. This town is also the local honeymoon capital of Vietnam and there is a lake in the middle of the city where we were told numerous times that lovers walk around.
A hotel is procured by a task force of students and we settle in for a few hours. A run around the lake by Nate and I begins and much to our surprise the lake has been drained and is now a pile of mud where locals were pulling clams from as they walked up to there waist in muck. So there went the romantic run but the rest of the city was full of restaurants and hotels but it felt different because so many of the tourists were not Western but Asian or Vietnamese.
We dined at the chocolate cafe that night which was the best presentation/meal combo we have had yet. All for the cost of 10 us $ for 3 people!
Up the next few days were some adventure activities. Day one was Canyoning. We walked down a paved path to a waterfall. There was a roller coaster above our heads, rock music playing and vendors lining the path to this scenic wonder! It seems many of the waterfalls are like this in Vietnam. Once we passed this waterfall however we entered a canyon were lush pine trees mixed with jungle vines which curled and were strung from rock precipices along the walls above us. We quickly learned that we would be rappelling down waterfalls and into pools!
This was enough of a scare for the students to cause them to bond together and form a supportive team for all the folks who were pushed to their limit. Being scared and lowering yourself down a rushing waterfall was adreniline pumping and as we watched them going down with bulging eyeballs and looks of shear delight/fear we called out and encouraged as a cohesive group! The final water fall was aptly called the washing machine and as you lower yourself into a chimmney of rock with water knocking you around you experience a disorienting feeling where you have to trust in the process and know it will be okay!
Mountain biking and more good meals followed the next few day!
Friday 19 February 2010
Thursday 4 February 2010
Hue more
As we guided our bikes down the equivelent of a country lane in the outskirts of Hue children began screaming with delight as we cruised by. This was to be a common trend throughout the trip. Fifteen giants with helmets delighting children into fits of screaming and giggles. It has consistently put huge smiles on all of our faces!
Our final destination was a orphange where we were to spend the next five days. We immediately met with the Hue(a woman) who ran the school there. She was kind, spoke English but was difficult to understand and was genuinely very proud and happy to have us there. We also met with the founder. He was a humourous man who spoke his own language and as much English as we spoke Vietnamese. Which is not much. So far we had hello, thank you and goodbye down. At least most of time. As the owner spoke through a translator we understood that they were really looking forward to working with us. As teachers we were treated with utmost respect. Apparently teachers are as revered as much as doctors if not more in Vietnam.
We took a tour of the orphanage and were served a meal by the house mothers there. We were to be treated to these homecooked meals three times a day for the rest of our trip. It was so good. Soups with pork and noodles, sweet potatoes, rice, fish cooked whole, pho, desserts of fresh fruit everymeal and more. This was the best chance we had to eat as the people of this country do and we took advantage. After our meal we found out what we were to be doing.
A playground needed to be constructed in an area currently coved with trees and uneven dirt. There was a fish pond that was going in the middle and sidewalks and swings to be put in on a later date. check out http://www.huehelp.org/node/204 for some pictures and background.
We kept getting glimses of the intially shy children there. They would come smile and then disappear giggling. Finally it was time to head home via bicycle.
The next two days consisted of hot labour on the playground. We had huge mounds of dirt to move via shovels, picks and wheelbarrows. Our goal was leveling the ground. I worked as much as possible on the tree removal team. Being well versed with a chainsaw I was not given the opportunity to cut them down by hand. We used scyles and a two man saw to cut the big and small trees around. I don't know why it is so much fun to do but I love watching trees come crashing to the ground provided they land on know one and come down for good reason! Students were also given the chances to go and play with the orphans as they were around during breaks in school. We learned some fun games they played and were amazed at the simple tools they had to play with and how much fun they had with them. I can't imagine Americans enjoying playing jumping games with rubber bands or playing jacks with rocks but as we joined in it was relieving to see this gameboy generation of students I was helping to teach enjoy what saw the children of vietnam use.
A day off allowed us to tour the city which was dominated by the Chinese rulers for hundreds of years. Everywhere were huge memorials, or grave but not in the sense of the ones we know. They were all around and then downtown was structured like the Forbidden city in China with moats, huge walls surronding buildings with open squares and courts. We went to the Hope village that day as well and learned and met the folks there who made handicrafts there. All of them suffered from disablilities of some sort and this center trained them in ways they could make a living. It was one of the most memerable moments of our trip as our initally uncomfortable students spent two hours playing, singing songs, taking thousands of pictures and communicating with the folks there. I was seated at a table with four of our students and five people who worked there. We struggled to communicate until we discoved that one of them was deaf and spoke American sign lanuage. One of our students started to communicate with her own knowledge and they ended up talking for hours as we all jumped in. So cool!
Our final destination was a orphange where we were to spend the next five days. We immediately met with the Hue(a woman) who ran the school there. She was kind, spoke English but was difficult to understand and was genuinely very proud and happy to have us there. We also met with the founder. He was a humourous man who spoke his own language and as much English as we spoke Vietnamese. Which is not much. So far we had hello, thank you and goodbye down. At least most of time. As the owner spoke through a translator we understood that they were really looking forward to working with us. As teachers we were treated with utmost respect. Apparently teachers are as revered as much as doctors if not more in Vietnam.
We took a tour of the orphanage and were served a meal by the house mothers there. We were to be treated to these homecooked meals three times a day for the rest of our trip. It was so good. Soups with pork and noodles, sweet potatoes, rice, fish cooked whole, pho, desserts of fresh fruit everymeal and more. This was the best chance we had to eat as the people of this country do and we took advantage. After our meal we found out what we were to be doing.
A playground needed to be constructed in an area currently coved with trees and uneven dirt. There was a fish pond that was going in the middle and sidewalks and swings to be put in on a later date. check out http://www.huehelp.org/node/204 for some pictures and background.
We kept getting glimses of the intially shy children there. They would come smile and then disappear giggling. Finally it was time to head home via bicycle.
The next two days consisted of hot labour on the playground. We had huge mounds of dirt to move via shovels, picks and wheelbarrows. Our goal was leveling the ground. I worked as much as possible on the tree removal team. Being well versed with a chainsaw I was not given the opportunity to cut them down by hand. We used scyles and a two man saw to cut the big and small trees around. I don't know why it is so much fun to do but I love watching trees come crashing to the ground provided they land on know one and come down for good reason! Students were also given the chances to go and play with the orphans as they were around during breaks in school. We learned some fun games they played and were amazed at the simple tools they had to play with and how much fun they had with them. I can't imagine Americans enjoying playing jumping games with rubber bands or playing jacks with rocks but as we joined in it was relieving to see this gameboy generation of students I was helping to teach enjoy what saw the children of vietnam use.
A day off allowed us to tour the city which was dominated by the Chinese rulers for hundreds of years. Everywhere were huge memorials, or grave but not in the sense of the ones we know. They were all around and then downtown was structured like the Forbidden city in China with moats, huge walls surronding buildings with open squares and courts. We went to the Hope village that day as well and learned and met the folks there who made handicrafts there. All of them suffered from disablilities of some sort and this center trained them in ways they could make a living. It was one of the most memerable moments of our trip as our initally uncomfortable students spent two hours playing, singing songs, taking thousands of pictures and communicating with the folks there. I was seated at a table with four of our students and five people who worked there. We struggled to communicate until we discoved that one of them was deaf and spoke American sign lanuage. One of our students started to communicate with her own knowledge and they ended up talking for hours as we all jumped in. So cool!
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