Phan Thiet - January '11

The first day back at work was as expected. As I had prepped the day's lessons before I left for Japan so I just had to go in and teach. On Wednesday we got a Christmas bonus and Anna and I promptly went to Mui Ne and spent it on a nice dinner.I didn't have the money before, so wouldn't miss it now. Unfortunately despite waiting an hour for the last bus to go by it became clear that I had missed it, I had to take a motorcycle taxi home. I got back to Co-Op just as they were closing up for the night and wheeling my bike away! I left Anna'a bike outside the parking lot, locked and hoping it would be there in the morning. It wasn't! Anna asked some of the locals around there and one local beckoned Anna to follow her. They had put the bicycle behind the shed in their garden, you wouldn't have found without knowing where it was. Then they kept asking Anna for money, perhaps they thought they deserved something for moving it and "keeping it safe". Cynical, me? Friday came around none too quickly. Anna and I had dinner on Ba Ke with Mr. Tan and Vien and then we all went to karaoke. The guys accompanied us back to the Hoang Kim, I don't know if they thought we were going to run of to a night club or something. However that is always a possibility if the mood takes us. What the guys didn't know was that we were off to Mui Ne the following morning and we were going to cycle there so we needed an early night.
Denise had come down from Nha Trang with Carrie and Justin to visit. I had hoped that she would make it into Phan Thiet so I could show her where I actually live. Maybe next time.Anna and I cycled to Mui Ne, which is getting easier for me. I usually have to get off my bike and walk up the big hill on the way out of town, not this time. The ride still kills me though! We met them at Sanakara, had breakfast and chilled there. We checked into the same resort as Denise and settled in for some sunbathing and beers. It was a wonderfully relaxing day and just what I needed. In the afternoon Anna headed off to a wedding and Denise and I continued to chill. We did some shopping, I managed to pick up a dress for my holiday, we went for a drink at Guava and had dinner at a burger restaurant. We had more beers at the hotel bar and then settled in for a relatively early night, it was great. No stress.I woke early the next morning, I seem to need less sleep these days than when I was a teenager. Denise had said to wake her if I woke up early, so I dragged her out to watch the sunrise with me. It was a nice start to the day. We had breakfast and then went to get a bikini wax. Denise wanted a Brazilian wax and I just wanted a straight bikini line. Unfortunately that is not how it worked out. The lady started working on Denise first and then another lady started on my wax. When Denise was finished I ended up with the two women waxing me. I was too mortified to notice that they were taking off a lot of hair! I got a Brazilian wax after all!! Anna and I did some shopping, had lunch and then headed back to town, we had a Student's Day ceremony to attend.
We got changed into our Ao Dai's and cycled to the parade ground,just down from the Co-Op mart. We had been told to be there at 5pm, so we were and of course pretty much no one else was. Ms. My and Ms. Phung arrived and we went with them and sat while they had dinner, I was still full from lunch and didn't need anything else. We caught a taxi to the Ho Chi Minh museum and waited for the students to arrive. Some of the Phan Thiet students and students from the Saigon school were staying at a resort for the weekend and the ceremony was just a part of this whole weekend. The students arrived and there was a small ceremony in the museum, some students had been picked to light a torch from the shrine in front of Ho chi Minh's statue. Then we all had to walk up to his shrine and throw some wood on a smoking pyre, in miniature. Then it got better. Anna was told that she would be riding in a jeep and Mr. Hoan dragged her off, I followed as I wanted to photograph this. The school had got an old American army jeep and decked it out with APC flags. And if that wasn't enough we would have an escort of motorcycle police. It was way cool. Then the whole procession of the cops, Anna's jeep and all the students on buses, about ten in all, made its way through the city with the cops stopping traffic for us and going through red lights. It was awesome. After that the actual ceremony was a bit of an anticlimax. There were speeches, some questionable singing and risque dancing from my 9th graders. It finished on time and I went back home to get some sleep. Another week was beginning.
Monday was a quiet day without the high school students about the place. I took the afternoon off on Tuesday, picked up my new dress from the tailors and got my hair cut. I didn't do anything else productive. On Wednesday evening Anna and I had dinner with Jan, the operations manager at Novotel. When we had had a drink there before Christmas we had said that we would take him out and show him our Phan Thiet. We started with dinner on Ba Ke, our usual hang out and then the three of us moved on by bicycle to our favourite Bia Hoi place. Since Jan didn't have a bicycle he took Anna on the back of hers. That's just how we roll. On Thursday we had dinner with Luyen, one of the school receptionists and her husband Nam. We went to this great BBQ restaurant which had this awesome grilled beef. The food was really good. Then we went to view a house. I am so bummed, the house was great, furnished, affordable and had an amazing rooftop terrace, complete with Binh Minh style concrete bench. There were two major drawbacks with this place. It's on a dead end dirt road, which isn't an issue in itself, but there is no passing traffic and it is all residential, so there is no where that we can just insert ourselves into. Also it wasn't lit, so it could be quite dangerous to return to at night. And as we will be in the house by ourselves, no one to look out for us. I quite like that people have to get past Mr.Lan before they can even get to the door of my room. The other major drawback was the timing. We are just two weeks from Tet and when we get back we just have 4 months left to go. I am hoping to come back to my job when the new school year starts but it's not guaranteed. So Anna and I talked it over and said no. I hope I don't end up kicking myself over this.
And then it was Friday again. Who knew time could go so fast. I even felt good when I finished work, which never normally happens as Friday is my busiest day. I put it down to the weekend with Denise in Mui Ne.