Phan Thiet Feb

By the end of Valentine's Day it felt as if I had never been away from Phan Thiet, let alone seen Darren. On the other hand I now truly feel as if I am on the home straight and can start planning my last three months here. In the middle of my first week back Anna changed hotels, she's moved to a hotel nearer to school, it's also a lot quieter than the HK. My first week back was pretty quiet, even Friday night. On Saturday afternoon I picked up my new Ao Dai. That evening Anna and Stephen were MC's at an amateur windsurfing event at Jibes in Mui Ne. I tagged along for the wine. It was a good night, from what I remember. It had better have been a good night, I was not very well the next day. I met Anna for lunch but other than that I didn't leave my room and then before I knew it a new week had started.
The next Tuesday Anna and I went out to dinner with Jan and some of his friends who were in town as well as Tim, the general manager of Novotel.We went to a goat restaurant, the food was really good but upset my stomach a little the next day. At the end of the week we had beer with Vien and Mr. Tan down at the beach and then I had an early night. I wanted a relaxing weekend. Anna and I had breakfast at Mr. Tan's mother's Bun Xao stall, the food was really good and I will definitely be going back. Then Anna and I caught the bus to go to Ke Ga, a small town just down the coast from Phan Thiet that has a light house. We stopped for a coffee when we got off the bus and played cards, the locals were very intrigued by us. The boat ride to the light house wasn't as exciting as I had hoped. I had thought that we would be rowed over in one of the curricles that the locals use to fish from. We did get a ride in a curricle but it was just out to the bigger motorised boat. There isn't a jetty as such at the other end so we had to jump off onto some rocks. At the bottom of the path there were a group of Vietnamese having a picnic, Anna went to take a photo and got invited to join the party and was given a hat and a beer! I think we could have stayed with them all day. Just ahead of us was a couple who were having their wedding book photos taken. In Vietnam an engaged couple will spend a day or so with a camera crew, several outfit changes and just travel around having their photo taken. The photos are then put into a special wedding book, I've seen Ms. My's book and it's great. I want one!
We had to wait at the bottom of the lighthouse for the couple to finish but when they were gone we had the place to ourselves. This was a very good thing, the stairs looked very rickety and very narrow. As I was walking up them I kept muttering my mantra, "I am a strong, independent confident woman". I still have an issue with heights but try not to let it stop me from doing something I really want to. The view from the top was beautiful and it was even better as we didn't have to fight through crowds for it. After we got down we wandered around the island taking photos before getting the boat back to the mainland. We had to wait for the bus so we went back to the coffee house and played some more cards. The bus conductor tried to kick Anna and I off the bus at Co-Op Mart, but we stood our ground and got dropped off in front of the Hoang Kim. We had dinner at a new Japanese restaurant, all the food was deep fried at the table. I wasn't terribly impressed and can't imagine going back. Sunday afternoon I spent beside the Novotel pool. It was great! The last day of February was uneventful except that I had to work in the evening. We are looking for another ESL teacher, doing Sam's job for her.