Phan Thiet Oct '11

I wouldn't say that I woke up rested after my first night in the house, I had had to contend with the hardness of the bed, the wine I had drunk and most shaming of all, that I had slept with a light on. I don't handle change very well and the house is going to take some getting used to. It has a lot of windows, some of them are just slatted panes of glass so you can hear all the neighbourhood noise. When next door is doing their washing up, it sounds as if they're doing it in our kitchen. It's a bit disconcerting. I had a similar issue when I moved into my house in Japan, but I got used to that so I'm sure I'll get used to the house here. And in a perverse way I'm missing being at the hotel. There was always someone there by the front door, the fact that they weren't always awake and you could walk straight past them into the hotel didn't matter, they were there. The first weekend after we moved in Anna and I didn't spend at the house , we went to Nha Trang for the weekend. We got a bus at 7am and the ride wasn't too bad. I will say that a bus ride in Vietnam is never boring, regardless of where or far you're going. We arrived into town, arranged our bus ticket out, dumped our stuff at the hotel and went and got some lunch. There was beer with lunch which led to both Anna and I taking a nap. In my defence I'm still not sleeping very deeply. Although Anna may dispute this comment as she has heard me snoring! The second floor of the house is not arranged very well. It is a long rectangle with a separate bathroom at the back of the house. In order to make two bedrooms and put in a corridor to the front balcony they have used aluminum and glass to make the dividing walls. So basically we sleep in two metal and glass boxes, so if either one of us wants to read, the light will shine into the other's bedroom and of course we can see each other moving around. Luckily the glass is not clear, that would be weird. So when we finally woke up from our naps we went and had our lady gardens waxed, there was no mishap this time. Anna and I both had a straight forward bikini wax, although the lady wanted to take it all off. I guess that's the fashion in Nha Trang. After we had finished with our grooming we met up with Denise for some shopping and a late afternoon drink, it was good to see her. I think she is having a tough time at the moment, she is friends with a guy whom she has strong feelings for. Unfortunately he doesn't feel the same so until she can resolve this, she is going to have a shadow hanging over her. The night got underway at Guava, the bar where Denise works. Denise and Michael, he's a teacher at Diamond Bay, don't bother buying individual drinks, they order a bottle and the mixers. We had dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant and then it was back to Guava. It was a bit of an odd night, we tried to go to the roof top bar at the Sheraton but it was closed for a private function, then we went back to Guava for a third time via an electric taxi cart. That was cool. The last stop of the night was the Sailing Club and I lost my phone in the taxi. Luckily I didn't lose my camera, although I hadn't taken any chances but had brought my Fuji camera instead of my Canon. There are advantages to having more than one camera. I danced with a Vietnamese guy for a while and then went back to my hotel. I was a bit confused when I got back as Anna wasn't there, but she's a big girl. It turns out that Anna hadn't wanted to wake me and had slept on Michael's couch. We caught an early bus as we had been invited to a wedding. It didn't work out, the bus ride home was longer than the bus ride to Nha Trang and we didn't get back until just before 5pm and we were both very tired, we decided not to go to the wedding. That sucks, but it also didn't help that I was very hungover and had felt lousy all the way home. I had an early dinner with Anna and Jan and then straight to bed. What a weekend! The following week was quiet, I just did routine things, nothing terribly interesting. I tried to forget that Anna and I training with "Dr. Jason" scheduled for the Saturday and Sunday, so to this end I decided that if I had to spend my Saturday inside, doing something I didn't want to do, I would be hungover! Anna and I called a few people, including Binh and had dinner at the snail restaurant, we finished the night at Bocano. It was a really good night, I totally enjoyed it! The next morning was a little rough, but Jason loves the sound of his own voice and I was more than happy for him to talk as much as he wanted. Despite this I think that the training had some value for me. He went over Interactive Brain Based Teaching, this included a lot of class room strategies that I think will really help in one of my high school classes, if not all of them. We got through the material so quickly that we finished at 4pm and he said that we didn't need to come in on the Sunday. I was stoked about this! Anna and I were both so tired that we went home and stayed there for the evening. Sunday was a good day, it included some pool time. Shallow I know but I want to look brown when I go to Kate's wedding next month. The last week in the month was a little bit strange, Anna was ill and so stayed at a friend's house, a friend who has better A.C. then we have. On the Monday night I went to a show celebrating tourism in Binh Thanh province. It was interesting to say the least, there were two groups, a mixed sex dance group and a female singing group and for once very few speeches. Both groups were great, but some of the routines were a little odd, including fire eating and belly dancing. I didn't know that Vietnam had a history of either! By Friday Anna was better and with Jan we all went out for dinner on Bo Ke, after those two had gone home I went to MTV, had a bit of a dance with the staff and went home. All of the night clubs in Phan Thiet employ men and women to dance with their customers as well as pouring drinks for them. For some reason I get on really well with a few of these people at MTV and they are always happy to dance with me.