Christmas Week Dec'11

On Boxing Day morning Anna and I caught the local bus to Lagi, a small fishing town about 50kms south of Phan Thiet. I'd wanted to go and take a look for a while and since I had taken the week off school, we decided to go. I actually thought that it would be a smaller version of Phan Thiet, I was in for a surprise. We managed to bag two front seats and I settled back to enjoy the ride and the view. Just outside of town we turn off the main road and take the coast road that goes to Kega first. There are a few resorts along the road, it's a beautiful area, but other than the odd resort and village there is nothing else there. If you stay at one of the resorts you're pretty much stuck there. What is interesting is the number of resorts that have started to be built but have been abandoned mid-build. I would like to cycle out there one day and take a look around a few of them. I also want to stay at one of the resorts, Rock Water Bay, I think Darren would like it. The passed through Kega and other than the light house, a cafe and a few houses there is nothing there. Anna had thought that there would be more of a town then what we had seen when we went there. Not the case. The road to Lagi is bounded by rice paddies and dragon fruit farms, very beautiful and totally typically Vietnamese. The trip took us about two hours and we got dropped outside a rice place and stopped for lunch and a beer. I decided that since I was on holiday I should drink during the day. I don't generally drink during the day, it makes me sleepy and when I do I usually end up in bed by 10pm. However for me nothing says holiday more than drinking during the day, so I did. After finding a hotel and dumping our stuff we wandered around the town. I was a little disappointed, other than a boat building yard we wandered into, there wasn't much to see despite us being on what I thought was the main road through town. We didn't go down to the beach as it's about 3kms from the centre and I didn't fancy the walk in the heat of the day. We stopped for coffee mid-afternoon and you can tell that Lagi doesn't get a lot of Western tourists. One guy immediately shot off and returned 20 minutes later with, I presume, his daughter. She then sat down and used us for English practice. Back at the hotel I took an afternoon nap before getting ready to go and find something for dinner. During the afternoon's wanderings I hadn't seen a large coffee house or any restaurants. I have no issue eating street food, I was just surprised by how much of a village it seemed despite not seeming to be that small physically. Anna and I settled for Pho for dinner and after some more walking found something to stop and have a drink. I was in bed and asleep by 10.30pm, Ms. Exciting me! We were overcharged for our breakfast the next morning and got straight out of town after that. I was back home in PT by 10.30am. That evening I had dinner on Bo Ke with Anna, Jan and his aunt and uncle who were visiting for a few days. Andreas and Martina are lovely and it was really nice to talk to them. We all decided to go to Ta Cau the next day and rather than take the cable car up the mountain to the temple, to walk it. Anna had gotten directions to the path from Tim, so we were all set. The walk up the hill wasn't too bad, I did get out of puff but the worst thing was the heat. I ended up dripping sweat. Despite a few stops we all made it to the top in about 90 minutes, which was quicker than I had expected. Bonus. I like Ta Cau, it's such a serene place,I even got to see a monkey. I had been told that there are monkeys on the mountain but they generally stay out of sight as the locals hunt them. While we were there Andreas interviewed me about Vietnam and my experiences here, he's doing some sort of program for German public radio. So I might be on the radio again. I got back to town later than I expected, but that's usually the way here, things take longer than I expect. I needed to get showered and changed, Anna and I had a wedding to go to at the Park Diamond Hotel on Le Loi. There are three main wedding venues on Le Loi and the Park Diamond is the nicest hotel of the three and the only one I hadn't attended a wedding at, so far. We had been invited by Anna, the mother of the bride. She is an Italian Viet Qu who now lives here, we had dinner at her house a couple of months ago. I had actually been invited to a wedding in Saigon by a guy I met on the bus, but I decided to go to the one in town. The wedding was weird and not as much fun as others I've been to. Anna was sat next to one of three Russian ladies and they were lovely and willing to chat. The rest of the table was made up of two mixed couples, so Western guys with Vietnamese wives and in the case of one of them, his mother-in-law. They were perfectly nice to speak to but the guy with the young wife had her feeding him. I can handle that, what I found weird was when she wiped his face for him, like a baby. The Russian ladies thought this was a bit strange too, we all looked at each other and then discussed it. I think the wedding party was more for the benefit of Anna and her family in Phan Thiet than the bride and groom. The happy couple seemed a bit lost at times and I don't know how much Vietnamese the daughter speaks because the whole evening was spent with their Italian guests and not with their Vietnamese ones. In fact the reception room was fairly split down the middle with Vietnamese guests on one side of the room and Italian ones on the other. Our table was in the middle. After the wedding Anna and I picked up Jan and went to check out a couple of new nightclubs that have sprung up in the new area of town. The first one we went to was half empty but had awesome air conditioning, the second one was packed and the air conditioning wasn't making much of an impact on the press of people inside. I took one look and went home. It had been a strange night. I spent a lazy Thursday morning at home, it was nice and relaxed. Anna had persuaded me that we should take the train to Saigon. I had thought that the wedding would mean a late night and hadn't wanted to travel with a hang over so had suggested that we left PT in the early afternoon. There was a train that left at 2pm, so I agreed, it's not that much more expensive than the bus and Anna is right, it is a lot safer. Despite the advantages I don't like the train, I think it's boring and we still arrived late, which sucked and frustrated the hell out of me. At least the train station is closer to District 1, where we stay, than the bus station. We got into the hotel room, freshened up and we were on our way out again. We actually had plans to meet some friends for a change, instead of it just being the two of us although we were still going to El Gaucho, the steak restaurant. I'd been contacted by Andy, he had taught in Hokkaido at the same time as me and I'd hung out with him when I went to San Diego. He is American Vietnamese and had come to Saigon to do his CELTA and then work here. He brought along a friend, Jen, who had been on the course with him, another former JET teacher Alex and her boyfriend Daisuke, who were just travelling through Saigon. Dinner was awesome as usual, Anna and I shared a bottle of wine. It was really nice to sit down in a proper restaurant and enjoy some good conversation over dinner. Jen left after dinner but the rest of us went to O'Brien's, an Irish bar and had a few more beers. I totally enjoyed the evening and at the end of it felt more relaxed than I had when I'd arrived in the city. The next day Anna and I hung out with Andy, we had lunch followed by a few beers and then a visit to the beauty salon. A good day. We went to a foreign food fair in the park in the evening and then met with Doan, the guy I had met on the bus when I went back to PT in November. Later Alex and Daisuke joined us and we had dinner,it wasn't a late night this time. Before I left Saigon I went to Annam, the foreign food store, bought some cheese and wine and then headed out to the the bus station. As it was New Year's eve we had to wait a couple of hours before we could get on a bus. Luckily the trip home was swift if hair raising. Before we left the bus driver did a Buddhist ritual, blessing the bus with incense and then preceded to drive like an utter maniac, doing figures of eight through his lane of traffic. Vien arrived at the house late afternoon, Anna and I agreed that he could stay the evening as we were all going to a wedding together the next day. When Anna explained our plans for the evening, the two parties, one he could come with us to and the other he couldn't he decided to stay home. He called Mr. Thanh and they were going to spend the evening drinking, big surprise. I started my New Year's Eve evening partying at Tony's house. On top of his house he has a built a second storey and turned it into a self-contained flat, Kate, the new teacher, and her boyfriend Winston will live there. The flat is great, really well laid out and it has a great patio and air conditioning in one of the bedrooms as well as real person height kitchen counters. The counter in my kitchen was designed for someone five feet tall so I give myself backache every time I do the washing up, luckily that isn't very often. The party was OK but it didn't have a good vibe, I didn't know why until a few days later. After a couple of hours Anna and I left and went to Novotel where we had been invited for wine. They were holding another gala dinner, complete with limbo dancing and a live band. I grabbed some cheese, dessert and wine and settled down to enjoy. I had a good night, I don't generally do well at New Year's Eve, I always think I'm going to have an amazing night and then it doesn't work out that way. This night I'd expected to be fairly casual and relaxed and it was. I got home after 2am, let Mr. Thanh out, left Vien on the couch and fell into bed. Goodbye 2011.