Welcome to Vietnam: 2012

I have 3 girlfriends I was pretty close to in LA; Angela, Traci and Erin. In a country far far away...I think I may have met their dopplegangers. I met a girl name Bea, who is very similar to Angela. She is very into music, happens to know all the owners at every bar, is a social butterfly and ambitious to start her own business. Traci's doppleganger is a behavioral psychiatrist and I don't know her that well yet, but she sure does send out Traci vibes. They look alike with short hair and sharp features. They work with children and have great energy. Erin is a friend I recently made and became pretty close to I really loved being around her and spent a lot of time with her before leaving the US. Anyhow, I met a girl who is Bea's friend name DD and she is just like Erin! Erin don't be mad, but you have a very feminine voice and this girl has your identical voice!! Here's the Bizarro part, these 3 girls I just met are lesbians I think. Well 2 out of 3 are for sure, so if you're a Seinfield fan, remember when Elaine meets 3 people just like Jerry, George and Kramer, but in Bizzaro world there was that one catch...they were all successful and normal people unlike Jerry, George and Kramer. It's crazy how you can find someone that reminds you of half way around the world. I miss you ladies, but these girls are great fillers until I see you all again!!

I met a girl name Thuy when I enrolled Paul for 80 hours of intensive Vietnamese classes at VLS. Thuy mentioned it was her last day and that she was really a marketer and was over being a receptionist at VLS. She plans to help her friend's start up, in the area of marketing, called VietStudies. It sounded interesting so I decided to stay in touch with Thuy. I got an email a week after regarding information about the program. It was so convoluted with a lot of grammatical errors and etc. From what I understood after emailing her for clarification and reading the email over a few times, I was able to dissect that it is a program which pairs activities and the Vietnamese language, to foster an optimal learning environment. Out of the goodness of my heart, I rewrote and reformatted the email and itinerary for them. This is what you do when you have a lot of time on your hands. If you have ever said to yourself "self, I wish there were more hours in a day", my answer is move to Vietnam!

Anyhow Thuy was really appreciative and somehow Paul and I got to attend the excursion for free. The only catch I have to provide feedback, which I was more than happy to do. The fee is around 1M per person, so I was excited about a day trip to a secret location and the opportunity to use my Vietnamese. Although I'm in Vietnam, I don't use the language as much as I would like. Paul, our partners, my students and foreign friends all speak English, hence I sure use Vietnamese less than I would like.

So I dragged Paul into this and he wasn't the happiest camper when our personal guide was forcing him to use Vietnamese. He learned the first month we were here and took a break because he's working Mon-Sat Full time. In other words he was really rusty and these guides were relentless.

In short, it was a pair of 6 and we met at park. Our first activity was to find the bus stop and ask when the Cu Chi bus was leaving and what number bus it was in Vietnamese. Somehow, Paul found it before I did....this guy ceases to amaze me. Anyhow, we jump on the bus and it's a 1.5 hour ride, passing several cities and rice patty fields. The entire time I'm getting the mean eyes from Paul because his guide kept talking to him in Vietnamese.

We finally arrived and our next mission was to hail a cab and find the secret destination. They gave us a map with no road names and no significant details. A 5 minute cab ride took 30 minutes. So they need to improve that, they should have provided an address! I understand that they wanted us to use the language but we could have done that with and address!

The house we finally found was actually a house/place of medicine in the middle of the country. We were going to learn about traditional medicine and learn how to make a vegetarian meal from the garden that the house grew. The highlight the food was amazing. However we did not learn much about the medicine and we did not learn how to cook the meal, it was just served to us. Then somehow we were conned in doing the dishes. That took forever as we sat in the sun in the squatting position with three tubs of water and spout for running water. Then we made an aloe vera dessert and had to make it all from scratch...I guess we did learn how to cook a vegetarian dessert.

It was already 3:30, and we were suppose to be on our way home. But the thing about Vietnamese people is there natural ability to lose track of time. I did my best to hold Thuy to the schedule she reassured me that after the aloe vera dessert we would head home. Later I learned that we were going to take a tractor to the bus stop, but they would not arrive until 4:30pm so we were going to be stuck for another hour. The host suggested that we walk over to his uncle house to see where the herbs for cancer remedies grew and other remedies used in traditional medicine.

Don't even know how this happened but we lost 2 people on the way and had to wait a lifetime for them to catch up. We reached the "medicine house" and there was a table full of people eating and drinking. Just like in the travel show "no reservations" with Anthony Bourdaine. We were greeted with an old plastic 1 liter soda bottle with the label ripped off and a floating insect in some liquid they claimed to be rice wine. The foreigners were pulled to the table and the drinking began. He fed us each a shot and then crammed grilled pork bellies in our mouth as a chaser. My second shot I got a chicken drumstick in my mouth. It was the wierdest thing....but I have to tell you it was fantastic. This was certainly the best part of the entire trip. Paul had a change of heart and got stuck with the men taking several more shots. In Vietnam, you cannot decline shots and it's extremely rude to decline food.

We sat and ate again! But it was delicious. 7pm, holy crap! Finally the tractor was ready and we were finally able to escape the hard grip of the man with the green plastic bottle with the floating dead bug.

With a different buzz and a full stomach, the tractor ride was the cherry on top. I need to download the video it's pretty awesome.

The ride home was pretty rough, it took 2 hours and the entire time Thuy was experiencing motion sickness. She was gagging half the time and got me gagging. There was nowhere to move to, the bus was packed and Paul was forced to stand the whole 2 hours.

Overall cool trip, I have lotsa feedback for them. Great idea just need better execution. Paul was a trooper!