Tuesday, April 14th 2009 We arrived in Hoi An at exactly 6 am and were sooo tired. I had hardly slept on the bus, because I had so many mosquito bites that were hurting a lot and I couldn’t get comfortable in the seat/bed. Luckily we had booked a hotel before hand and a staff member came to pick us up, which we were glad about. When we found out that we could check into our rooms right away we were really happy and slept for a few hours. When we got up we still felt pretty tired, but were eager to look around town and get a bite to eat. We strolled around for a while and I immediately fell in love with Hoi An! It has such a wonderful old-town-flair, beautiful shops (tailors, jewelry, ... read more

Sunday, April 12th 2009 Today after we had checked out, I went to the repair shop and found out that the guy did not fix my camera! I was pretty irritated, because he could have called me to tell me that and I would have gone to another repair shop. Luckily I got my money back. The day before we had arranged getting picked up by a car from a place called ‘Jungle Beach’, which is about 55km north of Nha Trang. After yesterday Jeremy and I really wanted to not continue wasting our time and decided to do something about this situation. He had heard of this place and when we called up the owner Silvio (a layed back Canadian, who has been living in that area for the past 10 years) and he said ... read more

Wednesday, April 8th 2009 I was excited to head to the next place this morning and didn’t mind leaving Dalat. My next stop was going to be Nha Trang, a city with supposedly clear, blue water and nice, white beaches. I had bought some carsickness pills and was sooo happy to have them! The roads we were on were very curvy, bumpy and adventurous again, and since I was sitting up front I could see the road well, which really helped to not get sick. But the ride was also very beautiful and I wish my camera would have worked, so I could share it with you. Most of the time we saw some cows, standing in the middle of rice paddies surrounded by mountains which was just such a typical vietnamese scenery. I arrived in ... read more

Wow, today was my last teaching day! I can’t deny that I was not looking forward to this last week of work, but I was also very sad having to leave. As usual I went to Tan Binh school that Friday morning. When we got there the boys were cleaning their beds, which actually were these wooden “matresses”. It was fun to watch them working hard tring to impress us and helping to get everything cleaned up for a visit from a foreign organisation. When they had finished cleaning, we gathered in the classroom and I (tried) to give a little thank-you/goodbye-speech. to be honest I didn’t get very far, since the tears just came rolling... Just thinking about the months we’ve spent together, having our ups and downs, seeing how several students improved and would ... read more

Sunday, April 5th 2009 I had to get up sooo early (5:15 am!), because I had to get on the bus to Dalat at 7:30 and I wanted to take the bus down town, which doesn’t really follow a schedule, so it’s always better to be there several minutes early. I had some leftover crepes with banana- yummy :) I left the house and still couldn’t believe that I was actually starting my three week trip all on my own! The bus to Dalat was almost empty, which was nice, since I wanted to sleep most of the time and was able to lay on the five seats in the last row. Unfortunately I would only sleep for 30 min and wake up again. but then also after three hours of driving I started feeling very ... read more