As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, Joe and I have been pretty busy with our new lives as EFL teachers in Hanoi. Good teachers make it look easy, but we’ve found EFL to be full of hard work, endless hours of lesson preparation, screaming children running amok in the classroom, and teenagers who alternate between bored and bitter. We desperately want to be polished, effective, and loved teachers but right now we have to settle for making lots of mistakes and being mediocre language educators - at best. To catch you up on our unfolding adventure, you may recall [View Full Entry]

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Well… after numerous sleepless nights, several really bad lessons, a few tears here and there, one stomach flu, a “gazillion” laughs, and about two dozen smiling, warm, loving, and most importantly - forgiving - Vietnamese students, JOE AND I PASSED OUR CELTA COURSE! We now hold a “Certificate in English Language Teaching for Adults” and are free to befuddle and perplex even the most talented Vietnamese student. We took the CELTA course at Apollo Education and Training Center in central Hanoi- just steps away from our apartment, and now the location of our [View Full Entry]

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Joe and I are happy to report that Phase I of the Rehumanization tour was a resounding success. In just under two months, we traveled the length of Vietnam - from Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta, and Phu Quoc Island in the south to Hanoi, Sapa and Halong Bay in the north (see forthcoming blogs for stories and pictures from Sapa and Halong Bay). In between, we pedaled across the rolling hills of Dalat, drank beer on the beach in Nha Trang, swam in the still ocean waters off of Quy Nhon, shopped-till-we-dropped in the mercantile mecca of Hoi [View Full Entry]

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We thought it was about time to catch you up on a few side trips we took when we first hit Hanoi way back in July. Wow- that seems like a life-time ago! Our first excursion out of the city was a 4-day jaunt, by overnight train, to Sapa in northwestern Vietnam. Not knowing any better, we purchased a finely organized but over-priced tour from our hotel. Our journey started at the train station at 9 p.m. where we jumped off platforms and walked through open railroad tracks to get to our train - chuckling all the way about how the [View Full Entry]

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As many of you know, Joe and I are genuine foodies. Our love of travel has as much to do with all the wonderful food we get to sample as it does with seeing the world and learning about people in different cultures. Vietnam has not disappointed us in our quest to “eat our way around the world.” All of the food here has been exceptional - everything from the gently flavored Vietnamese tea (tra) and the country's bold coffee (ca phe) to the freshest of fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, tofu, chicken, and beef. Of course, I’d be remiss if I [View Full Entry]

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Xin Chao, friends! I got a little behind on our blogging, so it’s stretching my memory just a bit to tell you about the ancient city of Hoi An in central Vietnam. I’ll try my best. We were very excited to go to Hoi An because we heard from so many people that it was a very unique and beautiful city. We had a bit of a hellish ride - 7 hours in another cramped and airless mini-van sitting “skin to skin” with people whose body temperatures were so high I expected to see steam. We hadn’t booked a room beforehand, [View Full Entry]

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As we continued our journey north, we visited two coastal areas in the central portion of Vietnam - first the very popular beach-party city of Nha Trang and then the much quieter, less touristy town of Quy Nhon. We only stayed in Nha Trang for one day, enough time to try the micro-brews at the New Zealand-owned “Louisiane Brew House” - the first microbrewery we’ve seen in Vietnam. For those of you who know Joe well, you won’t be surprised to hear that he was very happy about this particular stop, so much so that he tried nearly every beer on [View Full Entry]

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It is referred to as “Le Petit Paris” although we thought it looked much more like Switzerland. Regardless, Dalat is a little slice of Vietnamese Nirvana at 4,425 feet above sea level in the Central Highlands region of the country. It is refreshingly cool and dry, with average summer temperatures hovering around 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit. When we arrived in Dalat, we had an overwhelming sense of relief to be out of the oppressive heat and humidity of the lowlands. We were dumbstruck to see the locals in winter hats, gloves, and parkas at night when the temperature dropped to a c [View Full Entry]

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Note: We've had a little trouble getting our blog to everyone we wanted it to go to. Sorry if this is the first time you are receiving notification about our blog. We have two previous ones that can be viewed from this website. Our four day visit to Saigon included a visit to the Reunification Palace, which was the home of the South Vietnamese president until April 30, 1975 when Saigon fell to the North and the Liberation Army crashed through the gates with their tanks. We also toured the War Remnants museum where we saw pictures of the profound horrors [View Full Entry]

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During our stay in Ho Chi Minh City, Joe and I visited the Cao Dai (pronounced “cow dye”) Great Temple in the city of Tay Ninh, located about 2 hours northwest of HCMC on the Cambodian border. The temple was an extraordinary experience of architecture, sculpture, color, sound, and spirit. Our small tour bus arrived at the Cao Dai Holy See (the complex which houses the temple, administrative offices, residences, and a well known hospital of traditional Vietnamese herbal medicine) around 11:30 a.m., just in time for us to observe the noon prayer session - one of 4 daily ceremonies [View Full Entry]

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