fancyandjoe

Believe it or not, the 20-hour sleeper bus from Hanoi to Vientiane, Laos was not a wretchedly horrible experience! The bus was clean, warm, and quiet (after they stopped blaring Asian pop Karaoke). We started our journey in Hanoi at 5:30 pm on a Thursday afternoon. In true Vietnamese style, we were shuffled from bus to bus and from one waiting area to another for the next 2.5 hours, so we didn’t actually leave until about 8pm. We stopped for dinner at around 10 p.m. and then finally hit the road hard after that. Joe and I slept on and off all night until about 6:45 a.m. when we were forced to disembark the bus and wait outside in the cold for the border patrol to issue us our Laos visas. We got back on the ... read more

Joe and I wanted to send everyone a quick note of cheer and warm wishes for the holiday season. It’s somewhat of a bittersweet Christmas for us as we miss our friends, family, and holiday traditions. At the same time, it’s fascinating to see how an Asian country incorporates Christmas and New Years into its culture and quite touching to celebrate hand-in-hand with our new Vietnamese friends. Much to our surprise, the Vietnamese LOVE Christmas. They decorate like crazy and celebrate with abandon! Hanoi is full of lights, fake snow, Christmas trees, and Santa figures. The kids know all the classic Christmas songs and get placed on Santa’s lap for that perfect Christmas-card picture just like kids in the western world. People have Christmas parties and send Christmas greetings to each other (at least we’ve received ... read more

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 new jobs! We had three amazing EFL teachers as our trainers - Nick, Simon, and Claire (all Brits, but we don’t hold that against them …too much). They suffered through a month of ill-conceived, poorly delivered, and sometimes just plain incorrect English lessons, ... read more

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 concept of personal injury law is non-existent in Vietnam. Joe managed to immediately piss off our first tour companions - an Eastern European mother and her 14 year old daughter - by telling a bad ... read more

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, but we got lucky with a wonderful hotel - not overly expensive, very friendly staff, great breakfast, and a swimming pool to cool off during the heat of the afternoon. We aren’t usually interested in ... read more