First week in Vietnam

Wow! So much happens in a week! We are absolutely loving life here. The food is delicious, we've made some great friends, and there is so much exploring to do! This first week Nikki and I were both in one on one language class for 4 hours each day, followed by field trips or exploring on our own. The teachers are wonderful and I feel like we're learning a lot (though we (I) have a looong way to go). The other folks that work at the consulate are fun, and we've already found friends interested in travel, biking, tennis, rock climbing, a dinner club, billiards, etc. We're making local friends too – the soccer team I'm playing on is mostly local guards, and after practice this week we sat at a streetside vendor practicing our respective Vietnamese/English skills. I had this surreal feeling riding on the back of a scooter under the full moon to the place, then explaining the rules of baseball to my new friends. Plenty of interesting foreigners too – yesterday I met an expat who has been doing biodiesel/alternative fuel work in this part of the world.

This weekend has been super fun. On Saturday, Nikki and I went with the language immersion program to a Cao Dai temple and the Cu Chi tunnels, northwest of town a couple hours. We passed time on the long ride out singing Vietnamese songs and practicing listening while our guide explained the sights (I understood maybe 5%). What we learned is that Cao Dai is this interesting religion founded in 1926 in Vietnam which combines aspects of Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity and counts among its prophets Sun Yat-sen (leader of Chinese revolution), Victor Hugo and Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm (Vietnamese poet/official) (more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_dai) The temple was beautiful and we witnessed a very colorful service. I didn't take any pictures of the people themselves, as it didn't seem cultural appropriate, but the white, red, blue, and yellow colors were all very vivid. After a lunch with the class (I ate snake) we headed to the cu chi tunnels, which are a huge (hundreds of kilometers) network of underground tunnels that the Viet Cong used during the war. We followed some for a few hundred meters (they are maybe 4 feet tall, hot, and dark) and got to see how the Vietnamese lived while they fought in the war. They also had a display of all the different traps that the Viet Cong used during the war - they usually involved numerous spikes impaling the body via some king of hinged trap door – yikes.

On Sunday we explored the immediate city a bit more. We checked out the backpacker district, where there are funky stores selling old propaganda posters, interesting t-shirts, and interesting art. We bought guidebooks for Bali, Hong Kong, Singapore, only to get home and discover they were each photocopies of actual books! Live and learn! We also visited a market selling old army gear – helmets, fatigues, compasses, gas masks, dog tags, etc. When we had seen enough, we flagged down a unique form of Vietnamese transportation called a "cyclo" for a ride over to the Chinese part of town called Cholon (big market). A cyclo is pretty much a pedicab where the passenger sits in front of the bike rider. Nikki and I squeezed in one cyclo at first, which was piloted by a man who appeared to be over 100 years old and had only one tooth remaining. Since we've been eating so well (see below) and clearly represented a hefty load together, a second cylco appeared so that each of our voluptuous selves could have our own vehicle.  It was great fun tearing through the city on the front of the cyclos and luckily Saigon's daily torrential downpour didn't start until we reached our destination. We did a bit of shopping and came home in time for me to make it to my soccer game (which we won!).

No update from us would be complete without a description of the food situation. It's fantastic. Nikki and I have been eating out almost every night and this city has every cuisine imaginable. Vietnamese food itself is great – fresh ingredients, delicious soups, lots of veggies, and plenty of seafood – and on top of that it's super cheap. And no one has gotten sick…yet. Some highlights from the week include dinner on a posh rooftop near our apartment overlooking the whole city (restaurant Shri); lunch with our teacher Co Binh at an architect's sustainable-food driven restaurant which integrates old materials, local plants, and animals into the décor (restaurant Cục Gạch); lunch at a French colonial-style café, with delicious soups, salads, and coffee (the Refinery); and a gourmet all you can eat Vietnamese dinner where we had three desserts (restaurant We). We've also sampled local Indian, Italian, and Mexican(?) food (all good, though the Mexican food was a bit strange). Last night I had a different kind of dinner experience when I went with my soccer team to a restaurant owned by one of our sponsors. Sitting in a private room where our beer and chivas glasses (yes, both) never went unfilled, we were brought course after course of awesome food – whole prawns, fish cakes, some kind of baked invertebrate, hot pot, and my fave – durian (which thank goodness tastes waaay better than it smells!).

So life is good so far and we are just getting started. We are already planning trips regionally and within Vietnam. Our air freight is getting here Wednesday, though I think the bulk of our household effects are still a long way off. Our car also won't be arriving for some time, though I think we might buy a scooter in the meantime (we found out our US motorcycle licenses will transfer over – yay!). Looking forward to another action-packed week!