Farewell Vietnam!

Whew – I have clearly been neglecting my blogging duties, but not without good reason! We had a whirlwind last couple months in Ho Chi Minh City before departing on August 2. Our timetable was moved up so that Nikki could complete some training in DC, which means all the preparations, packing, and last minute trips had to be crammed into a shorter timeframe. Vietnam was an absolutely fantastic first post with friendly people, beautiful sights, and delicious food. Nikki and I will dearly miss our friends there and hope we can return to visit them one day.

Here are a couple of highlights from the past few months:

• Although broke and busy, we managed to squeeze in a couple last trips. One was to Sapa in Northwest Vietnam, home to hill tribes and beautiful scenery, which we accessed by the swanky Victoria overnight train. Another was to Ayutthaya outside of Bangkok, completing our tour of ancient Southeast Asian capitals. Finally, we hit up Singapore one last time for some shopping, meeting up with our friend Andrew, and of course delicious char siu bao from Da Dong and dim sum at Din Tai Fung.
• We were excited to have some last minute family and friends visit in May – great to see you Darcy, Mike, Madhu, Amanda, Jeff, and Todd!
• The Tiger Team traveled to Hanoi for the annual mission cup. Sadly, we were defeated in a close, muddy game. Despite the loss, we had a great time on a subsequent 2 day team trip to Ninh Binh province, where we visited Vietnam's first national park (Cuc Phuong), a saw a huge temple, and boated through picturesque karst formations.
• We went to Phuc Quoc island with a bunch of friends to run a half marathon – I won in 1:19:06.
• I got a job in the HCMC Consulate as the Community Liaison Officer for a couple months. It was really fun and my office was right next door to Nikki's.
• I finally tested in Vietnamese and got a 2+ (speaking), 2 (reading). Not too shabby I guess, although I have to admit I was hoping for a little higher. After two years of studying almost every day, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the language and can communicate in most scenarios, so it was definitely worth it!
• We sold Mr. Mustard – our 1979 yellow Honda Cub. He was an awesome machine and we were sad to part with him, but we couldn't take him to Africa.
• We organized and ran a soccer clinic for kids at the US consulate called Tiger Tots. State magazine will be publishing a short article on it in October.
• We had a ton of goodbye parties – live band karaoke at the Hard Rock Café with Anh Joe and friends, Tiger Team and cheerleaders farewell, and an official goodbye party at the Consulate (where we drank the last of my latest beer brewing effort). Thank you to everyone and we'll miss you!!

As you can see, plenty of things going on! We returned to our sparse apartment after the last goodbye party, packed up 4 fifty-pound bags, and headed to the airport for a midnight flight out of Tan Son Nhat.

On the way home, we took a rest stop in Tokyo, and in classic Nikki/Evan style, crammed in as much sightseeing as possible - we visited Meiji shrine, strolled through Harajuku, dodged pedestrians at Shibuya, ate yakitori in a back alley of Ebisu, ate musubi at 7-11, gorged ourselves at the food show, and of course visited Tsukiji fish market. Tsukiji was my favorite – we arrived at 5AM to see the tuna auction, where a single fish goes for as much as $80k USD. On the outskirts of the market, we sampled some of the freshest sashimi in the world, before wandering the narrow alleys of the market crowded with purveyors of every kind of seafood imaginable.

So our Southeast Asian adventure is over and we are back in Falls Church, VA for a couple of months. It's a nice feeling to be home, and there are definitely things we've been missing – places to run outside, American chains, craft brews, and the ease of communication in a common language (my head nearly exploded today when I went to a nearby store where people were speaking Spanish, Vietnamese, and English). We're soaking it all up, since in a few more months it will be off to our next adventure – Africa.

Madagui Race Video

Meant to post this video my buddy Collin put together from our race in Madagui a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

March and April Update

Well, it's tax season and we're broke, so we've been hanging closer to home for the past month or so. The consulate soccer team (the Tiger Team) is gearing up for the our big match against Hanoi next month, so we've been practicing quite a bit. Not that it makes much a difference for me – I just try to not embarrass myself too much!

Mr. Mustard, our bright yellow Honda Cub motorbike, is finally in reasonable working order, so we've been scooting around the city exploring various less-visited districts. Our Sundays usually involve some sort of leisurely brunch at one of the many fine Western establishments in the city, followed by various errands via motorbike. This weekend the errands involved a visit to one of the street-side barbers who set up shop right on the sidewalk. I don't know why I haven't been doing this all along – for 2 bucks I got a great cut in the open air and sunshine, as well as fun conversation with Mr. Hai the barber. What more can you ask for?

This weekend we also celebrated our friend Jen's birthday with a nighttime food/bar tour. It has got to be one of my favorite ways to see the city. Our group of 12 bounced between delicious eateries and bars all night, conveyed by perhaps the most stylish (although probably not the most comfortable) two-wheeled wonders ever created – Vespas and Lambrettas. There's just something so magical about climbing on the back of one of these machines and floating through the neon-lit city streets…

We did slip out of town for a long weekend, returning to Hue in central Vietnam for a few days of relaxing in a private over-the-water villa. For once, we took it easy – reading, biking around the lagoon, and taking a cooking class. It was a nice break, as Nikki is still working hard in her new economic position. I'm working hard too, and just got back from a trip to the Danang area attending a workshop for reporters working on environmental issues, which included a visit to an island fishing community off the central coast.

Only a few months left in Vietnam and we're trying to see as much as possible before we leave!

Madagui Trophy Jungle Race

So there I am at 5:30 AM running through the Vietnamese jungle in absolute pitch darkness alongside a bunch of French expatriates, while vines and branches smash into my helmet and water sloshes into my mud-covered running shoes. Perhaps a scene from the new Parisian box-office hit, "Le Platoon"? Wrong! It's the 5th annual Madagui Trophy Race about 4 hours away from Ho Chi Minh City, near Cat Tien National Park. Vietadventure is one of my favorite companies in Vietnam. Run and funded by a French juice baron (his company - Le Fruit), they run adventure races in the region and always have an environmental and/or social aspect. Every time I enter one of these things, I wish that I'd prepared better.

This particular race was a team challenge, and included jungle running, mountain biking, and something ominously called simply "downriver." Preparing for a race of unclear distance, that was supposed to take between 4 and 8 hours, was a bit challenging. At the last minute I left my head lamp behind in my bag – big mistake. As the race started across a precariously swaying suspension bridge, I noted that at least three-quarters of the other participants had made a similar decision. Half an hour after the 5:00 AM start, we were all regretting our poor judgment, clustering around those few individuals with enough common sense to bring a light to a pre-dawn race. We trudged up mountains and slipped down gullies, desperately grabbing foliage that we hoped was not covered in spines (I was unlucky a few times on that front) or hiding snakes, scorpions, or worse. It's a wonder that no one broke a leg.

My partner was an amiable American expat named Collin who I had just met through the race organizers when both of our original teammates bailed out at the last minute. We were making good time in the middle of the pack, but ran into some trouble when we finally made it to our mountain bikes as the sun started rising into the sky. Collin's rear brake (and in fact the whole rear wheel) was acting up and giving him trouble, forcing him to disengage it and rely on the front brake alone. This might have been ok on a mostly flat ride, but with hills getting in to the 40 plus degree range, this was not going to be pretty. Miraculously, Collin was able to mostly stay on the seat, passing virtually everyone on the downhills, with only one or two spectacular crashes. We carried our bikes through rivers and up huge hills, trying to remember to take in the stunning scenery.

We lost a little bit of time on the running sections later in the race, making an accidental half mile detour at one point that cost us several places. Luckily we had plenty of water, gels, and powerbars (I finally planned something right!), so we avoided totally bonking. When we reached the river wearing bright orange life jackets supplied by the race organizers, we were instructed to jump in to the opaque brown water and keep an eye out for the exit a little ways down the river. We flopped about in the river, trying unsuccessfully to determine an effective method of locomotion, while slamming knees into submerged rocks and fish traps and cringing in pain every few minutes as our fatigued muscles spasmed and cramped in the cold water. Finally we reached the appropriate river bank, where I promptly tripped on a obscured root and fell on my face. We picked ourselves up and forced our exhausted muscles to carry us back along the river, over the suspension bridge, and to the finish – just under 6 hours in 10th place and the first (albeit only) Americans!

What a blast. After much needed showers, we stumbled over to an outdoor barbeque for pork ribs and beer – doesn't get much better than that after a long effort. We relaxed for a bit, chatting with other race participants, before reluctantly piling in the car to start the 4 hour drive back to Ho Chi Minh City.

Nikki's Birthday Weekend in Thailand

Nikki and I took advantage of a three day holiday weekend to visit southern Thailand for her birthday. After a night in Bangkok, a flight to Krabi, an hour-long bus ride, and a 20 minute boat ride we finally arrived in the climber-backpacker destination of Railay. Here, limestone peaks rise out of the azure-colored water, with idyllic white sand beaches tucked in between caves and mangroves. With a Chang beer in your hand, sitting at a beachside bar playing reggae and watching longtail boats come and go, it's kind of hard to imagine a better place. We brought along our climbing gear – it's been a year and a half since we used it in DC – and had fun scrambling up the jagged karst cliffs. When our arms were no longer capable of pulling our Thai-food-filled-bellies up the mountain, we kayaked around the islands to get a closer look at the expert climbers scaling huge sheer walls. A perfect little birthday mini-break!