Life in Vietnam has become defined by routine.  I don’t want to imply that days have become predictable, stagnant or stale, far from it.  New experiences and unexpected sites await around every corner, jarring me with how different this land is than any other place I’ve lived and constantly reminding me how far I am from home.  Rather, at least for the time being, I have developed a general daily routine which structures my time, and the surprises are found randomly throughout a set daily pattern.  With this blog I have decided to not detail an extended period of time, but rather focus on my generic daily routine, to try to give all readers a peak into Thatch in Nam.

The month of May will no doubt be an outlier when this whole adventure is over.  Resultant from the fact that I was working a part time schedule in April combined with having taken a significant number of days off for visitors, I am on an absurdly tight budget this month.  While I still have some money accessible from my US bank account, I have embraced the challenge of living this month in the most thrifty way possible.  Additionally, my “free time” has been slashed drastically this month, as I went from working only three days per week in March and April (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) to six (Saturday’s off).  With that in mind, let’s delve into a day in the life of Thatch in Nam.

Part I: Waking Up

My days begin lazily around 8:30 or 9am, as I stir from my slumber and realize slowly how firm my mattress is.  Though I’ve gotten more accustomed in the 100+ nights I’ve slept on it, the rigidity is still unkind to a waking body and mind. 

My Bed.  Old Glory hangs to the right of pictures of family and friends.

A millennial to my core, my first tasks of the day are to mindlessly scroll through Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter on my phone, robotically taking in digital representations from the States and around the world.  As nearly the whole day in the Western world unfolded while I was curled up asleep, there is often much to catch up on.  I am disappointed with myself for the attention I’ve continued to pay the ongoing political chaos in the United States.  Though I’m on the entirely other side of the world, the entree of my daily news diet is always 45.  I have strong opinions on the President and the administration he leads, but I will not detail them here.  I wish I could detach from the constant barrage of chaos, but the whole thing is akin to watching a massive metaphorical car crash in slow motion on a national scale: you want to look away, but don’t have the strength to rip your eyes from the spectacle.  That’s all I have to say about that, for now. 

Often the timing works out that I’ll rise around the time of the seventh inning stretch of the Red Sox game, if they’re playing a night game in the States.  I throw on a stream of the game and leaf through the box score to inquire about what happened in the earlier innings as my mind slowly gains consciousness.

The East Coast is 11 hours behind Indochina Time, so when I wake up around 9am, it is 10 o’clock the previous night at home.  I try to take time each morning to FaceTime somebody, whether it be my parents and family or friends.  Sometimes if I sleep in I miss the opportunity to contact people, as they must rise early the next morning for their professional lives.  This portion of my day is also something I am looking to improve, as I sometimes mindlessly browse the internet, blankly staring at the screen rather than calling and engaging with people.  I don’t know why I do this.  Even if there is no one I need to talk to that day, I can still be more productive than switching off my brain and watching YouTube conspiracy videos.

Around 10am, I finally escape the mildly uncomfortable yet extremely alluring bondages of my bed.  I dawn my motorbike helmet, grab the 500ml water I left cooling in the fridge the night before, and hop on my aging motorbike which recently eclipsed 41,000km on it’s odometer.  Half blinded by the blasting light of the Hanoi sun, I ignite the bike and am on my way.  I travel south down Au Co, a major street which connects the neighborhood I live in (Tay Ho) to the rest of the city.  During my early months in Vietnam, I rarely used Au Co, opting for the far calmer and more scenic roads which wind along the lake.  However, by taking the main street I make a twenty minute drive closer to seven, allowing me to get to my destination (almost) on time. 

Part II: Gym and Lunch

At around 10:16am every day, I pull up to “The Fitness Village”, a predominately Western gym located on the riverside of Au Co, and rush into my 10:15am yoga class (it’s not always yoga and it’s not always at 10:15, but what the hell, for the sake of simplicity of blog, it’s Yoga at 10:15).  Other classes offered here are Pump classes, which are a low weight, high rep hour long workout to the “best” EDM from 2013, and Interval Training which is an hour long circuit training workout to the “best” EDM from 2011-2012.  But today is yoga.

The Pool and Back area of the Fitness village.  Very refreshing to jump into the pool after a sweaty practice of Yoga.

My teacher Andrea greets me as I rush to grab a mat, two blocks and a strap, and find a corner in the back of the room where the smallest amount of people can see me flail about.  Through the approximately one and a half months I’ve been doing yoga regularly, I feel my body getting begrudgingly better.   At first, it was a disaster.  My practice could still be qualified as a disaster, but less so these days.  In the beginning, I could barely touch my ankles, and now I can stretch all the way to my toes.  My balance in March would be akin to a drunk toddler on an airplane experiencing turbulence.  Now I’d say it’s more similar to a tipsy teenager on an airplane, for lack of a better metaphor, NOT experiencing turbulence.  I am still far from being “good”.  I have vastly improved my “vinyasa”, a series of four moves which flows with the breath from high plank, to chataranga (which is basically a pushup position but you just go down, not back up), to upward dog where you push your chest up like a mighty vicious cobra, to downward dog where you basically try to fold your two halves into a triangle with your mat providing the base.  This is about the only move I can do with proper breath, inhaling and exhaling to each movement.  The rest of the lesson I am panting and pouring sweat and gasping for air.  As the days have gotten hotter, Andrea has began turning off the fans and air-conditioning.  Dear God, I never realized how much I could sweat.  Several times throughout the lesson I’ll have to flip my mat, one side having gotten too wet and slippery to hold any pose for any length of time. The practice always ends with my favorite part of the day.  After a grueling 55 or so minutes of uncomfortable positions and dynamic stretches, we fall gently onto our backs into what is called a “chervasana”, which is the most idyllic nap time one could possibly dream of.  A soft and soothing tune is played loud enough to be perceived by the ears, but soft enough to not invade the mind and dominate the attention.  Andrea softly whispers affirmative statements while I gasp for breath and soak in my sweat.  She comes around to each student and gives them a little 10 to 15 second head and neck massage with lavender oil.  The class is ended with her encouraging us to take the calm and presence of mind we have developed in yoga and allowing it to guide our day.  As I said, I am still embarrassingly bad at yoga.  I can only capture my breath for one set of movements. I am often panting shallowly like a dog, where the goal is to be constantly taking slow and deep breaths.  My mind is often darting from thing to thing, YouTube Conspiracy video to what I thought of the movie I watched yesterday to “hey that girl is attractive” to what my first grade teachers name was to “god damn I’m sweating a lot” and so on.  I hope to improve both my breathing and mental focus over the coming months, and arrive back in the States good enough to impress my friends and maybe do a handstand, that’d be pretty cool.

Inside the Yoga Studio

Warning: Fart Joke Story Interlude now

Several weeks ago, I was still a newcomer to the class.  I had to go to the bathroom extremely bad, and not #1.  We were nearing the end of the lesson and I could see that shining light of the Fitness Village bathroom inching closer and closer.  I may have to skip the chervasana today to make it in time, but that’s a price I was willing to pay.  We were coming down out of a more advanced pose with one leg splayed forward and the other stretched to the opposite side and back into downward dog.  Drenched in sweat and using every ounce of energy not being employed at keeping myself up to hold myself in, I decided to return to Childs Pose and wait out the final minute or two of the lesson before slipping out quietly as everyone else slipped into their chervasana.  Thinking to myself that I had accomplished quite a feat given how urgently I needed to use the water closet, I felt quite proud as I lowered into Child’s pose.  It was at the exact moment that I had rested my bum on my ankles that critical mass was reached.  While nothing physical came out, one of the most forceful and auditorily impressive flatulations I had ever released exploded into the room, popping the peaceful bubble of everyone around me and denying them nirvana.  Though I tried to feign innocent, the source of this disturbance was no mystery.  I rose from Child’s pose to find every head pointed squarely at me.  I still needed to go to the bathroom very badly.  There were two other men in the class and then probably around a dozen women.  I could feel the blood rush out of my face.  Luckily for me, the two guys thought it was pretty funny (objectively they aren’t wrong) and they began to chuckle loudly.  Andrea chuckled too, then extended to me a verbal olive branch of freedom by asking if I needed to excused myself from the room.  Some of the other women chuckled as I quickly exited the room and fled to the bathroom.  Most remained silent.  Can’t win em all, sometimes you have to take solace in the little things like not shitting yourself.

Anyways, when yoga finishes at 11:15ish (or 12:30ish if it’s Monday or Thursday), I hop back on my motorbike and speed off to lunch.  My favorite Bun Cha place is conveniently on the way home from the gym.  At around $1.75 for a full lunch of delicious Bun Cha, I cannot resist.  I scarf down the charred strips of pork belly and the juicy delicious minced pork shoulder, the broth-soaked vermenchelli noodles and the fresh leafy salad drowned beneath the hunks of meat.  If I can attribute my chopstick proficiency to one food, it is undoubtedly to bun cha, as there has never been a nobler reason to learn any skill than to transport the deliciousness from bowl to face.

By this time in the day, the sun is high and heavy in the sky, pounding down on the foggy city of Hanoi, exploding the ambient temperature to flirting with triple digits (Fahrenheit) every day, so long as it’s sun and not rain pounding down on the metropolis.  I quickly go pick up some takeout to throw in the fridge for dinner before retreating to the confines of conditioned air in my home.  If it’s not absurd heat, I’ll often take the scenic route home along the lake, but if I’m sweating while doing nothing except driving my bike, I forgo the picturesque path and speed straight home, I’ll have enough time to sit in the hot sun on my bike later in the day.

Part III: Open Hours

I arrive home usually around noon if it’s an early day of yoga, or 1:15pm if it’s a late day. The next several hours, before I begin the long journey to work, are the least structured and most open of my day.  They are unsurprisingly often the least productive, though sometimes (with the right motivation) extremely fruitful.  I have been trying to use this time more to read, to write, to think, and to plan.  I too often use it to turn off my brain and stare mindlessly at the internet.  However, in the early part of May I have been planning (stop me if I’ve written this in the blog a thousand times before)  the trip of a lifetime which is happening in early June, when one of my best friends Cailin will visit me for two weeks and we’ll wander Vietnam north to south.  In an earlier blog about Cambodia, I reflected on how I’ve never really been a fantastic “planner” (there are 16 Walkie-Talkies in the New Orleans dump which can attest to that) and how planning that trip gave me a whole new outlook on travel.  Compared to this, the Cambodian planning was easy.  One person, three different places, nine days.  Simple.  In the upcoming trip, Cailin and I will bounce between ten different cities on busses, taxis, rented motorbikes, two 12-hour long train rides and one flight over the course of 14 jam-packed days.  Researching and organizing and booking all of that has been (at least in my eyes) a monumental task.  A lot of this time I don’t accomplish anything and I mindlessly watch stuff.  I was able to watch the entirety of Avatar: The Last Airbender over the past two weeks, mostly finding time to binge during this downtime, in-between bouts of furiously planning the trip.  I hope to develop the discipline to occasionally pick up a book during this mid-day purgatory.  While I have the time to write, I feel there is too often nothing to write about.  I need to develop a more keen sense of penmanship and learn to write when an obvious topic doesn’t readily present itself.  I bought a yoga mat recently, and hope to start going to the roof to practice tricky moves in a second practice of the day once I get good enough to guide myself through a meditation.  These are all things I hope to do with this time in the future, but there will always be another tomorrow.  I need to start doing these things today.  Well, maybe not today… but you get the idea.

On Sundays in the late afternoon I sketch out my lesson plans for the week.  I look at the schedule, see what is to be learned in each class, reflect on where the students were the week before, and develop a strategy to best achieve the goals.  Early in the job I would spend about 30 minutes before leaving for work each day developing the days lesson plan, but have found it far more efficient to do the whole week before it starts. 

Around 4pm I’ll hop in the shower (if it was an exceptionally sweaty day at the gym, this time often gets bumped up).  In order to get hot water, I need to flip a switch to turn on the heater about 15 or 30 minutes before getting in.  While this was invaluable in the frigid Hanoian winter (and I didn’t figure it out until several weeks after I got here), these days I rarely employ it at all.  The oppressive Vietnamese heat negates any necessity for water which is not chilling to the touch. 

Part IV: The Commute

Around 4:50pm each day, I set out on the hour-long commute to work.  I live in Tây Hồ, the northeastern most district within the boundaries of the city of Hanoi.  I live close to the northernmost tip of this district.  My job, however, is down in the Hà Đông district, one of the southwestern most points in the city.  The distance between my house and office is a little over 15 kilometers (9.33 miles) as the crow flies, or about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) as the bike rides.  Unfortunately, by leaving my house around 5pm each day I face the full brunt of Hanoi rush hour.  I’ve read that there are four million motorbikes in Hanoi.  With an urban area of around 400 square kilometers, that averages out to 10,000 motorbikes per square kilometer.  I’m not convinced there aren’t more.  On top of that, there are cars, trucks and busses which must be paid constant mind to.  Motorbikes are no doubt the lowest on the food chain in the wild streets of Hanoi.  As such, it is the duty of the motorbike driver to remain in a constant state of acute active awareness to their surroundings.  I still manage to listen to Podcasts.

Aerial shot of traffic on commute to work (via Google Images, not my phone)

Driving to work is always a challenge.  The weather is defined by extremes.  Almost every day resembles either a preheating oven which isn’t quite all the way warm yet but screw it you can toss the cake mix in there because it’s hot enough, or it resembles a ferocious and unrepentant shower who’s nozzle has been broken off at the highest pressure setting.  Usually it is the former, which is only slightly less discomforting than the latter. 

My route to work takes me first around the lake (by choice, driving this way adds about 3 minutes to my commute) which isn’t so bad.  I get to the Dragon Statues and turn right.  I go to the second light and turn left.  This is where the commute leaves the relatively calm streets of Tây Hồ and I jump immediately into the frying pan of Hanoi rush hour.  I follow a road called “Võ Chí Công” south for about 3.5 kilometers, where it turns into an elevated highway which offers me a brief reprieve from the stop-and-go chaos.  At some point, this elevated highway turns into “Đường vành đai 2” (Meaning Outer Ring Road) which quickly turns to “Đường Láng” as the elevated highway dips down, dumping me back onto the crowded streets.  There’s a huge pothole at the end of the off ramp leading back to the street which I always have to pay mind to.

Once back on the street, I inch along between a stream of motorbikes flowing around slower moving barges of cars and trucks and busses.  To my right is the Tô Lịch River, though to refer to it as such is insulting to the term.  It is a stagnant, thin pond of gross liquid filth which aggressively attacks my olfactory system throughout the duration of my 2.5 kilometer ride along it’s banks. I have taken to calling the muck (which is right up there with Bourbon Sludge as the grossest liquid I’ve seen in this lifetime) “Shit River”.  Three traffic lights stand between me as I come off the highway and my next turn right.  Perhaps one of the only things I like about driving in Vietnam is the red light timers.  Next to each red light, there is a countdown clock informing drivers of how much time until the light turns green again.  On the best days, I catch the lights at the perfect timing and drive through them by only slowing down slightly and weaving around a couple cars.  On the worst days, the traffic is so severe that I can spend upwards of 5 or 10 minutes inching towards each light, waiting for the demigod of the intersection dressed in his brown traffic cop uniform to beckon me forward and allow me safe passage across the harrowing crossroads.

Shit River looking way nicer in this picture than it does in person.

Finally, at the third traffic light, diagonally across from the KFC, I turn right onto Lê Văn Lương, crossing over Shit River and finally being able to breath in fresh air which smells only of motorbike exhaust, scorching pavement, smog, and the dozens of various other unpleasant indistinguishable smells which make up Hanoi’s odor (but hey, at least it doesn’t smell like shit water AND all of that!).  I follow Lê Văn Lương, which becomes Tố Hữu, which becomes Yên Lộ, for almost 9 kilometers.  The road is one of the arteries of the city which stretches directly from close to Hanoi’s center all the way to her outskirts.  I haven’t found the right way to describe the long corridor, but the best term I have yet come up with is “pre-post apocalyptic”.  While almost every building along the route is under construction (as is much of the city, as is much of the country), were It devoid of people it would look like a map ripped straight from the impending Call of Duty game.

Panoramic Shot of the one rice field which flanks my commute to work.  Normally, the road to the left is stop-and-go traffic, but this shot was taken on Sunday, when the roads are clear.

I have learned the flow of traffic along this road, as it follows a similar pattern day to day.  I know when vehicles merging from the right will cause a slowdown on that side of the road, and I weave to the left.  I know when vehicles waiting to make a left turn in the face of oncoming traffic at a busy intersection will be forsaken by the traffic demigod and clog up the left side of the road, and I weave to the right.  I know when the road becomes so jammed by an influx of cars that the only vehicles constantly moving forward are the motorbikes bouncing along the uneven sidewalk, and I join them.  In Vietnam, sidewalks are a privilege bestowed upon pedestrians only during times of steady flow on the road.  During peak traffic hours, the sidewalks become but a fifth lane of the road, exclusively for motorbikes.  As I bounce along the sidewalk, I pass to my right a sculpture yard with statues of Buddha and other Oriental symbols.  Proudly fixed in the middle of it all, caste in beautiful marble and standing resolute is Lady Liberty, left hand clutching that famous book and right hand defiantly reaching skyward, alabaster flame held high.  Bringing two fingers to the brim of my helmet, I salute Her as I ride by.

USA

My commute comes to an end after a tricky roundabout which dumps me mere minutes from my place of work.  I pull into the parking garage, park my bike and am on my way. 

Part V: Teaching

Teaching English in Vietnam is an exploding industry right now.  Twenty-somethings around the world are realizing they can come to Vietnam to make good money while live cheaply.  There are several huge companies which run English Schools growing with exponential speed, such as APAX and Apollo English.  I do not work for a company like this.  The center I work for, “Happy Learn English”, is a tiny, one location operation with one woman, Miss Linh, pulling all the strings. 

The “school” is in a converted apartment, and as far as I know (or would assume), every student lives in the surrounding apartment complex.  The “Sparks” complex consists of 10 building complexes, with two to four towers making up each individual complex, each building having 25 stories and (at least from the floors I’ve been on) about 8 apartments per floor.  The first floors of the buildings contain a variety of grocery stores, gyms, laundromats, hair stylists, English schools, Vietnamese schools, anything and everything you could imagine.  The space between the buildings is very communal, with fitness playgrounds for young and old alike, soccer fields and basketball courts, picnic tables and more dotting the massive conjunct courtyard. It is a self contained city.  I get the sense that, apart from work, people who live in this complex would never have any reason to leave it.  A trip to the grocery story can be completed via an elevator ride and a quick stroll.  The movie theater is in Building 2, showing all the latest releases.  Playdates happen nonstop across the playgrounds and soccer fields and basketball courts.  After getting a bottle of water from the Circle K next to the parking garage, I ascend to the fifteenth floor of building seven and begin my work day.

Teaching is chaotic.  Teaching is unbelievably challenging.  At it’s worst, teaching can make you infuriated with a small Vietnamese toddler.  At it’s best, teaching is infinitely rewarding.

I work from 6pm to 9pm every night, Sunday to Friday.  The children are learning English in the evenings, supplemental to their primary schooling during the day.  The three hours are split into two ninety minute classes.  I work with kids ranging from four and five all the way up to nine and ten.  The classes are roughly organized by age group and English ability. 

The 6pm-7:30pm class is always younger kids who have at best, a loose grasp on the Vietnamese language, so trying to teach them a whole new language is an immense challenge.  Covering anything beyond the letters of the alphabet, sounds associated with those letters, and short words that start with those letters is an exercise in futility.  Some days it feels as though even teaching them the letters and sounds is futile.  However, the kids are adorable and full of life.  I’ve never met a more receptive audience for my slapstick humor.  If I walk into a wall, fall out of my chair, make fart sounds with my armpit, or basically do anything goofy and unexpected, the kids double over with laughter.  It is a fine line to walk, however, as the kids are quick to jump at any opportunity when I get too distracted and too playful to take the class entirely off the rails.  Before I know it, I find myself surrounded by a dozen screaming Vietnamese toddlers, an indifferent Teachers Assistant sitting in the back on her phone, and the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme playing in my head.  Sometimes I try to calm them down by playing a game of Freeze Dance.  I once tried to play musical chairs with them, but the first kid who got out couldn’t handle the emotional distress of waiting until the next round and started bawling.  For the rest of that class, we played a version of musical chairs where the number of chairs and the number of players was equal, and the kids gleefully all kept sitting down whenever the music would stop.  The only reliable method of calming the children down is honestly the saving grace of my job: Gogo’s Adventures in English.  This animated cartoon depicting a magical dinosaur-dragon hybrid and his exploits has a 100% success rate of calming the calamity in the room.  Each video is about 5 minutes long.  There are 40 videos in all, and by now I’ve probably seen them all more times than I’ve seen Rick and Morty (dozens).  After one or two videos, the kids are usually calm enough to continue the lesson.  I also use it as a bargaining chip, telling the kids at the beginning of class that if they are good and work hard that day, we can watch Gogo at the end.  While working with the youngest kids is certainly challenging in ways which test every ounce of patience I have, their unbridled energy and genuine demeanor makes them a joy to teach (usually).   Additionally, while day to day they do not demonstrate much improvement in English, I am starting to see after several weeks, something clicking in (some) of the kids and their comprehension, speaking, and writing abilities getting stronger. 

The 7:30pm-9pm class is always full of stronger English speakers.  Usually ranging from age 8 upward, the kids in the later classes have been learning English for several years.  They can understand complete sentences such as “Take out your Phonics Book, turn to page 32 and do exercise D” and they can express themselves in full ideas such as “Teacher, I left my book at home.”  There is still a big discrepancy of skills from class to class, day to day in this time slot.  Some are learning what vowels are, and how they sound in their short form.  Others are learning how the letter “E” can make a vowel “long”.  Others still are learning the different sounds that consonants make when they are blended together in familiar patterns.  It is much easier to be engaging rather than mindlessly repetitive with the latter class.  Where as at 6:15 I am drilling “B – ba – big” over and over again, at 7:45 I am writing “Wave” on the board and asking kids to come up with other words that have the same A_E letter sequence.  At 7 I am helping kids color a banana yellow or an apple red, at 8:30 I am asking kids about their favorite and least favorite foods, what they had for dinner last night and are going to have tonight, and other far more complex things.  Where extra time in the early class is devoted to Freeze Dance or Gogo Videos, extra time in the later class can be devoted to exploring an concept such as alliteration, metaphors, playing Hangman or other quiz games, or actually playing Musical Chairs because the kids are emotionally mature enough.  The discrepancy of skill level within a class can often be quite high.  When that happens, there’s usually 3 or 4 kids out of the dozen who breeze through the exercises before I can finish explaining them.  I usually attempt to employ these pupils to help their classmates strengthen their English.  Often times a struggling student will learn far more from their peer than their teacher.  The late class is not immune to veering as drastically off course as the early class.  The boys are at the age where they want to punch things.  They pretend they’re Spiderman and jump up on their desks.  The girls will do subtle things like hide or deface each others books.  There is no Ace up my sleeve to pacify the later classes the way Gogo Videos immediately befall a calm on the earlier classes.  If these kids decide they’re actually done learning for the day, there isn’t much I can do.  My job is to keep them engaged for as long as possible and to instill in them as much as possible during that engagement.  If I can do that for about 70 minutes of the 90 minute class, I’ll call It a successful day. Time for Musical Chairs.

Presenting the “Brave Bears” class with certificates for having completed the 3rd level Phonics book (Long Vowels)

Overall, teaching is extremely challenging and extremely rewarding.  I have taken to liking (almost) all of my students a great deal.  They are goofy and adorable and bursting with life.  At the same time, you aren’t allowed an off day.  You can’t show up to work and hide inside a cubicle and wait for the clock to release you from your bondage.  You have to stand at the front of the classroom and command the attention of 12 excitable but easily distracted little kids and direct that attention and energy towards learning a new language to which most of them would be indifferent without the reward of stickers.  I think I’ve best summarized my teaching experience in the following way: There are some days when I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do what I do.  There are other days when I am getting paid nowhere near enough.  I can only hope that the majority of my 120(ish) days of teaching left fall to the former.  I strive to get better as a teacher, to be able to more completely and competently capture my kids attention and embed in their minds the foundations of the English language.  I have a lot of work to do in order to become the best teacher I can be, in order to make my students the best they can be. 

I need to enjoy it while I’ve got it, though.  I doubt when I get back to the “real world” that many workdays will end with an enthusiastic game of Freeze Dance to the Vengaboys’ “We Like to Party”.

Part VI: Post-Work, aka “The Chill”

While my commute to Happy Learn takes around an hour of weaving through the dense rush hour traffic, by 9pm the roads are nearly empty and my voyage home takes little more than a half hour.  Of course, this can be longer if rain is pouring down, but apart from a few return journeys the skies have been kind.  Shit River doesn’t smell nearly as bad as it does in the midday sun, instead of podcasts I listen to various genres of music ranging from Rock Classics to todays hip hop, blasting my vocals for the world to hear.  This serves a threefold purpose: 1) It’s really fun driving a motorbike around nearly-empty streets while belting Billy Joel; 2) Vietnamese drivers, either confused or off-put by the white kid tone-deafly shouting in a strange language, give me a wider berth as I pass them or they pass me; and 3) I need practice if I’m going to redeem myself from the last time I tried to do karaoke and puked rice wine on the stage before reaching the second chorus of Chicago’s “Saturday In The Park”.  One artist I’ve had to remove from my driving playlists is Ludacris.  It is simply too dangerous to have the possibility of “Move Bitch” or “Get Back” coming on while I’m driving home, lest I lose all sense of fear and begin carving up the road like a madman with a death wish.

I usually get home around 9:35pm.  Obviously I’m not going to eat dinner before 6pm, so by this time in the night I am ravenously hungry.  I have discovered that, in the fervor of hunger, even vegan food can taste good.  Upon returning home I kick off my flip flops and swiftly move to the fridge.  I take out the bag of take out I had put in that afternoon, rip open the plastic bag, open the Styrofoam containers, and dump the contents (rice, fake chicken, some sprouts, and fried potato slivers) into a bowl.  I throw it in the microwave for three minutes, stopping after ninety seconds to mix up the contents a little bit with chopsticks.  After the final beeper, I quickly move the scalding bowl from the microwave onto a plate, and bring the whole thing up to the second floor living room.  Often my German roommate Nick or my French roommate Kenjah will be on the couch watching TV or a movie, or listening to music.  I take my spot on the left side of the couch, douse the contents of my bowl with soy sauce, and dig in.  You’d be surprised how good fake chicken can taste.

Vegan Chicken, some green leafy thing that I’m not sure what it is but it doesn’t taste horrible, some rice.  Sure there are french fries, but they’re vegan french fries.

My roommates and I usually watch a movie or a couple TV shows while exchanging good conversation and (especially ever since Kenjah, who is a musician and an existentialist in that order, arrived two weeks ago) complex ideas about philosophy, government, history, and the world.  Sometimes I think we’re great minds comparing notes from different cultures and different upbringings, exchanging ideas and knowledge and views of the world.  Other times I think we’re pulling stuff from our ass.  Maybe it’s both.  Whether we are engaging in high-minded philosophical repartee or buffoonish banter, I always find the discussions to be enjoyable.

Around 11 or 11:30, belly full of fake chicken and rice, I make the arduous twenty foot journey from the living room to my bedroom.  I shut off my computer and take out my iPad, opening up Netflix and throwing on something, anything, but usually Rick and Morty.  As hard as I try to fight it, I still too often succumb to the allure of a midnight snack.  Pringles are the only widely available Western chip in Vietnam.  Sometimes I’ll splurge on Goldfish, though the fact that they haven’t discovered “Flavor Blasted” technology in this part of the world leaves my heart aching for more.  A delicious treat has presented itself to me in the form of bite-sized Kit Kat balls, which are unbelievably delicious.  If I’m super hungry, sometimes I’ll go downstairs and make a grilled cheese.  I need to stop, or at least severely cut back, these midnight snacks.

After I’m done stuffing whatever snack into my face, I brush my teeth, turn off the air conditioner, cut the lights, and try to fall asleep.  Most of the time I leave Netflix playing very quietly, but I need to stop doing that.  I try to reflect on the day in it’s dying moments: looking back at the things I did well and the things I didn’t, and think about what I hope to accomplish and do better the next day.  As demonstrated by the frequency I’ve said “I need to do this” or “I need to stop doing that” throughout this blog, there is much room for improvement in my day.  I also take a moment to reflect on where I am, out in Vietnam, halfway around the world from my home, my family, my friends, and my dogs.  And I think about how far I’ve come in the time since I arrived here, which feels so long ago but also only yesterday.  I made no secret of how difficult the first several months over here were, how at several times I doubted my strength or will to persevere, how I thought I might falter and have to return home long before completing my intended year abroad.  I now feel like Lady Liberty, steadfast and resolute.   I have conquered the original shock of moving to Vietnam, along the way developing a productive routine and meeting many new friends.  If all goes according to my plan, I have about 180 days left in Hanoi.  While this routine will not remain stagnant, I hope to improve upon it day by day, reading in the afternoon and cutting out the midnight snacking and becoming a better teacher, and in the course of doing so, improve myself.

It’s funny how having a friend from (what oftentimes feels like) another life visit you in a new place can provide new perspective, a chance to see your new world from an outsiders point of view, and, coincidentally, a respite from a never-ending onslaught of “new” (example of never ending onslaught: this sentence).  My friend Harry visited me for three(ish) days last week, and It was a blast to spend time with an old friend and adventure around my new city.  Though the weather didn’t always cooperate, we were lucky enough to experience a totally new place but not forced to be constantly pedal-to-the-metal.  Harry’s time here was filled to the brim with racing around the city as tourists, checking off museum after museum, taking in (almost) all the major monuments and sites in Hanoi at an awe-inspiring speed.  It was equally filled with relaxing interludes during which we could catch up. I got a much-needed update the on the state of all my friends who are living in New York City, he got to see an abridged version of my routine.  An old friend of five years got to meet my new friends of not yet even four months, and we got to bounce around West Lake and Truc Bach, and every minute was enjoyable.

Me and Harry in front of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

April was a month of visitors for me, a much needed chance to restock my drive going forward on this long journey abroad.  As mentioned last blog, my parents visited allowed me to fully decompress, unbottling overwhelming emotions which had been building the duration of my time abroad.  I was able to discuss with them strategies to better prepare myself for the challenges I have been facing and continue to face in Vietnam.

Harry’s visit allowed me to escape from all that.  Several times throughout his visit I forgot I was in Vietnam.  I was transported back to a comfortable couch in New Orleans or New York, just sitting around and shooting the shit with an old friend.  As much as I love learning about foreign cultures, the mannerisms and intricacies of people from the world over, it can get exhausting always talking about something “new”.  I was afforded in Harry’s visit some much needed reminiscing time as we exchanged memories that started with different variations of “Do you remember that time when…” and ended with a mutual hearty laugh.  Reminiscing on good memories is sometimes as fun as making new ones, especially for myself, having been in the moment with difficulty escaping to the past since I arrived in Hanoi in January.  After Harry left, due to the wonders of modern technology, I was able to virtually attend the Fourth Annual Wines of the World celebration via FaceTime.  Almost my entire grade of friends from Tualne descended upon New Orleans last weekend for Week 1 of Jazzfest and, more importantly, the fourth annual gala which showcases the finest wine from around the world.  I woke up at 9am and thanks to the series of tubes which comprises the internet, arrived at 9:01 the previous evening in New Orleans to be passed around on an iPad like a nice bottle of Pinot.  While I have been able to keep up with my friends pretty well over in Vietnam, it felt great to see them all in one place, and to be there in some small way, taking part.  It also meant a lot to me that my good friend Jack Clarke went through the effort to tackle the logistical difficulties of getting me there virtually.

Virtually attending “Wines of the World”

Anyways, as April turns quickly to May, I continue to settle into a “routine” of sorts.  Two more roommates moved out this morning (May 1), as their year in Hanoi had come to a close and they departed for a Chinese vacation and then back to England.  It truly makes me sad to see them go, as they offered quick and lasting friendship from the second I moved into our house at 483 Au Co til the final Sunny episode finished last night.  I will hope to see them again at some point, and with any luck I’m sure I will.

My teaching schedule is about to pick up dramatically.  Where for the past two months I have been working a leisurely three days per week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), starting tomorrow I will begin working every day except Saturday.  Don’t mourn for me too much, my daily working hours still only span 3 hours each evening, so I don’t think I’ll be overwhelmed by the workload.  However, having to be in Hanoi 6 days per week will lessen my ability to travel, so the past two weekends I have taken advantage of my remaining freedom and escaped the city for cleaner air and clearer skies. 

Two weekends ago I drove to a small town about four hours southwest of Hanoi called Mai Chau.  It was a charming little town, and the drive was so scenic I almost forgot about how much it hurt my butt.  The town itself offered not too much in the way of scenery, but no matter.  I was only in town for one night, but Vietnam is always full of surprises.  Coincidentally, right across the road from where my friends and I were staying, a celebration / festival / party / rave of epic proportions was thrown in an open field well into the night.  I am unaware of any holiday or event the people could’ve been celebrating, it seemed to me as though it were a “Because we Can” party.  Vietnamese of all ages danced to music of all kinds.  It seemed as though the elder generation dancing vigorously around the fires were equally as fond of progressive trance as the teenagers blasting the tunes from massive speakers which they had wheeled in.  Upon entering the field, my friends and I became quick party hits, as apparently being over six feet tall is an impressive party trick in Vietnam.  Everybody wanted to take selfies or dance with us, from attractive young Vietnamese women to balding middle-aged men.  They implored us to share their drinks, which were surprisingly strong.  Ice cream was being sold for 25 cents.  I spent a dollar fifty.  The experience was truly unlike anything I’d ever known before, surprising and exciting and confusing and over in the blink of an eye.  Goes to show that even out in the remote mountains of Vietnam, a mere fifty kilometers from the Laos border, people are still getting down.  I take comfort in that.

Locals getting down at a rave(?) in Mai Chau

This weekend was my last non-working Sunday, but I also got Monday (Reunification Day) and Tuesday (Labor Day) off.  After my appearance at Wines of the World Sunday morning, I set off for Ninh Binh, a place I had gone five weeks earlier and will return five weeks from now.  A quick two and a half hour drive straight south of Hanoi, the route is nowhere near as scenic as Mai Chau, but the considerably shorter length leaves the bum feeling considerably less sore.  Expecting not to be too surprised, I explored for the second time the magical park of Tam Coc, hiked again up to the Hang Mau Pagoda, and stayed at the Hoalu Ecolodge owned by the notorious Badman, the most badass Vietnamese person I have yet to meet.  I went with some friends from South Africa, one who is headed home soon and another who will be sticking around Hanoi for a bit.  At night, we feasted on a magnificent home cooked meal of rice, rice wine, rice crackers, rice cakes, salad, snails, pork, beef stew, and even some fried chicken (!!).  After the meal finished, we took advantage of the $1, 0.5 liter beers which you don’t have to pay for until you check out anyways, so It almost feels like they’re free (at the time, I can assure you that they are not free forever). 

My Friends Matt and Cherer looking out over Ninh Binh from Dong An Tiem Pagoda

Monday afternoon I returned to Hanoi to spend one last evening with my roommates Jamie and Becky before they moved out Tuesday morning.  The calm, quiet evening was a great way to spend some time with them before they left, and provided a bit of a breather for my wallet as I move into the month which will be the tightest budgetary month in my year abroad, what with having taken quite a few days off in April to accommodate some much-needed visitors.  If there’s ever a place to try to live on $12 per day for a month, Hanoi is it.

Planning for my many upcoming adventures continues.  The most imminent is a month away today, when I will be joined by one of my oldest friends, Cailin, and we will traverse Vietnam from Hanoi all the way down to Saigon over the course of two weeks.  The other trip now which commands my attention is the cumulative trip I will take in November and December before getting home (Merry Christmas America!).  The foundations for that trip have been laid, some stakes put in the ground and some dates set in stone.  It is these future adventures, and many others, which have been extremely useful in battling through any passing “lows” which have happened upon me in recent weeks.  Things in Vietnam seem to finally be feeling someone normal, and Hanoi is beginning to feel like a place where I can feel comfortable getting a good nights sleep (I could still do without some of the chicken squawking at 4am, but I’ve even gotten used to that, for the most part). 

As always, I hope everyone at home is doing well.  As always, if you ever want to reach out and contact me, my email is working and even with my increased workload of 17 hours per week, I’ll find the time to respond.

Roll Wave. Roll Wines.  Let’s go Pels.

My (I guess now former) Roommate Jamie riding a bike in Mai Chau. 

My parents arrived last Sunday. Returning home late Saturday evening from Bangkok, I was quick to sleep, filled with excitement for the week and adventures that lay ahead.

Sunday morning I was awoken at 7:30 by a text message from my mother’s work phone; they had landed! Thirty minutes later, my phone buzzed again; they had made it through customs! Thirty minutes later, my phone buzzed for a final time; they were at the hotel! I hopped on my motorbike and raced to meet them. My dad had slept so poorly on the plane that he was comatose, but my mom came down to meet me in the lobby. I was overjoyed to see her. After a long hug, we went for coffee next to the hotel. I have used this blog, and other outlets in Hanoi, to a fairly cathartic effect, but nothing is as cathartic as sitting across from your mother for the first time in months sharing your joys and sorrows and everything in between.  After a late breakfast, we went up to the room to wake up my dad, and headed off for a day of adventure in Hanoi.

The first day I was still in somewhat a state of shock, the two most familiar faces in my life had joined me in this setting completely foreign to anywhere I had seen them before. For their part, I think their energy was impeded by the jet lag associated with traversing 11 time zones in 24 hours. Still, we trekked across Hanoi, from the famous One Pillar Pagoda to the Ho Chi Minh museum and mausoleum and even to the Temple of Literature. We finished the day at the top of Hanoi, taking in a sunset fiercely muted by clouds and pollution from the 68th story of the Lotte Tower. Afterwards, we returned to their hotel (conveniently attached to a steakhouse) and I gorged myself on the finest meal I’ve had abroad. I had almost forgotten how much I love steak, having not eaten it for almost three months. For a second I wondered what I had missed more: the hunk of meat on the plate in front of me, or the two people across the table. Obviously the latter, though it was close.

The next morning we were up early and headed south towards Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the original location of the Vietnamese city who’s narrow, crowded, jumbled streets remind me vaguely of the French Quarter in New Orleans. We walked the circumference of Hoan Kiem Lake, taking in the famous Turtle Temple along the way. We then went to Hoa La Prison, the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” where captured American pilots, including John McCain, were housed during the (Vietnam / American) War. We learned it’s history, how it originally had been built by the French imperialists to house Vietnamese nationalists, how after the expelling of the French in 1954 and subsequent capturing of pilots during what is known here as “The American War of Destruction”, it had been repurposed as a POW camp. I asked my parents about their recollections of the War. They expressed their sheer amazement at being in the building and city which they had heard so much about in a different era, which had been at the epicenter of one of the most monumental events of their youths (not to mention American history). I supposed I would be similarly shocked if, decades from now, Thatcher Jr. travels to Baghdad or Fallujah for a year to teach English, and my wife Nina Agdal-Gleason and I go to visit him.

After a Bun Cha lunch, we departed Hanoi. We met up with a Cultural Anthropologist named Hung, whom I had been introduced to by a friend of my uncles who owns a heritage gallery in Hanoi (more on that later). We climbed into a Toyota Fortuner and headed north for hours on end, until we reached Ha Giang, the northernmost province of Vietnam, an unspoiled beautiful range of karst mountains towering over tranquil rice fields, steppes carved into the piedmonts by generations of the people who live there. We arrived at a homestay around 8:30pm, exhausted from sitting in a cramped car for 7 hours. Luckily, we were greeted with a full Vietnamese dinner buffet of the freshest vegetables and pork and beef you could imagine. It was the night of April 9th, my dad was celebrating his (number redacted)th birthday. As is customary during Vietnamese meals, shots of rice wine we’re constantly poured, clinked, and thrown back. I was surprised and delighted to find French fries among the Vietnamese cuisine, unsure if they’re a staple or a welcome newcomer. Belly filled and energy tempered by rice wine, I was fast asleep by 10pm.

A Panoramic View of one of the hundreds of valleys in Ha Giang

The next morning, we awoke around 7:15. Eggs that might’ve been laid that morning was our early feast, and after that we hopped on motorbikes. In Hanoi, I ride an automatic motorbike, all I have to do is crank my wrist or pump the breaks to accelerate or decelerate respectively. Obviously the sheer cliffs of Vietnam’s northernmost province is the perfect place to learn how to ride a manual bike.  As evidenced by the fact that I am writing this blog post, I survived our ascent up to a remote village, accessible only by motorbike.  Home to about 50 people, the Black Yao village we visited that Tuesday morning is perhaps the most authentic and fascinating place I’ve ever been.  Most people who live in this village don’t travel further than 20 or 30 kilometers from their birthplace in their entire life.  The furthest they trek from home is the furthest rice field they cultivate.  The leader of the village, an octogenarian Shaman who had been the spiritual leader of these people for close to six decades, told us (through Hung, our fantastic guide and translator) that in his life he had only left thrice, each time to Hanoi to pay his respects at the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. 

Looking over the Village Book with the Shaman.  Almost 150 years old, it is written in “Chữ nôm”, original Vietnamese character script, basically the only place where this antiquated alphabet is still used.  This book contains all birth information, marriage information, and other important events which happen in the town.

It is truly fascinating how, as humans we have but one window, our own experience, into this massive world.  My life experience could not be more polar opposite to these villagers.  I have been blessed in my (almost) 24 years of life to travel extensively, both within my own country and internationally.  I have been surrounded by electricity and technology my entire life and the omnipresence of both is only increasing.  These villagers didn’t have electricity until the beginning of this decade, and didn’t have TVs until three or four years ago.  The Shaman didn’t exactly lament over the adaption of technology by his people, but it is clear he felt it was disruptive to the stoic way of life way up in the mountains.  I tried to reflect on my own usage of electronics, interconnectivity, etc. etc. as all social media, texting, FaceTiming, Facebook seems so natural and fundamental to my way of life. 

Maternal figures tending to their young

After finishing our visit to the village, we descended down the narrow, winding motorbike path back to the site of our first homestay.  After a hearty lunch with porker fresher than the night before (by about 8 hours, seeing as we ate lunch at noon and dinner at 8pm the previous night), we piled back into the car and began the 90 kilometer journey (only 30km as the bird flies) further north, further into the mountains.  Outside of our car, the views were unbelievable.  I have never seen a landscape so dramatic, peaks rising hundreds of meters vertically with trees clinging onto the sides of near 90 degree cliffs.  Over hundreds of generations, the mountain people had built steppes of rice fields into nearly every possible inch of the grand slopes.  I thought about the Herculean effort made by humanity over thousands of years to transform these steep, unforgiving inclines into productive farmland.  Our guide explained how, for thousands of years, each generation would cultivate the steppes left to them by those who came before while also placing equal emphasis on carving new steppes they would never get to tend in the hopes that the generations which follow them, whether it be their children, grandchildren, or great-great-great-great grandchildren would enjoy a more bountiful harvest.  I was reminded of a Greek Proverb which states “A society grows great when old men plant trees who’s shade they know they shall never sit in”.  This mindset has been forsaken by America, and western capitalism as whole, as evidenced by the pillaging of the planet in search of short-term profit.  It was amazing and inspiring to see a community truly abide by this guiding principle, thinking and acting in ways that will benefit their family and people generations long from now, long after they’re gone.

Rice Steppes carved into the piedmonts beneath the magnificent karst mountains

We arrived at our destination around 6:15pm, a homestay in a small town called Dong Van which prided itself on being built in 1925.  After a hearty hotpot dinner (and more rice wine), I fell into a deep sleep no later than 9:30pm. 

The next morning, we again headed north.  Our destination was Lung Cu, known in Vietnam as “The North Pole”.  Befitting it’s name, we arrived at a great flagpole sitting at the northernmost point in Vietnam.  Already 1,470 meters above sea level, my parents and I climbed about 300 stairs to reach a massive tower.  After climbing through the winding staircase within the tower itself, we emerged onto a platform about four meters across.  My legs wanted to give out for fear of heights, so I didn’t give them the chance.  I waddled like a baseball catcher around the the platform, much to the amusement of my parents and the group of Chinese Tourists who joined us atop the tower.  Looking north, China seemed but a stones throw away.  We could see clearly, about 200 meters in the distance, the Nanli River which makes up the natural border between Vietnam and China.  The views were breathtaking, 360 degrees of unimpeded vantage upon to rice fields, towering cliffs and two stoic lakes.  Above us, only a flapping, 54 square meter large flag (representing the 54 Ethnic Groups of Vietnam) and wide, blue sky.  My dad was greatly amused and flattered when the Chinese tourists asked to take a picture with him, a common occurrence in this part of the world, so far from Hanoi where Western-folk are somewhat familiar.

After finishing at the flag pole, we again boarded our car and whipped along the mountain passes which afforded us more spectacular views and gut-wrenching blind corners.  My mom was fascinated by the regularity with which we saw children, some looking barely three years old, playing along the side of the road, often on the side of a cliff.  I was also taken aback, but figured that both the fear of heights and bad balance had been weeded out of the gene pool of this area thousands of years ago.  Suffice it to say I would not have made a great child to have up in these mountains, what with my leg-weakening fear of heights and remarkable ability to trip over flat surfaces.  I felt confident the mothers of the mountains did not blindly trust their kids to play at the sides of the cliffs.  At least, I hope not.

As the afternoon marched towards early evening, a mass of clouds marched over the mountains.  It was not rainy season yet, that comes in July and August and brings uninterrupted downpours for weeks on end, but still a light mist began to pepper the mountainside.  Visibility was reduced on the road to about just 10 or 15 meters in front of us, and the breathtaking panoramas retreated behind a dull, gray, visibly impenetrable haze.  The rest of our journey down out of the highest peaks, further south back towards Ha Giang City quickened considerably for not pulling over to take pictures every ten minutes.  We arrived to our third homestay again around 6pm.  This was the first one with (luke)warm water, so I rejoiced in my first shower since leaving Hanoi.  As evening routine, the freshest food descended into our bellies alongside a river of rice wine, and afterwards it was quickly to bed.  The word “firm” does not do justice to the mattresses at this homestay, and I felt stiff the entire next day, but it did not impede  my falling asleep in the slightest.

Jimbo taking in the views of one of the valleys

The next morning was again an early one.  Thursday’s breakfast was as fresh as the two prior days, any fresher and I’d have to grab the egg as the chicken laid it and cracked it open on an already simmering pan.  After breakfast we walked around the village, just outside of Ha Giang City.  The clouds hung low in the sky and cast everything in a hazy fog, but the village was still breathtakingly beautiful.  I was amazed by the advanced irrigation system which fed all the rice paddies.  Much of the village was preparing for a wedding later that afternoon, so we got a unique look at the preparation for a northern Vietnamese wedding, in which basically the whole town endeavors to assemble the wedding in the mere hours prior to the ceremony. 

At about 9:30am, we climbed into our car for a final time and began the long trek back to Hanoi.  Stopping just once along the way, we returned to the bustling chaotic metropolis around 4pm in the afternoon.  The rest of the day was spent lounging about, getting massages, catching up on the political chaos of home which had been largely ignored during our time in the mountains, and eating delicious tapas.  While many of my friends were playing football (soccer), a couple who were free joined me and my parents for a divine feast at the lovely El Loco Tapas Bar.  I didn’t even know what tapas was before I came to Vietnam, quite hilarious that I had to come to Southeast Asia to find Mexican food which doesn’t nuke my weak American stomach.  This was by far the latest night we stayed up the whole time my parents were here, sangria (not rice wine, thank goodness) being poured and clinked well after the designated closing time of 10pm.  At 11pm, the restaurant finally kicked us out.  My parents went back to their hotel and I returned to my house to attain a meager 6 and a half hours of sleep (by the time I was done watching some Rick and Morty, it was more like 5 hours) before leaving for Halong Bay the next morning.

If you want a romantic, transfixed and starry eyed description of Halong Bay, I would suggest you consult my blog post about the place from when I went in January.  Coming from Ha Giang, a place unfrequented by all but the most adventurous tourists, to Halong Bay, where each day 10,000 visitors are bussed around it’s scenic harbor was quite shocking.  Every bit as naturally beautiful as I remembered, I was quite put off by the fact that it must’ve been between 200% and 300% more crowded than when I had come in January.  It makes sense, January it was cold and cloudy and I was told that April and May are the peak months for Halong Bay tourism.  The trek up Titop Island was impeded by what amounted to a line spanning nearly the entire 400 step staircase.  The waters and beach which had once felt not exactly private but rather exclusive was overcrowded with masses of people I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t at the Chinese version of Cabo during their spring break.  But through it all, of the thousands of people who packed in to appreciate the natural beauty of the place (ironically thereby diminishing said beauty, if only slightly), I had two guests with me who brightened the mood and made it all worth it.

During the downtime in Halong Bay, I discussed with my parents strategies to conquer what I have taken to calling “the lows” of living abroad.  My mood in Vietnam has been one of extremes.  I have made no secret of the difficulties I have been having with adjusting to living not just in such a foreign land and a different way of life, but more so living halfway around the world from my family, my friends, and all I had known prior to January 10th, 2018.  While the time since then has provided me with some of the most unforgettable and amazing experiences of my life, it has equally been plagued by bouts of self-doubt and loneliness which comes from such a dramatic change as Darien to Hanoi.  I have (rather lazily) taken to referring to this pattern as the “highs and lows” on my journey.  The highs are great, unbelievable moments I will hold dear for the rest of my life like watching the sun rise over Angkor Wat or playing with baby tigers, or more recently trekking to the most remote villages and most dramatic landscapes I had ever seen alongside my parents.  The lows are more muted, slow building tremors in my psyche which come to a head at random times, during which I feel alone and scared and overwhelmed by a deep longing for home.  Each low eventually passes with help from a good movie, a cathartic writing session, a western meal, a FaceTime to friends or family, or just the simple passage of time.  My parents and I discussed strategies to help deal with the inevitable lows to come, as well as ways to make the highs more frequent.  Talking with them about this helped a great deal, and I feel more well equipped to continue this arduous, rewarding journey than before my parents visited.

Still, as we departed from Halong Bay and headed back to Hanoi, I thought about how much I would miss them.  It felt like they had just arrived yesterday, and all of a sudden they were leaving tomorrow and I again would be alone, Thatch in Nam sans parents.  Still, I wouldn’t let the fact that they were leaving the next day impede at all enjoying every moment with them.  We got back to Hanoi around 4:30.  That evening we enjoyed a stupendous dinner overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake, joined by my roommate Nick whom my parents liked a lot.  A light mist was falling on the city, and in the distance I took in the first lightening I have yet seen in Vietnam, unsure still if it was striking the ground or if it was heat lightening confined to the clouds.  Returning to my parents hotel around 10:15, I had to wake my mom up to get her out of the taxi.  They quickly went to bed, and I returned home to find “The Other Guys” had been added to Vietnamese Netflix and I capitalized on the revelation.

The next morning after waking up early to watch the New Orleans Pelicans defeat the Portland Trailblazers in game one of the 2018 NBA post season (Let’s go Pels!), my parents and I headed down to a massive and impressive cultural gallery called 54 Traditions, run by Dr. Mark Rappaport, a friend of one of my mom’s brothers.  He took us around his gallery, showing us six floors of unique and fascinating Vietnamese artifacts and explaining stories behind them which demonstrated true understanding of Vietnamese ethnic culture which could be attained only through decades of study and experience.  My parents surveyed the gallery for authentic souvenirs (an oxymoron which in this case is genuine) while I interrogated Mark about a most amazing visitor I had heard he had had a couple weeks prior, the legendary Harrison Ford.  Too old to go get them from forbidden temples anymore, I guess he has resigned to accruing artifacts by more traditional means. 

My parents left last Sunday.  First, my dad at around 3 in the afternoon, headed to the airport to catch his flight back to America.  My mom, headed to England for business, didn’t fly until 1:30 in the morning, so I was blessed to share another late lunch, dinner, and more time with her.  During our extra hours together, we discussed plans for my tentative grand, seven week adventure which will act as the culmination of this year-long journey.  Receiving news this week of my dads intentions to retire in June, we discussed the possibility of him coming out to meet me in November or December to join me for part of the journey.  We discussed the possibility of my two younger brothers coming to potentially visit during those weeks as well, likely over the week of Thanksgiving.  Her and I looked at flights from Thailand to New York which would deliver me home just after noon on Christmas Eve, the most joyous Yuletide gift America shall ever receive.  We’re gonna be saying “Merry Christmas” again folks, believe me. 

Still, as the seconds crept by and my moms departure become increasingly imminent, I was overcome with a sense of sadness.  While it was truly a blessing to have my parents visit me for a week, their presence made temporarily tangible that abstract idea of “home” which I have been missing so much.  In their departure, that tangibility is shattered and I am left with a longing for home that is all the more intense for having been blessed by that sense of familiarity for a short time.  It also doesn’t help that, barring some big change in plan, I likely won’t see my mom again until Christmas, nor my dad til (hopefully) mid-to-late November.  Upon me came another low.  However, utilizing the strategies developed in Halong Bay, I endeavored to not let this low capture me.  I managed to make it back out Sunday night after sending my mom to the airport around 10pm.  It was my friend Jack’s birthday celebration, and although I didn’t think I would make it out, I was extremely glad that I did.  Good conversation and laughter were exchanged deep into the night and well into the morning hours.  I was reminded that although my parents had left, I have a group of friends in Vietnam (a small group constantly in flux, but a group nonetheless) whom will help me along this journey, even if they don’t realize how much.

It’s silly to ever say life in Vietnam is “routine”, but a bit of a more structured schedule mirroring the time before I went to Bangkok several weeks ago has returned in the days following my parents departure.  I am back to teaching, back to struggling at yoga, back to “the grind” as they say.  I am looking forward to next week, when a friend from college will visit for several days, sure to be another “high” along this journey. I am equally (if not more) excited for early June when I will have 16 days off, and will be joined by one of my oldest friends to traverse Vietnam from North to South.  Excitement for these adventures, and for others further down the road, and for my eventual return home help to some extent to assuage lows when they happen.

I am unbelievably blessed to have the opportunity to live in this remarkable country among these amazing peoples for a year.  I am more so blessed to have had my parents visit me at the quarter-way marker of this journey.  Their visit provided me with a renewed strength to continue this journey.  It provided me with a “bottleneck” week to help placate my shrinking wallet.  Above all else, it provided me an opportunity to see two of my favorite people, and with them go on an amazing adventure.  I am forever grateful, I will carry the memories of this past week with me as a source of strength for the rest of this journey I am on now, and for the rest of my life as some of the best, most unique times I have spent with my mom and dad.

P.S. – Got lots of good footage in Ha Giang, but have yet to find time to edit it all together.  I have figured out that the accompanying music will be “Wonderwall” by Oasis.  Check back next week for hopefully a nice visual accompaniment to a fantastic song.

The stupidest thing about living in Vietnam is the visa. Good for only three months, Vietnamese immigration law dictates that I must leave the country, order a new visa, and return. This cumbersome, expensive exercise must be undertaken approximately every 12 weeks. The upside: I spent the weekend in Thailand.

The cheapest flight internationally out of Hanoi is to Bangkok. Additionally, US residents visiting Thailand don’t require a visa so long as they stay for less than 30 days. Thus, Bangkok is the most efficient and convenient destination for a visa run.

I landed at Don Meung International Airport at 10:45 Thursday morning. By the time I had gotten through the immigration checkpoint, noon had passed. By the time I got hostel, lunch was long overdue. I mistakenly believed that, due to the lack of a “spicy” warning, some street chicken curry would be a good first meal in Thailand. Though my palette has expanded considerably over my first 3 months abroad, spicy foods remain a realm I cannot go. Upon the first bite, my mouth hissed, my neck snapped and my pores began pouring sweat (more than they already were in the 86 degree heat). A life lesson: as a westerner, be ever weary of Thai Vendors and Thai food.

The Coolest thing at the Thai National Museum was the dioramas of War formations

After recovering from the onslaught against my tastebuds which affected not just my sense of taste, but attacked my smell and even vision, I began wandering the streets of Bangkok. It is a massive metropolis, annually the most visited city in the world, and I got to see but a bit of a sliver of it, and was overwhelmed. The chaos of Hanoi seems almost casual to me now, but the chaos of Bangkok was something else entirely. The largest intersections in the main part of the city, as far as I could find, did not have crosswalks, so I darted in and out of traffic, a real life game of Frogger with much higher stakes.

Bangkok is famed for its nightlife, and I was fortunate enough to indulge in the clash of cultures that is “Backpacker Heaven”, Khoasan Road. Though drinks are cheap compared to the West, they cost an arm and a leg compared to Hanoi. A skill I am working hard to develop is developing a budget and sticking to it. I did the best I could. I failed this time.

Khaosan Road around 8:30pm.  By 11, the whole street was as packed as the inside of a New York pub.

Friday morning I awoke with the birds, having signed up for a tour which was departing at 7am. I stumbled onto the street which mere hours before had been a mass of drunks to find it completely deserted. A tumbleweed bouncing down the street would’ve been both appropriate and cliche.  I thought I had signed up for a tour that would generally stay around Bangkok, but it dawned on me that I was mistaken as the bus whisked us away, hurtling along the highway towards the Burmese border for two hours before coming to a stop.

Not in Bangkok

Quick side-note: In the USA on long drives, I like to preoccupy my mind by looking at trucks and thinking whether or not they’d be cool Transformers. Almost no truck I’ve seen in Southeast Asia would make a cool Transformer. Only the double decker tourist busses would make worthy Autobots.

We arrived at a floating market in Damnern Saduak. Though I’d heard great things about the ones in Bangkok, I was disappointed to find this one to be nothing but a tourist attraction. Thai vendors all sold the exact same souvenirs, offering to lower their price whether you showed interest in the product or not. Next visa run, I hope to make it to an authentic floating market.

Next, we visited the Bridge on the River Kwai, a railway bridge which had been constructed by the Japanese (or more accurately, by their prisoners of war) during World War II as part of the Thai-Burmese railroad system. About half of the 200,000 prisoners put to work constructing the railway perished due to exhaustion, hunger, thirst, or malaria. It was a humanitarian catastrophe, even in wartime. The nearby museum was extremely interesting, albeit disorganized, as I learned bits and pieces of history about the Kanchanaburi region of Thailand. The bridge itself was very cool too, despite being overrun with tourists. When I visited the Killing Fields in Phnom Phen about 2 months ago, I was struck by how well the memorial was done. The Bridge on the River Kwai was not a memorial, it was a tourist destination. Still, it was extremely interesting to learn the history of this famous bridge and have the occasion to traverse it twice. I look forward to rewatching the movie set at the bridge which I have not seen in quite a few years, no doubt my enjoyment of the film will be deepened by my time spent at the namesake.

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, “Bridge on the River Kwai” – Billy Joel

Finally I boarded the bus and it whisked me to the destination which had been my primary concern when choosing this trip: the Safari Park in Kanchanaburi. Upon arrival, I had to patiently wait my turn. Finally, after about 40 minutes I entered the Tigers den. There, I met Emma and Emmy, two 11 month old Bengal cubs who eagerly greeted me, or more accurately eagerly greeted the bottles of milk I was holding. After they had scarfed down the milk at an awe inspiring rate, I was handed two bones which had on one side been covered with chicken scraps. The tigers used me as a jungle gym to get to the meat as I moved it around. They were HEAVY, probably weighing upwards of 50 pounds each. But they were adorable and regal and enchanting. For a moment, I forgot how much I miss my dogs.

Peaking.  Note: I took extra precaution to make sure this was a humane Animal Sanctuary and that the tigers were not on Tiger xanax.  They were feisty, but well fed, well taken care of, and happy with their living situation.

At one point, a piece of chicken fell off a bone and plopped onto my knee. I quickly scooped it up and held it in an open palm. I was terrified that one of the tigers was going to bite my hand off, but at the same time kinda willing to exchange maybe a pinky for a story of being bit by a Bengal Tiger in Thailand. Fortunately for the less masochistic (in the platonic sense of the word) side of me, he simply licked it off my palm.

I was in the tiger den for about 10 minutes, though it felt like the blink of an eye. The insuing two and a half hour drive back to Bangkok, however, dragged on for what felt like an eternity.

Upon returning to my hotel I took stock of my pockets. I had just about enough money for dinner, a new t-shirt (I had sweated through every one I bought and took pity on the poor soul who would have to sit next to me on the plane the following day), breakfast and a museum the following day, and a bus to the airport. I would not be able to participate in the debauchery of Bangkok for a second night. Just as well, after eating some delicious street Pad Thai for dinner, I fell into a deep restful sleep.

Saturday morning passed without much of note. I slept in until I was forced out of bed by a looming late checkout fee which would throw off my razor thin margin of a budget. The Thai coin museum was cool but far less exciting than what I had experienced the day before. I had to barter at several shops before finding a shirt which could be purchased with my remaining baht while leaving enough to get to the airport. Traffic in Bangkok is crazy and the bus to the airport took forever. But I made it, got on my flight, and returned to Hanoi.

As I begin my second three month stint in Hanoi, I reflected on the first three months. They were extremely challenging, as I have noted in many a blog, but extremely enlightening and rewarding. My time in Bangkok was fun, but I must admit my excitement to be there was dampened considerably by my considerable excitement to get back to Hanoi. For tomorrow morning, my parents arrive for a week. Two loving familiar familial faces could not be more what the doctor ordered if I had a prescription. Even now, I find myself hurrying to finish this post so I can drift off to sleep and awake and go meet them at their hotel. We are going to spend a day in Hanoi, and then venture out to the northernmost province of Vietnam, Ha Giang which lies right on the Chinese border and is supposed to offer beautiful views and beautiful culture unmatched anywhere else in the world. After, we are going to Halong Bay for a two day one night cruise, and the weather, at least at the time of this post, calls for clearer skies than during my first visit to the sublime place. I am excited to travel the country, but for all I care my parents and I could just sit in a room and be together and it would still be a fantastic week, albeit a little droll. I am far more excited about who is joining me for the week than the weeks journey itself. And thus I drift off to sleep, still exhausted from Bangkok but ecstatic beyond words for the week ahead.

Life in Vietnam never feels normal. I have been in Southeast Asia for 64 days, and each day a little something never fails to surprise, confuse, or inspire me. Last Thursday, I met a little pup who was tied to a post outside an auto-mechanic shop where my Motorbike was getting routine work done. I tried to pet him, as my love of puppers in no secret (and honestly the lack of dogs to play with has been the hardest adjustment in Vietnam), but he timidly backed away. I went down the street and brought some bread for 5000 VND (less than 25 cents) from a bakery, and bounded eagerly back to the pup. While I immediately earned his favor by returning with a treat, I did not want him to have it so effortlessly. Over the next twenty minutes while the mechanic was hard at work on my bike, I was hard at work trying to get this pupper to shake my hand. After some time had passed, each of us showed the other the fruits of our labor. The mechanic demonstrated to me that the bike worked perfectly (I had been having some trouble with it dying while I was sitting at red lights), and I demonstrated to his delight his puppy’s new ability to enthusiastically throw it’s paws at any outstretched hand which promises food in return for a shake. We shook hands (the mechanic and I), and I was on my way.

Adorable Puppy who can now shake hands

Teaching doesn’t always go as smoothly as it did with the puppy that afternoon. I recently (and FINALLY) found a job at a Center called Happy Learn English. From 6pm to 9pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday Night, I become Professor Thatch and try my hardest to impart the language of English onto a bunch of screaming Vietnamese children. Tomorrow (Monday) will mark start of my third full week working at the Center, and it has been, in a single word, overwhelming. My classes range from 4-5 year olds in one group to 9-10 year olds in another. The youngest children are the hardest to teach, as their grasp on their native language is still developing, so attempting to supplement that language development with an entirely foreign one is near impossible. With the older students, they usually have at least a couple years of English classes under their belt, which makes everything infinitely easier. When I ask them to be quiet, they understand. When I ask them to do Exercise C on page 17, they understand. When I instruct them to dance around in a fun game of freeze dancing, they understand and enthusiastically participate. Teaching, like everything in life, is a skill which develops over time. I am much better today at teaching than I was two weeks ago on my first day (which was basically a three hour competition between me and the students about who could scream louder), and two weeks from now I hope to be a much better teacher than I am now. A famous poet Phil Collins, who gave us perhaps one of the finest movie soundtracks of all time in the Tarzan OST, once said “In Learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn”. I have found these words to be infinitely true, as each day teaching I learn new things about myself and the way I communicate with those around me, especially those who look to me to teach them.

Days have slowed down. I need to find more activities to keep myself occupied. I have joined a gym and started doing yoga (HA!) (but actually…), but that still leaves me four hours each afternoon which are unstructured and thus unfruitful, and that’s on the three days a week when I work, though on May 1st those 3 days a week turn into 6 days per week, with only Saturday’s off, so perhaps I ought to cherish my relative boredom more. I continue to make friends and try new experiences, but the wonderment which characterized my first month in the country has faded and I’m looking for new ways to get that back, hopefully without the chaotic ever-frazzled mindset. I look forward to upcoming visits from family and friends.

I have developed a general plan for the remainder of my time in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The contract I signed with Happy Learn runs through early November. Between now and then, I will have some nice breaks. A week early next month when my parents visit (and I am extremely excited to see them), and a day later in the month when a college friend visits. For the first two weeks in June, one of my oldest friends will join me for a two week, pedal to the metal traversing of Vietnam from North to South, covering some 1500 miles over 14 jam packed days. In late August, two more college friends and hopefully my older brother (and, if anyone who is reading this is thinking about visiting please do in August) will visit, I will show them Hanoi and we will explore the Northern parts of the country together. I will also have to take 2-day trips to Bangkok in early April, July, and October for Visa-run purposes. Outside of those reprieves, I plan to work steadily until early November, at which point I plan to embark on an approximately seven week journey across the parts of Southeast Asia I will not have visited yet (mostly Thailand) (some of Malaysia) (and maybe some Indonesia) before triumphantly returning to the States around Christmastime. Note that this whole plan is very subject to massive change, but right now these dates are the navigational beacons guiding my overall life trajectory.

Some might say having such a long-term plan is antithetical to the mindset of a backpacker in Southeast Asia. Some might even accuse me of “not living in the moment”, one of the worst sins a backpacker can commit. But since developing this plan, my mood has improved dramatically, my ability to get out of bed and go to the gym has increased 100% (from 0% to 100%) (100% may be a little generous, we’ll call it 67%) and it no longer feels as though I am living each day just to get to the next one. I have long term goals, a lighthouse blinking far in the distance which I can use to steady my course and keep it true. I hope to show my parents and friends a great time when they visit. I hope to utilize the extremely cheap gym membership and access to Yoga classes it affords me as much as I can. I hope to use my remaining time in Vietnam to cultivate myself into a more disciplined, outgoing and complete individual. I hope to save up some money I can use to travel around the continent for seven weeks at the end of it all. I hope to be home for Christmas with my family and New Year’s with my friends. All of these factors now are on the table, whereas a month ago I hoped to figure out something to do to entertain myself the next day.

Living in the moment is important, and I try to do as much of that as I can. When I am out with my friends, it is quite easy to live in the moment because my phone doesn’t work in Vietnam. When I am in the classroom, it is easy to live in the moment because I’m trying to figure out how I get these dang kids to learn how to spell “giraffe”. When I first got here, I was living day to day, moment to moment. Forget telling you what I would be hoping to do that August, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what I was hoping to do that afternoon. Distant, long term goals provide motivation and purpose for immediate action. That is perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve learned so far in Vietnam. I look forward to continuing to learn new lessons, going to the gym, and living in the moment, all while keeping an eye on the horizon.

I know that in the blink of an eye, it will be late December and I’ll find myself on a plane to New York City. I have been looking forward to that day since I arrived in Vietnam. Having such a great contingent of family, friends and dogs to return to, how could I not look forward to it? But, for the first time since my arrival, and as a result of the general framework of a plan I have developed, I genuinely look forward to each of the days between now and when I get on that plane home.

Video from one of my classes can be found below:

The lesson on “Rolling Wave” will be coming up next month.

P.S.: Funny story but I couldn’t find a place for it in the actual blog so I’m gonna put it down here. Kinda gross so don’t read if you don’t like gross things.
I have struggled with Acid Reflux (really bad heartburn) since my early days in High School. I am prescribed the antacid Prevacid, and I could’ve sworn I brought over a lot more than I actually did. About 10 days ago, I ran out. I was beside myself. Perhaps the most dorkish thing about me (or very high on a long list) is that I can’t go even two days without my Acid Reflux medicine before I start feeling incredibly sick, almost to the point of rendering me completely useless (as opposed to my resting state of mostly useless). I went to a Vietnamese pharmacy with the Google-translated words for “Heart Burn”, “Acid Reflux” and “Stomach Medicine” written on a crumpled up piece of paper. The pharmacist spoke to me in Vietnamese about my options, and I chose all three and headed home. I was eager to figure out which, if any, could help sooth the aggressive burning deep in my chest (gonna go ahead and guess that this story is one of the least romantic uses of the phrase “burning deep in my chest” ever). I ripped open the first package and scarfed down three pills. It was thirty minutes later, with my chest in just as much discomfort, when another system further along my digestive tract starting feeling strange that I came to the sullen realization: I had just taken laxatives. The giant pizza I had just eaten to test the efficacy of the Acid Prevention wanted out, and it was going to get out – quite literally – one way or the other. That was not a fun night. Since then, I have found a passable replacement (if you’re ever in Vietnam with heartburn, get Maalox, it is not a laxative) to bide me over until replacements can be shipped in. So, in case you were wondering, I am thriving and living my best life out here.