Dearest All,

What is to follow will surely be a poorly written and non-entertaining entry. If you are not a devoted family member (who would be interested in my happenings, interesting or not) you may want to skip this one.

My official date of return to Canada has been scheduled: July 21st. It is so hard to believe that two thirds of the school year has already rolled by. With many trips, travels and ventures already planned for the coming months, it appears as though the remaining time of my first year in Vietnam will speed by as well.

I am extremely excited for June, when Dara will come to HCMC and then we will travel together for three weeks around Thailand and Laos.

I will provide you with a whirlwind tour of my trip to Bali and Bao Loc....

Over Vietnamese New Year celebrations, Cheratien, Josh(her brother), and I traveled to Bali to meet up with our friends, Kim and Mike, who had been living in Bali for a few months. We stayed a week in Ubud, a sort of cultural center of Bali. For those of you who have read the book "Eat, Pray, Love." Ubud supposedly features prominently in it. As a result, a myriad of middle aged yuppie women have descended on the town looking for champagne and an Indonesian lover. The town, filled with its art galleries, yoga studios, cafes, and so ons, is dotted with a myriad of eccentrics and want-to-be eccentrics. One of my favourite reoccurring characters was a woman I affectionately dubbed "Christ." This is not a particularly inventive nickname considering that this word, in large gothic lettering, along with a picture of what may have been a lion, were tattooed across her entire upper back. I was able to see this tattoo because she always wore--only---a see through white bathing suit top and a short white skirt. With a hijab, of course. Another of my favs, was "fan man." He could be seen around town in head to toe linen, fanning passer buys with a decorate hand fan. I was lucky enough to receive some of his services.

However, with Kim and Mike's expert guidance, we were able to avoid much of the kitsch and jump into the splendour of the place. We ate amazing food at local little warungs-- a dollar or so a meal. I also spent a day learning how to do batik art-- a nice afternoon in my teacher's garden. His wife made as mango juice to celebrate the completion of our batiks. Kim, Cheratien, and I also spent a day trekking about the Balinese wilderness. The local men found it hard to believe that us three women were taking a pathless route. One man, whose name means "four" in Indonesian (he is, you guessed it, the forth son), followed us for a while. Sighing and shaking his head anxiously every time we climbed a rock face or crossed a river. I think he thought he would have bad karma if he left us to our own devices and we ended up dying in the process. He eventually took his bath in the river once we convinced him we would be quite fine.

We rented motorbikes for the weeks and toured around a bit. I particularly enjoyed seeing the Indonesian homes. Within a walled perimeter are separate little houses for the different members of the family. The family continues to live in community, sharing common areas, but having their own respective spaces.

We went to Monkey Forest, a monkey sanctuary right in Ubud. Take some bananas in and you will get both cute and scary monkeys clambering all over you. I tried desperately to feed this one little monkey, but one particular large, angry monkey kept stealing the treasures I gave the little one. I had Josh distract the ferocious one, while I slipped the little dude the stuff. In utter fear of losing his banana, my little one consumed the whole thing, peal and all in one felt swoop. Only partial success was had-- the big monkey saw it was a lost cause and got lost, but the little one proceeded to silently puke banana up every few strides as he walked away. I will be happy, any time you should ask, to show you my "Little monkey pukes up banana" impression. The whole experience evoked a decoupage of emotions: exhilaration, interest, terror, and mystification. Mike and Josh latter returned to the forest to play literal monkey-in-the-middle.

Ubud, and Bali as a whole, has a surplus of wooden penises, it is true. The island actually has a festival tied to the phallic symbol..... its origins somewhere in Balinese Hinduism. We went to see a traditional dance (this one significantly more authentic than the "traditional dance" I will tell about later). 100 men provide the rhythmic chatting that makes the musical background for a series of dance scenes.

We had an absolutely perfect place to stay. Pager Bungalows. Our four post bed stood in a room with two floor to ceiling glass sliding doors. Exposed brick. Kitchen. Part marble bathrooms. All with a jungle, river, and waterfall as an immediate view. Our place was perched on the edge of the hill. We had some interesting neighbours. Burlap sacked folks with a young baby, who they cared for by rubbing moss from the statues onto her head and clapping in her face as they held her over the river. To each their own, I suppose. Maybe they have it all right. Maybe that child will be well adjusted......and have an extremely high immune system.

Mike is a musician, so we filled our days with many a sing-along. We danced out and about. We went to the beach, snorkelling and kayaking.

From Ubud, we went to Madewi, a small town in the Islamic west of Bali. There were a few surfers, and few amenities. It was perfect. We spent our few days here surfing, slack lining, eating, and so on. We set up the slack line between palm trees right next to the beach. The little patch of grass also happened to be a cow pasture, through which surfer/gangster cattle herders, with New Era style hats and motorbikes, herded their cows. Many of them came to give the line a try. Other watched from a distance. We threw rocks on the big cow patties as markers of where we should avoid placing our feet. The slack line is addicting. ADDICTING. Surfing was definitely fun, and something I would love to do again. I CLEARLY wasn't very good. Ha. The beach provided much amusement. I sat with our things as the others had a swim, and was almost instantaneously surrounded by half naked, grown fishermen wanting to give their English a go. Also.... they were half naked in the way that one would not instinctively guess. They seemed entirely comfortable, but I was thankful that they were wearing relatively long shirts. Naked little children ran about flying kites.

From Medewi to Echo Beach. We stayed in a lovely looking SURF CAMP, which we had all to ourselves. However, it ended up being infested with bees, mosquitoes, and termites. Triple threat. Thankfully, we were only staying there one night. However, the beach was amazing, and we celebrated Kim's birthday at a seafood BBQ buffet restaurant right on the beach. MAGICAL.

A night spent in the KL airport and that concludes our relaxing stay in Bali.

Upon my return, I got on a night bus to Bao Loc, which is in the central highlands of Vietnam. My friend Trang was there staying with her family, and she invited me to join them for the tail end of Tet. It was a fantastic experience, as I was able to practice more of my Vietnamese, help on the farm, and see the regional difference between the central provinces and the south. One evening, I LITERALLY caught and harvested our dinner. The family was proud of my, and surprised at my sturdiness. I met several of Trang's friends, went out for many a coffee, attended a sunrise funeral on a mountain side, and a myriad of other things. The funeral was a tremendous and powerful experience, as the whole community comes out to join the procession and mourn.

One of the most intriguing days in Bao Loc consisted of our trip to a nearby waterfall. The waterfall is a local attraction, drawing in many Vietnamese tourists and little to no foreigners. The waterfall is beautiful, but has been altered and adorned by cement shaped and painted to look like faux wood. One waterfall has, craftily, been turned into three by means of conspicuous damns. The waterfall had an adjoined circus/cultural village/amusement park/zoo/carnival. Three "highlights" (perhaps we should call them noteworthy sights) include the "leader" of the "mountain tribe" coming down from their "village" on an elephants back to invite us to come and see their "traditional" dance. Highly authentic, I am sure. The next occurrence could surely use that old cliché analogy: "It was like a car crash--horrible, but I just couldn't look away." A monkey....dressed in child's clothes...blindfolded... walking a tightrope...through fire. Right next to this poor guy were some sad looking bears in too small cages. I felt like taking a shower, then joining PEDA just to atone for my indirect support of so many animal rights violations. Is ignorance of what I was getting myself into a reasonable enough excuse?? What can truly and fairly be called a highlight, was walking by a Vietnamese band sitting lazily in a pavilion. As I walked by, they--seemingly--sprung to life to play a ear blasting rendition of The Final Countdown. Ahhhh. Arrested Development anyone?

Trang's family was so very kind, and suffered my Vietnamese language deficiencies well. Trang's mother I spent a good 30 min. simply pointing at things and saying both their English and Vietnamese names. It was really all we could do to communicate, but it was lovely.

We rode back to HCMC together, I on the back of the motorbike. The roads were certainly not as bad as some in Kenya, but rough nonetheless. I now understand more fully why the roadsides in Vietnam are dotted with cafes with only hammocks as resting places. They are much needed after a few hours aboard a bike on Vietnamese roads.

I am sure that I am missing a whole SLEW of important and insignificant details from my Tet adventures. However, only I will grieve my omissions.

Last weekend was an adventure race in Madagui, also in the central highlands. The race was run through the same company that Cheratien and I did the mountain race with. This time, we dragged two of our co-workers along. More than one hundred people join together at Madagui Jungle Resort to run an INTENSE jungle race, consisting of a combination of orienteering, running, mountain biking, river crossings, and swimming. Although we competed in the tamest category, the event was still a challenge. The most intense participants, in the ULTRA category, left at 2:00 a.m. for a 7-10 hour race. We left around 7, and it took us about 4 hours to complete our race. We placed around 15th of the 40 something odd groups. An amazing feat, considering that Cheratien's bike chain broke with about a third of the race left. We had to stay within 100 meters of our partners at all times, so she took it like a trouper and ran with her bike for the remainder of the course. A true star. We made it to Vietnamese national news.. the four of use crossing the finish lines, looking beautiful in our bike helmets and eye shields (both of which we had to wear for the entirety of the race due to the potential falling rocks, eye gauging braches, unknown river debris, etc. To check out the clip (it is in Vietnamese) go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVu5zn3t71E. We are the ones crossing the bridge near the conclusion. all fuzzy and unidentifiable. Celebrities, nonetheless.

This event has inspired us to register for three other races before the year is out. Cheratien is whipping us into shape with a rigorous training schedule.

We are getting an onslaught of new students. I have quite a few in my classes. One of my new students is a shy Korean boy, who by the end of the day, was receiving a standing ovation from my class for improvising a fantastic cooking class scene, where he ended up eating two Kleenexes, which were to represent a disgusting version of kim bop. It was a teacher moment, for sure. Other highlights of the week include having a group of students ask me to explain why "Africa has so many poor countries." My students are writing speeches on fantastic topics such as the difference between Korean and Canadian education, women's rights in Vietnam, apartheid, and so on. Monday was International Women's Day, which is a significant event in Vietnam. I received presents and cards from my students.. and a rose and a very long speech from the owner.

Alright... I feel like I just vomited a month of going-ons in no effective order, with poor word choice, and improper grammar. What kind of English teacher am I?

Much love!