October 2012 - Bachelorette & Wedding and Vietnam

My two highlights from the month of October...

Jamie’s Bachelorette Party and Wedding… Was being a bridesmaid in a wedding in Thailand on my bucket list?  Nope but it happened anyways!!   Right when I started teaching at Baan Kajonkiet, I met Jamie, an Australian who was engaged to a Thai man named Tony.  Jamie and I clicked immediately and soon became lifelong friends.   Jamie and I started to undertake the practically impossible task of planning a wedding in a foreign country where we didn’t speak the language.   But before the wedding, of course I had to throw her a bachelorette party.   A week before the wedding, all the ladies went out to dinner at an amazing Italian place in Phuket Town and after walked over to Ka Jok See for some post-dinner fun.  Ka Jok See is not your typical restaurant/bar.   It is pretty much a hole in the wall and we only knew about it because one of the Filipino teachers at our school used to work there and told me about it.  After dinner, the place turns into a complete madhouse.  Ladyboy performances, salsa dancing on the tables, Thai men with conga drums, limbo contests and free shots…The fact that dancing on tables was encouraged obviously made it my favorite place ever.   After, Nanc and I continued our dancing rampage as we hitchhiked our way over to the other side of Phuket Town to meet our other friends at the aggressive Thai club, Sofa.  What a night.  

Me and the Bride-to-be

Anyways, after months of wedding planning, dress fittings, meetings in broken English with the venue, the wedding weekend arrived.  We had a few hiccups the day of, such as the venue getting a red carpet instead of a light pink one and kept saying "red same same as pink" when I was trying to explain that there was no way that we were going to have a red carpet (they ended up covering it with a sheet and we had a white carpet instead as you can see below), hair and makeup showing up an hour late, and the flower shop forgetting to make the bouquets.  But somehow it all came together and Jamie and Tony had a beautiful wedding in Bang Tao, Phuket on Saturday, October 6^th.   It was a lovely mix of Thai and western traditions and I was so happy to be part of it.  I wore a long pink, custom made dress by a tailor in Patong and Jamie wore a beautiful white lace, custom made dress as well.    To top the night off, a few of the other teachers at the wedding and I headed to Skyla after for an epic after party and a late night swim sesh.

Baan Kajonkiet teachers

Khun Kru Som caught the bouquet after shoving all the kids aside =)

Vietnam…After the semester ended the second week of October, Nanc and I sadly packed up our house in Kamala and said goodbye to our lovely landlord.  I would be back after our long backpacking trip but Nanc wouldn’t, we were both pretty upset to say the least.  Anyways, we flew up to Bangkok to spend a day or two with Peem who of course spoiled us rotten.  Then flew to Vietnam!!  Vietnam had been a place I had wanted to go for years and years and was so glad that I was finally making it there.  Every single city and town we went to in Vietnam was so unique and interesting and it’s too hard to put it all on paper but I’ll give the basics.  We started in Ho Chi Minh City and I don’t think we knew what to expect.  It had a really nice vibe and we had a great time sitting on the street people watching, going for a run through the city park at sunset, wandering the streets following the Lonely Planet walking tour, dodging the ridiculous driving, getting massages and seeing the War Remnants Museum.  Any American that goes to this museum is going to say the same thing…WHAT?!?  It is an incredibly frustrating and inaccurate museum that displays the Vietnam War in a completely different light than what really happened.  This is obviously because Vietnam is a communist country and the government only wants people to know certain things.  Basically it said that the America attacked Vietnam out of the blue and made no mention whatsoever about the problems in the North.   But moving on from that, we also visited the Chu Chi Tunnels , which I found fascinating and did a day trip to the Mekong Delta, which I wasn’t too impressed by.  

Downtown Ho Chin Minh City

Outside the War Remnants Museum

Mekong Delta

Barely fitting into one of the Chu Chi Tunnel entrances

I do not understand how they lived in these tunnels for months!

Ho Chi Minh

17 hour train ride to Danang

Before we got to Vietnam we literally had nothing planned or booked, which is typical of traveling in SE Asia.  We had a Lonely Planet book and tips from friends who had traveled it before.  We had a flight into Ho Chi Minh and a flight out of Hanoi and we made it up as we went, which turned out to be great.  After Ho Chi Minh, we took a 17 hour train up to Danang to take a short bus ride to Hoi An.  17 hours might seem like a lot but it was actually super easy and unpainful thanks to snacks, cards and sleeping pills.  Hoi An is one of the most wonderful little places in the world.  Nanc and I fell in love and spent a few days there exploring the quiet streets of the “Ancient City”, biking the rice patties of nearby Cat Kim Island, spending a day at an unexpectedly pretty beach, running the river at sunset, eating ‘white rose’, rice pancakes, Pho, baguettes and SO MUCH CAKE, and checking out the backpacker bar ‘Why Not?’  The thing about backpacking Vietnam is that everyone is on the same path either going North to South or South to North so you see all the same people along the way which was kind of fun. 

White Rose, a Hoi An specialty

Hoi An River

Biking the rice patties of Cat Kim Island

Cat Kim Island

There are 300+ tailor shops in Hoi An

Night shopping

 We could have spent a few more days but it was off to Hue we went.  Except this time we went by style, hiring a motorcycle and driver for each of us through Easy Riders to drive us up the coast.  We spent the day driving north and stopped at Danang Beach, Marble Mountain, a small fishing village, a hidden waterfall and bathing pool, and old American forts atop a mountain.  Think Pacific Coast Highway 1 but in Southeast Asia on the back of a motorcycle.

Marble Mountain

Marble Mountain

Our rides for the day

Secret elephant rock swimming hole

Fishing Village - these boats are their homes

We made it to Hue in one piece

I don’t really know what I was expecting from Hue but it was definitely different from the rest of what we had seen of Vietnam so far.  We stayed by the river and saw the old castle, the pagoda where a man lit himself on fire in protest to the war, King Du Tuc’s Tomb and probably biked 10 miles on rickety old bikes in the process.  Spent a night wandering the streets, drinking free beer, dancing at Brown Eyes, meeting some fun people, and trying to no avail to find late night food.  Let me mention that everyone is Vietnam is so nice but it was also a country where we got hassled  A LOT.  But after living in Asia for a year at this point, we were well versed on bargaining and could easily spot when we were being ripped off for being westerners. 

Brown Eyes

Wandering the castle ruins

In the castle, Hue

King Tu Duc's Tomb, Hue

From Hue we took another overnight train up to Ninh Binh a little town that we had been advised to go to from a friend.   Quickly found a great $3 room, hired a motorbike and drove out to Tam Coc.  Tam Coc is like an inland Halong Bay and is made up of limestone cliffs that rise out of the rice paddies.  We also drove over to Mue Cave which was a serious offroading journey to get to and was NOT actually a cave but instead a massive hike up a mountain to a breathtaking view.   That night we discovered the amazing dish of Tofu in tomato sauce, which may sound gross but the way the Vietnamese make it, it’s so good.  

Tam Coc, Ninh Binh

Tam Coc, Ninh Binh

View from the top of Mue Cave

View from the top of Mue Cave

Next morning, took a quick 2 hour train up to Hanoi, the capital and stayed in the Old Quarter.  Loved loved loved Hanoi!  The vibe of the city was electric and once again, it was so different than everywhere else in Vietnam.  We headed out to Halong Bay and spent 3 days, 2 nights on a boat cruise around the bay and on a private island.  We splurged but it was so worth it.  Halong Bay can’t really be put into words but it was definitely a highlight of Vietnam.  Arrived back in Hanoi and spent a few more days there with our new friends from our Halong Bay boat and had a raging time at night along with seeing the Prison, the weird water puppet show and the Temple of Literature (in the rain), as well as doing some shopping (Dad this is where I got your weasel dung coffee).  We tried to see Ho Chi Minh’s body in the Mausoleum but I think I remember that he was in Russia getting maintenance done on himself.   Flew out to Malaysia just before a monsoon rolled in…

Halong Bay

Kayaking Halong Bay at sunset

Crazy driving in Hanoi

Such a good dinner in the Old Quarter, Hanoi

Creepy Hanoi prison

Temple of Literature...

...in the rain!