I'm currently typing away, posted up with Ty in a closet-sized room in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) missing home like crazy! We rolled in last night and found ourselves in a city alight with Christmas festivities, which was neat, but we were too knackered to celebrate so we hit the sheets super early. Lame. Today, we had quite an itinerary that involved a lot of wandering around scorching Saigon looking for stuff. Our list of accomplishments is as follows: (1) dropped off cursed camera (despite some initial hopefulness, the mysterious spots didn't go away even after paying the witches), (2) got a haircut in what appeared to be a glorified brothel, nonetheless, they did a pretty stellar job at making me appear less bald than I am which was a feat and much less a steal for 2 bucks, and (3) found and consumed decent pizza which we've both been craving especially since my recent proclamation that I will not chew one more solitary noodle until entering Cambodia. That's final. The following blog constitutes what we've done in the meantime.
We spent our second day in Dalat checking out some meditation gardens. There were several huge wind chimes positioned throughout this spiritual sanctuary that added more serenity than the pics could begin to capture.
There were numerous flower gardens dotted throughout the place so it even smelled heavenly. A virtual smorgesboard for the senses if I can say that safely.
Look at this crazy flower. I'm trying to picture an adequate vase.
Here's Ty in her day glow knock-off North Face coat pretending to be a flower. Blends right in doesn't she?
Not a bad picture for a cursed digi-cam.
After wandering around the meditation center. We snuggled up on a concrete bench and read a few chapters of our booky wooks. Ty's reading Letters From A Skeptic, an epistolary novel (non- fiction and written exclusively in the form of letters) between an atheist father and his Christian son on the topic of faith, and I'm reading Half the Sky, which is a compilation of first-hand accounts of once oppressed women from around the world who have empowered themselves through their own dedication and the aid of others. Both very inspirational and recommended!
The Pagodas at this place were beautiful with gold carvings and rich ancient cherry woodwork.
We took this picture exclusively for the glorious pine trees. Oh how I wanted to wrap them in tinsel.
This reminded me of the movie Edward Scissor Hands. Go Johnny Depp.
This bench was donated by some guy from Seattle! Hence all the proud gesturing. Go Sea-Town! I went home and listened to Blue Scholars, "Joe Metro."
And then Ty got really proud and a little carried away. So far she's flashed a "westsiiiide" on a an elephant and a bench. To be fair, I find the bench more appropriate.
So to keep with the insane bio-diversity theme of Vietnam, our next stop was the southern coastal town of Mui Ne - which is one of the premiere kite boarding capitals of the world. Although we don't kite board it was fun watching these people rip it up (do they still say "rip it up?"). I felt so bad for the poor dudes who bought a wind-surfboard back in 2003. Suckers.
At any given point there were literally hundreds of colorful kites hovering against a brilliant blue sky. Pretty good lunch atmosphere.
The video captures a few gnarly tricks while also delightfully capturing how broken our camera really is (hopefully was, we'll find out tomorrow).
I'm serious guys, they're all over Vietnam. I think it's a club or something.
On our second day in Mui Ne we rented a jeep and head out to the dunes baby! First we stopped by this place which included a walk through a murky stream leading to some multi-tonal sand formations.
It looks unstable, but the sandstone was quite solid. Like, er, stone.
The scenery shifted quite a bit as we traipsed through the stream bed and the sand became softer and redder. One thing we've really enjoyed about Vietnam is the way the landscape so dramatically shifts inside of just a few kilometers (if you can't tell, my speech, over the past several months has been heavily influenced by all our English buddies back in Thailand). I now pretty much regularly catch myself saying, "reckon" and "bloke," and "lovely" and "proper" and "kilometer" and "Celsius" and "bird" when I'm referring to a female (which I think is a little sexist so I'm trying to quit), and "petrol" when I mean gas. I also say "no worries" and "cheers" a lot now too. If you've noticed the nuances in my diction in these posts and are annoyed by them, well, then I'm sorry blokes and birds, the habit is transitory I reckon. I'll regain proper English when I return to my lovely country.
Playing in the soft warm red sand. Delightful.
Isn't this cool! So dramatic.
Life is all about contrast.
One thing about traveling as a couple is that we rarely get pictures together. Consequently we often have to choose between two similar pictures, one with me, one with Ty. We choose based on who's cuter at the time (hence most of the pictures are of Ty) or has bothered to shower that day.
In this case we were both pretty disheveled so it was all or nothing.
I really shouldn't have worn orange.
Our way back to the jeep dodging leeches and other creepies in the stream.
Ty didn't climb up way up here. Instead she sent me as a harbinger to survey the landscape saving her time and calories.
I've never scored a touchdown, but if I do this will be my signature pose. It's pretty rad.
As you can see from our spindly guns, that gym in Thailand has been missing us.
Pretty Mui Ne coastline taken from the cruising jeep.
Sometimes you just need a depressing reminder of your own mortality to bring you down from the high of a wonderful day. Check.
So, we finally arrived at the infamous Mui Ne dunes which promises to have some hard-core dune-sledding. We rented these bad boys from some local kids and we were off, feeling the need for speed (Top Gun).
We found this little swamp on the way that I thought was cool enough to share with you folks.
Ty did some modeling along the way. I'm getting pretty PO'd because she hasn't sent me a full body shot yet (Napoleon Dynamite).
One of those rare pictures where we got to occupy the same frame at the same time.
The dunes were crazy beautiful and like nothing I've seen in real life. The wind was ferocious however and we were quick to find out that wind-whipped sand hurts and further destroys cameras.
Agility. Grace. Balance.
My wife's a hottie! Lucky me!
Once again, I climbed way up out of my way to "go check out what's up around the bend" and once again there was more of the same. I was able to get this shot of the dune we conquered on the sled. Well, kind of. The sleds were quite a bit slower than you'd think; they more scooted than slid which was a big disappointment to my adrenalin junkie of a wife - she made up for it later.
Cruisin' Mui Ne trying to beat the sun and catch it setting on the "red dunes" (self explanatory).
This is where Ty made up for her lack of adventure with a quite skillful barrel roll maneuver. Here it is in all it's glory. There was a lovely (there I go again) older couple there who really got a bang out of this stunt.
Fantastic sunset on the uncomfortable ride home (Ty had a proper quarter cup of sand in her naval alone, I'll let you extrapolate from there).
We spent our last day in The Ne wave gazing and preparing for the imminent hustle and bustle of HCMC looming on the other side of another 8 hour bus ride.
We finally arrived in the city and immediately crashed which brings us back to the beginning of things.
Sorry, but for now, no pics of Saigon as our camera is being exorcised of it's demons. Hopefully we'll get some on the way out!
We wish everyone back home a HUGE merry Christmas and we miss everyone very much. To my Jackson students, I'm starting to have what teachers call "teaching dreams" which feature all of the worst case first-day scenarios. I take this as a good sign that I'm getting more and more ready to come back next year and get back into what I love! In the meantime, as Ty would say,
Hugs, Kisses, and Misses,
Merry Christmas ('Happy Holidays' for my Buddhist, Jewish, non-Christian and secular peeps) and Happy New Year!!!!!!
Nick and Ty
Merry Christmas and (almost) Happy Brand New Year!
ReplyDeleteYou kids are Awesome!!