A Ride through the Foothills

Well…where do I start? It has been so very long since I last updated the blog, I’m not sure what to include. Are you sitting, with a nice beverage in hand-because there may be a novel coming your way! Our shipment from the US finally arrived (only took 3.5 months). They must have put our stuff on the party ship that stopped at every port along the way. But the excitement was short lived because Clayton axed any ideas of unpacking just yet. What was his excuse?? We move again in 4 weeks…but how much more awesome would it be to wake up to freshly brewed coffee in the mornings and drink out of mugs that are larger than the kiddie tea cups that I used to play with when I was 5?! So after rifling through nearly all of the boxes, we finally found the coffee maker and 2 mugs-SO worth the effort! Now I don’t have to re-fill my cup every 2 sips. (And as long as he is at work, he has no idea what else I have unpacked!) He usually only skims my updates, so I think my secret is safe on this blog ;)

I think the biggest excitement of our past couple of weeks was the arrival of our fur child, Ginger. Miss G arrived via United Airlines cargo late Wednesday night with many thanks to the large amount of work from Gramma Julie and Auntie Tina. She flew by herself for the first time-such a big girl now! It was a 2-day trip for her, spending the first night in a pet hotel in San Francisco and the next on the plane. The flight arrived at 10:05 pm Wednesday and UA had informed me that Vietnam had a “late night pick-up”. Dammed if I was going to let them tell me that their customs office was closed after 5pm and she would be “fine” in the warehouse until 9 am the next morning after an 18-hour flight. Don’t think so. So with a bit of friendly persuasion a handful of papers and “coffee money” we miraculously were able to pick her up that evening. I’m pretty sure we were the first to ever do that judging by the non-existent import procedure. No quarantine either, so she is now happily following us around every step we take, scaring the crap out of our Vietnamese maids, and not so much enjoying the heat with her winter coat still in place. But with the amount of hair that is littering the floor right now, I think her shedding instinct has kicked into high gear.

Last weekend we (finally!) went on our first out of town adventure. Invited by some new Danish and German friends, we happily tagged along. The 6 of us took off last Saturday morning for an early flight into Dalat, a city in the mountainous region of central Vietnam. This is where all the “exotic” produce is grown (ie, produce that needs a mild climate) like strawberries, bell peppers, etc. What bliss it was to step off the plane, breathe in fresh air and feel a chill slight enough to think (very fleetingly) about putting on a jacket. We met up with a van, a truck filled with bicycles, and 2 tour guides that took us to our starting point for a 75Km ride to the coast. After interrogating the guides regarding the status of my brakes we were on our way. First was a refreshing 5Km ride uphill, then the remaining 70Km was largely downhill (reason for my faulty brake anxiety) with a few flats and small rises nearing the end. We rode through the mountainous region, then down through small towns and rice fields and dragon fruit farms complete with roaming cattle, water buffalo shuffling through the fields, and cute little piglets waddling across the street and ecstatically rolling through mud. I think they put them there just to make me want to take that ride again! Part way into the morning, we stopped on a small rise and had a few snacks across the street from a group of local farmers who unsurprisingly stared at us like aliens-though I think they were mostly eyeing Jesper who towered over them at 6’4”, making even Clayton look average. I first thought they were staring at all of us until Jesper moved away from the group and I realized that they ALL had their heads turned and necks craned, gaping at every move this foreign invader made. Thanks Jesper, for the mid-morning comic relief!

We finished the ride mid-afternoon and were then dropped off at a resort in Mui Ne, a popular get-away beach town only a few hours away from Ho Chi Minh City. We spent the rest of the afternoon cooling off in the pool and watching the wind & kite surfers on the beach. Mui Ne is famous for its wind sports, which is on our adventure check-list (a steep learning curve and sinus cavity full of salt water ahead, I’m sure). The next day was more of the same sluggishness with a few beach strolls and gawking at “acceptable” European swimwear thrown in for a little beach style entertainment (a men’s speedo-style suit is bad enough, but is an orange and pink plaid pattern REALLY necessary??) We arrived back in HCMC around 10 pm after the usual (so I am told) 4-hour amusement park of a van ride back to town. I felt like I was in a virtual motion ride in Six Flags dodging and weaving through motorbikes, semi’s and trucks on the 2 lane “highway”- or at least what I could see through my hands covered tightly over my eyes. On one of Clayton’s rough draft blog updates that he started about 8-weeks ago (I’m adding it here because it may be the only time it actually makes it way to you) he wrote a little bit about the transportation hierarchy. It goes something like this: semi-truck > bus > smaller truck > van > car > ambulance (seriously) > motorbike > bicycle > guy in horse drawn cart > local pedestrian > foreign pedestrian. Bigger has the right of way (except for the final 2). There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like I home… I kept saying to myself clicking my heels.

Other than that, our weeks have been filling up slowly. Clayton had a few extra items thrown onto his work plate this past week and I have just started volunteering with some developmentally disabled Viet kiddos at a school for the blind and another early childhood development center. My weeks may start to get even busier with the very real prospect of developing a PT clinic here with an American Chiropractor (the only chiro practice to ever survive in Vietnam). I have all fingers and toes crossed! Other than the presence of Ginger soiling the pants of most Vietnamese we come across, I think our next few weeks will be more of the same awkward assimilation into Vietnam and gearing up for our final move!

Take a look at the new slideshow to see more pics-Click on the actual slideshow to enlarge and view the captions!