Sorry it's been so long since I last updated, but life has been pretty normal here, besides my short trip to the hospital a few weeks ago, see below. Classes on Friday were cancelled because the students had a big camping get together at the University. It was the anniversary of the founding of the Youth Union, which is an organization for the students. It's the same at almost all events here, there are a lot of very boring speeches in Vietnamese separated by s...

It's back to teaching now after two weeks off for Tet New Year. I had a really good time, although I didn't make it out of Vietnam like I had planned. When classes ended, I took off for Saigon. My plan was to stay there for a few days and then head to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for a few days. I didn't do a whole lot in Saigon, but we did go see the Super Bowl. The game started at 6:30am on Monday morning. We went to a bar and watched the game with a packed house ful...

I was a little harsh on China in my last post, so I want to say it's a beautiful place, and many people were really friendly. It's just not the best place to visit if you: A. Don't speak Chinese, and B. Have no patience. Check out the pictures from China, some are posted and I will try to post the rest soon. I have just started my 2 week holiday for the Tet New Year (Lunar New Year). This is by far the biggest holiday in the country. It's over a week aw...

I am finally back in Tra Vinh after three weeks of traveling in Northern Vietnam and Yunnan Province in China. Changes have been happening here. We now have two more volunteers from Canada. We just met, but they seem nice. Inflation has also hit Tra Vinh. My café sua da (iced milk coffee) now costs 6,000 VND (about $0.33), up from 5,000 (about $0.27). On to my trip. I started off by going back to Sapa in Northwest Vietnam. I took the night train on Christ...

I am back from a week at the beaches in Mui Ne, and now I am already preparing to go to China. I fly tomorrow to Hanoi and then I will cross the border at Lao Cai in Vietnam. I will spend about 2.5 weeks in Yunnan Province in Southwest China. It is a province full of mountains, nature and a very large population of ethnic minority groups. I am pretty excited to go. I may try to update the blog from there, but not sure.Anyway, I am back from Mui Ne where we had ou...