Monday 21st October - Quang Ngai

Up at 4.45 to walk with the Hicks' & the next door neighbour, Mr Nhi, down to the park & after a few circuits of an open park area to return home for a great breakfast of banh mi trung, a baguette filled with an omelette & fine salad vegetables. At 8.30 we were off to the coffee house again to catch up with Ban the teacher again & then on to a supermarket to buy various foods for tonight’s meal.

Meanwhile Owen has been teaching & has primed us to spend the afternoon with his class this afternoon. Unfortunately this was not to be, as the attendance of foreigners in the uni needed to be reported to the police before the day etc.

At about 11.30 we went around the corner to another restaurant & again the food was outstanding with superb squid, fried tofu, chicken & a banana flower salad, with the local beer.

Home again we all had a snooze, local style for about an hour, to prepare for the rest of our travels in Vietnam.

Tuesday 22nd October - Quang Ngai

Another hard day. Owen took Allan & I to meet his cycling group at a cafe & a fine body of men they were. Of the 6 most were retired or were working part time & included a collector, a motor bike dealer, an engineer & an administrator. The collector invited to his house on our return & showed us the masses of Chinese ceramics, 6 French old bikes from 1930s to 50s & a range of stereo gear including a reel to reel tape recorder & 1990s boom boxes. His wife selected 3 small pots from a cabinet & presented them to us as gifts. They are from a hoard of 1490s Vietnamese pottery from a wrecked ship discovered 10 yrs ago near Hoi An.

After a short rest we were off to lunch with Mr Nhi who took us to a tiny restaurant specialising in goat meat & we had 3 different dishes including a curry which was more of a stew. We returned home for a 30 minute rest & then took a taxi to the site of the My Lai massacre of 1968 about 12k from Quang Ngi.

At the site is a museum building with dioramas of the hamlets, photos & relics of the event, copies of visitors’ comments & a large marble memorial plaque naming the 502 victims. In the grounds is another huge soviet style memorial & the foundations of various houses which were destroyed at the time. It was hard to face the devastation of the massacre as the site is surrounded by rice fields & new houses.

Leaving the site we drove 2 kms to the local beach resort of My Khe before returning home by taxi.

At 5.30 we were off again for a meal with the cyclist & their wives at another restaurant. This was a pretty lively show again as they brought red wine & Owen brought white wines so the toasting was very serious. Every change of wine or bottle meant that everybody had to touch glasses with everybody again & for some the object was to down the drink in one gulp. Not quite the Australian’s normal drinking procedure.

After the meal we had our last official event when we moved on to a cafe to meet Mr Lam, a university colleague who spoke excellent English & who had been teaching Russian until the 1990s when the regime decided that English would be the new second language of Vietnam schools. He was a suave type & he introduced us to a lady friend who is in insurance & is a traditional dancer.

& so to bed at about 8.30 after another hard day at the office.

Wednesday 23rd October - Quang Ngai

Up again at 4.45 to go walking with Owen, Allan & Mr Nhi. After returning we showered for our next 'official appearance’ at the Galaxy cafe, at 7am, to meet up with teachers from the university, for coffee. Here we had a wonderful breakfast of fried eggs & beef served on a sizzling hot platter with a local baguette & ‘Cafe Sua’, the local iced coffee of filtered coffee dropped on to condensed milk to which ice is added.

This was very well attended & we had a lively discussion with several of them about life in Vietnam & their aspirations for their children’s education abroad. It is hard for them to fund such study because of the massive differences in living & tuition costs in other countries like Australia. One man, invited to join the group by one of his former students, was truly fascinating as he launched into quite a tirade about the way in which everybody is under surveillance in Vietnam. Mr Do was probably in his early 60s & told us that his wife & children are in Hanoi but he prefers life in Quang Ngai. We were all amazed at the openness of his criticism but unfortunately we had to leave before too long.

Back at the house it appeared that Owen had never met him before so his appearance was quite a surprise.

For lunch we took a taxi to a big restaurant which is renowned for its one dish, shredded chicken on a bed of rice served with a soup, pickled vegetables & chillis. We were relegated to the back of the large next door room where the motor bikes & scooters were parked in the front. The food was great & 5 meals & 5 beers cost about Dong 200K ($A10) for the lot of us.

In the afternoon we went to visit a private English school run by one of Owens colleagues which has 6 class rooms all for children & adults to improve mainly their verbal skills. Many Vietnamese children are sent to theses after hours schools as they hope to get scholarships in English speaking countries. They are staffed with a mixture of local teachers moonlighting & native English speakers who the colleague houses & pays a wage.

In the evening we met up with Owens class of non- English subject lecturers, for coffee. We were sat between the lecturers who then asked us questions in English about our lives etc. Every 15 minutes we moved to meet another small group who asked similar questions. Although their fluency varied widely they were so enthusiastic & interesting to talk to. Most were in their mid 20s but all had masters degrees & some with Phds but very few had been abroad or even been to Hanoi. One man a musician & composer in his 50s had been to Cambodia & Laos in the army during the time of Pol Pot. It was a wonderful evening for us & they seemed to enjoy it as well. To conclude they gave us little gifts which was very touching.

From there to our last dinner in Quang Ngai with Owen’s private school lady & some of her staff. I spoke to 2 Philipina ladies who teach there.

Thursday 25th October - Quang Ngai

Had a late start today with breakfast at home & then had coffee at the Galaxy garden cafe before an early lunch at a garden restaurant. Owen & Avenel accompanied us to the station only to find that the train was delayed for 2 hours so we sat in the waiting room with them & were visited by another of Owen’s colleagues to say goodbye. Eventually the train arrived & we were in the "soft seats" which were like tired aircraft seats & were very uncomfortable. The rain poured down as we went south but the countryside was lovely & at one point we ran almost alongside the sea for about 1km. We caught up about 40minutes & arrived in Nha Trang at 10pm where we took a cab to the hotel, had dinner & were in bed by 11.30.