Back in Vietnam: Mai Chau

Working in the fields

We stayed with the same family as the previous two times we have been to Mai Chau. They are very friendly and it was a lot of fun speaking Vietnamese again (albeit rather limited for myself). Celine on the other hand had no problem jumping straight back into her Vietnamese and was conversing like she hadn't left.


Hammock under the house

We spent our time relaxing and walking around the village, drinking the local wine, ruoi, with the father of the family, eating superb home cooked meals and going on motorbike rides around the area. At night we saw a traditional dance, where the son of the family was in a leading role. We drank the local Vietnamese coffee and bought some things for the house from the market.

Vietnamese traditional dance


My attempt at one of the dances

Madame Linh lives in her house with her husband and one of her two sons, his wife and their little baby. Sitting down to eat with the family is one of my favourite things. The sleeping arrangements are simple but by no means uncomfortable. The mattresses that they use are made in the village and we like them so much we took some back to Hanoi and now have them in Bangkok. Celine's cousin, Romain, is sleeping on those very mattresses at the moment while staying with us in Bangkok.

Sleeping arrangements


Dinner with the family

Madame Linh, her son and granddaughter. I look rather tall next to them

These guys played a song on the drums and them offered us some local ruoi wine.

Not bad views

Mother and daughter

Back in Vietnam: Road Trip

Romain battling dusty Hanoi



Celine, her cousin Romain and I recently took short trip to Vietnam. It was our first time back since leaving in March. We spent a few days in Hanoi before grabbing a few bikes and riding to one of favourite places in Vietnam - Mai Chau.

Riding up the mountain

Riding through a small town

Friendly and curious kids


Without a doubt the highlight of our year and half in Vietnam was the 3 week motorbike trip we took from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang. We have great memories from that trip so we were very happy to be back on the open road again enjoying the Vietnamese countryside. The first few hours out of Hanoi is a bit painful - hot and dusty traffic jams, poor roads, zooming buses and impatient truck drivers. However, once past Luong Son (the small home town of our friend Nam) the roads are better quality and wider with much less traffic, the air fresh and the scenery amazing.

Buffalos on the road

Rice fields

On the road to Mai Chau

Mai Chau is about 130km south-west of Hanoi. The drive took us about 6 hours. The town itself is pretty unappealing however the White Thai minority group have a village on the outskirts of town where they all live in traditional houses. This is a great place to stay, relax and eat some delicious home cooked Vietnamese food.

Not the worst place to go for a ride

Friendly locals


Goodbye Mai Chau

Bangkok Floods # 2

Latest from Management

Celine and I returned from Hanoi today to the latest message from management about the floods in Bangkok. The situation is getting worse but I don't see the water hitting 2 meters deep here in the center of Bangkok. But I could be wrong. The owner of our apartment block certainly thinks so. He told me I should leave Bangkok. He said the water will arrive in the next few days and that, in his words, I will have to "shit in a bag" if I stay. There will be no water therefore no toilet and no electricity when the floods arrive. While I was enjoying a swim in the roof pool today workers were installing a metal door too the access area to the pool. This, the owner told me, was to control residents access to the pool when it became the only source of water in the apartment block. He didn't want everyone coming to the pool to wash themselves. He also told me they were going to have an armed guard at all times. I am not sure why. My gut feeling is that this is all a bit extreme but I guess time will tell.

One of the airports was closed today and I think the government has declared a public holiday for the next few days. You can find the latest on the floods at the Bangkok Post otherwise Twitter is providing a constant flow of information.

Bangkok just had a pretty intense downpour for about 45 minutes.

Bangkok Marathon

Well it's official. I have signed up for the Bangkok Marathon...........well half marathon.

The race is on the 20th of November and starts at a very early 5am. I have to be in the starting line at 4.30am. To be honest I am not sure if I can get up that early and even less sure that I can follow up the early rise with a 21km run. My younger years of competitive sport have long been replaced by beer and couch sport. But, there is no going back now. It will be tough but I do have a goal. And that goal is to beat my brothers half marathon time from Sydney. That time, which still needs to be verified, is I think 2 hours and 15 minutes. Losing to a younger brother is not an option so I now have under a month to find a way to cover 21km in under 2 hours and 15 minutes.

The race starts and finishes alongside the Royal Grand Palace and passes some cool sites along the way. I am actually really looking forward to it.

So for anyone else keen on getting involved in the marathon day (there is also a 10km and 5km option) check out the link above.

Private Dancer

The bar scene in Bangkok

As the books front pages say this "should be compulsory reading for all first-timers to Thailand". It is an interesting take on the go-go bar scene in Bangkok from both a Westerners and a local Thai girls perspective. The book is based on the go-go bars in Nana Plaza, which is about a 20 minute walk from our place.

The whole foreigner - Thai relationship is prevalent in Bangkok. Most of my colleagues have Thai girlfriends; many expats in our flats have Thai girlfriends; and whenever you go out and about you will see a foreigner with a Thai girl. I am not saying that these relationships started in go-go bars. I assume most don't. However, I have had coversations with some foreigners who have met a girl in a bar and they often don't end well.

Anyway, I recommend this book for a bit of an insight into how the bar world in Bangkok works.

Flooding in Bangkok

Note from Management

The flooding around Thailand and the rest of South East Asia has been terrible. It is the topic of discussion with all of my classes. One of my students is the head of BCM for her company and has had to evacuate a number of her stores throughout the country. Two other students are experiencing some level of flooding and another has has to leave her house. Despite that they all seem to be pretty upbeat about it all. One of my students, who is in a problem area, told me that his house was flooded and then proceeded to laugh.

I am in the center of the city and from "most" accounts it should be ok here. That being said, all shops around my area have sandbags at the front of their stores. Our apartment block seems to be going to extremes with a mass of sandbags and even a small motored boat. I received the above letter under my door this morning warning about the potential floods in our area. I have the feeling it is a bit of an exaggeration.........I hope so anyway...........ten days of going to the toilet in a plastic bag does not sound that enjoyable.

This mornings article in the Bangkok Post has declared Bangkok safe so I think all the hard work by thousands of Thai people to divert the water has paid off. I can only hope that it get's better from now and people can have a chance to get back to their normal lives.

Working in Bangkok # 1

So, it has been a while since I have posted on this blog. I feel guilty for not maintaining the posts that we did in Vietnam but for some reason or another (lack of inspiration, working to much) the words haven't flowed.

Most of our time, since our last posts, have been taken up working so I will explain what that really means here in Bangkok. Celine and I are both corporate teachers. We work for an English language school and are sent out to companies across the city to teach English. At the moment I am working everyday and my clients include a Dutch wholesale supermarket, a tyre manufacturer. a baby formula producer, an American software company and an alloy wheel manufacturer. Today I will talk about the alloy wheel manufacturer.

The company is located about 40km out of the center of Bangkok. I take a motorbike taxi, sky train, and bus to get there. That sounds terrible but the transport system is pretty efficient so I can jump off the motorbike taxi for example and be on the train a few minutes later. The bus drops me at the front door. The company is in a big industrial estate on the outskirts of the city; factories on one side, green fields the other.

To get into the grounds of the company I have to pass a security area. After the formalities of the first visit I am now whizzed straight through with an aura of regality. The young security guys, all dressed smartly in matching attire, snap their legs and salute me as I pass. If there happens to be a few then they will all address me the same way. Once, there were eight guys who I presume were in the process of changing shifts. With 4 guys on either side I passed through a tunnel of salutes. After security there is a green square which is home to a big budda statue.

I teach the senior managers at the company. They are all starters (which means they know a little but not much English). Often when I arrive they don't have a room ready for me to teach. The girl at reception has limited English and will use her fingers to tell me which room I am in. I always look forward to what I might find in my allocated room. Always the lights in the room are turned off but rarely do I find them empty. Girls will be in there chatting, in darkness, and eating their lunch. They laugh and giggle as they leave. Other times the men will be sleeping. There was once a guy with his neck bent backwards, eyes towards the ceiling, mouth open and snoring like there is no tomorrow. They rub their eyes and yawn ad they leave. I am not sure if they are hiding from their boss or are very environmentally conscious but the lights are always off.

I teach 3 one-on-one classes to senior managers and then a group class. I am there from 1pm-7pm. Starters are a fun level to teach, I think, but they never get my jokes. The managers all wear pink or cerise (I don't know the difference) polo shirts which isn't the most manly colour for a factory. Around the different meeting rooms are different posters outlining the companies mission statement and values; all written in Thai, broken English and Japanese (it is a Japanese company). My favourite sign is a laminated guide on how to properly present the end of the toilet roll after use. The sign is on the back door of every cubicle and has an 8 step picture guide on how to fold the toilet paper. I had a go for a few minutes but it was too difficult for me. I left discreetly.

There is a young girl in the kitchen who brings me drinks and snacks all day. She is awesome. I practice my Thai, which is virtually non-existent, with her. After my classes, at 7pm, a company van takes me back towards the city. Lately we have been battling flooding from torrential rain so at times the road is completely submerged in water.

All the students are excited to learn and will get involved in the class so I have no complaints teaching these guys.