Ho Chi Minh and Chiang Mai

next to a tank at the war museum

Ho Chi Minh Sight-seeing

Even though I’ve been living in Vietnam for more than four months, this was my first trip to Ho Chi Minh. The city is huge, and there are lots of things to see. After getting a bite to eat, I checked out the War Museum.  As you might expect, the exhibits in the museum are shown from a Vietnamese  perspective, with lots of propaganda. However, the pictures of victims of chemical warfare (not only those directly affected, but also their children) were especially sobering. Outside the museum, you can pose next to different airplanes and other weapons – see the picture of me next to the tank above.

man praying

church in downtown ho chi minh city

Other than the war museum, I also visited a church and the old post office in the middle of the city. To me, the church looks a little out of place in the middle of the city, but as the picture shows, people still go there to pray. 

the streets of Ho Chi Minh City - much busier than Hue!

People in the Park

After sightseeing, I visited the market and bought some papaya and pineapple. I took my fruit to the park to eat and enjoy the nice weather, but I hadn’t been there for more than 10 minutes when some people came up to me wanting to practice their English. Normally, I find this kind of thing a little irritating, but that day I had a lot of free time and didn’t mind so much. When one person left, another would show up, so that I ended up talking with different people for around 2 hours!

I was just sitting in the park, and then this happened!

One guy that came up to talk with me was an old Vietnamese Chinese guy living in Australia. He was really cool, and after he helped me find the pharmacy, we ended up having dinner and then coffee. He had a lot of interesting stories, which made me more excited than ever to visit Australia. I can’t wait to go to the land down under next week!

Chiang Mai Sight-seeing

Although I’ve only been in Chiang Mai for four days, it seems like the city primarily has two things – temples, and shopping! Everywhere you go, there’s either another temple or a street market. This morning I visited the most famous temple, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Shrine. Although the scenery atop the mountain was breathtaking, I couldn’t really enjoy it. The place was overrun with tourists and merchants trying to sell you things. Yes, that’s right, atop a mountain at a Buddhist shrine you can buy all the knick-knacks your heart could ever desire!

the view from atop doi suthep

dogs sleeping on steps to shrine

posing at the temple

me in front of the temple

poor tiger, pacing in its cage

After the shrine, I visited the Chiang Mai zoo, which was on my way back to Chiang Mai city. At this zoo, you can feed pretty much any animal – I saw people feeding the hippos, elephants, and even giraffes! This means that the animals will come up really close to you, which was kinda cool. The zoo was really large and had a lot of different animals, but I didn’t stay very long. I got a little sad watching the tiger pacing back and forth in its tiny cage, and wasn’t sure about how well the animals were treated.

can you tell I'm worried the bird is about to bite me?

the zoo had some lovely flowers

at this zoo, you can feed the animals!

lady at the market selling noodles

 Finally, as I mentioned, there’s shopping everywhere in the city – just check out the pictures of different night markets below! Mostly, they all sell the same things – Thai pants, jewelry, pictures, soaps, and so on. The markets have pretty good food too – all different kinds of fruits, along with anything that can be fried or put on a stick. Another dish that’s really nice is rotee – it’s kind of like a crepe, which you can get filled with banana, nutella, honey, etc. Yum!

flowers for sell at the market

one of many night markets in Chiang Mai

Thai TESOL Conference

I came to Chiang Mai to attend and present at the Thai TESOL conference. The conference gave me a chance to reconnect with other fellows I hadn’t seen since our orientation in D.C., and meet some new people, including my boss at the embassy. There were some interesting presentations and speeches, and I always find conferences give me new ideas for teaching my classes and for research.

my audience

giving a presentation

My presentation was on spoken grammar, and I was a little nervous because it was my first time to present at a conference. The session was packed, with people standing by the door and sitting on the floor. Overall, it went really well, and I got a lot of good questions from the participants after the presentation was over.

me, saying something smart!

Overall, I’m glad I was able to attend the conference and give my presentation, but I’m also a little relieved it’s over. Because now, I can relax and enjoy a little vacation time!