Phnom Penh, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), and Dalat

Standing Next to our Tuk Tuk in Phnom Phen (Links to more pictures)

Hello!

We are doing really well, and are loving Vietnam so far! We are currently in Dalat, but spent the previous four days in Ho Chi Minh City, and looooooved it! It is really nice and beautiful with lots of parks and wide streets and modern architecture. Much more beautiful than we expected and my (Graham's) favorite Asian city so far. Our time in Vietnam thus far has also been heavy at times, as many of the sites we've seen have to do with the Vietnam war (or as they call it here, the American war). There has been more than one time that Natalie and I have teared up. One especially hard thing to see was an exhibit about Agent Orange, Napalm, and other chemical agents that were dropped out of planes over the county. The War remnants Museum had graphic, honest pictures of people whose bodies were badly burned, and what was perhaps even sadder was an exhibit about the long term effects of all these poisons that resulted in tons of stillbirths, and babies being born horribly deformed. In some areas there is still a much higher rate of that to this day.....

Vang Vieng to Vientiane to Thakhek to 4000 Islands to Siem Reap

The cave that we (bravely) swam into. Click picture for a link to some more pictures!

Hello........anyone there? Do we have any readers left?? We have by no means forgotten you, in fact every-time we have internet access we get super excited to update the blog, only to realize that the speed is so slow that even writing "hello, sorry we haven't updated recently....."takes about an hour to upload. Finally in Siem Reap the internet is once again speedy, so we're back!

There is obviously a lot to catch you up on, so I will just focus on the highlights. One new addition which I dreamed up recently will be a section at the end of the post aimed specifically at other travelers following a similar path and wanting recommendations/information about how to do things, or what to expect. We have benefited a lot from reading other travelers blogs and want to give in kind when appropriate. Enough chatting (Natalie must be rubbing off on me!), here's what we've been up to!

Final Day of School In Sight - India booked!

Hola faithful readers! Wanted to do a small update because a couple cool/significant things have happened lately.  The big one is that we found round-trip flights to India for $180, booked them, and are going to be able to add another country and world wonder, the Taj Mahal,  to our trip. We're super excited, although it is a bit bittersweet because it means pushing back our return date a couple weeks (which is now a very solid June 15th), and we are missing home and friends and family a ton already. It's a destination we have both dreamed of visiting though, and who knows when we will be on this side of the world again??

Next, and this is more exciting than words can describe, we have an official end date for school!!! Planning is a laughable word in Thailand, at least the rural part of Thailand where we are based, and so from our school coordinator, to the head of the English program, to the Principal's secretary, to the other English teachers, no one knows when the last day of school is. And besides being not far away, their estimates vary across the timespan of a month! We signed a completely Thai contract that supposedly says we finish at the end of March, but everyone said not to pay attention to that, that it is just symbolic.  As the potential dates draw near, we've started to panic a bit about planning and visas, and finally in desperation contacted the program we came through, CIEE. They came back saying that we would be finishing at the end of February - just a few weeks away! We panicked a bit, and after some back and forth, finalized a final day of March 10th (thank you CIEE for you help!). We didn't have a strong preference to end at any specific time, but after so much work that went into figuring it out, we are just super excited to have a date set! That means that in just about a month we can start traveling, which is good for you also because we will have a lot more interesting posts and pictures that will be coming your way - win, win :)

Anyway miss you all and we will post again soon, next time with some new pics....till then, this is Grahamalie signing out

Five Year Anniversary In Bangkok and Meeting some New Friends

From the rooftop restaurant where we rang in our 5 years together!

Hello!
We hope everyone is doing well! It is yet another very tired Monday. I just taught 2 classes and Graham is teaching his third class right now. Only a couple more to go! The good news is the reason we are so tired is because the end of last week and this weekend were incredibly fun! I guess I will start at the beginning (a very good place to start...)

First Week Of School and Weekend in Bangkok

Last week was our first one teaching, yet it already feels like a lifetime has passed since then. We were picked up by our coordinator bright and early that Monday morning, with the expectation that we would be given a tour of campus and get some paperwork sorted before starting our classes on Tuesday.  When we arrived at school our first impression was that it was a lot bigger than either of us imagined. There are a total of 1400 students who go there, all in grades K-6th, making it by far the largest school in town. Most of the infrastructure is basic, but there are obviously a lot of buildings and facilities to host that many students, and most of the campus is very green and beautiful.

Getting Ready To Go!

We just bought our flights and are super excited! We will be leaving October 11th, arriving in Beijing on the 12th, staying for almost 24 hours to quickly check it out, then flying to Bangkok on the 13th. Our first week there, we will be given an intensive training on everything from the culture, to the language, to how to teach English!

We still don't know the exact date that we start teaching - sometime around the beginning of November we think. After five months of teaching we are going to travel around Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam for about a month, then fly to the Philippines for a week or two.

Our goal is to update this blog at least once a week, since apparently they have internet in the town where we will be living (HERE are the details on our teaching assignment). You can follow our adventures in several ways. The easiest is probably by subscribing with your email address on the left hand side of the screen where it says Follow. If you have Twitter, you can also use that to get updates, and every time we post a new entry here, it will update to Facebook.

We are both very excited, kind of nervous, but overall ready to embark on a great adventure. Thank you for your interest, and wish us luck!

P.S. The above picture highlights the part of Thailand we will be teaching in (Province of Suphanburi, town of Dan Chang). For a more detailed view of the country, HERE is a good map. Additionally if you are insanely interested in seeing what the future holds for us you can check out THIS BLOG which was written by a couple who embarked on a similar adventure teaching in the same town about a year ago.

P.P.S. Come and visit us!!!!!!!