And then there were swan boats

Off for a ride last weekend, headed generally East with not much more of a plan than that. There was a temple I thought I might have seen from the top of a hill last week...well the temple was never found but I did find another beautiful temple with a giant bell on top of a hill that overlooked the city.


After the temple we stopped for some very local lunch and practiced our Vietnamese, finally getting some soy sauce (after getting fish sauce with lime, and fermented soybean paste...miscommunication).

And somehow we found ourselves at a giant gate, and I didn't recognize any of the words on the sign. In front of us was a van filled with children...and there was an entrance fee...we asked the lady at the window and she said "FISH!" and then drew fish with a circle around them. A lake! So we paid our fee...and then found ourselves doing some cross training - padding swan boats around the lake (and checking out the liliput fairy land on the other side!)





Oh Vietnam, always got something up its sleeve...

To the beach

This weekend was sun sun sun again, so a bike ride to the beach!
I rode my bike solo on the way there, but met up with my friend once I got there...and bicycling back next to a motorbike the whole way back was motivation to keep up my speed

I like to ride my bicycle I like to ride my bike....

So it's about time I got my booty in shape for the AIDS LifeCycle fast approaching in June....
So I found this awesome group called Cycling for the Environment. They meet every Sunday, take a bike ride and go clean up trash! This weekend we cleaned a canal, and also did a survey of the people in the neighborhood to learn about their options for trash collection and their knowledge of Environmental programs in Hue.
Morning well spent!

On traffic accidents to avoid / traffic accidents to seek out

Hue is full of cyclos: bicycle taxis with a rider in back, and a big cushy seat for the passenger in front. More than a personal taxi, the cyclo is a taxi for any and every event that life may bring. You'll see just about anything imaginable in a cyclo, defying laws of space, physics, time. Yes, I mean this. If a family moves to a new home, you'll see a parade of cyclos: the first cyclo with their furniture (dining room tables, wardrobes, mattresses, headboards) then their suitcases, then maybe some potted plants (cyclo driver peering out from between palm fronds), then the entire family (of course in one cyclo, pouring out like a clown car).

When I am riding by such cyclos on my little blue bicycle, I can't help but think of my own mortality. How long can any one cyclo driver continue to challenge the laws of nature? Every cyclo driver must have had at least one accident, one situation in which the laws of nature won? This led me to think about cyclo collisions I would definitely want to avoid:

-Cyclos loaded with about 15 cooler-sized blocks of ice...burrrrr...but this one's easy to avoid because you can tell where he's been by following the drips of water on the pavement as the ice melts
-Cyclos loaded with piping for underground sewage pipes. Ow. Yuck.
-Cyclos loaded with three months work of products made by HWH Shop (where I work). Three months worth of work in the hands of one skinny cyclo driver...ahhhhhhh

Clearly, there are cyclos to avoid. However...seeing as how cyclos carry EVERYTHING, there are, in face, some cyclos with with an accident may be kind of fun:

-Cyclos carrying a heap of bedding and pillows. Bouce!
-Cyclos carring heaps of fruit. Like being in the ball pit at a fast food place but with oranges.

THE LIFE.
I got to be the guinea pig for a new tour tubing down the perfume river. I gave it a thumbs up.

I'm a really person! Maybe.

Today I felt like a real person. Why? Because my phone rang hella times. I'm meeting people, making contacts, making friends. Usually I feel like I'm walking into walls...because I am. I don't think that I've really overcome that entirely yet, but after 3 months I'm seeing some growth. Slow, but growth just the same.

...Right now the weather is taking a turn...in a period of a couple minutes, the sky can turn black, the thunder starts clapping and then it DUMPS rain. In 30 minutes the streets can be full up to mid-shin. This kind of reflects my life here. One minute it's sunny and I feel like a real person, then completely unexpectedly, reality comes in a big dramatic dump and I realize I'm still not in my element.

All those snails were in my belly