Birdy Climbs a Mountain

Left to Right: Lawrence, Christina, Maddy, Angela

Countryside (a small river)

The wonderful part of living in a different country is that people come to visit you! The less wonderful part of living in a different country is that people rarely come to visit you! This made it doubly exciting when some of my family came to visit us! My aunt, Angela, came to visit with her two youngest daughters. It was to be the trip of a lifetime, and I'm sure it has been quite memorable. Want to experience the world? Travel! Want to be overwhelmed by the world? Travel to Vietnam!

Traffic

They arrived in early August and will be leaving the first of September. It's been great to see them after so long. I've now spent more time with them than I have in the past two or three years... when we still lived on the same continent. Funny how that works, isn't it? Diana is all kinds of attitude and insight. Christina's all kinds of snarky. Between the pair of them I've gained a deeper appreciation of what it was like to be a teenager, and how silly pink polka-dotted pants look.

Birdy Busts A Move On the Mountain

Since we've been busy starting up the school, we haven't had all that much time to entertain our guests. We've gone to the beach quite a bit and visited the fancy resort outside of town. There's really not much to do in Tuy Hoa other than drive around and eat. Unfortunately, the food here can seem repetitive (rice, anyone?) and easily unbalanced foreign digestive systems. We were looking forward to our five-day roadtrip!

We left early in the morning on August 16th and drove down the coast before cutting west up into the mountains. Our first destination was the mountain town of Da Lat. Da Lat was developed by French colonists as a summer getaway from the muggy, sweltering heat of central Vietnam. It's now one of the largest tourist destinations in Vietnam. Snuggly sprawling across some of Vietnam's higher peaks, Da Lat is distinctly European, and a recipe for home sickness for both me and my mom.

On The Swan Paddle Boat
(Birdy, "It's too hard!" Luke, 'It's too bright!")

Whereas Tuy Hoa had been getting hotter and more uncomfortable, Dalat felt a lot like fall in Oregon. It was cool, breezy and sprinkled a couple of times while we were there. The city is really beautiful, though. We went on a ridiculously long cable car ride that may have been the highlight of our time there. The view was a fascinating mixture of green, blue and orange tiled-roofs.  Birdy's birthday coincided with our departure from Da Lat, and we celebrated by riding a rusty swan and eating cake. In that order, not simultaneously.

Birdy Flipping

We continued on to Nha Trang, perhaps the most famous tourist destination in Vietnam. Touted for it's sandy beaches and wet water, Nha Trang is a crowded, smelly, noisy disaster. Needless to say, I wasn't amused. This was also the setting of a Christmas-time lesson on the difference between massage therapy and  massage gropery. While out on a walk, I pointed out the offending institution to Birdy and she wore a scowl the rest of the day. Few people can scowl like Birdy. It's superhuman.

Tunnel Under Aquarium
(very friendly sea turtles and manta rays)

Nha Trang wasn't a complete bust, however. We spent a whole day out on an island at a resort called Vinpearl Land (accessed by an even longer cable car ride). It had an amusement park, an aquarium that puts the Oregon Coast debacle to shame, and a very fun, utterly unsafe water park. It was moist. I got wet. We left the following day, but not before spending the morning snorkeling. I've never seen so much vividly colored sea life. Words fail me.

Birdy Jumping Off Our Snorkeling Boat

Birdy Takes The Cake

We were back in Tuy Hoa on the 20th, and back to work on the 21st. Our school began a couple days later, and we've been overwhelmed and exhausted ever since!

Downtown Da Lat

Da Lat Cable Car