After Hoi An, back to work

Alas, my one month break has finally come to an end. I had a pretty fun-filled final week hanging out with close friends, eating great food, and basically just kickin' it around Ha Noi. I had to run a bunch of errands for the SIS HR department in order to get my work visa complete. In addition to getting to the American Consulate to authenticate my diploma, I had to go to the French-Vietnam hospital for a full medical check. I expected the whole process to take an incredibly long time, considering my previous experiences at the place, but I was essentially ferried from doctor to doctor and had everything checked in under 30 minutes. This included chest x-rays, eye tests, a full body physical, etc. I get my results back tomorrow, but all 7 doctor I ran across say I'm healthy! This is always good news for those at home, so thought I'd share it with you all to ease your mind after my snake village trip.

Yesterday looked like it was going to be a very beautiful day so a couple of uswent to our favorite hang-out spot, the Thang Loi Hotel pool. I've mentioned it before, but for those who don't remember it is located right along one of the biggest lakes in Ha Noi (West Lake) and has sweeping views of the whole city... in addition to immaculate gardens and hanging flowers. We took a hot motorbike trip over in the sun and huge clouds swept over immediately after our arrival. Then, it proceeded to monsoon for 30 minutes. Since we were getting wet anyway, it seemed the perfect opportunity to get into the pool. Once the rain stopped, the sun came out for a bit which was rather enjoyable, until the cloud cover returned for a second heavy rain lasting over 30 minutes. It was actually pretty enjoyable swimming in the rain as the droplets were cooler than the water. As I'm sure you can imagine, the water in most of the pools in Ha Noi gets very hot by 10am, as it tends to sit and cook in the sun. Basically, this means that you have to swim either before 10am or after 6pm if you don't enjoy swimming in water that is warmer than your average bathtub. Pools tend to get very crazy with the locals after 5, so a lot of foreigners get to the pools in the middle of the afternoon since Vietnamese people are afraid of the sun.

I was recently at a beach in Hoi An, on the central coast of Vietnam. I would head out to the beach in the morning and laze about all afternoon, then as the sun started to wane, floods of Vietnamese tourists would rush to the beach to swim... in all of their clothes. The beach was literally deserted during the day except for your occasional foreigner soaking up the rays (which Vietnamese people consider absurd). So, for anyone looking for a pristine beach devoid of people during prime sun hours, get over to Vietnam! Hoi An is also famous for tailors, so I couldn't help but get some nice shorts for work made. The city is is referred to as the "Ancient City" since nothing was touched during the war and all the buildings are extremely old. Many other cities in Vietnam were heavily bombed so a city with all perfectly preserved buildings is hard to come by. Even with the rest of Vietnamese cities modernizing incredibly fast, Hoi An still doesn't have any skyscrapers, so the whole feel of the place is very dated and authentic. The restaurants are incredible, and it was great way to spend some of my last days of freedom... until I came down with bronchitis and had to cut the vacation short to return to Ha Noi. Despite being sick I managed to get a bit of a tan and swim in the crystal clear ocean everyday. Here's a couple pictures from the beach and the city itself: