Travel is Terrific: Vinh Long City

Here's the hotel room where I stayed for 10 days or so. It was comfortable with air con and a fan as well as a hot/cold shower, Western toilet, large flat screen TV, cable and double bed. All this for only 120,000 Dong per day/night. (If you only stay at night, the price is less.)

The cleaning ladies would come in every three days or so, but I have to say, their floor washing water smelled like cat pee. I don't think they put cleaner in their water. One time, I took the cleaning lady's mop and sprayed it with a green cleaner I'd bought for the bathroom. She was really perturbed when she caught me red-handed spraying her mop. I told her, "It smells nice. Don't worry." in sign-language.

Here's my motorcycle gang. We travel in gangs here. Down back alleys, over pot-holes, bouncing through gullies and over narrow strips of gravel road. It's adventurous. If you like that kind of thing.

Here we are at some reputable restaurant hidden out in the jungle somewhere that I'd never be able to find again. You know, even if I really loved the food and wanted to return.

I don't remember seeing a name on the place. Maybe they should call it "Red and Blue Little Stool Restaurant". The funny thing is, they bring you the food and you get to cook it yourself on a bar-b-que type cooker thingy that heats up the place even more.

One of the students. She kindly co-operated to have her picture taken.

Here's Harry trying to teach me some Vietnamese. I learned to count to ten and a few other things.

It was Mei's birthday so she's opening some presents while we wait for our lunch...

Here's the cooker thingy.

It does warm up the place but you get to cook your own food. What did we cook? Mostly frogs!

This is my boss, Ms Theu. She is actually married with two kids but calls herself "Ms".

Harry offered to take my picture with the group. That's me in the red.

Ms Theu told me that the gov't required an official letter from the CEO of my former school stating that I had worked for him for 5 years. So, I waited for two weeks to get an official letter from him that never came. I guess it's a good idea to prepare this kind of thing ahead of time. After 2 weeks waiting for the letter, I decided to leave. Besides, this kind of small town mentality just wasn't my cup of tea. No offense, but I hate being gawked at by the locals. After a while, you start to feel like a circus freak show. It's just really annoying. And I say that with all the empathy I can muster.

I taught for 5 days at the school. They asked me to come in at 7:30 on Saturday morning but I simply couldn't make it after having stayed awake most of the previous night. (There's a huge window in my room with no curtain on it, just a thin layer of mac-tac that doesn't keep out the light from two fluorescent lights that are directly outside of said window.) Ms. Theu called at 8 am or so and I ambled into the school a while later. Had I known they had no intention of paying me, I would have stayed back at the hotel that morning.

After the fifth day of teaching, I asked about my salary. The next day, I got a call from a teacher telling me that the Police had come to the school so I shouldn't come in that day. They wanted me to wait for my visa. (That's when alarm bells started to go off and I thought, "I'm sure they'll pay me. They wouldn't not pay me, would they?")

Three days later, with no reply from my former school, I decided I should move on. I needed a job and this town just wasn't cutting it for me. I mean, it was boring. I guess if I had some vocabulary of Vietnamese, I could have made some local friends, but, who knows?

By the time I moved out, I had to pay a 10-day hotel bill and the school only paid half of it. They told me it was a "donation" from the school because I was really only "playing" with the kids. Lesson learned: Always communicate up front about your salary. One day of free teaching is fine, but I never expected to work 4-hours a day teaching several different classes and not get paid for it. Most schools I have worked for will provide housing and food as well as a salary. But, not in this school. I have yet to discover how other schools in Vietnam operate.

I was very polite but I informed Ms. Theu that I could not afford to work for free. I asked her if she could afford to work for free and she said, "No." She said that other foreigners would do it, so that's why she thought I would. But, then she also said that the Police had shown up at her school conveniently right after I had asked about my salary. My reply was that I was surprised that anyone could afford to work for free.

Usually, if you're looking for work, it's because you need the money.