When you have an opportunity to snag a free plane ride to Asia, and do a bit of teaching in return, take it.
It’s the last day of school before summer break begins. At the last bell teachers stride out of school, all cool, breathe easy, smile and wish everyone well. For the next 10 weeks most of them will be relaxing, adventuring, many of them will work in part-time jobs or return for a semester of summer school, but still, it’s officially summer. It’s finally here.
I’m speeding across the car park to my car, eager to get home, pack a little, eat, and get my butt to the airport. I’m flying to Ho Chi Minh City. It’s a long flight with a layover in Hong Kong. We leave late Friday night, arrive in Ho Chi Minh on Sunday, and Monday morning, bright and early, I’m back in front of young people, jet lag be damned.
Teaching elsewhere than your regular classroom is amazing. You refocus – teaching teenagers who are mostly taller than I, and teaching 11 year olds who are also on the summer break, most of them forced to attend this English summer ‘camp,’ is different. I need a different type of energy, but young people bring their own I feed off of.
My lunches, afternoons and evenings are free to explore the city.
While the students eat and nap during their mid-day break (they bring their pillows, blankets, set up a sleeping space on the floor or on top of desks, and nap), I go out.
Lunch is the hottest part of the day, so few people are out, but it is possible to hop from shade to shade and explore enough of the neighbourhood to make sweat worth it. The school’s in an affluent area, with lots of cafes and bakeries, so my stomach is never left lonely. An iced Vietnamese coffee is always just around the corner.
My afternoons are spent exploring other, louder, nosier parts of the city.
Ho Chi Minh City is a labyrinth of scooters, cars, cyclists, street vendors, pedestrians, restaurants spilling out onto the sidewalks, chickens waiting to be sold at the curb, children playing football, men taking naps, honks, chatter and laughter. The heat makes me stupid and slow. I forget how to cross the street. Of course, crossing the street here is very much, for someone who comes from the West, an exercise in trust. You don’t close your eyes, ever – it’s not that kind of trust. You adjust your pace to that of the traffic, step out onto the road, merge with traffic and keep walking. Never stop. Don’t slow down. Don’t speed up. Assume that everyone who needs to see you, sees you. At first, I opt for the major crossings where I only have to watch for turning scooters. Next, I find someone to follow across a street. A few days later though, I feel I’ve adjusted what I knew about the rules of the road, and crossing the street is easier.
It’s lovely to get up in the morning and walk. Several street corners are busy. Bicycles decked out with kitchens on them stand parked there, surrounded by people ordering their morning Bahn Mi. Other women grill other foods. Some of the vendors sit on the side walk, preparing food off of milk crates. Many people are getting iced drinks, and coconut water.
The peace of the morning doesn’t last long. The city is an early riser.
In the evening, once the sun is hidden and a gentle breeze sweeps through the city, people spill out of hiding. Street markets open. Women spread their vegetables and fish onto the street, including live chickens – everything’s for sale. Food vendors ride their bikes back and forth, showcasing their delicacies. Restaurants bring out masses of plastic chairs and patrons quickly start to fill them. Impromptu karaoke happens. Dancing. Laughing. At one point, we’re invited in to watch a muay thai class. Somewhere else men play ping pong and chess.
At night, everything turns into one social gathering, and it seems everyone is welcome.
Ho Chi Minh is huge, and there is no tube system, but an excellent taxi and scooter one. At first the group I travel with take taxis to explore – our base is quite a way from the centre of town – seeing the scooters swerve, squeeze through tiny spaces between buses, and get lost in the scramble of an intersection, makes us squirm – it doesn’t seem safe to be on the back of a stranger’s scooter, even if I am to wear a helmet. But adventure, and the need to get to a place faster, takes over. Being on the back of a Grab bike is amazing. It’s a good way to blend into the city, though I’m sure the silly smile I have on my face, the giddiness of it all, plus the gentle breeze (some of it just fumes from other vehicles) is pleasant: most people ride in masks, though they don’t wear helmets; I have no mask, but I do don a helmet. I don’t know which is safer. Probably wearing the mask and not breathing in all the chemicals.
One day my roommate and I decide to meet up with some friends at a market. We scooter over, my roommate’s first scooter ride. She chose the best time – high traffic, madness and honking all over the city as people return home from work. Our drivers check in with one another, and we start off at the same time, but soon I lose my friend – my driver is faster.
We get to a market. We walk and explore. Everyone is packing up, creating gigantic mounds of clothes and fabric that are tied together with tarp and string, then carefully placed atop a mountain of other bags that sit on a scooter. We are the only foreigners at this market. People greet us with smiles, peace signs and hellos. Many see us and giggle. They nudge their friends as we pass by. It is the strangest thing – this doesn’t happen elsewhere in Ho Chi Minh City.
We soon figure out that we are at the wrong market – our mistake, not our drivers’. But this is the beauty of travelling. You end up where you are supposed to be – somewhere new and brilliant where only laughter exists; no tourist traps.
I do explore the main attractions, visiting the pink Nhà thờ Tân Định, the cathedral, the opera, Ben Thanh Market, and the Saigon Central Post Office, though my favourite day is the one where I walk all day, turning wherever I wish. I get lost a lot, ending up at dead ends, or under bridges where the elderly are taking naps or playing card games, but I never feel unsafe, and when my energy fails me, there’s always a coffee shop offering a caffeine and condensed milk boost.
