(not one, not three, not four...)
Binh Quoi Tourist Village 2
OK, who would have thought that a mistake by a taxi driver would turn out to be a good thing.
It started with being stir crazy the moment I got up this morning. I can’t for the life of me tell you why I was stir crazy, because we went to Karaoke on Sunday night and saw Annette downtown (which is like a whole other city) on Monday, but here it was Wednesday morning and I needed to get out of Dodge. I was up at 5:00, walked down the street to buy breakfast from the lady who makes those rice-batter steamed “spring-rolls”, had two cups of coffee and packed our stuff for the pool before we even left the hotel for work. For the record, two breakfasts to go from the lady costs 24,000 vnd, which equals about $1.30. Can’t beat that now, can we?
The minute we were done teaching, we came back to the hotel, dropped off the laptop, changed, and I grabbed an old pool ticket. I thought about digging through the envelope to find the actual business card with the map on the back, but figured the pool ticket had the address on it, so it should work.
Should is the operative word, here. The ticket said “Saigon Tourist” on it and had the “Binh Quoi” logo on it, but it clearly said Van Thanh. The taxi driver first pulled into Binh Quoi 1, which Anthony and I recognized (funny, isn’t that) at the same time as the ‘wedding picture place one.’ We both went, “No.” At first, the taxi driver insisted he was right, but I made him ask a person who worked there, and that person pointed down the street—to #2. Well, we didn’t want Binh Quoi #2 either, we wanted Van Thanh, but it turned out that this place had a pool, and it was basically empty. It wasn’t as big as VanThanh, but it was quiet and it was nice the food turned out to be exactly the same, with an even more interesting view of the Saigon river with boats and barges driving past all the time. A handful of people did come and go, but for the most part it was very peaceful and nice. Not that the other pool is at all crowded on a weekday. This was just even less so.
It also had little hotel ‘houses’ on poles on the water!! They were so cute, and they were so cheap! A small room with a queen bed was 290,000 vnd (about $15.50) and a bigger room with a king size bed was only 360,000 vnd—and that included pool use, which costs 30,000 (2.50). If you do decide to stay here, though, bring your own food. The restaurant is excellent, and we eat there every time we come, but it’s really expensive, particularly for 3 meals a day!
It turned out to be a good mistake, which was a good thing, because one boy bit another boy in my classroom this morning, and it wasn’t shaping up to be a good day. There were 34 kids crammed into the classroom, and I was listening to students on the other side of the room. When I turned around, two boys were in a minor slapping war, and when I told them to stop, one showed me his shoulder with bite marks and pointed to the other one. Well, what was I supposed to do then? I took them both by the wrist and took them over to the office, rolled up the sleeve of the bitten one, and just said, “here.” I figured the kids could explain it. They came in later and apologized, which was sweet, because I was never angry. Boy, when I threatened another two with the office a little later, though, they knew I wasn’t messing around!!!! I’m sure word will get around. Maybe next week will be smooth sailing???
TTFN—ta ta for now!!
The park from the balcony 
OMG I don't want to even think what's in this water. Later, we found a drowned rat, so just use your imagination. 
July 1 The Flood While we were using the internet at the school and preparing for next week’s classes, it started to rain. Actually, it started to downpour, twice as hard as last night but without the lightning. We just waited for it to stop and blithely continued to read, prep, and use the internet. I even downloaded several commentaries and a few pictures to my blog, finally. When the rain let up, we started walking home. Now, I expected some puddles in the street outside the school. They are repaving it, and right now, it’s pretty much sandy dirt and drainage rock. What I didn’t expect was what I saw when I got to the end of the alley. There was about 4 inches of standing water. Rather that walk through I don’t know what in the water, we decided to go back down the alley and around via the main street. We got abou2 blocks on the main street, and lo and behold, again, water, but this time there was about 8 inches. Back the way we came. 4 inches is better than 6 inches of standing water. Oh, but it wasn’t over. We began wading down the alley, and it got deeper. And deeper. And deeper. Finally, it was up to almost my knees! My favorite skirt was shot—I couldn’t keep it out of the water. When we got back to the hotel, I was just laughing. What else could we do? We got upstairs, and I made Anthony go in and wash his legs and feet with soap and water, then I took a shower and scrubbed down, and finally I disinfected the floor that we had walked across. I found a severed cricket leg. Joy. I was worried that we would be in lock down for hours, but I called a couple of people, and the attitude was the same: just wait; it will go away. So, Anthony and I sat on the bed and played Rummy. We’re getting pretty good at it, actually, and it’s a nice way to pass the time in the evenings…or when you are waiting for the waters to recede. Here's a video of the rain that started it all. Actually, the rain comes about once a day, generally in the late afternoon, complete with thunder and lightening. We love to watch it all from the balcony in the safety of the hotel. We don't, however, much like getting stuck outside in it!
