na na nha trang


Warm beer never tasted so good. I should know since I had plenty while sitting with my new family. It’s amazing how the communication problems decreased, the more beer we drank.


Here Marcel gives his new friend a piggyback ride. I promise I won’t tell anyone, Marcel, honest! Truy was definitely a handful but since we’re both “teachers” we had fun joking around with her.

Much has happened in the last few days in Nha Trang. What started out as an idle moment at the beach turned into moments of sheer madness. Noteworthy highlights include being adopted by a Vietnamese family, adopting a Vietnamese girl and volunteering at a school for street kids.

By chance, I bumped into Marcel near the beach and he convinced me to stay on an extra day to go on a boat trip. Earlier this day, I was sitting at the beach taking pictures and taking in the atmosphere. Many families were about having picnics and enjoying themselves. One such family beckoned me over to join their party. They plied me with beer and food. One man wanted me to take the all the children with me (they had six with them) while another man wanted to kiss me. I don’t think his wife was amused. I just wish I knew some Vietnamese. Our time consisted of a lot of smiling and hand actions. Great laughs though.

After meeting Marcel we went for a walk on the beach. We were sitting down and this cute Vietnamese girl tried to sell us postcards. Since I had already been ripped off by a boy the other day, I didn’t want anything more to do with postcards. Anyway this girl just wouldn’t take no for answer. She just sat beside us and was a typical annoying child. Despite this her tactis were quite funny. She pretended to cry but I could see the gleam in her eye so I just laughed and threatened to throw her in the water. We finally managed our escape and went off to other things. I thought that was the end of her.

But I was wrong. At dinner that night, she managed to track us down. Trying to sell postcards, she harrassed the patrons sitting outside in the restaurant section of town. And she found us! So we invited her to eat with us. We drew pictures on a napkin and tried to make conversation. We learned her name was Thuy (pronounced like Tree) and was fourteen years old. Good times.

After Thuy walked us to our next destination, we decided to go to Crazy Kim’s for a drink.

Crazy Kim’s Bar is run by a Vietnamese-Canadian woman in the centre of Nha Trang. Attached to the bar is an English school for street kids. You can sign up at the bar to volunteer to teach street kids. Hands off the Kids is the name of the campaign and part of the proceeds from the bar go towards fighting the paedophilia problem in Nha Trang. I remember reading an article in the Globe and Mail about this woman a few years ago. Actually this same article was posted in her bar along with various other articles published in the media.

The day before this I went to volunteer with no expectations. Two young British girls were running the class and a Vietnamese man stood in the back. Maybe it’s because it is a volunteer position for these girls but they didn’t seem to take it seriously with no structure and continuity to the class. It was painful to be there. As a volunteer, I was to sit with students and help them pronounce the words. It was a long two hours.

Pedophiles are a big problem in Nha Trang. I told Marcel I am going to send one of the pics of him with Thuy to the Australian embassy. He didn’t see any humor in my suggestion though.

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