Here is the Newsletter that Dan wrote up. Hope you love reading it as much as I love attaching a picture to these memories.
August marks one year since we arrived, which means our one year visa expired. We went to the immigration department to get a new one. They said we’d have to go to a border (airports count but only if you are coming from out of the country). So we hired a car and drove to Lao Bao, Vietnam/Dansavan, Laos. We had to pay for a visa into Laos, but since our driver didn’t have one, we just walked across the border to a buddhist pagoda. We ate lunch at what may have been a restaurant, but could just as easily have been us intruding on the family’s lunch. They accepted cash for it so I suppose they weren’t too upset with us sitting down to picnic with them. Thuan even made a few facebook friends with them. They spoke Laotian, but had a usable grasp of a dialect of Vietnamese that Thuan could understand a bit of. We walked to the back and saw their goats and chickens and then walked back to the border. We paid for new one year visas for Vietnam, found our driver and headed home. While out there we saw some of the Hmong people, and saw a bunch of banana plants covering some of the hills. Probably the shortest international trip I’ve ever been on, including trips to Niagara Falls and Juarez. Beautiful area of the country, that.
Aren't they just adorable??!! Our fantastic four
In that same week, we also went out to the country. On the way down we stopped for a few
hours at My Son (pronounced like Me Sun), an ancient Hindu temple complex of the Cham people who
lived in this area long before Vietnam decided to make it theirs in the 1800s. The majority of the
temples were built at various times between the 4th and 14th centuries so it’s pretty old stuff. Between
the Marble Mountains and My Son, we felt like we were in an Indiana Jones movie, but with fewer
snakes. After our visit there, we continued down to our hotel in Tam Ky. The purpose of our country-side visit was to attend a commemoration for Thuan’s Dad’s Dad.
Electric car ride to the My Son Champ ruins...a cluster of abandoned and partially ruined Hindu Temples. Constructed between the 4th and the 14th century AD. See some more from our video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uZj3jlM5BY
Fortune and Glory,
Thuan’s friend from the States and her family were still in Da Nang so we did a bunch of stuff
together. First up was a trip to the Marble Mountains. We’ve done it several times but it’s still fun to see the view from the top or the Buddhist temples nestled into various-sized caves. After the hike, we all went to a popular banh xeo place. A few days later we took them to Da Nang’s amusement park and ate banh trang Da Lat since they had never had it before. Since Vietnamese people are essentially hobbits (short and eat a lot) we had breakfast with them at a fancy restaurant a few hours before they left for home.
A large family gathering in the Shire Vietnam is always accompanied by a large meal, and it is always delicious. The kids were hot but had some fun with distant cousins. And, much like stove top stuffing, we had it at multiple locations, moving from one uncle’s house for lunch to another uncle’s house about 200 yards away for dinner.
To wrap up, we had a dinner as a family with the Ba family (he’s from Uganda, she’s from Bulgaria, their children say they’re from America). The girls had a sleepover at their house that night as well and had a great time. Thuan’s cousin asked if her daughter could come live with us for a couple weeks to help her with her high school English. We agreed, so for a time we had three cousin (representing both sides of the family) and an aunt living with us.
We continued out to one of our favorite hotels in all of Quang Nam on the same trip. We literally paid $35 dollars for a 2 beds room with a buffet breakfast. This hotel has a pool, soccer field, tennis field, and has a gorgeous restaurant on the top floor that we had Ronin's birthday at.
We met up with our Seattle friends again and took them to one of our favorite places here in Da Nang. Sunworld Asia Amusement park.
The kids love cruising on the motorbikes, Vietnam style.
August was also our fifteenth anniversary. One the day of, Thuan and I went shopping for clothes to wear for our anniversary pictures. We also had a dinner at a restaurant on the river. We took pictures a few days later. Lots and lots of pictures. The studio is really a wedding studio. Thuan picked out a new wedding dress and some Ao Dai, and they gave her a makeover which she enjoyed. She and I went out to a little rocky outcropping with the city in the background for some pictures. We
went to the beach and Thuan’s aunt brought the kids for a more dressed down shoot, then we all went to the studio for more dressy pictures in all sorts of different outfits and backgrounds.
It was fun to be all pampered up for a day and act as prince and princess for a day. We got to see a few beaches and fancy studios
We've
enjoyed the luxury of nearby 5 stars hotels for the price of a 2 star
hotel in America. We've dipped our feet in many rooftop pools and have
enjoyed luxurious 5 star hotels breakfast bar and buffet. I can not
express how neat it is to be making American salary and traveling Asia.
We are heading to Malaysia next and it is right on with Vietnam,
Philipines, Laos, Tawain,Thailand for expenses. So if you're thinking
it...do it! Save up and cross that ocean that divides us to come see a
whole new world!
We had a few more visitors for church this month. There was a mother and daughter from the
states that have been traveling around Southeast Asia for a time. The dad was in the area but did not
want to attend church. We also had a man named Paul, who is from Vegas, bring his online friend, Thu,
who is living here in Da Nang. They met online, have become friends even though they each barely
understand the other’s language, and she has become interested in the church. So when he came to
visit her, they found us and came to church. She has been learning from Paul for a while, but now the
missionaries are officially involved. Woot for the natives! Paul was here for a couple of Sundays.
Before he left we had a double date (though I’m not sure they’d say it was a “date”) and went to a place
where a Turkish guy has an ice cream stand we had no idea existed. For every guest the ice cream man
would put on a show consisting of him pretending to give you ice cream, and then snatching it away
from you in funny ways for a minute or two.
We also had a fun time taking our
Korean friends out duckpin bowling.
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