I left on foot from our volunteer house at 7:45AM with a CSDS guide and an 18-year-old female volunteer from Scotland. The CSDS guide, Julian, quickly veered off the main rode I was accustomed to and headed into a side alleyway no wider than a motor scooter. We walked for a half mile through these …
Continue reading "First day teaching in an unknown Vietnamese village"Train Street I took a Grab taxi (the online app common throughout Asia for transportation) to Train Street which is near the Old Quarter in Hanoi. I’ve seen pictures on the internet depicting a vibrant communal area filled with vendors, restaurants, and tourists living and interacting in the midst of an active train track running …
Continue reading "Hitting the pavement in Hanoi (Train Street-Old Quarter…)"June 15, 2022 (Wednesday) To my surprise, I had no issues when I arrived in Hanoi International Airport. It might have been because it was 12:30 AM and/or we were the last plane arriving, but I was grateful for the smooth transition. Moving through the Visa processing line was simple and unobtrusive. I even received …
Continue reading "Hello Hanoi!"The year 2022 continues that gnawing feeling of uncertainty born in the pandemic nightmare of 2020 and 2021. My planned Sri Lanka six week trip with Plan My Gap Year (PMGY) for the purposes of volunteering to teach English crumbled under global pressures; particularly the escalating Russian-Ukrainian war. For months, I watched Sri Lanka devolve …
Continue reading "Sri Lanka Crumbles-Vietnam’s Door Swings Open"For the past two years, I have been searching for my next “Thailand teaching adventure”. We are all well aware, the COVID pandemic pushed the pause button on mine and everyone else’s travel plans. Instead of feeling depressed or sorry for myself, this global catastrophe made me even more focused and goal orientated on finding …
Continue reading "Plan My Gap Year (PMGY)"