Bien Hoa

Hello everyone! It seems that I totally lost my touch to this blogging after getting sick, I'm sorry. I try now to go through some highlights from my stay little by little. The first thing I want to tell you is my trip to a town called Bien Hoa about a month and half ago. Bien Hoa is U:s hometown, so I went there for a weekend with her. It is located very near from HCMC. I went by bus to the university (which takes about 50 minutes) and then we rode with U:s motorbike to Bien Hoa, which took about half an hour.

This was the first time when I saw a Vietnamese house from inside. U:s home was a nice two-floor house which was very bright from inside. The exotic thing to a Finn was that the motorbikes were located in the kitchen (there was a door from outside straight to the kitchen). The neighbourhood was very interesting, there were narrow lanes between the houses and very nice atmosphere.

The neighbourhood had a catholic church to which we went in the first evening because U, her mother and her sister had a choir rehearsal there. In the yard all the neighbourhood children gathered around me - most of them had probably not seen a foreigner ever before! They stared and giggled and shouted "Hello!". It was awkward but fun, I felt like a some celebrity. :D The choir rehearsal was a very beautiful experience, I sat at the church balcony in a warm night and listened to their singing. The choir was good and I really liked the songs though they were not familiar to me. I like how Vietnamese language sounds when sung.

The next morning there was a mass in the church and the choir sang there. The women of the choir were dressed to Ao Dai - a traditional Vietnamese dress. It was interesting to see a catholic mass as I am a protestant Christian myself. The structure was quite similar than in a protestant mass, so I could quite easily follow though I did not understand the language.

Later that day we visited U:s grandmother who lives very near. Then we met some U:s local friends and went to eat pizza and then to a little amusement park which was very beautiful in the dark with all those lights. After that we just rode around the town with motorbikes. I had really good time, though I was already getting sick then and my condition was not very good.