Day 26 - Ho Chi Minh, Take 2...

After a long day of running around the Mekong Delta, I decided to go exploring the concrete jungle of Ho Chi Minh City on foot. Obstacle #1: Figure out how to cross the street! Trying to navigate across streets like this picture is a daunting task when it is your first time seeing this many motor bikes in one place at the same time! Fortunately, I did get it figured out though. You really have to treat the motor bikes as if they were wild animals: walk very slowly, don't make any sudden movements, and they will just go right around you. It's really amazing how well the absolute chaos works.

My first stop of the morning was at the Cho Ben Thanh Market. From what I had read about this market is that it is a great opportunity to find a number of souvenirs, inexpensive clothing and jewelry, a variety of street vendors selling authentic Vietnamese food, and also to get your things pick pocketed! As you can see, this place is absolutely wall-to-wall people! I didn't stay too long as I wasn't really in the market for a knock off Gucci hand bag. The souvenirs were nice, but just really weren't what I was looking for. I decided not to try the food because it was still early in the day, but looking back on it now, I should have tried a little something. To play things on the safe side, I decided to wear my back pack on my chest and lucky for me, I made it out of the market with all of my belongings.

After the market I make my way through the city, and of all the things to see in a city in Southeast Asia, I stumble upon a Catholic Church called the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I kid you not people. Vietnam was actually a French colony for quite a long time. As a part of that colonization, the French of course brought their religion, and even though Catholicism is by far the minority religion in Vietnam, this Cathedral has endured. It's quite a nice Cathedral, but I have nothing to compare it to since I haven't ever seen the original Notre Dame in France (some day). After I was done playing photographer (I probably have way too many pictures of this Cathedral if you ever want to see them), I decide that it's finally time to get some food. At this point in the extremely hot humid day, there was one aspect of a restaurant that I was looking for specifically: AIR CONDITIONING. After walking probably four miles in the Vietnamese heat, the sweat was dripping down my back. After a little bit of searching, I come across this little place called Pho 24. I'm sure you can all guess what they specialize in. It had everything that I was looking for: delicious food and A/C. As I was finishing up my meal, I came to find out that this is the Vietnamese version of fast food. It's a large chain of restaurants that are all over Vietnam. Regardless, I still thought the chicken pho I had (which I could add all of my own spices and sauces) was fantastic.

Once I was done with lunch, I started walking for my next destination, when Mother Nature decided to remind me that it was still the rainy season in Southeast Asia. It was a pretty persistent rain and I had about 2 miles to walk in order to get to my next location. Lucky for me, I had decided to bring my umbrella with me. A little damp, but I eventually make it to the Vietnam War Remnants Museum. The museum has sections devoted to both the war with the United States and with the French. It was a very interesting experience to see how the Vietnamese viewed the war and actions taken by the US. It was also very sobering because there were some parts of the museum that were rather graphic where they showed the repercussions of napalm and Agent Orange. The collection of military equipment outside the museum was very interesting from the mere observation that they were all American. There wasn't one piece of Vietnamese military equipment. The final thing that I saw in the museum was a reconstruction of what a Vietnamese prison cell looked like with some of the torture equipment they used.

After the museum, I decided that I had walked enough for one day and I would head back towards the hotel to rest and find something to eat. I couldn't go back to my room, because I had already checked out since I was taking a sleeper train that night. I ended up finding a small little bar type place to grab something to eat and a few beers. I was able to get some delicious beef satay and a Saigon beer. On this night however, I was in a little bit more of social mood and I struck up a conversation with the nice Vietnamese lady that manages the bar. It was really interesting to see just how open she would be with a total stranger. She immediately began telling me her life story and how she married young and had a child, but is now divorced, but the father is still in the picture...It was quite an interesting conversation, but it ended up being a little one sided.

Once I was done with my dinner I went back to my hotel where they were still holding on to my luggage. From there I took a taxi over to the train station. At the train station, I quickly learned that there was no signs, screens, or announcements in English. I knew that my train left at 11:30, so I really had to try and guess correctly to make sure I got on my train. Lucky for me, I just followed the masses at the right time and I was able to get on my train with plenty of time. Now I've never taken a sleeper train before, so I didn't really know what to expect. When I got to my room, I walk in and see two bunk beds on either side of the room. Fortunately for me, mine was the bottom bunk so I could easily hide my luggage underneath. So now I settle in for what I hope will be some restful sleep. I've got my sleeping mask that I stole from one of my business flights, and some ear plugs from the refinery. We'll see how well this goes.

Day 25 - My first Good Morning in Vietnam!

My day started of course with the free breakfast buffet that was provided by the Grand Saigon. Before I even left for Southeast Asia, I had decided that I wanted to try and avoid western food and try to stick to local cuisine. However, this proved to be difficult for breakfast. They had a few Vietnamese options with some noodles and rice, but there was a lot of eggs, potatoes, and other American breakfast items. Oh well, I'll just have to wait for my first real Vietnamese meal.

I only waited in the lobby for a short while when I was met by Chuong, my tour guide for the day. He and our driver would be taking me on a trip out to the Mekong Delta. So when I booked this tour, I had made the assumption that this would be a group tour. I wanted to participate in a group tour so I could meet some people while I travelled. Well it ended up just being the three of us for most of the day, no big deal. The tour only cost me about $35. After about an hour and a half of driving, we end up at a visitor rest stop where I get my first taste of how beautiful a place Vietnam can be.

After a short rest, we're back on the road and only about 30 minutes later, we arrive at the dock for the river where we board our first boat of the day. It's an interesting long tail boat that is captained by a nice little local woman, who if you look closely is wearing an old Dodgers jacket. Definitely a good sign for the day! Once we get to the other side of the river, we tour a small coconut candy making facility. Now when I say 'small' I really mean small. It's basically an open air kitchen with tools to cut up the coconut, wood fired stoves to cook the meat of the coconut, and long tables to cut the candy into bite sized pieces. Now for those of you that know me well, you know that I am not a fan of coconut, but of course with my fearless attitude, I decide to try some. And to my surprise, I actually enjoy it. You actually can't taste too much of the coconut flavor, probably because of all the additional sugar. So I ended up buying a bag of it.

Once I was done at the candy shop, we took a short trip over to meet a gentleman who had some interesting pets. The coolest of these pets of course being his Burmese python that I got to hold! For those of you that have never held a snake of this size, let me just tell you that guy is really heavy! Lucky for me the python was not hungry so it didn't start giving me the squeeze. But just little bit that he wrapped his body around my arm, I can see how he can easily squeeze the life out of something. Once I was done at the reptile petting zoo, I headed out on a little tuk-tuk (that's at least what they called them here) ride through some of the villages in the area.

At the end of the line was a small little market are that a number of small little restaurants to eat at. So Chuong has the two of us stop at a little place for some food. Finally some local food! I'm very excited for this. He speaks to our waitress and she brings us this platter of local fruit. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I'm more than willing to try anything. After I survey all of the choices I dive in trying one at a time in the order Chuong recommends because it will take me from sweet to bitter. I'm absolutely blown away by how good and fresh it is! And surprisingly, the one that I like the best is probably the one that looks the most peculiar. It's the one that looks like it has a spinney shell of an exterior. It tastes very much like a peach and in fact it has a very hard pit in the middle. Unfortunately Chuong forgot to mention that to me the first time and I totally bit down hard onto it. Lucky for me there were plenty to go around. In addition to the great food that we got to try, there was also this local group of musicians that came by to play for us. They had some very interesting instruments that I was able to get on video and I'd be more than happy to show people on my iPad sometime!

After this little snack, we took a very relaxing boat ride through some of the canals of the Mekong Delta. When I initially signed up for this tour, this is exactly what I had in mind. We were gently rowed through narrow canals that weaved through homes of the local people. Fish traps lined all of the canals in hopes of catching dinner for that evening. Floating lotus flowers were spread out sporadically through the canals. It was a very peaceful segment of my tour and a very nice contrast to Ho Chi Minh city.

The end of the line after the boat ride was lunch. The fruit was a nice snack, but definitely did not fill me up enough to keep me going through the rest of the day. The restaurant that we stop is set up on a dock that is literally right over the delta. So since we have water directly underneath us, we manage to stay relatively cool despite the humidity. Immediately we are taken to our table where the food is already set up for us. After I sit down a get a better look at what I'm about to eat and I'm very intrigued. It is a whole fish that has been completely fried. At first I thought I would need to eat it right off the bone, but that doesn't turn out to be the case. A waitress comes over and begins to peel the fish off of the bone and wraps it with rice, some kind of leaf and a sauce all rolled up in rice paper. In addition to that I had a soup, and some shrimp. To wash it all down I decide to have a Tiger beer with lunch. I originally thought it was a local Vietnamese beer, but I later learned that it's made in Singapore. It was a wonderful way to start my Vietnamese cuisine!

Once we were done with lunch (it was a late lunch, we were done around 2:00), Our tour was coming to a close. We headed back across the river, with the same captain that we had before. And then we set out for the drive back to Ho Chi Minh. Along the way, we picked up another person who was a participant on another tour. Her name was Tracy and she did the two day tour of the Delta with an overnight stay. It was nice to have another traveller to talk to about things. She was headed in the opposite direction as I was and she had already been to a number of places in Northern Vietnam. She gave me recommendations about a number of things including a travel agent for Halong Bay as well as advice to go to Hoi An since I wasn't originally planning to stop there.

After the drive back to Ho Chi Minh, we dropped Tracy off at her hotel, but Chuong said that he would take me to other places in the City if I'd like. I jumped on this opportunity of having free transportation and had him take me to a place called the Jade Pagoda. It was my first temple that I got a chance to visit in Southeast Asia (first of many!). It was a great introduction to these temples as it was relatively small, so it wasn't too overwhelming. It had a number of statues as well as some amazing recessed sculptures. In addition to taking me to the Jade Pagoda, Chuong was also nice enough to help me run a couple of errands. First, I needed to get a train ticket for an overnight ride to Nha Trang for the following night. Chuong helped me purchase my ticket since the lady behind the ticket booth didn't speak any English. After that, they took me to a cell phone shop to get a new iPad charger since mine had already blown out in the hotel! After these errands, it brought my time with Chuong to a close. I was very grateful for him being a great tour guide and then going above my expectations and helping me out with my errands! Needless to say he definitely earned his tip.

Once I was back at my hotel room, I took it easy for a little while. I took a shower, and then I started mapping out what I wanted to walk around and see the next day. Once I got all of that planned out, I need to focus on finding a place to get some dinner! I thumbed through my Frommer's Guide and found a restaurant to try out that was within walking distance. I found it on my map and set out to find it. However once I got to where the restaurant was supposed to be, I quickly learned that a laundromat currently operates out of that shop. Fail 1 for Frommer's! So instead of walking all the way back to my hotel, I decide to just walk around until I find something that looks good. Most of the restaurants have their menus out on the sidewalk so you can look beforehand. In not too long I find one that peaks my interest. It's a nice small restaurant that actually has a live pianist playing. After I settle in to the restaurant, I order some spring rolls to start as an appetizer, not realizing that I probably could have made a meal out of just those! I learned that I'm supposed to wrap them in the lettuce and dip it in the sauce (stupid American!). Either way you eat them, they were absolutely delicious. My meal continued with my first crack at authentic Vietnamese Pho. Let's just say, I was not let down. It was all that it lived up to be! I definitely left that restaurant a happy camper!

After dinner, I decide to try and find a place to have a couple of beers. As I'm walking back towards my hotel, I come across a small place that describes themselves as a Beer House. Well this immediately draws me in! It's filled with a good mix of locals as travellers, but apparently I'm in a bit of a shy mood tonight and I don't really strike up a conversation with anyone. However I do try two local Vietnamese beers; Saigon and "333". The Saigon is good, but not as good as the Tiger I had with lunch, and the "333" is better left behind the bar! By now it's closing in on midnight and it has been a very long first day in Vietnam, but in my book, a very successful day.

Day 24 – My Long Day of Travel

So today was an extremely long day of travelling. It all started after I finished saying goodbye to everyone at the restaurant just outside of the Atyrau airport. I made the extremely long 500 foot walk over to the lone terminal and I was immediately reminded of how awesome business travel is. There was a long line of customers trying to check in and I was able to use the Business Class line which consisted of just one person ahead of me. After that, I passed through the Business Class Security check point in a matter of minutes. A guy could sure get used to this! After that, I had a short wait and I was ready to board my plane. At this point is about 11 pm and I have a 4 hour flight ahead of me. I settled in and tried to get comfortable so I can try and sleep on this red eye flight. Unfortunately even with all of the comforts of Business Class, I can only muster about an hour of broken sleep. This is truly going to be a long day!

I land in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan at around 4 am. Needless to say, I’m exhausted. At this point, I have a 5 hour lay-over before my next flight. And of course I couldn’t sleep on at this terminal because it has the world’s most uncomfortable chairs. After I entertain myself for 4 and a half hours with a combination of movies, books, and my Sudoku book, I finally board my next flight bound for Bangkok, Thailand. Unfortunately I won’t be staying long in Bangkok (this time) as I have just a short lay-over there of just under two hours. The last leg of my travels for the day takes me from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and I get to travel on Thai Airlines, which I must say are very worthy of all of the praise that they get. Even on just a two hour flight, all of the flight attendants were very attentive, the entertainment options were wonderful, and the cabin was extremely clean.

Success!! I have landed in Vietnam! Now I just need to de-board and see if I can actually get my visa. I’m a little nervous about it at this point because the US Postal Service decided to take way too long in having my visa delivered to me in Kazakhstan. So I had to go through a third party website that made arrangement for me to get my visa on arrival and got me a letter of invitation to enter the country. After quite a bit of chaos, filling out a number of forms, and a lot of waiting, I finally get my passport back with crispy new Vietnam Visa inside! So exciting!

I make it through passport control and customs with no problem, but then I get to baggage claim and…my luggage is nowhere in sight. Great! I went over to the lost luggage section, luckily found someone who spoke enough English, and directed me over to an area where they take luggage that has not been picked up for more than an hour (it took me more than an hour to get my visa). So now I’m ready to go, luggage and visa in hand. I manage to get some money from an ATM and believe it or not, they call their currency Vietnam Dong (I’m not making this up people). After that I find a taxi service and show him the address of my hotel and find out that it will only cost me $10 to get there. So much cheaper than the US!

In the weeks leading up to my departure for Kazakhstan, I learned that June through September is the Monsoon season in Southeast Asia. While it definitely helped to keep a lot of my travel costs down, I must admit I was a little worried that it was going to be raining the entire time I was in Southeast Asia. As I walked out of the Ho Chi Minh Airport, I was greeted by the gentle drizzle of rain in Vietnam. Well this was a good start.

As we leave the airport, I get my first dose of what Vietnam traffic is like. Needless to say, I’m really glad that I’m not allowed to drive in this country!  I quickly learn that the preferred way to travel in the cities of Vietnam is by motor-bike. They are everywhere! They almost move through the city streets like schools of fish, moving in unison to avoid cars, buses, and pedestrians. The incessant beeping of their horns quickly becomes white noise that is just a part of life in the city. My driver speaks very little English, but he tried hard to hold a conversation. It should be an interesting trip if this is how I will be communicating the whole time. It ends up taking about half an hour to get to my hotel, which makes the $10 for the cab all the more impressive.

The hotel staff at the Grand Saigon were great and they spoke wonderful English. Now to get some sleep and hopefully wake up to a rain free morning as I head off to explore the Mekong Delta!

Day 23 - My Next Adventure

So today is my last day in Kazakhstan for this rotation. I honestly can't believe that I have been here for three weeks already. It's hard to believe that time can fly by that quickly, but I suppose when you work 12 hour days 7 days a week, it's hard not to. I must say that I really enjoyed my time here. Outside of the language barrier, the Kazakh people are really great. They have a wonderful sense of humor much like we do, they are a very hard working group of people, and surprisingly enjoy very similar movies and music that we do back in the United States. This has left me looking forward to my next rotation when I come back in August.

With all of my training and turnaround preparation behind me now, I can use my last day to tie up a few loose ends before I leave. I did one last walk of all of my engineering jobs in my area so I can remember where they all are and what they all entail. I was also able to witness the delivery of the material for my largest job. I feel pretty confident that there isn't too much more preparation I can do before I leave.

  

After our shuttle back to the village, we all check out of our rooms and check in for our flight on the little Dash 8 plane that goes from Tengiz to Atyrau. I got a window seat this time and I was able to get some great views of both the plant and of the Caspian Sea.

And now I get to start my first big international vacation! And of course I have to start it with a red-eye flight out of Atyrau to Almaty that leaves at 11 pm and arrives at 4 am! Fun times for me! After that I fly into Bangkok, and then into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where I will land around 8 pm. Needless to say it is going to be a long day of travel. So to cap off my first rotation in Kazakhstan, I decide to grab a few beers with a couple of my fellow expats, Bill and Mark, from our Richmond Refinery. After a little while, we are actually joined by some more expats that had just flown in from the US from Richmond, Pascagoula, and finally from El Segundo. It was really nice to see a few more familiar faces before I left. My departure time arrived far too quickly. So now I'm off to explore Southeast Asia on my first solo trip. Here goes nothing!!

Day 12 - My Trip to the Market

So every time we walk between our village and the TCO village next to us we technically have to badge out and leave TCO premises. Whenever we do this we always see this small group of run down cars where a group of older women are selling various items. Through conversations with our co-workers who have been in Tengiz fora while, they are called the "Babushka Market" and you can get various kinds of alcohol, fruits, vegetables and other goods from them.

So since today is Sunday and we only work a half day, we decided to go and check it out. We also brought along our friend Andrey who is fluent in Russian to help us negotiate. As we get out there we immediately notice the wide variety of beer and vodka choice that we have and we wonder how we are going to be able to decide. Not to mention that they have a variety of American items as well including Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan, but I want to try something I can't get back home.  So naturally we decided that we would get the largest beers we could find which turned out to be these cans that are about three times larger than cans in the states. My second purchase was a bottle of Russian vodka. I had no reason for buying this bottle other than the babushka lady telling me that is "very very good vodka". So I thought I would give it a try. When it was all said and done, this whole purchase cost me less than $10. And that is what I would call a successful trip to the market!

Day 11 - A night out...in the Dome

This past week has not been the most exciting week to blog about. My days have mostly consisted of waking up at 4:15, getting ready for the day (which includes applying mosquito repellant from head to toe), and then heading off to breakfast. I've managed to find things at breakfast each morning to give me fuel for the day. Some of the items that are served are a little strange to me for breakfast, like chicken and dumplings, but to each their own. I'm mostly sticking to a rotation of hard boiled eggs, toast, potatoes, cereal, and oatmeal. After breakfast, we head to the shuttle which leaves at 5:30 promptly! While at the plant, my days have consisted of walking out jobs, reviewing them for engineering merit and asking a lot of questions. I've also figured out that my area has the most work going on than any other, so I'll be pretty busy come August. After work, we head back on the shuttle and I pretty much head straight to the gym to get in a quick work out. Then a shower, grab some dinner, read a little on my iPad and then off to sleep. Believe it or not, this kind of schedule actually flies on by. It's hard to believe that we have already been gone for a week and a half.

So today, was a little break from the normal routine that I have developed for myself. Well the work day was the same and so was the gym, shower and dinner, but my friends here in Tengiz decided to check out the Disco. So all of the domes here have a small bar in them that are open from 7-9 PM everyday, but once a week on Saturdays, the bar and canteen area of Dome 2 is turned into a Disco from 10-12. Now when I say "Disco", I'm not talking about John Travolta, polyesterd suits, or the Bee Gee's. From what I can gather, it seems that the Kazakh culture calls a disco, what we in american call a dance club.

We all got there a little early just to hang out a little bit and enjoy a beer together, but promptly at 10 PM the music started thumping. So first off their music is a very interesting mix of American music from the 90's-present mixed in with some Kazakh and Russian music dance music as well. It probably wasn't until 11 PM that the dance floor actually got a little filled up. So Let's face it, this is a living compound to support an oil producing facility, and needless to say the men far out number the women here. With that said, the Disco actually reminded me of a mix between a modern bar and a 7th grade Jr. High School Dance. As you looked around on the dance floor you could see a perimiter of mostly guys just kind of standing around drinking. The people that were actually dancing seemed to have quite a bit of distance between eachother. And a strange thing to me was that when peopel took drinks onto the dance floor, they would put them on the ground and proceed to dance around them without knocking them over.

I have been reassured by a copule of Kazakh nationals that work in our group that most discos in the rest of the country aren't like that and they sound a lot more like bars and clubs down in Hermosa Beach. Needless to say, it was a fun interesting night of cultural development.

Day 5 - On the Job...

Today we finally made our way out to the plant here in Tengiz. Surprisingly, it is about a 25 minute bus ride to get there from the living compound. So since my 12-hr shift starts at 6 am, that means I need to be on the shuttle ready to go b 5:30. Needless to say that makes for a very early morning if I want to get some breakfast, which as all of you probably know, I love me some breakfast!

For the sake of my friends and family that don’t work in a refinery, I’ll refrain from ‘geeking’ out about everything that this plant does and providing endless details about the sheer size and massiveness of the equipment. I’m sure that when I get back to El Segundo, we’ll be doing a presentation for all of the engineers about our experiences out here and we’ll go into much more ‘nerdy’ detail! But needless to say, this plant is gigantic!

I got a chance to visit the plants that I’ll be working in with a couple of the national engineers that work out here full time; Mikhail and Vladimir. They are both very sharp young engineers who speak a decent amount of English, but I can already tell that some things are going to be lost in translation. I’m learning to use a lot of hand gestures and quick sketches to communicate better. I found out that I will be working in the Sulfur Recovery and Tail Gas Unit and for those of you in El Segundo, you know that my days in DPD will be paying off for this turnaround!

Other than the plant, the most notable thing out here is the mountain of sulfur. Now when I say mountain, I’m not kidding at all! It’s probably about 35-40 feet tall but probably about 300-400 feet square. It is really rather interesting to see. It’s not just a mound like a sand dune, it’s very square like the base of a pyramid. Oh and there’s about 3 or 4 of these things! And to answer the question that you all are probably thinking, no, it actually doesn’t smell like rotten eggs at all.

So that consumed most of my morning, the rest of my day was filled with just reviewing work packages and asking a lot of questions. I’m learning more and more everyday. Names are probably going to be the hardest thing for me to pick up, but I’ll keep at it. You all are probably wondering why I didn’t post any pictures. I have some that I have taken, but I really don’t like posting pictures of our operating facilities to the internet. I don’t know what our company policy is on it and I really don’t want to risk my job over it. So needless to say, they’ll be in my presentation in El Segundo and they will be on my iPad when I get home for all to see, they just won’t be on here unfortunately.