Hi guys,
I just published an old blog so look down two posts for a little more from Vietnam.
Cheers!
The comment, “your poor mother all she ever wanted was a girl and look what you gave her” was made to me the other day. I say bah, she loved it. Plus 4 boys means 4 wives and then she will have lots of daughters. Well I guess I should say potentially means 4 wives. 🙂
hi all,
I’m writing from Kon Tum. Besides a visa run to Hoi Anh, I’ve been up here most of the month: teaching a bit and hanging around some villages in the area. One of my students, Pllii, is from a village called Kon Kotu, and my friend Hyme lives in Kon Krum. It’s great being in the villages: people are very friendly (a little too friendly offering out the rice wine sometimes 😉 and the pace of everything is quite slowed down. I’m lucky to have someone making introductions, showing me arouns and translating – I owe a lot to Bllii and Hyme.
The bridge over to Kon Joyu village.
Hanging out by the river
swiming with Bllii and her friends in the river near her village (photos thanks to Jonny)
A rong house. it’s a meeting place for the village. 
Pllii’s siter and niece
Manyak wine
Village church
Jonny is here as well. He arrived on a bus a few days after me. He sits in on my classes and corrects me when I spell things wrong. He’s also great if I’m stuck and the class can’t answer. I call on him and it gets things moving again. He’s breaking hearts and distracting eyes though. By the end of the first class, he’d already been silently given a pink bracelet from the quitest girl in the room. It’s fun being in front of a class again and since I usually only teach at night and touter a bit during the day, it doesn’t seem at all like work. Of course give it another month and I’ll probably be itching to move.
We’re working on making a web page for the orphanage. Well, Jonny is doing all the real work and I’m supplying him with pictures and a few ideas. He’s making it with frontpage so it might not look quite as nice as we’d like, but we’re keeping it simple so it should look alright. With the page up, all you good people can check out the work the sisters and kids do, and how you can help ’em out. No preasure of course =)
Circling back, the last time I posted I was just making my way from Nha Trang. The day I headed out was gorgeous: just a little wind, lots of sun, and bright colors from the rice patties on the left and the ocean on the right. I didn’t stop for pictures, made good time and found a great place to spend the night. The next day wasn’t so nice. There was a really heavy wind in my face and it was clouded over. So, I stopped a lot for pictures and when I saw an empty streatch of beach decided I need a long break. It wasn’t any nicer when I got back on my bike so, not long after that I stopped a bus and took it to QuiNohn.
Camp on the first night. The fire is just for fun. It’s always so hot you deffinatly don’t need it.
Along the road the next day
beach where i took an extended break and swim
My ride
my back up ride and driver
my back up ride and driverI stayed in Qui Nohn for a day. The dorms at the hotel were empty and they opened onto the roof, so I had the cheapest penthouse suite with the largest balcony of the place. I hung out reading for a day before getting back on the bike.
Leaving Qui Nohn I stopped along the way to take photos of people working at different things. It made me think I should be getting the camera out more and not worry about making it anywhere.
I’m a terrible bike tourer. I just love the bus when the going gets rough. I came most of the way up into the mountains on my own, but on the second day I was coming up the second big rise in elevation and was passed by a slow going mini bus. They waved at me to hang on and as they towed me up the bus manager offered me a ride for way to much money. I was going to stick to my principles and ride it out but, as the price got haved and haved again and I noticed the sun going down and I caved. I sat the last 50 km to town.
When I arrived it felt like coming home. I went to the orphanage was greeted by kids and in the garden I found my friend Noung, who showed me around the first time. He reintrodused me to the head sister and I worked out a class for the next day. Then i headed over to Kon Krum and found Hyme. She laughed saying that she thought I had forgotten her and wasn’t coming back. (I had deffinatly taken my time getting down to Saigon and back) She showed me around the village a bit. The place has such a great community atmosphere. Beside her house is her sister’s house and as we walked she pointed out her nephew and nieces playing. We stopped in at her brother inlaw’s house for a drink and she showed me her little rice pattie that was cut down to size by the widening of a road, which she’s none to impressed with.
The next day I met Pllii and she showed me to Kon Kotu. It was more of the same great community feeling, with her pointing out her relatives houses and their kids playing, and a few invites for Manyak wine. Some house’s jars are deffinatly tastier than others. Her mother cooked for me before I left and I promissed to come back in the evening, because they were going to be dancing and playing gongs in front of the rong house. Unfortuanatly it was pouring rain by as the sun went down, so I took the proverbaible raincheck.
I know it’d be hypocritical to say that people in the minority villages lead a perfect life. If I lived here I’d be leaving to make good money as soon as I got bored or broke and it’s really difficult for the locals to get out. The villages deffinatly have their problems, but for an outsider everything here has been very welcoming and it’s nice to experince a different lifestyle for a while.
So everything’s going well and I’ll be here for a little while more. I can’t extend my visa anymore so, when it run gets close to running out again I’ll be taking my bike down the Ho Chi Minh trail (now a nicely paved road through the mountians) and heading into Laos.
Cheers,
Steve
Ok… a few more details about this last weekend. It started off with Mom’s 50th Birthday party and of course she got all 50 of the bumps she deserved.
Following which it appeared that the adventures for the weekend had ended. Until… Sunday Morning. Kim rolls over and tells me her stomach hurts. The proceeds to tell me every 3 or 4 minutes. So I ask her if she is sure the pain isn’t contractions. Her response is that she doesn’t know for sure, but that she wasn’t sure contractions actually felt like this.
Needless to say we were off to the hospital. Now it is debatable how many details I should share between arriving at the hospital and when the baby was born. So if you are looking for more details you will have to talk to me in person. For the most part everything went smoothly and as far as I am concerned, which may not count for much, it went way better then what I was expecting.
Once Kim started pushing it only took about 20 minutes for the baby to be born. This part is a little crazy. At first all you see is a bit of the head and then all of a sudden the whole baby comes out and you just stop and stare and wonder how did that happen… truly amazing. There were a couple of minor complications, but they were solved right away. Judah spent a couple of hours in intensive care and then was good to come and spend the night with us.
Judah Lane Teeuwsen is a boy, in case that is not clear, was born Sunday night at 21:55 weighing 7lbs 6oz and was 20.5 inches long. Sometime soon I will post more pictures in the Pictures section, but for now…
Judah and Mom
Judah and Dad
Judah in new Cradle made by his Grand Parents. (Thanks, Mom and Dad)
Close up of Judah in Cradle.
There is a new Teeuwsen and he is already breaking hearts.
Introducing….
Judah Lane Teeuwsen
Pretty wild weekend with Mom’s birthday party and now Judah. Kim is doing great, the baby is doing great and hopefully you will all get to see them soon or send us an email and we will send you some more pics.
It was a good weekend. Lots of parties and then a baby shower and rather than going to a baby shower we did a little skiing behind the skidoo.
It started out pretty good…
Keith got Best Trick (360 Iron Cross)
Why Dan is called Daffy T.
Not a whole lot special for my self untill we got to the crashes…
Dan forgot a ski and I ….
Well I am not exactly sure what I did, but man it hurt and still hurts for that matter.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
KIMBERLY !!!
KIMBERLY !!!
I Love you! Have a great day.
Wow, so many birthdays….
Hi all,
I’m back in Nha Trang. The bicycle is fun but also destroying. When I got up to Dalat, the mountain town I was headed to, I collapsed into a hotel and barely had the energy to drag myself over to a reasturant where I ordered two meals. It took me three and a half days to get up there. The first day was good, just flat roads and plenty of people around. As night neared some people on motorbikes pulled up beside me to chat. They said they would show me to a hotel, so I rode alongside them for the last ten km of the day. They wanted to hangout and practice their English, so I had them into my room and poured some drinks from a little bottle of whisky I had. When, the one guy looked really excited about it, the girl said no and their friend made a face at his first sip I began to susspect their age. It turned out all 16. I don’t usually try to booze up minors so I felt pretty silly, but it was only one drink, so even though it was strong I think it was alright. I’m such a terrible judge of age…..
I got into the countryside the next day and spent such a sweet night camping out in the jungle, with my hammok, a flute and all the tangled noises of a wild place that both, scare me a little and get my imagination going a lot. The next day started with my first great down hill of the road. It was following a tight river valley with tall trees and vines whizzing by. Shortly after I got my first huge and punishing uphill. It kept going and going for 11 kms. I was dizzy peddeling up in the bright sun and sweating all the salt out of me, but I got up eventualy and had a little help with the last km. I held on the back of a slow rolling truck; a trick I learned from the tricycle days. I know it’s cheating, but I’ll sacrifice my sence of acomplishment for a few of my dieing breaths back.
The lady who ran the shop I ate in that night didn’t like the idea of me sleeping outside and offered me her couch. It was a little akward sittling in her families living room that night, with me having almost nothing to say because I haven’t learned much Vietnamese besides counting, but they were nice. I slept well and headed out early in the morning. It was quite hilly most of the next day. I was so happy when I saw the road marker 12 kms to Dalat even though the road was turning up hill again, but then it kept going up and up and didn’t stop till I pulled into the hotel. Hence the collapse and the over eating when I arrived.
The jungle had changed into pine forrest as the elevation rose. It was great being some place dry and cool. I hung around Dalat for a day. There’s a cool water fall near town and some fun single track bike paths around (Somewhat reminicent of Jasper biking, Dan). I finaly got my rewarding downhill as I left Dalat the next day. There were great views of the lowlands as I neared the coast and a gorgous sunset sharpening the features of the rice patties and kids on their way home. I sat down to enjoy it all, but I didn’t get any pictures. I had decided to just soak it in, rather than frame it up. I pulled back into Nha Trang quite a bit later in a cool night rain which was exactly what I needed. I had a bad pain in my left akilies tendon and constant pins and needles in my right hand from leaning on the handel bars(i won’t get into how much I hate my new nemesis the bicycle seat, which was laughing at me the whole way for not buying bicycle shorts), but I made it with enough time to chill out with my friends from Taiwan for a day before they left for Paris so I was happy.
It’s a couple of days later and I’m still in Nha Trang and I still have pins and needles tickeling my right hand which is a bit unnerving, (pins and needles, unnerving… get it? HA!I’m so funny) I just searched the internet about numbness in the hand from bicycling and a few articles came up talking about exactly what I had. It’s nice to know it’s pretty common and not carple tunnle. It’s some other tunnel. They gave some tips on how not to agrivate it, so it should be alright.
I’ve started reading a couple old favorite books likeCatch-22, 1984, On the Road, and Still Life with Woodpecker(4 at a time is new for me, but I already know what’s going to happen so it’s easy to keep track). Actually the last one got cut short. It dropped off my bike on the road near Dalat. I turned around a little ways down the road after a truck passed and I saw someone getting off their motorbike and picking up my book. ‘Hey, Thanks!…wait, don’t get back on your bike, hey that’s my book, hey! you proabaly can’t even read English…. jerks…’ They totally made off with my book. I was shocked. And the book was just getting so good… the mad bomber was in the middle of seducing a princess who wanted to build a piramid and was marrying an oil rich Arab for the money. ah well. I have read it before.
(most of this text was stolen from a previous letter to a good friend, I’ve appologized for this kinda thing before. I’m too lazy to write the story twice 😉
I hope all is well and there are preperations for a monster of a party comming up in the house of Teeuwsen. I wish I could be there for it. Cheers on your B-Day Mom. I’ve just reached quarter century and you’re hitting a half. I wonder if it’s polite to broadcast that to the whole WORLD WIDE WEB (big, scary and full of possibility, i know), but I just can’t contain myself. I think it’s darn cool that I’m exactly as old as you were when you had me. Wow, you were a uncontainable, 3 kids by 25. And tough, I don’t think I could have delt with all 4 of us boys and done such a good job of it. I love you!
Steve
So, yes it is true, I did go to Vegas last month. The city of overindulgence. It was pretty cool to see, especially since it was my first time, I was a Vegas Virgin (VV).
So off to see the sites. First up Hoover Damn… er Dam.
It was pretty cool, and amazing that they built this so many moons ago in some pretty gnarly terrain. 
Nice glasses eh, yeah they were made for a woman. I am quite secure in my masculinity.
Next stop, party time on Freemont St. It is the old strip I think, actual downtown Vegas.
The girls scored some beads from these two lovley individuals.
And DJ and Nicole got the big money…
… well fine it was some religious propoganda about saving our souls from the firery inferno.
Cruising the strip was cool, seeing all the themed hotels and such. My favorite was the Sirens fo TI show at Treasure Island. I know it isn’t really new for every one but for this VV it was cool to see them sink a pirate ship.
The Bellagio water show was cool as well.
Inside Ceasers Palace, DJ chilaxin’ with the girls.
Vegas was pretty cool. Probably the best highlight was Cirque du Soleil show, Mystère, we saw. Oh and we stayed at the Luxor, thanks Ron. Pretty amazing construction, being a pyramid and such. The four faces of the building are the whole structure, the inside is completely open.
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