Today is our first free day since we have started working. It got kind of chaotic with all the organizing of people getting on the right van to the place they choose to visit. The choices included but were not limited to going to the waterfall, going to the waterfall, or going to the waterfall. Oh yea, there was another option.... sit in your room (read post below about rooms). We decided to go to the waterfall. Since we are with Vets With A Mission the majority of the people are veterans, so that means they are at least 60. With that in mind I was envisioning this waterfall experience to be as follows: we pull up in the vans, walk no more then a 100 yard, arrive at the waterfall, marvel and take pictures, then return to the bus. Big whoop, I know. But, oh no, we are in Vietnam and when in Vietnam everything is exciting (except the native food). It went a little more like this: We pull up in the vans or mopeds, notice that we are on the edge of a cliff, of sorts, survey how to get to the waterfall, we realize the only way is to go down this cleared out strip of red clay trail, JB goes first, of course. I'm not going to lie it was kind of sketch but the "young" crowd (aka the translators + Seacoast group & Debbie), minus Cyn & Baba, head down the face of this cliff. Dr. Dave also came with us ( he is apart of the "young at heart" crowd). When we got to the bottom of this almost vertical, 50 foot, trail we were faced with a raging river that we had to cross. The water was cold, the rocks were a bit slippery , and approximately 4 people fell into the water, that doesn't include Jordan & Jack who were swimming in it. It was all up hill from there, literally. We scurried down the path trying to avoid the nice presents the cows had left for us. It was like the game mind sweeper, you steep in the wrong spot and you would wish your foot had blown up. The dirt path turned into antique looking stairs, which then turned in to a rock which was overlooking blustering river waters. The waterfall was in sight and there was no way we were going this far without getting to that waterfall. So, we bounce down into the water and skip, like little fairies, across the river rocks till we reach the other side. We had arrived at the waterfall so we did the typical and took pictures in front, beside, and under the waterfall. The reversed the above steps. I believe I have failed to mention that the water contained some very loving friends... leeches. They were just trying to show some Vietnamese love by kiss our legs and feet. Everybody got at least one leech on them but me (haha).
For lunch we went to some place the translators knew about. It was different from the restaurant we had eaten lunch and dinner at for the past 3 days, which was a bad idea because they had kind of figured out what we will/will not eat. Not at this new restaurant. Our lunch consisted of wild boar or goat (no one knew), a fish that was fried whole, rice, french fries (upon request), and lizard, yes, lizard. Some one picked up a big lizard, dropped it in some hot grease, chopped it into some big pieces, put it on a plate and served it to us. Eyeballs, legs, skin, everything was still intact. None of the local translators would eat it but they wanted us to. That is like someone telling you to jump into a fire because it is the funnest thing ever but when you ask them if they want to get in the fire the say of course not. Needless to say I didn't eat the lizard.
Jb spent his free day doing far away from homework. (for about 30 mins)
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