Motorcycle blues

So we got a bike! Now I'm 900% more likely to be severely irreversibly injured before I return to the safe peaceful civilisations of the West. (nb fictional statistic). Had practiced a bit just on my little alleyway street before taking it out on the road over the weekend when traffic is lighter than the week and now I'm fairly confident (though Hanoian traffic is mad). Yesterday we saw You, me, and Dupree (this great Vietnamese film, really) and had super good food called bun cha (noodles on one plate, and then a bowl of minced pork and pork filet/bacon in soup, and then a second plate with greens you put into the soupy concoction that is the pork and noodles). So anyway it was awesome. And at lunch on a Sunday it was rammed full of Vietnamese families and the like (no whities) so that was cool, getting in touch with our inner Vietnamese. At night we walked around Truc Bach lake (just where we live) and had dinner at another awesome restaurant, this time Indian food (with a cheesy name-- Foodshop 45). But yea Sunday night is like a weekend night here (much as I thought of it when I was in primary school) so the cafes all put out loads of tables and chairs along the lake and everyone comes out for picnics and dinner, etc. very cool.

Two days ago we saw Maria Full of Grace at the UN Population Fund film festival and the director, Joshua Marston, was there so was very cool to see him and speak to him as I'd already seen the film but it was really good. anyway halong bay tour awaits!!

All is well on the (Eastern) front

Heyhey so just got back from a bit of Water Puppetry by the Hoan Kiem lake in the centre of town-- very cool!! The stage is a big pool-type deal and the puppets are controlled by puppet-masters behind this sort of curtain and there is the orchestra (traditional Vietnamese instruments) and vocalists on the side. Loads of fun, I took some photos so look for those in the albums. Speaking of which I now have 6gb on the online photo albums (thanks mom!) so I can upload lots of stuff including videos(!) so look for those too!

This morning we went to see a B-52 Bomber wreckage in a lake in West Hanoi, which was shot down by Viet cong on Dec 27, 1972 during the "Christmas bombings". Its pretty crazy, like I wonder if the pilot is still down there..? Now its mostly residential buildings overlooking the lake-- can you imagine waking up in the morning and walking out onto your balcony to see that shot down bad boy everyday? Anyway, afterwards we strolled over to the Botanical gardens which were very beautifully laid out-- not many flowers but two nice lakes and lots of artists painting the scenery.

Then we had lunch on West Lake not far from where we're staying and we had some proper good fresh seafood-- Caro had these huge prawns and I had the largest fish I've ever seen-- it was definitely cooked to serve 3 people (whoops!) so a little bit of Beijing over-ordering deja vu (but this was just one dish so not my fault!). Had my haircut as well (complete with head massage :-) which was a little overdue.

Yesterday we did a day tour of the Perfume Pagodas, which was quite an amazing experience. We were up at 6.30 for a van which drove us 2 hours out of Hanoi to Duc village, where we took a canoe for an hour to get to where you hike 3km (or the brand new cable car..) to this beautiful cave-pagoda, the most holy in Vietnam. During the lunar festival in February and March thousands of Vietnamese make pilgrimmages from all over the country to get to these pagodas, hence the building of the cable cars. Then lunch and the hour canoe + 2 hour van back to Hanoi again. Got dinner with Benny again at Hanoi Garden (really good food!) and some fruit smoothies by the Cathedral in the French Quarter (quite thick... and just 5000d! 5000d=17p). Then a couple of xe om (motorcycle taxis) to get us home, whereupon we witnessed a full-on collision at an intersection just a meter from us (Caro was actually right next to one of the bikes which collided and fell) so a little traumatizing!! My driver, after this, took my arm and put it around him, which was very sweet except then he only had one hand to steer so... I had to yell at him to use both hands while driving.

Two days ago (I know, its been a while since my last post) we were also up early to teach a class at 7.30am. We were also in to teach that evening so in between we wandered around the French Quarter as we were looking for this Italian restaurant which we passed like 25 mins before we actually arrived there (whoops!) but really nice, overlooked the Cathedral and everything and quite good pizza actually. Then we had a little western indulgence at the cinema and saw Madagascar (pretty solid). For dinner we went to what is now my favourite restaurant in the universe, called Quan an Ngon--this is the place Benny first took us to but they were out of food. Its mostly outdoors and have food from all over Vietnam and people that specialise in a given dish have like a stall along the perimeter so you see it being made, etc. Definitely something that would be warmly receive in London or NY (as would the price of £4 for a 3-course meal for two with drinks). Ok well I think thats enough information overload for now! Check out my new photos and videos on my album (click on the photo of the donkey in the upper right corner). Also!! I have a Vietnamese mobile which you can call or text me on anytime. The number is + 84 936 016614. So give me a call!!

Back to school

Hey so the upper right corner of this page now features a link to the photos I've taken so far (yes all 780 of them). They're not all in chronological order though but hopefully google will implement a feature to auto-arrange them by date/time taken.

So last night we started at the school-- the "Children's Palace" (yes a partner establishment to Michael Jackson's "Neverland"). But yeah it went reasonably well, 4 classes over 3 hours and all were 5-7 years old and so forth. Not quite sure of the demographic background of these children but they appear to be fairly middle class and not the poverty-stricken bunch I at one point had imagined helping but hopefully we'll be able to volunteer in other ways since we are only teaching in the evenings and on the weekends.

Also, met up with Benny last night (who went to grad school with my sister) which was great. The first restaurant we went to had run out of food (!) so we went somewhere else and met up with a bunch of friends he'd met since moving here in July. Two friends of his live just around the corner from us apparently so may be meeting up with them at some point. Also, Benny's been working quite hard I think (he left the office at 10 the other night) as he's basically been put in charge of the (Clinton) Foundation's Vietnamese operations.

Am going to walk around a bit of the city and hopefully see a movie later!! Will post more back info soon. And look at the photos!

Vietnamese trains

Are not as modern and fast and sexy as Chinese trains. That was the lesson of the day coming from Beijing to Hanoi on the old 2-overnight train (small fish compared to our Trans-Mongolian pilgrimmage). So the room here is pretty nice, AC works quite well, shower's a bit all over the place but you know can't be too picky. Having lunch with Mr Hung, our coordinator, in an hour to sort stuff out and will hopefully have dinner with Benny tonight. I think we're going to walk round the hood a bit but will talk about supafly Beijing next time before I forget it all! And upload some of the 700 photos taken so far (though this computer is quite slow so who knows...)

Mongolian Desert not cold

So am chillin on the platform in Sainhand (a city in Mongolia) and was thinking to myself "wow its a bit warmer than it was yesterday" and then I remembered thats cos we were in the Gobi desert whereas yesterday we'd been in Siberia... really quite confusing when you'd just been getting used to the old Siberian September sub-zero pleasantries.

So the week-long Trans-Siberian/Trans-Mongolian 8000km train is over and we are rocking out in Beijing French Embassy style. The residence here isn't as pretty from the outside as it is in Moscow but the room is far larger and sexy so not too bad. Got to meet up with Chace last night (after just getting in off the big momma 7 day train a couple hours before) and went out for dinner and drinks so was very nice welcome to the city/country/continent (my first time in Asia). Super helpful to know someone who can speak Chinese (i.e. Chace) and has been living here for the past few months so knows the lay of the land a bit.

Stuff is just so cheap-- a taxi across town that would cost £30 in London costs £1.50 here. We had dinner and I had thought each thing would be a small sort of tapas-esque situation (given that each thing was between £1 and 2) and alas we literally had enough food to feed a family of 4, the waiters were laughing at the end when we had half of it put in containers to take away (which we then gave to a mother and child who were begging for food on the way back to the embassy). Anyway so slowly getting used to the whole price level being 1/10th that of London.

French keyboards are a bit poo so going to sign off now-- photos still forthcoming-- I've filled up 1GB already so not quite sure how I'm going to get them off the card yet but stay tuned!