Our accommodation for the first two weeks we are in Hanoi is with a volunteer group that teaches English to Vietnamese people by offering them the opportunity to live for 3 months with other students and English teachers so that they can immerse themselves in English morning, noon and night. The houses they stay in are called 'homestays' and are located around Hanoi. Our role so far has been to interview new candidates for the next course to start on Monday.

In our free time we have explored Hanoi and met up with Tom who we last saw in January when he departed on his travels to Asia, however he decided to stay in Hanoi and rents a house in the city. It was lovely to see him again and swap stories about our travel experiences. We spent most of last weekend with Tom showing us the area around his house by Ho Tay lake and had a fun time hitting golf balls at target floats into the lake (collected later). We also visited Ho Hoan Kiem (sword lake) which has a pretty temple called Ngoc Son Temple on an island in the lake. At weekends they close off the area around the lake to enable people to stroll without the usual traffic. There were lots of traditional activities going on such as tug-o-war, stilts, skipping games etc, all free, and it was great to see families enjoying themselves. Sword lake is in the old quarter of the city which is full of bustling shops selling everything under the sun. Some of it is focused on tourism but most of the shops are selling everyday Vietnamese items. Shopping in Vietnam is done on the pavement or in the street and most shops are open to the elements and do not have shop fronts, their wares spill on to the pavement and in some cases completely obliterate it. Combined with this, bikes are not allowed to park on the road so everybody parks them on the pavement (if there is one) which makes walking on the pavement almost impossible at times.

A lot of streets sell the same things, for example there is a street that sells mainly shoes, a street that sells bamboo or a street that sells motorbike parts. We have started to find our way round by saying shall we go up 'hairdresser' street or 'spice' street (the sweetest smelling street in Vietnam!).

12/12/16
Yesterday we returned from a weekend with Tom at Bai Tu Long Bay, a famous beauty spot on the East Coast just above Ha Long Bay. The scenery was spectacular as we cruised around the islands on our way to our lodge on Dau Quan Lan Island. On the way we stopped off for some kayaking and a swim off the boat. Luckily we had been blessed with a beautiful sunny day and the water was not too chilly. We arrived at the island just as the sun set, the afterglow giving us a glorious display of colour across the bay. The next morning we visited the local market, had pancakes for breakfast and set off on a cycle ride across the island to meet our boat for the return trip around the other side of the bay. On the way we stopped off at the beach for a quick dip in the sea . The sun tried to shine, but gave up early in the morning and left us with a slight haze for the rest of the day. After a great lunch of freshly caught prawns, baked fish, ginger chicken and egg rolls followed by fresh Mango, we arrived back at the port. Then we had a five hour minibus drive back to Hanoi on very bumpy roads, thankfully we managed to nod off through some of it, but when you are flung around or lurched forward every minute or so you never quite get to that oblivious state of sleep. However overall a very nice weekend.