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Well here we are in Vietnam. We were going to travel overland through Cambodia, but it was easier to get three month visas by flying in from Bangkok. We will still visit Cambodia in January.
Lovely Linh and her family collected us from the airport to take us to the English centre they recently established, where we will be helping their Vietnamese English teachers for the next two weeks. On the way we were invited to a celebratory family lunch they were having for a young couple who were getting married. We unloaded the car and had our first experience crossing a road in Vietnam - there is only one rule walk steadily across, keep going, don't stop and they will avoid you! They drive on the right, but still use the other side of the road if they think it's quicker or easier to go that way. It is an experience that you will never forget, there are no lanes it is every man (or woman and child) for themself with a constant stream of bikes, cars and lorries avoiding each other and you.
After our dice with death we dropped off our bags and made our way through the bustling market adjacent to the centre, to a small restaurant were we met the rest of Linh' s farmily and had a wonderful meal starting with escargot and ending with mandarins, washed down with beer, our plates and glasses topped up every time they became empty. It was a lovely welcome to their country.
Our room is on the top floor of the teaching centre, on the flat roof and we have a great view of the market umbrellas below. We went to sleep that night listening to the toots and horns of the many bikes and the roar of an occasional plane passing overhead after taking off from the airport a few miles away. Welcome to Vietnam.
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