On Thursday 4th August we left Hanoi to begin travelling down Vietnam. We took a sleeper bus to Hoi An; the journey took 17hrs! It was a bit of an ordeal having to spend so long couped up in a stinky bus in beds that were way too small for western statures. I was also really paranoid about my stuff being stolen while I was asleep, so I kept everything in a money belt under my t shirt. One girl had her iPod stolen, so I was right to be cautious. Having said that, ...

Sorry I've been so rubbish at updating my blog, there's now so much to tell! Last week was my last of voluntary work. It was a really great week as I had come to know the children so well that having fun together came really easily. We had lots of chases around the corridors of Peace Village, despite the disapproving looks from the nurses. I've also got the children dancing too, which was so much fun. I taught Yen how to curtesy, which was very sweet. The kids j...

On Friday we left Peace House to spend our weekend off in Hanoi city centre. We checked into an awesome hostel called May De Ville Backpackers hostel- highly recommended! It feels more like a hotel than a hostel with the plush towels, air con, lift and amazing buffet breakfast (incl fried eggs!) on it's 10th floor restaurant- all for $6/night. Alice, Emily and I celebrated the start of the weekend with some cocktails at White Horse Bar. I had a 'Godmother' (strai...

This week has been pretty similar to last week- lots of playing with the children at Peace Village! I have been tasked by one of the teachers to teach a girl how to play the piano! Imagine trying to do that without speaking! I've managed to teach her a couple of lines of a well known Vietnamese song, but she's learning by patterns rather than by reading the music- kind of cheating, but oh well! There seems to have been quite a few arguments between the children t...

I had a lovely weekend off work by taking a tour to Halong Bay. On Saturday morning we travelled by minibus from Hanoi for 3.5 hours to Halong city. From there we boarded the Canh Buom 8, a fabulous wooden ship, complete with ensuite bedrooms, a dining room, and a roof top lounge area. The ship set sail into Halong bay, which is spectacularly beautiful with thousands of islands rising from the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. The weather was gorgeous and we ...