My second day at Peace House consisted of some orientation sessions to introduce us to Vietnam and our volunteer projects. We were given a Vietnamese language lesson which was really helpful but absolutely hilarious as the pronunciation is really difficult so we all just kept continuously repeating the same word until we were given the nod by the teacher. Bao Nhieu (how much?) has been the most useful phrase I have learnt so far, although we accidentally asked a ...

I am now at Peace House, the volunteer centre I will be staying at for the next 3 weeks. It its located on the outskirts of Hanoi, near a village called Tay mo. On Wednesday we were picked up from our hostel and taken to Peace House. The journey was amusing as the taxi driver had western dance music blasting out of the stereos and an underwear modelling catwalk show was being played on a tv screen at the front of the car-I was sitting directly opposite it, so di...

Today Alice, Emily and I did some sightseeing and exploring around Hanoi. We started off with a trek across to the other side of Hanoi to find a samsung service centre which would unlock my phone so that I could use a Vietnamese sim card. It was really difficult to find and involved crossing some of the busiest roads in central Hanoi, but Emily and Alice managed to get us there in the end (I of course had no role to play in the navigations!!!) We had lunch at a ...

Xin Chao! After 4 car journeys, six train journeys, and 3 flights, I am now in Hanoi, Vietnam! I am travelling with two friends from university- Emily and Alice . Love you girlies!! The journey was obviously very long and tiring, but we were very lucky to be upgraded to first class on the flight between Doha and Bangkok for free, which was AMAZING!!! It was an incredible experience; free champagne on arrival, fully reclining seats, free Molten Brown toiletries...