Temp up to 122!!

We had a wonderful night in the hotel lat night!! Although we had the air on full blast, it was still 83 degrees in the room when we went to bed! We enjoyed nice, clean showers; however, the room we were in didn't have a bathtub like the other one did last weekend. We made it back to Peace House without issues. We rode our bikes to Friendship village again...I think we are getting used to it...but we really do need to be careful. Actually it felt good to ride and create a breeze even though I had on a face mask.

O.k. temperature update. It was 100 in our room before we left for Friendship village. It was up to 101.6 in our room at noon. Outside it was 122.6 on my LLbean clock...I assume it was accurate. There is no way one could stand in the sun. Somehow I think I am getting used to it. It was 105 when we got home at 4:30....2 more nights here then a hotel again on Friday.

I had a better day at Friendship village. The teacher is learning English, so I helped her with her homework, which was identifying correct English grammar about USA. She helped me with colors since two of the 17 year old kids in this group are very interested in doing 48 piece puzzle with me. We also practiced face parts. They laughed at me. When a word has different accent above the letter, and there are 6 different them, it means something different. When I mis pronounced nose it meant salt. The teachers really do not have any lesson plans for the kids. They sit at a desk and watch them entertain themselves with basic puzzles or dirty legos. I am not sure if this is year round or just summer time. The teachers actually seemed kind and were entertained with my speech. I actually was trying to review colors and numbers with the kids too. They seemed happy, clothes were dusty, water was in the room, and they did wash hands with a cake of soap before going to lunch. One girl took her umbrella to protect her from the sun and walked several younger kids to their houses. She seemed like their mother, but she has been funneled into this "lowest level class". There are several children with Down's Syndrome.

Allison had a better day in the clinic, but she is still frustrated because they do not have anything in writing, Vietnamese or English, to guide their therapies. She's feeling more comfortable with using trial and error to determine the extent of each student's deficits. At least that room has air conditioning, though it is rarely turned on high. Most of the kids seem to have balance deficits. Favorite activities in the clinic include dominoes, memory, balance board, grasp and release activities, LE/core strengthening exercises, and variations of the basic ball toss.

Another volunteer at another privately owned site, saw a 4 year old child with Cerebral Palsey, accidently push his lunch on the floor. The teacher tied his hands and one foot. She left 20 min later and the tie was off when she returned from lunch, but the mark was on his wrist. She will talk to someone here about this bothersome observation.

I hope it gets better...it is o.k. but harder than we expected. other volunteers are doing computer work for Non gov't agencies. Each day gets easier as we build better bonds with the kdis...

Volunteering

This will be short because it's time for bed...We're 2 days into our volunteering at Friendship Village. I was a little discouraged on the first day because the language barrier is more difficult to overcome than I had anticipated...It's hard to understand how things work at Friendship Village and where we're needed most. Mom spent yesterday helping the house mother clean in the AM, then helping kids in the classroom in the afternoon. I spent the day in the clinic working alongside a physiotherapist. I was a bit confused because there's a handful of kids in the clinic at any given time; however, there's only one per time slot on the schedule. I'm having a hard time understanding how things work. Also, I was a little frustrated because I have no info about the kids and it's almost impossible to verbally communicate with the therapist and the kids. It's putting my observational and clinical reasoning skills to the test, that's for sure! We work approx 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. The kids nap in the middle of the day and don't start classes til mid-afternoon because of the heat. The kids who come to the clinic in the afternoon have significant balance deficits. A few have ataxia. Today I felt a little more in my element at the clinic. It went much smoother. Seems like they need help to entertain the kids in the AM, rather than give services because a bunch just come in to hang out. I started the morning in the organic garden and ended in the clinic. Then, I spent the entire afternoon in the clinic. I think it's important for us to embrace the cultural differences and just be flexible and fly by the seat of our pants. Anything goes! The kids don't have much (if any) instruction during the day...

Sorry this post is a little all over the place. We'll share more details later. Time for bed now...Mom and I came into the city tonight to stay in a hotel because it is so hot. Last night it was 95.9 degrees inside (with fans blowing) when we went to bed. It was 101.3 degrees during our lunch break today. Outside, it was 117.6 degrees. We're enjoying a night of air conditioning..it'll be nice to actually sleep under blankets! We'll head back to Peace House early tomorrow morning for another exciting day of work. I think the heat is supposed to break in a few days. AKA it will be back in the high 90s, hopefully not 100s!!! We haven't had rain in about a week now.

...stay tuned for more info and pictures. we're still having technical difficulties...sometimes we have no internet...the computer at the hotel isn't registering my jump drive and the mouse sucks so it's time to shut down!

4th of July in Vietnam

Hello everyone. Apparently I did something wrong and 4th of July did not post. this was a day I will remember forever...you will see by the end of the post.

We woke up and had a fantastic cooked breakfast at the hotel with all kinds of Vietnamese fruits, tea, coffee, bread, eggs, fried rice and fried noodles. We walked around and bought souvenirs which we had scoped out yesterday. We were planning to meet another girl from the volunteers to ride a cab together back to Peace House. We missed her at 12, at the local French restaurant, so we left her a note at her hotel we would be back at 3 pm.

This morning I got a email response from a Vietnamese friend of a West Vincent parent. He said he was flying up to Hanoi from Hue for an American 4th of July celebration. He has a construction company but he also sells Zipppo lighters and was a sponsor of this event. I looked up the address on a map and found it was only 1 block south of Hoan Kiem Lake, a beautiful center point of the city. He said he had complimentary tickets for us...I was not sure if the girl from England wanted to go, but I thought at least we could meet him. Well, we met and he looked just as he described-An American Hippee with long hair wearing an American Flag T-shirt and his two boys Tyler, age 6, and Shawnee, age 3.

This was a 4th of July I will never forget! There was cold Budweiser, Pepsi and Water...remember how hot it is here. The food was All American and prepared by the French with a flare...Hot dogs in baguettes, french fries, corn on the cob, chicken fajita, baked beans, several salads, pizza, lasagne, ice cream, water melon, donuts and choc chip cookies. There were games for the kids...including face painting that Ally and Maya just had to do...it was so picturesque seeing a Vietnamese person paint and American flag on their cheeks. Then there was an awesome circus with dancers on rollerskates, dancer with hoola hoops, trainer with 4 performance dogs, trainer with 2 monkeys, trainer with 2 large snakes. Then the Marines had a color guard and everyone sang America the Beautiful and the Star Spangled Banner. They also played back ground music. Oh, how can I forget the watermelon eating contest. The boys of John were soooo cuteeeee. Wait till you see their pics on the post. Caroline, what do you think of this???? I still can not believe you told me you had a friend in Vietnam AND that I actually met him and his boys!!! I hope I can meet them again when the visit the states. John just emailed me and said his boys were looking for us because we left without saying good bye...shame on us. He was such a good dad. His Vietnamese wife was home with the 3rd baby boy...Dad liked having us keep an eye on them while he visited with his friends.

Ah, civilization!

I forgot how crazy Hanoi is...we enjoyed a nice quiet afternoon soaking up the cool air in the hotel room. Mom and I ventured out for a little window shopping and some dinner tonight. The roads are crazy! I'm not sure if it's especially busy this evening because it's Saturday night, or that we just forgot how chaotic Hanoi is since we've been staying at Peace House. Either way, crossing the street was a stressful event this evening with all the motorbikes zipping by.

We scoped out some stores that we plan to buy some souveniors at tomorrow. Then, we stumbled upon an Italian Restaurant along the lake. By the way - the lake is beautiful at night! The turtle tower in the middle was illuminated and there were all kinds of lights hanging from trees. We'll try to take some evening pics by the lake next Friday when we return to the city. Anyways, the restaurant was SO good! The service was amazing and the food was delicious as well. We got cool, scented washclothes upon arrival...It was nice to have a change of pace - we've been eating rice 2x/day everyday. Mom and I split bruschetta (the tomatoes were amazing!), spinach pizza, and spaghetti with "American peppery sausage" (aka pepperoni). It's interesting how much American influence is in Vietnam. U.S. dollars are the only other currency they accept besides their Vietnamese dong. I guess I find it especially interesting considering the history between the countries...

Anyways, we took a nice stroll around the lake after dinner. We passed at least 3 exercise groups along the way! There was an aerobics group, salsa group, and zumba-ish group. They had speakers with music and there were 30+ people (mostly middle-aged women) in each "class!" I was excited to see this considering we opted for sleep the other morning instead of waking up to check out morning exercises.

Ok..time for a good night's sleep. OH - staying at this hotel has been wonderful so far because a) we have a/c and b) we have a tub shower! However, there is no shower curtain..?! The bathrooms at Hanoi Guesthouse and at Peace Village just have a room with a toilet and a shower hanging on the wall. Everything gets wet when you shower...It's funny how we take some things (tub showers, clean water) for granted... Anyways, more later! Our trip has been a success so far. We have plenty more adventures ahead of us :)

Oh What a Night/Day!

I think the heat is making us all a little crazy at this point. Last night a few of the volunteers and I took cabs into the city center. We went to Fanny's for their monthly all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet. First of all, the roads were packed because they were having all kinds of excitement in the city because there's only 100 days remaining until Hanoi's 1000 year celebration. There were a bunch of stages set up all around one of the lakes with various types of performances. We even got to see fireworks!

Fanny's was complete chaos! It was PACKED when we got there. They had an ice cream bar, sorbet bar, fruit bar, toppings bar, and a chocolate fondue station. Mmm! Lots of great stuff. The blueberry and passion fruit sorbet were my favorites. I wasn't too impressed with the ice cream, but I also didn't try many flavors. One of our friends, Christian (from Austria), had 45 scoops! He was a machine. After getting our fill, we escaped to the busy streets in search for a bar. We didn't find any that had tables, so we decided to just head back to Peace House.

Apparently Peace House is in bumble. We can see the city from the roof, so it's not terribly far, but cab drivers aren't very familiar with the area. Our ride started out great - we had a young guy (20 years old) who was loving our attempts at speaking Vietnamese. He was hysterical...he put Laura on his walkie talkie to talk to someone else on the other end. The ride started to get old after an hour. We got out of the city and he had stopped to ask for directions, but we weren't having much luck. Vietnamese people are very willing to help and they always offer an answer, whether it's correct or not, in order to save face. I'm pretty sure none of people he spoke with actually knew where Peace House was even though we had the address and a little map. After nearly an hour and a half (the ride should only take 30ish minutes late at night), he pulled up to a construction site and told us to get out and walk down the road or pay more for him to drive around because he coudln't drive through. We're not very familiar with the area, plus it was super dark, so we weren't about to get out of the car. Even thought Vietnam is known for being a safe country at all hours of the night, we weren't very confident about walking. Finally, almost 2 hours after we began, we ended up back at Peace House. Ah! The language barrier is definitely a limitation for all of us English speaking volunteers! Our attempts at speaking Vietnamese are poor at best.

All the newbies got up this morning to head out for a city tour of Hanoi. Our first stop was at the Museum of Ethnology. It was interesting - there were exhibits inside and out describing the various ethnic groups in Vietnam. I'm excited to get to Sapa, where we'll get to see some of Vietnam's hill tribe peoples. Afterwards, we stopped in a local shop for pho. This is a traditional Vietnamese dish, consisting of noodles, vegetables, and meat in a clear broth. It was tasty! Vietnamese people eat pho anytime of day - breakfast, lunch, or dinner! It's interesting that Vietnamese people eat three large, hot meals a day compared to Westerners who typically eat one hot meal and two lighter meals. Next, we hopped on a bus (with air-conditioning!) to the city center for traditional, handmade Vietnamese ice cream by the lake. We were all feeling the heat by that point, so we split ways to get to our accommodations. Mom and I are staying at the Sunshine 3 Hotel in the Old Quarter. It's heaven! We're going to get a GREAT night's sleep tonight in the airconditioning and comfy beds. Life at Peace House is great, but very rustic and basic. It'll be nice to enjoy a night in the city.

That's all for now...we'll spend today and tomorrow in Hanoi...work officially begins on Monday!

P.S. We'll post some pictures soon...my computer is terribly slow, so I haven't taken the time to upload.

Silk village and tour our placement-Friendship Village

For starters, it was 90 degrees with a fan blowing on me last night. This is a little more rustic than I planned. I just switched mattresses and fans...I am hoping to sleep better. I am getting more bruises coming out. I have a big one on my inner ankle and a huge bruise that just came out today. It does not hurt. New comers are still asking about my eye.

WE were off to the silk village this morning. We walked 10 min on the dirt road with pot holes and shared the road with construction trucks, cars, many motor bikes and regular bikes. WE finally came to a big intersection with no light. We carefully crossed the road, our group of 10, and waited on the otherside for a public bus to come by. We saw one motor biker loose his balance, and took a little tumble. Lucky he had on pants. The vietnamese are so practical wearing their long pants, face mask because of the large amount of dust, and long sleeved jackets that the sleeve actually covers their hand. O.k. we got the bus. We stood and held onto a bar for 20 min...not too crowded. We got to the silk village. Everything was very pretty. We saw the machines making the silk cloth operated by a generator. Can you believe this still exists? We waited about 30 min for the public bus to pick us up and took a great group pic which we will post later. We waited under a palm tree. Well the bus ride back to the busy intersection was very very crowded. I probably should not be telling you about the road conditions...yes they are paved and lots of dirt, no road markings and busy busy.

We had a yummy vietnamese lunch at Peace House. We do have a good cook and good fruit.

We left on bike with our face masks later this afternoon to visit our placement, Friendship Village. We road bikes on the same road but in the opposite direction with our face masks. Not too bad..less busy this direction. Only 1 construction truck passed us. I was surprised at the nice buildings when we first entered. We were taken into an air conditioned reception room. We were luckyto meet the current director and a translator. There are 120 children affected by agent orange and 40 war veterans who onlystay 2 months out of the year. He told us we should have been wearing hats. This place was founded by an American war vet in 1998. He died in 2002. It is funded by America, France, England, and I think Australia.

The accomadations for the children were better than I expected, but still very basic. It is hot and the door is open with several fans going. We saw 6-8 children per classroom. Three different academic levels-the highest one the children were writing single diget math facts. They smiled. They were clean. They were not disfigured too much. We did see one very pleasant boy with Down's Syndrone. He said "hi" and shook our hand. He was doing a good job coloring a picture in a coloring book. He was in the highest functioning room. We also saw handstitching, paper flower making, and sewing rooms. Yes, they work on a vocation for these children. The hand stitching is quite good. I think I will buy one of their pieces for my souvenir. The houses they live in were very basic. Their beds are bamboo without a mattress. Several children were in wheelchairs, and they did respond in an excited way to see us. We also saw the organic garden. Onlyone person works there, but it is actually very hot to work, or I might be interested for a few hours.

We rode our bikes back and sat on the little yellow plastic chairs at a small store next to where we are staying. Now I feel part of the culture.....it is crazy all the plastic chairs you see all aroound. We will try to post that pic. It is about 12 volunteers. Ally has on a tie dye shirt.

We will stay here tonight, Friday, and skip the 5$ all you can eat icecream in Hanoi. We can get a free ride into Hanoi tomorrow and a 1/2 day tour and lunch and icecream. We are so frugel. We did splurge and booked a hotel close to Kiem Lake for 28$ for Sat.

Hope all of you are having a great summer. Can't wait to catch up when we get back. We are enjoying the spirit of adventure and meeting people who actually have much in common with us except for the houses and "things". Oh, the village also has a computer room. A 13 year old boywas drawing with the program and was really really talented.

Day 1 of Orientation = Complete!

Today was a busy day here at Peace House. I think all of us tossed and turned during our first night here...our mattresses are about 3 inches thick. AKA we sleep on plywood, haha. Mom isn't too wild about our accommodations. She thinks Bear Creek is luxurious compared to this! When we use the toilet (western, not squat), we have to toss our TP in the trash can so we don't clog it up. What else...the food is great. It's all served family-style. We have mosquito nets hanging from our beds, but they're not the greatest because they block airflow. It was 91.5 degrees in our room at 10PM last night. Also, there's geckos that crawl all over the walls up by the ceiling. How's that for ambiance?! A few of us climbed up onto the roof this afternoon, which was cool. I assumed we were in the middle of nowhere, but it looks like there's a lot around from the view up top! We also spent some time up there once the sun went down. It was great - there was a lightning storm, which was cool. I tried some Vietnamese beer...not so good, haha. I'm not a beer expert, but I'd say it was pretty similar to our Keystone Light.

Orientation was great. The morning was full of presentations regarding the volunteer organization, cultural differences, dos and don'ts, etc. I'll give more details in a later post. A Our Vietnamese lesson was quite entertaining. We learned some basic conversational phrases to use as well as numbers, etc. Vietnamese is such a tough language because a) they talk so fast! and b) there's a good chance you'll pronounce the words wrong. The language is all about tones. The same word can have up to 6 different meanings depending how you pronounce it! I'm hoping I master the basics in a week. Vietnamese people obviously appreciate visitors attempting to use their language. Also, I've had better success with bargaining when I use basic phrases. I still think we've been ripped off a bit for some things, but it's just so hard to know how much something is really worth. Everything is significantly cheaper than the U.S. as it is, so how low can you go? Hmm..

Hannah, a girl from Australia, and I went biking this afternoon to check out the area. It was quite interesting. We were biking on these half dirt/half pavement roads alongside motorbikes, cars, trucks, animals, people walking, and other bikers. The roads are so narrow - they look like one lane roads that we have in the U.S. Anyways, despite a few close calls, there were no casualties on our ride. We opted to walk our bikes across the street to avoid disaster when turning around to head back.

I'm so excited to visit our project site, Friendship Village, tomorrow. We had a project discussion this afternoon and it sounds great. We'll ride our bikes 2km each way to get there and apparently we have a 2-3 hour lunch in the middle of the day so we'll return to Peace House for the meal. There's approximately 6 houses with 20 kids each at Friendship Village. They also have rooms for war vets, who typically come for 2 months at a time. All of the children have disabilities, most are a result of agent orange exposure that has been passed down in generations. Even though it happened years ago, the Vietnamese people are still feeling the devastating effects.

The children range from 2 - 26 years of age. There's a clinic on site with a rehab, acupuncture, and yoga! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get to work in the clinic because it's so OT (occupational therapy). They also have an organic garden that supplies food for the kids at the village. Their bodies are already affected from the herbicide from the war, so it's better for them to eat pesticide-free food to promote health and prevent further problems. Apparently there's also a need in the homes where the children stay because there's only 1 house mother for 20 kids! We're planning on starting our mornings early so we can assist with the self-care routine (or lack there of) in the houses before school begins. Oh - one other thing. None of the kids are orphans. They're at Friendship Village because their families couldn't provide proper care. Also, Vietnamese consider people with disabilities defective. The stigma is a huge deal - more prominent than in the U.S. They also promote vocational training at the village. There are IT, sewing, embroidery, and flower-making rooms. I can't wait to explore the facilities! There will be 6 volunteers there total. 4 of us our new, 2 have been there for a few weeks already.

UP NEXT: Silk village in AM, Friendship Village in PM tomorrow

And so it begins...

We made it to Peace House, which is located 40 minutes west of Hanoi. This is where we'll be staying for the duration of our volunteer time. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere, which is nice. I was ready for a break from the hustle and bustle of Hanoi's Old Quarter. I believe there's a few small villages here and there about 15 minutes away from us.

There were quite a few newbies that arrived yesterday. We're staying in dorm-style rooms with bunks and each person has their own fan! This is much needed, as it is very hot. The accommodations are very basic, but the people and food are wonderful! I'm so excited to get started! We chatted with Allie, a girl from the U.S., last night. She was on her way home to Wisconsin, but she offered a bunch of great info about Friendship Village (where we'll be volunteering). Again, I'm SO excited! I hope I get to work in the clinic with the physiotherapists. We're about to start orientation today...it includes a program discussion, Vietnamese lesson, and more.

P.S. One more exciting thing - we get to ride bikes to work! Some of the volunteers have a super long commute by bus, so we're pretty lucky. I'm looking forward to it!

Hoa Lu and Tam Coc

This guided trip is to the Hoa Lu Temple, the ancient capital of Vietnam before year 1000. We learned the difference between a Temple and a Pagoda. A temple is to acknowledge important people/heroes and a pagoda is a place of worship (Buddhism). It was interesting. They are building up the area to make it look more modern.



Next we rode bikes for 60 min to Tam Coc, tmeaning "three caves," and rode in a sampan, rowed by a Vietnamese womam , for 1 1/2 hrs...wait till you see the pics. We cruised amogst hundreds of limestone formations and through 3 caves (120m, 70m, 40m). Tam Coc is also known as the Halong Bay of the Land. It was gorgeous!



First I have to be honest before rumors start. Yes, I got very tired when I thought we were to our destination and the guide said we had 10 more minutes. It was really really hot, and I do not usually ride a bike. All the riding was on a flat pavement at a moderate pace. Well, I took a little spill. Got a skinned knee and a few bruises. Best of all I got a ride on a motor bike before Allison did in Vietnam....what a price I paid. I can to my own rescue with bandaids in my purse!!!



I have to tell you about the cross cultural contacts we have made here in Vietnam. We traveled agian with people from all different homes. Today we were with Philip and Doris from Austria. She is a physical therapist and he works in a bank. Next was a girl traveling alone from Spain and she is a veteranarian. Lastly we met Katherine and Ingunn from Norway. The are two deaf girls who were very friendly. They told us that sign language is different in every country, just as language is different. Katerine teaches English and Math at a school for the deaf and does talk. Her friend Ingunn, does not speak and works in Customs. It is amazing how easy it was to communicate with them.


Someone asked us to describe Uncle Sam in America...that was a bit of a challenge.

We found out that Vietnamese are 1 year old when they are borm. Vietnamese hope for a girl first so the girl can take care of the parents when they get older. Many homes in Vietnam are tall and thin with not many rooms. Different generations live on the different floors. Most Vietnamese food is cooked in bean oil...there is little milk and vertually no cheese here. I guess they get their calcium from many vegetables and yogurt...I think that would be alot of vegetables if they require as much calcium as Americans. Vietnamese call their skin yellow, not brown. Again today every wore long sleeves, gloves, pants and a scarf across their face...did I tell you how hot it was today, very hot.



Allison will post pics tomorrow. Look for the Lotus Temple, ducks, umbrellas, winding waterway, caves, mountain goats, beautiful rock formations pictures and me in my beautiful red hat! I will be excited to share rock and karst pics with the 6th graders at West Vincent when they do their rocks and minerals topic. Barbara, please tell Donna my toilet paper was folded at the resort and in my Guest house. Allison is making fun of my red hat....I have to be practical, Claire would not let me bring the one I had planned to bring, so I had to buy the red one for 2 $. This entire trip today was only 29$. It included a 3 hr mini bus ride to the site and back home by 6:30 pm...Time to go to bed. We want to get up early and see locals doing Tai Chi at Hon Kiem Lake tomorrow and a cooking class and be picked up to go to our volunteer destination. I hope I can rest a bit there. We are really keeping ourselves very busy in this northern part of Vietnam

We are off to walking at the lake and people watching today, cooking class including going to the market and then to be picked up by Volunteer for Peace at Vietnam. Love all of you.

Back to Hanoi

We woke up super early this morning...I'm not sure if we're still adjusting to the time change or we're just getting used to the Vietnamese ways. Most Vietnamese people get up between 4:30 and 5:00 to exercise before starting the day. I guess they do that to beat the heat and avoid sun. Anyways, there were about 50-75 Vietnamese swimming in the ocean at 6:15AM this morning! I couldn't believe it when I looked out our window. At 7AM, we went downstairs for yet another delicious meal. There was a breakfast buffet set up with everything from the typical breakfast foods (toast, eggs, bacon, sausage bread, etc.) to spaghetti/sausage and Singapore rice noodles with veggies! How's that for a feast? Of course we had to try a little bit of everything (minus the spaghetti). The fresh fruit was amazing - I loved the mango in particular.

After breakfast, mom and I headed to town. We opted to walk instead of taking one of the motorbikes, though it was tempting! One of these days I'll catch a ride on a motorbike. Not sure if mom will...Anyways, we walked around downtown and stumbled upon a large market with fish, fruit, veggies, dry foods, and clothes. It was overwhelming! Later, once we were thoroughly drenched in sweat, we made our way back to the resort. I had the opportunity to talk with Ben quick before hopping in the pool. We were scheduled to get massages at 10:30; however, there was an error with the booking. Instead, we got a little R&R time before leaving Cat Ba Island.

We finally returned back to Hanoi around 6PM and said farewell to our new friends. Mom basically broke out in a jog back to our hotel because her feet were hurting her. I found it entertaining...We were so HOT upon arrival. Luckily, we found out that the guesthouse had a room open for us. We went out in search of food a little while later and stumbled upon the "Blue Butterfly Restaurant" in the Old Quarter. Mom got vegetable fried rice and I got fried rice noodles with veggies. Both dishes were excellent! The best part is that we only spent $1.50 on each one! Neither of us has gotten sick so far...I'm hoping it stays that way...We were in for quite a surprise when we left the restaurant. We walked outside and BAM! It was pouring down rain. So much for not really running into rain during the "rainy season" haha. We attempted to wait it out, but then decided to just walk back once it let up a bit.

Up Next: Day trip to Ninh Binh province for cycling, boating, etc.