Halong City

We had dinner in the evening and talked a little about tourism in Vietnam. Hoang, our tour leader told us that Vietnam is happy that tourism is increasing. Vietnam is apparently more 'open' and better than it used to be. No-one feels compelled to join the Communist party. And no-one does. Because no-one cares.
It's fascinating just watching the street life here. Women wear big, conical hats - in the sun, in the rain; in the morning, in the evening; at work, at leisure; to carry things; to fan themselves, and anything else that comes in handy.
I thought at first that women wore scarves around their faces to protect from pollution but apparently the primary reason is to keep their skin lighter in order to find a good husband. Oops, gotta go. More later.

Journey to Ha Long City

We got up for breakfast and met the rest of out tour group - 9 of us all together: 2 Australian girls our age, a Swedish couple and 3 New Zealanders, so quite a nice mixture.
And then we were off on our first journey - to Halong Bay. We stopped off for some water and I was again reminded of the sweltering heat and constant sweating that comes with moving out of an air-conditioned vicinity. Being used to the cloudy English weather, this takes some getting used to.

I just wanted to take photos of EVERYTHING! But it's hard to get a balance between what's acceptable and what's invasive. I miss a lot anyway because my camera is soooooo fucking slow and it eats up battery power like there's no tomorrow.
We arrived in Halong City and I bought a beautiful Vietnamese style brolley to protect against the intense heat and sun. Lots of Vietnamese women have complemented me on it so I think I made a good choice! I figure if the locals cover themselves up all the time, then I better do so as well. Even if school children don't have hats on, they will use a book, or something to cover their head. Although people are generally quite poor in Vietnam, the school uniforms always appear immaculate and very smart. All school children and young people carry tiny stools to and from school, which presumably they use to sit on. They are so tiny - smaller than the seats I had in reception class! The children have various ingenious ways of holding the stools as they ride to and from school, piled up two, three, four at a time on bicycles - we'll come to road safety in Vietnam a little later.....
School start early. The hours are generally 7 - 11 and 2 - 4/5pm, that is if a child goes to school at all, and if they go in the afternoon as well as the evening.

A rocky start

A bit of a rocky start to my trip - my traveling partner's (Briony) first flight, to London, was delayed so we almost didn't board our very first flight!
Then, although I had ordered a vegetarian option for my flight, there were no veggie meals, so I asked people if they would like to share, as I didn't want to waste the food. I asked the man sitting beside me if he would like my sausage, which was perhaps not the best way of phrasing the question.
On the other end, in Bangkok, where we stayed overnight to get a connecting flight, the humidity hit me immediately as we waited for a bus shuttle service that never came.
Eventually we got on a bus which said it would take us to the street we needed but it dropped us off in the middle of another lot of buses. We were completely clueless - which was our fault - and so we got completely scammed for our bus ticket into town - paying more than I do in London! We relied on the help of a friendly woman on the bus for what stop to get off at.
The following day we got a taxi to the airport, after getting a Thai massage, which was lovely, but a little painful, with limbs being pulled all over the place. Only when in the taxi did we realize that we were a day behind on ourselves and had missed our connecting flight to Hanoi, Vietnam. Our tour in Vietnam was meant to start that day and we were still in Bangkok. What utter plonkers! But we still managed to get a flight that day and arrived late in the evening before the tour group moved on the next day, Briony with a stonking migraine and me with an eye infection from having scratched the new mosquito bites scattered around my face....phew!

Testing..........?!!