It has been another good and busy day in Hanoi for all three of us on our Vietnamese adventure. Edwin and Trixie are snoozing as I write this and so I have gone out and sat on our big enough, just, balcony to ponder, plan for tomorrow and listen to the sounds of Hanoi as it winds down for the day. The street we are staying on is very close to the cathedral but is blessedly not one street further back, which is much fuller of backpacker-esque lodgings. Our street has plenty of small hotels and food shops and is large enough to sustain trade beyond just the tourist needs.
Coming from Malaysia it is most noticeable that the side streets, like the one we are staying on and alleys off it, are clean. Ok they are not pristine in the Singapore sense but it was as I sat here and saw a pair of street sweepers walking along, one on each side, pushing their rubbish trolleys and sweeping up as they went that I noticed it. From people collecting plastic bottles and drinks
cans out of the bins to tonight's sweepers, separating the rubbish as they went there is a sense that people here are all working hard. And those freshly swept streets and clean alleys of Hanoi made me think about the side streets of KL. Like Hanoi the cheap-restaurant food and street-food is great, but it takes a strong constitution to walk behind a food place in Kuala Lumpur and look around the back doors.
Earlier today I got an email from the place that the kids and I will be staying in in Hue. The email assured me that a room had been reserved for us, always a good sign seeing as we had paid in advance, but I also quite liked their entrepreneurial style too in seeking to offer us various tours and the like. Again, everyone needs a living.
As a big contrast to this this afternoon the children and I had a walking tour round the old part of Hanoi thanks to an organisation called www.hanoikids.org. The child protection part of my brain was initially a little concerned by this name but I had found out on Tuesday, from one of its members who we met while eating an excellent street food sandwich, that it is a well-established group that offers city tours for tourists, in English, that allow Hanoi students opportunities to develop their knowledge of English and their home city. The guides are also volunteers. So it was that at 2.00pm this afternoon we met a first year international communications student and his partner, a first year finance student, and they took us on a four hour explore of the city. Thanks to them we discovered The White Horse Temple, a historic Vietnamese house and a bridge that had been bombed and rebuilt 24 times in its lifetime. We also sampled egg coffee (delicious) and various hot snack foods, all which went down well with kids (and gave Trixie the chance to further enhance her chopstick technique). Both students were interesting to talk with and knew their stuff. Both also wanted to learn more about our collected views on the world. All in all it was a good afternoon, Vietnam (sorry).
The whole concept of volunteering also interests me, especially the idea that the volunteer is the one who gains the most out of the experience. Their website states that one of the reasons for starting the organisation was to encourage the volunteers to make links with the wider world around them as well as learn about their city. It also made me think about how much Lexi and I had gained out of our two years of volunteering in Lao.
Sadly one detail that Vietnam hasn't got spot on just yet is the BBC. It would appear that the BBC in its various forms is not permitted and so I have not been able to have my daily fix from Ambridge.