Laura continues her Southeast Asia adventure in... Hanoi

Destination number 4: Hanoi and the wonderful homestay with Lily's family and visit to her community development organisation!
I spent just over a week with Lily from GEF e.v., a German / Vietnamese NGO which works with orphaned children throughout Vietnam, and was given an amazing introduction to this great country.

After my long journey from China, Lily picked me up from the hostel and took me to the GEF office where I was introduced to the whole team and made to feel really welcomed! GEF have a large base of volunteers from the local universities and many of them came down to meet me and eagerly practice their English!

Next I was shown GEF's main project, the 'Second Home' where around 10 orphans from various provinces are housed, schooled and cared for by the GEF team in Hanoi. I was given the opportunity to teach a couple of short English lessons to help with their pronunciation, and was totally shown up by their beautiful handwriting when I began to scrawl the alphabet for them! Really great bunch of kids and there is a strong family-feel and community framework for them there.

Inspired by stuffyourrucksack.com, I brought with me a bunch of pens and colouring pencils and donated them to the Second Home as I could see they would be clearly appreciated. The organisation has plans to build 2 more 'Second Homes' next year: one more in Hanoi and another out by Ha Long Bay, so I'm sure they will require as many volunteers as possible to help build them!

That morning, Lily and Chau treated me to the Vietnamese staple, pho, (a light beef noodle broth) for breakfast and now I am hooked! For lunch, the whole office eat together around the meeting room table, with mixed meals that get delivered each day - couldn't have been more different to my jacket-potato-at-my-desk lunches back in London! Everyone was very impressed with my now-honed chopstick skills, and after lunch, when I thought things couldn't get further from my daily office routine, Lily rolled out a couple of wicker mats and we had an hour's nap - a kind of SE Asian siesta! This is definitely something I will suggest at home!

To get to Lily's house after work, we jumped on the back of a couple of motorbikes and entered the noisy sea of Hanoi's rush hour traffic. This was my first experience of the city's roads and I spent most of it white-knuckled, eyes closed, simultaneously laughing and swearing, truly believing these would be my last moments on earth; my driver weaved through the dense tide of beeping motorbikes and crossed main highways with nothing but the 'just go' attitude! After a couple more rides I was somehow used to it and by the end I looked forward to the 30min suicide-ride each morning!

Back at Lily's house, I was introduced to her family, and again, was made to feel so welcome in their home. They are expecting another addition to the family in December with recently-married Lily 5 months pregnant! I had such a great week here, really enjoying being part of their daily life, and her mother's fantastic home-cooked dinners which we all ate together each evening. Although Lily and the volunteers tried their hardest to teach me as many Vietnamese words a possible, I think the most valuable one was 'nhar' (I have no idea how this is spelt!), meaning 'full' - crucial when fed by such a generous family! One night, we all went for karaoke and hotpot - neither of which I had experienced in Vietnam before so had no idea what to expect but had an amazing night out with everyone! Karaoke is an institution there and everyone is well practised - after a few beers, I was singing some MJ classics with Lily, and by the end, nominated to duet with any song with English subtitles, regardless of whether or not I had heard it before! Lots of fun, finished up with a 'lau' (hotpot) supper; about a dozen of us sitting around a couple of burners on little plastic tables and chairs on the street corner, while a huge plate of meat (at least 15 different kinds of red, white meat, fish, offal, shell-fish, and things I couldn't even hope to identify) was served up for us to cook in the wide-rimmed bubbling broth on the table, along with noodles and greens. Definitely the most fun meal I've had yet!

Feeling slightly ropey the next morning, I accompanied Lily to an annual national symposium on Alternative Care for Vietnam's Orphaned and Vulnerable Children. I was so grateful I had the opportunity to attend this as I learnt so much here about the current situation of foster care in the country. The next day Chau and Bao from GEF and some of the volunteers took me to visit Bat Trang village, famous for it's ancient ceramics heritage. We all made little clay pots and painted them, which everyone had a great time failing at! I have optimistically sent mine home so fingers crossed, it will be there when I get back! Being with the volunteers was like having my own exclusive tour guides, telling me about the history and culture of the place, plus I got to hear about what the kids here get up to and what they all do. I was even given a personal tour of the city, combining all the big tourist attractions with the best ice-cream parlours, street snacks, and local hangouts where they like to drink cool pure sugar cane juice (way too sweet for me!). They wanted to hear all about London, what and where I studied, what I ate, etc, and I received peels of giggling when I pulled out a couple of passport photos of my stubbly boyfriend! For my last meal with the family, I shared a beer and dried squid (traditional accompaniment I'm told) with Lily's father and husband, and thanked them profusely with 'cam ong's (thank you) for their hospitality. I previously asked one of the volunteers to translate a small thank you message which I wrote out and gave to Lily's family with some small gifts from Bat Trang so despite the language barrier, I hope they knew how thankful I was!

This was such a fantastic introduction and insight into Vietnamese culture, family life, history, food and day-to-day living, plus all the great things GEF are doing to help orphaned Vietnamese children. GEF's future projects sound like they will continue to find homes for these children in small, family and community orientated 'second homes' and will definitely require lots of extra hands to help with building them in the coming months! I greatly appreciate everything Lily and GEF did to welcome me into their fantastic country; I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I'm sure this will be the most memorable part of my trip. I wish them all the best of luck with their future development.

Shanghai

THIS IS THE FIRST OF LAURA VIPOND'S BLOG ABOUT HER INCREDIBLE TRIP ACROSS SOUTH EAST ASIA... READ IT AS ITS HAPPENING AND IF YOU'RE PLANNING A TRIP TO SHANGHAI, POST YOUR QUESTIONS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION....

Destination number one! Shanghai is a mental city - neon lights, bicycles, umbrellas and people everywhere! The very old and very new, plus the very poor and very rich makes the city feel very Blade Runner. It is divided into various districts from the sci-fi architectural playground of the Pudong (Canary Wharf x100) and the Bund's famous British imperial buildings, to the tree-lined avenues and stately homes of the French Concession and the two 'old cities' - one a replica which feels more like a Disneyland China Town, to the fast-disappearing ancient backstreets where I never seen so many different kinds of meat and fish (most of it still alive!).

The highlight for me has been Shanghai's amazing art scene. I stumbled upon a warren of tiny contemporary art galleries and boutique fashion shops and cafes in the south (Taikang Lu); a network of secret alleyways only accessible from a hidden entrance at the back of a car park. It was a world away from the hustle and bustle of the touristy Nanjing Lu in the city centre which is packed full of endless malls and shops (recession, what recession?!). To find the heart of the art scene, I headed out to the north of the city and into an industrial area, where tucked away was a complex of converted warehouses transformed into contemporary art galleries and studios, complete with the young artists on hand to explain their work. I loved this place and returned to it a few times. Between the baffled locals, rich dealers and paint-splattered artists, I sipped my espressos and absorbed the art and the atmosphere. If I had a bit more money to my name I would have certainly been taking home a few canvasses!

Things I have noticed about the Shanghainese (not sure if this is exactly the correct terminology, or whether these things are unique to Shanghai or are ubiquitous to China yet!)
- The women love to wear high-heels, everywhere. The girl in the bunk-bed above me wears hers to and from the bathroom
- The Shanghainese all have tupawear bottles of tea on hand - from green tea, to dry rose buds, unidentifiable leaves, to 'lotus hearts' as a friend explained (good for the organs, apparently. Tastes bitter as hell)
- On the whole, the difference between pavements and roads is ignored, as are traffics lights
- Recession, what recession?! It's all spend, spend, spend in this consumer-driven city
- Coffee is extortionate; often twice the price of food
- There is a deep respect for education and study. The first thing I was asked was whether I was a student, then where and what I studied. The many bookshops and libraries are always packed
- I have seen many couples hand-in-hand wearing matching t-shirts!

MONSOON RAINS IN SHANGHAI

The rain here is incredible. Through the thick heat, there are the odd days of constant rain. Sometimes it storms and when this happens the streets literally fill up with the immense volume of water that falls.
The first time this happened I was on Nanijing Lu in the city centre and within minutes everyone was ankle deep in rain water and endless umbrella-selling street vendors popped up from nowhere! The instant sea of multicoloured umbrellas was a sight to behold. With the crazy architecture and neon lights, the city already looks like a theme park, so as the rain continued it filled up until water was gushing down into the subways and metro stations - I felt like I was standing in water-park attraction! As the main streets are so clean, everyone either waded through the water barefoot, laughing, or headed straight for cover into the many malls and shops lining the street. However, it was not only the people that flooded into the shops, but the rising tide of rainwater too, so shop assistants quickly got to work assembling water barriers on the shop thresholds, then sealed this with clay which was on-hand, ready for such occasions!

Laura's South East Asia Trip

Sally and I met with Laura Vipond today who has just left Rough Guides to follow her dream and do a 3 month trip around South East Asia.

We are putting her in touch with our local Tripbods along the way - Virginia in Hong Kong, Janet in Cambodia, Lee in Laos and Weng in the Phillipines. She will also be meeting other potential Tripbods along the way to meet them and find out more about what they are up to.

Sal's top tip for Laura? Go to the local butchers and ask them to vacuum pack a set of dry clothes, photocopied documents and cash to slip in to your backpack lining for emergencies and in case you get swamped in the heavy rain in Vietnam.

We are looking forward to seeing her pics, reading her blog and watching her video postcards.

Most of all we are wishing Laura a fantastic trip!