Day #17 - Weekend and so much more

I have so much to tell, to describe, to share!!! I have done so many things and... Oh I don't want to go back... I am loving this here.

Cute little one that I wanted to bring to England

Let's start from the beginning which is actually the end... the end of the week. Friday work at the hospital started with a ride in a motorbike in Hanoi. I was super scared but then I loved it. Remember me saying that I didn't go when Nhum offered me a ride and I regretted, well I didn't miss my second chance... Once we got to the hospital, we did lots of cool activities with the littles ones. Was just so much fun. Ok not just for the kids for me as well. We did a puppet show, to tell the story of the three little pigs, we played duck duck goose, we danced the chicken dance (Passarinhos a bailar para os Tugas) and the hoky poky... so many things. Trying to teach the chicken dance to children with their parents watching is just hilarious... they make a lot of fun of you, is just impressive. And of course my little girl that just wants to sit on my lap was there and I made her dance, she smiled when I just put her up in the air (yeah I know that chicken dance doesn't do that, neither the hoky poky but I improvised... eheheheh) It was so cool, I took so many pictures and was just good to see everyone enjoying themselves. Oh and I met this cute little baby girl with whom I just fell in love with. I said to her mom that I just wanted to take her with me and when she told the little girl, she just started to cry. Awww, so sweet, so sweet, so sweet!!! After all the dance we managed to make everyone sit and listen to the 3 little pigs story, and the little girl came to sit on my lap and then another one also came and then... well lets say there wasn't anymore space for anyone to sit.

Watching the 3 little pigs

After finishing at the hospital the weekend started with the trip to Cat Ba island. We took the train to go to Hai Phong where then we would take the ferry to the island, this is a 3 hours trip. Once we got to the train station bought our tickets I asked the lady which platform we would take the train. She looked very confused and pointed in the direction of the train outside. I thought "well that's helpful, how do I know if this train goes to where we want??" so we just came outside to wait for the train and I realized that the train was in the platform waiting for 6 o'clock and there was only ONE train in the ONLY platform of the station!! "Oh that's what the lady tried to say!!! Got it!!" I went to Cat Ba with Eve and Amandine. Eve is blonde and that makes her very popular in this country so while we were waiting for the train the train drivers spent the time checking on Eve and smiling at her. When she just asked to take a picture of them... I think they fell in love. Ah, almost forgot to mention the train... Oh dear, when we saw the train from outside we thought "we will never make to Hai Phong tonight!!" but actually, once we got in it looked pretty ok. Is not the most modern but the seats were good, there was plugs to charge phone or laptop and screens. Oh the screens!! Let me tell you, I spend 3 hours of train journey listening to Vietnamese type of Eurovision show is not entertaining... but we survived. And let me tell you this was not the worst... or the best let's put this way. At some point, while I was almost falling asleep, Amandine does a fast move and wakes me. When I look at her she just says "I think I saw something moving on the floor, I felt something!!", "What do you mean you felt/saw something" - I say. She is French and her English is not very good but she used enough words to make me understand that she saw a MOUSE!!! The moment I realise this I put my legs up and at this time the ladies on the sit next to us, realising what just happened, start to laugh of us. Let's just say that I spent 2.5 hours of the journey with my legs up... my. feet. didn't. touch. the. floor. 

Seafood hot pot

We made it to Hai Phong safely and on Saturday we woke up to have breakfast and catch the ferry to the island. And the breakfast was just something... They had RICE for breakfast!!! Is not enough that I spend the time having rice for lunch and dinner, here at the volunteers house, I also have rice for breakfast in the hotel???!!! You are kidding me, right!!! Well, I didn't have rice or noodles, I stack with the toasted bread with butter and water. Then take the ferry to the island. We finally get to the island and went for some walking around and went to our hostel. Once we got there we ordered food and organized a half day tour around the island. Do you want to know what I had for lunch??!! Seafood hot pot, yeah, exactly that. It is delicious!!! Being in this island I had to have seafood. I have to be honest with you guys, I was worried about getting food poisoned but no, it didn't happen... and thank God because that would have made my afternoon a nightmare!! I could try to describe what a hot pot is but there's no words to make it justice. In the afternoon we went with our drivers (motorbikes drivers... we could have rented a motorbike but the english and french girls were a bit scared so we had drivers with us) around the island. We visit an Hospital cave that was used during the war with Americans, to protect from the bombing, we visited Cat Ba national park and went up the mountain. It took us 1 hour to go up and another hour to get down. I saw this funky spider with yellow and orange head and, what I believe to be a colorful crab. I pretended to be cool about it, but inside... inside I was Freaking out. Anyway, being on top and the view makes totally worth the hassle to go up. And great that was cold that day, otherwise I am not sure if I would manage to just take one hour to go up... I was boiling when I got there. And as I was so scared of being bitten by something I had my jumper and trousers down... so I was really, really, really hot!!

In the jungle, kind of

Trekking in the mountains was really cool and we met a lot of people... Foreigners - locals don't seem to do these things. I met a couple, he is American and she is Dutch and once I started to go down the mountain he told me "See you at the bar tonight!" and I thought "yeah see you at the bar." And guess what we had dinner at the same place and he actually ate the chicken burger that I ordered. This is quite a funny one. I order a chicken burger (yeah I know that right now you are saying, she went to Vietnam and is eating burgers - silly one.) yeah I can still hear all of you, but after so many days eating noodles and rice, I just wanted something different. Moving on... I ordered my burger and waited... waited and waited, once I got my burger I see that is not chicken burger. I call the waiter and told him that my burger was not chicken. He told me it was and I was like "Look this is not chicken, this is beef!!" and he looks at me, confused and say "That is chicken beef" - at this moment all of us look at him with a face like "really??" anyway they took my burger back and bring me afterwards my chicken burger and 50% discount. While I was waiting for the burger with the right meat, Travis (the American we met at the national park) said "hey I heard you ordered a chicken burger, is it this one??" Oh he had ordered a beef burger and the waiter just messed up with our orders and while I (Portuguese, European) didn't accept that, Travis (American, over polite, hungry guy) took the burger he didn't order because he thought they would through the food in the bin. Is just funny. We all ended the night at a bar where all the foreigners go. The bar is really cool, they have a jukebox... well is not really a jukebox, is a laptop where you can go to youtube and choose any song you want to listen at the bar... you end up listening to random music but is actually quite cool. I met people from everywhere, America, Netherlands, South Korea, South America, etc everyone just traveling and meeting at this place. You won't believe how many of these people quit their jobs to go travel for 1 year... so many stories and so inspiring. I had conversations about everything and anything, is just so good to meet people with so different and random life stories, so interesting lives around there. And I have to say that tell someone what my job is, is just hilarious... even more if they are from countries like South Africa, where Cadbury is like "The. Brand." Anyway was just really good evening. We went home at 3 in the morning and really happy... probably drunk as well.

Cat Ba beach - Paradise for me

Sunday we went to the beach. Dam' it was perfect. Beautiful beach, warm water... a paradise on earth, I am still amazed. Then we had to start the journey home and once we got back to Hanoi and took the taxi, the fun was not over. Our taxi driver was just insane!!! We came in a taxi with super loud electronic music and the taxi drove like we were in Fast & Furious 8!! I was in the middle on the back seat watching every. single. move. I thought I was going to die. Luckily I am still here to tell you all about this craziness.

Now I am just having my last two days at the hospital. Today we played with the little ones and when we were leaving, this little boy, that is usually always with us came from his treatment and he was so disappointed because he missed the activities... I felt so guilty for leaving him!! So I promised him that tomorrow we will do the same thing together. Feels so weird to leave them, I wish I could stay here for longer. I can't believe that it's almost over...

Day #3 &4 - I arrived in Hanoi

After 23 hours of traveling I finally arrived in Hanoi at the Volunteers house. My journey until here it was good with some setbacks. I did Paris to Doha, Doha to Bangkok and finally Bangkok to Hanoi with Qatar airways. If you ever have the chance to fly with tis airline, take it!! They know what they are doing. My flight to Doha was on the A380 - 800 and that thing is like a city on air, you can even have access to wifi. The food is quite good, they keep feeding you every minute and you can watch all kinds of movies - they have a great selection!! (If you haven't watch Big Hero 6, have a go is quite good movie) I had to do 2 stops which was quite tiring but gave me the chance to walk around a bit and do some exercise. Also I had the best smoothie ever at Doha airport and managed to loose my passport in Bangkok.

I always thought how does it feel when you hear your name loud around a massive airport... well now I know and I don't want to repeat the experience, because for a couple of minutes I thought "F#$%, f#$%, f#$% what am I going to do??" and almost cried until my "prince in white horse", aka Thai policeman, came to rescue me with my beloved passport! Ufa, safei-me!!

First thing once I arrived in Hanoi was "Dam' is so hot in here!!" it feels like you can't breathe, you just start to sweat and there is nothing you can do (for the Mondelez guys, imagine the worst hottest days in V4 office with all the windows closed - yap just like that!). Getting in the car with air conditioning is like being in heaven and you can finally feel normal again. It took me a bit to get used to this again and I think now I feel ok. It's not the temperature that is too much, is the crazy humidity - and oh my hair, yep this curls are getting wild!

On our way to the house, the traffic is just insane. They hit the horn for anything, you see people riding a bike with a small caravan on the back with someone laying down on a hammock and enjoying his ride; people crossing the road in the middle of the motorway and a man peeing on the side walk park without turning is back to the road - funny and insane as well.

Had my introduction to the house, is very simple but has everything and well it is an ONG so they have better things where to put their money on. we also had a neighborhood tour where we went to heck the local market. Apparently, one of the specialties here in Vietnam is dog. I saw one cooked in the market, they also had the face with teeth. I think I want to try but I cannot erase that image from my head. But I promise to give it a try, on the first day I believe it was too much.

Had my first meal, it was curry no big deal but it was good. After that we went for drinks to this local "bar". By bar I mean plastic table and chairs on the street and we had some bia, vietnamese beer. It was cold so to me it was good already. After that going to bed was just perfect. I didn't feel any jet lag but I was tired after all the traveling.

More new things to come tomorrow.

Day #1 - Arrivée à Paris

First leg of the trip accomplished, I arrived in Paris safe and sound. However, backpacking was not made for short people! While I was packing last night I decided to remove some things because I thought I might have more weight than I am allowed to take. Well, let's say that I am quite far from that. My backpack weighs 14Kg, yeah I am only taking 10Kgs of clothes with me for a 3 weeks trip (the other 4kg are the children books that I am giving to the hospital). And thank God that I had the brilliant idea of removing weight because the backpack is so heavy but so heavy!! that if I add 2Kg more I won't be able to stand on my feet. And every time I have to go up stairs I feel like I am 150Kg heavier as the weight of the backpack seems to drag me back down the stairs - I never thought that I needed to do special work out to carry a backpack... to be honest I never really thought of how it feels to carry 14Kg on your back. Now I know it is dam' hard!! And not enough that the backpack is so heavy, it is also massive, I feel like a snail with all my house on my back and I always have the fear of falling back - if that happens I will look like a turtle because I won't be able to turn and bring myself up. And by the way, if you travel with a massive back pack and then you have a small back pack as hand-luggage how do you carry both?? Oh so many questions!!!  

I guess I should have tried to carry my bag before today but that for me it is going too far in the organization/preparation side!! 

Once I got rid of the massive backpack, meaning checked my luggage I went to the designated gate to board and I see this guy queuing ahead of me, and he is massive... and when I say massive I mean in both ways, vertically and horizontally. I check my ticket and I realize that I have a B seat, so it means no aisle, no window I am seating in the middle and guess who is next to me?? exactly, the massive guy from the queue!! Lucky I am this small otherwise we would have shared a lot more of the "same space".

Day 1 done, now it's time for family and relax a little in Paris city.