Tour of Duty (North Vietnam)

So on the occasion of the Khmer New Year Holiday, when Khmer people flock back to the villages and foreigners flee the country to squeeze in an extra holiday, I hopped over to Vietnam to see Mum and Dad.

After the complicated international babysitting mission that allowed Mark and Tara to come over to the bodge, we (Mum+Dad+me) had decided that Vietnam was the best venue for catching up in Asia. Although I had been there before with Simon in 2002, my photocopied lonely planet told me there were things that I had missed the first time. Plus Mum and Dad paid for everything and we stayed in some nice places which always helps : )

My old boss from AusAID, Kerry, was posted to Hanoi with AusAID so he kindly agreed to put us up with his family at his very luxury apartment which was great of him. It was a really good location and walking distance to almost everything. Unfortunately he and his daughter left the next morning to climb a mountain but his wife Lynne really took care of us.

First of all we visited some requisite museums. Unfortunately due to my incompetence I had scheduled all the museums on the Monday and low and behold Vietnamese museums close on Mondays! The mausoleum of Uncle Ho was closed so we didn’t see his mummified body but we did get to see his museum, house and car collection (apparently he was quite a collector).

The highlight of the North had to be Halong Bay which is just beautiful. Mr. Smooth (our tour guide) tried in vain to break the ice between the mostly grumpy aid workers by karaoke on the bus which I don’t think many were really into. We did an overnight cruise and the food, scenery, cabins were great. Part of it involved exploring some cool caves as well. (although there was a lot of boat traffic heading to see it).

He was really enthusiastic about us going to this rather suspicious artificial beach so we all opted to march up to the sightseeing tower instead. The exception was of course dad who insisted on doing both, up the tower and swimming in the manky water : )

Back in Hanoi, we visited some more interesting sights like the Temple of Literature [the last photo is people's university degrees way back when),, One Pillar Pagoda (which was rather disapointing but I guess the name should have given it away),, Hoan Kiem Lake and the Army Museum (which was a little embarrasing because this guide attached himself to us and we were all a little blasé because we thought he would ask for money at the end, when we found out later he was a student doing his practical tourism experience- we must have seen like real pricks).

Hanoi was actually quite a cool up and coming city. I found this photo of the railway line in amongst people's houses a little amusing. Even the doors open onto it!

Being time poor we then headed off to board a flight to central Vietnam, the ancient capital of Hue.

And before I go here is the quirky photo of my Mum dressed all in black Burkha style outside of the Opera House!

Stay Tuned for the next update! Will Matt murder his parents or will they murder him?

Almost Famous

Hi

Its been a crazy couple of weeks but very interesting. I feel so tired at the moment but there is just too much good stuff going on and i don't really mind : )

Last week we had this random email from these freelancers doing a piece on food inflation costs in Cambodia from the Voice of America (basically this propaganda channel the americans have to show the developing world how great the USA is!). So we originally tried to hijack the story and get them to film the school feeding program (which has now been suspended for the rest of the school year but schools still have some stock to cook).

So predictably the journalists said they couldn't make it that early and we made it 10:3o thinking at least they can meet the kids who had eaten that morning. Low and behold three hours late their car limps into the office and its an Irish guy and an Italian guy (how they were planning to translate without us is beyond me). So we head out to a village about 30 minutes away to shoot some interviews (unfortunately not much on WFP but we managed to sneak in there - Mony is on it talking about people's rice supplies) but not me - who knows maybe that could have been my big break! :(

Mark and Tara came over to Phnom Penh from Singapore for a few days before heading up to Siem Reap then home. It was great to have visitors and judging by the amount of stuff they bought and the amount of food we ate I think they enjoyed it. The highlight was the obligatory trip down to Kampong Speu to see how I do things. Tara had specially requested to visit an orphanage to donate some things so I thought of the one in Kampong Speu (the ones in Phnom penh are getting a bit touristy these days). So after a week of trying to get an appointment we managed to settle on visiting on Sunday morning so we hopped in a taxi down there. It was a little weird at first cos the children were a bit shy but we had brought some soccer balls and volleyballs and Mark thankfully broke the ice to play some games which was great. It was so bloody hot but it was lots of fun getting our asses kicked. Tara showed the girls some games. It was also good seeing the babies.

At Mark and Tara's request the next day at work I organised 100kg of rice and some metal pans for laundry that they had requested.

The weather here has been pretty erratic. For a 'hot and dry season' it has been thunderstorming a lot which Mark and Tara kept getting caught in. The power has been cutting out for most of the day and from about 6 to 10pm so i have abandoned the notion of keeping food in the refrigerator until things improve on that front. Although living by candlelight does sometimes have its advantages : ) Also hopefully i should get 24 hour running water in a few weeks when the new water tank gets installed!

Apart from that I have been going to a few field visits and have some more random photos.

This is Theary (one of our field monitors) at a distribution making the introductory speech introducing the reasons for food aid and other messages. I think you have to squint to see Theary in the middle!
This is a canal gate that Ratha and I inspected just yesterday (grey thing in the background). At the moment they are keeping the water in one part of the canal so the people can grow morning glory (its a legitimate vegetable stop laughing!), watermelon and longbeans to sell.
Otherwise saw this cool critter at the office running across the petank field.

And i made a stirfry using banana flower the other day. This is a banana flower YUM.

The next two weeks I will be in Vietnam with my parents stomping about which is long overdue (although the timing could be different but I only realised that recently :) I have to escort a german TV crew around tomorrow morning though so I hope we finish early enough so i can catch my flight!