Day 27 Goodbye Vietnam

It is 7.30 am and we are about 500 nautical miles from Hong Kong sailing north east on the South China Sea. The outside temperature is a comfortable 26 deg. Sea conditions are termed as ‘glassy. This is, a perfect description. It is as if we are sailing through a watery mirror with barely a ripple to disturb the reflection of the morning sun. We need to make the most of the next few days’ weather. Once we head north from Hong Kong, the T-shirts will need to be discarded for fleeces and jumpers.

Before I return to my impression of Vietnam, can I say thank you to those who have recently commented on my blog. It’s difficult for me to reply in the comments whilst onboard, but I do read your responses with great pleasure, and it keeps us in touch with home. Also many thanks for the donations to DiabetesUK which are beginning to grow. I have now reached 10% of my target.

Vietnam.... what can I say?

Yesterday we joined a private tour around the countryside of Nha Trang. At $50 each it was incredibly good value for money and included an authentic riverside Vietnamese lunch. It was infinitely preferable to being herded on the larger Princess tours, and our guide ensured we saw as much as possible of the ‘real’ Vietnam. Being the only Brits on the small coach meant that, for our survival, we had to discard our ‘reserve’ and become American for the day, but that story can be told in another blog!

Downloading photos takes up so much internet time but this day needs to be told through pictures:

Embroidery Factory

Ancient Temple

View from Riverboat

Rice Paper Making

Conical Hat Making

It took 3 hours for this lady to make one hat. She charged about £1 per hat...I calculate that at about 30p per hour. So our purchase of 2 hats represented 6 hours of work!

Our final visit was to a rural orphanage which cared for 129 children aged from 0 to 16. As there is no state aid, the orphanage relies entirely on charitable donations. I felt uncomfortable at the necessity for the children’s needs to be ‘displayed’ to the tourists in order to raise funds, but in their situation I would have done the same thing.

 As a fellow educator, they let me photograph one of the very basic classrooms. At least I could now be confident that the small donations we made would go much further than similar amounts in the UK.

I loved this country. I would so much like to return. But for now, it’s Goodbye Vietnam.