Hoi An

Sorry this took ages to upload! We have just spent 2 days in Nha Trang where we went to the mud pools and some of us went on a street food tour. Great organising from the team! We are off to da lat today to start our trek tomorrow. Happy new year!! 

Hi everyone, 

We are currently on a sleeper train to Nha Trang so thought it might be a good time to give a little update of what has been happening. 

Christmas Day was certainly different this year and all the students enjoyed playing with the children and giving them gifts. We started the day with Santa hats filled with lollies left at our hotel doors, had lunch at the centre and played with the children. We had games of badminton, threw balls, played chess and had games of monopoly going. We also finished off all our painting. After our goodbyes, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach. We then booked a nice restaurant by the river for dinner and invited our translators out too. After dinner we did secret santa which was fun - some of the team got dried sardines! 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boxing Day we started our journey to Hoi An. Hoi An is a short 30min bus ride from Da Nang so we spent the morning back at the beach. 

 

On arrival to Hoi An, we found some food and then straight to the tailors to be fitted for suits and dresses.

 

Some of us may have got carried away (Miss Paulin) and now need to lug around two winter coats in the humid south of Vietnam. Totally worth it though!!! 

A couple of us even got some tailored leather shoes. It is such a fun town and definitely somewhere where we would have liked to have had more time. (Or at least Miss Paulin would have liked to spend more time at the tailors..) 

 

One of the local dishes from Hoi An is called Cao Lao - it is a noodle dish with pork and croutons and is very delicious. Most of us have had it for dinner every night. 

 

 

The next day, we went on a tour of My Son which are some ancient ruins. We took a bus there and then came back on a boat where we ended up in the old town of Hoi An. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          

We had an explore around the old town which is really

cute and then we all had fittings at different tailors. Today was much the same with final fittings and looking around the town 

 

We spent some of the afternoon with team 1, who have been working with homeless and disabled people. It was quite a shock to see but nice to see familiar faces from the other team. Sorry I didn't manage to get a photo of the two teams together but this dude was so cool. 

 

Back onto the bus to Da Nang after dinner to catch our train. Left at 10.47pm, a few rounds of cards and then all off to sleep. We are on here for about 8 hours and end up in Nha Trang where we will spend a couple more days relaxing before starting our next trek on New Years' Eve. 

Much love to everyone at home. I'm off to get some shut eye - a few snoring beauties in our sleeper cabin of 6 here! 

Pip