Good Morning Vietnam!

Hello home sweeties,

more than a month has passed again ... puhhh the weeks are just flying by and it's time for a new blog post.

😃 whoop whoop

Currently we are in beautiful Vietnam. We will split the posts about Vietnam into 2 parts because 2 months for one report is just too much :).

First of all, we had considered riding our motorcycles from the south to the north... shortly after our arrival in Vietnam, we received an offer from Paul (the nice guy we met in Malaysia) to start volunteering in Hanoi for 3 weeks from mid-May; "Yes, of course we're in!" :) That's why we decided against the bike tour. It was too stressful for us to ride so many kilometers every day for 2 weeks in a row... but the buses and trains in Vietnam are also great 😉.

But let's start at the beginning...

After crossing the border from Cambodia to Vietnam, our first destination was Can Tho. A beautiful town on the border of the Mekong Delta famous for its floating markets. But our first mission after arrival was to find a delicious Pho Bo... which is an incredibly tasty noodle soup with beef strips that are thrown into the hot soup just before serving and then slowly cooked in the broth. The soup can be seasoned with chili, pickled vegetables, garlic, and fresh herbs. Traditionally eaten for breakfast, you can get it at any time on every street corner in any larger city - yummy! 😋

Full of energy, we got up at 4:30 am the next morning! to visit the floating market... Normally not at all our time! 😅 Our homestay mom organized a boat for us, and a nice Vietnamese lady took us up and down the Sông Cán Tò River from 5:30 to 12:30. I can tell you, it was hard work (for the mom, not for us)! The Vietnamese people in general are a mega hardworking and hardworking bunch! We encountered that many times on our trip...

Unfortunately, due to the modernization that is taking place throughout Asia, the floating market is no longer as large and spectacular as it used to be... nevertheless, there are still many sellers on their boats selling fruits, vegetables, coffee, clothing, and everything else you need... they present their repertoire on long wooden sticks that stick up into the sky at the front of the boat. It was an interesting colorful hustle and bustle and really nice to see.

As a gift, our Vietnamese mom made us figures and crowns out of bamboo fibers 😄. Mega sweet!

We then continued by bus to Ho Chi Minh City... (the buses in Vietnam are really awesome by the way!) we spent 2 days here and visited the city and sights like the War Museum... a very interesting and at the same time disturbing experience!

On the recommendation of Anna and Giuli (thank you both!), we also visited the Rehan Photo Gallery. The French travel photographer travels to the most remote places in Vietnam and photographs and documents various ethnic groups throughout Vietnam. The photos are incredibly beautiful! In the gallery, traditional costumes are also exhibited, which he brings back from his travels.

We also had the luck to see some of the women in their traditional clothing on our bike tours... like from another world! 😍

And this Vietnamese coffee... we could drink coffee all day long... with sweet condensed milk and ice. In the south, the Vietnamese mix the rest of their coffee with green tea. Not bad at all either. 😋

After the big city, it became more rural again... and cooler. Da Lat is located about 1500 meters high in the mountains in the middle of Vietnam, so the weather is much more pleasant. Unfortunately, we didn't have much luck because it rained a lot. Nevertheless, the landscape was very beautiful and the time there was a welcome cool-down from the otherwise hot temperatures.

Next stop: Hoi An... we love Hoi An. Yes, it's very crowded but simply wonderfully cozy. It's fun to explore the small alleyways with the old traditional wooden houses by bicycle. There are small shops, restaurants, and cafes everywhere.

We arrived in Hoi An around 5:30 am on the sleeper bus. Because our room wasn't ready yet, we immediately grabbed bicycles and rode around the city. At that time, there wasn't a single tourist on the streets... only locals having their Pho for breakfast and their coffee in the small street cafes we love so much... wonderful! Because we were so tired, Sergi once again found the perfect spot... a small cafe right by the river that consist of nothing but hammocks... here the locals relax and drink tea during their break... you can only find something like this in Asia 😄.

Also highly recommended is a tour to the Hai Van Pass in Da Nang near Hoi An. From up there, you have a great view and beautiful winding mountain roads!

Unfortunately, we had to leave Hoi An way too early... we were a bit pressed for time...

On the way to Hanoi, we visited Phong Nha and Ninh Binh. Two charming places with a wonderful environment and perfect for zooming around on bikes. Just the way we like it! 😊

Phong Nha is the perfect spot for any cave lover, and if you're a fan of the latest King Kong movie, you should visit Ninh Binh, as some scenes were filmed there. The route was a very nice conclusion before 3 weeks of Hanoi city life and "work" 😅.

When we arrived in Hanoi, we didn't know what to expect... we had the name of our host mom and an address, and we knew that we would be teaching English at a preschool or kindergarten. So far so good... Mine already had a little bit of experience through her volunteering in India and the refugee course, but we were still quite nervous... when we arrived, our volunteer colleague Leslye greeted us, who has been working at a school here for 1 year... good thing we had an experienced roommate who also speaks English 😅 she told us everything about the routine and life here. We lived with her, our host mom Anh, and her three-year-old son Vu in a 3-room apartment a bit outside the city. The first few days were still together with Ambar, whose lessons we then took over.

The overarching organization behind everything is Change for Coins. The organization was founded by a single mom for single moms. The idea is that the mothers take in and provide food for volunteers and in return, they receive a small financial support and English lessons for their kids. Each mother also has a small sub-organization that they manage themselves, and Change for Coins takes care of recruiting volunteers. This also involves English lessons for children of all ages.

The two of us worked in a kindergarten with students aged 2 to 6. We had lessons every morning from 8:45 to 10:45 and in the afternoon from 14:30 to 16:00. The groups changed every 30 minutes, so 4 groups in the morning and 3 groups in the afternoon. Ohhhh, the kids were so cute... we already miss them a lot! 😍

Because many of them are still so young and don't even speak their own language properly, it was sometimes quite difficult to achieve success 😅 every day, you ask the little ones again, "How are you?" and every day, they just repeat what you said instead of answering 😅 well, after a few days, the initially probably too high expectations of ourselves and the lessons loosened up a bit, we got into a good groove, and took it all a bit more relaxed 😄 we had fun with the children, sang, danced, and played games, and just hearing the language and trying to repeat words is already good preparation for later proper English lessons.

On the last day, two of the little kids peed in the classroom... that made us realize again that some of them are really still babies... yes, that's the Vietnamese education system... the earlier education starts, the better! We have a slightly different opinion, but different countries, different minds 🤷🏼‍♀️. On the other hand, the older kids were already much more advanced than the little ones, and the lessons were much more than just entertaining in English 😊 they already had the common phrases down and counting to 10 was fortunately no problem either... a good foundation to build on 😉. However, some children were much further along than others, which made teaching a bit more difficult because you want to encourage the "better" ones, but the "weaker" ones also have to keep up... our advantage was that there were two of us, so we had double the teaching power... and we were a really good team 🤓 oh, it was great! We are extremely grateful that this opportunity came our way!

On Monday and Friday evenings, we had classes with three teenagers who wanted to improve their English skills in addition to regular school. That was quite relaxed because we could design the lessons ourselves and the three already spoke pretty good English, so we could discuss some more challenging topics 😉.

We were also really lucky with our host family... everyone was just super nice, and at some point, we really felt at home. It was also nice to be in one place for a longer time and have a little routine... getting up in the morning, taking the bus to work, seeing the kids every day, and having dinner with the family in the evening. On the weekends, we went to museums, parks, or ate crazy things in the real local places with Anh, Vu, and Leslye... if we had free time, we would explore Hanoi City together, visit the Ho Chi Minh Museum (the corpse in the mausoleum is a fake, local birds told us) and the Temple of Literature, or walk through the crazy train street... here, the adjacent houses are built so close to the tracks that you have to pull in your feet when the train passes by... just crazy. To this day, we don't know what was there first, the tracks or the houses 😂.

But our favorite places were the local so-called "Bia Hoi" places... here you can get cool freshly brewed beer for the equivalent of 30 cents, plastic chairs, peanut shells on the floor, and a wonderfully authentic Vietnamese atmosphere... you can even find these wonderful places in the smallest villages in northern Vietnam and we love them 🙌🏼.

In the second week, we only had to work for half of the week because it's vacation time in Vietnam, so we took a little trip to the countryside to the Ba Vi National Park. Only 2 hours by bus and you're in a completely different world. We stayed at a super cute traditional homestay in a small village, enjoyed the idyllic landscape and the fresh air, and played with the cute puppy dogs... ❤️ sweet life!

Well, what else is there to say other than that Vietnam is a magical place with lovely people, breathtaking landscapes, great food, and delicious beer... 🤷🏼‍♀️ That's it... so we're wrapping it up, folks... Part II of "Good Morning Vietnam" will be in the next post, and now we're going to explore the north a little bit more 😘.

We love and miss you very much!

Peace & Love

Sergi and Mine