I wonder where they are now....?

STATS: Day count=256; theft count=1; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=5.5; Chris’ photo count=2131; Emma’s photo count=110; touch-typing char/min=247; Poi skills mastered since last post: None We’ve been working at the Tat Kouang Si Bear Rescue Centre now for a little over a week, and in true Project Management style it is time for a focus on Lessons Learnt: Valuable Lesson #1: Don’t leave your iPod lying around The very observant amongst you may have noticed a dramatic increase (from 0 to 1) in the ‘theft count’ statistic in this post. The guest house we are staying in is great – clean room, friendly staff, balcony overlooking a river, TV, fridge etc. Even the fact that it sits under the flight path for the local airport which is only a few km away is not a problem since, as with everything else in Laos, planes are infrequent and basic and sitting only a few tens of feet below a landing propeller plane is quite interesting, if somewhat noisy. Unfortunately however, I h...

STATS: Day count=245; theft count=0; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=5.5; Chris’ photo count=2080; Emma’s photo count=110; touch-typing char/min=247(improving!); Poi skills mastered since last post: None The journey from Dien Bien Phu into Laos was similar to the previous one – bad roads and slow progress. The difference was that we had to get up at 4am for the privilege. Initially buoyant with the expectation of a vaguely comfortable ride, there only being 4 other people on the ‘stretched minibus’ (maybe 30 seats), we lounged around and stretched out and relaxed. Then, at 5:30am we set off. First stop was to load two 100+kg bags of…something…onto the top of the bus, for which all (or rather both) of the males on the bus were roped in to help. Then we progressed very slowly through the next few towns, picking up more people and more goods of all descriptions – from bundles of dried noodles to parts from an industrial water pump. All of the goods were crammed into the back of ...

STATS: Day count=233; theft count=0; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=5.5; Chris’ photo count=2054; Emma’s photo count=99; touch-typing char/min=240; Poi skills mastered since last post: None Hanoi is said by many we have met to be very different from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). I didn’t think it was all that different, Emma did. Either way, it was busy, hectic, packed with shops and parks and, in general, we liked it. Shops, especially around the Old Quarter where we were staying, seemed to be grouped based on what they sold – there was a ‘toy street’, a ‘shoe street’, ‘sewing street’ etc. We learned to navigate around the city not by street name, but by what the nearby shops had for sale. The fashion for the women here seems to be to wear pyjamas all day. I’m not sure it will catch on in London. The men wear olive green pith helmets, often sporting the Vietnamese star, whilst the women wear the infamous conical hats on sale in every tourist shop. Given that these forms o...