Prologue

Heya Folks,
I realise I left the last post hanging somewhat, total avoidance tactic on my part. Trying to write a Farewell post while still in Hanoi seemed like a premature admission that the adventure was over...trying to write it now, back in the UK, seems impossibly detached. But I'll give it a go!

Trying to sum up the past year of my life in a medium as futile and inadequate as 'the English Language' is a near impossible task, and I've already made my peace with the fact that whatever I write below about my experiences in Hanoi will fall monumentally short of describing accurately the crazy, random and amazing adventure of the past 12months.

Leaving my job, home and life in the UK and heading out to Hanoi with only a volunteering contract and a handful of contacts was one of the wildest, most daring and, as it turned out, most successful risks I've yet taken. As is the way with things, it was completely unmonumental in the moment of happening; getting on the plane at Heathrow was merely the formality of 6 months of planning, packing and hard graft at the YHA.

The first few months passed rapidly, despite long days of boredom in which I started to question my motives and reasons for coming out here at all. Could I really stick this out for the next year? Memories always filter out the crappy bits, so I was reminded again how frustrating it can be to work with teachers, systems and languages unfamiliar to you. I had met a handful of Vietnamese friends and other foreigners, but annoyingly many of the other volunteers stayed only for short contracts, never more than a month and sometimes as short as two weeks.

In trying to summarise the shape of my year I'm pretty sure that I will miss out and forget bits, which will later be re-edited into the post. But in the short space of a few weeks between New Year and Tet (referred to in Hanoi expat-lingo as 'Actual' New Year and 'Vietnamese' New Year respectively) I came into contact with two groups of people who would jointly transform my life in Hanoi for the better and make the next 10months of my trip the most incredible fun they could possibly be.

Firstly, through fellow volunteer Emma and indirectly through this website, I met some fantastic Vietnamese students who ran a weekly conversation club at a local cafe. Unlike many other situations I've found myself in in Hanoi, I never ever felt like the token foreigner-attendant at the club, and it was barely a few days before these guys became firm friends.

A 12-volume encycolpedia dissertation wouldnt come close enough to singing the praises of these guys. Having friends 'on the inside' was invaluable in a city where everything is foreign and unknown. They went out of their way to help me with shopping, jobs, getting haircuts, bicycles, translations. fixing computers and even took me to the local dentist when I couldnt afford the international one.

More than that though, over time these guys became close, very close friends. Quite aside from the trivialities of 'getting on' in Hanoi, I found myself completely a part of a Vietnamese social scene that included karioke nights, cafe lunches, trips in and out of the city, street eats, films, parties and consumption of vast quantities of ice cream. I gelled really easily with the Vietnamese attitude towards socialising and having fun; the ease and spontaneity of social events, the (without exception) openness, warmth and compassion towards new and old friends, and the seemingly radical notion of nights out without alcohol. I loved every single minute of it. If the future of Vietnam is in the hands of such intelligent, hardworking, open, earnest, friendly and compassionate young people that I was so very very lucky to meet, then its got nothing to worry about.

Secondly, from a chance meeting in Sapa and again indirectly through Couchsurfing, I met Ashton, Pavi and a whole host of awesome ex-pats who were staying in Hanoi longer than the average volunteer I'd thusfar encountered. Hurrah! I'd loitered awkwardly on the fringes of the ex-pat scene since I'd arrived but from February onwards I got stuck right in. Having new and awesome expat friends to hang out with, suddenly Hanoi's social scene was fun, friendly and 'exciting'. ['exciting' needs air-quotes as the expectations are diminished somewhat by Hanoi's limited options for hang-out spots]. The group was fantastically diverse and ever-changing and through them I discovered so many favourite places to go that most weeks we hung-out 6 or 7 nights out of 7. The Top hang-out and default centre of operations became Jomas Cafe on Dien Bien Phu; I do believe that between us we tried every single item on the menu and filled up loyalty cards in rapid succession. The R+R Tavern Tuesday Trivia became a staple ingrediant on the social timetable, and a major resource in the quest to mingle and make friends and contacts. I never thought that I would eventually co-host the quiz, but nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed doing so. [I still maintain that 'Famous Facial Hair' and 'Characters by Mr Potato-Head' was the best table round in trivia history]

I couldn't possibly list all the awesome things we did together, the rest of the blog is testament to that, but some nights remain truly legendary. Indulging in what we nicknamed the 'Hanoi Crazy' during the Autumn Festival and later the 1000yr celebrations was particularly memorable, for the surrealism of what we were experiencing as well as the awesomeness of having such great friends to celebrate with.

For some reason the memory of driving to the airport to wave off Raven as she set sail for the Philippinnes sticks in my head. There's a reason why xe oms dont go there. Yes it was crazy, Yes it was dangerous, Yes it was unwise, Yes we ended up with bugs/grit stuck to our face, Yes we nearly hit a cow on the airport road. But we did it with the best of intentions. And hindisght paints a lovely picture which I'll keep in my head for a long time yet.

I cant even begin to explain how much I miss these folk, so I won't even try. They Know.

There's more to say but I'm tired and this is reading like an essay. Congratulations on making it this far. I promise to add pictures, and more thoughts soon

SarahHeadsWest xx

Goodbye in words not-my-own

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes" - Henry David Thoreau

"Don't be dismayed at goodbyes, a farewell is necessary before you meet again and meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends"
- Richard Bach

Small Things I'll Miss

I thought it might be wise to compose a list of the 'smaller' things that I'll miss about living in Hanoi, as they will no doubt be overshadowed by tomorrow's 'Goodbye' post (which, by the way, I have yet to compose and whatever I do write will be hopelessly inadequate in saying all the things I want to say)

No less important, the following are a few of the finer details of my life in Hanoi that I'm going to miss so very very much...

• Eating with Chopsticks
• Nights out without alcohol
• Wearing flipflops
  
• My bicycle, and cycling everywhere
• Geckos on my wall
• Unashamed sentiment
• Being paid in cash
• Street breakfasts
• Iced Tea
  
• Cheap treats (thus necessitating frequent indulgences)
• Time for things and people
  
• Spontaneity and Ease of socialising
• Teaching in barefeet
• Fresh-tasting Fruit
• A million other things that will occur to me later today...

SarahHeadsEast xx

"A short and a long day"

...was how my friend Tan described our countryside roadtrip yesterday, a chance to see Vietnam that-is-not-Hanoi just one more time before I leave on thursday. I was looking around for things to fill my last week, and having pretty much exhausted my 'Hanoi bucket list' I decided to go to Hoa Binh, just for the hell of it.
We must have covered around 400km in total, much of it through backroads and dirt tracks, passing tiny rural villages that still constitutes the majority of Vietnam's landscape. I'd all but forgotten about this in the rapidly 'ascending dragon' that is Hanoi's development.
We dropped in on Tan's relatives, before meeting friends of friends, who took us to their tiny Muong village of Son Quyet. I was completely overwhelmed by a) the peacefulness and simplicity of life there, and b) the open-ness and friendliness with which they welcomed us. We had a fantastic lunch and then wandered around the village, including dropping by at the local school (*row of three classrooms). I'd forgotten just how much of an oddity a foreigner can be, but sure enough before long I had a pied-piper procession of children as I walked through the village.

Later in the afternoon we had tea in the family house of Cham, who is an English teacher in nearby Hoa Binh city. From seemingly nowhere, a singing game was started and we were encouraged to share songs. It would have worked great if I could think of a single appropriate English song on the spot....I sang 'Yesterday' and messed up the words.
I was rewarded for my efforts with this though...Cham's mother singing a traditional Muong song which was so beautiful it gave me goosebumps. You'll have to 'Ahenny' to see it but its worth it

How lucky am I?

On the way back to Hanoi, we stopped at the site of a giant statue of Uncle Ho, who simlutaneously presides over Vietnam's first hydro-electric dam, and an awesome nightscape of Hoa Binh city.
The whole day was just amazing and I left Son Quyet with a promise to all my new friends to go back and visit. Ooops.

SarahHeadsEast xx

An Ode to my Feet

I think it's fair to say that my feet have taken abit of a battering over the last 12 months. Having not seen the inside of a shoe for near on 8months, they have stoically padded their way around the assault course pavements in Hanoi, skirted rice paddies in Sapa, templed at Angkor twice, danced the Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes approximately 300 times, and paced the shopping malls of Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok and Saigon, not to mention powering my bicycle ALL over the city in the pursuit of work (I once memorably crossed water to go into Hanoi's *Gateshead* for a job worth $10, but thats a story for another day). And to do all that in beach flip flops? I decided it was time to thank them with abit of TLC.

I got a perfect opportunity for some foot-appreciation in the Siem Reap night market, when we tried out the Fish Foot Spa.

[disclaimer: the experience was alot better than the following explanation of the process will make out]. Brave tourists are invited to plunge their feet into a pool of cold water and have their skin 'nibbled' by hundreds of tiny hungry fish!
It's a sensation quite unlike any other and occupies a hazy grey area somewhere between the feeling of pleasure and pain. After some initial public humiliation by shrieking when my feet first went in the pool, I found the whole experience really enjoyable. And I cannot deny that my feet felt fantastic afterwards. All the pavement bashing of the last year seemed to melt away.

So there you go guys. I let fish eat me, but it was all for you!

SarahHeadsEast xxx

Jam-in-a-Bag

Heya Folks,
Spending one of my last few weeks in Asia in Cambodia, visiting old friends and making new ones, is one of those random and unexpected pleasures which have so characterised my life here, that it was just So meant-to-be. I adored Cambodia on my trip there in march this year; overwhelmed in equal measures by its poverty, beauty and brutality. Angkor Wat of course is beyond amazing. So when I heard that Sarah, an old friend from University days, would be interning in Phnom Penh, I jumped at the chance to visit her, and see this amazing country again.

Getting the bus over to Phnom Penh from HCMC was surprising easy and cheap, though I discovered to my misfortune that Vietnamese bus passengers enjoy air-conditioning....full pelt, for 7hrs to Phnom Penh. I know I'm British but I was *freezing*! Arriving like an ice cube into the bus station with a fun new stamp in my passport from the Moc Bai/Bavet land border, I quickly thawed out and got a TukTuk across town.
I set the same strict budget and aimless itinerary for my first few days in Phnom Penh, happy once again to let the city pass by me. The best bit of the trip was being reunited with my namesake university chum and ex-housemate, made more than a little surreal by being in Cambodia!

I couldn't help but be in awe of the work that she and 7 other girls were doing in Phnom Penh; as speech and language therapists working tirelessly and relentlessly to train doctors and nurses to deal with speech and language disorders previously massively understood. Truly an admirable task and, most importantly, sustainable. You rock guys!
Most people are content to see Angkor Wat just once in a lifetime; I felt so incredibly lucky that I got to see it again this year, and its magnificence certainly didn't diminish with a repeat visit. The weekend will forever remain memorable for the 'sunrise breakfast' on our day of templing.....Jam-in-a-bag. Instantly hilarious to anyone walking by as we ate, there was something so completely surreal, and hysterically funny, about trying to scoop out jam from a plastic bag and spread it on a baguette while perched on one of the world's oldest and biggest religious ruins. Strange-the-Places...
SarahHeadsEast xx

Saigon Oi!

Heya folks,
I've just returned from a week away, a sort of valedictory tour to squeeze in *just* *one* *more* *trip* before I set off for the long road home next week and my funds run out completely. Though I've been away from Hanoi for more than a week, it seems that for the whole trip I have been surrounded by my friends-in-far-flung-places, and that has been an unexpected joy.
It all started with a weekend of birthday celebrations (not my own) in Ho Chi Minh city, shared with my expat friends Ashton, Pavi and Devang. As a city HCM has a massively different feel to that of Hanoi, so much so that it seems much like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur; we appreciated the cosmopolitan-ness without feeling too much that we were 'cheating' on Hanoi and the city we know and love.

Walking around Ben Thanh market brought us a stark reminder that we were still in Asia, and we were surprised by the aggressive selling techniques of the storeholders, who would literally pull us into the stalls! One thing thankfully lacking from Hanoi's markets.

As I'm always a fan of a good cityscape (making up for lost ground in KL), we found this one from uber-posh Sheraton hotel rooftop bar, where we went for birthday drinks on saturday.
I decided to stick around for a few days in Saigon, as my bus over to Cambodia was not until midweek. Partly poverty-driven, I set no agenda other than wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere of the city. I met up with some fabulous Vietnamese friends of friends, who did a terrific job of showing me around their city. We had some terrific South Vietnamese food (sorry Hanoi, it really was good) and then a platter of cheap chinese desserts which, though tasty, was not a patch on Hanoi's condensed milk delights (yes! Hanoi-1, Saigon-0).
We deviated a little from *must-do-Vietnamese-things* on the following night when we had an awesome Indian meal in district one followed by cocktails at the Hard Rock Cafe. No, I didn't know there was one either.
It was a great trip that I was lucky to share with some fabulous friends, but by wednesday morning I was getting a little bored and ready to move on to the next bit. Which was handy...

SarahHeadsEast xx