Good morning - we're in Vietnam!

After the relatively laid back pace of Sri Lanka, the crazy hustle and bustle of Hanoi was quite a shock to the system when we first arrived! I initially thought that there was some sort of motorbike demonstration going on in the city centre, but no, this was normal traffic in Hanoi! 5 or 6 lanes of motorbikes, bicycles and buses come in every direction, constantantly sounding their horns. The pavements aren't any safer with either cafes or workshops spilling out into the path or rows of motorbikes parked, forcing you to walk in the road - very scary! People carry incredible loads on their bikes too we saw whole families of 4 piled on to a bike and possibly the strangest sight was a live squealing pig tied up and balanced on the back of a scooter!
Crossing the road was another test to overcome. The trick is to just walk slowly and predictably and amazingly all the traffic just seems to flow past with just a few honks on the horn. Once we had overcome the initial fear, we really enjoyed getting to know the city with our genuine photocopied lonely planet. The old quarter was busy and exciting, with people getting on with their daily lives and not really paying us much attention. We easily spent 2 days soaking up the atmosphere as we wandered around.
Our first taste of Vietnamese food was an interesting one - rather than go to the typical tourist spots for a drink, we decided to sit down at a pavement cafe for what we thought would just be a drink. The next thing we knew, we had a plate of strange looking 'meat', some leaves, rice paper and something strange wrapped up in banana leaves. All the locals and boys working there thought it was hilarious that we were there and studied us closely to see what we would do. We couldn't very well just walk away, so with the help of the old lady that worked there, we managed to roll ourselves a few pancakes and forced them down. As we left, we asked the lady what we had just eaten and were told in broken English/French that it was pigs ears!
After a couple of days in Hanoi (with some much nicer food) we took a night train to Sapa, which is in the hills, 10 hours north of Hanoi. The night train was surprisingly comfortable and we arrived to see the sun rise over the paddy field terraced hills - it was stunning.
From Sapa, we trekked to a couple of hill tribe villages, accompanied by the local guide and followed by a procession of young girls dressed in their traditional tribal clothes. They were adorable, but as it turned out, incredibly savvy business women! After practising their English with us the whole way, they produced their wares towards the end of the trek and the typical conversation went as follows:
Girl with bambi eyes: "You buy from me?"
Us "No thank you"
GWBE "Yes thank you"
Us "No, I can't I'm sorry"
GWBE "Sorry for nothing!"

Sapa and the surrounding hills were absolutely beautiful though and a great experience. Most of the people living there work in their small villages on farms or making clothes and will never leave the area. They were incredibly welcoming (albeit more so if we bought a purse) and showed us a completely different side to Vietnam, which we loved.

Unawatuna

After almost a week at the school in Maskeliya we were sad to be leaving as we felt that we had just begun to scratch the surface of what this project was all about. The kids and the staff where just beginning to get used to having us around.

We took the bus from Hatton back to Colombo going through some of the most ridiculously beautiful countryside you can imagine, it was unreal, mountains rising up over forests which blanketed the landcape plunging into the valley with waterfalls carving their way down the slopes! From there we jumped on a train south towards the city of Galle. The views from the window of the train summed up the many sides of Sri Lanka, miles of slums followed by the Mount Lavinia hotel (huge and posh!) followed by more slums. There was also much evidence of the 2004 tsunami that has had a huge impact on much of these parts of Sri Lanka, it was very grounding to see.

 

Once at Galle we took the short tuk tuk ride along the coast to Unawatuna with a rather strange and sad guy who was convinced we would buy him beers if he hung around long enough, yet another side to Sri Lanka I guess. Unawatuna is a beautiful coastal village that in recent times has become quite a popular spot with tourists and Sri Lankan's alike due to its long beach overlooking the Indian ocean and populated with bars and restaurants from one end to the other. We quickly made ourselves at home at the Nor Lanka hotel (a must if you ever make it to this part of the world). We spent our anniversary relaxing on the beach, taking occasional dips into the ocean and eating fresh pineapple, it wasn't bad I must admit!

We spent much of the time eating well for the few days we were there, Nor Lanka did a pretty fine rice and curry (best so far!) as did the South Ceylon (a close second!), which was a short walk down into the village.

 

On our final day we had a few hours to kill before we had to get the train back to Colombo to call time on Sri Lanka and move on to Vietnam, he thought that after a morning in the sun we should relax in a local bar and watch some beach cricket unfold, unfortunately, the batsman was a little too keen swung the cricket equivalent of a haymaker let go of the bat and it can flying straight at Jill. Fortunately no broken bones but and after much fussing and apologising we left the game to draw to an end.

 

So that evening we reached the airport and made the short hop over to Thailand and then on to Vietnam!

 

Galle Fort

Unawatuna beach

The guilty cricketer?

 

Tea Leaf Vision Maskeliya

We have been very busy since our last update - helping at the wonderful Tea Leaf Vision school, which Yas and Tim are doing such a fantastic job of running; climbing Adam's Peak (all 4,800 steep steps of the Buddhist pilgrimage, through the clouds to the summit), relaxing on the beautiful beaches of Unawatuna in Southern Sri Lanka and then travelling to Hanoi, Vietnam via Bangkok.

Our week in Maskeliya was such a unique experience. We settled into village life in the heart of the tea plantations and were almost like minor celebrities, with the locals popping out to wave and say hello as we wandered around. There were a couple of very surprised children pointing and shouting "foreigners" when they saw us - I'm guessing tourists aren't that common in these parts! We cycled up through the the hills and came across a group of children playing game of cricket who were more than happy for us to get involved. Even though most of them don't have much, I've never met such friendly, smiley people in my life.
The landscape around Maskeliya was probably the most beautiful we have ever seen, with tea covered rolling hills and large lakes set to a backdrop of waterfalls and mountains. I don't think we would ever tire of the views.

The teachers working at the Tea Leaf vision school, who only last year were students themselves, are doing an incredible job. The students, most of whom couldn't speak a word of English a year ago, are now learning complex grammer and took part in a speech conference last weekend - which even I would have struggled with! The students were lovely and very excited to have Miss Jill and Mr George at their school. They were keen for me to sing a song in class - obviously have never heard my terrible singing voice!
Yas and Tim are still facing problems with funding this amazing project, so if anyone wants to help go to: tealeaftrust.com and click on 'fundraising and sponsorship' to donate. Once we had seen this first hand we realised just how important the job is that they are doing.

A few photos below:

The view from where we stayed in Maskeliya

The summit of Adams Peak

George with a few of the students at the school

Yas and Tim with some of the teachers

Chaotic Colombo and Cultural Kandy

Hello followers, Jill and I have been in Sri Lanka for 4 days now and are loving the diversity of this amazing country.

Sri Lanka welcomed us in style, the taxi we got was described as modern and luxurious, what we got was a van with no seat belts, a couple of metal bars to hang on to and the only AC was a half open window to let in the 30 degree heat and choking smog of the various cars, tuk tuk's and ornately coloured buses. After a 2 hour taxi ride through the chaotic streets of Colombo and having to ask for directions from the armed police we arrived at our guest house and promptly fell asleep.

We managed to get ourselves up and alert enough to have a walk around Colombo, seeing some of the sights and sounds on offer. It is a very impressive city, very busy and bustling, although not hugely attractive.

The following day we jumped on a train from Colombo to Kandy which winds up through the hills and has some of the most amazing views in Sri Lanka, the landscape here is unreal. We managed to get ourselves booked into a nice guesthouse overlooking the lake which sits in the centre of the city overlooked by the hugely impressive Temple of the Tooth, a Buddhist temple which is one of the most significant in Sri Lanka. We spent the next 2 days wandering around Kandy, checking out the markets which were very entertaining and we felt like celebrities with all the attention we were getting (see video). We also visited the Temple and some traditional dancing, very touristy but good to see. It was good to spend time in Kandy as it's such a great city, very attractive and the people are very friendly.

This morning we headed south by train to Hatton, again through beautiful countryside surrounded by the most amazing schenery. We met Yaz and Tim and are currently in Maskeliya, a small town in the centre of the tree plantations were they have set up the Tea Leaf Trust.

Getting slightly nervous...

We're all packed and almost ready to go. My backpack is currently 3kg heavier than George's which is very unfair - he blames it on the mini straighteners and multiple bikinis which I can't live without!

We're now homeless, car-less and unemployed - think it's about time to leave the country!

We have one more day in sunny England before heading off on our travels. Our first stop will be Sri Lanka, where we are meeting up with Yas and Tim and helping out at the Tea Leaf Trust school. Links to the website and a very inspiring video of what they have achieved so far are below. We absolutely can't wait to get there and experience it ourselves.

http://www.tealeaftrust.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGx9_zb2phc

We will make sure we keep the blog up to date. Hopefully hear from you all on email soon