Sunshine, Beer and Pool

Good evening from Hanoi,

This has been another busy week finished off with a lovely relaxing weekend in the beautiful Ninh Binh. The weather is now changing in Vietnam with Becky feeling cold for the first time today and Rob feeling cold overnight. When we say we are cold this means we need to trousers, a light cardigan (optional) and the Air-Con probably has less of a need.

Becky is currently writing this from her school Tran Phu whilst Rob has had the morning off and is on his way to unfixed lessons this afternoon. In our timetables a large portion of our lessons are fixed; in fact Becky has an almost entirely fixed timetable. There are then spaces where BME can ask us to teach lessons quite last minute. If they email you after 20:00 the day before a morning they need you to teach you get paid extra and after 09:00 on the morning of an afternoon you are asked to teach. Inevitably the email always seem to come through 10 minutes before this cut off! Becky got a last minute text this morning informing her that her school was opening earlier so she had 10 mins to dash out and get to the taxi. Luckily she was up and does not take long to get ready. She was then observed by our employer in a grade 2 lesson which went well. Normally your academic lead will observe you and Becky has Thuy who is really nice. She took lots of pictures of Becky introducing halloween teaching. We give the students a bit of information on halloween this week and then next week we make halloween masks with them and can dress up if we want. Of course we are both very likely to do this!

Typical of what a bike might carry in Hanoi

Last week flew by as the time here seems to. Rob had an enjoyable week and had fun doing his grade 4 and grade 5 projects. Grade 5 were doing holidays and grade 4 were making passports. Rob had quite a chilled week in his secondary classes as they have an exam this week so the focus was on reviewing subject matter already learned. The level of English is quite low in one of his schools so although he had taught them well he isn't sure how this week will go for them. Fingers crossed they all smash their exams. We remember teachers worrying about us during examinations and now we have that feeling. Becky has got review lesson weeks this week and is going overboard to ensure her students remember all the vocabulary and sentence structures learned. On Thursday last week Becky went to her kindergarten lessons by bike and then helped with a grade 8 class cooking pork spring rolls which was fantastic. We then decided to binge on an amazing take away that evening. On the Friday Becky and Danni were at Thuy Linh and had an enjoyable afternoon. Becky played the zombie game with her class and Hang took some great photos! Becky and Mai had a great class with our grade 3's and we are very excited to be doing a halloween project with them soon. On Friday Rob had another relaxing day not having to speak much as his students did interviews about their summer holidays with one another and drew pictures of their dream homes.

Zombie in action (credit Hang)

And now there are more zombies... (credit Hang)

Becky demonstrates zombie with her cutest grade 1 (credit Hang)

Ready for Friday teaching! 

The cutest little gem <3 

Danni with new friends 

Grade 4 project

Grade 4 project

On Friday we headed off to Ninh Binh for the weekend. We were unsure if we were going to make it as our original booking cancelled on Thursday evening due to flooding in the region. We also checked the forecast and discovered more rain, wind and a typhoon were due and it might hit that area but also Hanoi, where we live. Thanks Joanne for giving us the heads up. It was quite difficult finding somewhere to stay but we ended up at the Tien Truing Hotel. After finishing work and snacking on french bread and camembert we headed off to the train station to go to Ninh Binh with Liv, Sabrina, Emma and Rachel. The journey was just over two hours and we had booked the budget hard seats. It was actually quite a pleasant experience and Rob, Liv, Sabrina and I decided to have a bit of a beer party on the train to pass the time. We had such a laugh and even made the train guard laugh a bit when Liv asked if he could give her free beer. Hey you never know!

The look of love between Liv and Sabrina

Our remains

Group selfie

 We arrived at our hotel around 23:00 to fortunately find it was open and not under water. It was a bit confusing at first, we were put into a room that looked nothing like our booking and were extremely confused. Then the hotel owner came in, discovered our air con was not working, and moved us into quite a nice, swanky room. He also spoke to us in very fast Vietnamese whilst we nodded and smiled and then hugged us a lot! It was bizarre but also quite nice... we think? We played a couple of games of pool, had dinner, more beer and then headed to bed.

Rob and his new friend - hotel owner

Me, Liv, hotel owner

The following morning we got up to walk to the Mua Caves. It was a boiling day, the complete opposite of what we thought the weather might be like. All of us got sunburned. Becky has caused some envy in already looking quite brown though.... There were tan lines galore but we all made it to the top of both pagodas for some stunning views. On the way to the caves we cycled which was an experience Becky kept saying is 'so Vietnam'. It was sad to see the flooded rice fields along the way and several drowned buffalo. The impact of the devastating floods on the people of Vietnam is catastrophic. We could not actually get down the road to Mua Caves due to flooding and had to be taken across by boat by some locals. We were happy to give them our custom given their main source of income has just been destroyed. Even once we got there we still had to wade through some water.... Rob and I are becoming seasoned pros at walking in floods and we feel our weekend trips have a bit of a theme.

Rachel, Liv, Me and Sabrina (Credit Emma)

Wading through water

On our boat

Queen and Princess

Post-walk coke

Dragon on the pagoda

Rob and Liv

Sabrina and the view

The view 

The flooded rice fields we had to cross

So Vietnam - Liv

After the cycle back we went out for lunch at a lovely restaurant called Chookies where we had a bit of a boozy lunch. We headed back for a nap whilst the girls went shopping. Unfortunately we discovered many of the sites we wanted to see were shut due to water levels, so much like Cat Ba, we feel we may need to revisit Ninh Binh. In the evening we drank our nice white wine over a few games of Sevens and Rummy with Liv and Sabrina before heading down for drinks with Rachel and Emma and of course getting more beer. When it got late we decided to order some interesting pizza. At the time it tasted like the best pizza ever... on inspection in the morning we weren't quite sure! We played lots of pool and were joined by Danni, Rachel P, Caitlyn, Emma and Olivia.

An intense round of cards

We felt a bit knackered the next day but were still up for breakfast! We then discovered the massive pagoda we wanted to visit was also not open due to flood water so we relaxed around the hotel in the sunshine, played more pool and then went to the Chookies beer garden down the road where we all ate a lot of good food and relaxed doing things like watching Mad Men (for Sabrina) and reading our ibooks/kindles. It was then time to head to the station for the journey back. This time our carriage was less glamorous and felt more like the authentic Vietnamese train journey (ie. barred windows, armoured shutters, flickering lights and general overcrowding). Nonetheless we played rummy and drank our beers and had a good journey, even when the lights kept randomly turning off. Liv, Sabrina and Rob enjoyed watching Becky read the 50 shades style book she had downloaded and it resulted in a lot of amusing conversation. We grabbed an SUV, got back home and everyone went off to plan for Monday and head to bed. It was a really relaxing weekend and we can't wait for our next trip.

Sabrina loving Rummy

Next weekend we are heading to Halong Bay for a BME trip and of course we will post lots of beautiful photographs.

Until then, lots of love.

Rain, Rain, Go Away: Volume 2

Good evening from Hanoi,

This last week or so has been another busy week. We last left you when we had been to Mai Chau and were headed back to Hanoi. Apologies we have not posted earlier it has been a bit manic here in Hanoi and we have only just got around to it.. so there is a lot to update you on.

Danni and Becky post rain!

Amazing Mai in her poncho

The week of teaching started, on Monday 2nd October, with Becky receiving a love note from a pupil at Tran Phu. Becky also watched some of the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations which involved lots of dancing dragons. Therese and Becky made some new friends in the playground and took obligatory selfies with them. On Thursday Becky had quite a hard day because she was left without a Teaching Assistant at Hoang Liet. This might sound a bit of an odd thing to say to anyone reading this who remembers school or is a UK school teacher but firstly we have the problem of dealing with the language barrier. When you are teaching Vietnamese 6 year olds they do not understand basic phrases like be quiet sometimes. On top of this we are teaching classes which can consist of over 50 students. If even 5 of them decide they are going to run riot then the whole class descends into chaos. This makes having a Teaching Assistant with you, and a good one, really crucial to quality and lack of stress. In the majority of our lessons being without a TA is difficult but manageable but with the baby grade 1's it is an absolute nightmare. Only one of the four classes went smoothly because there is an amazing girl who speaks incredible English and Becky appointed her as TA - see picture. She is terrifying. Luckily after these classes Becky had a really good Kindergarten session and then there were Rob's birthday celebrations - more about this to follow. On Friday 6th October, as well as being Rob's birthday, Becky had Grade 3 project day at Thuy Linh which was amazing. Several of her students wrote I love teacher or I like teacher on their projects. They had to make name badges for this session. Becky awarded prizes for the best projects including a tiara and cuddly rabbit.

The crew at Tran Phu

This girl plaited Becky's hair

Photo credit: Photo credit: Mai Dế

Project Day at Thuy Linh (Photo credit: Mai Dế)

Best Friend

Photo credit: Mai Dế

This girl won Best Name Badge by a girl

Becky's terrifying replacement TA

SELFIE

Mid-Autumn Festival dragons

Becky's TA Yen B

This week on Monday 9th October Becky received another note at Tran Phu from the same girl... apparently it is a drawing of Becky teaching... although she is teaching Maths so we think the girl might be a bit confused; sweet nonetheless. Yesterday Becky had a really good morning at Thach Ban B and an equally fun afternoon at Thuy Linh with her amazing TA Mai. Last night Becky, Rob, Sabrina and Liv ended up grabbing a pay day curry post gym session! YES finally after over 7 weeks of being here we have been paid. Rob had to collect money for Liv, Becky and himself so was keeping his fingers crossed that nobody robbed him on the way. He had around 50 million dong on him. 

Rob had a really good week of teaching last week. All of his grade 3 projects went really well and he was very happy, in the end, that Becky had invested in snazzy coloured card for these lessons. He was quite amused at the student who he awarded the squeaky hammer to, who rather predictably immediately started whacking it on the desk! He did then warn her that her Vietnamese teacher might not be very happy if she carried on so abruptly stopped! On Friday 6th October Rob insisted on wearing his party hat to school as it was his birthday. The students loved this. This week Rob's secondary classes went quite well, his students have a test soon so they were having a review lesson on all the subject matter learned. Becky and Rob met for a quick lunch on Tuesday 10th October between moving schools and grabbed some pho, hot chocolate and iced americano.

Happy Birthday Rob!

On Thursday 5th October we went out to celebrate Rob's birthday in the best way possible - by eating steak and chocolate cake. Rob really enjoyed his evening. Becky got him a propaganda poster as a present and organised a trip away at the weekend. The meal was really good, we were joined by Dan, Liv, Sabrina, Louise, Emma and Rachel for a fantastic bunch of steaks and multiple glasses of wine. Becky invested in sparkly party hats for the occasion and some nice white wine for pre-dinner drinks. We all then ate Rob's rather girly chocolate cake and sung happy birthday. Rob is feeling very old now he is 24. Becky is less of a cougar with only a 2 year age gap. Rob definitely doesn't milk the few weeks where she is 3 years older... honest. The next day Becky made him a packed lunch for school which consisted of, haribo gummy bears, a chocolate muffin, ham and cheese baguette, pepsi and steak crisps. Rob enjoyed this and got to share some out with fellow intern Siobhan Hughes.

COCKTAILS

 After school on the 6th October we jumped in a taxi and headed for Hai Phong for the weekend away. We left in pouring rain and arrived in pouring rain. We had hoped the forecast was wrong.. but boy was it not! Our hotel was really swanky, we were greeted with drinks upon arrival and shown to our room. After freshening up we headed out to Texas BBQ for dinner. They had laid out flowers and balloons for the occasion and we enjoyed a really lovely meal there involving greek steak and feta pizza, fajitas, calamari and nachos. It makes us ravenous just thinking about it. After dinner we met Liz at Fox bar for a few cocktails and then headed back to bed.

Rob in the hotel foyer

Texas BBQ restaurant 

Texas BBQ meal - photo credit to Texas BBQ Facebook page

Rob in our hotel enjoying bacon and egg for breakfast

Views of Hai Phong

We had an early start on the Saturday. We were trying to get a boat and saw a sign with a boat on so happily got the tickets. It was actually a bus with a company called Hadeco. We googled them and were rather nervous when we saw all the 1 star reviews. They took us on the bus to an island nearby where we then got a boat which was pumping out a horrendous amount of suspicious smelling gas. When we arrived we got onto another bus and we were quite pleased with how it was all going. Becky was tracking the journey on google and informed Rob and Liz we were about 4km away from the hotel. At which point, in the pouring rain, we hit what seemed to be a big flood, hence the blog title. We went through the first bit and then the coach randomly pulled into a petrol station. Nobody told us anything and we sat there for a while before Liz went out and asked what was going on. The driver said he was going to wait two hours whilst we watched other peoples' buses go past... including many who had arrived on the island later and had come from Hanoi (much further). It was very frustrating. So we decided we were going to walk through the water. We secured our belongings, put our macs on and changed into more practical shoes and then we braved the water. At points it was close to waist high (maybe not for Rob) and was consistently dark and murky. The road surface was uneven so we had to be careful. Bizarrely it made a frustrating morning into a hilarious afternoon and we had quite a laugh doing it. Many locals gave us looks as though we were mad. Once we safely came out of the flood water a lovely Vietnamese man pulled over and offered us a lift straight to our hotel. This boosted the morale of the group.

On our boat

Liz entering the flood

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY (photo credit: Liz Dyer) 

Photo Credit: Liz Dyer

Rescued

We arrived at Cat Ba Dream Hotel and went to clean our legs thoroughly before heading to lunch at the Good Bar. We all had a bacon cheese burger and beer. It was needed. We then went back for a nap and spent the evening at dinner and getting quite a few cocktails in... it was happy hour after all. Cat Ba looked beautiful at night with all the lights and the floating restaurants. On the Sunday we grabbed a hangover breakfast and then explored, ending up at a beautiful beach. Rob and Becky then had to grab a coach to head home. This time a much better experience with a company called Cat Ba Express who gave us water and snacks on the bus. We enjoyed our weekend, it was good to relax outside of Hanoi but we will need to go back to explore Cat Ba properly.

Liz goes for it

Special friends - Liz and Becky (photo credit Liz Dyer)

Liz and Rob

To round off a wonderful and busy week we grabbed dinner at 4Ps with Sabrina and Liv and then had a few cocktails at the Skyline Bar which was amazing.

Until next time!

l-r Sabrina and Liv