Fish Sauce

so, we are here in Vietnam. There is that sense where you want to pinch yourself because you don't quite believe you are really here! But we are and it's great.

Some observations:
- Uniform clad stern looking customs officials at the airport that leave their smile with their lunchbox when they clock in for work. Despite them only being 5 foot tall, I still would not want to mess with them.
- Everyone stares at us, especially Lucy. Where we are currently, there are only approx 30 westerners. So we make up 10% of the western population (Da Nang has around 1 million people we have been told). But they don't stare in a bad way, they are just overawed to see a little white child with blonde hair. Some of them point and then tell their friends to look, others just laugh in amazement. It's quite funny to watch.
- First night in Vietnam and we experience our first powercut at 4am. We only noticed because the hotel power generator was turned on. This big diesel device is located right outside our room. Thankfully we were still able to sleep ok.
- There are smells in Vietnam that we are not used to. Our bathroom is not the type of place you want to spend too much time in if you can help it. :-)
- There are few cars and thousands of scooters (all called hondas, despite what brand they are). Apparently in December last year it became law for honda riders to wear helmets. It has greatly reduced the amounts of road deaths already.
- Just because there are white lines on a road that indicate a padestrian crossing, that does not mean anyone will stop to let you cross. Trick is to just start walking and everyone will drive around you. Although it does not help when you trip up in the middle of the road like Ange did this morning (with Lucy on her back in the back pack!). No injuries occurred, just a bruised ego and another clip on our learning curve ticket.
- oh, and we are millionares of course. US$1 = 16,000 Vietnamese Dong. We're off to Disneyland!

Today we are going to head out with the other volunteers in Da Nang to their placements to have a look at what they do. This will be at the Social Support Centre where there are a number of malnourished children.

Hopefully some photos in the next few days.

10.5 hours in the confined place of a plane seat + 3 year old Lucy = fun times! Actully, she was great. She enjoyed many an hour watching Dora the Explorer and minutes looking through the bag of goodies Ange had prepared her. We landed in Singapore at 12:30am NZ time and were at our hotel two hours later (9:30pm Singapore time) and Lucy was still wide awake chasing porters round.

Today we are just chilling out, catching our breath (as I write this, Lucy is fast asleep on my back in the back-pack). We are off to the zoo this afternoon.

Tommorrow, Vietnam.