Beep beep beep

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The Old Quarter

Hey Everyone

We arrived here safely on Friday morning. after eating beef curry at 2am and hoikkien noodles at 7am on the flight. Very strange. The 5 of us (Ali, Cath, Belle, Ange and me) have been settling in slowly, being ripped off now by only 3 taxi drivers and 4 ladies in the street selling bananas. Its hard to hand over money that says $100,000 (in Dong) and not feel like you are crazy! Took 2 million Dong out of the bank yesterday, I'm loaded in this country!

For those of you who have been here we are staying on Ma May in the Old Quarter in Hanoi. The hotel seemed dodgy as we had to get used to no light in the bathroom and having to climb 100 stairs (6flights) to get to our rooms. But it has A/C and free breakfast so its not so bad.

This area of town is famous for each street being named after the products that the shops sell. So, if its sunny, you find hat street. If you want a leather seat for your bicycle, go to Leather and PVC street. If someone has died, go to gravestone street (seiously). And if you want to block out the infernal racket that is the "beep beep beep beep"of the bloody vietnamese motorcycles then go to earplug street (i wish!!)

We are getting much better at crossing the road. I think all our photos from the last two days are of the traffic, we cant get over it. It's peak hour every hour here, there are no pedestrian crossings and you basically have to close your eyes and walk across. Most of the time the bikes/trucks/cars swerve to avoid you, but sometimes you swear that they are playing "hit the Aussie" and they aim right for you.

We spent yesterday wandering all the streets in 30 degree heat. There are the most amazing little shops with beautiful silks and paintings. There's also the standard asian gifts, fake sunnies/shoes/dvds/cds, but we are trying to avoid buying all that crap because we have to carry our packs down the coast in 4 weeks.

Ange cath and I walked about 5km yesterday to get a massage, so dodgy. My massuese decided to sit on the edge of the bed and pretty much just tickle my back for an hour. I feel so fat in this country, at one stage she was kind of wiggling my thigh around and laughing hysterically, i dont think she had seen that kind of flubber before! Cath's massuese wouldnt let her leave without tipping almost double what she paid for the massage, she was pretty cut when she found out we didnt tip.

We start clinic tomorrow at the National Institute of Paediatrics. Its about 30m drive from where we are staying, the guys who came here last year took motorbikes to get there but they dont have helmets in this country and I think mum will kill me if i hop on the back of one of those things everyday. Hopefully we can get a non-dodgy taxi driver.

The APEC meeting is on here this week,we are planning on getting up early to see if we can walk around the lake with Johnny Howard in his wallabies tracksuit.

Sorry this is so long, have spent the last hour trying to download pictures but not really going well. will have another crack soon.

Love Claire

ps louise can you please forward this to the Wolfe's/grandma/mum/neil/leah/ross. Thanks!

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Comments

[Thea Dix]

hey mate..
Hey mate, have been thinking of you guys. Sounds like you're having a very eye opening experience, Asian countries do that to you I guess. Good luck with your placement, I'm sure you'll get a lot out of it. Look forward to hearing from you again soon, and please say hi to all the girls for me!! Take care, x

[liz nathan]

hey viet crew
greetings from the thailand crew (liz, mish, alana, jessie, giselle, darryn, linsey) we are all staying at the same place, nice little guest house...your free brekky sounds like a good deal! glad to hear your not going to jump on a motor bike just yet.. daz, linsey and giselle have push bikes but in this crazy traffic i'm not that brave! good luck not getting ripped off, but enjoy the bananas! cant wait to see you all for christmas! luv liz

[louise and mum]

lovely rainy mulgrave
Dear claire bear, sally is still swearing since we told her you have moved to vietnam. We worked out where your e-mail was! Sorry! Louise was dense (mum made me type that). It was good to hear your voice and know that your safe (mum speaking). Were so jealous to know your eating bananas...can you bring some home? Mum says she would stay away from the motor bikes too...travel insurance is your friend. Hope your enjoying yourself, love mum and lou

[uncle pete]

hey claire bear, i'm also very glad you're not riding motorcycles on mad streets, as i'm sure grandma would be too. sounds like you're having an amazing time, and you look very blonde in the photos!(did you get to the hairdressers before you left?) keep safe. pete ps. i got your sms at 1am!!!!! (i'm a very tired puppy today)

[Laura]

stuff & nonsense
Yay! Have finally worked out access to your blog - nice hat - hope you're bringing one home for grandma - think she'd love it... Told you that you'd need all those tissues - go team! Not much to report here - same old stuff - Tim and Matt are finally going to play squash tomorrow - think it's been about a month! Matt left his jumper behind at our place again on Sunday night so is nice to see that he's functioning the same without you - only a couple of weeks now and he'll be over there - hopefully by then you girls have got enough street smarts to keep him out of trouble! Looking forward to hearing bout clinic and more adventures! YAY - that Dean is out of Idol - was very relieved cause Damien got through first so Jess would have been kicked - not cool - a week and a half till the final - Matt will still be here - excellent! Will have a grand final party - but Neil is not invited cause he talks too much! Anyway, should get some work done - have fun!

[kenny]

G'DAY MATE!!
hey hoochi momma, and hoochi momma's friends!! great to hear you arrived safe and sound, and that you're enjoying yourselves. absolute comedy about the massage, but it's your own fault really, should've got one of your friends to do it for you :P just wait, go back after 4 weeks of going up and down 6 flights of stairs, see who's laughing then... YIT!!! really good to hear from you - look forward to your next post! :D kenny