We Crossed the Road

---

Hi Everyone, this is Fiona. It's hard to write much more everyone seems to be summing up our trip very accurately. My thoughts on Ko Phangnan were that it was mind blowing. I would never categorize myself as much of a beach person, but this might have changed me a little bit. The weather was amazing. It wasn't too hot and most days we had a nice cloud cover to keep us relatively cool. The water was the perfect temperature, just enough to cool you off. When the sand and sun got a little overwhelming we just retired to our hammock. So it was such an amazing two days. I think it was really important for us all to decompress a little bit. A lot can be learned from relaxing on a vacation. So it was great. And our celebration with Tay and Breen was one of the most fun nights I've had on our trip so far.

So now we are in Hanoi after 48hrs worth of every type of transportation available. Long-tail boat, taxi, ferry, bus, train, plane and another taxi! There were a few stressful moments, namely when our train was a half hour late getting to Bangkok, but overall everything went smoothly. (Even if a bit long)

So far Hanoi seems great and a little overwhelming. Our dinner that Sabrina mentioned was delicious. We've all learned the beauty of spring rolls that are "fresh" and not deep fried. We'll be eating those againg. We were all wondering about the possiblility of a Vietnamese cooking class b/c we enjoyed our Thai class so much.

After dinner we headed to a local bar to watch a "football" game. We did have to cross a main street which was very intimidating. After we realized no one was going to yield to pedestrians we just charged out into the road and hoped for the best. Because the majority of motorists are on mopeds it wasn't as scary as it could have been. You'd be surprised at how skilled they are at evading us. (Just kidding all you Moms, no worrying) We made it safely and as Rebekah would say earned a little more street cred'.

We easily found a pub showing the Vietnam/Qamar (sorry if I batched the spelling I just learned of this country's existence this evening) game. The crowd was about half local half tourist and pretty subdued at first. As soon as Vietnam scored the crowd went wild. There was cheering and high fives galore! So it was a great experience. As we walked back to our guest house we noticed everyone along the way was watching the game.

Right now I'm waiting for our air conditioning to be fixed. There are just some luxuries that are worth paying for. It is incredibly hot here, and we haven't found any relief from the humidity either. I'm waiting with crossed fingers to see whether or not our air-con will be fixed at a reasonable hour this evening. Otherwise we'll move over to another location owned by the same company.

Well I hope this finds you all well and we appreciate you taking the time to read all our entries. Take care.

P.s. the maitenance guys just came down into the lobby so it's looking good.

---