Aqua madness...and a cheeky 5-some

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A noisy morning wake-up call from some over-zealous children, who we had promised the previous evening to take to the local water-park...so much for a cultural National Day experience! A rather silly idea of ours to go to a waterpark when all schools have the day off! It felt like we were attending a massive gig but without music. We were the only white faces. No other westerners had ventured there. You could not see the water for people...and nowhere to swim. Nevertheless, we had fun on slides, not so much fun caring for the screaming kids, and feeling disproportionately huge compared with the Vietnamese. I did have one instance of feminist invigoration when spying the high diving board crammed with eager boys, wishing to show off to the crowds below...I decided to make a stand and join in. After climbing the metal rungs to the top, the boys whispered and jostled, astonished that a western chick wanted to go. I showed them.

After a crazy morning, we felt in need of a massage. Kat, Hiem, Ann, Hiem's friend and I experienced 90 minutes of 5-a-side (all of us in one room) total, lumbar-cervical-phalangical and metatarsal clicking bliss. After unsuccessfully picking up the silk dress Hollie is having made, we trundled off home to another delicious home-cooked by granny meal of spinach broth, omlettes, pickles, chicken, pork onion dish and rice. Kat continues to amuse the relatives with her amateur chopstick skills-she is having private lessons ;-).

Bring on the mountians tomorrow!

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