Anna N

After spending two weeks in a classroom we were all really eager to get into the field work! Our first stop was the Phlippine General Hospital, which is one of the biggest public hospitals in the Philippines. At PHG and other public hospitals even the poorest of the poor will be admitted. But to my surprise we learned that there are separate wards for those who can pay for their treatment and for those who can't. So while the charity wards were litterally bursting from the overload of patients, upstairs on the ward for the paying patients they were carrying in TV:s to the empty rooms. We also learned that, for the indigened everything else is for free, but you have to pay for the medicines and i.v.-fluids by yourself. So if you really have no ... read more

I have to say I've been quite nervous about this trip. Although I've travelled quite extensively, I've only travelled alone on very few occasions and for only a few days at a time. So a 2 months trip alone in South East Asia made me feel a little bit uneasy and restless. And yes ok, 1 month out of that I'm attending a course so I won't be alone, but still. But all the nervousness just magically disappeared when I sat myself in the plane seat. I know how to do this, I felt. After all it's not exactly the first time I'm travelling... The whole trip to Hong Kong went really well and I found the hostel without difficulties. During the first night at the hostel I was tossing and turning in my bed and ... read more

We left New Zealand at 6.30 pm on Sunday and after a 11 hour flight we arrived to Santiago at 2.30 on the same day! Very confusing this date line business... We were a bit of a mess, but had decided not to go to bed before the evening, because we wanted to prevent getting a bad jetlag. Our host Carlos came to meet us at the airport and kept us busy the whole day making sure we didn't get to bed at any abnormal time. We went out for lunch after which we met up with Carlos' friend Majid. We went up with a gondola to one of the biggest hills in the city, which had amazing views by night! Next day we imagined we would get up at 10 am, but we simply couldn't ... read more

After 3 months in South East Asia it felt a bit like coming home, when we landed in Australia. Everywhere is clean and pretty quiet, all the streets aren't completely full with people and the traffic is very organised. The cities have lot of nice parks and gardens... It felt good to be in a western country again. It just makes life so much easier that people understand what you say, you understand them and you pretty much know how it all works! Although I have to admit, that I didn't really remember how it all works in a western country. Those who have been to Asia know, that the only way to cross a street is to just start crossing even if there are cars and scooters coming your way, otherwise you'll never get to ... read more

Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse after the bus ride from Hell... We arrived in Vinh and we're dropped of at a random street somewhere. As our guidebook didn't say anything about the place, we didn't have a clue of where we were and where we should be going and we didn't have any Vietnamese currency, only a few US dollars. A small comfort was the fact that we weren't the only ones with this problem. We were accompanied by two malaysian guys we met on the bus who didn't have a guidebook nor a map. We started walking and it was cold and humid. We arrived to Vietnam on the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration which meant that almost everything in the country was shut down and had been ... read more