Fiona in Vietnam Part 1

Rice harvest in Sa Pa

Our guides in Sa Pa

I'm back after nearly two weeks of travelling and apart from my flights booked and the first night in Hanoi, it happened "organically" and everything worked out perfectly. I feel as if I've been away longer and managed to not touch a computer, read three good books and meet lots of interesting people as well as try and see as much as Vietnam as I could. So for me to remember what I did I'm going to write a sort of diary.




Day 1 - Arrived at Hanoi and got shuttle bus into the city and found my backpackers in the old quarter. Spent the day wandering around and trying to organise what I would be doing over the next few days. I met a lovely Australian girl in my dorm and we went out for a delicious bun cha which was noodles, pork and lots of salad with mint and coriander. We then went for a walk around the lake and the whole of Hanoi seemed to be doing the same. It was a lovely atmosphere with families walking, chatting, dancing and eating the lime and mint icecreams! Yes the streets are full of motorbikes and it is crazy trying to cross the roads but I loved the buzz.

Day 2 - Left early on a mini-bus for a 1 day tour of Halong Bay. It took about 3 hours to get there but I chatted the whole way with a South African lady also travelling on her own. Halong Bay is VERY touristy but it was beautiful, as you'll see from the photos and we were very lucky with the weather and the diverse group on the tour. I was glad I had chosen to do only 1 day but it was well worth visiting. We got back before 9 pm and then I started to panic as I had to be on the overnight train to Sapa which left at 9.30. Our bus guide very kindly offered to take me by his motorbike and before I knew it I was off whizzing through the streets of Hanoi with no helmet, jumping red lights and having great fun!!


Day 3 - I slept like a log on the overnight train to Lao Cai and arrived about 6 am, being collected by minibus to Sapa for my 2 day trek. Sa Pa is a small town set high in the mountain range of Hoang Lien and is where many of the H'mong hill tribe people have settled for centuries. This was a place I had wanted to visit for ages and I would have stayed longer if I could have. Our women guides, dressed in traditional costumes, with babies strapped to their backs, were there to meet us and we set off on our trek which was wonderful! Three of us who walked quicker, formed our own group with our guides and the scenery and the rice terracing was just breathtaking. We arrived at their village for lunch and immediately were mobbed by ladies selling their beautiful embroidery crafts. I was such an easy target and of course I did buy from our lovely guides and yes no doubt they ripped me off but for all the time and effort they spend on their spinning, weaving, dying and embroidery, they are very welcome to my money. We continued our trek in the afternoon and finally reached our lovely homestay about 4 pm. It was much "posher" than my Laos homestay and had hot water, a sit down toilet as well as wifi! We had a lovely meal and rice wine and then it was early to bed sleeping on the floor with real quilts for the cool nights.

Day 4 - I was up early and able to soak in the amazing scenery with the high terraced mountains and river flowing through the valley. It was harvest time and everyone was busy with cutting and threshing and drying the rice. The textiles were my great interest though and they showed me how they grow and use the indigo plant to dye the hemp that they hand spin and weave on very narrow looms. The women, spin or embroider at every spare moment and it takes 3 months just to embroider  a sleeve but because of the recent tourist interest the young generation are keeping the traditions alive. More trekking in the morning and then after lunch I sadly had to go back to SaPa to await the bus and overnight train to Hanoi. I met a charming young German couple so the time passed quickly and of course I could more shopping!!

Selling postcards?!

Buffaloes on our path!

All ages helping!

One of my guides

Day 5- A very early arrival in Hanoi at 5 am but again a good night's sleep on the train. I had to decide the best way to get to Hoi An and chose the overnight bus as it was cheaper than the train. I spent a day wandering around Hanoi - eating, reading and visiting a few sites and then was ready for my pick-up at 5. 30 pm. Eventually got on the overnight bus at about 7 pm and slotted into my capsule where I would be spending the next 18 hours. These buses are fantastic - air con. toilet and wifi and again I slept really well and enjoyed looking at the countryside out the window - not like the old days of travelling!!
To be continued......

Our homestay in the mountains

When the story ends, the memories remain

This beautiful fan given to me by some teachers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7CN7umchg My English! ELTDP

This week I was very fortunate to have been included in a few of the mentors farewell lunches with their teachers and it brought me back to September 2013 when I had too was starting to say my farewells. I don't think I could go through the tears shed and the emotional strain of that again but I have much empathy for all the mentors parting from their lovely warm, friendly teachers. The bond that grows between the mentors and teachers is  usually very special but of course there are exceptions and there may well be a few teachers and mentors who will not be shedding tears!

  I also took my dear neighbours out for a meal on Saturday night to my favourite restaurant on stilts in the Gaya lagoon. We had black pepper prawns, crab, grouper and the sunset was beautiful with colours that were magical. Bertie, who has just celebrated his 77 birthday, is a very active person who is constantly strimming, sanding or banging a piece of wood, which at 6.30 in the morning isn't always wonderful but he is always there if I need him and he drove me to the hospital when I broke my arm and on Sunday helped to put my bicycle wheel back on and has a spare key when I lock myself out! Rozalind is a diabetic and really can't move very well but tries her best to keep active - my malay is as bad as her English but she likes me and send plates of dahl or fried bananas when she is cooking. Sophia, as you already know, is my great friend and I will truly miss her. We spend most Saturday mornings together, walking to Tuaran, looking at bundles, gossiping and having our noodles. She recently heard that she is being made redundant in the new year and feels the sewing isn't enough to keep her going and pay the car. Anyway she went for an interview yesterday at the posh hotel Rasa Ria and seems to think it went well so let's hope that a door closed will open another for her.

Bertie and Rozalind

Which is what I'm hoping for too. There are talks about another extension to this project but I won't be coming back and I am applying for jobs which is a new thing for me, entailing updating my CV which is ancient! So in the last few weeks I am just trying to capture and remember the beautiful sunsets and everyday life of Sabah. However, I am off to Vietnam on Saturday for my last Asian adventure trying to see another country I haven't explored. I have my first night booked in Hanoi at a backpackers and after that I'm just going to see what happens! I am slightly nervous but I know that adventures are fun and I will have lots to tell you!

Time to leave my house!

Ranau Market

This is my second attempt at this post and let's hope that this time I succeed. My computer is having a sick turn which may result in a hospital visit soon I fear! Anyway, it seems like lots of things have happened since I last wrote and I hope that I can remember at least some to recount to you.The final zone meeting at the Sutera Harbour Hotel, came and went very quickly with a happy relaxed atmosphere. On the last day we rented the little hotel theatre and had a "premier" of the "My English!" film which I have been organising and working on with Cara and Damian from the film company of Scubazoo. Yes they do normally film animals or creatures in the sea but they have done a great job in capturing the beautiful children in the schools around Sabah and Sarawak. We are also in the final editing stages of a short film about the Storybook Initiative and last Friday they asked Anna and I to answer a few questions to fill in some gaps in the film. I arrived with my usual no make-up, unbrushed hair look to find Anna with her hair done and make-up on. We were filmed near a beach and I'm hoping that most of mine will be cut as the contrast will be like Beauty and the Beast! Here is the link for My English!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7CN7umchg

Sabah and Labuan Zone Meeting

 The other momentous task that has been going on for months and weeks and is now printed and distributed amongst the schools and teachers is the Resource Book. It looks like a professional book and everyone seems pleased with it and only a very few will know how many hours went into all the editing, proof reading and formatting but we did it and it is finished and I can forget about it now! There are a few more storybooks in the pipeline with Linda from Oyez Books but mostly apart from just seeing my mentors for the last time, I have more or less finished all my mini projects and will now have to think of packing, clearing my taxes etc...The ringgit is losing value by the minute so lots of people have decided to spend it here before they leave so I might go on a basket buying frenzy!

Lungkiam and me

 Last weekend I went up to Ranau to my favourite Slagon Homestay and caught up with Lungkiam and Othman and saw a few friends around Ranau. I was also invited to a wonderful barbeque at one of the mentor's houses in Ranau which featured a whole roasted pig which was lovingly turned on a log fire for many hours and was delicious. I then headed off in my little Myvi over the mountain road to Pitas which is 95% finished. When Emily was a mentor the road was not sealed and now it is practically all new road to Kota Marudu and although very steep in places the car managed fine. I stayed the night with Rosniah and her family who you may remember I met in 2011 at the Bahai camp. We have kept in contact and she has now another baby and moved to Pitas where all her family are. They are just renting a very small house until they can afford to build one of their own and they were incredibly kind and welcoming and I slept on a mattress on the floor with Rosniah and the baby while the husband and the two children had the only bedroom.

The beautiful Rosniah and Tabrice

Children from the village

A kampong house in their village

  There have been mini-symposiums, meetings and consultant visits but I think no one is really interested in that but I do have some news about my house.I went to work at 9am last Friday and when I came back at 5 pm the neighbours orchard of huge mango trees, rambutans, durians had been cut down and the bulldozer was clearing the land. He has sold the plot to a Chinese family and very soon construction will start and change my quiet living. You can now see my house from the lane and I'm no longer hidden from sight - definitely time to move!!

 

The view from my back door!!

The World's Indigenous People Day 9th August

Bajau

Murut

A Dusun Bobohizan

   As I board my fifth flight of this week , stay in my second  5 star hotel in a week , I feel a total fraud and that someone is going to find me out! I know that it is not going to last and I am going to crash down to reality very soon but yesterday really did seem like an out of body experience. I was invited by a bookshop in Kuala Lumpur to give a talk on the Storybook  Initiative. They paid my flight and expenses so I just had to come and do it! I arrived in KL early afternoon and discovered that my hotel was on the route of the first City Grand Prix and it was very crowded and difficult to reach not to mention the noise level being very high but it was my first experience of being so near cars going at that speed. After managing to shout to check in I set off to find the book shop where there was a board outside saying “Fiona Wright talks on the Storybook Initiative to celebrate the World’s Indigenous People Day” ! So this was the place in the lovely Silverfish bookshop and now I just hoped that not many people would turn up. It started with about ten people and ended up with over thirty as people arrived late or just drifted in from the shopping mall. My audience was very varied and I had a few children, a group of teenage boys and every other age group up including an elderly lady. I ended up the talk with a reading of “Itut-Itut” which was unplanned but seemed  to be a success. So it was over and everyone seemed to be happy and bought some of the books. I was then taken out to dinner by the publishers and came back to a much quieter hotel.

Bidayuh

Iban

This morning I was able to enjoy a very lovely breakfast and was tempted to take a photograph of my salmon and asparagus but thought it would show me up as the fraud I am. I even ended up talking to a gentleman who was involved in the Australian racing team which seemed rather strange too as I know nothing about car racing. I had a quick call into the  KL British Council office which was full of an amazing mixture of people from all races all striving to learn English I suppose - there was even a buddhist monk on his way to class in his orange robes. The one thing that I have really noticed in KL is how many women are wearing full burkas. No one wears full burkas in Sabah and I never noticed it in KL before - a sign of the times. So I am waiting at the new terminal 2 in Kuala Lumpur airport writing my blog and people watching and feel that I ought to give a plug for Air Asia. They won the world’s best low cost airline for the 7^th year running (flight magazine!) and I really do think that they are one of the best airlines I have travelled on. The Allstars as Tony Fernandes calls them, are always so nice and helpful, the planes are new and they run on time and have enabled me to travel, and millions of others to many interesting destinations. Continue the great work! So on Wednesday I am off to yet another 5 star hotel in KK for the final End of Year meeting which in many ways is sad but all good things do come to an end and the end is getting nearer!

Part of the leaflet as proof that it was me!

Rungus girls holding the books

Sunsets and Blue Blood

Over the past week I have seen some amazing sunsets and been fortunate to meet lots of lovely new people which thinking about "normal" lives we don't do that often as we tend to stay in the same environment. Firstly I met some very interesting people in the resort of Manana last weekend - possibly a very distant cousin who had an Ulster Smiley in his family tree and then this last week in Kuching with the global delegates. The study tour began at 8.30 am and it was amazing how far everyone had come for such a short time. I think the furthest was Samantha who had come from darkest Peru and it had taken 40 hours to get there. There were representatives from India, Israel, Thailand, Uzbekistan, China, Myanmar, Indonesia, London, Iran, Singapore etc... and they all seemed to be so interesting and interested in our ELTD project. We had to do quite a few presentations and then there was a visit to some schools and a few focus groups with mentors, teachers and education officials. Of course the ambience was helped by the charm of Kuching and we went out for a lovely meal together overlooking the waterfront. So all in all it was a very pleasant week - full of chat about everyone else's project and plans for the future which gives me an idea of how huge the British Council actually is.

The only other interesting thing of note is that Andrew discovered via Ancestry that both of us are direct descendants of Robert the Bruce. He is Andrew's 22nd Great grandfather by his grandmother and my 21st Great grandfather by my grandmother. So as Patrick pointed out, everyone can probably trace themselves back to royalty if they go far enough back and I expect are millions of us related to him but still it gave us both a slight thrill which didn't last that long and there is not much more we can do with the information is there?! So with my veins running with blue blood I continue to keep working and I am thrilled to announce that the resource book is now at the printers and there has been yet another weekend spent doing the very last formatting etc...It will be ready for the book launch in 2 weeks time.

Kuching from the 12th Floor of the Hilton

Selamat Hari Raya 2015!

Hari Raya 2011!

This will be a short post just to let you know that I haven't forgot about you all. I have been saturated in editing the Resource Book that is in the final stages now but my eyes are suffering from eye strain and I just want it to be at the printers and finished now! As I write I can hear the fireworks exploding outside and the festivities for Hari Raya Aidilfitri are definitely in full swing. The traffic in the past few days has been terrible as people are doing their last minute shopping or heading "balik kampong" (back home) so they can be with their families for the occasion. I have decided to escape to Manana tomorrow and relax for a couple of days away from the computer and all the excitement around Tuaran.

Main street of Livarot with Lisa and Patrick in the crowd!

Patrick at the end of our lane

  Talking about excitement in the air - Livarot was one of the "Etapes" in the Tour de France and Lisa, Remi and Patrick were there to join in the festivities. Over the years we have witnessed many Tour de Frances whizz through Livarot but this is the first time it has actually started there and the first time I remember it actually going past the end of our lane. So Patrick and Lisa were able to sit at the end of the lane and get a good view without having to move. They went into Livarot after the cyclists went past and enjoyed the show and singers that were put on for the occasion.

Sunset at Manana

 I'm off to Kuching on Monday for a Study Tour which I'm not quite sure what that means but there are fifteen delegates from all over the world - Peru, Myanmar,Israel, China, Egypt etc....who are coming to study our project and we are facilitating with that process. I think it will be very interesting meeting all these different people and then of course you all know that I love a visit to Kuching and I haven't been since March so a visit is definitely overdue!
  I wish all my Muslim friends a very happy Hari Raya celebration!

Mangoes Galore!

Yes I never thought in my lifetime that I would be dealing with a glut of mangoes. Pears, apples peaches, blackberries, plums are fruits I have had to cope with before but the exotic fruit mango, well that is a new challenge. At the moment there are mangoes dropping and rotting from trees everywhere. It has been an exceptional crop and I hadn't realised that there were so many mango trees around. The two mango trees that I am "harvesting" are actually in my neighbours garden but overhang mine and I am just picking the fallen fruit before they rot which is incredibly quickly. I seem to be in competition with dogs, birds, insects and occasionally my neighbour but apart from using them in salads when they are greener the Sabahans don't seem to be using them as much as I thought they might and there must be tons rotting around the place. They are an awkward fruit to peel and especially with the big stone, not to mention the bugs inside! Anyway I've persevered and the many things that I have been doing with the mangoes apart from eating them as a fruit are yoghurt and mango smoothies and put in the freezer become yoghurt and mango sorbet/icecream ( delicious!) mango juice with or without a splash of gin goes down very nicely too but the most time consuming and successful mango use has been my mango chutney. I have done 3 batches - all a bit different depending on what I have in the house but all very nice. I think my favourite one is mango and ginger and the difference in the mango chutney that I have bought is that mine is really chunky and you can see the mangoes. One of the reasons for embarking on making chutney is to encourage Sophia, my dear friend and neighbour to start making it to sell to the tourist market. I keep telling her that it is all about marketing and selling the jungle of Borneo aspect. Anyway for those people who have asked about Sarong & Ko, well after I broke my arm my sewing slowed down rather but Sophia has continued to take orders and  I am acting more as her "advisor". She now is at the stage where she is going to work a four day week and spend one day at home sewing and making chutney (perhaps?) So before the end of my contract which is approaching quickly, I'm hoping to see her established in her self-employed career.

My Clever Gen at her graduation

  Last weekend was Gen's graduation which of course I wasn't present for. That was a very hard decision and I would have gone for just the day if she hadn't been so vehement that it was a silly plan. However Andrew, Patrick, Tanya and Anthony joined Naomi, Neil , Matthew and of course Gen for a weekend of celebrations. They had a wonderful time together and it was difficult and sad for me to be here but they were very good in keeping me informed with photos from start to finish - mobile phones are wonderful things and of course I was able to skype too. So for those of you who have been following my blog from the beginning, Gen started university in Glasgow in the September after I left for Borneo in 2011. She has managed to work as a waitress, sing, dance, travel, have fun and still come out with a very good 2:1 (0.13 away from a first!) in Business Studies. I'm very proud of her and thrilled that she has been offered a graduate scheme with a proper salary starting in September in Dublin. Andrew and I are proud too that Gen is the last of our five clever children to go through university and that now all our children are in employment - hooray!!!

A Harry Potter party last weekend