Sedona Hanoi

... the goods he buys/sells on this pole. This way, people on small boats know where they have to go from a certain distance. In this case, this is a floating vegetable supermarket. On the floating markets you do not only find people buying and ...

... peanuts that were quite tasty to tide me over until the circle, sipped the Tiger beer and chatted with the new faces that weren't there last week. While waiting I made the mistake of correcting the GM in training and was quickly reprimanded and "punished" by having to do all the GM's down downs whenever she made a mistake. Well as I said she was in training and I very quickly realized that I was going to do a lot of drinking or as the Aussie that ...

... time one month ago when he was offered the
job) warned us that one of us will definitely get stung by a jelly fish
just as we dove in. Very reassuring.

After a half hour or so of swimming, we boarded two-seater kayaks
and headed toward a cave in the bay. My kayaking partner was a 27 year
old Britt, who asked me random questions including the number of
siblings I had. I felt like we were on a first date. Luckily, what my
partner lacked in interesting ...

... diesel fumes my lungs were ingesting than the chaotic streets. Though there are street lights and signs directing traffic, drivers don't seem to notice them. Amazingly, traffic flows - motorbikes swarm together like schools of fish, perhaps to give the impression that they're bigger than the cars and trucks on the road alongside them. Even more impressive, there aren't any accidents! I made it to my destinations with all limbs in tact!

Hanoi, Vietnam triss68

... and let the motorbikes weave in and around you - luckily they don't seem to be too keen on hitting you!) we made our way to Hoan Kiem Lake, the more central of Hanoi's two lakes. In the middle of it was Ngoc Son Temple - was very chilled out, but apart from what it says in the guidebook, some of its significance probably lost on us. Was nice to walk around though, get some good views of the lake, and even some locals playing each ...

... Bill was bold enough to sample it, and yes, it was peppercorns! While we were having dinner, Ling entered with her Aussie friend that she had mentioned to us! He was very tall and handsome, she looked gorgeous with her hair down! It was so nice to see her again. For dessert, Bill had vanilla ice cream with mint and I had the ocean fruit crumble (mostly raisins) with strawberry ice cream. Our fancy meal at the 8th story restaurant with the romantic view ...

... worshiopped like a god king by the Vietnamese but I was really all Ho Chi'd out by lunchtime. Our final stop was at the One Pillar Pagoda, a rather sweet little pagoda. Miracles of health improvements and / or fertility blessings are attributed to this pagoda, so I've made offerings to help the couple of people I know who could do with a health boost. Not so keen on the fertility boost, thanks very much. The afternoon was ours to spend as we wished, so four of us headed out ...

... toys. They were educational of course. They performed little songs for us and we sangs songs for them and taught them head, shoulders, knees, and toes. The excitement of the experience was somewhat overshadowed by the obvious lack of school supplies and the quality of the school. I feel so blessed to have had so many amazing schools where supplies were available to maximize learning and it was just apparent that that was not true in this school. I am happy to ...

... of white cranes (birds) were flying around like butterflies. We all stood in awe and drank in the sight. It felt very unreal and was so beautiful, l can't describe it properly in words. It simply took my breath away. After we have watched most of these beautiful birds settle down, we walked up to the temple on top of the mountain. It was another very very old temple. Felt rather eerie and mysterious cos it was already dusk by then ...

... What were the chances of that?!

The PC towers were the same, but they all had brand new operating systems installed and so all of the recycle bins had been deleted on each machine!

It was absolutely unbelievable, the last glimmer of hope that we could salvage some of the full size photos had been brutally snuffed out. I guess that those photos were just not meant to be.

All we can do now is bring the card ...