In-between days

So what did we do when not on trains and lounging on buses? Somewhat different things than all those years ago. The first time I went InterRailing we once spent 10 pounds for both of us over 3 days in central France. Afterwards we were a tad smelly, hungry and exhausted but we were beforehand too, frankly. This time, we stayed in over-staffed resorts with a choice of swimming pools, took taxis to the touristy sights and got tailors to measure us for various silk garments. Sitting here now I can’t believe the last bit of that sentence but it is true.

Ex-colonial residence now a hotel, not the high season so we had it all to ourselves.

As you know, relaxing is the most tiring thing there is, and this one wasn’t even getting up to watch football matches at 01.45!

Breakfast at another resort. This one had a fantastic beach and cracking waves, and judging by the stares we provoked, was previously unvisited by blonde girls.

In Saigon we stayed at a standard no-frills kind of hotel. Don’t you love how hotels always seem to overstate the potential effects of reusing towels on the fight against global warming: “Use yesterday’s damp and dirty towel and reduce sea levels by 2mm”. Well, this hotel had high ambitions too, only promoting their environmentally-friendly policies and not thinking of saving money, you understand.

The pace was too much for some, who ended up unable to walk straight on a pavement and twisted their knee. She was a brave soldier though.

The travelling and the resorts really were highlights but more later anyway on what we actually did apart from flopping around pools, and staring goggle-eyed at a flickering screen in the middle of the night.

 

Excuse the break. Normal football service will now be resumed

I have got out of the rhythm of writing the blog. I suppose that’s because life in Hanoi is becoming more routine now, and the bleeding weather is still grey…. I have settled into a pattern of writing manuscripts and other psychology-related work, learning Vietnamese, playing tennis, drinking beer, but more than all of that I have been watching children’s football, coaching children’s football, and talking about children’s football.

Take a look at these pictures from last weekend’s international tournament in Hanoi.

Jemima’s team before the first match:

Look carefully below and you will see a great Saskian save. On to the post and out! Match ended 0-0.

Gold Star Hanoi North U-13s get organised

The tournament consisted of a clutch of school and club teams from Hanoi, plus elite teams from Vietnam and Singapore (my stomach turned as a phalanx of boys in Arsenal kit wandered by. Is it wrong to still be glad that they lost on penalties in the final?), but by far the most delightful, special, cheerful (and at time of writing, incongruous) teams were the two girls’ teams from Hue in central Vietnam. They laughed, smiled and encouraged. They warmed up in a ring on the pitch and got other children to join in. When playing, they crunched into fair tackles and then went to pick the opposing player up as gently as a nurse would do. The adults, substitutes and even the players on the pitch clapped when the opposition scored. In theory, I am all for a Scandinavian approach to fair play but I have yet to squeeze out a warm smile as the ball hits the back of my team’s net. These girls managed it.

To cap it all, they starred at the awards ceremony with a traditional dance.

The Arsenal boys then got up and sang “One Tony Adams”. No, OK, they didn’t.

So, well done Hue girls, and thank you for lighting up the tournament. It turns out that the project that they are part of is funded by Norway and has a heavy emphasis on developing social and practical skills, and other ways to help these underprivileged children.