Up early this morning and had breakfast with the evaluation team and a 'caphe den' (black coffee). We then walked about 30 minutes to the Huong Hoa ADP Office (the blog photo) and spent a couple of hours going over the schedule for today, tomorrow and Thursday, outlining who we will meet, when and how we will get there. The days are chocka block and time needs to be allowed for travel between places (the furthest commune is 25km away). We've tried to group inte...

The first person I was to interview was the Vice President of the Education Department for the government. I was so nervous, particularly after meeting Mr Khanh as I thought that this VP was going to be a man who was very formal. Yet, when Chau and I arrived to the office, a lovely lady came out and greeted me very warmly. I felt right at ease. The first thing she says to me is "you are very beautiful" and we seemed to hit it off right from there! She spoke ...

Another day of travel today. We were picked up at our hotel in Danang at 7.30am and arrived in Huong Hoa (Khe Sanh) at about 1:30pm. The countryside here is just spectacular. Beautiful green lush mountains, it's great to be out of the city. It's hard to imagine only a couple of decades ago, it was being destroyed by war. We stopped along the way to pick up other members of our evaluation team. The photo with this blog is all of us, except for Phuong, who is t...

Our plane was delayed from HCMC and we ended up taking off at 8:10pm and arriving in Danang at 9:10pm. The flight wasn't the best, I'm just glad it was a short one. Several components of that plane needed some WD40 stat! We collected our baggage and I saw a lady holding up a home made sign and recognised the World Vision logo instantly. Only, when we got closer, she had three names on the paper - Christine, Michelle and Catherine. So we just walked past thin...

Well here I am in Ho Chi Minh City. Well actually I'm in the airport. We have a two hour lay over here before our next flight to Danang so I'll jot down some thoughts while I have time. So, my first impressions of Vietnam? Well, it's HOT and HUMID! A huge change from the 2 degrees in Melbourne this morning! The humidity hits you like a freight train and it's hard to take a deep breath, the air is so thick. And it's raining. The sky is a mix of dark clouds with s...