Heading north (10:31AM local time)

We're leaving Hanoi in just under 3 hours time. It has been a mixed week for us and a real contrast to our busy and productive time in Thailand. Hanoi is a lovely city, although a lot more cars and tourists than when I first came here in the mid 1990s have spoilt some of the charm of the old part of the city. Regardless, it was good to have some rest and the girls have loved exploring all the little streets and many interesting shops. The latter part of the week became a bit frustrating for me. It was good to get out in the countryside on Thursday and do a bit of informal filming, but not as much as I had hoped to achieve in the Red River area.

By yesterday I was ready to be moving, but we've had to wait for my former student to return to Thai Nguyen City, 2 hours north of Hanoi. That's where we are heading this afternoon and will be going out to see some farmers in that area with Mao. Thai Nguyen province is famous for its green tea production. We're not sure about internet access from there, so may not be able to send updates until we come back through Hanoi on Tuesday evening.

We'll be catching a night train then down to Hue.

My number one goal in Viet Nam is to get down into the Mekong Delta and will be doing as much as I can to ensure we make the most of the remainder of our time here. I read this morning in the English Viet Nam News that the Mekong Delta is experiencing drought, forest fire risk and salination problems because of low water levels. Current predictions are for a late start to the monsoon this year. I'm very interested to get out into the Delta area and talk more to people about what they are experiencing, and hopefully we can meet some people who are working for the future.

And from the other side of the World

Emma and friends somewhere in the mountains of Switzerland.

A start in Vietnam 8/3/07 (evening)

After a bit of confusion with the local travel agent, who thought we had cancelled our day trip, we were on the road at 10am this morning to the fields around Hanoi. A few tourist spots were also in the itinerary.

We managed to stop and talk to two small rice growers. The first, Nguyen Huu Chan, has been growing rice since 1990 on his 224 sq m plot of land. The second, Nguyen Thi Dung, has been growing rice for 37 years, since she was 7 years old. Both farmers are experiencing warmer weather this season which is good for them as the rice at this time of year is normally very slow growing. Sometimes the weather is drier than in the past. It is hard to generalise from two brief informal interviews, but these two small farmers exemplified what our friends here have said in terms of many people not being well informed about what is happening more widely in terms of climate change and its local relevance.

There are important issues here in Viet Nam. Rapid urban development and industrial expansion are leading to loss of productive land, intensification of agriculture is taking place. These various pressures make the life of the small farmer relatively tenuous, particularly on the urban fringe. There are also other issues such as ongoing deforestation, some of which is illegal, and the need to balance this with reafforestation programmes.

In our upcoming visit to Thai Nguyen Province we hope to share a few positive stories from farmers in that area, some of whom I have visited in the past.

Vietnam 8/3/07 4:17PM local time

This small-scale vegetable grower and others in this area are likely to lose their land to industrial development in the near future.

Vietnam 8/3/07 2:00PM local time

Illegal harvesting of trees for timber is still a problem. On the positive side there are some good reafforestation initiatives happening.

Vietnam 8/3/07 11:42AM local time

The crew making their way through the rice paddy.

Vietnam 8/3/07 11:39AM local time

We talked to Nguyen Thi Dung as she worked.

Vietnam 8/3/07 10:38AM local time

Setting up for brief interview with Nguyen Huu Chan, on the outskirts of Hanoi.

New photo album - Vietnam

Vietnam

Another brief blog update

Tomorrow we've booked a local tour, with a car and tour guide to accompany us, northeast of Hanoi for the day. We'll be visiting a craft village and stopping where we can to talk to a few farmers and do some filming.

We've also now made contact with my former MPhil student, Mao, from my days as a Senior Research Fellow at University of Waikato. We'll be heading north of Hanoi, to Thai Nguyen, on the weekend and doing some things there for a couple of days. So things are starting to move again.

It's been great to have some time in Hanoi, not just to rest but also to share the experience of this wonderful city with Karen, Lena and Alice. They've now seen where the many little presents came from when I came here in the 1995-2000 period as part of a development assistance project. They also now understand what I meant by the traffic here being like a river. The number one rule is to not try and rush across the road. You step out when there is a bit of a gap and let the traffic move around you as you cross. A little more caution is needed now with more cars than in the past.

A brief update from Gavin (1:36PM local time)

After a hectic, but extremely productive, schedule in Thailand we've been enjoying a bit of rest and recovery time since arriving in Hanoi on Sunday. I've also been working to facilitate an itinerary for the rest of our time in Viet Nam, with the help of our friend in Hanoi. Things aren't as easy here and it is taking a little time to organise something. We're meeting again this afternoon to talk about a plan. There is a possibility that we might head north of Hanoi on the weekend and spend a few days there. I have a former student based at Thai Nguyen University, about 2 hours drive north, and my friend also has a colleague who might be able to assist us in the north. If this happens then we would be aiming to head south towards Hue around the middle of next week.

As you've already read Karen, Lena and Alice are enjoying their time in Hanoi. Karen is still a bit nervous crossing the roads, but they're all greatly enjoying the many interesting small shops, the quaint little streets in the old city, and many other interesting sights. We've also found a nice bakery where we're now going each day to buy fresh baguettes, sometimes other small goodies, and milk for the girls!

Blog from Vietnam, 6th March

Hi everyone, we have been in Vietnam 3 days already, in Hanoi. My first impression of northern Vietnam is that it looked greener than Thailand, at first glance. There are lots of green rice paddies very close to the airport, whereas Thailand hadn't had rain for 4 months in places and lots of land was fallow, waiting for the rainy season to plant more rice.

The houses in the old quarter of Hanoi have a definite French influence and are tall and thin in lovely bright colours as you come in to Hanoi city. There have been a lot of new high rise buildings in the last 5 years.

We are in a lovely hotel in the old quarter, called Church hotel, very new and we can step outside into a mass of life going on, people selling everything you can think of, ladies carrying heavy baskets of food as you can see in the blog photo, millions of motorbikes. It was very scary for me trying to cross a busy road at first, but I am already used to doing it, walking very slowly, (Gavin says the secret is to think of it as like crossing a river, and the bikes just gracefully go around us )...hopefully :).

Gavin is now busy sorting out our next move so we have walked around the streets and the girls have enjoyed doing a bit of shopping. I have taken a few street photos. The girls got conical hats on and held two baskets of food for photos. We should be moving down south soon, towards Ho Chi Min, where we fly from next, we will know more soon.

Love to all xo ** Karen

Blog stuff from Alice :)

My impressions of 3 weeks in Thailand:

Two days ago we were still in Thailand and busy with filming and going around meeting farmers in different parts. It's all a bit of a blur because we did so much stuff in such a small space of time. But some of the things we did stand out clearly and I know I'll have these memories for the rest of my life.

Some of the highlights were going to see the ruins in the old city of Ayutthaya; going to see the temples in Bangkok, including the golden Buddha and emerald Buddha and the black Buddha in Ayutthaya; staying by the Mekong river on Lena's birthday; going to the movies with Kris and his girlfriend; interviewing the lady farmer who had been planting rice since she was 10 years old.

Seeing the old ruins in Ayutthaya was just stunning and so amazing. We got to go down under one of the tall buildings and you could feel this whole weight pressing down on you from above. To get down to the bottom you had to go down these really steep stairs and we had to leave Mum at the top cos she's afraid of heights. Down below Lena got a bit claustrophobic and she ran up the stairs too fast and smacked her head on a very solid piece of rock that was hanging over the stairs.

Also fascinating were all these Buddha figures with heads missing lined up along many of the walls. On our last night staying in Ayutthaya we filmed the sunset in one of the old city ruins and it just looked beautiful. The sunsets are more stunning because of all the pollution hanging on the horizon.

On the second day we were there we met two girls. One was 17 and the other was 16. They invited us to stay that night with them at one of their houses. In the morning we walked down to a local shop to have freshly squeezed juice and some mango for breakfast. After that we went to a special temple to give food to the monks as an offering.

Well that's about all for now take care and I'll try and send more stuff to put on the blog page when I can.

Reflections from Hanoi

We're in Hanoi now and I think I like it more than Bangkok because it's a lot cooler and we can walk around way more, even though mum stresses out with crossing the roads with all these motorbikes swerving round you and everyone seeming to toot for the hell of it. The first night here we all went wandering around and it's real cool cos they've got like a whole street dedicated to a particular thing, for example silk street and paint street; plus other little dinky shops selling all sorts of interesting things.

Because of the French influence here in the past, they have a lot of bakeries and restaurants even a supermarket! So its been good for a change from rice, cabbage and mushroom which we had in the north of Thailand. Sad to say i miss Thailand but on with the adventure! It's not as organised here, but we all have faith that things will happen, they always do. Trekking in Nepal has been a bit hummm de haaaa for a while, but it's all gonna happen now, 21 days and, no, the two porters with us are not going to carry my pack for me, cos it won't feel like such a big accomplishment otherwise.

Last week, the 1st, 2nd and morning of the 3rd we were in Ayutthaya, the old city, and we went around these old as ruins and recorded the sunset over them, which was incredibly beautiful. On our last night there Ali and I were invited to stay the night with these 2 Thai girls (16 and 17) and that was cool; they spoke pretty good English. They both want to be doctors or dentists, cos it's a good paying job and they work real hard in school, much harder than i did i think, and in the holidays they pretty much do nothing but study!

Another interesting moment was on the 21st, when we travelled by boat up the Mekong and met the old fisherman. We were in the middle of interviewing him when suddenly he leapt up and raced down the bank. I was filming and dad told me: "quick something's happening here, lets film it!" so we raced down the bank after him, jumped in the boat and he paddled out to where the fish was on the line. we almost tipped the boat over when dad told me to try lean over and get a better view of him. but when we got out of the boat again dad was real excited about capturing some action on film and poor old me all i could think about was the bit of mud that had got on my trousers! hopefully we use it for the end doco cos it was such a cool, spontaneous moment and i'm glad we got tape of it.

From Hanoi 1:53PM local time

Hanoi

The travellers have arrived safely in Hanoi.