The hotel is a lovely boutique hotel right in the middle of the old town. The rooms are well appointed with a laptop in each room with Internet as well as WiFi. Mind you you're not allowed access Facebook. After a few hours rest we head out in the afternoon for a stroll. The drizzle persists, and we start to get used to the manic traffic. Motorbikes and cars weave all over the street with horns constantly hooting and the pedestrians are also weaving in the traffic. It's next to impossible to walk on the pavements as there are either people sitting on them or else there are motorbikes parked on the sidewalk.
The streets in the Old Town are narrow and the smell of cooking abounds, it must be the ubiquitous Poh, a noodle soup. As well as standard cafes, there are people selling food from bikes or baskets. Every so often there are people cooking on the pavement and people sitting on little plastic seats eating and drinking. There are shops selling all types of nicknacks and small supermarkets.
We return at 6 pm to meet Dr Mai and her Assistant Ms Hang. We discuss the workshops for the following week before heading off to dinner. The schedule looks very good with visits to people's homes to see how they cope with their haemophilia. We are also invited to a nurses after wedding celebrations on Wednesday. Dr Mai and Ms Hang are very friendly and bring us to a specialist fish restaurant where we have a fantastic meal. Everything is cooked at the table, the sauces, vegetables and fish are lovely and I manage the chopsticks surprisingly well. Afterwards we head to the market that runs every Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. The streets are thronged with people. To finish the night off, after we leave the girls back to the hotel, Brian and I go look for the Irish bar to get a drink for Paddy's day.
Tomorrow the plan was to go to Holung Bay, but today due to the bad mist the boats were not allowed out so we've decided not risk the 3.5 hour drive there and just do our own thing. In the mean time I listen to the Ireland England rugby match on my iPhone app, amazing what you can do!!