The Bad news and the good news

For reasons that I will explain in full when I have bent my own head around it...Sky and I were not allowed on our flight home yesturday. After a manic 24 hours and much support from my loved ones back home and the very supportive SPERI staff, we are now in debt to said beloved (both here and in NZ) but do have new tickets home leaving Hanoi on the 10th. So we will be home a week later than first thought.

Although today (not to mention last night) has been very stressful I did get to see Hanoi off the back of a motorbike, which I decided is the best way! I would not trust myself driving in these conditions (Catba was no where near as busy) but I felt safe in the rear of Duan who did a supurb job of weaving, tooting and breaking in a hurry to get us across town to buy our tickets. I am definately going to invest in a wee bike when I get home. Sky and I had a giggle about what the populace of Whanganui would do if we loaded our bike up with our family and groceries and everything else we could strap on and drove around town tooting like we were in Hanoi. Just what would you think?

Juxaposed against the western tradition of driving around huge empty vehicles, in the face of energy descent, heavily laden mopeds and even better bicycles make alot of sense. Maybe we can start a new transportation craze in the (much longed for) land of the long white cloud!

In desparation when I could not contact anyone at home, I emailed the NZ Embassy in Hanoi to see if they could help. The bad news is that they could not help with our predicament but the good news is that they invited us to a dinner for New Zealanders in Hanoi tomorrow night. The other good news is that I can cast my vote at the embassy tomorrow, hopefully we will have some preliminary election results to talk about by then.

I had an idea for a culture jam that I was disappointed not to have time for, and the silver lining of our predicament gives me the time to do....
We are going to spend a day picking up rubbish and classifing it as we go. We are going to gift the valuable items we collect to the unsung heroes in Hanoi who make their living 'waste picking' - collecting recyclable materials for sale to depots.
We will compost the organic matter and then take what is left to the two wheeled bins on the corner for landfilling (our aim is to have as little of this possible).

I think that we may raise some eyebrows but hopefully we will be successful in raising this important issue in a positve and constructive way. Currently 90% of Hanois waste ends up in landfill.