Teddies!

So many teddies in the one place. Cool, hey! This was from a shop in Hanoi - one of those places like a stand at the Exhibition, where the staff must spend most of their mornings and nights setting them all up and then putting them away...

We really enjoyed Hanoi and stayed in the old town area, with its typically Asian manic pace and noise. Tracey met one of the street kids she had sponsored through the Koto initiative there, which supports street kids by educating them and training them to work in a restaurant. Having graduated, he's now working succesfully in a top Italian restaurant in Hanoi. This was one of the many highlights of our time in Vietnam. As tourists we are constantly reminded of our fortunes and the misfortunes or lack of opportunities of many others. I find it difficult to know how best to play my part to improve this situation, but, seeing this Vietnamese boy and his gratitude made us realise that there are real ways to help others and that we need to look harder to find other avenues... This includes being a responsible tourist adhering to principles of eco-tourism. Aeroplanes are of course, really bad for the environment due to their massive emissions, and where possible we've talked about avoiding areoplanes in favour of trains. This is also because we both have health issues with planes - for me it is the pain that my ears experience that seems to occassionally occur when the plane is landing. I'm going to see a doctor about this to see what I can do...