Sapa, Hanoi again, Dong Hoi, Lao Bao, Dansavanh and Savannakhet

Since my last Blog entry, I've come down from the foothills of North Vietnam, back to Hanoi for a bit of a rest and then down to Dong Hoi, which is near Danang in the centre of Vietnam.

Dong Hoi was a bit of a let-down and unless you really have to go there for a very good reason I would recommend avoiding it.

Sapa, on the other hand, was truly awesome - a really beautiful place with very friendly people and amazing views, crystal clear waters and clean air.

I've pasted in the photos to the right of this blog and the one on here is me, dressed in traditional Red Zhao gear with my 'wife'.

I'll blog some more soon about how we got from Dong Hoi to Ubon Ratchathani via public bus for 510 baht.

Meanwhile I'd better also record that I am still running regularly and recently clocked up the following:
10 km – Lake in Hanoi
6km lake in Sapa
11km lake in Sapa
10km lake in Hanoi
9km in Savannakhet
7km in park in Ubon and I am about to do another 7km around the lake in Ubon so that will be a total of 60km which will take me down to 794.8km with 3 and a half months to go.

Foothills of Sapa

After finishing my work in Hanoi, I went to Halong Bay for an internal meeting for three days. Now I'm not particularly a fan of meetings as such, but my Vietnamese colleagues or new 'sisters' as we spent the better part of two weeks together working, made sure that everything was just perfect.

The highlight for me, apart from meeting up with the 'team', who are all lovely people, was dinner on Monday night in the 'Bay.

I made a little video of the snaps I took that evening and hope to receive some more photos. A really beautiful place and a splendid evening. Most conducive to producing some hard work the next day in our second day of sponsorship training!

I've also added the video of the cyclo tour and puppet show in Hanoi - great stuff!

While in Halong Bay, I managed to run a bit, although it was very humid and knocked off another 14km and another 10 when back in Hanoi by going around the lake 5 times.

That deducted from 878.8km leaves 854.8km.

Later, I'll blog about Sapa, in the North of Vietnam, which is where I am now.

Let me take you by the hand ...

... and lead you through the streets of Hanoi, I'll show you something, to make you change your mind.

I'm in Hanoi this week for work - I like my job very much but it is very hard work yet offers some wonderful opportunities to see places I otherwise would not.

One of them is Hanoi and the video below is a little taster of the more exciting parts of this week in the capital city of Vietnam.

I needed to come here more to update my running schedule before I lose count of the KMs and need to run more!

About 8 in an aborted attempt to run around the big lake, 7 on Saturday in a successful attempt to run around the small lake, 6 the day before I flew here, 12 after a long run in the week and at least one run of 6km somewhere else. I think there might be more but my fault for not keeping tabs.

That's 41 since last count which brings me down to 878.8km to go. I won't be doing any today or tomorrow so Saturday will have to be a 20km run to make up and then more long runs while on holiday for the rest of this month.

The video is still uploading to Youtube so I'll post it later.