My World Walk Blog - Vietnam #6/ A different sort of half-day.

My World Walk Blog - Vietnam #6/ A different sort of half-day.

A different sort of half-day.

Just beyond a large city called Nam Dinh, I was stopped by a young man called Khoa Vũ. He was riding a small motorcycle When he departed I gave him one of my world walk cards.  A half hour later we were Facebook friends. Then when I stopped for a lunch break he came out to offer me a bed in the family home that night. I had only walked 20 kilometres and readily agreed as I have a lot of days to spare on my Vietnam visa. It's always nice to receive an invitation to a home, for me that's the ultimate travel experience. However, I had already passed his house so we hastily made an arrangement for a small garage owner to mind Karma and I made the five-kilometre commute back to his house on his motorcycle.

The city of Nam Dinh's population is about 2 million Vietnams 95 million. 

He knew people in a clinic and suggested I have a routine check-up. So I did and a doctor gave me a precautionary hydration drip, which was no harm and I agreed. We had much mirth there and I was cared for by a 39-year-old Doctor Gum! I was told that many of the people had converted from Buddhism to Christianity and she herself is a nun. Interestingly she speaks Chinese as it was necessary to learn the language to study medicine. All medicines are labelled in Chinese and when I asked for something she would recommend for my cough she couldn't as she didn't know the English name.

Then we rushed off to his English Club - as they prefer to call it - and not a school. I addressed three classes of English language students who are all tutored by volunteer Vietnamese teachers. Students pay about the equivalent of ten euro a month to cover the cost of the upkeep of the building. For that, they get two English language lessons a week.

While there I passed around my Vietnam translation of my cancer awareness message. Peter is one of the teachers and during a chat about cancer he mentioned that about 170,000 new cases of cancer were diagnosed last year. This is in a country with a population of 95 million. Ireland with a population of under five million has about 40,000 a year.

In the end, what I thought was going to be a half day ended up being a long one. I was shattered by the time it all ended at 9:15!