I arrived into Hanoi late evening and after a 1 hour Visa process, I finally was able to meet with the contact that was still patiently waiting for me for the past hour or so. A young Vietnamese lady acting as a liaison between me and the school she was taking me to, so that I could teach English as a volunteer for the next 3-4 months at a specialized high school, with about 1000 students enrolled at this campus, being Chuyen Bac Ninh in the City of Bac Ninh about 40 km from the airport. This is a position I had been seeking for awhile to get the needed experience, and help with the costly travel expenses and possibly learn a new language. Along with exploring Hanoi and Bac Ninh City areas, I will be learning about the Vietnamese culture and as always meeting new friends and photographing everything.

I feel blessed being here as I have a great room with a beautiful view on the 11th floor, and very polite, respectable people that I have met and been introduced to so far, being the other teachers and students. I have been told of a swimming pool and gym I could use, along with a bicycle to get me around and it just keeps getting better. The only thing that I would like to have and lacking at the moment is WiFi connection, so that I can stay connected to the world socially and professionally as to keep this travelling blog up to date and study lesson planning, but I have been told it is in the works and can be expected within a few days.

The first night arriving here I was introduced to lightening and thunder while in bed, and the next day again more lightening and thunder this time shutting down the power to the school, and when I am on the 11th floor needing to go up and down between 1st and 11th floor, there are many stairs to climb, and being here I felt this to be an opportunity to climbing the stairs of success but when there is no elevator, so climbing the stairs to success feels more like climbing the stairs of exercise and fitness, with sweating results.

When I get to a new country or city and start looking around observing the people and viewing the streets and so on, I get a gut feeling, a vibe and/or gut instincts about what I see and feel, some places not so good like the very busy City of Manila, Philippines, but here in the City of Bac Ninh just outside of Hanoi, i feel very comfortable, safe, content and I like it so far although not much exploring yet, but first impressions feel very good indeed.

Well I was very grateful for one of the students offering to take me to see a temple called “Con Son Temple” located in the province of Hai Dung, next to Bac Ninh province. Then another young local lady I met through someone else took me to a couple of temples very close to the campus I was living at, one being a very old temple called “Den Gieng Bac Ninh”, it has an ancient well in front of Temple with history of tales of three fish appearing long ago, it is fresh water and many visitors were drinking the water, thus I did too. After leaving this Temple we stopped in at a nearby Temple called “Lang Den Duc Vua Ba Temple” a smaller Temple and perhaps not so popular but a very beautiful water attraction with small bridge leading to small pagoda.

There are many Temples in this area including a giant Buddha I missed seeing known as the “Sakyamuni Buddha” which is in the Thon Phat Tich District of Bac Ninh province and about 16 km from the Bac Ninh City centre. I found Bac Ninh City to be a quiet countryside city and very cheap to live and a clean city with friendly people everywhere wanting to get to know me or just to say hello with a big smile and wave.

My time here in Bac Ninh was two weeks only and as far as I am concerned too short of a stay for me, especially with the set up I had at the specialized school living on campus with the students. Oh well like the ol’ saying, “All good things come to an end”, and for me it did. I will treasure the memories of Bac Ninh City, the students, the campus and everyone else I met there as it was a very enjoyable experience for me.