Second Week in Vietnam.

Ok I´m getting the hang of this now so updates will be more frequent and well more up to date...

As I write this, I´m actually sitting in Madrid but I´m catching up for lost time so just pretend this really is the second week of our trip!

Our first week in Vietnam was really all about relaxing and unwinding, and our second week was a lot more lowkey but it really was full of a lot of highlights that Oscar and I will treasure for a long time to come.

We spent a lot of time this week visiting an orphanage in a small town called Duc Thanh, just outside of Ho Chi Minh city. These kids had either been orphaned through death of their parents or because their parents were just too poor to take care of them. In fact many of them had been at the orphanage since birth. Oscar and I had brought a few toys and chocolates from back home and we distributed these out to as many of the kids as we could. We also bought a few water pistols and had a water fight with the boys which proved a real hit.

And then the next day we invited 8 of the kids to come to the Saigon water park where we went on rides and played on the water slides. My good mate John Nguyen from PwC happened to be in HCMC at the time as well and so he joined in. The kids of course loved it and kept holding our hands and asking us how long we would stay and when could they see us again. They are so beautiful and their ¨mother¨Chi Khanh from the orphanage is probably the most self-less person I have ever met. Our last night in Vietnam, the kids and Chi Khanh put on a little party for us full of food and music. I hope to stay in touch with a lot of the kids and also with Chi Khanh to track their progress in life. I´m just happy that for a few hours and a few days we were able to touch their lives a little and make them smile....

Ok enough of the emotional stuff... In Vietnam Oscar and I have basically been eating non-stop! Fortunately we´re not gaining too much weight though. It seems to be coming out as fast as we are putting it in!! Thank goodness for Lomotil!! Well that´s it from Vietnam. Oscar and I fly out to Madrid next and I´ll keep you posted on the Spain leg of our trip in the next post....

I miss and love you all!

Chao, Adios!!

Pauly

XXX