19 Year 11 and 12 girls departed Dunedin on an Antipodeans trip to Vietnam for three weeks.

On December 2nd, 19 girls and 2 lucky teachers, Miss Spencer and Mr Chambers, departed to Vietnam for a 3-week adventure.  We had one night in Bangkok before we arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam.  After one night in our first destination where we spent our day and night exploring the city we headed to Hanoi train station where be boarded the train to Lao Cai which was the first over night train of the many we had.  We arrived in the early morning and got on a bus,  which took us up in the mountains to 1500m where the township of Sapa was located.  We soon met our guide Quyen and started the longest day of our 4-day trek.  After walking 13km we finally reached out home stay where we met Wallace, our beloved dog who became our pet for the rest of the trek. The trek consisted of various terrains along with spectacular views and also lots of local people trying to sell us their home crafted goods, which many of us caved and bought. The second last day of the trek we found some locals from the village playing a game of football where many people from the group decided to join in and play. After completing the trek we transferred to Sin Chai village where we completed our project at an underprivileged school.  During our time in the village we did various activities including walking to an orange farm and being invited to a local arranged wedding, which was very interesting. The project consisted of mainly the mixing of concrete, which we did by hand with shovels. This concrete was then used to create a courtyard for the kids to play in so they didn't have to play in dirt and mud and also so that we could build them some platter boxes. At first the male workers didn’t let us do too much but they soon learnt that we where very capable and willing to get stuck in. By the end of the 4-day project everyone was exhausted and ready to get on the next overnight train and arrive in Ha Long Bay. This was the start of the sight seeing part of the adventure. We went on an overnight boat in Ha Long Bay where we went kayaking, swimming and had cooking lessons. Then we got on another overnight train which took us to the beautiful Hoi An for 2 nights. We did lots of street shopping and also went on a food and market tour.  Our final overnight train of 16 hours duration saw us arrive in our last destination, Ho Chi Minh City. We did more sight seeing and our final shopping as we walked around the city.

The trip was a blast with many rewards, including the amazing food! But at the end we were all ready to come back home and see our family and friends. A huge thank you to our three adults who came with us, Miss Spencer, Mr Chambers and Jen who was our Antipodeans guide.  We couldn’t have done it without them!

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