Marie in Vietnam
On day six of Marie’s bike ride for YoungMinds, which is the UK’s leading charity committed to improving the wellbeing and mental health of children and young people, Marie travelled to Ninh Binh in Vietnam. It is exceptionally cold in Vietnam as there is a cold front coming over from Russia and China. The guide can see the funny side of the cold weather as he stopped the bus at a view point shrouded in freezing fog and described it as a ‘normally nice view’. The last night was a ‘home stay’ in a house on stilts where all of the cycle party slept in one room on a slatted bamboo floor with quite a few bits missing! The cycle rides so far have been in beautiful surroundings, including: paddy fields with people working in them, sugar canes stalls on the roadside and cattle (water buffalos and cows with babies). Many egrets in the paddy fields are the farmers’ best friends as they eat a type of snail that attacks the rice seedlings. Marie has now cycled 155 km and tomorrow will be another 50 km followed by a twelve-hour trip on a night train to Hue.
