Adventures of a Student Speech Pathologist

Bec, 24, Australian. This is the story of my experience doing placement in Vietnam for Speech Pathology/Therapy... and occasionally I have time for being a little crafty...

[becklet]

Some snaps of the temples at Angkor

[becklet]

Phnom Penh to Aus

So we decided to brave the heat again to explore the city of Phnom Penh and see all the things we could for free.

We ate our second last buffet breakfast at the hotel, with fresh fruit, bread and waffles up for grabs.

After a shower and dressing for the temples we wandered up the street, past the many Tuk Tuk drivers outside our hotel, making us doubt our ability to walk by insisting that we needed them. And although we were sweating almost the minute we walked out the door, we refused to cave to the pressure (final days of traveling also meant that we were short on cash for such touristy luxuries). The walk to the central markets proved to not be far and we were astounded by the size of the markets and impressed that not everyone was pressuring us  buy their wares (an advantage of being out and about at 8.30am).

As we had little interest in buying more souvenirs, we left the market to walk to the temple Wat Phnom, which is built on the mountain that the city is named for.

To our surprise a tuk tuk driver pointed us in the right direction to the temple and confirmed that it was not far to walk from the markets. He then, however, proceeded to insist that we needed a tuk tuk… strange logic for us.

The walk was not long but very hot in the morning sun and soon we found the “mountain” (Phnom) and temple (Wat)… all we were thinking was “What Phnom?”

Laughing at our own magnificent pun we wandered around the temple, and in true student form refused to pay the US$1 to look inside.

Our wanderings took us along the river (where there was a nice breeze to stop us from overheating too much) where we finally decided to get a tuk tuk to take us via the silver pagoda back to our hotel. Of course we found the only driver who spoke no English and failed to recognise what we wanted… finally we got him to drop us at the royal palace and paid him $1 for the 2min trip… around the block…

We took the long way around to try and find the silver pagoda, not realising it was part of the same complex as the palace... and that we would have to pay a whole $6.50 to get in… deciding this was outside our remaining funds we returned to our hotel to cool off before venturing out again for lunch.

During our lunchtime wander around the block closest to us and down along the artists street (with frozen yogurt to keep us going along the way) we decided that we should have been keeping a tally of all the times that we got offered a tuk tuk… you walk along and hear “tuk tuk lady?” so often you want to take one just so they stop asking… they refuse to believe that you actually want to walk… and that you can’t afford it. (My friend got told by a stall owner in the markets that all Europeans (that includes Americans and Australians too) are the same… we are all liars… she truly had no money in her wallet though as we made a point to not go out with more than we needed).

We found several beautiful artistic shops including the “scenteurs d’angkor” and the “Daughters of Cambodia” shops which we bought beautiful handmade souvenirs of soap and handbags.

After cooling off for a few more hours and doing some uni work we headed out for cocktails to celebrate our final night and a cheep (and delicious) burger down the street. Happy after 3 cocktails each we crashed for the night.

Our final day was filled in with a short wander down the artistic street and generally enjoying the cool of our hotel room. We were completely out of money and my friend was budgeting so we could actually afford the tuk tuk to the airport.

One final Asian meal and we were on our way to our flight. Despite being told to arrive 2 hours early our flight was not even open for check in… and then delayed once we were waiting in departures! Finally we were on the plane to Malaysia and bid goodbye to our time in Vietnam and Cambodia…

The new airport in Malaysia was a bit o a maze, though the 45min walk to our gate was welcome for our 4 hour wait… luckily there were some free water fountains and I had a movie to help the time pass… finally (at 1.00 am Australian time) we were on the plane back to Sydney!

  Thanks for following me for my adventures in Vietnam and Cambodia! Hopefully I have some more interesting things to post up soon.

Bec :)

[becklet]

Siem Reap to Phnom Penh

Today we had to bid goodbye to Siem Reap and brave the bus to Phnom Penh. We started the morning with a cooked breakfast instead of a buffet, then borrowed the free hotel bikes to explore the city further, looking for hidden temples. Unfortunately, many of the streets do not have names or signs, so we spent most of our time being lost! The temples we found were bright and colourful with the typical asian/chinese style roofs. After about an hour and a half... and a ride the wrong way up a one-way street... the pool was beckoning and we returned to our hotel. A quick swim had a colled off nicely and prepared to pack our suitcases for the second last time. At 11.30 we checked out of our hotel. I had to do a fun manoeuvre with money as my travel card hadn't loaded... it was then time for a short walk around the corner to find a lunch spot. We decided to try Khmer Cuisine, next door to Curry Wallah we had had for dinner the night before. I ordered the Amok curry and it was one of the mosy delicious curries I have ever tasted! A must for under $5! After lunch we returned to the hotel to wait for our bus company to pick us up... which they did after we asked if they were coming and reception called them... we loaded ourselves into a tuk tuk and were taken to the bus, where aour bags were somehow crammed in under the back seats of the mini bus! In the first 10min of the bus drive, my friend was convinced that we were going to die. The driver seemed not to care for potholes or rainstorms and wouldn't let the bumpy road slow him down... 6 and a half hours later (around about)... we arrived after surviving the rough road and a road rage encounter. We then had to pay a whole $4 for a tuk tuk to our hotel, which seemed exorbitant compared to $8 for the whole trip to Ankor Wat and back... A late dinner of beef salad and complimentary cookies ended our day. Now we just have to decide where to explore tomorrow before heading back to Aus.

[becklet]

Exploring the temples at Angkor Wat

So Friday afternoon, University assignment submitted, I finally had time to go and explore the temples. We wandered into town to find some lunch and got hailed by a tuk tuk/ moto-taxi man. He told us $8 to get out to Angkor Wat and we agreed. So off we went in a small carriage on the back of a motorbike to explore the temples. We purchased our three day pass to the temple and got our beautiful ID photos taken (at least they were before we were covered in sweat!) Angkor Wat is a big complex and we took more than an hour exploring, even though the humidity had us dripping! (It had rained on the way... which didn't cool everything down like we expected). We manged to make it until around 4pm when we decided to return to the hotel for a much needed swim and cocktails before dinner. We found a really cheep local restaurant that had thick rice noodles (like Pad See Ew) for only $2 and it was delicious! After dropping us off we arranged for a full day with our driver for Saturday. We arose early for a 7am breakfast before our 7.30 Tuk Tuk pick up. Off to explore the temples of the small circuit :) First we visited Angkor Thom which spans over 10Km... then two smaller temples before arriving at the popular Ta Prom which is loved because of the trees growing over the temple walls. Another stop at Banteay Kdei and we were on our way back for lunch... our grumbling tummies took us back to our discovery of $2 noodles :) At 5.30 we went out again for another $5 to see the sunset at Ta Prom Kei, a temple at the top of Phnom Bakeng (mountain). Unfortunately we reached the temple after 5.30 and they would not let us in, so we walked back down and went for sunset photos at Angkor Wat. Since we were back late after making the most of the photogenic sunset we decided to try the hotel restaurant. I had a tasy burger (which I must have been craving) which was advertised on the menu as $5.50... but was closer to $7 after the tax was added... Sunday was our last full day in Siem Reap so we decided to explore on push bike in the morning and head to see the rest of the temples in the afternoon. Getting around the town on a pushie is great if you are confident! The morning breeze is just enough to keep you cool. A stop at the markets had us purchasing souvenirs... we then headed for the "Artisans of Angkor" where people are making replicas of the items in the temples then selling them to tourists. It was quite fascinating to see them at work. We squeezed in another $5 lunch (including drink), and booked a bus to Phnom Penh, before meeting our driver at 2pm... unfortunately all this had taken a bit too long and we were 15 min late! Our driver was gone and we were unwilling to trust another who was hastling us... Eventually we got in another moto and were off to see the remainder of the temples in the General Angkor complex. I would advise anyone doing the big circuit to do it in reverse order as the first temple we explored, Preah Khan, is by far the most beautiful with coloured lichens on the walls :) Riding back towards Siem Reap in the sunset market the end of our visit to the temples surrounding Angkor Wat.

[becklet]

Hanoi to Siem Reap

We arrived back in Hanoi at 5.30 am on Wednesday morning. The people sharing our carriage expressed concerns about trying to find a taxi at the train station and we had trouble NOT getting one (we were determined to walk to our hotel). The heat and humidity felt terrible after sleeping the night in freezing air-con on the train. Such a big change that all our electronics were covered in condensation! We arrived at our hotel and were lucky enough to get an early check-in for only $5 extra… this allowed for a much needed shower. We finally had the local Pho for breakfast at the most popular place on the street, and it was delicious! Even worth getting sweaty again for! So that we didn’t go straight back to the hotel where I would sit for most of the day doing uni assignments, we walked to the Hao Lo prison which gave us a Vietnamese perspective on the French occupation and the “American Suppression” War. In the evening we decided to walk up to the markets and explore the old quarter. We were planning to meet some of our new buddies from the SaPa trek but missed them by about 10 min. We had some cheap vodka drinks at an Irish pub then a traditional Vietnamese set menu dinner at “Little Hanoi” which was delicious. A short stroll via the lake at night and we were back at our hotel. The next morning I had to hide in the hotel and finish an assignment but we arranged to meet for lunch at a “street food” restaurant not far from our hotel. This was a delicious end to our stay in Vietnam. We took a mini-bus to the airport and boarded our plane for Cambodia. We even managed to swap our Vietnamese dong for US dollars at a shop! Shame I missed the $100, 000 in the back of my iPod case… ahh well, $5 souvenir/ money for next time ;) On arrival in Cambodia we bought our Visa’s and went through the non-existant customs… strange since the entry police had seemed so strict. Getting a Taxi is quite simple… they have a booth with a fixed price $7 taxi which we shared with an American who had not booked a hotel and just wanted to get into town. A nice change from being scammed upon arrival in Vietnam! We reached our hotel and were instantly glad that we payed a little extra… a nice negative edge pool, a bar by said pool, 15 min free massage… A shame that we had to change rooms as they couldn’t get us into ours :) The storm on the way in the taxi had cooled everything down nicely so it was a pleasant stroll around the block to find some tucker! We ended up having Korean BBQ… Siem Reap seems to be a very multi-cultural place… After buying 40c/1.5L water from the supermarket we were back to our room to sleep and prepare for 3 big days exploring the temples and Angkor Wat

[becklet]

Trekking through the valley near SaPa

[becklet]

SaPa Trekking Tour

Night/Day 1 After being picked up from our hotel in a van pretending to be a mini-bus and getting over the fear of being asked for our non-existent train tickets (the tour guide failed to assure us that it was all ok) we arrived at the train station for our trip to SaPa. The train station itself is an adventure. We are hustled through and told to go to platform 9 but the station is nothing like an Australian one and we are expected to simply walk across the tracks to our train. The system for figuring out your bed and carriage is also complicated, especially since the entire ticket is in Vietnamese! Our fears about being bunked with some random old men over night were unnecessary as we were lucky enough to be with an Irish couple who were also on our trekking tour. Settling in, having a chat and getting to know each other was a nice way to start the trip, and made up for the rickety train that seemed to stop way too many times during the night. Our reported arrival time of 5am turned into 6.30 which was ok by us as the few hours extra sleep is always welcome. After a half hour wait for the next train of people we were on our way up the hill to SaPa… just the scenery on that drive made me glad that we had paid to go on the tour. We ate a slightly disappointing buffet breakfast with a beautiful view on arrival at the Summit Hotel. At 9.30, after finding the Canadian couple who were missing from our group we set off on our walk into the valley. Our trip leader, Su (pronounced “shoe”), set a good pace down the hills so we weren’t dawdling but had just enough time to stop for some snaps of the valley. After getting out of the tourist-shop filled main city we soon found ourselves surrounded by rice paddies and corn fields, tended by locals and their oxen who left smelly parcels for us to dodge on our walk. We were being followed by a group of local women in the traditional outfits of the north, who looked like they were struggling in the heat of the day! One of the women adopted me a little and would always stop to wait while I took photo’s… I started to get a little worried about her motives when I commented on her colourful scarf/hat and she mentioned I could buy one… so I wasn’t too shocked when we were all asked to buy souvenirs when we arrived at our lunch stop 9Km walk later. After a simple lunch of rice, cabbage, and banana’s for dessert (looking at other tour group’s stir-fry’s with envy) we set off on the final 3Km of the day, which took us down through the rice paddy’s to our home-stay. We arrived to discover that we were staying in a big group of 19 people! Not exactly the small family-style thing we had imagined. We all sat and relaxed for a while, recovering from the heat and the walk and getting to know each other a bit. Then we walked down to the river for a dip… some of us in our cozzies (swimmers) others just in our underwear (me included). On the way I had a near death experience with a big black/brown snake (I’m too traumatised to remember which…) our guide was unclear whether it was deadly… but seemed very relieved that I managed to jump up and out of the way… limbs flailing! She also appeared to be keeping an eye out for others escaping from the heat in a similar manner to us… by taking a dip. The evening meal was a buffet with more than we could eat. I even helped the family to make some vege spring rolls… the trick for the rice paper is using tomato… the meal was topped off with some local rice wine… an acquired taste that the boys reported got better as you had more… With all the heat I was happy to stick to one… Day 2 The next morning I woke to the sound of rain falling heavily on the tin/tarp roof, suddenly glad that we did not have a 7am start. I was one of the early risers and got a cup of coffee to start the day. Our meal was freshly prepared crepes with banana and local honey… delicious! This had me fuelled for another hot walk through the rice fields. The walk had us trekking through bamboo forest and teetering along the top of rice paddy dams. The views continued to be spectacular and the steep climb to lunch did not kill me as it looked like it would. A final meal of noodle soup with fresh pineapple and we were put back onto the bus to the hotel for our well deserved shower. By 4.30 we were bundled back onto the bus… heading back down the mountain in time for our 7.30 train back to Hanoi.

[becklet]

Back to the city... Welcome to Hot Hanoi

Our stay in Hanoi was commenced after a $30 private car ride, which we managed to split with a back packer from Chille who was staying in a hotel near by. The ride took us into the city again where we are once again confronted by traffic, rubbish, and packed in housing. I even saw the aftermath of a car accident for the first time! There are a lot more cars in Hanoi which makes getting around and crossing the roads scarier than HCMC! Our arrival at the hotel was very confusing as the sign outside said "serenity" but it is the "dragon rising estate" inside... The receptionist further confused us by insisting that we had come from Australia and had missed the car booked for us... she began to tell us about the options for our SaPa tour until we managed to convince her that she had some details confused... Wandering around in the heat again was not a welcome change though we did find some beautiful local food and local people to make up for it. :) The highlight of the Hoan Kiem district is the lake. It is surrounded by a lovely shady park and our lap around ended with a chat to local students who wanted to improve their English. A tasty dinner at one of many Gecko bar and cafés ended our first day. Day 2 started off with a lazy morning packing for SaPa in the air con. We then went for a late lunchtime wander, returning to the hotel for an escape from the heat after our 2.00 meal of freshly cooked spring rolls, fresh salad and stir fried chicken with lemongrass. At 4.30 we decided it was time to brave the heat again to look for a snack to serve as our dinner before the train. We found many eating places, some electronics stores, a church, but didn't get a chance to have a meal due to the sudden storm which caused a blackout in the district and had us soaked! At around 7.45 we were picked up for our trip to SaPa...

[becklet]

Back to the city... motorbikes, markets, themed shop streets, crazy power lines, and a beautiful park around the lake

[becklet]

Final days in Hoi An

[becklet]

The final week of student placement

So this is the tale of my final week in Hoi An and doing prac as a student in Vietnam. We rose early (5.15 am) for a ride to Cua Dai Beach. Unfortunately one of our little group couldn’t come as she was unable to ride a bike. We had a brief trial the night before but my short legs made balancing another 50Kg human on the bike impossible! At 5.30 we found our bikes sitting out the front of our hotel ready to go. I played the role of the bike know-it-all and fixed everyone’s seat heights and we were off! Riding at this time of the morning in Vietnam is so much less stressful than riding on a road in Australia. Here the motorbikes and cars look out for you and give you a wide berth. In Aus they scrap past you annoyed that you are hogging up a whole metre of their road! The momentary bit of terror when we tried to ride on the left side of the road was quickly overcome by the beauty of the sun staining the clouds pink on the horizon and the nice cool air of the early morning. We arrived at the beach with all the locals, the sun still not fully risen, and took a dip in the green ocean in swimmers and a t-shirt contrary to the local women who were fully dressed… some even wearing jeans! On the ride back I was challenged to a brief race by some local boys… and won! Then almost hit by a turning car who was nice enough to beep and slow down so I had time to stop… then a quick dip in the hotel pool before breakfast. After lunch Claire and I decided to make the most of our day bicycle hire and go exploring. Riding around the island, however, was not the short trip we expected and I arrived back at the hotel red as a tomato! Monday was the start of our busy last week at the school. So busy that all the days were blurring together. On Monday night I was convinced that the next day was Wednesday and so on… By the time Thursday came around I was sad to say goodbye to the staff and children I had worked with… my task was to wrap up therapy goals, provide classroom strategies and train the teachers to continue some speech and language development in the period before the next students come in October. Friday was out wrap-up day. One final communication group in the morning where we gave the children a chance to ask us questions with their communication books such as “when are you coming back?” They also described each of us… and we were lucky because no-one was ugly or fat that day… Friday afternoon was bitter-sweet as we caught our taxi away. On one hand we are glad to be finished our last placement as Student Speech Pathologists… on the other we were sad to be leaving such a lovely city and group of people. A traditional dinner at Morning Glory and some cocktails had us back in our rooms to sleep before departing Hoi An in the morning. Good bye city of lanterns… I hope I get another chance to visit one day!

[becklet]

Exploring the beautiful Hoi An :)

[becklet]

Speech Pathology in Hoi An: City of lanterns

So I have now been in Hoi An for more than a week. We still get funny looks from the locals when they ask: “how long you here?” and we reply “two weeks”. This city is such a nice change from the bustle of Ho Chi Minh. We have discovered that it is quite quiet and you can easily sleep in past 6.30am! The city even goes to sleep at 9.30! The first few days in Hoi An (the public holiday weekend in Vietnam) led us to believe that it was not much quieter than Ho Chi Minh, just smaller, cleaner and prettier. It was difficult to move about in the old part of town without losing a member of our group… especially when we tried to cross the famous Japanese Bridge. The funniest moment being stuck in a mass of people filling the narrow streets was when I bumped into a Vietnamese man. “Sorry” I said in an automatic reaction. “Hello” was the reply… …I get the feeling that he didn’t speak much English… The reason for our unusually long stay is, of course, our volunteering at the Kianh Centre, a school for children with special needs (such as ASD, CP and Down). So everyday we wake up to our 6.30 alarms and ready ourselves for our 7am breakfast of fresh fruit (pineapple, mango, banana, passionfruit, dragonfruit…), pastries, hot crispy bread, or our choice of eggs, omelette or pancakes cooked to order. We then take the taxi (for 106,000₫ there, 100,000₫ back) and I admire the strange building standards (rooves held down with sandbags, bricks or baskets of dirt) and the flexible road rules (it’s apparently OK to overtake into oncoming traffic as long as they are motorbikes and you beep your horn enough). We then launch into a full day of 20-30 min assessment or therapy sessions on some of the cutest kids around. This type of Speech Therapy is challenging and rewarding and an amazing learning opportunity for me and my fellow 4th year students. The children usually have a severe or profound language or speech disorder and we are only seeing them for 2 weeks. Our task is more to provide some basic training and strategies to the class and special education teachers who will continue to work on the goals after we leave. We have all had the feeling at least once of how amazing it would be to come back and volunteer here for a longer period of time so we can make a real difference for these children. For now it is up to us to help the teachers carry on until the next group of students arrive in October… This weekend we finally got around to doing some tourist activities other than eating good local food and getting clothes and shoes tailor made (you have to watch out for hidden costs when you buy clothes… make sure you shop around and find someone nice and honest!). We managed to drag ourselves out of bed early and head down to the morning markets at 6am where the bustle is entire made up of locals gathering their fresh produce for the day. We then huddled back in for the day to complete more administration… ho hum… the evening was brightened by heading to the river for street food, with the sun setting behind us. The evening markets are a colourful display of lanterns that begged more exploration and successful haggling with shopkeepers (even 10,000 is a victory for us) ends our evening. Tomorrow we plan another early rise to head to Cao Dai beach (at the local time, before the sun rises properly) on bicycles…

[becklet]

Children's Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City

Monday and Tuesday were spent at Children's Hospital 1 in District 10 of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. DAY 1 The day started with the usual 7am buffet breakfast on the roof of our hotel, followed by a hectic taxi ride through the peak hour traffic. 10 min later we arrived at the hospital where we waited for our supervising Vietnamese Physio-Speech Therapist to find us. After 15 min we realise that no-one is going to get us and my Vietnamese speaking collegue asks for directions to speech therapy. We make our way past the line of parents queing to get appointments for their sick children, and through the motorbike car park to the physio rooms, where there are four small speech therapy rooms. The head of speech therapy, Mr Qwan, meets us with a smile, and proudly shows us around his department of his hospital (I get the impression that the Vietnamese are very proud of their workplace). The therapist I observe for the morning is very passionate about her work and is saving to do further studies in audiololgy so that she can work more effectively with deaf children and cochlear implants. I observe her running a speech and language session which packs more into the half hour they have for therapy than I have managed in an hour! We also encounter a 2 year old with Rett Syndrome and I play my good English speaking student role and read the text book to help her figure out future therapy directions. At lunch time I help feeding the children at the day care, feeling increasingly foolish as I attempt to say "chewing" in Vietnamese to the little boy I was feeding, who would forget. I thing it ended up as "nging, ngeugn" towards the end, which was probably either gibberish or something completely other than what I intended! The afternoon was spent seeing inpatients from the hospital: a mother of a premature baby being shown how to feed him, a boy with severe dysphagia, and a baby with a soft palate cleft. DAY 2 Due to the supervisor being off on sick leave at the ENT hospital I was back at the childrens hospital the following day. This morning started by observing the special education teacher from the team working with some of the day care children in the sensory room. I then observed some sessions with a different Speech Therapist from Monday. These sessions seemed to lack a functional goal for the child and I was able to assist by suggesting up-contingencies for an AAC activity. Discussion about therapy choices with the Speech Therapist was unfortunately limited due to a language barrier as she spoke little English. Hopefully an interpreter will be available for future interactions... I also had my first experience of doing therapy in a langauge other than English, knowing only the child's name and how to say "thats right!" Needless to say this was challenging but I managed to actually get some success (holding out open hand to request a toy) and it gives me a little confidence for the future when I will have an interpreter to utilise! :) This day was concluded after another lunchtime feeding (four whole mouthfuls from the boy who forgets to chew and swallow), helping to get the children ready for their sleep, our last free lunch, and an afternoon group session based on listening and comprehension. These two fantistic eye opening days concluded my adventures in the hectic world of HCMC. I am definately glad to leave the multitude of motorbikes, salespeople, and smog behind and venture into the world of Hoi An...

[becklet]

Exploring Cu Chi Tunnels like a true Vietnamese!

[becklet]

A tourist weekend in Ho Chi Min.

The weekend appeared and the need to do some more tourist activities arose.

Saturday morning brought another hot, humid day. Despite this, we decided that more exploring of the city was required.

We caught a taxi to the Jade Emperor Pagoda, a small temple nestled in amongst houses and small shops. Inside we were confronted with incense and devotees praying to their gods. A turtle sanctuary was full of beautiful red-ear turtles. Unfortunately we didn’t have a tour guide to explain the statues to us but I proudly identified the white tiger and the green dragon.

After leaving the temple we braved the heat and the sun in the middle of the day to walk along the river towards the combined botanic gardens and zoo. This walk had us questioning the sanity of being out in the middle of the day in the full sun with no shade, hat or adequate water supply.

Entering the gardens cost a mere 20,000VND (AUD$1) and the shade felt blissfully cool in the midday heat. The reptile enclosure was the first to draw our attention, filled with gigantic yellow snakes and cool, colourful iguanas. All the animals seemed to be suffering from the heat the same as us, even the African elephants and zebras!

Sunday was an early rise with a tour booked for the Cao Dai Temple, near the Cambodian border, and the Cu Chi Tunnels. Unfortunately the food had finally made me unwell, so armed with medications, water and a bread roll I settled in for the 2 hour stints on the bus.

The bus ride took us out through Ho Chi Min to the more rural area of Viet Nam. Huge electronic stores were open onto the streets and tiny shacks teetered next to French terraces and large modern houses. The temple is a brightly coloured phenomenon that is a strange mix of Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism. The devotees are dressed all in white and the tour guide explains the complex hierarchy of power in the church which basically comes down to the more time you dedicate, the higher ranked you get to be. We were given half an hour to look at the inside of the church including 15 min of the midday service, though we were kept strictly out of the way by the devotees.

A quick lunch stop at a restaurant with a beautiful Japanese inspired garden and we were on the road for the Cu Chi tunnels. I managed to sleep through passing many rubber trees and similar farms due to the proximity to the Saigon River.

The tunnels were hot, especially after 2 hours on an air conditioned bus! Our tour guide showed us the different tunnel entrances and traps that the Viet Cong built to fight the Americans. Men and Women served as soldiers and children and the elderly hid in the lower levels of the tunnels.

I was the first to volunteer to try a hidden entrance, as I am similar size to the Vietnamese. The tunnels are small and claustrophobic as well as being just as hot as outside. I’m convinced that you have to almost be a contortionist to actually get into the tunnel system from these hidden entrances!

The highlight for me was the final challenge: 100 meters underground through the tunnels. There is an exit every 20 meters and the space gets smaller as you go. Due to my small size I was able to walk hunched over most of the way, only forced to crawl for the last 2 meters before emerging into a bunker with a bed and chairs. Sweaty and dusty, but happy to have conquered the Viet Cong tunnel system, I emerged to the sunlight again.

[becklet]

Day 1 at the paediatric hospitals started with a 10 min walk around district 1 in the building morning heat of the 38 degree day. The hospital is a beautiful old French building that served as a barracks and hospital to the French soldiers during the Vietnam War. The grounds are so large that nurses and doctors use bicycles and mopeds to travel between buildings. The two main entrances to the hospital are crowded with parents and their sick children, who are waiting for their 5 minute appointment with a doctor or physiotherapist, the admitted are luckier with half hour sessions with these professionals.

The tour left even our guide, the hospitals only speech therapist, sweating in the heat and we were relived to discover that the allied health rooms were equipped with air conditioning. Miss Dao, the speech therapist, was once a Physiotherapist and has brought her new profession to the hospital. All the resources for assessment and therapy with the children seen in the clinic were made by her as they did not exist before, even the other allied health had no idea what speech therapy was!

We saw three clients during our morning observation, from our position perched on small plastic stools. A stutterer whose condition brings shame to the family in Vietnamese culture was provided with prolonged speech and soft contacts information, although neither program has any evidence of efficacy in Vietnamese. Two small children with speech sound disorders were also observed, one who presented with hyponasality and an inability to control her own saliva by swallowing.

This trip is certainly making me appreciate what we have in Australia, and glad that children there do not have to suffer through feeding and swallowing issues as they have access to a profession that is able to recognise and help with such issues.

The Physiotherapist become Speech Pathologist Miss Dao, me, and Lee my fellow 4th Year Student in the Paediatric Speech Therapy room.