Lisa's walk to school

So we thought it would be interesting to document a typical morning commute to school. I know several people commute to school/work everyday so I thought it would make a good comparison. I know that it has been really cold in northern Vermont recently. (Low of -13 in a few days?) It has been not that cold here, but still misty, and cloudy and about 52 degrees. No central heat here, so it is pretty cold living in concrete buildings! So here are some pictures of Lisa going to school. The first two are out of order, but that is ok.

Every construction zone, and there are many, are surrounded by these green, metal walls. They are then used to pee on, burn garbage next to etc. This is one where we wait for the bus in the morning. Our bus wait time is anywhere between zero and 45 minutes. Totally random.

A section of typical sidewalk-broken and with litter- always.

View from our balcony, if you have been following our blog there are pictures of this same view in August. It is quite different now and changing every day. There are 5 cranes working on this huge building.

Lisa leaving our apartment. Regular door and our "jail" door.

Then we walk down our sidewalk, about 150 yards.

Typical scene in the morning.

Yes! Here comes the 49. Usual motorbike delivering something and excavator driving down the road in the background. This does not mean we get on the bus and go. The driver stops, because it is the end of the line, and he gets off, drinks tea and smokes cigarettes. So far as we can tell, 100% of bus drivers smoke.

This guy was surprisingly enthusiastic this morning. He is a xe om driver. You can sit on the back and he'll take you whereever you want for a few bucks. Notice where he left his flip-flop.

On the bus, normally it is very crowded, between 20 and 120 people. The floor here you can see has a fine layer of dust. The buses are never really cleaned or washed.

Easier to cross this side, people leaving Hanoi in the morning. At 5:00pm this side looks like a parking lot of motorbikes.

Lisa crossing the street of traffic that will not stop for pedestrians. The people that have lined up to her right are hiding behind her. People do this all the time. One person will take the hit, if hit, and the rest are protected.

Then we enter the Vietnam National University.

We walk about 5 minutes...

And then walk through this opening. There is no door to get into the building. Weird.

Fingerprint scanner to enter our SYA area.

We made it to the teachers' office. Some kids ride bikes and leave them here.

In the teachers' office. Notice the heater, we had to get one for each classroom because it has been so cold recently.