Thinh

The tour guides over the whole trip have been really good, but on this leg have been particularly fantastic.

Our tour guide in Vietnam was called Thinh (pronounced Tin). He was a 31 year old, recently married with a 4 year old son.

He was really funny, always cracking jokes and also seemed to have somehow picked up our sense of humour i.e. irony. His accent was really strange at first as he had learnt his english from speaking to tourists and watching tv and listening to radio - so he had some strong Aussie tones and some cockney words.

Interesting life though. He used to live in the country when he was young. Went to school in the morning and tended cows in the afternoon. His parents split when he was 10 and he moved to Saigon with his mother as it was easier to work. He did all kinds of jobs whilst a teenanger and then became a mechanic. However, he didn't think being a amechanic had any prospects so went to school to learn English but couldn't afford to stay there. So he left again and did all kinds of jobs while teaching himself English. Once he had learned English he paid for himself to go to tourism college to get the skils to become a tour guide.

He was a real flirt, and seemed to be good at it. So he was always telling us how many girlfriends he had. But when he stopped joking you understood that many of his girlfriends parents had stopped him marrying them as he was not suitable and didn't have the right prospects. With his current wife he worked for her aunts travel business but had to spend time convincing the family to let him marry her.

He is giving up his current tour guides job as it takes him all over Vietnam and he wants to be closer to home so that he can teach his son English and ensure that his life is much better. Whilst in England all parents want the best for their kids you get a stronger feeling here (Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia) that parents too want the best for thier kods but because of the inadequacies of teaching they have to do it themselves and it is such a financial drain on them.

he was a top man and I wish him well. If any of you are going to Vietnam he would be a good guide as he knew so much about his country and was very proud of it..