The Long Hue Round

GCSE MATHEMATICS

30 minutes

Answer ALL questions

Write your answers in the spaces provided

Do NOT use a calculator




PART I

1. Hue is 540 kilometres from Hanoi, but by rail the distance is 688 kilometres.

a) How much further is it by rail than as the crow flies?

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b) How long do you think it should take by train?

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2. A train leaves Hanoi at 23:00 and is due to arrive in Hue at 10:44 the next morning.

a) What is the total scheduled journey time?

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b) What is the scheduled average speed of the train, not allowing for any stops?

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3. The train arrives at Hue Station at 13:28 the following afternoon.

a) What was the total actual journey time?

 ............................................................

b) How much longer than the scheduled journey time is this?

 ............................................................

c) What is the additional time expressed as a fraction of the scheduled journey time?

 ............................................................

d) What is the actual average speed for this journey, not allowing for stops?

 ............................................................

PART II

1. The train has 8 sleeper cars, each with 6 cabins. 7 of these are 4-berth, 1 is 6.

a) What is the capacity of the train?

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b) Express the number of bottom berths as a fraction of the total berths.

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2. 60% of the passengers are Vietnamese and 40% are foreigners. An Englishman buys a single ticket for himself, travelling alone. Express as a percentage the probability of the following:

a) He gets shafted with a top bunk

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b) He is the only foreigner in his cabin

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c) A family of 4 Vietnamese people are sharing the other 3 berths

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d) The dad snores

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3. Each bed measures 180cm x 40cm. The Englishman is 185cm tall and weighs 90kg.

a) What is the area of the bed?

 ............................................................

b) How much sleep do you think he got?

 ............................................................

c) Are you sure? What time do you think the Vietnamese people woke up at?

 ............................................................

PART III

1. Next time the Englishman travels in Vietnam, which of the following modes of transport might he employ?

a) Train

b) Unicycle

c) Crawl on hands and knees through broken glass

d) Aeroplane

End of Test

Halong Baywatch

A mere 150 kilometres but four stifling hours' drive from Hanoi lies Halong Bay and its 3,000 limestone rock formations. To see them, you need to take a boat tour, and there seem to be almost as many of them as there are islands.

The drive is horrible - a cramped minibus, crowded roads and a noxious combination of traffic fumes, dust, mist and pollution. Only the conveyor belt of mopeds and their unlikely loads provides any kind of distraction - chickens, kittens, pigs, bonsai trees, bags of goldfish and the star prize, a dead cow.

The port, when we get there, is chaos. We stand around being choked by the idling engines of a hundred coaches and minibuses as they shed their cargos of Chinese tour groups, strange little pic'n'mixed Europeans like us and marauding bogan Aussies in green and gold sombreros. It doesn't get any better on the water, where the junks are crashing into one another as they jostle for position.

Thirteen of us make it out in one piece and board a surprisingly comfortable and well appointed vessel, but sadly the weather is shit. There's a thick fog, and the sun is burning through it, not shining. Colours seem to exist only within a short radius of our craft, and so much of the magic is lost as we sail around the islands and other boats. The water is true emerald green, but dirty, debased by the filthy engines of the junks and the detritus we cast in our wakes.

With all the competition between boats and tour groups, we have a regimented schedule to stick to. In its name we are filed through some caves that would be spectacular were it not for the thousands of punters, gaudy lighting and the fact that our poorly regulated presence is doing a lot more harm than good.

Specatular caves, but lit up like a chav's house at Christmas

We kayak around for a while afterwards, eventually managing to get away from the junk exhausts, which is rather pleasant, and an exceptionally red sun appears briefly through the fog before dropping unspectacularly from sight. We paddle our way to the dock, where smaller boats are ramming the frail jetty, and chug back to the mothership.

On the deck we sip beers and discuss the world's problems into the middle of the night. A small core of us manage to frighten the rest off to bed with discussions of Papacy, Booze Britain (in Amsterdam they drink a potent shot called a Booze Britain), Norwegian church burners, Branch Davidians and various other topics of salient interest. It gives me an idea for a new reality show called "Conversation", but I guess it won't work since most of the people who go on them can't actually hold one.

The tour companies overcharge for alcohol on their boats, so enterprising Vietnamese women (always women) paddle small row boats around the junks hawking their own. I buy some in order to support fledgling entrepreneurism in a supposedly Communist country, before realising I paid her the same as behind the bar. Bravo. Other boats anchored near us are flashing nasty disco lights as naked drunks jump into the water to raucous cheers, or full of Chinese people systematically murdering karaoke songs.

Halong Bay is on the shortlist for the new seven natural wonders of the world. It is clearly wonderful, and an extraordinary gift of nature, but that's not enough. You need to be able to visit and appreciate these places in a way that befits and protects them, and that is just not happening here. The National Parks of the US, and places like Iguazu Falls, so brilliantly accessible and eco-conscious are the benchmark for this, and Halong Bay falls a long way short. The beauty is there, if only they knew what to do with it.

Hanoi

Travelling direct from Luang Prabang to Hanoi is like slipping excitedly under the bedsheets with a shimmering blonde goddess, and waking in the morning to find yourself straddled by Mr T, furiously bitchslapping your startled jaw with his bejewelled hands and urging you to "Get Some Nuts".

Insects. Insects with big bulbous heads and upright bodies. Sometimes two or three of them hugged together on the carapace of some other luckless creature. The nearer the city, the more they multiply. A trickle to start with. Then tens, hundreds, thousands and then millions. Quite literally, millions of them, everywhere.

A biblical swarm of angry two wheeled bees buzzing furiously and fanatically around the great hive of Hanoi, choking out their cheap gasoline fumes. Somewhere in the middle of them throbs a truly great city, but I just can't see, hear or smell it for the mopeds.

Hanoi doesn't exactly lend itself to simple orientation. Roads change name every block or two. Side street names might actually apply to any number of roads in the same vicinity, and they suffix building numbers with letters completely randomly. Signposts and street signs are scattered arbitrarily around the city, the only rule being that they are never there when you need them, and always when you don't.

Should you be lucky enough to find what you are looking for, it will almost certainly be a minute or two past 11:30 and you will need to find a way of passing the next two hours before they reopen. If "they" are the Immigration Police, find yourself a nice quiet park to escape the traffic, then puzzle over why it is completely empty, stare across a rather serene lake and wonder, again, just where the bloody hell everyone is going all day long.

Try and pick your way back if you can, but remember that sidewalk is a complete misnomer here, since the paved area next to the road is actually a giant parking lot for mopeds, and the dining rooms of tiny restaurants, all laid out with unfeasibly small chairs that even a three year old would struggle to sit on. Walk in the road instead, with all the other crazy bastards and ask yourself, once more, just where in the name of God they are all going? Even the hot girls in fake Burberry helmets with bug eye shades.

Crossing the street is an act of considerable faith and courage, but actually quite liberating. We're far too up tight in western society - too many rules, regulations and inhibitions. To look at this place you would imagine people were dying on the roads every few seconds, but they don't even come close to brushing wing mirrors. In the absence of any kind of highway code, cars, buses, mopeds and pedestrians (and their cargo) wind in and out of one another like Han Solo flying the Millenium Falcon through the asteroid belt.

It is utterly enthralling to watch and a part of me, the evil part, really wants to rent one of those bad boys out....

Easy Rider

On my first trip to Thailand a few years back, it took me a while to realise why the bars were full of sunburnt Brits and Aussies with bandaged limbs. It was enough to keep me off the mopeds in Koh Samui, but Luang Prabang is immeasurably more leisurely.

So on my last day, my Swedish buddy Max and I rent out scooters and head off on our 100cc Honda Waves for the waterfall at Kuang Si. It's an incredibly laid back drive through pristine rice paddies and in the shadow of rolling hills, the old brown river never that far away.

We pass through tiny villages, and in each one the kids run out to the roadside and high five us as we pass. It's an unspeakably glorious ride. The sun beats down, the empty highway meanders nonchalantly and we stop just occasionally to take photos, or for the odd Laotian roadblock.

The crock of gold at the end of this particular rainbow is a stunning multi-layered waterfall. Limestone gives the water a bright turquoise glint. Good enough to swim in, cold enough to find an excuse. We climb up the top, wade through the water, ponder the edge, and make our way down. It is serene, peaceful and the perfect end to a perfect journey.

Foodlao

I guess I was always going to be pleasantly surprised by Laotian cuisine, since my expectations of it were so spectacularly low. But even then I couldn't have anticipated liking it as much as I did.

The staple of Laotian food is sticky rice. It is served in small bamboo baskets, shaped and eaten by hand, always with three fingers, never four. Laotians say sticky rice is what makes them so languid, because it makes them stick to the ground. The Chinese eat steamed rice, they say, and are always rushing. (The country's full name is Lao PDR - the PDR standing for "Please Don't Rush", not People's Democratic Republic).

The country may be poor, but the land is fertile, and fresh ingredients abound. Wonderful fruit and vegetables, a lot of bamboo shoots. Like the Thais they use a lot of coriander, basil and mint. Unlike them, they shun coconut milk. They eat buffalo, as it is cheaper than beef. The flesh is rich and red, and looks gamey, but doesn't taste it. They cook on a Tao-Lo, which is basically a charcoal bucket, but fry and grill a lot of stuff - catfish, tilapia, chicken. Lao Sausage is always fried, and despite being fairly heavily rusked, is incredibly flavourful and addictive.

Cooking Lam on a Tao-Lo

They eat a lot of stew, or Lam, as well as Laap, a salad made with minced pork, chicken or fish, with a subtle array of herbs and chilli on the side. It is as fresh, clean and crisp as anything I have encountered on my travels. The food markets have all you can eat vegetable, noodle and rice buffets, and whatever grilled goods take your fancy. They sell soft boiled eggs marked with numbers to denote the developmental stage of the foetus inside, which I, unsurprisingly, decline.

I took a day's cooking class to get a feel for things. We started with Jaew Mak - a dip (eaten for breakfast with sticky rice!) made with eggplant or tomato, along with plenty of chilli, garlic and coriander. This is followed by Luang Prabang stew, that doesn't really do it for me, and the unquestionable highlight, stuffed lemongrass. You slice a few inches of lemongrass, without cutting right through the stem, creating a kind of basket into which you stuff minced chicken, coriander, lime and garlic. Or try to at least. Then they're coated in egg and fried, though I think I'll be putting them on the barbecue when I get home.

We have a choice of swapping the steamed fish in banana leaf for a steamed frog. I plump for the fish, partly because I find frogs to be repulsive creatures and have no desire to hold one's pulsating limbs in my hand whilst administering a deadly pestle blow to its head, but also because they yield precious little meat. Marcos, the guy next to me gets involved, killing then butchering the little guy with notable expertise (it transpires he is a vet).

Frog filleting

You can't eat without drinking, and you can't eat Laotian food without drinking Beerlao. Like everything else in this country, I love it. It's the best beer in Asia, comes in oversized pint bottles, and is acclaimed by connoisseurs, experts, expats, travellers and locals alike. Traditional Lao Lao Whisky is not quite so drinkable, being made from rice and tasting like fairly nasty grappa. Local attempts to enhance its 'flavour' by bottling it with snakes and scorpions result in a nose of pure alcohol infused with delicate reptilian aromas. On the palate it is frankly unpalatable, tasting like ten year old aquarium water with a few dead terrapins floating on the surface.

Lao Lao Whisky

I didn't eat a bad meal in Laos. Quite the opposite in fact; each one seemed to improve upon the last somehow. Just before leaving Luang Prabang I had a lunch of chicken and cashew nuts sat down by the river. It took forever to arrive, naturally, since no-one rushes and everything is cooked from scratch. When it came it was simple, fresh and brilliant, and by the time I'd finished it I really didn't want to leave at all, preferring to stay in Laos, eating something new and wonderful every day until I just grow old and die.

Charity Case

I stopped giving money to charity a year ago, mainly due to objections I have to the way the charity industry operates in the UK and to the disgracefully low percentage of the money they raise that reaches its target. Justgiving may have made fundraising a lot easier for people, and increased donations, but they also take 5%, and I object to them too.

So I stopped, but with the intention of resuming when I discovered a way of getting my money directly to where it is needed, in a country that I like and respect. Yesterday I found it.

Deak Kum Pa is an orphanage school a few kilometres outside Luang Prabang. It houses, clothes, feeds and educates over 550 Laotian children, from five year olds up to kids in their early twenties. Government funding for the orphanage is limited, only managing to provide two basic meals a day, and woefully inadequate living, teaching and sanitary conditions.

Male dormitory

At the weekends, there are no adults present. Just 550 kids of all ages living side by side in their cramped dorms. There's no trouble, fights or violence, because it is just not in their nature. They are smiling, polite and friendly. They want to learn and live and have fun, and it's impossible not to be moved to help them do it.

Thanks to a guy called Andrew, the owner of Lotus Villa where I stayed, the kids are getting bread rolls for breakfast, eggs twice a week and fruit once a week. He co-ordinates projects to build new dormitories, toilet blocks, classrooms and provide for the kids, using his own time and money, and that donated by his guests. 100% of every penny raised goes where it is needed - into the mouths of the children, or the bricks and mortar of the new buildings.

Canteen

Sticky rice for 554 kids

This is charity as it should be - direct and effective. All those chugging charites back home with their slick marketing campaigns and overpaid execs should take a long hard look at themselves, and if you're giving or raising money yourself, you need to be satisfied that it's going where it should be.

http://www.deakkumpaorphanage.com/

Luang Prabang

The easiest places to write about are the ones you hate. There's nothing like having an axe to grind to get the literary juices gushing; you drink a few beers, plug the brain into the keyboard and let the vitriol pour forth. Spellchecker does the rest.

When I like a place I hesitate. It takes time to let my thoughts crystallize; even the most heartfelt praise needs empirical evidence to prop it up. It's not enough to say I love you, I need to tell you why.

Waiting for the thoughts and words to shuffle into some kind of order, you risk losing them. With Luang Prabang, the superlatives began suggesting themselves long before I even crosssed the Mekong to Huoy Xia. In my dreams I saw the reflection of a glorious city shimmering on the surface of a dull brown river, but instead it crept up on me, as dreams often do. Modest, subtle and unannounced.

Luang Prabang, Luang Prabang. Let me rummage in this old bag here and see if I can't find some words to describe you.

I love the smell of your twilight fires, and the sound of their crackling. I love peering through your fence as orange robed monks warm their hands by your glow. Across your tree lined streets, I love the sound of clashing metal, as the energetic voices of invisible tuk-tuk drivers play boules upon your hallowed ground.

I love your wooden houses. I love the stains that streak down your walls. I love the children that play in your streets, that stand naked in your doorways and laugh as you walk past. I love your smiles, transcending the moments through which you shine. That make a mockery of poverty, race, creed and culture. Smiles that turn your heart inside out and show the deepest warmth of your soul right where I can see you.

Luang Prabang, you are a beautiful woman who grows more beautiful with age. You don't fight time, but embrace and dance with him instead. As the years slip from you, the wrinkles augment your beauty; heightening your grandeur, not diminishing it. You are timeless, graceful, unforgettable, and I hope with all my heart you don't change before I return.