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Life in Lao Cai
FOOD AND MARKETS
There are a varities of places where you can buy food for a relativiely low price. When you want to cook by yourselves, you can buy fresh ingredients (e.g. vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, etc) at the local market (for instance Kim Tan market or Coc Leu market, whereby Coc Leu market is more expensive than Kim Tan market). However, you can also buy other ingredients (like noodles, seasonings etc.) in supermarkets (e.g. Mai Long Mart, Go, Duchuy …). Nevertheless, if you are not in the mood to cook, you can buy a whole meal with only 30-40k dong in any restaurants. Food we can recommend that you can find almost anywhere near the food street is Banh Cuon, Banh Mi, Bun Cha, Fried noodles/rice, Nem Nuong, Pho, Bun and so on.
free time in Lao Cai ?
Although Lao Cai City is relatively small, it offers a lot of different activities. On one side you can drive through the city (if you are able to drive the motorbike) and explore the diverse facets of Lao Cai like the border point of Vietnam and China, drive next to the Red River, the pagoda, the many viewpoints where you can look down on Lao Cai City and so on. Furthermore, it’s worth the effort to drive to other districts of Lao Cai, like Bac Ha, Bat Xat and Sa Pa because they have a lot to offer regarding nature and landscape.
If you want to take a nice break, in Lao Cai there are many coffee shops. There is the Koi Cafe or the Rock King Cafe, where you sit in a big pond of Kois, Sai Gon Cafe offers a nice view, Memory Cafe looks pretty, Tea House offers cheap prices for Bubble Tea and there are so much more to explore.
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accommodation
The volunteers will either live in their respective schools (e.g. Boarding school, Gifted school) or will live near the schools. To live in a host family is also a possibility. One accomodation where many volunteers will live is the English Center GEL. It has three floors, each has one bathroom. There are single bedrooms, and rooms you share with another person. The kitchen has everything you need to cook for yourselves, as well.