Goooooood Evening Vietnaaaaaaaaam!

Yes, thats right, we are now in Cambodia! Ha ha i kid, Vietnam actually. Get it? You know, from the film with Robin Williams? Where his screaming and shouting and running around with a gun killing people? Thats right, Patch Adams.

Anyway, after a lull in available technology that allows us to connect with the 21st Century, i am now out of villages covered in dust and chicken, and now in the prosperous and highly communist counntry of Vietnam. Thats right, COMMUNIST. Upon entry, i was advised i should never write either 'Journalist' or 'Writer' for my profession when entering any asian country. They no likee the writers apparently. Well, to be honest, if i put either down it would have been a lie anyway HAHHAHAHAHAAHahhhhaaa...*sob* Anyway, just as a warning, if this blog suddnely starts sounding strange with my normal writing style turning to a more serious and un-cragg like tone, for example...

'Well, today i was walking along and a big poo came out...SORRY, MY ENGLISH COMPANSIONSHIPS, I AM LONGER NO ALLOWED TO SPEAK OF MY JOURNEY. PLEASE BE FOND OF MY MEMORY AND AWAIT MY RETURN WITH NO QUESTIONS. YES I AM GOOD AND THERE ARE NO JAIL AND ONLY SMILES. THANK YOU AND HELLO.'

You will then know it is time to send over the troops. Anyway, on with the normal twitterings...

So, last time we spoke we were in the lovely little town of Viang Vieng. My GOD what a strange little place that was. Laos, in general has been lovely. Like Thailand, the people are beautiful and so friendly you wanna hug them and put them in your pocket then lock them in a glass box and shake it to make them say nice things to you everymorning. The country was, howevere, a lot less developed than Thailand, which makes sense i guess, coz really, who's ever heard of Laos? Anyone? Dust? Most people on the trip are so unaware of it that they keep calling it 'Lay-ose' to the locals horror. Anyway, after the wonder that was Luang Prabang, a charming little town full of crap internet places but wonderful shops and food places (We found somewhere that sells sandwiches. SANDWICHES AND QUICHE! My god i lost control and killed about two people fighting my way to the quiche) we made our way via a hugely gigantically bumby and terrifying bus journey up several mountains to the town of Viang Vieng. Very small, and very dusty with chickens cats and dogs running everywhere, this was a place designed for backpackers. Restaurants only sold pizza, burgers and pasta, long gone were the sights of leaves and rice. All the restuarnts oddly enough had giant TVs that only ever showed Friends and Simpsons episodes which was wonderful and scary at the same time. Dozens of glazed-eyed westerners would sit in these places, staring open mouthed, never talking. Im sure we saw the same ones in there for days. Anyway, after spending a day floating down a river on a tubing related bar crawl, i now understand these glazed, dead eyes. I havent been so drunk, and in so much danger in quite a many years.

Let me explain the premise - Walk to the rental shop, sign an agreement that basically says your death is your own fault, grab a HUGE rubber tube (inside of a tractor wheel by the loosk of things) then jump in a tuk tuk where it will take you and your pals to the top of the river, upon which you enter a bar, drink till you blind, then float down the river and repeat at each following 5 bars until you reach the final one floating face down, bloated with beer, scorched by the sun and naked in the urine soaked river.
Sounds good huh? I make it sound a lot worse than it is as you can imagine, but this is basically the jist. The unfortunate/amazing addition to this strange outing, is the fact that at each of the 6 bars, there is either a water slide made of bathroom tiles and old toothbrushes, and zip lines that let you jump from a platform into the incredibly shallow depths of the river. On the day we went, two people cracked their skulls open, one person broke their foot and countless others cut and hurt themselves. Including us. its amazing really, the first zip line, we avoided, because as we estimated, upon entering the river, it was as deep as puddle. i floated down stream, scowering my body on the river bed. It was not a deep river. however, after our second BUCKET of Gin & Tonic (at 12.45 in the noon might i add) none of us really cared about shallow water, toothbrush slides etc. We just wanted to have fun! But, we aren;t idiots, so even though we were still stupidly drunk, we avoided the certain death slides and had tremendous fun! The day basically consisted of, being very drunk, jumping into the river with tremendous speed and force made easier by the alchohol, floating down the river and losing BOTH flip flops as they do not make good paddles, arriving at the next bar and immediatly being handed a shot of Laos whickey (brewed with snakes. Oh yes, check out the flickr photos in the next couple of days) and then jumping into the river some more. By the time we reached the 4th bar, it was 2.45 and i was so drunk i could see through time. I lay, beached on the decking with a bucket on my head. Jo on the other hand, held it together tremendously well and managed to continue to act like a human being. I sadly, did not. After what seemed like a blurry eternity of scorching heat and crap euro pop music, we ended up at the final bar. And there, stood, teetering above the shack opf a bar, stood the uber slide. The UBER slide made from really posh bathroom tiles! I decide its great, the best and most fun thing i have EVA seen and instantly jump off my tube and run to the top and get on it squeeling like a pig girl. It wasnt until i was zooming down it at terminal velocity, that i realised several things.

1. Its very, very, high.
2. Its incomplete and finished mid air with a jaunty ramp.
3. im so drunk im going down it backwards.
4. Oh god im falling.

It was so high! I shot into the water with such a look of fear/adrenaline/joy on my drunken face, that the water smashed my mouth shut chipping both my front teeth. Luckily, no one can see the chips, i can just feel them and its very annoying for my nosey tongue. It wasnt until i spent the next hour climbing out of the water (I swam in circles, spluttering, gasping, grabbing other slide victims as bouyancy aids till i reached the shoreline) that someone utterd the follwoing words to me that sealed the fact i shall not ride the slide of doom again.

"Did you hear? Someone had their nipples ripped off on that the other day?"

so, nipples in tact, we decided to end our day of drunken, wet horror at about 6 and headed downstream to the drop off point to return home. I arrived back at our quaint little hotel soacked, bruised, bleeding, shoeless and full of joy. It wasnt until the next morning at 10 am that i realised i was in fact drunk the entire night when we witnessed the aftermath of the mess we had made in our room. So, that was Vieng Viang in Laos, highly reccommended for the insane.

After recovering from a 48 hour long hangover, we made our way to Laos capitol city, Vientianne. Incredibly boring, dull and dusty, there actually isnt much to say about this place as the rest of Laos has proven to be way more superior. Except this place DID have a swimming pool. And my GOD it was lovely. Oh, and sadly, this also happened to be the location that i finally succumbed to the Deli Belly. After a giuant meal of spring rolls, noodles, pizza and weird curried bread, we returned to the hotel for a chat, only for myself to suddenly feel like i ahd an alien in my stomach. Within a matter of seconds, i went from chatty, cheerful, British fellow to running, sweating, panting man beast barging his way to the nearest toilet. After spending an hour on the loo groaning and twitching like a woman in labour, i finally got over the worst and headed straight to bed. When i awoke, immodium had done its job and i felt fine. Spent the day chilling before our flight to my current location where i sit now, Hanoi, Vietnam. Seems nice so far. Nice and cool, with lots of fun things to do. Just spent the evening eating a meal of fish, noodles, strange salad and peanut sauce stuff. SO GOOD. they cooked it all on the table for us then put it all together and literally placed it in our mouths. So i havnt been complaining.

Anyway, after what is probably the LONGEST post ever, i'm off to bed. Flickr has been vainly trying to upload some new photos, so expect them appearing over the next couple of days. Every now and again, we'll make a couple of posts that don't fit chronologically with these big ones, but they will have a pic attached and a little story for the stuff neither of us have remembered to write about.

Two countries down, nine more to go.

Night night.xx