Apologies for the delay since my last post - when you are travelling, it is natural for the unexpected and unfortunate to occur in equal amounts, and over the last two weeks, there has been plenty of both indeed. The unfortunate has mostly involved my SWEAT. You know, i actually never knew your forearms could sweat. My KNEES are even sweating. I would be quite amazed and interested by this phenomenon if it didnt horrify me and the many others so much. ANYWAY, you've heard enough about sweat i should imagine, as have the poor people im travelling with, so lets get to it.
So, we last left off at the Full Moon Bash. What a party. When we arrived in Ko Phangan, we had no idea what to expect. I imagined bristling palm trees surrounded by beach front bars built out of bamboo and rastafarian fellows smoking and handing round coconuts with rum in. This was not the case. It was literally like Bas Vegas (poor, poor mans Las Vegas). With a LOAD of sand. It quickly transpired when we drove past our fourth bar as we drove out of the PORT that Ko Phangan might have once been a beachy paradise, but now, the whole island centres around this monthly event (And even the Half moon party AND no moon party. I think they are going to introduce a Wednesday party soon. and a 'If you are called Dave from Essex ' party too.) So, we jumped in our taxi (Pick up truck, sitting in the back) and it delivered us at ground zero, Haad Rin, the beach of SIN. Concreted roads, packed FULL with bars, shops and more bars is pretty much all you will find there. And strangely enough, one of the most beautiful beaches we stumbled upon this whole trip. Its weird. its like stepping out of the chavviest club you have ever been to, straight into paradise. If it wasnt for the discarded flip flops, empty bottles of sandy Bacardi Breezers and SCORCHED red british people with their fat bits hanging out, you could easily have stepped into a postcard. Similar to Laos (tubing), there was a familiarity here in Haad Rin that i had seen somewhere before. It was in the eyes of the people walking by. It was in the way they walked. It was noticed by the way they hunched over bins vomiting orange fluid. This was a party town, strictly for partying. The dead eyes of the people laying in bars watching endless repeats of Family Guy, Simpsons and Friends was another familar sight. Our resort we were staying in was nice enough though, big swimming pool (full of drunk russians gurning and trying to swim) and it had nice airy rooms with wonderous air con. Some of the other accommodation we saw consisted of a shed...actually that was it. just a shed. Glad we didnt go for those ones. We met up with some of the lovely people from our trip, The Great Danes, and Jess from NYC and Canadian Jo, and after relaxing the night before, we spent the day on the beach surrounded by Brits and Swedes (Did you know, that Swedes have an ALLOWANCE imposed on them by the government for how much Alchohol they can consume in a month? Thats why there are so many over here constantly trollied) then made our way towards the party. Its a great thing to experience actually, maybe becuase it doesnt have the added feeling of DEATH which was ever present whilst tubing in Laos (and no discernable way of losing your nipples either which is a plus for any night out). You quickly get over the drunken horrors and sweary brits stumbling everywhere, and as you get closer to the beach, something magical happens. The lights start to dim, the bars start to glow, you feel the base of the music pumping through your chest and you step onto the white white sand of the beach, shining nearly as brightly as day with the giant full moon over head, and suddenly you realise you are at a festival, on a beach, in Thailand. Its pretty awesome. So we got into it pretty quick, drinking buckets of alchohol and all wearing glow in the dark glasses and body paint. Everyone looked great. Except me. I paid 100 bart to have some of this cool UV neon paint put on me so i glowed and looks funky like everyone else. Sadly, unlike everyone else, im a sweaty pig monster, so after two minutes, a big glowing heart on my chest looked like someone had thrown a slice of pizza at me and the military stripes under my eyes looked like i had applied mascara whilst drunk then cried it down my face. I quickly removed these. From 11pm till 4am we partied hard and ran around like idiots. Playing games of dare, where i kissed a Thai woman who ACTUALLY looked like she thought i was trying to eat her. It was great. but then sadly, it was sober time. Whilst i was off hunting for corn to eat (They sell it on the streets, i wasnt maddeningly searching for a fantastical corn field) Jo was having a boogy in a bar, and her camera was taken from her bag. Pick pockets. Apparently, Fagin loves Haad Rin as much as we did. From that moment, after unsuccessfully trying to locate it (All those photos, gone!) the vale of drunken wonder had lifted, and whilst Jo chatted to the police, suddenly, the Full Moon Party had lost its moonshine. I looked around me, and what was once the greatest beach party ever, now looked like the landings at Dunkirk. Bodies lay writhing on the beach, face down, twitching, some with other people on top of them desperatly trying to copulate through their clothes. One man stood nearby, arms by his side, top off, extremely large belly hanging, head down, wobbling. he wasnt even dancing. he was wobbling, with a strange thrust every now and again. He looked like those people that believe they have demons in them at those weird sermons people go to in the States. Another couple by my side, lay on the beach dry humping. The girl was crying yet she carried on. As i looked up in horror, an old man was standing over the top of them, he must have been in his 50's, and he stood there with a massive erection and a giant camera in his hand snapping away at them. He then quickly glanced up, then scurried along the beach, crab-like, to the next undulating couple. As i turned around, wondering how to escape into drunk ignorance, a group of Thai kids walked past me, all sharing out wallets. They were laughing and looking through the wallets like it was Christmas, taking out ID cards and foreign currancy, looking at it alienly, then throwing it on the beach and pocketing the remaning Thai Bart. Suddenly it became clear. It was like one BIG date rape incident. Everyone was so hammered, so mashed, that they didnt realise what was happening to them. The Thai people that walked among them wearing expressions like grinning sharks, rubbing their hands together at the stupidity of the drunken tourists. Before the end of the night, i spoke to four different people who had all had their stuff stolen. It sucks really, as it was a good night. BY the time Jo got back, she was ready to forget the incident and salvage the rest of the night by downing a big drink then dancing like a maniac to some terrible music with the rest of us, i was in the throws of horror at this time and decided to go on a hunt for some drink that would eliviate my grimmness so i could get back into the swing of things. Upon my unsuccessful return 10 minutes later, i found Jo, who stormed up to me and instantly demanded we leave, we leave right now and go home. She too had become aware of our surroundings and realised the night was at its end, so we stumbled home, stepping over bodies and grabbing a chicken shnitzel for sustenance to help us sleep (You ever had a chicken shnitzel? I hadnt, and they are bloody lovely!) The next morning, we made our way to the beach in a vain attempt to spot a smashed looking camera, poking out of the sand like some forgotten relic. but nope, Fagin had taken it. What we did find though, was a lovely empty beach, but filled with the debris from the night before. It was like a scene from a holocaust movie - i have never seen so many discarded shoes and clothes sprawled across the floor. So, that was our full moon experience. Was it good? Yes, it was fantastic. Would i make the effort to do it again? Probably not. But if i was passing through, i'd certainly give it another bash. Id just leave anything with value at home. The next couple of days we had left in Ko Phangan we spent getting over our hangovers and enjoying some time doing NOTHING. it was nice. Until that is, we decided to rent Mopeds for a day out driving round the island. One thing i havnt mentioned is how you get to Haad Rin where we were staying. You see, Ko Phangan is a suprisingly mountainous island. Mountains that you need to drive over. It was like they literally saw Haad Rin as the party place, then slapped down some concrete over the top of the mountains to get there. This meant, that when you drive up and down these mountains in a taxi, its amazing fun. its literally like you ar eon a log flume. Theres the steep, steady slow climb, then the rushing, stomach altering descent. Doing this in a taxi is great. ON a moped, not so much. We all jumped on one, me driving with Jo on the back and the Danes and Canadian Jo sharing their ones. Sadly, Canadian Jo succumbed to the difficulty of navigating the moped through Haad Rins tiny streets and crashed almost instantly smashing her knee and retiring for a day of recovery. Us idiots though, we gave it a shot. Mopeds, are not the easiest things to drive at first. When you have some speed going, theyre easy, it keeps you balanced, but when you are struggling up a vertical mountain, or zooming a million miles an hour down one, its pretty hard. You know the film the Perfect Storm with George Clooney? When their little boat is struggling over the gigantic wave coming at them, and you are willing and holding on they make it? Thats what the first mountain was like. Holding tight to the handlebars, jo attached to my back like a mollusc, we chanted "please please OH GOD PLEASE" as our bike struggled up the first hill. And amazingly, we made it. And up the next four of them too. It turned out to be an awesome day, touring round the island. (videos on Vimeo very soon!) and we even managed to make it back alive too. The next day, we bid fairwell to the beautiful Danes and made our way to Ko Tao for some well deserved paradise.
And paradise is nearly what we found. We stayed in a teeny beach hut, overlooking the beach. So close you could spit in the sea. It was great. Quiet and peaceful. The only problem was, our beach hut, was a little too basic. It was on stilts, lifted from the beach, but this meant when walking around the room, you could see the earth beneath your feet. And it also meant bugs LOVED us. ON our first night, we wandered along the beach and found the bars i was hoping for in Haad rin. Bamboo huts, with palm leave roofs overlooked the ocean. They played awesome relazing music, and served good drinks and other delicious substances. We spent two nights enjoying these bars and lazing around in our hammocks overlooking a beautiful sky and thunderous clouds. The only problem was, when we navigated our way backl to our beach house each night, the staff neglected to tell us that the SEA would be in our way. So most nights we had to literally swim to our door. Good times. On our last night, Jo and i sat outside in our hammocks, enjoying the night air, when a bat deicded he wanted to feed on the mozzies. The mozzies that happened to be feeding on us. Jo quickly scarpered inside screeching at the first glimps of this flying demon, and left me, outside, in the hammock, disabled, with the light off and the door locked. No matter how much i pleaded, she wouldnt come to my rescue. Becuase unbeknownst to me, Jo could see through the window with her terrified face pressed against the glass, that the bat was literally skimming my hair eating the mozzies. I didnt think bats culd be that scary. i mean theyre like flying fuzzy mice, kind of cute ya know? But no, when they are zooming at your FACE emitting a high pitched death howl, theyre not so cute. After what seemed like an hour, i just gave into my fear, calmly stood up, preying that Sonar is as good as ive read, and made my way to the door. I managed to get inside without being killed, and it actually made pretty awesome viewing watching this little guy zooming around on our porch. The next day, we checked out, then waited to depart for more relaxing wonder. Sadly, Fagin had followed us to Ko tao and Canadian Jo had her iPod nicked. Bastards! So after milling about over that for a while, we decided we should get abck on it with our tour of paradise. However, to get there, we first needed to get through HELL.
On this trip i have been on many forms of transportation. Bikes, mopeds, buses, ferries, vans, trucks, boats, planes, trains, cars, cyclo's and tuk tuks. but i had never been on a night ferry. It sounds fun right? WRONG OH MY GOD SO WRONG YOU HAVE NO IDEA. Think Amistad, writhing, sweaty people, smashed together, churning in discomfort, crying out, whilst on a boat riding the most choppy ocean in the world. In pitch darkness. It was like something from Dante's Divine Comedy, all aboard the hell ship to purgatory! There were beds, when i say beds i mean mattresses. Sticky, brown matresses. And they were about a metre wide. Crammed next to one another. Over every spare inch of the floor. As an added addition, they were also covered in bugs. As i stood staring gobsmasked at everyone shifting uncomfortably in their beds, the man nearest me tried to roll over, only to reveal two dead cockroaches and a couple of flying ants squished underneath him. Our beds, were in the hull, under the floor, with about two feet of head room above them. So at least we couldnt see the bugs. Oh and it was also in roasting heat, as there are no windows in the hull, one of the reasons boast dont sink apparently. I now think, however, i have some idea of what being buried alive is like. During an earthquake. The sea was so choppy, laying down actually allowed you to feel your internal organs moving into your throat as the Hell Boat navigated each huge wave. It was astonishing. I actually didnt realise that human being CHOSE to travel like this in the modern world. Its 2009, i mean it was seriously like we were cattle. We actually discussed the idea that perhaps we had stumbled onto the wrong boat, and were actually being taken away by pirates to Bolivia or somewhere to have our organs haversted. I spent the night next to an unatrually large Spanish girl, whose booty managed to take up most of my metre of floor space. It was squishy, so i didnt mind too much. I couldnt even get to the Vallium. That was in my rucksat buried somewhere under a load of bodies. Amazingly, we survived though. At 5 in the morning, we ran, gasping for air and dripping with sweat and dead bugs into the cool morning air and felt life entering us once more. We were in Krabi, where we spent the next two days recuperating with air con, HBO, movies and pizza. So that was pretty good.
But thats all for now. I really need to make this shorter. Hopefully in Australia that will be the case as i think those guys know how to make computers work. As another note, i feel i have moaned ALOt again this post. Looking back, i sound like an 60 year old, bitter woman talking about 'drunkards' and all that shit. I actually do have fun, honest! But as we all know, its the horror stories that make the most interesting reading right? RIGHT?! Anyway, i'll update again too, the rest of the journey has been suprisingly fun and wonderful, way more boring for you lot, and hopefully, shorter.
Cheerio!
x
Thursday 26 March 2009
Sunday 22 March 2009
SWEAT BABY SWEAT
Was just in Phi Phi, it was so hot. We had no air con. Just a spinning fan and mice. I sweated every moment i was there. I sweated whilst i slept. I sweated whilst i walked. I sweated whilst i blinked. I even sweated in a freezing cold shower i would spend 8 hours of the day standing under. I don;t stop moaning about it. I dont stop thinking about it. Every moment i am conscious i am looking for some sort of cooling system. I walk past shops and open fridges and just stand there until the shop owners scream at me in Thai and push me out the door. I walk into restaurants and ask for ice cream so that i can just shove my face in it. I also order glasses of ice then put them under my arm pits. I see air conditioning units, and greet them with moist arms, beads falling down my cheeks like tears. I was once able to converse with other humans, they saw me as one of their own. But now, all i see when i look in their eyes is disgust and revoltion. On their dry lips i see the questions forming "whats wrong with this guy? Why is he so sweaty? Is he dying?" They hold their noses when they see me. I don't smell but the image of sweat just evokes feelins of FILTH and GROSSNESS in others.
My only friend is Air Con. Air Con is all i care about. I HEART Air Con. AIR CON HEARTS ME.....
Ahem...I'm now in Malaysia. Its further south. Its alot hotter. I think im washing away, dripping down the drain...
My only friend is Air Con. Air Con is all i care about. I HEART Air Con. AIR CON HEARTS ME.....
Ahem...I'm now in Malaysia. Its further south. Its alot hotter. I think im washing away, dripping down the drain...
Sunday 15 March 2009
Sail Boat Tales
Our little room on our Junk Boat at Ha Long Bay, small, cosy and REEKING of petrol. But it did come complete with a painting of a woman cupping her breasts. Always makes a room more brighter i feel.
The wheels on the cyclo go round and round...
One night, coming home from a meal in Hanoi, myself and Jo decided to get a cyclo, pretty much the same thing as a rickshaw in London. However, unlike the drivers in London, these guys had NO IDEA where our hotel was and after driving around for 25 minutes, it was clear we were both lost. However, they were having a jolly fun time laughing the whole way. Rip off? Perhaps. Terrifying? OH GOD YES. As i have already talked of the traffic in Vietnam, imagine sitting in front of one of these things, zooming through the unstoppable, unflappable, beeping hoards of mopeds and trucks. Now imagine turning a corner into a dark street and finally relaxing as you have a break from the terrifying traffic, when all of a sudden, two giant flashing headlights are coming towards you, coupled with a horn beeping so loud it feels as though your head will explode, and Planes-trains-and-automobile style you raise your hands in front of your screaming face to prepare for instant death from oncoming juggernaut. That part of the journey was not fun. After our very close scrape with being obliterated, as i unstuck my claw like hands from seat, all the driver could do was lean over, tap me on the shoulder and whilst laughing wipe his hand across his forehead making the 'Phew' gesture. I wanted to slap him across the face. Hard.
The Gang
This was our traveling family for a whole two weeks. Arnt they great? We miss them long time :( Awesome bunch of people with who we had incredible fun...
PUNISHMENT
Perhaps not funny now, but these pavements were mainly the cause of all our telling-offs whilst queuing to see Mr Minh. I joked that if you spoke of Mr Minh out of turn, or did not follow the strict rules of the guards, these holes beneath your feet would open, forever trapping your anguished face in them allowing all others to walk over you as a reminder of the power of Mr Minh. Go on, just imagine my screaming face beneath one of those circles, thats it, kind of funny no?!
Pickled...
This is where the pickled Ho Chi Minh lays. WARNING, DO NOT SMILE TALK OR MOVE IN HIS PRESENCE.
So happy...
And here we are marvelling at our view in Viang Vieng. If you can, zoom in on our faces, BOY don't we look happy!?
Viang Vieng Falls
After a VERY heavy day and night with the tubing incident in Laos, much to our hungover horror we were dragged to a waterfall in the jungle the following day. I have NEVER experienced such a wonderful hangover cure. That water was ICE cold and felt INCREDIBLE. We all jumped off the rope swing you see there, and believe it or not myself and Jo also jumped off the Waterfall screaming our faces off. Sadly, all photographic evidence of this has been lost with Jo's camera at the party of full moonyness. :-(
Thursday 12 March 2009
Pol Pot, what a shit.
As we are all aware, Travelling The World (tm) can offer many experiences, a whole shmorgessboard (Dunno what it means but i just really wanted to get that in there) of experiences that invoke many different emotions. Since i last posted - sadly - the emotions we have been going through have been ones of horror, pain and sadness, mixed with debilitating happiness, the kind of sudden joy that makes your heart race and your bowels loosen...
Where i left off in my last post, we had just arrived in the wonderful world of Cambodia. After the dusty poverty of Laos, then the crazy stink of Vietnam, i wondered where Cambodia would fit between these two environments, and as wonderful as the palce was, im gonna shove it right down there with extreme dusty poverty. I dont really know why i'm pointing this out, as i dont think its much of a suprise, or a bad thing either, its just what this wonderful little country was like. And unfortunately, when your HOT and ILL, sanitized wealthiness would have been a much more pleasant existence. So, we got to Cambodia with no trouble through the border crossing apart from the EXTREME lengths of waiting around. Another of my observances of Asia (Not ALL of Asia, but definatly Vitenam and Cambodia) is that organisation is a skill that is really missing. We went to the post office in Hoi An in Vietnam, and a normal Post Office has a queue, but this queue in this post office was more like a riot. There were about 20 little women, all chattering away and scurrying around behind the counter, and not ONE of them seemed to know what the other was doing or saying. I was in a gang of about 20 westerners all trying to post a simple little parcel home, and the process was agonising. You would stand there for about 20 minutes trying to get someones attention, then all of a sudden you would feel a tugging and beneath you, one of these little women would be grabbing at your parcel, screeching in Vietnamese. Then they would take it behind the counter, whizzing away like they were on wheels, and they would plonk it down and start making boxes to put your stuff in whilst throwing about 10 forms at you to fill in. Upon filling in these forms, you will then notice that said little woman has abandoned your parcel, leaving the contents strewn across floor and counter, only to be screeching at some other poor westerner, grasping at their beloved items like Fagin on speed. You know the film The Labyrinth? When the main girl finds her bedroom and all the Goblins have made it a mess and theyre eating and throwing her stuff around? Pretty much the same as a Vietnamese post office. ANYWAY, my connection to this random rant is that upon entering Cambodia, we had to wait to cross the border and having our Visas checked. A normal border crossing, like immigration at an airport would require yourself to line up, reach the counter, hand over passport, smile and enter tyheir country. but not between Vietnam and Cambodia, oh no. You had to line up with your HUGE amounts of luggage, stand around long enough so the 'line' you're in becomes a blob, then throw your passport at passing men in blue uniforms, who would then give them to a fat man in a booth about a mile away. This fat man then sits there, all day, making his way through about 600 passports (whilst eating a drinking constantly) and just mutters your name. I mean he literally whispers it. And you are meant to listen out for your name half way down a hall the size of a football pitch. Its crazy business i tell you. On the bus we took to cross the border, we sat next to a strange Swedish man in a fluorescent cap and DREADFUL shell suit trousers. He couldnt be bothered with handing over his passport, and we lost him as we entered the hall. It wasn't until we climbed back on the bus 2 hours later that we found him again, CRAWLING out of the (hideous) bathroom on the bus where he had been hiding for the whole exchange! So there ya go, cant be bothered with immigration? Pretend you're doing a shit. Maybe not a a bus toilet though. This man looked like he had been caught on fire then flushed down the bog, god it stunk in there. Horrors of horros he must have endured.
Anyway, Phnom Penh, capitol of Cambodia was a wonderful place. Rather similar to the cities of Vietnam with the crazy traffic and incessant beeping, but the people were nicer and the place was ALOT more dusty. And my GOD, the smells. I swear Cambodians must have no sense of smell, rotten egg city. So we arrived at our guesthouse, in backpackerville, then set out for some yummy food. It was SO good. Tapas. LISH. The next morning, we arose nice and early for we only had a day to cram in the important stuff. In order to make it to the Full Moon Party, we decided to sacrifice time, and cram all of Cambodia into four days, including travelling, so upon leaving Saigon, we had well and truly prepared ourselves for the onslaught of travelling and sight seeing we would endure over the next week. Sadly, it turned out, our bodies just couldnt handle it. Our day of sightseeing was going to be a sad one. Cambodia has a terrible past, filled with awful things. As we were all a bit ignorant of this, it was only fair we learnt about it all. Pol Pot = Nasty Son of a Bitch basically. Even though his regime he set up was abolished nearly 40 years ago, its still pretty obvious on the landscape and on the people. Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21) was our first stop, a highschool converted into a concentration camp during the Khmer Rouge regime. Not fun. Check out the photos on Flickr. Next were the Killing Fields, they pretty much explain themselves. As this is a light hearted look at my travelling, i'll happily (or not) chat more about these places if you want to know, but lets just say, its all pretty awful and hard to deal with - once you have seen a five story building filled to the roof with human skulls of every age, there isnt much nice stuff to write about. So much so in fact that poor Hanif, our travelling buddy, couldnt handle it by the time we reached the killing fields. A mixture of exhaustion, extreme emotion, weed and perhaps a bad egg caused him to be violently sick upon our arrival. Our tuk tuk driver, an amazing man named Choi (i think) rushed over straight away and looked after Hanif. The speed, gentleness and absolute concern this guy showed for Hanif was so sweet, that after he had massaged, oiled and cleaned him up from being sick, Hanif was moved to tears by this guy. We loved him. He was our little guy in his little green hat who followed us everywhere we went. This is a good placeto point out that, the people of Cambodia, are THE NICEST most wonderful people i have met so far. I dont know whether this is a result of what they went through in the 70's, but for whatever reason, they could not have been lovelier. This guy was always there waiting for us when we came out of our guesthouse, never annoying, and never trying to rip us off. Just a lovely little chap. Anyway, after the illness of the morning, we all went back and put poor Hanif to bed, he was so ill. The next night and morning were quiet ones as we waited for Hanif to get his health back for us to get on our second 6 hour bus journey to Siem Reap in North Cambodia. We got on the bus at 1, then zoomed all the way there, the whole time with one eye on hanif making sure he wouldnt puke. Luckily the Cambodian girl next to him had taken a liking to the guy and spent the entire trip cuddling him and rubbing his belly. Weird? Perhaps. Sweet? Absolutely. Once in Siem Reap, we found our next little fella to look after us, with perfect English, Fuu would be our next guide in Cambodia, running us everywhere and calling us 'Mate' in a strange cockney/ozzy accent. We all passed out and prepared ourselves for our 6am rise to go explore the Ancient temples of Angkor Wat. I wont say much about these, i'll let the photos and videos do the talking, but my god they were incredible. Sadly though, the weather was not. Upon exiting our hotel in the early hours, the temperatures were already soaring into 30c, so by early afternoon when we had reached our third temple, it was way into the 40s, and i was WAY into passing out. My GOD i have never, ever, EVER been so hot. People were actually STARING at me. My shirt was drenched, clinging to my wobbly body. It just wasnt natural. It was shortly after this, that the boiling temps had begun to cook my insides, and my stomach begun removing itself from my body through my bottom. Every ten minutes. With a tuk tuk ride in between each toilet. It was NOT pleasant. By late afternoon, i was so dehydrated from losing all the water from my skin and bot bot that i couldnt even take two steps without being out of breath. As for lifting my camera, this was becoming impossible to even lift. I had to bail by early evening, limping my way to the tuk tuk past the glorious Angor Wat, i crawled to the nearest kiosk like those survivers you imagine stuck in the desert "Waaaater.....waaaterrrrr" I bought THREE litre bottles. ONe for my face, one for my body and one for my belly. By this point i had a huge red scarf wrapped round my head and looked like a freak. We finally managed to get back to the guesthouse where i passed out with a huge fever and sleeping in a bed covered in wet towels. Heat Exhaustion is not fun. Neither was the next day. 6am we arose, myself still shivering with fever badness, we boarded our 6 hour bus journey back to Phnom Penh, where we then boarded an hour train to Bangkok, then waited two hours for another flight to Phuket, where we then drove for an hour to a guesthouse where we arrived at 2 in the morning. We were all OFFICIALLY beat. We passed out, then arose at 6 am once again, for a 6 hour journey to Surat Thani for our ferry to land of Full Moon, Koh Phangan. Oh and our bus journey had NO air conditioning. I felt the shivers beginning again. But finally, FINALLY, we made it, and here i am, sitting in our resort, after the horror of the Full Moon Party. But as ive been rambling for an age once again, you will have to wait until the next post for the sights we witnessed at a Full Moon Bash. And MY GOD, what sights we did see. When i look back at that night, i am reminded of yet another film, starring the pleasant Sam Neil, Event Horizon. Upon opening a gateway to a hell demention, a blinded, demonic Sam Neil utters the sentence "Your eyes? Oh, where we are going, you won't need eyes." Sadly, i still had mine, and they were put to good use indeed.
Check out flickr, as some new pics are up for you to gawp at, as well as Vimeo (link on the left) for some videos i have FINALLY uploaded.
Cheerio!
xx
Where i left off in my last post, we had just arrived in the wonderful world of Cambodia. After the dusty poverty of Laos, then the crazy stink of Vietnam, i wondered where Cambodia would fit between these two environments, and as wonderful as the palce was, im gonna shove it right down there with extreme dusty poverty. I dont really know why i'm pointing this out, as i dont think its much of a suprise, or a bad thing either, its just what this wonderful little country was like. And unfortunately, when your HOT and ILL, sanitized wealthiness would have been a much more pleasant existence. So, we got to Cambodia with no trouble through the border crossing apart from the EXTREME lengths of waiting around. Another of my observances of Asia (Not ALL of Asia, but definatly Vitenam and Cambodia) is that organisation is a skill that is really missing. We went to the post office in Hoi An in Vietnam, and a normal Post Office has a queue, but this queue in this post office was more like a riot. There were about 20 little women, all chattering away and scurrying around behind the counter, and not ONE of them seemed to know what the other was doing or saying. I was in a gang of about 20 westerners all trying to post a simple little parcel home, and the process was agonising. You would stand there for about 20 minutes trying to get someones attention, then all of a sudden you would feel a tugging and beneath you, one of these little women would be grabbing at your parcel, screeching in Vietnamese. Then they would take it behind the counter, whizzing away like they were on wheels, and they would plonk it down and start making boxes to put your stuff in whilst throwing about 10 forms at you to fill in. Upon filling in these forms, you will then notice that said little woman has abandoned your parcel, leaving the contents strewn across floor and counter, only to be screeching at some other poor westerner, grasping at their beloved items like Fagin on speed. You know the film The Labyrinth? When the main girl finds her bedroom and all the Goblins have made it a mess and theyre eating and throwing her stuff around? Pretty much the same as a Vietnamese post office. ANYWAY, my connection to this random rant is that upon entering Cambodia, we had to wait to cross the border and having our Visas checked. A normal border crossing, like immigration at an airport would require yourself to line up, reach the counter, hand over passport, smile and enter tyheir country. but not between Vietnam and Cambodia, oh no. You had to line up with your HUGE amounts of luggage, stand around long enough so the 'line' you're in becomes a blob, then throw your passport at passing men in blue uniforms, who would then give them to a fat man in a booth about a mile away. This fat man then sits there, all day, making his way through about 600 passports (whilst eating a drinking constantly) and just mutters your name. I mean he literally whispers it. And you are meant to listen out for your name half way down a hall the size of a football pitch. Its crazy business i tell you. On the bus we took to cross the border, we sat next to a strange Swedish man in a fluorescent cap and DREADFUL shell suit trousers. He couldnt be bothered with handing over his passport, and we lost him as we entered the hall. It wasn't until we climbed back on the bus 2 hours later that we found him again, CRAWLING out of the (hideous) bathroom on the bus where he had been hiding for the whole exchange! So there ya go, cant be bothered with immigration? Pretend you're doing a shit. Maybe not a a bus toilet though. This man looked like he had been caught on fire then flushed down the bog, god it stunk in there. Horrors of horros he must have endured.
Anyway, Phnom Penh, capitol of Cambodia was a wonderful place. Rather similar to the cities of Vietnam with the crazy traffic and incessant beeping, but the people were nicer and the place was ALOT more dusty. And my GOD, the smells. I swear Cambodians must have no sense of smell, rotten egg city. So we arrived at our guesthouse, in backpackerville, then set out for some yummy food. It was SO good. Tapas. LISH. The next morning, we arose nice and early for we only had a day to cram in the important stuff. In order to make it to the Full Moon Party, we decided to sacrifice time, and cram all of Cambodia into four days, including travelling, so upon leaving Saigon, we had well and truly prepared ourselves for the onslaught of travelling and sight seeing we would endure over the next week. Sadly, it turned out, our bodies just couldnt handle it. Our day of sightseeing was going to be a sad one. Cambodia has a terrible past, filled with awful things. As we were all a bit ignorant of this, it was only fair we learnt about it all. Pol Pot = Nasty Son of a Bitch basically. Even though his regime he set up was abolished nearly 40 years ago, its still pretty obvious on the landscape and on the people. Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21) was our first stop, a highschool converted into a concentration camp during the Khmer Rouge regime. Not fun. Check out the photos on Flickr. Next were the Killing Fields, they pretty much explain themselves. As this is a light hearted look at my travelling, i'll happily (or not) chat more about these places if you want to know, but lets just say, its all pretty awful and hard to deal with - once you have seen a five story building filled to the roof with human skulls of every age, there isnt much nice stuff to write about. So much so in fact that poor Hanif, our travelling buddy, couldnt handle it by the time we reached the killing fields. A mixture of exhaustion, extreme emotion, weed and perhaps a bad egg caused him to be violently sick upon our arrival. Our tuk tuk driver, an amazing man named Choi (i think) rushed over straight away and looked after Hanif. The speed, gentleness and absolute concern this guy showed for Hanif was so sweet, that after he had massaged, oiled and cleaned him up from being sick, Hanif was moved to tears by this guy. We loved him. He was our little guy in his little green hat who followed us everywhere we went. This is a good placeto point out that, the people of Cambodia, are THE NICEST most wonderful people i have met so far. I dont know whether this is a result of what they went through in the 70's, but for whatever reason, they could not have been lovelier. This guy was always there waiting for us when we came out of our guesthouse, never annoying, and never trying to rip us off. Just a lovely little chap. Anyway, after the illness of the morning, we all went back and put poor Hanif to bed, he was so ill. The next night and morning were quiet ones as we waited for Hanif to get his health back for us to get on our second 6 hour bus journey to Siem Reap in North Cambodia. We got on the bus at 1, then zoomed all the way there, the whole time with one eye on hanif making sure he wouldnt puke. Luckily the Cambodian girl next to him had taken a liking to the guy and spent the entire trip cuddling him and rubbing his belly. Weird? Perhaps. Sweet? Absolutely. Once in Siem Reap, we found our next little fella to look after us, with perfect English, Fuu would be our next guide in Cambodia, running us everywhere and calling us 'Mate' in a strange cockney/ozzy accent. We all passed out and prepared ourselves for our 6am rise to go explore the Ancient temples of Angkor Wat. I wont say much about these, i'll let the photos and videos do the talking, but my god they were incredible. Sadly though, the weather was not. Upon exiting our hotel in the early hours, the temperatures were already soaring into 30c, so by early afternoon when we had reached our third temple, it was way into the 40s, and i was WAY into passing out. My GOD i have never, ever, EVER been so hot. People were actually STARING at me. My shirt was drenched, clinging to my wobbly body. It just wasnt natural. It was shortly after this, that the boiling temps had begun to cook my insides, and my stomach begun removing itself from my body through my bottom. Every ten minutes. With a tuk tuk ride in between each toilet. It was NOT pleasant. By late afternoon, i was so dehydrated from losing all the water from my skin and bot bot that i couldnt even take two steps without being out of breath. As for lifting my camera, this was becoming impossible to even lift. I had to bail by early evening, limping my way to the tuk tuk past the glorious Angor Wat, i crawled to the nearest kiosk like those survivers you imagine stuck in the desert "Waaaater.....waaaterrrrr" I bought THREE litre bottles. ONe for my face, one for my body and one for my belly. By this point i had a huge red scarf wrapped round my head and looked like a freak. We finally managed to get back to the guesthouse where i passed out with a huge fever and sleeping in a bed covered in wet towels. Heat Exhaustion is not fun. Neither was the next day. 6am we arose, myself still shivering with fever badness, we boarded our 6 hour bus journey back to Phnom Penh, where we then boarded an hour train to Bangkok, then waited two hours for another flight to Phuket, where we then drove for an hour to a guesthouse where we arrived at 2 in the morning. We were all OFFICIALLY beat. We passed out, then arose at 6 am once again, for a 6 hour journey to Surat Thani for our ferry to land of Full Moon, Koh Phangan. Oh and our bus journey had NO air conditioning. I felt the shivers beginning again. But finally, FINALLY, we made it, and here i am, sitting in our resort, after the horror of the Full Moon Party. But as ive been rambling for an age once again, you will have to wait until the next post for the sights we witnessed at a Full Moon Bash. And MY GOD, what sights we did see. When i look back at that night, i am reminded of yet another film, starring the pleasant Sam Neil, Event Horizon. Upon opening a gateway to a hell demention, a blinded, demonic Sam Neil utters the sentence "Your eyes? Oh, where we are going, you won't need eyes." Sadly, i still had mine, and they were put to good use indeed.
Check out flickr, as some new pics are up for you to gawp at, as well as Vimeo (link on the left) for some videos i have FINALLY uploaded.
Cheerio!
xx
Thursday 5 March 2009
Same, Same...But Different?
HELLO! Well this time around, i actually AM in Cambodia! Apologies for the silent treament, the reasons for this are two fold. Number 1: We havnt actually been doing much over the last two weeks apart from relaxing on a beach. And 2: ALL INTERNET PLACES IN ASIA ARE GIGANTICALLY SHIT. My goodness it's irritating i tell you. We have a squillion delicious photos to put up and make everyone jealous, and every single sodding computer we go has massive issues handling just the Facebook home page let alone recognising a camera and displaying images. Oh well, i guess once i get to a more developed part of planet Earth i will have to spend two days and one meeellion dollars uploading all my photos. Joy. Mind you, i just had a nosey around the desktop of this computer and someone has managed to upload a load of their photos, so maybe i'll just put them online and we can all pretend they're mine. Yes, lets do that. Just ignore the fact im not a fat, chillian looking fellow with a skin head and a lopey eye and you can get a sense of the wonders ive seen.
Anyway, i'll stop moaning. So last time i wrote we were heading out of Laos, into Vietnam. Wow, that was a long time ago. OK, well i'll try do my best from then until now...which is basically a whole country. Oh well. We arrive in Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam, after a lovely short flight with incredibly rude flight attendants and a landing so bumpy i nearly swallowed my iPod. Hanoi was MENTAL. I guess i can liken it to Bangkok, but messier and OHMYGOD so loud. Its quite incredible actually. The streets are constantly packed with mopeds and the odd car. And i mean constantly. There is NEVER a break in traffic, and the most irritating/fascinating thing about it is the way the Vietnamese deal with this fact. They use their horns not as a warning for you to move, but they actually just drive along with their hands on their horns. All 3.4 million of them. At the same time. Jo and myself were sitting in a cafe watching the madness of these people attempting a round-about on the road beneath us and in one minute we each counted over 60 beeps. Thats a beep per second dontchaknow. The other fun part of this strange traffic behavior, is crossing the road. The ONLY way to do it, is to walk. Don't look at the traffic, or run across, just walk, slowly and steady in a straight line, and the traffic moves around you. Its a terrifying and fascinating thing at once beacuase even though you feel death is imminent, you also feel like your parting the red sea. Its most similar to that bit in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he has to walk out across that canyon, only to discover a hidden path. Powerful stuff. Another thing thats instantly noticeable about Vietnam, is they have no concept of bins or rubbish disposal, so when you are navigating the raging traffic, you also have to navigate the piles of stinky goop littered everywhere. Saying all of this though, i actually enjoyed Hanoi, yes it was busy, smelly and messy. but it seemed fun too. The people were lovely, not the terrifying, brainwashed sociapaths i presumed they would be. It seemed Communism bought a smile to most of their faces, and ours in return. perhaps, the reason i liked Hanoi the most, is that it was COOL. It actually RAINED when we got there. Amazing! I was thrilled with this precipitation. I actually even embraced a corny 'Shawshank-esque'pose as it started raining. Lish. So, thing we saw in hanoi? Well apart from some awesome shopping (SOZ about two pairs of Converse trainers for 4 quid!) we took a stroll to see this old fella pickled in a box. This dude, called Ho Chi Minh liberated Saigon from some bad dudes a while off, and basically saved Vietnams bacon, so when he died, they pickled him in a box for you to solemnly walk around in a big mouselium. This was when we got a view of the real communist Vietnam. On every street corner around the mouselum, stood a little box with two soldiers eyeing you up as you wandered past, and giant red Vietnamese flags billowed from every building. Even the people seemed to walk in single file, all chanting ÖNE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US' and when they saw our Western faces, they all pointed in unison and emitted a high pitched scream from their open mouths. OK, not really but that was the general vibe of the area. As we qued for the ho Chi MInhs mausoleum, i wondered what we would see. I imagined a big pickle jar with a huge lid and this old guy floating around inside with his eyes shut, and maybe a couple of gerkins and eggs bobbing about too. But alas, there was no Jar. Just a HUUUUUGE room with a glass coffin and a spooky looking old man asleep inside. Still really weird though, as the majority of the people visiting him were Vietnamese! And we had to queue for about an hour to get in, so this guy must really have been a hero. On the way in, we were laughing about the Big Brother style antics that the government could have employed over us Westerners since we arrived, such as Cameras in our spring rolls and other bugs and such, when all of a sudden, this guard stepped forward and told us to stop laughing, stop talking and walk with our hands by our sides. Woah. Scary stuff. Anyway, after Mr Minh, we went and watched some strange Water Puppetry show. It was ODD. Imagine a puppet show, but in a swimming pool. With authentic Vietnamese music. very strange. Interesting though. The music however - if you have never heard traditional Vietnamese music, just imagine a cat, that has had its head transplanted onto the body of a very moany woman (Dr Moreau styleee) and is still writhing in tremendous pain from the operation, whilst being burnt by cigarettes. Oh and with twingy-twangy string instruments playing along. Thats probably the best way to describe it. After this day of Tourism fun, it was sadly our time to say farewell to our group. Long gone are their LOST pseudonyms, and we all said goodbye really good friends. The nicest part about it all is the fact that we will be seeing eachother along our routes throughout our travels. We plan on seeing our Canadian buddy Jo for our travels through southern Thailand, and our friend Jess in New York, and some others in Canada and we are actually still travelling with some other buddies we met. Once the group left Hanoi, it was me and Jo, and the Great Danes. Three beautiful Danish girls called Mia, Stena and P (I dont even want to attempt to spell P's name wrong so i just call her P)'and it was from Hanoi, that we got our bus to a trip to Ha Long Bay. However, before our bus trip, Jo and myself decided to collect our laundry the hotel had kindly completed for us. Sadly, there were two problems with it. All of it smelt clean which was good, and it was all folded nicely, but poor Jo, upon examining one pair of her frilly M&S knickers, it appeared one of the cleaners had also examined these knickers. With her dirty crotch. Brown stained and smelling highly of body odor, these poor white panties were quickly disposed of. Dirty woman. As for me, my only surprise was what only can be described as a Molusk attached to one of my tshirts. A crusty, white shell of a molusk was firmly attached to the shoulder. I have NO idea why or how it got there, but we quickly deiced, the Vietnamese cannot do Laundry.
Now, to Ha Long Bay - a coastal area about 6 hours drive from Hanoi. Its most famous for its bizarre outcroppings of rocks that shoot out of the water like strange stone icebergs. We decided to do the tourist thing and spent two days and a night floating between these giant rocks on a big boat with nice curtains and lost of tables. It was actually a really awesome trip. When we arrived in Ha Long Bay it was the MOST humid weather i have ever experienced. I think i actually lost about 18 stone from sweating that day. It was really cloudy, and very misty though, so as we sailed along the eerily calm water, it was so awesome to see these giant mountain tops come out of the mist, towering out of the water. I actually worried we had sailed into the Bermuda Triangle at times becuase it was so surreal. On top of that i had nicknamed our ship the black pearl as it was black. And a ship. It made sense at the time. After doing some cave hunting (Awesome, HUGE caves) and a little sightseeing, we decided to go for a swim. by jumping off the top deck of the boat. It wasnt until i realised, still falling, kicking the air and grasping to hold onto something that the jump was actually terrifyingly high. But once we spalshed into those cold dark waters, it felt SOOOOOO good. Nice and cool. It wasnt until i noticed the giant mountains around me, very dark, deep, calm water beneath me, and towering black boat next to me, that i started freaking out and had to exit the water immediatly. Other than that tho, great fun.
After Hanoi, and Ha Long Bay, we made our way via a very bumpy, messy noisy sleeper train to Hoi An. Oh, on the sleeper train, we had to sleep 6 in one room. SIX! There was five of us so we only had to share with one stranger, but whata stranger. We christened him Mr Badoingy, a Vietnamese chap who loved Tennis and guffing in his sleep. It was with him that i noticed a radical difference in the Vietnamese, and mostly Asian peoples attitude towards what you can and cant do in public. Something you can't do is wave your feet around. Its rude apparently. So we have to keep them down on the floor, and never point or put them over someone else. As i was chatting to a steward on the tarin, i noticed something that apparently is acceptable. Whilst trying to communicate with her about my ticket, as we are chatting away, up shoots one of her fingers, straight into her left nostril and she has a good old root around whilst chatting with me. I mean, she was REALLY going for it, she had a biggun she was dying to get. All mid-convo. I gave up trying to chat after she successfully removed the blockage and began rolling it around in her fingers. And as for Mr Badoingy, my god that man enjoyed a guff. his was paring away all night.
Anyway, to Hoi An - this was our favorite place by far. Quiet, clean, and so so beautiful. FINALLY, we found paradise. We stayed for three nights, enjoying the crystal waters, white sand, and amazing people and shops. Check out the photos when we upload as they will just speak for themselves. We spent our days wandering the wide, empty streets, getting some clothes made by the local tailors, and enjoying coffees and cakes at an AMAZING cake shop. We even managed to meet up with our old group who were hanging around so that was good fun. After these three days and nights of Paradise (including the Oscars, HOW AWESOME WERE THEY?! Loved loved loved watching them in our room with pizza and free wifi) myself, Jo and the great Danes headed south via sleeper bus to Nah Trang, another seaside town. Notice how i say Sleeper Bus? well, there was NO sleeping going on. Imagine lining up 10 bunk beds, then shoving them on a bus, three in a row. That was the sleeper bus. put with it, three crazy drivers who continaully stepped into the drivers seat (without letting the bus stop or slow down), Vietnamese beepy crazy traffic and bunk beds with no sides and it proved to be a horrific journey. Thank god for Vallium. each time the bus went onto two wheels round the corner, or the driver emitted a GIGANTIC HONK every two minutes, Mr Diazaphan allowed me to lay back and enjoy the fact my face kept smashing into the window. At 5 in the morning, we arrive in Nah Trang, we quickly pointed out our hotel we wanted to stay in, and out of no where, a man resembling Quasimodo with a tan popped up and got a taxi for the girls, and a moped for me. Whizzing through the streets with extreme wind in your face is the best way to remove the sleep from your eyes i can assure you. We spent two nights in Nah Trang, one consisting of good food (We found Fajita's!) and the other constsing of waaaaaaaaaay too much drink. But ill get to that in a minute. After spending one day on the pretty average beach, we ventured across the waters of Nah Trang to a mysterious island with the words VINPEARL written across their hillsides in Hollywood Hills type writing. What is this Vin Pearl? Well as far as we could figure out, IT is a he, who is a multimillionaire who bought the island, and by the looks of our visit, is attempting to create a Disney World kind of place for the Vietnamese. Expect, he failed. Well, it wasnt that bad, but the majority of the rides, and water slides we went on nearly killed us. Especially the water slides. One of the great Danes, P, went down one of the slides and got off with half the skin on her back missing. After that, we stuck mainly to the wave pool, sympathetically called TSUNAMI which had a wave machine so powerful i'm starting to wonder whether i had found the real cause of the dreadful 2006 event. My god those waves were big. Great fun though, in a kind of OHMYGODIMGONNADIE kind of way. After that day of fun, we decided to head out on the twon for the night. BIG MISTAKE. What was going to be a pleasant drink, turned into a fairwell bash from the Great danes that lasted until 3 in the morning. And Jo and I had to get up at 9 for a sleeper train to Ho Chi Minh City. NOT GOOD. Lots of drinking and meeting other travellers went on, which was great fun, and horrifying in equal measure. I met a lovely chap. called Brian. he was 28 and had been travelling on and off since he was 17. ''Man, i really used to be into me drugs" brian would say. Over and over again in fact. It seemed Brian was STILL really into his drugs. Especially when he kept trying to grab my coconut bucket drink (Imagine a cocount, hollowed out with lots of rum added to it) and rip the top off of it spilling it everywhere becuase he thought i couldnt fit my straw in. I could fit my FIST into the drink, so im pretty sure i was fine. brian is one of MANY of these kinds of people we have come across on our travels so far. I call them THE LOST. They seem to be travelling all the time, but never really with any kind of destination. Tell tale signs include glazed, red, beady eyes, SCORCHED skin either brown or red and very messy hair. I actually cant stand talking to these people most of the time, because all they ever have to say is what you have missed on your journey so far. or they just breathe pure drugs in your face. Anyway, sometime around 3 Jo and i decided to make our way back to the hotel, only to realise we had no idea how to get there. Then, all of a sudden, Quasi with a tan turns up again! In the middle of the night! With his moped! god bless that wonky faced guy. he zoomed us back to our hotel, and very nicely, decided to roll us a joint. This wasnt a good idea. For one thing, it seemed to be not marijuana in it, but dirty hair. We also noticed his rolling paper was a page from a magazine. And on top of that the next day me and Jo realised we might have spent about 5000 Dong on it (Vietnamese money which equates to about 20 quid). And it tasted foul and made us feel grim. We are fools. So, the next morning, we both awoke, with the WORST hangover, and made our way for 9 hours on a train to Ho chi Minh in southern Vietnam. For most parts, the train was fine. We slept all day on our beds, waking for drink and sleeping again. For some reason, the Nausia stayed with me BIG TIME, so by the time we reached HCMC, io felt massively grim and booked into our hotel and slept forever. The next day, we met up with our New Yorker buddy, Hanif (Pure New Yorker who loves to party and sight-see and party) and we all headed via a bus to Cambodia! Totally uneventful, easy and quick, we crossed the border (after stopping at a cafe that sold deep fried curried frogs BEEEEURGH) and now here we are in Phnom Penh, capitol of Cambodia which i will write about another time as i think my fingers are about to fall off.
So thats where we are up to. Again, apologies for bad grammar, but its so hot im wearing a wet flannel round my head, and im typing on a keyboard half written in Cambodian, and im conscious of an ever dwindling amount of money in my wallet due to stupid internet prices. Expect photos soon, and from the 10th March onwards, i will be making phone calls again as we will be back in Thailand, on our way to Paradise and relaxation! WOOO!
Cheerio!
xxxx
(P.S - Anyone who has been to Asia will get the 'Same Same but Different' thing. It's their way of dealing with communicating to tourists. For example, TOURIST: Éxcuse me Sir, which one of these is the Chicken Curry, and which is the Tarantula Curry? ASIAN WAITER: 'Uhhh, Same Same, But Different.'' TOURIST: ''Great. Thanks.'')
Anyway, i'll stop moaning. So last time i wrote we were heading out of Laos, into Vietnam. Wow, that was a long time ago. OK, well i'll try do my best from then until now...which is basically a whole country. Oh well. We arrive in Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam, after a lovely short flight with incredibly rude flight attendants and a landing so bumpy i nearly swallowed my iPod. Hanoi was MENTAL. I guess i can liken it to Bangkok, but messier and OHMYGOD so loud. Its quite incredible actually. The streets are constantly packed with mopeds and the odd car. And i mean constantly. There is NEVER a break in traffic, and the most irritating/fascinating thing about it is the way the Vietnamese deal with this fact. They use their horns not as a warning for you to move, but they actually just drive along with their hands on their horns. All 3.4 million of them. At the same time. Jo and myself were sitting in a cafe watching the madness of these people attempting a round-about on the road beneath us and in one minute we each counted over 60 beeps. Thats a beep per second dontchaknow. The other fun part of this strange traffic behavior, is crossing the road. The ONLY way to do it, is to walk. Don't look at the traffic, or run across, just walk, slowly and steady in a straight line, and the traffic moves around you. Its a terrifying and fascinating thing at once beacuase even though you feel death is imminent, you also feel like your parting the red sea. Its most similar to that bit in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he has to walk out across that canyon, only to discover a hidden path. Powerful stuff. Another thing thats instantly noticeable about Vietnam, is they have no concept of bins or rubbish disposal, so when you are navigating the raging traffic, you also have to navigate the piles of stinky goop littered everywhere. Saying all of this though, i actually enjoyed Hanoi, yes it was busy, smelly and messy. but it seemed fun too. The people were lovely, not the terrifying, brainwashed sociapaths i presumed they would be. It seemed Communism bought a smile to most of their faces, and ours in return. perhaps, the reason i liked Hanoi the most, is that it was COOL. It actually RAINED when we got there. Amazing! I was thrilled with this precipitation. I actually even embraced a corny 'Shawshank-esque'pose as it started raining. Lish. So, thing we saw in hanoi? Well apart from some awesome shopping (SOZ about two pairs of Converse trainers for 4 quid!) we took a stroll to see this old fella pickled in a box. This dude, called Ho Chi Minh liberated Saigon from some bad dudes a while off, and basically saved Vietnams bacon, so when he died, they pickled him in a box for you to solemnly walk around in a big mouselium. This was when we got a view of the real communist Vietnam. On every street corner around the mouselum, stood a little box with two soldiers eyeing you up as you wandered past, and giant red Vietnamese flags billowed from every building. Even the people seemed to walk in single file, all chanting ÖNE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US' and when they saw our Western faces, they all pointed in unison and emitted a high pitched scream from their open mouths. OK, not really but that was the general vibe of the area. As we qued for the ho Chi MInhs mausoleum, i wondered what we would see. I imagined a big pickle jar with a huge lid and this old guy floating around inside with his eyes shut, and maybe a couple of gerkins and eggs bobbing about too. But alas, there was no Jar. Just a HUUUUUGE room with a glass coffin and a spooky looking old man asleep inside. Still really weird though, as the majority of the people visiting him were Vietnamese! And we had to queue for about an hour to get in, so this guy must really have been a hero. On the way in, we were laughing about the Big Brother style antics that the government could have employed over us Westerners since we arrived, such as Cameras in our spring rolls and other bugs and such, when all of a sudden, this guard stepped forward and told us to stop laughing, stop talking and walk with our hands by our sides. Woah. Scary stuff. Anyway, after Mr Minh, we went and watched some strange Water Puppetry show. It was ODD. Imagine a puppet show, but in a swimming pool. With authentic Vietnamese music. very strange. Interesting though. The music however - if you have never heard traditional Vietnamese music, just imagine a cat, that has had its head transplanted onto the body of a very moany woman (Dr Moreau styleee) and is still writhing in tremendous pain from the operation, whilst being burnt by cigarettes. Oh and with twingy-twangy string instruments playing along. Thats probably the best way to describe it. After this day of Tourism fun, it was sadly our time to say farewell to our group. Long gone are their LOST pseudonyms, and we all said goodbye really good friends. The nicest part about it all is the fact that we will be seeing eachother along our routes throughout our travels. We plan on seeing our Canadian buddy Jo for our travels through southern Thailand, and our friend Jess in New York, and some others in Canada and we are actually still travelling with some other buddies we met. Once the group left Hanoi, it was me and Jo, and the Great Danes. Three beautiful Danish girls called Mia, Stena and P (I dont even want to attempt to spell P's name wrong so i just call her P)'and it was from Hanoi, that we got our bus to a trip to Ha Long Bay. However, before our bus trip, Jo and myself decided to collect our laundry the hotel had kindly completed for us. Sadly, there were two problems with it. All of it smelt clean which was good, and it was all folded nicely, but poor Jo, upon examining one pair of her frilly M&S knickers, it appeared one of the cleaners had also examined these knickers. With her dirty crotch. Brown stained and smelling highly of body odor, these poor white panties were quickly disposed of. Dirty woman. As for me, my only surprise was what only can be described as a Molusk attached to one of my tshirts. A crusty, white shell of a molusk was firmly attached to the shoulder. I have NO idea why or how it got there, but we quickly deiced, the Vietnamese cannot do Laundry.
Now, to Ha Long Bay - a coastal area about 6 hours drive from Hanoi. Its most famous for its bizarre outcroppings of rocks that shoot out of the water like strange stone icebergs. We decided to do the tourist thing and spent two days and a night floating between these giant rocks on a big boat with nice curtains and lost of tables. It was actually a really awesome trip. When we arrived in Ha Long Bay it was the MOST humid weather i have ever experienced. I think i actually lost about 18 stone from sweating that day. It was really cloudy, and very misty though, so as we sailed along the eerily calm water, it was so awesome to see these giant mountain tops come out of the mist, towering out of the water. I actually worried we had sailed into the Bermuda Triangle at times becuase it was so surreal. On top of that i had nicknamed our ship the black pearl as it was black. And a ship. It made sense at the time. After doing some cave hunting (Awesome, HUGE caves) and a little sightseeing, we decided to go for a swim. by jumping off the top deck of the boat. It wasnt until i realised, still falling, kicking the air and grasping to hold onto something that the jump was actually terrifyingly high. But once we spalshed into those cold dark waters, it felt SOOOOOO good. Nice and cool. It wasnt until i noticed the giant mountains around me, very dark, deep, calm water beneath me, and towering black boat next to me, that i started freaking out and had to exit the water immediatly. Other than that tho, great fun.
After Hanoi, and Ha Long Bay, we made our way via a very bumpy, messy noisy sleeper train to Hoi An. Oh, on the sleeper train, we had to sleep 6 in one room. SIX! There was five of us so we only had to share with one stranger, but whata stranger. We christened him Mr Badoingy, a Vietnamese chap who loved Tennis and guffing in his sleep. It was with him that i noticed a radical difference in the Vietnamese, and mostly Asian peoples attitude towards what you can and cant do in public. Something you can't do is wave your feet around. Its rude apparently. So we have to keep them down on the floor, and never point or put them over someone else. As i was chatting to a steward on the tarin, i noticed something that apparently is acceptable. Whilst trying to communicate with her about my ticket, as we are chatting away, up shoots one of her fingers, straight into her left nostril and she has a good old root around whilst chatting with me. I mean, she was REALLY going for it, she had a biggun she was dying to get. All mid-convo. I gave up trying to chat after she successfully removed the blockage and began rolling it around in her fingers. And as for Mr Badoingy, my god that man enjoyed a guff. his was paring away all night.
Anyway, to Hoi An - this was our favorite place by far. Quiet, clean, and so so beautiful. FINALLY, we found paradise. We stayed for three nights, enjoying the crystal waters, white sand, and amazing people and shops. Check out the photos when we upload as they will just speak for themselves. We spent our days wandering the wide, empty streets, getting some clothes made by the local tailors, and enjoying coffees and cakes at an AMAZING cake shop. We even managed to meet up with our old group who were hanging around so that was good fun. After these three days and nights of Paradise (including the Oscars, HOW AWESOME WERE THEY?! Loved loved loved watching them in our room with pizza and free wifi) myself, Jo and the great Danes headed south via sleeper bus to Nah Trang, another seaside town. Notice how i say Sleeper Bus? well, there was NO sleeping going on. Imagine lining up 10 bunk beds, then shoving them on a bus, three in a row. That was the sleeper bus. put with it, three crazy drivers who continaully stepped into the drivers seat (without letting the bus stop or slow down), Vietnamese beepy crazy traffic and bunk beds with no sides and it proved to be a horrific journey. Thank god for Vallium. each time the bus went onto two wheels round the corner, or the driver emitted a GIGANTIC HONK every two minutes, Mr Diazaphan allowed me to lay back and enjoy the fact my face kept smashing into the window. At 5 in the morning, we arrive in Nah Trang, we quickly pointed out our hotel we wanted to stay in, and out of no where, a man resembling Quasimodo with a tan popped up and got a taxi for the girls, and a moped for me. Whizzing through the streets with extreme wind in your face is the best way to remove the sleep from your eyes i can assure you. We spent two nights in Nah Trang, one consisting of good food (We found Fajita's!) and the other constsing of waaaaaaaaaay too much drink. But ill get to that in a minute. After spending one day on the pretty average beach, we ventured across the waters of Nah Trang to a mysterious island with the words VINPEARL written across their hillsides in Hollywood Hills type writing. What is this Vin Pearl? Well as far as we could figure out, IT is a he, who is a multimillionaire who bought the island, and by the looks of our visit, is attempting to create a Disney World kind of place for the Vietnamese. Expect, he failed. Well, it wasnt that bad, but the majority of the rides, and water slides we went on nearly killed us. Especially the water slides. One of the great Danes, P, went down one of the slides and got off with half the skin on her back missing. After that, we stuck mainly to the wave pool, sympathetically called TSUNAMI which had a wave machine so powerful i'm starting to wonder whether i had found the real cause of the dreadful 2006 event. My god those waves were big. Great fun though, in a kind of OHMYGODIMGONNADIE kind of way. After that day of fun, we decided to head out on the twon for the night. BIG MISTAKE. What was going to be a pleasant drink, turned into a fairwell bash from the Great danes that lasted until 3 in the morning. And Jo and I had to get up at 9 for a sleeper train to Ho Chi Minh City. NOT GOOD. Lots of drinking and meeting other travellers went on, which was great fun, and horrifying in equal measure. I met a lovely chap. called Brian. he was 28 and had been travelling on and off since he was 17. ''Man, i really used to be into me drugs" brian would say. Over and over again in fact. It seemed Brian was STILL really into his drugs. Especially when he kept trying to grab my coconut bucket drink (Imagine a cocount, hollowed out with lots of rum added to it) and rip the top off of it spilling it everywhere becuase he thought i couldnt fit my straw in. I could fit my FIST into the drink, so im pretty sure i was fine. brian is one of MANY of these kinds of people we have come across on our travels so far. I call them THE LOST. They seem to be travelling all the time, but never really with any kind of destination. Tell tale signs include glazed, red, beady eyes, SCORCHED skin either brown or red and very messy hair. I actually cant stand talking to these people most of the time, because all they ever have to say is what you have missed on your journey so far. or they just breathe pure drugs in your face. Anyway, sometime around 3 Jo and i decided to make our way back to the hotel, only to realise we had no idea how to get there. Then, all of a sudden, Quasi with a tan turns up again! In the middle of the night! With his moped! god bless that wonky faced guy. he zoomed us back to our hotel, and very nicely, decided to roll us a joint. This wasnt a good idea. For one thing, it seemed to be not marijuana in it, but dirty hair. We also noticed his rolling paper was a page from a magazine. And on top of that the next day me and Jo realised we might have spent about 5000 Dong on it (Vietnamese money which equates to about 20 quid). And it tasted foul and made us feel grim. We are fools. So, the next morning, we both awoke, with the WORST hangover, and made our way for 9 hours on a train to Ho chi Minh in southern Vietnam. For most parts, the train was fine. We slept all day on our beds, waking for drink and sleeping again. For some reason, the Nausia stayed with me BIG TIME, so by the time we reached HCMC, io felt massively grim and booked into our hotel and slept forever. The next day, we met up with our New Yorker buddy, Hanif (Pure New Yorker who loves to party and sight-see and party) and we all headed via a bus to Cambodia! Totally uneventful, easy and quick, we crossed the border (after stopping at a cafe that sold deep fried curried frogs BEEEEURGH) and now here we are in Phnom Penh, capitol of Cambodia which i will write about another time as i think my fingers are about to fall off.
So thats where we are up to. Again, apologies for bad grammar, but its so hot im wearing a wet flannel round my head, and im typing on a keyboard half written in Cambodian, and im conscious of an ever dwindling amount of money in my wallet due to stupid internet prices. Expect photos soon, and from the 10th March onwards, i will be making phone calls again as we will be back in Thailand, on our way to Paradise and relaxation! WOOO!
Cheerio!
xxxx
(P.S - Anyone who has been to Asia will get the 'Same Same but Different' thing. It's their way of dealing with communicating to tourists. For example, TOURIST: Éxcuse me Sir, which one of these is the Chicken Curry, and which is the Tarantula Curry? ASIAN WAITER: 'Uhhh, Same Same, But Different.'' TOURIST: ''Great. Thanks.'')
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
