This is where the pickled Ho Chi Minh lays. WARNING, DO NOT SMILE TALK OR MOVE IN HIS PRESENCE.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
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.'')
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