I've managed to do quite a bit since I last posted, which was in the middle of Vietnam. I dread writing the huge long spiels because I feel guilty that everyone has to sit down for a year and read it ( and I know people do, because it's been mentioned in emails ;) )

So, instead, I shall intend to condense things in a Helen Fielding style, in the hope that I can cram the rest of Vietnam, and our Hong Kong fun with Gary into a reasonable size blog.

And so...moving on....

Hue

Spent my birthday here, didn't do anything much apart from getting a pizza for dinner (because it wasn't bloody noodles, rice or anything remotely Asian) and eating copious amounts of Grape flavoured birthday cake. Ate it for pudding and also for breakfast the next day. Went out for drinks with two nice Isreali girls, both named Adi (not sure on spelling) and had green toxic sludge looking cocktails which were meant to be orange flavoured.
Also visited some tombs of past Emperors, some slightly damaged thanks to lovely American bombs. Went to a place called the Forbidden Purple City. It wasn't forbidden. Or purple. But it was where Emperors got their groove on before Communism took over.


Hoi Ann

Famed as a preserved "Old Town" of Vietnam. Is actually known as the "Cheap Shopping Town" of Vietnam. I bought clothes and shoes which now weigh down my overstuffed backpack even more. 50% of my travellers cheques got spent here.


Hanoi

The capital of Vietnam. Can't say a lot about it really, has all the museums we saw in Saigon, so we ignored them this time round.

The overnight bus here was the most interesting part. Halfway through the journey, two men got on (even though the bus is already full, the drivers aren't adverse to making some extra money and picking up local passengers who sit in the aisle of the bus, making the journey a million types of illegal in terms of health and safety).
The men seated themselves in on the floor of the aisle next to me and Ness, with two rather large bulging bags. Bags which prompted Ness to scream :

"There's something alive in there!"

To which everyone turned, studied the bags, and discovered that masses of small birds were moving and sticking their beaks out of the bag. Thus, all the Westerners (Ness and myself included) began to scream,

"BIRD FLU! BIRD FLU!"

The owners of the bags typically didn't understand any of this, and were not very obliging when everyone screamed at them to take their bags and sit at the front of the bus with the locals. After some minor harassment, one of the guys (thankfully the one in the aisle next to me and Ness) gave up and moved, but it took a lot of aggression from a German lady for the other guy to move also, finally relenting to her "HAFF YOU NOT HEARD OF ZE BIRD FLU??!" screams.

Freakishly enough I developed a cold after this, but it's gone away now, so no bird flu for me :)

Sapa

Took an overnight train here from Hanoi to do some trekking in the mountains, where hill tribes live. Full of amazing scenery and even more amazing people. The young girls of the tribes are sent out to flog you stuff, but actually end up chatting with you instead (although I ended up buying stuff). Met two 13 year old girls who were lovely, and spoke excellent english for people who had learnt it off tourists (was careful not to swear - didn't want to add to their vocabulary). On our last day, they dragged us to an internet cafe to help them read and send emails in English. Have not seen anything so weird in my life - a net cafe full of young girls in hilltribe dress, all on msn messenger and hotmail.


And after all this, we flew to Hong Kong to hang out with Gary for a week.


Hong Kong

Would like to say I did some interesting cultural things here, and took a lot of hot pictures. The sad truth is, we went shopping most of the time, and the sky was too bad to take photos most days.
Gary succeeded in getting us trashed twice - keeping us out til 6 am, which is the lastest I have ever been out on any night, let alone a school one. The weirdest thing was going to a 24 hour English pub at 4 am for a full fry up breakfast. I couldn't handle food at that time, so I watched in awe as everyone else stuffed their faces.

I also did a very bad thing in Hong Kong. It is so shameful that there are tears in my eyes as I think of it now. My beliefs are rocked to the core, and my life will never be the same again.

I ate a McDonalds. Twice.

Yes, after my 2 year (and it was meant to be eternal) abstinance from fast food, I ruined it all by having a big mac with fries, and six chicken nuggets.
In my defence, the first wasn't my fault, we were at a theme park and there was nothing else to eat. I could hardly go off for an M&S low fat sandwich, so I had to break tradition.

The second was my fault. It was 5 am, I was trashed, and we thought it would be a good idea to get a taxi across town to the only 24 hours McDonalds. A painful drunken mistake.

The rest of Hong Kong was just spent catching up with Gary, meeting his friends, and doing normal Westener things again. We went to see the Da Vinci Code, which I was pleased to see was very close to the book, unlike some films, which do silly things like miss out huge storylines, and add in random lesbians (Bridget Jones 2).


I am now in Sydney, but I will have to update on this next time as Ness's bro needs the laptop back, and it's bedtime.

But before I go, I WROTE THIS ON A MAC POWERBOOK AND IT WAS AMAZING. :D

I've been in Vietnam for a while now, so it's time I update a bit.

Vietnam is a lot different to the poverty of Cambodia. Many people (and books) have mentioned that Vietnam is a poor country, but from what we have seen so far, it's been pretty posh. People live in actual houses for one thing, unlike the shacks and shanty town type things of Cambodia. Ness and I have only been here for about 2 weeks, but we've both decided we prefer Cambodia, mainly because of the people.
A high percentage of people here come across as greedy and rude. Everytime we walk past a shop, we have shouts of 'buy something!' as a form of greeting, simply because we're Western, and so apparently have money to throw around. Even if we do buy something, people are not satisfied, as the cry then turns to 'buy something more!' . Many a time I have wanted to shout at people that I have already bought something from their bloody shop, so be bloody well grateful with it.
We've also had several people walk up to us with their hands held out, expecting money, just because I have my purse out to pay for something, or to give money to a monk/nun. I might add that these are healthy looking, clean people - simply thinking they can pass themselves off as beggars because we can't tell the difference. I bloody well can tell when someone's not a beggar, and they get told to fuck off in no uncertain terms. Although a nice place overall, Vietnam is a pretty expensive place in which to stay - people hike up their prices as far as they think they can get away with to foreigners. I miss Cambodia where everyone was nice, polite and honest. I'm not grumping too much though, Vietnam has pretty towns, stunning landscapes and cheap clothes :)

Anyway...

Saigon

Actually called Ho Chi Minh City, although no one really calls it that apart from hardcore Communists. Which is good as it is a rubbish name and it would be like calling London 'Winston Churchillville'. The city, from what we saw of it, was really nicely laid out, with French style buildings and boulevards. There is overall a very French feeling to it, left over from the French colonial period. They left very nice things like baguettes and cakes behind, although we are trying to abstain from eating such things 24/7. There are also a lot of tailored clothes and shoe shops here, and it has been very hard not to buy everything in every single shop we go in, being as everything clothes wise is so cheap. I accidentally bought a jacket, a pair of shoes and a six foot wall hanging, but as long as I can still lift my backpack, things will be fine. The most amazing thing is that shoes are small enough to fit me here. I fit in! I can wear small people clothes and shoes! I will never get over the shock of finding a pair of shoes that were too small for my feet. We toured the Mekong Delta here - the Mekong runs roughly through each country we've been in, so it's pretty big. Although it was a very interesting tour, my favorite part, and the part I remember the most, is the most amazing monkey I have ever seen. We only saw him because we stopped off at a random restaurant for a few minutes, a restaurant which bizarrely kept monkeys in their garden. This one was just a regular monkey, until he had some sort of insane fit, and began swinging 360 degrees round a pole and screaming:

"whooo...whooooo...whoooooooo...WHOO..WHOO...WHOOO..WHOO......WHOOOOOOOOP!"

I realize this looks a bit weird in word form but it is the most hilarious sound known to man. Thankfully some Israeli guy videoed the Amazing Monkey on his camera, and we have his email address, so there is a slim chance you might all get to glimpse the Amazing Hilarious Monkey Experience.


Dalat

This is a town in the central highlands of Vietnam, so the climate is much cooler, and much more to my taste. I have learned to appreciate all things cold since I've been in Asia, being as nothing ever is, and Dalat was just like England - so a refreshing change. There wasn't all that much to see here, although we had both only come to see something called the 'Crazy House', which is a hotel and general architectual oddity. All the buildings are shaped like the type of Evil Trees you might find in a bad forest in a Disney film. The rooms all have odd themes like 'The Bee Room', and the 'Eagle Room', complete with giant plastic bees/eagles/other weird animals. I don't know if anyone actually stays in the guest house as I can't imagine many people wanting to wake up to a giant kangaroo with red glowing eyes staring them in the face. We had the cheapest meal so far in Asia, which was 21p for rice, meat, tofu, vegetables, salad, and some weird watery soup. Best bargain ever! I seem to have gotten slightly addicted to tofu, for some weird reason.

Nha Trang

This is the beach section of our Vietnamese trip. Like Cambodia, you don't really expect Vietnam to have a beach, but it was a good one. No white sands on this one, it just looked like a nice beach you might find in Spain. We splashed out this time, and hired sun loungers for the few days we were there - it buys you some privacy, so beach vendors don't hassle you every five minutes. After Cambodia, we got a bit of beach vendor fatigue. I had a minor accident with my camera here, I fell off a big rock and damaged the shutter. I had a slight bout of self loathing rage, but our moto guide guy dumped us off at a camera shop, where I paid some guy $40 to perform some sort of miracle, so now my camera works again (for now). Fingers crossed it will stay this way, as my camera is my life, and a permanent growth on my right hand.


We are now in Hoi Ann, but I will write about this later, as it is my birthday tomorrow, and to celebrate, we have to get a bus to Hue at 7 am. Sod's Law!