sai-gone

Back in Hoi An and it is hot again! One week in Sapa and you forget that the earth revolves around the sun. It's quite nice being back in the heat. Things dry quickly. Drinking cold water becomes a spiritual experience. You don't have to wear much and I may even get a tan. The drawback of being in the heat again: during the cold I wore my entire wardrobe and this afforded me more space in my bag for things and trinkets, which I filled with no trouble. Now I have nowhere to put my long pants, my jacket, my gloves, my jumper. To make matters worse, I am in the tailor capital of the world and fully intend to purchase another full wardrobe even though I have nowhere to put it. Oh the humanity. Things have changed in Hoi An. They have paved the road. This is amazing news and as soon as Paul and I noticed we started dragging our feet and walking in zig zags and saying things like "so luxurious!" One drawback of Hoi An is the local's enthusiasm for making a sale. People ...

OK back! so where was i up to? Hoi An...well that town is just beautiful, so picturesque! We had spend so much time getting clothes made though, some were amazing some not so amazing but so damn cheap! we found the greatest pho street stall, so damn cheap and tasty! we also visited an orphanage which was lovely. There is something about the food in general in hoi an, it is just so tasty, i don't know what they put in it but the tomato, garlic peanuts combine to make a taste sensation! the beach there is nice too, though much colder than cambo or thailand. next stop was hanoi, my last days with my kazza, we had a bit of a freakout when we realised we had left out passports 19 hours away in hoi an but that was all resolved when they sent them up on a bus for us. They arrrived 2 hours before kaz was to leave for Bangkok..PHEW! Kazzy Come back! Well after Kaz left i went to Sapa that evening on the night train, i was lucky to spend the rest of the day with some lovely british girls we...

Hello!! Well i am sorry to all who is on my back about being slack with my blog, my apologies! Well where do i start? Well Kaz and i had an amazing time together, we cycled the streets of nha trang where we tasted the most amazing coffee ( and kaz dearest the coffee in hanoi really isn't the same) we left there without going to the beach once which was strange but it didn't come close to the beach in sihanoukville. our next stop was the lovely town of hoi an. Kaz and i really had a great time here besides the fact that is a womans paradise with all the shoe and clothing tailors, it is a really beautiful town. we hored bikes here every day, it was a little easier to ride here as the town is much quieter just a sec...gotta change computers...

Hello! Well the last few days have been very hot here in Hoi An, We can hardly bare it, bec and i have had a few item of clothing made, i have had some shoes made and two jackets, soo cheap!!we have made some friends here, Paul and Ed from Ireland, i went to watch the football with them the other night then went to a few bars, we went to this great one out in the middle of nowhere where they played the beatles and henrix and had thousands of names written on the wall from past visitors, good fun. Yesterday i visited marble mountain, a group of temples and pagodas built on top of a mountain overlooking the beach. We had to climb up hundreds of barble steps and scale cliffs and treck through caves to get to the top but it was all worth it for the view. We have another ailment to add, i burned my leg on the motorbike 'Thailand tattoo' they call it...OUCH! today we are off to hue, I hope it is as quiet and friendly as hoi an, i hear it is hotter which isn't too good but i'm...

Whew, for a gut-wrenching hour I thought my iPod had upped and died on me. You're not meant to let it overheat, right? 35 degrees c is the little tacker's limit, then it just conks out. Well in Hoi An it's about 30 something. So if i even turn my iPod on, just to look at it, it probably hits 35 without any effort. I've had to start taking it out of its black Yakumoto suit everytime i use it, cause overheating is really easy here. Even for me. We're about to check out of our hotel and we've left about 13 empty water bottles, 1.5 litres each, in the bathroom. If they even fit into the bin provided, we still feel they should be recycled . . . somehow. So we're catching the 2pm bus to Hue, which only takes around 2 hours. We're skipping Denang because who can be bothered. Claire came back after a 24 hour absence with a bad hangover, a scrape to the knee and a great big burn on her lower leg. We're all excited about this as we can finally crack open paul...

We're leaving in 3 hours, so I don't really have anything to say. It's hot, but that's nothing new. I'm sweating. I guess Australia are out of the world cup now, but who cares? I'm only really sitting in the internet cafe because Bec needs to charge her iPod. (Note to self: next time, bring power adaptor). We have to check out of our hotel in about 40 minutes. Claire burned her leg on a scooter's exhaust. (Who's scooter, you ask?) The good news is, we are leaving Hoi An behind, and probably leaving the weirdness here too. Hmmm. Vague? Yes. - Paul

We did end up hiring bikes yesterday and we made it to the beach in one piece! Everyone except this poor girl I crashed into. I apologised profusely but she just stared at me, horrified by this crazy white person who can't ride a bike. ... So the beach was really great and i took a killer photo of this toddler with no pants on. I Don't think he minded though, because he stood there posing for about five mintues. We purchased some peanut brittle from a girl named sun-sun. It is the best and i need some more. Paul drew her picture and she was very pleased. Today we went out to My Son where some really cool Cham Ruins are. I took heaps of photos- almost 2 Gig's worth. Paul might have mentioned Claire's absence today. We aren't supposed to talk about it, but we're putting together a short film, from snippets of interviews with witnesses, which will be released on DVD in early August. Ha, i think about three girls have spoken to me in the last day or two and after a ...

So Claire has disappeared. She went off to watch the soccer yesterday and we haven't seen her since. She missed the tour bus so Bec and I went to My Son by ourselves. There are some spectacular Cham ruins there. Much better than the ones we saw in Nha Trang. I've decided to put off buying anything until we get to Hanoi, and even then I don't think I'll really buy anything. It's okay for the girls, they can get good clothing made for them in a day for a pittance, but the offering they have for men is rather limited. Anything you get from a market is just utter trash, there's no reason to buy anything. You end up seeing the same t-shirt in every single stall and eventually you start to wonder whether someone else might have bought the same shirt. It would get embarrassing bumping into someone with the same Tin Tin shirt, right? I did however buy a pair of sunglasses and a hat, but this is only because I lost my sunglasses and my hat somewhere. Other than that I ha...

Hoi An is basically just a bunch of stalls lining the streets. There are some heritage buildings dotted throughout but it's pretty rural, without a whole lot to do except shop. The girls are on some kind of spending spree. Like, I know $7 isn't really a lot to pay for a fitted skirt, but they're stopping at every single shop and stall that we pass. The people there, they give out business cards like it's the newest big thing and the girls just keep taking them. They stop and point at a dress casually and suddenly there's an attendant taking it down and offering to let them try it on. 'Come in, try, no worries'. They clearly know not to bother with me, although I still have to wave away about twenty motorbikes a day. Today I have been promised a frozen yoghurt if I put up with all the shopping. They wouldn't let me get it on credit, so I have to wait until I am exhausted and sweating like The Hulk after a showdown with an Apache Helicopter or something. I...

Hoi An is so photogenic it's making me look like a talented photographer. I think i'll live here and sell postcards of my photos. It's hot-hot-hotter during the day here but cooler at nights. Everything closes at nine, though. In Nha Trang everything except the bars closed at ten. But we're almost half way up the country now so we can expect some later nights further north. My sunburn isn't quite so hideous today. Yesterday Paul kept saying, geez bec your back is covered in beads of sweat. So I eventually told him to get a towel already, and he dabbed away but only took off skin! I am bubbled through with blisters yay super happy fun! Every other shop here is a cloth shop with all these really funky designs on display. Every other-other shop is a shoe shop where they make shoes to fit. Claire already has some red sandles, two different sizes to fit her strange feet. We both got skirts made yesterday and mine is so cool but warm also so i can't wear it until i ge...