Good Morning Vietnam!!

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We have finally arrived in Vietnam after a anxious wait in Auckland airport for our visas to be emailed to us from Hanoi they arrived with 14 mins to go before the flight closed so you could imagine the stress not knowing if we were able to get in or not, no worries though we made it in the end and we would like to say a big thank you to Uncle Bob for all your help in Invercargill last Saturday.
Saigon baby!! Well what can I say the first thing that gets you is the traffic! I have never seen so many scooters in all my life. They seem to have only one rule and that is to blast there horn as loud as possible and drive where and with whatever they like, We’ve seen Grandma, Mum and three kids on one bike, A old man with enough ice to build his own Igloo on another and I shit you not one brave soul had a huge tree on the back of his scooter which the leaves were getting ripped off the top as he went under the power lines MADNESS!!!!. So we got ourselves sorted out at the hotel and I must say I wouldn’t want to be in the building if there was an earthquake or even gale force winds!! How they can get away with building these things I’ll never no. Now it was off to book our 2 day drip through the Mekong delta and over to Cambodia which was as cheap as chips and seemed to include everything we wanted to see along the way. All things good on the tour front it was time to have a look around the place so we decided to go to the huge market which was all fine except one thing we had to cross the road which anywhere else would of been a piece of piss, but when you’re faced with hundreds of scooters, cars, buses, bikes and god knows what else going in all directions it becomes one of those moments when you fear for your life!! So after watching the locals for around 10 minutes we decided to have a go and we must say we where SHITTING IT BIG TIME!!!!!You just walk slowly out into a sea of traffic and keep going they seem to honk their horns and drive around you with wheels of scooters passing inches from your toes you finally make it to the other side then take a deep breath and thank god that your still alive..Easy Pessy!!!!
When we arrived at the market it was plain to see that anything goes here, there was everything Imaginable for sale and as soon as they seen us coming it was open season!! You wanna buy Mister, Me love you, You like, Special price for you Madam the list goes on, Babs ended up buying a Prada bag that has real labels stitched on all crooked and my 100% real fake leather Mont Blanc wallet seems to have been glued together with chewing gum..All for the bargain price of 3 US dollars. So after buying all sorts of rubbish we diced with death again crossing the roads and headed back to our area for a couple of beers a feed and a early night on a bed that was as good as sleeping on a sack of bricks..
Thurs 21st Feb
7.30am start on our overnight trip through the Mekong Delta and then on to Cambodia tomorrow. The Mekong River is massive to say the least it starts in Tibet runs through China, Thailand, Laos Cambodia then finishing up to form a massive delta region in Vietnam which provides food and water for over a billion people..During the trip we went to see the making of coconut candy, rice paper making also we visited a huge village where they trade all their goods with each other. It’s amazing to see these people going about their lives in such a basic way and all without a care in the world. The day was full on and thank god we ate so much food In New Zealand cause a 4 hour trip on a bus with no padding on the seats and a road with, well what can I say it wasn’t even a road sure took its toll on the arse cheeks!!We arrived in a small boarder town call Chau Doc around 7.30pm.Checked into our hotel and of all the places in the world we meet up with Jimmy my best man at the wedding who had been in Cambodia after our major bulls up with the visas to get into Vietnam he flew from Singapore to Phnom Penh the capital of Cambodia after being refused entry to Vietnam cause of the lack of visa. Anyways it was good to catch up, sink a few beers and hear how he had been shooting ducks with an AK-47 (long story)!!!Fixing the bill up in the pub, come hotel, come food place come bedroom for their staff it was unreal to see that the grand total for ten or more beers 3 meals,2 packets of smokes come to a grand total of £6.80!!!!We even left a tip...Next day was yet again a very early start (5 am) we were told to wait at hotel and the boat would pick us up out the back so I lugged all the packs down this gang plank made from the most rotten timber they could of found sat and waited and waited and waited for the boat only to be told that we were now going to another place to get the boat .So we got out the front of the hotel and there was this three wheeled bike with a one person seat on the back, a little old man like the one you would see in the old kung foo movies awaiting to transport us to the docks. He loaded all our packs and then us onto this shitty old bike then with his legs that were as thin a chopsticks raced us through the streets of Chau Doc to get the boat that was to take us to the Cambodian border. Sitting there waiting to leave on the boat, who should be sitting in the boat beside us..JIMMY!! We really have gotta stop meeting like this. Anyways fella we hope you got to Saigon safely and for god’s sake don’t get run over whilst there. See you back in London!!! Leaving the dock we made our way to the border and passed through heaps of rice fields villages and the most happy looking children I’ve ever seen they couldn’t stop waving at us..Arrived at the Vietnam - Cambodian border around lunchtime then it was the old waiting game again until our fix it man came back with the visas for entry to Cambodia.
While we played the good old you sit there the locals will try a fleece every dollar out of you waiting game I decided to write in my diary which was all good but after about 10 minutes I was wondering why Barbs was laughing so much. Then looking up she told me that all the kids were watching me write from a distance I forgot that education over here especially out in the village is well not the best to say least so seeing me with pen in hand writing like mad was kind of like going to school for these wee fellas. We bought with us some pens and paper to give to the kids over here so I thought it would be a good chance to try my hand at teaching. I wrote on the paper.
Hello
My name is Shayne and I am from New Zealand. We are so happy to be visiting your beautiful country Vietnam. Your friend is a very noisy wee man!!!
Shayne
Now the last bit is about the little guy who was about 4, He had a huge piece of bamboo and thought it was a good idea to smash the living shit out of anything and anyone in his sight, Very annoying but also very funny at the same time. Anyway I gave the note to one wee boy and he had a go at reading it with some difficulty but after teaching some of the words he mastered it and took off like a rocket to show his mates which was a bit of a bummer as we wanted to give him a pen and some paper but he was off never to be seen again!!
Visa done you come with me said the fix it man in his broken English. So it was off to the border in this dangerous little speed boat. There is about Kilometre piece of land that separates the two countries so this speed boat was to take us to Cambodia then we were to get the fast boat to Phnom Penh as arranged in Saigon with the tour company. Bang, Stamp, Long stare and we are in Cambodia simple as that!! Back down to the jetty to get our packs off the speed boat, I unloaded our packs the 2 Japanese guys and the Vietnamese girls luggage off the boat simply because if they had tried to do it, I guessed there could have been a drowning or two as they would have fallen in the river. So the packs are off the boat and we are getting ready to put the luggage on to this bigger boat with seats a roof and all the luxuries we had been expecting for our 2 hour fast boat ride up the Mekong River to Phnom Penh the capital. BIG MISTAKE!! The driver of the big boat tells me this not your boat friend, that’s your boat there pointing at the bathtub with motor out of a truck on the back that we had just got out of. So yet again I’m loading the entire luggage back on to our death boat and Barbs and I with 2 very worried looking Japanese dudes and one Vietnamese girl whose dressed for a Madonna concert all our luggage one driver with motorbike helmet on and we are on our way for a two hour shitting ourselves boat ride to Phnom Penh. Any chance of Barbs breast feeding or even me being able to produce the little fellas to make a babies have now been completely ruined after get bashed, banged and crushed on this hell ride in the world’s fastest bathtub!!!
YIPPIE PHNOM PHENH!!!!!
MORE SOON!!!!

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Comments

[Trudy Brown]

Hi guys sounds like your havin a great time! Look forward to hearing from you soon so we no your still alive and well!!