Pick it, Pack it, Fire it up, Come Aloooong Tue 19/02 - Fri 22/02/08 Day one of trekking in Sapa. After breakfast, we make our way downstairs to the lobby, ready to leave. Outside, the ladies of the Black H'Mong are already waiting for us. We were warned about this, so it's not too much of a shock. The women will follow us throughout our trek, offering assistance, making conversation, and then when we reach the end, several hours later, they will try to sell us everything they've got. Still, I wonder [View Full Entry]

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Tricks of the Desert Friday 14/02 - Mon 18/02/08 Farewell, Tam Dao mountain. Farewell to freezing my goddamn ass off. I have never, ever, felt as cold as I did in that desolate, dismal place, not even in my darkest moments. At this point, the team fractures and splits. First, Craig and Gregg decide to go to Hanoi for a weekend on the piss. I'm so very close to joining them, but have a lot of shit to organise, so bail out. I'd love to tell the story of their two weird and fucked up days, b [View Full Entry]

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The Battle for Cold Mountain - Tony Tick vs. The Internet Whore 13/02-14/02/08 A few years ago, a movie by the name of Cold Mountain came out. I never saw it, mainly because it stars Renee Zellwegger, a woman of astonishingly little talent, who's only true skill appears to shaping her lips to perfectly imitate a tight, puckered arse. I'm guessing somewhere within this film, there is a mountain. I'm assuming that this mountain is a little nippy, perhaps containing features such as snow and icy winds, and that the residents [View Full Entry]

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Culture Week We are scheduled to leave Yen Bai for a week of cultural experiences, which will include spending two nights in a Buddhist Temple with monks. Concerned that we might actually have to stop drinking during this time, we head out at the weekend to top up. Craig has arranged for the us to meet up with Dung, and two of her friends. The musketeers, along with Trung taking on the role of Dogtanion (yes, I mean Dog) saddle up. During our short time together, we have come to learn that Trung [View Full Entry]

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"F*cking Minorities" 08/02/08 Friday morning. We recount tales of sodomy close-shaves, unwanted breakfasts and future mother-in-laws to the rest of the group, and then leave on a private bus at 9.30am. Our destination is the Ngoi To Village, somewhere in the Vu Linh District (I'm reading this off my schedule sheet. Truth is, I rarely know where I am, who I'm with or what the fuck I'm doing). The village is located near Thac Ba Lake, which covers an area of 23,400ha and contains 1,331 Islands. It' [View Full Entry]

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Chuk Mung Nam Moi - Pt 3 07/02/08 Chinese New Year. To be frank, it pisses all over any other New Year. What do we do back home in the U.K? We pay over the odds to get into venues we'd normally be let in for free, spend a fortune on alcohol that doesn't even get you drunk and sing shitty songs like Auld Lang Syne. Bascially, we just make twats of ourselves. Or, if you're really sad, you sit at home and watch Claire Balding struggle to come up with new and interesting ways to describe fireworks. They go [View Full Entry]

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Chuk Mung Nam Moi Pt 2 06/02/08 We arrive in Yen Bai the day before the Chinese New Year, and check into our hotel. Yen Bai is even icier than Hanoi. We are up on the 4th floor of the hotel, and the wind blows down the open corridors, and through windows. Nowhere in Vietnam seems to have central heating, so I buy several jumpers and a scarf. We wander around the streets, and everywhere are met by friendly faces and words of welcome. Old grandmas rush out of shops and gesticulate, girls and boys of all [View Full Entry]

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Chuc Mung Nam Moi Mother-Fucker Pt. 1 04/02/08 We all step out of the Water Puppet theatre dazed and confused, reeling from the ordeal and stunned at the depths of depravity that the Canadian people are capable of sinking to. There is little option but to find a place to drink, so we end up stopping at a jazz cafe next to our hotel. The prices are high and the quality of the music low, so after one cocktail we move on. Asking moto taxi drivers for directions, we end up at Funky Monkey, a neon lit disco-dive, where we [View Full Entry]

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I love the Smell of Moto Taxi's in the Morning* 03/02/08 - 05/02/08 Hanoi. Shit. I'm still only in Hanoi. I step out the shower and think I'm going to open my eyes and end up back in the desert. The first night in the hotel, it was worse. I'd wake up in the dead of night, and they'd be no dogs barking, no sounds of Indian men snoring....they'd be nothing. I hardly said a word to my room mate until I said "yes" to a beer. When I was in Goa I just wanted to be back there. When [View Full Entry]

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Goa, Goa, Gone 23/01/08 - 02/02/08 I wave goodbye to the dirt of Shiv, and head back on the night train to Jaipur. The insects do their best to fuck with my karma again, but I'm a combat veteran now, and I just roll over in my top bunk and sleep while the bombs fall all around me. We catch a bus from Jaipur to Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. For those not in the know, it's a fucking massive white building of the temple variety, and well worth a couple of morning hours standing and staring. Then, we're [View Full Entry]

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