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this travelblog thing is REALLY trying! this is entry number 2 after nearly 5 weeks of travelling so am having difficulty backdating, as cant bloody remember what i was doing 3 weeks ago! so much for catching up! will give it ago anyway...
we had a pretty smooth journey into vietnam, well ridiculously so and damn right embaressing in hindsight! we took a chauffered mercedes to the border, got out, sorted our visas, then got into another brand new 10 seater mercedes into saigon. not exactly backpacking i know, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
saigon is bloody mad! with a population of over 6 million people, its the largest city in vietnam. so of course you're bound to run into someone you know! in my case it was a mate and ex of monique, dave mckenzie, who i hadnt seen for about 8 years. thought i was hallucinating when i heard my name being shouted, but there you go! needless to say i had a bit of a big one with him and his boyfriend oliver, and came home pretty late to an unimpressed ruairi.
we spent 4 days in saigon, wandered
around alot, went to the war museum, home to the famous photo by nick ut, of 9 year old kim phuc, fleeing her village after a napalm attack. we also stumbled upon the zoo by chance, decided to check it out and realised we had basically paid money to look at endangered animals in cement holes (nice one!)
we headed to mui ne next, a small fishing village about 5 hours north of saigon. here we spent 2 days. ruairi, myself and 2 irish girls we met on the journey (irene and catherine), took a day trip from here up to the famous sand dunes, apparently the most photographed dunes in the world. we hired a sled for some crazy extreme sport sand sledding and got psyched up to go like a bad outta hell down these 80 deg slopes. brave and fearless ruairi went 1st, sat on the sled, pushed off while all the girls looked on anxiously...and arrived at the bottom of the 20 metre slope about 12 minutes after take off. i swear to god i nearly wet myself. same story with me and the others. the locals seem to go pretty fast, probably because they
have more practise! or it could be because our fat western asses sink into the sand causing copious amount of sand to mound up around us and over the sled.
a further 4 hours north on the coast we hit nha trang. we had planned to spend 4 days here, but ended up spending 10 after we realised some mongeral in cambodia jibbed us on our visas, by giving us a 2 week instead of a 4 week, so we had to stay put and wait for an extension. a really nice place, nice beach, nice pubs, nice restaurants. but sun down, the prostitutes come out and start robbing everyone. we lost our camera, ruairis sunnys, and about 200 $us. we wernt the only ones, i think we spoke to about 20 people who had been pickpocketed also. also caught up with dave and olly (who had also been robbed), and had another good night with them.
the highlight would have to be the boat trip to 4 offshore islands. we had a band on board and watched on in horror as ruairi did a very wrong karaoke performance of betterman. did some snorkelling and had a floating
bar, which is basically everyone bobbing around in floaty rings with a polystyrene slab holding red wine (the kind you use to get the rust off you'r bike spokes), but booze is booze and we sculled it anyway. ruairi went parasailing too which i was very suprised at since this is the guy that gets sick on a ferris wheel (think it was the deruster).
ruiairi and i also went on a river cruise, which promoted 'buffalo recognition', and 'conversation and relaxation' as its highlights. we simply couldnt resist the lure of this carazy adventurous day! it actually ended up being pretty cool, had a great tour guy (dong) who talked to us all day about the war (he fought in the cambodian war), so it was really interesting. i got to drive the boat too! must be the only country in the world where they let larry get behind the wheel! also went to the hot springs and had a mineral and mud bath.
so thats that. the boys have gone on into laos and where headed further north into the highlands with dong (which weve done but still pretending i havnt!).
it seems too that
ruairi has started and official competition on whos blog is better and who gets more comments, so you know what to do! put your votes in now, the lines are closing soon!
larry
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Benny boy
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Nice one lozza, sounds like yous are havin a great time. won't say much, just wanted to make sure you win the competition