Amit says

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More moto adventures
Shugi and I have chilled on Phu Quoc island for a few days throwing down saigon's chilling on the beach and swimming in the warm, clear ocean. Shugi told me that he saw a little girl digging with a sea shell shortly before I came back ashore and started to do the same thing. I think I was far more ambitious than she was as I tried to create a baray and even shugi got into it helping to find shells to make the temple. Sadly, after an hour's worth of work an errant wave washed it all away. C'est la vie.

We had another moto experience... Honestly, I intended for it to be very bland-- we would go up to a remote beach and just chill out. Unfortunately we got lost and ended up in farm country with dogs staring at us strangely and non-english speaking vietnamese trying to sell us tomatoes every once and a while. The original dirt road we started out on became something like a ravine, or gully, or something so narrow, that I couldn't actually turn the bike around. So we had to keep going and then the gears stopped working and then the throttle got stuck. So shugi jumped off and I rode the thing like a mechanical bull almost into a tree before it submitted to my will. Actually, the engine died, I don't know why but I'm very thankful. We finally made it to the beach which was very beautiful with nice, fancy bungalows and fancy bikini clad women. There was no way they went through what we did to get there. Shugi had the smart idea of hiring a guide to lead us back and I grudgingly agreed cause my pride was wounded, but it got dark so good thing we did.

Poison!
The night before we were supposed to leave pho quoc, shugi and I had a "big night" met some other tourists who talked a lot and had dinner and drinks with them. Fun times for sure. The next morning, I wake up and shugi asks me, "Dude, didn't I wake you up last night. I was throwing up pretty loudly." Shoot... So with the added symptoms of diarrhea and rigors we made the provisional diagnosis of viral gastroenteritis and made a plan not to take the boat and catch a flight to ho chi minh city where there might be reals doctors incase we needed them. While waiting standby at the airport, which should really be called an airstrip. I stepped out for some food and ordered some noodle soup from a local shop. While their pudgy little baby gawked at my non-vietnameseness in awe and touched me gingerly with one finger to make sure I was real and didn't bite, his mom puts a bowl of cold noodles and what appears to be pork in front of me. It was delicious, but I couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom, or the feeling of sheer idiocy for actually eating this. Needless to say, about 6-8 hrs later, by this time we were in Ho chi minh, I began rigoring and a few hours after that I had the dilemna off deciding whether I wanted to throw up or void my bowels first. I chose to throw up first. Thankfully, it all seems to be over in less than 24 hours so we decided that it had to be food poisoning rather than infectious. I'm also not sure whether my risky meal or something shugi and I shared the night before did us in... and epidemiological mistery, but we're thinking of checking in with the other tourists we met to see if they got sick too.

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