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Published: April 17th 2013
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Do these beads make me look fat?
Uuuhhh... No Lor' Buddha. You are the vehry incahrnation of middle path living. Got up early with an inspired self chastisement about the point of travelling versus the comforts of doing nothing. Went on a tour of the Mekong delta for a pittance. It wasn't super exciting but enjoyable and cheaper than hanging around here. Got to ride on slow boats (hooray!), eat fresh exotic fruit, talk with my fellow strange strangers, go for a cycle, and even see one of my old pals, a water buffalo. Didn't pat or chat to him though (language barriers), just hang out fairly close, covered sufficiently in cud and grass patches... you know... stealth is important when animal watching. Pretty sure he wasn't fussed.
Got a meal in a place catering to tourists. Got some spring rolls what were good n a faux Aussie burger what was about as meh as expected. Met some more chermans. They were good to joke with. Berliners (damn, shoulda introduced myself "Ich Bin Beriner"). My needs to socialise were well exceeded this day. Might have to keep my distance from anything social for a bit regain that healthy balanced state of crushing loneliness.
Went for a walk. Went for a massage. On way home was swarmed by
Three poisons in one
Guess which kills the most people each year? :) teams of madams, girls and guards in two-bike sales and logistics teams. One persistent top shelf product (they all are) shot off into the night when the po-po rolled by, leaving management behind. All day and more in the night- marijuana and boom boom.
Finally getting out of Saigon. I like it here though the guest house people were great- so helpful and friendly. Off to Da Lat; the romantic getaway spot allegedly (... by myself... figures really) 7 hours and nearly nothing in terms of distance on the map... met some more swedes on the bus. They are cool guys doing their honours thesis related to corporate ethics in regards to the pursuit of profit vs welfare of workers. Its funny to me though. They are well aware of course but there is no way they would be able to acquire anything much from the shoe factory they visited but fabrications and manufactured truths, but what can you do?
Went on an all day tour. Bathed in sweat, my adventureman shirt i thought would be epically travel suitable proved way too hot. Saw flowers and waterfalls, churches and laughing bald fatty worshipping temples.
So next time you wear silk ladies (and gentlemen)
I hope your happy clothed in your murdered butterfly foetuses! Silk Is Murder (and deliciously soft)! Silk is murder (and really really nice sometimes)! Ate grasshoppers and drank weasel-shitted coffee. Yeah the weasel eats the beans, people wash them after the weasel filtration is complete and then they are roasted or whatever. They ask for thrice the price of regular coffee- only so many weasels to process so many beans I spose. It has some fancy name when they sell it overseas. Something And it has been my least favourite coffee here so far- but it was still good. Vietnamese coffee is the best I've had. Found out that silk is a byproduct of silkworm cocoons. I think I knew that but had some notion that these were collected after hatching. However, the world is not a disney film. The cocoons are boiled and the 400m strands they consist of are attached to machinery. Oh yeah, I denounced loudly the rice wine I sampled in the minority village to be not so good. Ahhh well, if I wasn't rude and thoughtless from time to time, I would be confused as to where the real me was.
Next to no sleep. Rude loud people in an acoustically amplified place. Organised a private tour with the swedes where we were driven
Thats just nuts... COCOnuts.
Lol... no? Not funny? Ahhh well. to the standard tour sites, no guide, with entrance fees, but air con and our own pace. Whilst I was hell keen to go to the Valley of Love with two tall good looking swedes (dudes tho... can't win 'em all), that particular experience was so-so. As was the so called crazy-house. You can't go around calling something a crazy house without over inflating expectations. An unexpected highlight was the second major tourist waterfall what was surrounded by tacky shit. I got to shoot a (painting of a) tiger with a bow and arrow. I annoyed it a bit perhaps but no red spot kill shot worth 4 tiger beers... makes perfect sense, if my videogame education proves useful once more, its just like what happens in nature- when you kill a tiger it disappears and leaves various power-ups behind. After I played master hunter a couple of times, he told me the eagle was much easier to hit, trying to bait me into another round. Damn carnies. Although he did end up selling a second game onto me where I ended up shooting a ping pong ball with a pebble (?) gun which I knelt, fired and hit but
Why did the water fall?
Cos its rain! AHAHAHA! (I hope I made that up and not just random memory flash... well impressed) failed to push it through the target gap. Damn carnies. Still, playing with these toys made me feel like the true hunter slobberer I am. I also laughed thinking about the first people to come to this gorgeous waterfall when it was just a sacred natural place and what they would think of all the ice cream vendors and photographers and similar.
My faux-man-meter rose even higher as i got to ride the king of the fatties- thass right, I got to ride an elephant. Kinda cool the lumbering rhythm. Kinda sad when the "driver" banged the poor bastard on the head with a heavy pipe for trying to swipe a bunch o grass. Reverberated through the seat-frame. I kept patting the rough skin I could touch. Found out later their skin is as sensitive as human skin so he could feel these (probably just irritated him though). We bought our generous grey/brownish transport some heavily price inflated bananas and a coconut- it just crunched open the unripened coconut- power green, smooth tough, and nothing in the jaws of the elephant all the same. Maybe he thought it was the drivers head, who had also eye gouged
Do not feed the animals
Your soul will be adequate nutrition. Xin Cam On! the captive giant on his way past. I remember reading how they break the will of young elephants with pain, torment and the binding of a simple rope. It becomes so downbeaten that even when it is full sized and much stronger, the elephant can still be bound by the simple rope- even though it could snap free with ease. I like to think that maybe our gracious host still has some spark, despite the cruelty of its naked ape captors. although that may well be a sadder image still...
Oh yeah and a side rant about winkers (family friendly site). I myself am a great fan of this past time but mostly, outside of my morning trenchcoat stroll through the public gardens, I do not whip out the winkery in peoples faces. Mostly girls are winkers in this regard but many boys are guilty of jazzing (*ahem* family site) all over my views of cool places with SEEMINGLY CONSTANT of what i guess is sposed to be ironic but could well be just moronic posing for later posting. And they move from place to place so quickly. Locusts.
Hopefully I will not join
Pictured: Flowers
Not pictured: Winkers... oh wait in the top right theres some good ol' winkery the legions of winkers but I only realised trying to write these posts that I have nearly no photos at all really- maybe I just stick to being an art... an art-fig. But none of this really matters as I saw another monkey! Walking up the stairs, talking gibberish, posing in the foliage- he thinks he's people. Waterfall, shooting, elephant, monkey, swedes, love. What a great day 😊
Was approached by an older gentleman who looked like an asian version of what my dads dad did when he was active. He convinced me over 15 minutes to go on a motorcycle tour at $50/day + I paid for accommodation for us both. I didnt try to bargain him down as I thought this was a fair price really but I could've I'm sure. A little scary since I only just learnt to ride these things w/o rigidity and fear and imposition on the will of the driver but I trust my instinct on this as a good idea.
The highlight of the night woulda been hearing how a dude used to play soccer with some round fruit what lasted a few days cos they
were so poor (perfect story for me to appropriate at some point; "Quit yo complaining boi! When I was young 'un, we was sooo paw, we hadta, hadta kick a coconut like it wassa football y'hear me boi?") but eventually they all put in for a ball. Soccer is a damn good game for many reasons and the low entry cost requirements is a part of this.
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pete
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cool story hansel or should i say han solo.......... ;)