The hospital Tom was staying in was terrible.  He was leaking blood on the floor and they did not santise it with a dustpan and brush… like usual.  Cleanliness seemed to be a foreign idea (haha), and the only reason he had soap is because I brought some.  They gave him a bar of soap on his last night there… I would quote the Tao of Animal Mother (full metal jacket), but can’t bring myself to say it.  They where giving him random injections in his broken tap, and where not explaining WTF is going on.  The needles where clean is my mantra ATM, or I would be really worried.  Tom says they dropped a needle on the floor and attempted to reuse it.  Seriously messed up.

We spent the last remaining days trying to eek some enjoyment out of our trip, but we mostly wanted to go home (mostly).  I felt bad for Tom, as I watched him watch me eat lot of cool food he could not stomach.  We just lounged around and tried to spend as much time as possible in the sun, which was extremely hard to do, as one or two hours was enough to nuke my brain.

We did an Indian cooking class at the Cyril Ayurvedic centre, which I can recommend for sure.  Apparently I turn into a child when I eat and all else in the world becomes null, and Tom analises his food, which is possibly a reason he gets sick.  I don’t quite follow that logic, but they thaught us to cook Dal Chiappatis and curry

There are quite a few good fixed price shops in Calangute, and although any hardened travelers mind will be currently screaming “lol, noob.  There is no such thing as fixed price, they just screw you with a bullrag in your mouth to keep you quiet!” I can assure you there are exceptions.  Tom insisted on checking out a random shop, and I stood outside as usual to avoid the stress, only to seek sanctuary inside after being harassed on the street as usual.  The prices where 1/8th of any thing we had seen, and I found a few things I bartered *extremely* hard for where a hell of allot cheaper.  All of the Anjuna market sellers procure items from these shops and resell them to naive tourists, which is a label I had to slap on my head after seeing the truth.   I recommend trying to find these shops, and I also recommend you do not bother with the Anjuna market, which just sells the same stuff.  One cheap pocket watch I acquired in Mumbai for 300 rupees was being sold by must Anjuna market stalls and the shops in Calangute for 6000 plus rupes.  Crazy stuff.

I am writing this blog post from home, so forgive em the non-sensical chnaged in theme.  I’m trying to remember as best I can.  I need a new laptop damn it.  On that note:  Tom wanted to post some of his gifts off before we heaed home and we waited patiently in a small queue to be served… you can geuss the rest if you have been to India! well not this time a local was just about to use the dreaded hand of god to get to the front of the queue, so I used the hand of god on Tom and pushed him into the offending dude.  It was hilarious, and Tom was double queue jumped for his own benefit.  The dude walked away confused.  It was probably the first time a Gora had correctly used the Indian queuing system on him.

Since we arrived in India, we had been on a quest to find ‘Thums  Up’ [sic], but everywhere we went we where told ‘Thums up man no come no more’, but it appears it is because the people of Calangute have been hoarding all of the supplies.  I am writing this blog from home now and I am getting the ‘cold turkey’ shakes since it has been two days since my last hit.  If I was going to recommend Calanegute it would mainly be for the ‘Thums up’

Since we left Mumbai I was wanting to blog about Tom’s vodaphone problems, but I thought it better to wait until we where out of the country.  Since the terrorist attacks English inspired Indian bureaucracy appears to have increased, but with little thought to the potential misuses.  In order to get an Indian sim card, you must provided the vodaphone vendor with copies of your important documents and a passport photo; that all sounds perfectly reasonable right? well yes, but they have agents on every corner copying foreign passport details etc with out any kind of Policing.  Tom suspected something would happen, as we have been screwed one to many times not to see it coming.   He was having some trouble getting his phone to work, but was assured his documents needed to be submitted and that he would ‘do it tomorrow’, tomorrow never came of course and when we where in Anjuna vodaphone informed Tom he needed to submit the documents, that they required him to submit in order to get the sim in the first place (logic loop anyone?); Tom tried to explain he had submitted the documents, but they insisted he submit the documents or they would cut him off, because he materialised the sim out of the air, and submitting the documents comes after pulling a number out of the ether.  Eventually he gave up trying to explain this to them, and agreed to submit more documents in another town 50 km away, but insisted that they check up on their agents obviously fraudulent intentions… the customer service person did not understand the concept of fraud or even vicarious liability, he just wanted the documents.  Basically this bureaucracy is creating more opportunities for identity theft which is kind of retarded considering.  We could not phone Mumbai Police at that point, because we where miles away.  The bottom line is that you should only submit your docs at a main office, and ignore the small vodaphone sellers as they may or may not be ID fraud factories.  I am sure they are not all bad, but you can’t take the risk considering vodaphone has no interest in protecting your identity.

They turned off Tom’s number when he become ill, and we had to rely on the charity of others to organise hospitals etc as we had no phone to hand.  Maybe Tom would not have ended up in that hell hole if we had a phone.  Tom could not seek medical advice from the UK as he had no phone to use while stuck in a hospital bed.  They would not allow international phone calls in the hospital in the middle of the jungle.  Basically vodaphone fucked us.

Anyway, we are home now.  The journey was a killer, it took us from 8am on Friday until Saturday 7pm to get home.  We had to use an unusual route: Goa to Mumbai, Mumbai to Muskat Oman, then onto London.  We had to pay the airport in Mumbai in order to sit on a hard chair for nine hours… it was either that or sit on the curb outside.

Pictures are coming in a later blog.

We moved onto Calangute beach and decided not to bother with Panjim.  This beach is full of Russians and English, but mostly Russians.  We stayed at the India Kitchen, which is a really great place with nice owners, and a pool… then Tom got sick.

We where both pretty rough for a day in Anjuna; I got over it very fast, but Tom needed some meds.  We decided to walk the 4km in the heat to the nearest pharmacy, because paying 1.50 pounds to avoid heatstroke is a bit to much to ask (Mad Dogs and Englishmen).  Tom seemed to be mostly okay, but then on our second day here he was very close to fainting, due to the effects of the dreaded Delly-Belly.  We got a cab to the nearest recommended hospital, that did not charge naïve-tourist-stupid-prices, and we where both surprised that they wanted to keep him in bed on a drip.  He should be out of hospital the by the time you read this blog (two nights do far).

I am not sure if I should critique the hospital he is staying in, as it might concern a few of you.  The needles are clean though – I made sure of that – and he is getting good care.  I tried to post an update on this earlier, but I was being distracted by a net cafe owner (in a bad way) who liked me a bit to much.  I’ll say no more on that for now, except when I am at home and very drunk.  It’s probably not a good idea to say much for now anyway, due to certain narrow-minded laws they have here.

We are bored of the beaches now and where going to head for Hampi, but it looks like we will be staying here, or nearby until it’s time to go home.  If Tom gets out of the hospital as planned, we should be learning to cook curry, but other than that: all plans are on hold, until Tom’s health status becomes clear.

Random pro traveler tip:  wipe the top of your water bottled water, before consuming as the condensation that builds over the days it travels to the shop, also carries the germs of it’s handlers straight into your mouth.

We where still trying to work out where we wanted to go on the train, but opted to head to Anjuna as we missed the Wednesday market last time we where here.  I acquired myself a ‘silver’ elephant chain (750rs), a hippy bag (50rs), a bangle as a gift (200rs), and a snide polo sport hat (150rs).  This may all sound pretty boring in list form, but in order to get those prices, me and Tom had to do some serious bartering.  I’m not going to give away any of our techniques this time, sorry.   The package holiday noobs made it really hard for us to barter, as there are all money-fat and don’t know what anything is worth.  Barting was a real pain here.  The package noobs really do look like marks.

There are to many of those types here at Anjuna.  The scene is terrible.  We have been friendly as always, but the non-traveler types are so very anti-social.  I know it is old to slag them off, but they are all in the traveler closet and are to scared to come out, and be nice.

I have to take a moment to slag off our first hotel here, for google’s pleasure.  Peace Land is one of the book hotels, that comes under the budget bracket.  We phoned ahead to book in advance (like that ever works in India), and when we arrived we where informed that 5 people where turned away in our favour.  We where very grateful, and took his word on it, but he was building a rapport with us so he could screw us out of an extra 600rs; we agreed the price on the phone and confirmed in three times, as is the minimum requirement here.  We could not refuses as he ‘turned away five people’, so we stayed a night.  We are at a super awesome beach hotel, obviously in a good location for half the caps, and they do not overcharge for drinks or food, or refuse to allow you to bring your own food or water into the hotel.  Rant over.

Karma is a bitch, and me and Tom where inflicted with a sort of, semi-instant wraith, in a restaurant where the food was not so great (we did not tip).  Tom lost his phone, and we went looking for it on the beach (he always loses something); we eventually tried the eatery, and were extremely surprised to see one of the guys there ‘held onto it for us’; Tom paid him the tip in lieu.  We will always tip from now on.  I had a really bad meditation about this in Mumbai, in which we where served a pita bread, with a sauce of rupee coins that we where apparently stealing.

I am trying real hard not to fall into my hardened traveler mode, but I am having trouble spending money e.g. today we spent 600 rupes each on drinks while we sunned… I was really upset to waste so much cash (70rupes to the pound).  I keep thinking we need to be saving for the rest of the trip, but there is no more trip after a week or so L  I’m going to hate myself in the future for not spending allot of cash (like 20 quid or something), and am forcing myself to get the stuff I want, although I am finding the inner-traveler-itch hard to ignore.

In our *hotel on the beach*, we have sun-beds to enjoy the sun with… sounds normal right, well no.  There is no beach in India you can sit on and relax on, except our one apparently.  We are four meters above the ground, and all the beach sellers shout up at us and plead for us to buy their stuff, but we cannot hear them.  We get to survey the mass of people and sellers from a safe height.  I counted the beach sellers talking to a single guy in 15 minutes, and that tallied up to 7 different people selling various bits of junk: the poor guy.  We where laughing so hard though, but had to keep our heads down so they could not target us.  It was a fun sport counting the seller to customer ratio.  That one same guy had a total of five sellers around him at one point later in the day. I really don’t know how he managed to keep his cool or relax at all, except by buying lots of crap.

Sorry, by new blogs are a bit rubbish, but want to record something for myself to look back on in a years time, when I am about to pop from stress again.  I will edit some pictures in at a later date.

It’s hard to blog without my awesome ‘craptop’, so I have not been able to keep notes on what has been going on.  Upping pictures to the blog from a Mumbai net Café is painful, so there are only a few in the slideshow above. Here is a abridged version of the trip up to now:

We jumped on our flight to India, but flew via Muskat, Oman.  We did get an awesome view of Dubai on the way there, which made the diversion worthwhile.  Flying with Oman air was quite scary… I think I have watched to many videos on Liveleak, and this caused some irrational fear, especially, when we went though security at Muskat airport.  We picked up a bottle of Balvenie for 20 quid (score), as we opted for the Dutch eating method this time (steralise belly after meals).

When we where in Muskt I made an overt comment about talking to the other Gora, and perhaps sharing a cab, and a couple of guys over heard, so when we got to café Leopold it was just like old times with a big group of us.  I did not realise, but when we got to Leopold it was 2 days and two years after the terrorist attack.  Security was very tight, and the other two dudes where freaking out when I told them ‘this was the place it happened’.  There was a single bullet hole downstairs and a few preserved shot-up glass windows upstairs. If you read m previous blogs, you will know we got lucky before (missed the attack by two weeks).

The hassle is not bad as before, or perhaps we are used to be poked and prodded for cash.  At the Gateway to India, the India stress levels peaked due to the massive amount of people following us around.  We got 4 snaps and left immediately, which was unfortunate.

We stayed in a more expensive hotel and did not bother to look for another as we wanted to avoid the epic stress levels we experienced last time.  It is not all bad though as we got chai and breakfast in bed every morning J

I finally acquired myself a classic pocket watch for 1000k rupees (70 rupes to the pound), when we hit up Bindi Bazaar again.  I also acquired a classic art deco lighter… they are most likely good fakes but I am very happy with them.  We had a good look for a monicle but have had no luck so far; I am hoping to get one on this trip.

I don’t real have any funny stories this time, as they have all be purged from my mind thanks to mild sunstroke, but we where approached by a dude, who was telling us all about his radiation poisoning… we could not get rid of him and we where waiting for the punch-line and the screw for cash, but none materialized which made for a scary encounter in hindsight.

We missed allot of stuff last time we came here; we did the national gallery which was 2 minutes from us this time and before; I guess we where so stressed out before it did not occur to us, that we should visit.  We did some city walking, which is why I am mildly sun stroked ATM, which made for some interesting special awareness fails in a pharmacy a minute ago (knocked lots of bottles over).

I am happy to report we had a good time in Mumbai this time, and my current stress levels are mild, even though I was just chased down the road, and I am being hassled to buy drugs on every corner; still the drug stress is not as bad, as when I had dreds locks here.

We are off to Goa on a overnight train in a couple of hours.  Hopefully I will post some more I a couple of days.

We will be spending three days in Mumbai, then heading to Goa.  We are planning to hit Hampi, since we missed it last time (rock slides); but I am not sure if we will have enough time unfortunately.

Anyway, I don’t have much else to say for now,  so I will leave you with a video of our last trip, which I never posted on here before:

Saint George Fort, which turned out to be some walls, a museum and a load of Army barracks.

Vadapalani Temple, which was very unique in design.  We where approached by a “guide” and you know what happens next, it always happens, which is why I can barley motivate my self to write it for the millionth time.  Tom relented and hired the guide after he stalked us for five minutes, I was very unhappy and I let him know it, because he asked us to pay him “as we like” which  interpreted as “I am going to fuck you for money after”, which is what e attempted to do.  When we went to pay him, he asked us for 200 rupees, and then refused the money we wanted to give him; he did the pretend walk away, because I am insulted thing and then took the money after; so basically he tried to make us feel bad, that he tried to screw us.  My India stress levels where peaking at that point.  I don’t have access to my the photos, so here is one I found on google:

We got to see Chennai beach, but did not get a chance to stop there, not that you cant relax on any Indian beaches anyway.

We got jumped on our plane to Dehli at 3am, then waited six hours for our flight home.   India had the last laugh though: the security guards at the airport stole my lighter!  I would not be so upset, but first they said I could not have it, because it (vaguely) looks like a grenade, then two seconds after saying that he starts playing with it, laughing and smiling as he went, then he past it to his colleague who did more of the same, all the while I was standing there crying inside for my precious blow torch lighter damn you.  Give my lighter back.

It felt very strange to be on the London underground again, and it feels good to be home.  Everyone asks me if I was scared or felt threatened in any of these countries, but the funny is I felt safer in those countries than in my own.

End Blog.  Maybe I will reserect it another time.

]]> http://rupee3naans.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/chennai-dehli-and-the-home-to-the-uk/feed/ 0 rupee3naans http://rupee3naans.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/kuala-lumpur-to-tiruchirappalli/ http://rupee3naans.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/kuala-lumpur-to-tiruchirappalli/#comments Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:59:06 +0000 rupee3naans http://rupee3naans.wordpress.com/?p=155 ]]>

We did not get up to much in KL. We walked to the Petronous Towers most days, and we walked allot of the city this time, instead of using the train; it looks allot like Bangkok from ground level.  We also hung out at the mega malls like Times square again (13 floors). 

We managed to get into the twin towers observation deck this time, but the views where nothing on the sky needle (can’t remember real name):

We jumped on our plane to India… I was so very scared of coming back.  The Indian queuing system was in effect since check in, in KL, but I double queue jumped a few guys in revenge.  When we got into baggage reclaim, we stood by the conveyer belt waiting for our stuff, then the bags started to appear through a hole in the wall, with the outlines of a conveyer belt on the floor leading to it; I slapped my self in the head for being so stupid and thought “of course the baggage comes through a hole in the wall, you’re in India stupid”.

As soon as we stepped out of the Airport, something very, very irrational happened: I felt like I had come home!  I love India, I love this country so much; the other places we have been to are great, but I feel very much at home here.  I may have slagged this place off and rightly so, but the good over weighs the bad.

We spent the day in Tiruchirappalli, and found it to be very low stress and pleasant, although there is nothing to do there.  I did get harassed by a few people, but not so much by Indian standards; I actually think it is less stressful here so far than Vietnam, except the for the people who stalk you, no other country has given us that problem.

We ate Tali, real Tali off of giant leaf with our hands.  Tali is basically an all you can eat selection of India dishes, served to you, except in most of India they don’t do this.  We spent the rest of the day getting wasted in an India bar, drinking Haywoods 5000 and kingfisher, watching news on the Chennai riots in Hindi and trying to work out what to expect when we get there.

After 12 hours in town we headed to the train station for our FIRST class trip to Chennai… when the train arrived it was not very clear where the hell our carriage was, and you cannot walk between different classes, so we asked for directions: each time we ran from one end of the platform to another we where sent back by a guard telling us it was on the other end (twenty carriages long, maybe more) and this was with our 30kg packs; after the third time, I thought my chest was going to explode, and we got onto the only first class carriage we could find, which did not have our names allocated.  It turns out that they messed up our booking and two gents had to share their carriage with us, which was nice of them, but considering we al paid for first class… it was not the experience wanted.

We are in Chennai now, and I don’t see any riots or the Police on the rampage, so those news reports must have been very localised.

“Boom, boom?”, “very young”, “where you go?” the prostitution here is the worse than anywhere I have been! Allot of pimp-taxi-bike-drivers approach you just like in full metal jacket, with girls on the back, and loads of freelancers try and jump on you in the street: but I am too Bookoo.

Saigon is a pretty cool city; it is much better than Hanoi, as they have a very decent backpacker scene going on, but it is super expensive i.e. the hotels are twenty plus dollars a night! We managed to find a very rare ten dollar hotel, which has bats

There is a very good selection of Vegi food here, but one morning I woke up at six am, which is WRONG! That was because they use soo much salt in the food here, it is too much for even me, I had to use the nasty re-hydration powder I bought in India.

We got allot done while we where here:

Reunification Palace

The War Reminisce Museum, which had some cool American War junk,and lots of photos and documentation of US war atrocities.

The Chu Chi tunnels! Woohoo.  We got to go into the VC tunnels 75 clicks north of Saigon and shoot an AR15 and AK.  The tunnels where enlarged for “fat American bodies”, but it was to tiny and claustrophobic for me.  We went into the first set of tunnels, but called time on the second set as it involved prone shimmying.

Ben Thanh Market, where I bought a super cool Diesel watch for 200 Dong (Eight squid); when I was bartering for it some English tourist SOB waltzed right by and tried to tell me sixteen pounds for a watch is cheap, which made it really hard for me too break the sellers balls for eight pounds.

The post office… funnily enough, which is French era ans super cool, plus it was right next to the Cathedral that is “about to fall down” which hundreds of people gather in (no pics sorry).

We are catching a flight back into Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days, and then heading home via India.

We jumped in a cab to Denang; went straight to the train station, then found that there where no tickets available to Nha Trang for seven days! We played with the idea of heading north and then booking a train ticket from there; we played with the idea of jumping on a bus, but found they where all booked up too, but then we opted for what every hardcore traveller would condemn us for: an airplane.

We had to spend a couple of days in Denang while we waited for our flight, and found the place to be allot cooler now that Tet was over and the shops where open. We found a Big C and ended up watching that damn Adam Sandler film that has been stalking us all over Asia, because nothing else had Eng subtitles, and we hung out at China beach. A Vietnamese girl took a liking too me on the beach, but we where not staying long, and we are going home soon:

A few more:

We randomly found a vegan supermarket! It looked like any other crappy shop and Tom dragged me in reluctantly. I was going through the motions of checking all of the stock, for any chance of food I could eat, then it hit me: OMFG I can eat everything. Some of their stock was very strange to say the least:

Vegan Chicken Guts
Vegan Pigs Ears
Vegan Quail Eggs
Etc, etc

Tom passed me a can of Vegan Chicken Legs, which I was tempted to buy, just to see what they looked like, but I could not bring my self to do it (yuck). I ended up buying Deer and cow jerky, and a few packets of sausages. I am saving some for our train trip to HCMC, but it’s seriously tasty, so it is a little difficult. That shop blew my mind, because Denang is the last place I would expect to find Vegan foods (even if some of it was seriously weird).

We found a little shop in a hotel, which sells war trinkets; we where both looking to find Vietnam war lighters, so where happy to find the place. Most of her lighters where blatant reproductions, like the two lighters with the same inscription of a soldier pledging his love to Betty something or other, so we picked up a couple which are almost certain to be real:

Our flight out of Denang was very scary. I thought I was going to die and couple of times. Vietnam airlines fly European Airbuses, but something is seriously wrong with theirs. When we where taking off, the aeroplane vibrated very, very violently, and then when we got into the air the plane was going mental shaking for what seemed like forever; one of the stewards who was strapped in received a call from the pilots (I am guessing) and did not feel the need to tell us anything, so everyone sat there in silence as the plane went mental. I could feel the plane loosing altitude, you know that feeling you get in you chest when you are falling? Anyway after that all was fine, until we descended for landing, and pretty much the same thing happened.

On the way into Nha Trang airport, I could see some remnants of the war on the ground, like tank emplacements along two parallel roads and an AA gun. When we landed I could see the airstrip was concrete and much of the rest of the airport was covered in decaying concrete. Apparently it is a new airport, but it looks like an ancient military air field. I hope HCMC airport is a little more up to date.

When we got to our hotel, they thought it was okay to keep us waiting for our room and charge us to much money for it, so I did a walkout-find-other-hotel double bluff and got us an awesome 10% discount and accelerated access to our room, which Tom would call a medium-spicy-reverse-walkout.

Nha Trang is a very cool city. We have wondered quite a bit of it in the few days with have been here, there are a few more hostile people than usual though i.e. Tom is “no good” according to a hard seller who Tom refused to buy postcards from, after five of her colleagues where done harassing him and me. That happened at the Pogoda and is a mild example. When we went to the pogoda and big Buddas, we found the hassle was pretty immense, which for a holy site was upsetting, not for us, but for them (in my mind) as it is supposed too be a place of worship and retreat. The whole place was debased in my mind by that. We both left donations for the school as I promised one of the nicer PR sellers, but we had to take turns entering the shrines, too protect each other’s shoes; you maybe thinking that is a little extreme? Well we where right to do it because “You shoe expensive, you give me money”, which was what one of the nice people said, after they saw we where taking no risks. The kids where oh so polite, inviting us to come in and leave our shoes before they demanded money though. One of the kids urinated behind the big Buddah also, which should give you a fair idea how they respect their own culture. That does paint an excessively negative picture of Nha Trang though, it is a great place, we just had a bad time at it’s main tourist attraction. We have met some exceptionally nice people here e.g. we went to see a random military statue of a dead soldier and where given the entire history of it and shown to his shrine to burn incense, by a nice taxi-bike-rider of all people, who asked for nothing.

The beach here is not so great; it has crappy sand, but the weather here is nice, so I should not complain.

We went to see the French cathedral here, which was pretty cool; that would be all I have to say about it, if not for Tom and his adventures: we where walking around and taking pictures like any other tourists, then we went inside; I got bored after five minutes and left Tom; the bell starts ringing and people start to go inside; after quite some time Tom reappeared and told me he was stuck in a Vietnamese language church service unable to leave, but I was respectfully waiting for him, thinking he was doing some “cultural learnings”.

We live two stories up from the night life, which goes on until very late. We have been out a few times, and there are plenty of western people having a great time, some of which want the party to go on longer and work as PR. I never thought I would see club PR in Vietnam of all places, but some of the bars hire Aussie girls to flirt with customers and encourage the single male patrons to believe they are drinking in a cool place where hot Aussi girls talk to you and watch you play crappy pool. We saw through it immediately (well after five minutes).

MEKROB! MEKROB! Me Krob is something Eric Cartman hates and believes is a cursed word. I had to try it to find out if it is a horrible as he said, and it isn’t bad:

We are getting on a train to Ho Chi Min City, and will be spending four days there until we catch our flight back to KL. HCMC is expensive and has a black river according too one of the locals here; I am hoping it is better than that.

Hoi An is awesome.  We got lost for an hour when we got here and bumbled around with our 25kg packs, spaced out in the heat.  We managed to find a cheapish hotel at eight dollars a night, which is expensive for us.

We did all the touristy stuff here, but the Japanese tombs stick out in my mind the most; we wandered down the back of town through the local’s housing in dark and dirty alleys, to find the first tomb which was in an old lady’s back garden.  We where a bit scared at first, but she invited us in and gave us some incense to put on the shrines; it was all very cute and we gave her a little cash as thanks.  We found the second tomb in the middle of the rice paddies, and some people extorted cash out of me for the privilege of seeing it; one lady even ran down the road after us, but we told her where to go.

We bumped into the Australian girls we met on the way to Denang, apparently Whey, is way to cold, just like Hanoi.  We where a little upset we did not go to Whey because it sounds awesome (bikers in petty coats and other crazy stuff), but hearing how cold it is made us feel better.

We mainly hung out at Treat bar here, and met many back packers.  I have missed the camaraderie which is present in backpackers, but it’s still not the same as in India, I guess that it is because in India it is harder and we all have too stick together.  One of the backpackers we met had sampled a Vietnamese drink which has snake blood and a freshly removed snake heart in it; he seemed to think it was awesome… apparently the myth is that the heart is still beating as it goes down.

There is a beach four km away and we cycled there a few times… on Vietnamese roads.  It is seriously insane here: no one indicates, except the nice ones who see confused travellers and take pity; there is no lane discipline; if they are turning off to a side street, they will cut you up and not even look over their shoulders.  I almost got spit roasted by a car and a motorbike.  I played with the idea of renting a bike, but decided cycling was enough.  All the bikes here have female seats and no back break, grrr.

The beach was pretty awesome, but a little windy.  The levels of stress from beach sellers was reaching India levels, but was not as bad.  There was a Vegan café to the right of the bridge on the way to the beach called Karma Waters, who served vegan pizza; the pizza was 100 dong, which is about four pounds and too expensive for me hehe.

We both had super cool Indie jackets made for thirty dollars each.  We also had a couple of new suits made as well for eighty dollars a pop, with two pairs of trousers; I was riped into having three more pairs of work trousers made for about 30 quid (Kasmir):

After spending all that cash on cloths, I could not bring my self to part with twenty dollars for a new pair of trousers:

That is my third pair of combats since we left, and with only three weeks to go and limited funds… I am becoming a cheap traveller.  I am also pretty good at sewing now.

It is very easy to live here and after seven days of relaxing we decided to move on.  We did not want to get into another Chaweng beach routine of just living and not doing much else.  We are moving onto Natrang next, hopefuly we will see China Beach in Denang on the way.