Jakey Jake

Saturday 28th Feb
Jumped on the bus feeling rather seedy, luckily i had lots of water, i fell asleep straight away. It was a long bus ride and i didnt know where i was going to stay, let alone find camii. She had told me some of her favourite places so i thought that might be a good place to start. Surprisingly she wasnt too hard to find, having dinner at the market. I think she was a bit surprised to see me i gave her some money and we decided to meet up later at allez boo bar. after which i decided to go to sleep since i was knackered after the 10 hour bus trip.

Friday 27th Feb
i decided i would see some of the geography of the area and maybe meet some interesting people so i took the day ferry around the four main islands off Nha Trang. Snorkelling off the first island, drinking off the second island in little floating rings(good idea if you want to drown) beach volleyball off the third and little round boats and seafood off the last. it only cost 95,000 dong or about $7.90AUD and that included some pretty amazing cuisine. I also met a vietnamese guy who had been living in the US for the last 20 years. He was very good to talk to as his english was excellent and as his knowledge of vietnman was extensive. It was very interesting to learn how vietnam became a communist state. After the cruise i decided to hit a bar, club nha trang to be exact, thought i might find some other tourists to talk to. I met quite a few english backpackers and decided to knock back a few cheap cocktails, then we decided to hit the sailing club. I had had an email earlier that camii had had her backpack stolen and that she was sick so i decided to get back to saigon to make sure she was ok, so i decided to get the bus back as soon as possible which was at 8am, so i bid everyone goodnight and headed off to catch some zzzzzzzs.

Thursday 26th Feb
Nha trang is pretty nice, although the beach only has shore breaks which makes for a pretty crappy surf beach. walking around you can see the poverty, things are dilapidated but it seems everyone is so busy doing things that it wont be too long before the tourist dollar and economic growth will turn this semi-shanty town into a well developed tourist town. Ive walked all around Nha trang and sat on the beach for most of today just thinking, i guess theres a lot to think about at the moment. I spose i have come on this trip to see the world and learn things and perhaps figure out just what i want to do with my life.

Wednesday 25th Feb
Spent most of today hanging about in Nha Trang. talked to camii for a long time, we had a lot of catching up to do. Unfortunately ive been very up and down since my gran died and my head has been very unclear which makes me a far from good partner at this point in time. So i decided that since i couldnt give 100% it was best if we went our seperate ways. although we had a great last night together, going out for dinner and jumping on the ferris-wheel (for those of you who know i hate heights) so that was great.

Tuesday 24th Feb
landed in saigon and was whisked away in one of those very overpriced taxis, not learning from my previous mistake but i didnt care i was going to see camii. found the allez boo bar on the main strip of the backpackers area and tried ordering duck completely ignoring the fact that it was bird and by law food stores werent allowed to sell bird due to the flu virus. so i had pork instead YUM… Celeste was heading for phuket and camii and i were jumping on a bus to nha trang on the coast for some fun in the sun. It was an 8 hour journey by bus half of which was spent on the wrong side of the road. I didnt manage to get much sleep as the driver seemed to be forever using the horn, this guy shouldve been driving one of those monster trucks so he could just plough over other drivers.

Monday 23rd Feb
Well here I am, just out of Sydney on a 747 headed to Bangkok . Utterly exhausted and running on empty after the chaos that has been the last few weeks, not to mention the complete lack of sleep in the last 2 days (absolute necessity when leaving things to the last minute J ). So im gone, im outta Melbourne . It feels entirely surreal, it definitely hasn’t sunk in that I have left greythorn road for good and that I have no job or house to come back to, it feels like im just going to wake up tomorrow at home and do the same old, guess im in for a bit of a shock and hopefully some good fun. I have to sign off now, time for some catch-up shut-eye and I have a spare seat next to me, JOY!!, ill get back on this thing when something interesting happens……Later

Friday 12th March
Train to Nha Trang. yes it was incredibly dull so i slept through most of it on very hard wooden beds. Familiar place, i was reminded of the time i was there earlier. by far the best place to have fun in Vietnam. we had dinner at a restraunt by the beach before heading out to the sailing club. there were more people than the last time i had been there, although admittedly the last times i was there i was fairly intoxicated and stumbled home before i had a chance to really look around the place. it started kicking on and we met quite a lot of nice people,a few english backpackers and some sweedes. We were drinking and partying when suddenly the lights went on at 2am. We organised to meet the sweedes for dinner tomorrow night. For now it was time for bed