Jakey Jake

Monday 15th March
Arrived in Saigon this morning. We are staying in a hotel called the royal which is 7 storeys high and has a revolving restraunt on the roof with an incredible view of Saigon. im pretty buggered so i think ill have a nap, at least we have the movie channel here Everyone went on the mekong boat trip, since id done it before i decided to hang around saigon on my own. didnt really do much, took some breathing space and some time to think about things. Life is a very funny thing. one minute your up the next your down, even on holidays. Ive been missing home a bit, missing my friends, missing sarah, im pretty much over being in a group, so at times i just distance myself from them. Im finding it pretty hard to share a room with the same person and eating with them and doing things with them all day, you really do need a break, and im a pretty tolerant person. I guess its just part of the tour thing, at least ill have 5 diferent people on my tours and the rest of the time i can do my own thing. I spose one of the things i came over to do was to figure out what the hell i want to do with my life… but how do you go about answering that question??? hopefully seeing some of these places and understanding some of the cultures will help me work it out. in the meantime im here to see the world Vietnam is pretty amazing, it has a rather extensive coastline although i didnt manage to come across any decent surf beaches. The people are friendly and hardworking. i think it has something to do with their beliefs, with most of the populations religion being buddhist. It will be an interesting time for vietnam over the next decade or so as it shies further away from their communist ideals and moves more towards a free market economy, when foreign investment will stream in. Id be surprised if you can still get a massive breakfast with freshly squeezed juice for less than 3 dollars in a few years. who knows?? anyway enough dribble… everyone arrived back at about 7 and we went for dinner at the Ban Tanh market. Following this we went to Allez Boo were 6 of us ran up a bar tab of 960,000 Dong on singapore slings, needless to say we were feeling very jovial, unfortunately Saigons nightlife isnt as good as it could be, with some pretty dismal bars (although im guessing the locals had a better scene) so we decided to head back to the hotel where 2 bottles of vodka awaited. BAD IDEA…..