Jakey Jake

Thursday 11th March
today was the day we got to ride our own motobikes id never ridden one and was a bit nervous about it, after 2 minutes behind the wheel i was trying to pull wheelies. we rode around town for a while stopping briefly at a kindergarten (OH YAY!!!!) before going to someones house for a short time for a reason that is still not clear to me. By this time it was incredibly hot and we all wanted to swim so we cruised on over to the beach, and hung around for a couple of hours and i had a nice little massage for 2 bucks that night we went to a nice little restraunt called lys and then made our way down to a bar called tam tam. quite a nice little bar for a nice little town but if your looking for exciting this is not the place to go. Neither was the second bar we went to called the dream. it was only the young people on the tour, 7 of us in all, and we started to walk to a place that was miles away, when suddenly there was the familiar call of “motobike” we ended up having 4 people (driver included) on one bike racing down the street. bloody scary. when we got there we were ushered into a completely dead and empty bar, with the shitest pool table i think ive ever played on (who cares if its free??)

Wednesday 10th March
jumped on a bus all the way down to Hoi An. i was so engrossed in my book, this time it was a ben elton book, that i forgot to take my bag off the bus. DER… luckily they returned it safe and sound to me later that day. At Hoi An we were staying in a 3 star (that means its good) hotel with a swimming pool. Hoi An is definately the place to go if you want to shop for clothes, handbags, and shoes. They can make anything from just a photo and its tailored to your size, needs or preferences. Vu took us to one of the better tailors (needless to say it was also one of the more expensive) and stupidly most of us rushed in and were sized up for some tailored suits, myself included. unfortunately over the next day it dawned on me that i would be travelling for a year and finances would be getting scarce and clearly a suit that i cant wear for a year, not to mention that ill probably change shape, was not a wise investment at this point. After deciding that i would just lose the deposit and not take the suit (i was very hapy with it just decided it was too expensive) i thought i had gotten away with it. unfortunately on the morning of our departure i was greeted by 2 phone calls in the morning saying that i had “forgotten” my fitting, and they would be around shortly to drop off the clothes and take payment. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. damn it.

Tuesday 9th March
at 7am we awoke and were hurredly ushered out of our sleeping compartments. we were in Hue. taxis greeted us and took us to our hotel where we were allowed another hours sleep before setting off on a boat cruise up the perfume river to the pagoda where the famous monk who set himself on fire in protest came from. next we jumped on some cyclos or motobikes and we went for a drive to a massive tomb, cant remember the guys name but he charged the vietnamese people double tax for 4 years so he could afford to build such an extravagant thing. prick. jumping on the motobikes again we headed through more bushland and past a massive burial site where many of the Viet Cong are burried in a bloodshed of 10000 in 21 days of fighting. time for lunch?? you betcha. nice banana pancakes and beef rolls mmmmm delicious. afterwards we jumped on the bikes again taking a tour of the citadel and the forbidden purple city.

Monday 8th March
An early morning bus tour took us around some of Hanois more interesting sites, starting with the hanoi hilton, then to the one pillar pagoda followed by the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and the temple of literature. we had to catch the overnight train from hanoi to hue later that day so we stopped in the city to pick up supplies, and walk back to the hotel. the taxis came to take us to the train station, where our 17 hour journey began in rather cramped sleepers (first class mind you) after about 3 hours there was nothing much left to do except start opening up the social lubricant. We needed to have a big get to know you session and there was no better way than this.

Sunday 7th March
W ell todays the day, i meet up with the first group for the geckos indochina tour. I hope theyre a decent bunch or else im going to have a shitty trip. i moved hotels from the cheaper one down the road, my roommate had already arrived the night before but he wasnt around. so i decided to walk around the city. Definately a nicer more cosmopolitan city than Saigon. its built around a few lakes and a river. i visited the Ngoc Son temple on Hoan Kiem lake, the Ba Da pagoda, the opera house, the history museum and the revolutionary museum. it was pretty interesting to see photos in the revolutionary museum pictures of the opera house when there had been thousands of troops amassed and rallies staged less than 50 years ago, and yet having just passed it there were only couples having wedding photos at the front. i was exhausted so it was time for a nap……….. well i met my roommate, Harry from Clayton. quite a nuce guy with some very interesting metaphors. hes gonner be my roommate for the rest of this trip. at 7.30 we went down to reception to meet the crew. Vu – our tourleader introduced himself as well as outlining the details of the trip.

Saturday 6th March
i had a lot to do this morning before flying to hanoi. i needed to pack everything pick up my dry cleaning and buy some luggage locks. for some reason im paranoid about someone planting drugs on me, i think ive read and heard about too many stories. i spose at the end of the day though i value my life and dont wish to end it in some foreign prison before having holes put in me. no thanks. anyway im at the airport now waiting for my plane thats been delayed an hour and a half. im sort of excited about starting the geckos tour tomrrow but at the same time im a bit worried that theres going to be no one that i can really get on with. hopefully there is otherwise i think it might suck ass. spose ill just see how it goes. its been fun doing my own thing.  arrived in hanoi, and caught a lift to the hotel. it seemed a lot quieter here than at saigon, which was great, i needed to chill out a bit. i didnt do much this evening as i had a bout of sickness, so it was pretty much kept to watching the movie chanel and replenishing my fluids.

Friday 5th March
met up with Dan, Steve and Matt at allez boo in the morning and we jumped in a cab bound for the water park. It was much much much better than the other one i went to on tuesday. not to mention there were probably only 30 people there and this time i had company. after being there for what seemed like 5 hours we tired of walking up all the stairs and decided to head home (wed only been there for 2 hours). i wanted to go and buy a watch and a wallet so i said id meet up with the others later. bowling was the order of the day after my shopping spree, so we went to diamond plaza. The cab was the craziest driver i have ever driven with by far, if he had have been driving a 4wd he would have killed sooo many people, including us. he overcharged us like crazy and took us everywhere we didnt want to go, but it was truly a great experience. After having my arse kicked hard in 3 games it was time for a drink, and drink we did, man i felt so shit, but it was a hell of a good nightt although i piked early, my drinking skills arent up to scratch. so we departed company thinking that we would meet up in the morning for breakfast at 10am, without thinking that there was nooooo way these boys were ever going to get up that early.

Thursday 4th March
woken up at 6am by a knock at the door, i couldve killed whoever did it, but we had to be on the boat by 7. most of today was really just heading back the way we came, although we stopped for the floating markets which was pretty kewl, i had a massive pineapple for about 40 cents. after that we went to a rice factory which was sort of interesting but not really. i was a bit to engrossed in a book that i bought the other day called the life of pi, i almost read the whole book today, quite interesting story of a boy who was on a ship that sank with all these zoo animals on board and how he found himself on a lifeboat with a lion. once we got off the boat that afternoon there was about a 5 hour bus ride back which was hell because the seats were tiny. finally we got back to saigon, thank god!!! i was starving and broke. so back to the room to get some money and go to check my email and get some dinner. i was a bit disappointed by my emails, i think i was hoping for one from camii to let me know she was ok, but i guess i wont hear from her for a while , so i decided to try the allez boo for dinner again. i walked in and was surprised to see a couple of english guys i met in nha trang there, so the company made for a good night, we tried a few bars, the guns’s’roses and apocalypse now, both were pretty bad and after being hit on by a vietnamese boy i decided to call it a night (not with him obviously) the english guys and i decided to try saigon water park tomorrow, hopefully ill have more luck.

Wednesday 3rd March
woke up at 7am to get on the bus, there was a sea of similar weary faces on the people who were also waiting. once on the bus i fell asleep. Drove down to the meekong river and boarded a boat. there were some interesting people on the boat ride, a german guy who was going to travel to africa, a french guy who lived in japan, an english girl who was doing her last trip again, two swiss guys and a few others who i didnt really get to talk to. Id never been to a delta region before, id only read about them in history and geography. It was teeming with life, plant and animal. Fruits of all kinds, trees of all kind, and insects of all kind luckily i was well armed and never got bitten. we traveled down to can tu where we stayed the night, i organised to stay with the english girl and another new zealander, (both named Rachael) it was nice to have company and this way the room was cheaper. on the way down we stopped to see a few local businesses, firstly there was a popcorn maker who made honey, peanutbutter and ginger popcorn. Secondly there was a coconut sweet making place that made the most delicious candy i had ever eaten (yes i know i shouldnt eat it) lastly we went for a ride around one of the islands. after dinner at can tu i went to check my emails but alas the internet cafes only had dial up and i didnt have a few weeks to wait for my mail to come down, so i headed out to a bar. finding a nice little popular vietnamese karaoke bar overrun with police and secuirty. they overcharged for the beer the music was too loud and the singing was atrocious so it was time for bed.

Tuesday 2nd March
Went to the Allez Boo last night in search of company, all i found was a bunch of ex-pats talking shit about how good they were. so once again i retired lonely and bored. I decided to go to saigon water park this morning, so i negotiated with a moto-bike for 20000 dong, it was a while away so it seemed like a very good price, however when we got there it was closed. he said he knew of another one in the city, “same same but different”. well it was very much different. it had about 4 slides and one of those drifting rivers where you sit in the tube. there was noone there so i had it all to myself i went and got changed… “No shorts, you sock”… “what?”… “you sock” i had no idea what he was on about until he pointed to an overweight vietnamese guy swimming laps in speedos. i had to buy speedos before they would let me swim, and let me tell you the vietnamese version of large is probably the same as the australian small. i think all the people that worked there were laughing at me, even i was so it didnt really matter. didnt really do much afterwards, had some dinner and went to sleep because i had to be up early for my meekong boat trip.