Backpacking

I spent the afternoon stocking up on bread, jam, cheese and peanutbutter (no vegemite here!) all I needed was the breadrolls.

I´m still not used to the currency, thinking 2000 is a worth a small car, not two breadrolls with pork and salad.
Anyhow, I was on a mission. I was on a mission to go out and get 2 plain breadrolls and knowing they tend to charge westerners more I was determined not to get ripped off (again)

I used by best sign language and asked the lady for 2 breadrolls, no salad. Just plain breadrolls.
She said '2000' showing 2 fingers clearly indicacting 2.
'2000!' I said.
'2000' she said.
'2000!' I said.
'yes', '2000' she said.

Sick off all the rip-off´s lately I was furious, 'What a ripoff' I said and stormed off with a 'don't worry about it' up in the air hand gesture.

I later passed on my proud story to Sam expressing my abiltly to sick up for myself,.... he tells me the lady was really only asking for 20c a breadroll! OOpps!

Its way easy to find a room in Nha Trang for $5 bucks a night, but for $9 you get luxury.
We ended up following a stranger on a moto into an alleyway (as you do) which, I admit, was a little scarey, but at the end we found a nice little hotel called Song Linh.

Today we hired bikes and rode all day and all night. We went on a bike bar crawl. Most places have a happy hour that goes for at least 10 hours and double vodkas for just one buck. This suited us fine.

We ended up maggot at the Sailing club, the beachside resort with the sunchairs and umbrellas. The Sailing Club and the Lousianna are both very nice but tend to be full of 'western' men picking up 'non-western' women. Although tradgically but unconsciously we ended up in the other bars like 'Zippos and Crazy Kims' we had more fun, where you have giant sized cocktails, wear stupid hats and dance on the bar.

We made it back to our hotel that night. In the morning our bikes luckily were chained up together. I have a faint recollection of Sam having a collision with a moto on the highway in the early hours, causing a awkward smash into the gutter,..... but you'll have to ask him about that......

Last night we were maggot. We smuggeled our vodka into the resort restaurant in a water bottle and when no-one was watching we tipped it into our orange juice. That was my idea. Last night the food and the service was crap. The beef and the morning glory tasted like rubber and salty grass but we ate it anyway and said it was nice.

In Vietnam when you order entrees, they always come out with mains, and mains always come out in two halves. I dont like this restaurant, they dont have any tofu and we are not eating here again, only for the free breakfasts. And then only the noodles or the pancakes because you only get one egg when you order eggs.

Sam is very seedy today. We drank the bottle of vodka last night and played cards. We had a fight which resulted in Sam spitting toothpaste in my eye and me pulling his hair and kicking his sunburn. It wasn't funny last night but it is now.

We spent most of the day in bed but eventually we got hungry and had to do a food run. We walked down to the street shop and bought what they would probably sell in one week, we bought in one pop. We ended up with chocy milks and plastic wrapped sausages that tasted like catfood and prawn crackers and lots of other random unidentified foodstuffs.

We ate our sandwiches under the umbrellas and went for a swim and then an old man from Canada came over to talk to us and stared at my tits the hole time.
Tonight we are having dinner at the red plastic chair place because we know the food is good. I hope they have fish coconut curyy because thats what i want. Give it to me. I want it now.

Sam is sleeping again and I am watching the garden guy hose the chickens. Theres not much to do around here but thats ok with me.

my sandwich

I have been observing the locals here in Vietnam and have come across some bizarre and odd practices.

Vietnamese people are professional loiters. They casually make it their sole purpose in life to do absoluely nothing at every given chance.

And I like it.

90% of the people pick their nose in public and 100% of them have no problem with it. 9 times out of 10 they will try to sell you something and mostly it's of absolute no interest to you, like a pair of scizzors when you are about to travel through 5 of the most top security airports in the world.
They will sell you lighters, sunglasses, crappy bracelets, earbuds, anything! And if you want something they dont have, they will find someone who does and they will sell it to you. Most often they will try to sell you a trip on their bike and when they are not selling you a trip on their bike they are most likely sitting on it, loitering and picking their nose.

Yeah, they do some odd things, as I´m writting this a women walked into the ocean in her pajamas. I would normally put an exclaimation point at the end of a sentence like that, but this time I didn´t because I´m not really suprised, things like that happen all the time in Vietnam and I am becoming immune to it. Who knows, by the end of this holiday I might be walking into the ocean in my pajamas without even giving it a second thought.

I do love their honesty towards life, I mean, 'who cares if someone is watching, who cares if I have two different shoes on and I´m eating my dinner in a very very tiny plastic chair next to the gutter in a thick cloud of bus smog. Who cares if I sit in the middle of the footpath and I pick my feet, eat my noodles and then try to sell you pineapples, who cares!!!'

just hanging around

Siem Reap kicks arse on PP. The people are so friendly and there is hardly any garbage on the street. We are staying at the Golden Village Guesthouse. It has nice staff, balconies, wood panelled rooms and a massive budda statue. The main street in Siem Reap is long and is full of restaurants, bars and tourist offices. We found some markets where you could say no and not be hasselled.

We've been sitting on the balcony watching the sun go down, our mission tonight is to find the cheapest restaurant in town cause we spent all our money on those temples! We ate a $2 Panang curry which has been the cheapest and best yet, we had Phat Thai, that's right Phat Thai, not Padd Thai, I guess it's the same thing and a really yummy Cambodian oily fried rice, it had egg, sausage, spinach, shallots, bok choy and cabbage. Yum!