Sundays.

So here I am soaking up as much of the chilling air-con as I can hoping it will bring my body temperature down to normal for once so maybe I can start from scratch. My matted hair is curling from the fresh salt water and my skin stings, this can only mean one thing- I have finally made it to a beach! My protruding rice belly is even starting to get a little tan again!

I am now in Nga Trang, Vietnam where I will quite happily live a stupidly comfortable life of lounging on beach chairs across the road from our hotel (yes hotel, time for a little flashpacking) getting massages and endless books to add to our pile. (I have read 5 already this year, for me this is simply amazing and even though I’m proud it does give off a slight hint to how relaxed my year has been).

I have been completely crap at keeping up with any form of writing over the last month or so so here’s an update. My ultra slow-motion life in Pai was replaced with that of a real backpacker after leaving Bangkok a few weeks back. On my way to complete a visa run into Laos I met a little gang of pals that seemed all too impossible to leave and have since been on a little whirlwind adventure across country. Thus resulting in any time I had to write I would rather sleep. Its funny actually to think I had a little fear of sleeping in public, now I seem to have inherited a little narcolepsy (defined as “frequent daytime sleep attacks” fyi, not funny in reality but kind of when described like that wikipedia). In fact just this morning all three of our remaining clan were dead to the world on the beach with about 100 people around us after our swim, it was a 6.40am swim since we had just arrived off an over night bus and couldn’t check in so early, but that didn’t explain why half the city was joining us…

Now to backtrack a little bit. I formed a biker gang in Vientiane Lao which included two English…im going to say ladies even if its not exactly accurate, one kiwi fella and our young man from the Netherlands (not Holland cause it turns out that doesn’t even exist like we thought!). We cruised around the streets creating mad havoc/ getting excited over puppies, posing for photos on our bright pink bikes outside amazing temples and sweating until our clothes were soaked through, yum! From there we jumped on a bus, learnt how rough Lao roads are, witnessed a 7 year old smoke and eventually arrived in Vang Veing.

For those of you who don’t know Vang Veing a brief description is as follows; a shitty little town with a dirty and shallow (granted its dry season) part of the Mekong River that tourists from all over the world travel to for one good reason- to get in a tube and pretty much do a pub crawl via flotation devise. Other things in the town include lots of hostels, breathtaking mountains, tuktuks that have a reverse tune of J.LO, hundreds of food places that like to pretend they know how to cook western food and have things like “mushies shake, fun special pizza and happy herb seasonings” on the menu. Oh another key thing is that every food place in town is playing re-runs of either Family Guy, Friends or South Park and there is almost always a hung-over traveller glued to it.

Surprisingly we got a little attached to this town and ended up staying there for a little too long. It did make leaving easier though, seriously one more gigantic baguette and I was going to go insane! Out of all seriousness though after leaving the rumours (which were sadly more true then entertaining lies) spread through the backpackers community of the death toll of 27 travellers in Vang Veing each year one of which happened in our time there due to drunken downing’s and poor safety regulations (or more likely non existent) on slide and flying foxes along the way. The disturbing unhelpful police system and the story of how the town came to be; most businesses are owned by a few rich folk who are turning the town into a dirty tourist location and nothing else, much to the heartbreak of locals. So yes, although fun at the time, it was well time to kiss it goodbye!

After a momentary departure of the group my other half Eline and I met back up with the English ladies in Hanoi, Vietnam. The first thing I can tell you about Vietnam is the animal cruelty is rather unsettling to the average person, so as you can imagine I struggle. There are up to 30 chickens tripping over themselves in a cage on the back of a scooter, pigs getting kicked in the head so as they get back into the van, yes van, frogs getting stomped to death right when I try to pet them, dead fluffy puppies piled up in a cage, a live chicken in a pot getting boiling water poured over it and markets of animals feet still in tact for chowing down.

Secondly, with all that and the people who insist of shitting in the street in broad daylight, Vietnam is pretty dam cool. And I’m not even kidding. After a party boat cruise to Halong Bay (one of the 7 natural wonders of the world) and two days trekking through the amazing rice terraces in Sapa (another world wonder) whilst sleeping in home stays and chatting with local hill tribes peeps, I was in love with the place. And that pretty much brings you up to date, after Hanoi we shot (here “shot” means took endless buses which for me ended up been 36 hours on a bus in three days) down to Nga Trang which is were we actually plan to stay more then a few nights!

In these few weeks I have taken hundreds of photos and so in an tempt to wrap this up so I can get ready to go for dinner here are a few highlights and I promise from now on to stay awake long enough to keep up to date! x