Vicarious vietnam part 6
Im actually updating this from the comfort of my lounge room as i am back in Australia now its actually 3 odd weeks after i have left vietnam so alot of this is based from memory. i havent quite finished this little travel blog so shall update the last few hectic days of our trip now.
The next day we went to the travel place and booked our tickets for a trip down the mekong river. It was a rather cheap affair, only costing US$7 and offering a wide plethora of activites from bee hives to coconut cooking and a tour down the infamous mekong river. We woke up at the obligatory 7am and were off on our trip, my female roomie and polish roomie as our other friend had some other matters to attend to.
A few hours later and a few small boat rides later we were on our way down the mekong river, manning canoes down the muddy brown river. It was quite romantic in a venice kind of way as we donned our complimentary traditional triangular hats. i found out later that these hats were only really for the women but men were allowed to wear them if they really wanted to. I was wondering why i had a pink sash to secure the hat... As we sailed down the river our tour guide started joking around with us how he wanted to come to Australia. I offered him my female roomie and in that short period of time we drew up an itenerary. Monday - Wednesday he would be with my roomie, then thurs to sun he would be with his wife and children. He also showed me some cartoon porn on his mobile phone, amusing times to say the least.
We landed for lunch on a little island where they had bees on display in their man made little things and a 6ft 'baby python' which people could hold and take photos. As well as the bees. My female roomie jumped at the chance and held the bee frame as hundreds of bees remained oblivious to everything. One tourist was about to poke a bee when the tour guide stopped her and told her that it had rained the day before therefore the bees were angry. Mind you, nobody was wearing any protective gear whatsoever. My female roomie then proceeded to pick up the 6ft python but freaked out when it moved. Im not quite sure what she was expecting it to do. i happily hoisted it around my neck, wondering if it would taste the same as the smaller version i had 2 weeks ago when i first got to vietnam.
As we sat around sipping cups of tea our tour guide offered us little yakult looking containers. He explained that it was the queens pollen and was very expensive, it makes men strong, and womens skin soft. Im not quite sure what he meant by strong but thought that seeing as it was fairly rare i would give it a go. It was without a doubt, the worst thing i have ever eaten in my whole life. A cross between regurgitated fermented cows milk and a bottle of angostura bitters. Even with copious amounts of honey i struggled to keep it down. My male roomie whom i went halves with only had 2 teaspoons and didnt want anymore, thus making me the sole person finishing the small container. Our tour guide warned me that i might feel 'overwhelmed with the pollen and feel like im drunk.' so i should drink a lemon juice to combat this feeling. i already felt nauseous. We continued on our tour after lunch, seeing how coconut lollies are made without the use of factories and had a nice wonder around the island. Our tour guide also showed us an sms in that period of time from a another tour guide who lost two people from his group, but then later found them stark naked going at each other like energiser bunnies on viagra.
We were 'lucky' enough to secure a speedboat back home to base. On the premis that it would be faster than the bus and would offer us an unparelled view of river life on the mekong. 3 hours later, my neck was stuck at an awkward angle from sleeping on the boat, my spine had fused into one single painful bone and my feet were saturated from being hung over the side of the boat in an effort to get more space. i also had no feeling below my waist. i didnt feel so lucky. But got lots of pictures... of boats. Also met up with a fellow Australian who seemed rather nice we bitched about the boat then when we got back to port went for a drink at a new bar we discovered which catered to all the backpackers.
We opted to meet up later that night for more drinks and went back to the hotel to prepare. My polish roomie was bouncing off the walls demanding that he try a duromide seeing as i and my female roomie were using it just to keep up with all the daily demands. Seeing as he was already hyper i was quite afraid at what would happen when i give this crack addicted shell of a man one of my pills. But after much begging- much like a wino asking for money, i finally crumbled and gave him one. Yeah big mistake. He went from bouncing off the walls roomie to incoherent babbling crack addict in the space of 5 minutes. I decided that i would try out my pimp outfit again that night, so donned the white trench coat, business pants and shirt. It was hot, but one must suffer sometimes in order to get ahead. We got to the bar and unleashed our roomie onto an unsuspecting group of UK people, keeping our distance so as to not associate too much with him. Their group fell apart so we invited the broken bits to our table and chatted with them. One of the girls was from Australia from little old Tamworth. Later my friend was trash talking Tamworth and she piped up saying:
"Its not all country music and hillbillies there, ever heard of XAVIER RUDD??"
Not something to be particularly proud of let me tell you... Our hyped up friend left with the leftover broken bits of the group as we went upstairs with our Australian mate and danced up a storm. My outfit was a hit as a group of Africans gave me their fedora to compliment my pimp outfit. I still have that fedora. Our night ended with just me and my female roomie, we decided to taxi it home as it was 4am in the morning and we were buggered. A big mistake considering we didnt have a hotel card on us, i tried to direct him to a major hotel just down the road from us and we ended up being dropped off further away from where we were originally! Of course all of saigon looks the same so we figured we were close by. We went adventuring for a good hour, accosting groups of women in my pimp outfit and getting alot of stares. Eventually we got onto a motorbike and took it back to where we started (well 15m down the road) and walked home!
Final part coming soon...
The next day we went to the travel place and booked our tickets for a trip down the mekong river. It was a rather cheap affair, only costing US$7 and offering a wide plethora of activites from bee hives to coconut cooking and a tour down the infamous mekong river. We woke up at the obligatory 7am and were off on our trip, my female roomie and polish roomie as our other friend had some other matters to attend to.
A few hours later and a few small boat rides later we were on our way down the mekong river, manning canoes down the muddy brown river. It was quite romantic in a venice kind of way as we donned our complimentary traditional triangular hats. i found out later that these hats were only really for the women but men were allowed to wear them if they really wanted to. I was wondering why i had a pink sash to secure the hat... As we sailed down the river our tour guide started joking around with us how he wanted to come to Australia. I offered him my female roomie and in that short period of time we drew up an itenerary. Monday - Wednesday he would be with my roomie, then thurs to sun he would be with his wife and children. He also showed me some cartoon porn on his mobile phone, amusing times to say the least.
We landed for lunch on a little island where they had bees on display in their man made little things and a 6ft 'baby python' which people could hold and take photos. As well as the bees. My female roomie jumped at the chance and held the bee frame as hundreds of bees remained oblivious to everything. One tourist was about to poke a bee when the tour guide stopped her and told her that it had rained the day before therefore the bees were angry. Mind you, nobody was wearing any protective gear whatsoever. My female roomie then proceeded to pick up the 6ft python but freaked out when it moved. Im not quite sure what she was expecting it to do. i happily hoisted it around my neck, wondering if it would taste the same as the smaller version i had 2 weeks ago when i first got to vietnam.
As we sat around sipping cups of tea our tour guide offered us little yakult looking containers. He explained that it was the queens pollen and was very expensive, it makes men strong, and womens skin soft. Im not quite sure what he meant by strong but thought that seeing as it was fairly rare i would give it a go. It was without a doubt, the worst thing i have ever eaten in my whole life. A cross between regurgitated fermented cows milk and a bottle of angostura bitters. Even with copious amounts of honey i struggled to keep it down. My male roomie whom i went halves with only had 2 teaspoons and didnt want anymore, thus making me the sole person finishing the small container. Our tour guide warned me that i might feel 'overwhelmed with the pollen and feel like im drunk.' so i should drink a lemon juice to combat this feeling. i already felt nauseous. We continued on our tour after lunch, seeing how coconut lollies are made without the use of factories and had a nice wonder around the island. Our tour guide also showed us an sms in that period of time from a another tour guide who lost two people from his group, but then later found them stark naked going at each other like energiser bunnies on viagra.
We were 'lucky' enough to secure a speedboat back home to base. On the premis that it would be faster than the bus and would offer us an unparelled view of river life on the mekong. 3 hours later, my neck was stuck at an awkward angle from sleeping on the boat, my spine had fused into one single painful bone and my feet were saturated from being hung over the side of the boat in an effort to get more space. i also had no feeling below my waist. i didnt feel so lucky. But got lots of pictures... of boats. Also met up with a fellow Australian who seemed rather nice we bitched about the boat then when we got back to port went for a drink at a new bar we discovered which catered to all the backpackers.
We opted to meet up later that night for more drinks and went back to the hotel to prepare. My polish roomie was bouncing off the walls demanding that he try a duromide seeing as i and my female roomie were using it just to keep up with all the daily demands. Seeing as he was already hyper i was quite afraid at what would happen when i give this crack addicted shell of a man one of my pills. But after much begging- much like a wino asking for money, i finally crumbled and gave him one. Yeah big mistake. He went from bouncing off the walls roomie to incoherent babbling crack addict in the space of 5 minutes. I decided that i would try out my pimp outfit again that night, so donned the white trench coat, business pants and shirt. It was hot, but one must suffer sometimes in order to get ahead. We got to the bar and unleashed our roomie onto an unsuspecting group of UK people, keeping our distance so as to not associate too much with him. Their group fell apart so we invited the broken bits to our table and chatted with them. One of the girls was from Australia from little old Tamworth. Later my friend was trash talking Tamworth and she piped up saying:
"Its not all country music and hillbillies there, ever heard of XAVIER RUDD??"
Not something to be particularly proud of let me tell you... Our hyped up friend left with the leftover broken bits of the group as we went upstairs with our Australian mate and danced up a storm. My outfit was a hit as a group of Africans gave me their fedora to compliment my pimp outfit. I still have that fedora. Our night ended with just me and my female roomie, we decided to taxi it home as it was 4am in the morning and we were buggered. A big mistake considering we didnt have a hotel card on us, i tried to direct him to a major hotel just down the road from us and we ended up being dropped off further away from where we were originally! Of course all of saigon looks the same so we figured we were close by. We went adventuring for a good hour, accosting groups of women in my pimp outfit and getting alot of stares. Eventually we got onto a motorbike and took it back to where we started (well 15m down the road) and walked home!
Final part coming soon...