So after celebrating Charlies bday with some drinks the night before. We left our bodies wasted and without their usual energy reserves, you know, if they had any when you wake up at around 4 in the morning. We had to wake up THAT early, just to catch a bus that would take us to another bus that would take us to the airport. Then we’d have to go through that usual airport drama about being there a few hours early and all that!

So as it turns out we just missed the first bus and were left out in the 5am cold waiting for the next one that came round 15 minutes later. The second bus was like the X on a treasure map except without the treasure map. We had to hunt for it but it was eventually found somewhere at Victoria Station. After we got onto this bus it was a nice little hour and a bit long ride to Stansted Airport. My second visit in just a few days!

Off to Ireland!

We arrived and almost straight away found Charlie and Sophia in generally high spirits that had been doused in salt. The kind of salt that kills ghosts and spirits. The realization that the first chance to go to bed would come around in 19 hours was sort of daunting none the less. But this was a celebratory day with much festivities planned! so we couldn’t start it on a down. I met some of Ange and Charlie’s friends for the first time too. The check in procedure for a trip to Ireland from the UK was one of complete ease, we simply showed our boarding passes and presto we were through. Except for all the non EU peoples, we had to get a passport check done at the RyanAir desk done first. Yes, we were flying super lowcost with Ryan Air, how low cost? so low that they don’t even have those little comparment things on the back of seats on the plane! but yes, I didn’t find that out until we got hot drinks and talked about the days challenging tasks.

THERE WAS SNOW IN IRELAND.

Challenging tasks, that’s right. In the true spirit of being annoying, Charlie decided to make things fun by developing a set of tasks for each individual to complete before they could come back to the UK. They were basic things, like get a picture with an Irish person wearing your hat.. oh yes, we had hats. Other tasks involved calling someone “Paddy” all the time in conversation and all sorts of other things that could be seen as mildly funny to outright insulting. But you know, that’s just what people our age do. We boarded our plane! and the first task was undertaken, one of our crew had to ask a flight attendant exactly when we were landing in Dubai, which you know, is in the Middle East somewhere and no where near Dublin, Ireland where we were landing. She did it quite well and it all came down to a minor misunderstanding because the flight attendant was Russian or something similar. 1 hour later and we were on the ground, and it got ALOT colder. You could see little bits of ice scattered all around the planes with the green clovers plastered on the side. I took pictures of course. Fast forward 30 minutes later and we’re outside getting onto the bus that is to take us into Dublin proper. Soon after we’re on the streets of Dublin and following our glorious leader Charlie into the cold searching for the Guinness Brewery!

Guinness in Ireland

So after quite literally circling, or rectangling the block the brewery was located on we found an entrance (go Charlie go!!) and we were in with our student cards, as the learners we are, getting our discount and learning about Guinness. A little presentation and then a slow climb level by level to see different stages of the brewing process eventually led us to the top floor which was revealed to be a 360 degree view with a bar as a compliment. We got our free Guinness there and enjoyed the breathtaking views of Dublin, 7 or 8 floors up seems to be what constitutes a skyscraper in Dublin but all the same it was cool. Like London, Dublin had an old feel to it, but it was even older feeling. Like, it had just started industrializing and well it was just something you’ve got to see to get it.

Guinness oh how I love thee.

After our Guinness it was time for a good old pub lunch with another drink! it was a tad pricey but very nice. Keeping with the theme I had a Guinness and beef pie with potato mash and some golden ale. Veeeeerrrry nice. After that, it was STILL cold despite being well past midday. We started our pub runs! first pub we went into was very merry and had that Irish feel to it and made you realize Irish people knew how to have fun seeing as it was 2:30pm on a Saturday afternoon. We had Irish Coffees, Baileys Coffees, Beers and all sorts of drinks across our run. We hit up another pub and another tending to our tasks along the way! by the time we were at our last pub the time was about 7pm and we had just about finished with Ireland for now. We departed out once again, into the cold and made our way on foot along the river til we got to the central bus station that’d take us to the airport. I almost fell asleep right there in Ange’s arms, I was beat. I’m not sure if it was still the lingering affects of the jetlag or maybe I’m just a weakling but I wanted sleepy times! the bus ride was uneventful and the airport was near empty. We went for some maccas for dinner, everyone quieting down as they grew tired. Before long we were queuing for the plane.

Pub Crawl Entertainment!

An hour later (that I don’t recall) we were walking back through Stansted when I was faced with a bit of a situation. Apparently, despite there being no warning or announcement, you needed your boarding pass to get back through into the UK. Since I didn’t have mine, because it usually is all but useless after you board the plane (hence called a boarding pass), I had to go through Immigration again and get my passport looked at. Yay for me right? so I waited for 30 minutes in a line to have the immigration officer tell me I could have walked around and got through with my boarding pass, it took alot of effort to just not shout at her. Theeeen we had to catch the hour long bus back to Victoria station and another bus back to Wandsworth where Ange lives (and I guess me, for now). Then, finally, we were able to go to bed and just sleep.

Sleep has never been so welcomed!

I say arriving in London because well, I am arriving in London. Is Stansted Airport apart of London? well it says London Stansted on my ticket and it basically is London since all I’m doing is catching a bus into inner London from there. Should I say, I’m arriving in the UK or England? naah. I mean. I’m arriving in London! I haven’t got plans (concrete at least) for going into the more rural parts of the UK. Anyway, it’s all semantics imo. I arrived! first thing I did after I raced through immigration was get stuck at the baggage area waiting for my pinkish red suitcase! it took ages! but once it did I was able to get ready for my arrival. Get ready? brush my teeth so that the first kiss after 5 months with my super duper amazing pretty sexy cute cheesy girlfriend Ange wasn’t one that ended with a “ewwwww, stinky breath!”. So I brushed my teeth, got my rose from my suitcase, put it into the arms of my super big teddy bear that was named Wuvvles and threw my bag over my back and headed out. Tried to be like a ninja and get past customs undetected but there was no need, there were no one in the area “Nothing to Declare” they seem trusting it seems!

Cups of Coffee before my flight!

After all of that preparation, the 8 hours, the day in Kuala Lumpur and the 14 hour flight I guess I felt a bit numbed down because when I saw Ange for the first time in 5 months I felt numbly confused. It wasn’t the sort of confusion that preludes the “Who is that?” line of thought but I felt very little until it actually kicked me that I was in London and that was Ange and I could see her in the flesh and feel her up against me in an embrace. It was a very surreal moment that one literally could not believe. But it was true, I was there and so was she. After the moment of shock and confusion I somehow led her away while still coming to gripes with the situation. I have my girlfriend back. We sat down over at Burger King and talked for a bit, I should have been hungry but I wasn’t and she wasn’t either. Despite that I got something to eat because I knew I should eat. She nibbled on my chips too. The rest, as they say, was history. We held each other, I gave her my mums necklace present, I showed her some things I went shopping for, a book and other random lovey things. We boarded the bus to go home and just held each other on the ride home talking about random things that passed outside and my trip through the world to her.

ooooooo pretty!

Arriving at Victoria station, I had 1 hour foreknowledge that Ange’s mum Susanne was waiting for us to take us home. Now, meeting a parent is a big deal. Meeting the only parent seems like a bigger deal, because that one parent has to be extra protective! or that’s how I figure it to be anyhow. Needless to say I was really nervous and I didn’t want to meet Ange’s mum so soon!! but I had to and the butterflies wouldn’t go away if I didn’t. So I met her, and she was nice. I thought she’d be taller and older looking but she looked younger than I imagined. I don’t know what else to say except from the last few days experience I have come to know “Mama” as Ange calls her to be the nicest mum in existence. She’s, in fact, TOO nice. She has to be, no one can be that nice without having an alteria motive! and yes, I met Maurice as well (Ange’s brother) wasn’t too fazed about that but its nice to know that he likes me. Or so I think? hehe. I kept asking Ange how my first impressions with her mum and brother were and then I asked her brother how my first impressions with his mum were just to be sure. It’s not what I’m worried I’d make a bad impression but this is the family of the girl I want to be with for like…. eeeevvvver. xD

Pimping a new jacket!

Anywho. The next few days were relaxing enough! coming to terms with living in the house, the family being there and all that. The cat.. Ok so there is a cat that lives there, her name is Poodle and Ange would have me know that she is the most amazing cat in the world that is loved ever so much by the family. I don’t like cats, and I find it hard to be a cat person! so when I’m asked to stroke the cat! I keep thinking ewwww.. and try to shirk away from those sort of things.

Conversations a rawr-ing.

Then the night of Charlies birthday came to be! and the first time I had the chance to see Charlie and Joe.. oh Joe! since arriving in God’s country. Hmhmhm and where else better than a pub called Walkabout which turned out to be an Aussie pub of course. We started out there where I met Charlie, Sophia and a guy called Christian and then Joe eventually arrived and everything was swell!! heh, swell! nono. Everything was brilliant! hehe. Englishness for you. Annnnywho, we had food there and got a few drinks before moving onto another pub just by Charlie, Ange, Joe and Ewa’s uni the London Met. The pub was called the Duke of Someset and surely enough it was on a little street called Somerset Avenue or something like that. It was really good! there was really good drinks and dirt cheap prices and good pub food too. Teehee! we ate and drank and talked and talk and had a good time. Eventually we were off to go to the Tower of London and drink some champagne that Charlie had received earlier that day. We made the walk and stopped in at a store and picked up some random things like party poppers and cheap champagne! we did not buy a Picnic bar (for Ange) which I later regretted terribly. All the way to Charlies house we walked and got her fancy bottle and off again we went! she lives quite close to the Tower of London and so we were there before you knew it.

Tower Bridge!

Then came the littering the ground with the party poppers and all the posey pictures with Champagne bottles and peoples! it was all good fun but the bubblyness of the Champagne didn’t go down too well with me. Night mode on the camera sorta worked for once for me and I was able to take some coolio shots of some bridge and the riverwalk! all in all it was the right end to such a good first night out in London. Eventually, we made our way home, we split up at the top of some hill and we went to a tube station. Me just coming to terms with tube stations in general just followed Ange, what seems like a mass maze of tunnels and undergroundness is finally becoming familiar to me. Anywho! we got home and I was feeling genuinely sick, stupid Champagne.. and to bed we went.

Woke up, drove to airport, had food, caught flight, sat for 8 hours, disembarked, immigration, caught bus, booked into hostel, walked around, ate food, did shopping, surfed the net, talked to Ange, went to bed, woke up, went back to sleep, was cold, got up again, had shower, put on lots of clothes, chatted to Ange, went back to bed, left hostel, had maccas brekky meals, 2 cups of coffee, bus to airport, elbow war with some guy, arrived at airport.

Checked in, listened to iPod, patted down, boarded flight, 14 hours of two meals, random sleep, iPod and Arrested Development watching, plane landed, through immigration, brushed teeth, washed face, found rose, snuck through customs, found Ange.

I’m now in London.

From the 26th of May to the 2nd of August, I backpacked throughout Asia.

I left Japan after my 9 month stay and went to South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia. It has been an journey of epic measures that I shared with my girlfriend Ange.

[10/05/10] - New Travels
[27/05/10] - Leaving Japan
[28/05/10] - Busan
[29/05/10] - Seoul + DMZ Tour
[31/05/10] - To China!
[01/06/10] - Beijing
[04/06/10] - Shanghai World Expo 2010
[08/06/10] - Shanghai
[09/06/10] - Hong Kong
[12/06/10] - Bangkok – Round 1
[15/06/10] - Yangon (Rangoon)
[17/06/10] - Mandalay
[19/06/10] - Bagan
[23/06/10] - To Vietnam!
[23/06/10] - Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
[25/06/10] - Nha Trang
[28/06/10] - Hoi Ann
[01/07/10] - Hue
[02/07/10] - Hanoi

As you can see, I’m not done with the actual blogging yet. I’ve got a massive backlog, but still blog because everything is easy to remember with the aid of a over 2000 pictures we took.

The minibus ride to Halong Bay took a while.. I’m not sure entirely but I’ll wager about 3 hours including a stop at some mega tourist rape your wallet place. It was ridiculous really, this mega tourist rape your wallet place… halfway to Halong Bay we were told to get off and wait at this stop for half an hour. The place we were getting out? it seemed like a mini shopping mall in the middle of no where! it wasn’t a shopping mall but it was in the middle of no where, but it was there for the tourists, so every bus going in between Halong Bay and Hanoi stopped here. Food, drink and souvenir prices were through the roof! the perfect example of price gouging of tourists. A taste of what to expect really! but you get used to these things and you try to avoid them, it’s the way of tourism. The tourist looks for a reasonable price and the local tries to get a deposit for their mortgage from you.

Anywho, after that stop we found ourselves at some sort of port / harbour at Halong Bay. Hurrah! except that there was a mass of people, a mass of boats and it was around this instant that you start to realize that they have over commercialized this tourist spot and that because of that it loses alot of it’s appeal. I mean, yes. You have to go there simply because it’s an amazing place, but when the guide books were being written and the place wasn’t as well renown. That’s when Halong Bay was the tourist dream it is supposed to be, instead there seemingly no control, no regulation of the tourism operators and it feels like you’re getting a cheap imitation of a dream.

Our first stop: some random caves. Look at the parking, see what I mean when I say over the top?

Buuut, we eventually got on our classy boat and were off! despite all my criticisms, it’s actually a nice tour, especially considering the price! you do new things and see new sights, that’s what you pay for. It’s just a bit sad that you see hundreds of boats offering the same tour and it makes you feel like you’re not doing something special and wonderful.

Upon boarding, we were fed! pretty cool I’d say. Heh, that was lunch. There was a cabin on the boat lined with booths for eating. Each booth would fit about 6 people max. They brought out a few plates of food to each booth and the people there would stack their plates full until they were happy or there was no food left. The food was food! typical by asian standards. Lots of rice, an actual fish, and some weird vegies. Nothing ground breaking. If you wanted a drink you pay for it, but that makes sense. When we were done with food, we were almost at our first stop. Pictured above, we took some other snapshots of the boat too for good measure. We were on top of the world, the scene around us was slowly changing and people and boats alike were dispersing.

Our first stop, was a little mini island that had some caves with a story to go with it. I’ve forgotten the story which might say something about the story. It wasn’t -that- interesting, and I remember at the time trying to put holes in the piece of fokelore, all the same, it’s apart of the experience. ^^ Caves were extensive! and there was lots of neon lights to light it up. You could also see some of the caves weren’t natural anymore, being fixed with pieces of plaster or concrete.. and it was packed!  so we got out of their and found out our boat was leaving already!! so we had to use other boats as a bridge out to our boat. It was pretty funny!

Random fruit ladies from the village to try sell us stuff. How they get the fruit out there and how old it is nobody shall ever know.

Our second stop was a ‘traditional’ fishing village. It was one of the villages that is on the water, that is to say it’s shacks and wooden structures out in the middle of this bay. Literally floating there, anchored down. It was around this time when people of these fishing villages rowed up to our boat and tried selling us fruit. It was amazing to see how much fruit these people had! we were able to pay to have some person row us over to a interesting little place that was like a little lake surrounded by mini mountains accessible by a cave. I don’t know how else to describe it! but yes. Ange really wanted to swim so took off her clothes and had her bikini underneath and had a little dip. It was sort of funny because once wet, she was just sitting in the boat with water dripping off her. But it didn’t last long! it was a hot day as you would imagine in Vietnam.

When we were back on the boat again, we were off and sailing away! we literally just kept sailing deeper and deeper into Halong Bay and were taking in the surroundings as you do. Eventually, it was late afternoon and the sun was almost setting, it was around then that we were given keys to our cabins. The guy that gave us our key looked at me and Ange and joked that he’d be staying with us for the night.. because he gave us a private cabin with a double bed woohoo! after checking it out we found that the fan didn’t work, much to my demise as I can’t sleep when I’m hot! The boat stopped in a little area with a few other boats in the area and it seemed that this would be the location the boat would be anchored to for the night. So it was swimming time! And man, nothing is more trilling than jumping off a three storey boat into the water. Talk about a splash, so everyone went into the water for a swim and my god it was glorious. It was fun to keep running up to the top level of the boat and bomb dive off! before long it was actually getting dark and the sun was peaking over the horizon one last time.

Pretty sunset!

Twas around now that we had dinner, and much to our dismay we found out that the boat didn’t have a television!! we wanted a TV as there was an important World Cup match that everyone wanted to watch. Eventually a party boat came around and dropped off a bunch of beer and they had a TV and I longed to abandon ship and watch with them but it wasn’t to be. With not much entertainment, we went to the top of the boat to relax on the sunchairs and look up at the stars. We had an early night that night! before bed I bought some water off some random lady that was rowing around to all the boats in her little canoe . I like my water. Ahhh but it didn’t help much as it was SOO hot in those cabins! I have no idea how Ange slept so soundlessly. I was afraid she was dead, I was stripped down to my boxers and I was still dying of heat.

Next morning, we woke very early and we weren’t greeted with a sleep in. Rather, it was time for us to get our kayaking groove on! The boat started up and took off to a another little bay around and there was a little man made floating shack thing that had a bunch of kayaks strapped to it. Before we knew it, me and Ange were kayaking around and up close to shore. We saw crabs, little fishes and were having a wonderful time. It wasn’t even that hot either! I’m not sure how long we did it for but eventually, we had to go back and get some breakfast into us. Before we got back in, we threw our waterproof camera to another couple in a kayak so they could take a photo of us. We had that camera since the Philippines. Anywho, click click photo taken and we were rowing back to shore and getting up into our little boat / ship / floating lodgings and eventually, after some delay, setting sail for the Halong Bay port (shore) — that is to say, the journey was over.. or so we thought. As it turns out, the we ended up just floating for a couple of hours in the middle of no where doing absolutely nothing waiting for the boat to hurry up and go to shore to dock. I have no idea why or what, I can only guess that we were ahead of schedule and had to wait for some place to dock to open up or something. Needless to say everyone on the boat was kind of annoyed, not only was it hot but there was no entertainment. At long last we got back to shore, and were bundled up into a minivan and went to a ‘restaurant’ for lunch. I use the term loosely here as we literally went into some basement where there was a certain amount of food on each table and it was a free for all.

Obligatory topless picture.

After that! the story of Halong Bay comes to an end, we got back into out minibus and went on back to Hanoi.. of course we stopped along the way to some place where people tried to sell us stuff and made us wait for a stupid and unnecessary amount of time but what are you going to do? I honestly think that the bus drivers have deals with the people who own the stop off points and they get some sort of commission / cut for making tourists stop off their and buy overpriced food. But yes, next story. Hanoi!! again. But the departure.

I remember the morning we arrived in Hanoi well, the bus stopped to get washed with all the people still inside, it was sort of silly but yeah. Hanoi yay! our bus drove through Hanoi, we were in the city for a while before we were dropped off on the northern side away from the backpacker district which was near some big lake in the middle of Hanoi. We walked a bit with some random guy that got off with us on the bus, then eventually flagged down a taxi to take us to where we had to go. Hanoi Backpacker Hostel. After having such a great experience at Hue, we managed to book through Hue for the dorms in Hanoi, so we did just that. Found the place, dumped our bags and got ourselves organized in our dorms with a shower and then we were off to explore a bit of Hanoi. We had to organise our Halong Bay tour and sort out our Laos passports, those were some of the priorities we had. Plus I had to pick up a new camera too! we settled the tour pretty quick and went off for some shopping in a market north of that lake I was telling you about, I got a wallet, which I returned for another wallet after not liking the feel so much. Ange picked one up too!  and some thongs cos hers broke in Hue. We also had some ice cream cos it was pretty hot and ate at a pizza joint.

Ice cream with my Annnge!!

But the highlight of the day, or night! was the snake village tour we signed up for with Hanoi Backpackers. Basically, it’s a tour where you jump on a mini bus with a bunch of foreigners, drive out to a ‘snake village’ and eat a few dishes of snake and have snake wine. Before that, we found by chance, Doug and Nicolas! some Kansai Gaidai peeps we had been hoping to meet up with. In fact, there was a meeting that we had one time in Ange’s room where we looked at maps and stuff like that. Hehe, annyway! we tried to convince them to come on this tour with us but they didn’t! they literally just hitched a ride into Hanoi from some locals and they had to find some place to stay and we were about to leave so there was no time! to top it off, our Halong Bay tour left tomorrow morning so there was a good chance we wouldn’t see them again. But the night still remained! and off to the snake village we went, promptly seated and ready for the night to really begin.

I felt all weird. teehee

There were 3 snakes that were alive and waiting for us to kill, but there were so many people in our group so we didn’t think we’d be able to. But we did. Quickly we threw up our hands when asked and we were the first couple to do the act! Ange cut the snakes heart out while being instructed by who I guess I can only refer to as ‘the snake guy’ and then ripped it out cos it got stuck on what I can only guess were snake arteries. Then she dropped the still BEATING heart of the snake into a shotglass for me, I had a bit of vodka thrown on top and down it went. I am now as strong as 10 tigers!!

Then after the other two snakes had been killed and had their hearts eaten we were drinking our snake wine or was it snake whiskey? but it was TERRIBLE. Our beer was a chaser and it was getting warm, but then the food started appearing. Snake bones, snake hearts that had been frozen, snake BILE which was green and tasted oh so weird. All parts of the snake were eaten that night, and the snake whiskey / wine got us all REALLY drunk. Someone broke a chair, and there was this one guy I think his name was Rob, he kept reminding everyone that a shot had to be taken each time a course came out. There were 6 courses! and they came out fast and we were drinking the damn whiskey on top of that. Bah. We got drunk! I also remember Irish people being there too! the first Irish men I had ever met!

Our snake village group!

After the snake village thingy, we jumped into the minivan and went back to the backpackers hostel. We ended up wandering the streets trying to find the way back to our hostel and we eventually found Doug and Nicolas! so we went to a bar with them but didn’t stay there too long. All that snake alcohol and such. At some point we lost Ange’s camera, but lucky for us the snake people grabbed it and we went to the bar they went to! so we just got it off them so it was all good! we left early as we had to be up super early tomorrow morning to jump onto a bus to go to Halong Bay, so we said our farewells then and there. Next morning we were up early and off to Halong Bay! we waited by the travel agency and we were eventually whisked off on yet another adventure. Oh the path of the traveler is great. So much so you almost want to take a journalism degree just for the chance to become a travel writer!

Ahhh, Hue. We arrived at Hue, once again dropped off by a bus right next to a hotel and a bunch of bike peoples! I don’t know how many times I’ve said this but you need to grab your grounding no matter what you decide to do. If you just want to stay at the hotel, you need to know where it is. If you want to grab a bike to go somewhere, you need to know where you are and how far away the place you’re going to is so you don’t get ripped off, and if you’re going to walk somewhere.. it’s always helpful to know which direction to start walking towards. Once we found out where we were, we walked.

Using a card given to us by the hotel, with a map on the back saying where the hotel was, we cross referenced it with our map in our guide book to figure out what street we were on and what direction to go in. We had to go to Hue International Backpackers because we were planning to meet Adam and Franzi there, it wasn’t in our book so we had to find a computer cafe and figure out where it was. All in all, we found a computer cafe after 15 minutes walking and a few questions. We relied on sheer luck as the nearest computer cafe in our book turned out to be a cafe without the computers. Annnyway, another 15 minutes after that, and a double back because I forgot my book at the computer place we found, we were at Hue International Backpackers Hostel! Quite a name but also quite a place, they had a relation with Hanoi International Backpackers Hostel too, a place we decided to go to when we made it to Hanoi simply because of the good times we had at Hue. Annnywho, we got ourselves a dorm room for 120, 000 dong each with was practically redeemed later when we discovered they gave us FREE beer from 5pm to 6pm. It was the greatest thing ever, usually a beer costs around 20,000 dong at an up market hostel like this, and they were giving away the local brew, for free!! The only catch was, you had to finish your other bottle before you could get a new one which is just plain common sense really. So by practically free accommodation I meant if you drink 6 beers in between 5 to 6, it’s basically like not paying a dime for the night.  I didn’t really need alot of persuading to down the 6 beers in the hour, in fact I tried to point out and encourage others too! It was a blast.

Callum and Franzi has the crazy hair!

One of the things I loved about places such as Hue’s Inter blah blah Hostel is that the people are of good quality, in fact when you’re travelling round in alot of countries you meet fantastic people. I don’t know what to call them, but I’ll call them ‘explorers’. These explorers know they might never see you again, yet they make the most of it and tell you their story and you have a good time together. You share stuff about things you’ve done lately while you’ve been travelling around and recommend others to do them. Bah, anywho. It was fun! But but more to what we did that day, or tried to do..

We tried to go for a walk, but bloody hell it was hot! we died halfway from our walk to nowhere and had to turn back getting ice creams on the way, the heat was the sort of heat you’d imagine at the gates of hell, breezing its way out to you and making it ok to complain about the stupid hot headed heat. Um, yes. We tried to go out and failed, then had beers when everything cooled down and I think that was when Adam and Franzi showed up. Halfway through beers, such a troublesome time to arrive but all the same, 5 minutes later they were sitting down with us and a bunch of other people all merry-like drinking beautiful beer on a day that was finally starting to relent with its god forsaken hellish heat. After that, we were all hungry and although we had ate some food already, we were out for an adventure into inner Hue, pass the stone built walls and into the inner cathedral area section bit. It was a long long walk, but we were heading for noodles. We had a map from the hostel and we got completely lost, yet we found a place for noodles! It’s always quite something trying to get around in Vietnam, it’s Vietnam, not everyone speaks English, only a fraction of the younger generation that are studying English like crazy, and a random number of everyone else. Despite all that, we tried asking people on the street for directions and they tried to be helpful, but generally they were not. BUT! don’t despair, we found noodles. I just realized, this isn’t a significant event in our Hue stay but I’ll keep it in anyway.

We found noodles!

Fast forwarding to the next day, we had booked a full day tour! It started out on a dragon boat, and sure enough it was getting unbearably hot, once we started moving it was alright though ^^. We travelled up the river and were showed various things and docked a few times to check out various other things. We saw a really cool martial arts performance using some local Vietnamese style of fighting that we were told saved the country by being better than the Chinese style of fighting and stopped invasions and such. Next stop was a bit of historical stuff that was a bit sparkly too, I vaguely remember a big stone turtle that me and Ange posed with. Eventually we were heading down the river to finally start tomb raiding which is basically what we signed up for and then it starts to rain.. and I mean rain. The boat docked, we ran up while it rained like Noah just completed his ark and we were at our first tomb. We skipped it. Baaasiically, there were 3 tombs we were going to check out that day, the guide rated this one the lowest, it was raining and as drenched as we were, we didn’t want to get wetter, knowing full well that it was possible. About 1/3 of the people on the tour paid and went into the tomb, which wasn’t an actual tomb “Mummy” style like you’d imagine from a movie but it was more like a memorial park with a structure in the middle.. no shelter!

It's a dragon boat! woo.

Annnnnyway, onto the bus and we found went to the two other tombs but I only remember one! The best one of course, it was amazingly super awesome and there were views up the top. There were so many statues and the inside where this Emperor guy was supposed to be there was so many cool glass decorations, words can’t really do it justice and I’m not in the mood for finding the words within me to describe it properly. Heh, you’ll just have to take my word for it that it was largely indescribable and quite cool overall. I also got kissed lots at the top to make fantastical photos by Ange. Teehee.

Kisses are obstructing the view!

Eventually we got back to the hostel, after being showcased a touristy handicraft shop and some other stuff and we were in time for the free beers which was sorta awesome. We talked to Adam and Franzi, they had motorbiked around a bit and checked out the area. I don’t really remember what happened that night, we had a bit to drink and from the exhaustion of the day I suppose we retired early. I do remember a quiet dinner between the two of us at a restaurant down the street and a few games of pool to follow. I’m 70% sure I kicked my better halves ass that night,  there was a distinct feeling of smugness with myself as we left.

I knew I had a picture of the giant turtle!

The next day! We had yet another full day tour of fun! we were also going to go to Hanoi that night too! The morning started with us checking out and leaving our bags in their storage hold, then we waited for our ride that was to come pick us up. Baasically, we thought we were going on another big tour. Well it wasn’t big, it turned out to be us. Myself, Ange and some other guy that didn’t speak English very well. We were picked up in a pretty normal looking car and driven around the streets of Hue, we were whispering in the back sort of wondering what the hell is going on sort of thing, is he taking us to a bus? To the rest of the tour? Nope, it was just us. Then we picked up another guy, our tour guide for the day. We were heading to the beach and rock pools, I didn’t know we needed a tour guide. All the same, they talked and talked to each other as we drove through Hue and made our way to the beach which was about 40kms away. It took AGES to get there, at least an hour, we even stopped off so they could have some breakfast! But eventually we made it to the beach. It was a very strange beach, it had weird sand and very see through water but it was attached to the ocean so a beach is a beach. We swam around and enjoyed ourselves, knowing full too well that in this great expanse of about 5 kilometers we were the only tourists there. We had our fun and ran from jelly fish and eventually went up to sun bathe a little in these comfy little chairs. Eventually it was time for lunch and thats when the fun began, I thought lunch was included in the tour and apparently it wasn’t, I argued a bit saying it was but eventually was told it wasn’t over and over by the tour guide, begrudgingly we bought our lunch. Well I begrudgingly bought it, Ange didn’t care, it was only 2 dollars but the principle!! Some people just don’t understand. =\

Yes, I know. Not my best picture!

Anywho, after food and some more water time and watching a guy paddle another guy out to his boat in a tube we jumped into the car and headed off to the rock pool. Now, the thing about this rock pool is that we were told that it was a elephant rock pool and that we would see an elephant. We saw an elephant, but it was largely made of rock. Felt a bit swindled there but okay, the water was nice and fresh and I went off a bit climbing up river to see how far it went while Ange frolicked around in the water as she does (she’s not the best swimmer but she can stay afloat), sure enough she strikes up a conversation with the only two tourists in the water, some random girls that were probably from the UK themselves. I guarded our stuff for a bit because I was sorta still paranoid about losing it.  Coaxed into the water by Ange, I too started swimming about. It was quite nice considering the earlier hike! And the fact that the stones were searingly hot made the water such a relief for my charred feet. Uhm.. anyway, it was bout time we left so we did just that, Ange broke one of her thongs so had to hobble along with one foot, I gave up my sandals because I’m such a gentleman too. Jumped into the car and we were on our way back!

These things went on forever!

Arrived in time at the hostel and had some final parting words with Adam and Franzi, this was the last time we’d see them and we had known them for only about 4 or 5 days which is a lengthy time for ‘explorers’ but all the same it was nice to meet their acquaintance. Our bus was late or something, and we ended up getting a free taxi ride to where the late bus would rock up to. We had our tickets, we bought some water and waited for what seemed a long time. I kept thinking back to the free beers that were going around at that time but I knew it wasn’t meant to be for us, the bus rocked up and we were the first in line. Well.. I was the first in line, Ange was a bit further back, her big slow bulgy backpack slowed her down you see. =P but yes, we jumped on and another adventure of Vietnam was thus written. Hanoi was in our cross hairs and we were looking forward to it.