A Day Making Plans

Today was a day of sorting out and trying to get things organised for the rest of my trip home.

First I had to make a couple of phonecalls to try and rearrange the remaining flights and I was very happy to hear that one of them would both change the dates and allow an extended stop over in Bahrain for no additional cost, at least none that they told me about. This meant that I was now able to visit a couple more friends who are now in Bahrain, friends that I had first met about seven years ago in Spain and then again in New Zealand.

I would not have made a proper visit to Bahrain if it was not for them, as I know nothing about the place and it is not on my list of places to go or things to see, but when my flight from Dubai to Cairo stopped there anyway as part of its normal schedule and then I found out that my friends had recently moved there and were near the airport it seemed like fortune or fate were lining up to enable me to see them so I thought why the hell not.

After that I had to send out emails to all the hostels, hotels and contacts that I had yet to visit and either tell them that I was unfortunately unable to stay there or that I was and sooner than originally planned, all of which took up another few hours.

Finally I begged a packing box from the hotel and bundled up all the recent soveneirs, receipts, fliers and dvd's plus a coupld of sweaters that I doubt I would be needing again before I make touchdown back in the UK, before heading off to the nearest post office to see if it would be cost effective for me to have it shipped home. Thankfully even though it was about 4 or kilos they only charged me about US $30 for sending it by boat, the only down side is that they said it would be about 10 weeks getting there so I would arrive home well before my package would.

Feeling very good with myself for the run of good fortune I stopped off to have a nice sandwich and icecream overlooking the small lake just down from my hotel and for a moment I was in heaven. The day could not be going better, the food and the view was nice, I had a managable weighted rucksack again and it was still only mid afternoon.

Making the most of the remains of the day I grabbed my camera and took a motor cycle up to the tall Buddha pagoda just north of the old distict and then slowly meandered my way back towards the hotel. Here there was plenty of opporunities to take photographs if you did not mind doing so under the watchful gaze of the armed security force that was outside the main political and presidential buildings. At first I was too put off to be obveous about taking photos, instead using the guise of a tourist checking his map as a cover for my stopping in front of them, but as I continued to walk I spotted other tourists taking photos without being molested or taken away in cuffs.

All the main buildings seemed to surround a huge green park, carefully tended to and with divided up into squares by a lattice of thin concrete paths.

I finally came to the conclusion that the many 'no camera' signs and armed guards were more for show and relics of the past than current requirements, when I spotted a young couple ride up and park their motorcycle, the girl actually standing tall on the bikes podium to get a view over the shielding fences, not five feet away from a pair of guards without raising even the slightest alarm.

With time getting on the sun began to dip low in the sky and I began to get the idea that this might be a great opporunity to take some usnse shots overlooking the lake and pagoda near my hotel so I started back toward the old district. I got a little sidetracked when I came to a nice historic tower and then a tall statue of Lenin standing tall and proud, but I found myself again in time to get back to the lake.

The sun was a little too weak and the sky a little too cloudy for a truly magnificent view but it was still quite spectacular to see the suns reflection break up around the old temple located in the middle of the lake.

Once the sun had set I made it back to my hotel and then finished off the day with a drink and watching the first Harry Potter movie, Hanoi not being known for its rousing nightlife and I wanted to save the last of my Vietnamese dong for any last second expenses incurred during my mornings trip to China.

It was just as I was touching up the last of my photos and packing up my clothes that the icing fell off the days cake as I spotted that not only had my camera somehow developed a hair line shadow in the top right hand corner, quite noticable on pale sky shots, but also that soe thoughtful laundry attendant had thought to write in permenant marker on the inside of some of my shirts so as to identify who they belong to. I doubt it was this hotel as I checked and they dont have any such markers, so it must have been someone between here and leaving Singapore, so the culprit has managed to get away clean, pun intended.

Never trust a man after he had got your money, Hanoi, Vietnam

I had to pay for my bus ticket yesterday and I was quoted US $25 for a trip to Nanning and US $45 for a trip to Guilin, I decided to skip Nanning and head right on over to Guilin but this proved to be a bit of a mistake, as not only was it double the cost but it meant a 3 hour wait inside a bus ticket office for the onward connection bus ( not that I knew this until much later ).

I didnt need any alarm to wake me this morning as I was up and ready long before my moto lift was due to take me to the bus station. However once I checked out the promised free moto cycle lift never appeared and instead they called a taxi for me to take me to the station. The short trip was hardy worth the effort as it didnt even click past the minimum 12 000 that the taxis charge yet then to add insult to injury the driver claimed to have no change so accepted a 20 000 smiled and then drove away, laughing inwardly no doubt that he managed to screw over another dumb tourist.

Being in a rush to catch my bus I had little choice but to swallo this latest insult and chalk it down to poor hotel service, as it was them who first promised the moto and then called the dodgy taxi driver, and so I wont be recommending them anytime soon.

Getting on the bus wasn't too bad, I did my usual of diving up the bulk of the clothes to go under the coach while keeping with me the laptop and valuables and then took a seat near the front so that I could follow the crowd should anything happen. The first leg from Hanoi to the border town of Pinxiang took about three hours and then we had to go through immigration on both the Vietnamese and Chinese side.

As we pulled up to the border there were a large number of streamers crossing over the road just above coach level, so that I got the impression I was about to find a parade or carnival.

Here things got a little hairy, as no one seemed to speak any English at the border ( except a lone foreign money converter, who I never trust as they prey on ignorant tourists, i.e. people like me ) and had to first stamp out of Vietnam and then follow the crowd through to the Chinese side. However none of my fellow bus passengers seemed to be around and yet here were a couple of giant golfish carts full of people all heading on up through a tiny tunnel through to somewhere as yet unknown.

It turned out that the Chinese side was more like an empty town hall or museum than a check point, as it was a huge clean and well kept mansion style building and it was only the lack of servants and silverware that kept me going forward instead of stopping and asking where I was really meant to be going, asuming I could have found someone that spoke English of course.

After I wound my way up a flight of stairs and completed a immigration form I joined the queue only to be pulled back and be "randomly" inspected by the guards, and for random I mean that I was the only non oriental person in the crowd and I was also the only person to be picked on and had to pull apart my entire rucksack right down to them looking inside the first aid kit before they let me go on.

Once out we got on another cart and drove up and round a corner to a different parking lot and here I realised my next big mistake, the original bus was still on the other side presumably going to do a return run back to Hanoi and I had left my hat, cans of drink and food snacks for the journey back on other side of the border. I had assumed, much like on all of the other land border crossing that I had, that they would first empty the coach and then inspect it before sending it on for us to reboard, but here they used different ones and it was this difference that had thrown me.

For a few hesitant moments I had no idea if I should board it or not, as I could not recognise anyone from the other coach, but as they had given us all sign cards on string I did see that everyone else had similar cards and so I went with the flow and was eventually told that I was on the right bus and given a ticket to Guilin.

On the other coach there were plenty more passengers, a time zone change and at least another three hours before the next stop, plenty of time for them to show my favourite chinese movie of the moment, Red Cliff. Sadly I was not too near a screen or speaker, but then I knew what was coming so it wasnt too bad and much better than if they had chose almost any other film to show for us.

As we drove into China the rice paddies returned, as did the clouds and we arrived at Nanning in a cloud of fog which turned to light rain as the day turned into night. One strange sight that I had spotted half way through Vietnam and on through China was the locals desire to only decorate the front of the houses. Time and again I noticed tall, long and thin houses that were looked pretty face on, with balconies, wooden beams and bannisters all highly painted, but both sides were nothing more than flat, plane grey concrete walls with not a single window or attempt at decoration.

I had a three hour wait at Nanning station, where I was cooped up in a little bus station office, unable to talk to anyone in English and without any local currency to help ease the time, but I eventually found a corner where they had a free plug socket so I kept myself busy by updating the last three days worth of blog entries.

Around 6:30 they led a group of us towards a nearby communual restaurant where we were given a token that was good for rice, meat plus one other, so I chose beansprouts and scoffed the lot in double quick time to get back to my free plug socket and made the most of the rest of the time I had.

By 7:20 there was still no movement inside the office so I got up, packed and then they realised I was still there and hurried me down the platforms to where mine was due to leave any minute. Another 4 1/2 hours later I finally arrived in Guilin, but not where I planned on being, without a map, without any street names written in english, without any money but with a plan.

Before we pulled in they switched on the lights which gave me a chance to look around and I spotted a couple of hotels and banks that we passed minutes away from when we pulled up, so my plan was to rush past all the taxi hustlers, pick pockets and dodgy hotel hustlers and make it back to the main road where I could find all I need to settle in for the night.

It sounded like a plan, and apart from being propositioned by a couple of hookers in addition to the mob that greeted me at the bus station I did indeed make it to a bank and then a hotel about a block further down the road. My only problem was that it was not the cheapest of hotels, they have no wifi and they have no staff who speak english either.

As a bit of a clue to anyone from a foreign country, when a guest arrives and cant speak your language, if he cant understand one of you clearly spekaing to him in your native tongue then dont try getting two or three of you to speak really fast and loud at him at the same time, i extremely doubt that it will help the situation.

As a side note it was raining when I arrived in Guilin, which continues the 100% record of every country I reach raining on me, though for the sake of repetition I didnt bother writing when it happened in Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam. The other reason was that none of those times was it enough to spoil my mood as they were only passing light sprinkling showers, not the heavy torrential downpours that I suffered crossing through the South and Central Americas.

In fact the only things that I noticed that were in printed in English, apart from the non smoking signs, was the hotel prices, and which upon further investigation I spotted that they also had a late night and o'clock option, and so I guessed that I had wondered into one of the hotels frequently used for bringing in working girls off the street and share a room for a short time rather than bringing them back to your own hotel.

But for me, this was just a place with a warm bed, close to an ATM machine where I could crash for a few hours and recharge all my batteries all my electronic gadgets seem to need it at the same time.

Once I layed down I noticed one final thing, the beds mattresses here are probably the most hard and highly sprung so far.

A day trip to Ha Long Bay, northern Vietnam

I received a hotel reception phonecall a little after 7:30 am to remind me that I had to go down and have breakfast before my bus was due to pick me up around 8:15 am. Being prepared I was already awake, just checking a few bits online and so was down and ready for breakfast soon after and ready for my pickup at 8am. Unbeknown to me the bus had already called for me once, around 7:15 but as I was not awake ( ie, no one told me ) I had forced them to change the route and do a loop to pick me up, so I am privately glad that I dont speak Vietnamese as I doubt I was their most popular person at that moment.

The journey bus coach was around 4 hours, if you include the minor stop off about half way to pick up refreshments, or more accurately for a chance for their soveneir salesmen to have another attempt at getting our money for overpriced tat, albeit handmade.

It is worth mentioning that borders betwen countries are a lot more blurred when viewed from above no matter which countries you are crosing from and so the edge of to Thailand nearest Cambodia looks and feels almost identical to the Cambodian border nearest Thailand. Here in northern Vietnam if you ignore the language of the sign posts as you drove past them it could easily have been one of half a dozen countries that I was passing through.

Dirty uneven roads, motor cycles everywhere, straw hatted locals tilling the rice paddies in the distance and the van driver thinking that he has to honk the horn every time he goes near another road user or cyclist, which is on average every twenty seconds, and this particular horn has a reverberating echo after it, drawing out the noise even longer.

At one point we passed a couple of construction vehicles which seemed to have had a medium speed frontal impact and although I could not see any blood splatters I could see easily enough that both front truck cabs were crushed and mangled together, so it is sadly fair to say that whoever was driving could not have escaped unscathed except by a miracle.

Rice paddies gave way to water bay and by the time we got to where we had to go I was itching to get off the bus and get away from that anoying horn as much as getting to view the bay.

Ha Long bay is meant to be a beautiful natural wonder, with clear blue skies, lush green covered cliffs rising from the sea and decorative red sailed fishing boats floating lazily about, but in the off season when the skies are grey you can barely see the ghost shadow of the cliffs until you get right upclose to them. I was midly surprised to spot that along some of them  a ring of spot lights is set up, no doubt on clear nights they switch on the lights and light it up like a magical fairytale.

As usual with oriental tour packages, most of the price goes in profit to cover travel expenses, although I was glad that at least the entrance fee and a meal was thrown in, even if it wasnt a tour where the guide actually does any talking.

Once we arrived we had about a half hour wait while we mixed with other tour groups before being put on on of the tour boats, and for this reason more than anything I would argue against booking a standard tour with them. On the pier I could see one proper red sailed fishing boats and at least five ornate and beautiful tour ships that I would have gladly paid double to get to cruise around on, and yet the one that my group was foisted on was about as ugly and basic a ship as you could image. We passed some that had pagoda style roofing, skillfully crafted side rails and a more classic shape but ours was more a floating box with one redeeming feature, it had some of the worlds best designed wooden deck chairs.

Sitting on them they were a mix between a normal deck chair, a rocking horse and a hammock and I think with a little more effort to make the arm and leg rests more ergodynamic they could be a world beater.

We sailed around for a few hours, all the while snapping away at distant rock formations and preying that the sun would come out and burn away all the mist and fog, but sadly it never did. Around 2:30 we stoppedfor something to eat and as luck would have it I was sat on a table with some clued up Chinese, who had bought a huge sea bass, freshly caught, for about 3,500 dong ( about 11 pence ) from the floating mini market where we were moored up against and they were happy to let the entire table have share.

After the meal we headed off towards the illuminated caves just across the bay mouth from the main docking port and here we got to investigate the caves, in its eerie underground setting. Spot lights of red, green, blue, purple and yellow cast their light on the rock formations inside and it reminded me very much of the experience I had with my Chinese friend on the river Li so many years ago.

As we docked everyone was rushing to get some photos, including the couple that I shared a meal with and they rallid my ego no limits when first the husband and then the wife asked to have photos with me as I was a very handsome young man. At times like this you cant help but love the Chinese.

However now I had the benefit of having had plenty of recent practice taking illuminated and poorly lit shots so I was able to get a few great shots that otherwise I would have missed. The trick is to forget holding the camera but instead set a timer and slow exposure setting then firmly rest it against something solid, like another rock formation, that was there is zero wobble and your shots come out clear and blur free.

There were another set of caves slightly higher up than the first ones we went to, but due to having such a long journey to take on the return leg we had to skip it, which was a bit miffing but I gues it was understandable. On the way back one of the ships many life rings managed to find its way into the water, which sent the crew into activity and the ship into a controlled double loop while they tried to get near enough to rescue it without anyone actually having to get wet themselves.

Being unprepared for this eventuality they first tried with a clothes hook tied to the back of a broom but it was too flexible and wouldnt hold a hook shape enough to grab it, so in the end one of the crew got out and getting his foot wet managed to drag it back to safety.

There was a little confusion before we set off to get back, as we switched buses, but then we were off. For some reason although there was less traffic and the driver was clearly driving much faster ( as the amount of near takeoffs and bashed heads will attest ) it still took us about the same time to get back to Hanoi, which was a lot later than planned and I was glad that I hadnt made any plans as I would have been late for them.

Maybe it was the sea breeze, the honk of the horn of just the fact of being sat still doing nothing for hours but when I got back to my hotel I was pretty tired so I planned to have a quick snack in a restaurant and then have an early night.

That was the plan and it sort of when according to the grand scheme, but not before I had to most confusing of meals. After I found a rather nice restaurant just a few doors down from the hotel, I ordered a soup a sandwich and a drink. What I got was a bowl of bread and a tray filled with three tiny square serving dishes, one filled with a chilly sauce, one contianing a single  fish stick and one with a sort of thick goop that may or may not have been the flavour that I ordered.

I can't really say exactly what it was, but there wasnt enough goop to fill two soup spoons full, and once I had finished I sat there for a few minutes before very being very puzzled at the lack of movement and finally asked for the bill. At this, my waitress was in a bit of distress as she informed me that I had not even had the soup, let alone the sandwich, so I have no idea what it was that they had given me nor why?

When the soup came it did resemble what I ordered, but having already filled up with on bread rolls ( as i thought the misterious starter was my soup ) I was in no position to then have the BLT sandwich, so I asked them to package it for me and I would take it with me. This was yet another mistake too as it was made with such a thick bread that as soon as it went hard it was impossible to break or eat without soaking it first and I ended up throwing more of it away than I ate.

Touchdown in Hanoi, Vietnam

The arrivals in Hanoi was just as quick and regrettably there was noone from my hotel to pick me up and so I had to look around for a way to get into the old district which is where my hotel was based.

The information booth was next to useless, unless you wanted to book one of their expensive taxi, hotel or trips and when I asked for the bus they just said outside and then went back to doing whatever it was they were doing before I showed up.

Once I had collected up my rucksack I noticed it was a bit chilly and so I put my jacket on, and at the same time realising that day or night I had not actually properly worn my jacket since leaving Las Vegas ( or more acurately since leaving the Grand Canyon just outside Las Vegas).

I was greeted by the usual bunch of taxi hawks even as I made my wy towards the main entrance, but knowing their games I didnt even stop to talk and walk firmly past them and off towards where I could see a few buses and a sign for a shuttle service.

Before I could even get to the shuttle I was approached by a minibus driver and at the price of only US $2 I figured that it was worth it with the airport being at least 26km away from the city. After waiting to fill up all the seats it finally took off and slowly made its meandering way to town, dropping off all the locals first and then the co-driver turned his attention to us foreign passengers.

Aware of their games I resolutley said that I was happy with my hotel and that I didnt need any tour information, which deflected them onto the next pair who were a middle aged couple from France. Although they asked to go to either a bus or a train station the driver and co driver ignored them totally and continued on to their 'friends' hotel where they planned on packing us all into regardless of where we wanted to go.

The eldgerly French couple decided to stay first at the hotel first and then the younger couple were worked on, with such blatant lies "this saturday is a holiday here and all the trains and buses stations are closed, you can go tomorrow but first why dont you stay in this hotel here". When they tried to stand their ground and maintained that they never asked to come here and only wanted to go to the train station the co-driver switched tact as said that he could do that but only for an additional US $5 as it was very far away, even though on the map we were vertually on top of it.

At this stage my dislike for him developing into an active rage, especially as I was now alone in the minibus while they argued outside and it was clear that they were not goig to continue until they had lied, cheated and stole us all away form our original plans. This was more that I could put up with, so I just palmed my 34,000 dongs, which is what US $2 works out at, slung my rucksack on my back and as I escaped the minivan I held he cash tightly together and thrust it upon them as I walked away.

Not knowing exactly where I was, but knowing that I was not staying in their hotel and angered at my original choice for stranding me at the airport and letting me be pickedup by such unsavoury characters I decided to look for a cheap hotel nearby and found one within moments.

I checked in and found that even though they were a hotel they did not have an in-house massage team, unlike most hotels, but they did have a tour desk so I booked a trip to go visit Ha Long Bay tomorrow, found out about a possible train or bus to Guilin the day after and then sorted out my laundry needs.

There does not seem to be too much to do in Hanoi at nighttimes, unless you are a local in which case it would appear that you spend it with your friends or family just sitting on street corners cooking rice on makeshift wooden fires.

It amused me to see an old lady weighing plastic bags befor bundling them all up and wrapping an elastic band around them, as she intened on selling them, but I was slightly less amused when a student who may-or-may-not work for the red cross selling toothpicks asked me to donate to the charity and then when I agreed expected me to part with US $20.

She seemed genuinely angry that I didnt want to put in as much as the rest but that just shows her ingratitude more than anything as not only didnt she give me any toothpicks but even if she did, I inspected a few before I gave her the money and they were more flat ended like matchsticks that pointed as tooth picks are meant to be.

As it was still only early evening I tried to find out if there was a cabaret worth visiting, only to be duped into going to a place that was like a huge glitsy nightclub and buying an overpriced drink. The place must undoubtably get busy later, as it opened at 8pm with around 40 or 50 young female waitresses and no one can afford to pay for them if they are not raking it in. It was free admission before 9pm, 50 K after, so by arriving when it opened I avoided the cover charge but on the other foot I was told that nothing happens until after 10pm.

The bar tops were illuminous blue, with flat illuminous green seats and when I tried to go to sit at one of the comfy leather sofas I was told that I could not as I was on my own. Within my first five minutes of being there I got propositioned to buy flowers ( for who !!! ) twice and my personal waitress kindly wanted to know if I wanted any more drink even though I had only taken a single microscopically small sip from my glass.

Such harrasing I could do without and when I calculated that at this rate I would be pestered again at least another twenty times before anything remotely interesting might appear on stage I gave up and headed for the door. The place was not only full of young waitresses, it was also full of black suited security and one of these tried to disuade me from leaving and suggested that I stick around and try a different seat nearer the stage, but it was a vein hope and I just ignored him and made my way back into the night.

I am beginning to think that one of the reason Brits abroad seem to be so bullish and rude is that if you are not then the locals just wont take no for an answer, and this is as true here as it was back in South America. In fact, I am constantly remembering my fellow Brit traveller who thanks to living in Venezuela could speak flunent Spanish and her favourite party trick is to shout at overly aggresive ( which described most of them ) taxi drivers "If I wanted a bloody taxi I would have asked for one!"

There is an argument that they need to make a living and that the average tourist has more spending money than the average local but is that really a good excuse to forgive them hassling us every moment we are away from our hotel?

Anyway, after leaving the club I got temporarily disorientated due to things looking different at night and the map I had covered such a large area that it was difficult to find any roads except the most major of dual carriageway roads on it at all.

Over an hour later I found my way back to the hotel, that should have been no more than a ten minute walk, having passed numerous big named hotels and even a nighttime amusement park. Tired and with a big day tomorrow I gave up and went to sleep.

Leaving HCMC for Hanoi, Vietnam

Today I change capitals within the same country. Due to the division and then reunification I will be travelling from the capital of the south, Ho Chi Minh City ( formely Saigon ) to the capital of the north, Hanoi.

My flight was booked in Pnhom Penh by the travel agents just next to my friends guesthouse and as I have temporarily misplaced their printout I had only my memory to guide me to the domestic airport and hoping that I could board the flight.

I woke at just after 5am, as I the flight was due to be at 9am and I had to pack, travel to the airport and check in with enough spare time to sort out any problems encountered prior to flight.

Realising that both weight and space were an issue, and that I had not yet found time to send my latest mail bundle back to the UK, meant that I was repackaging a lot of my stuff prior to check out and this always brings home how much rubbish and packaging a person collects in a short space of time, even when they are doing their best not to buy soveneirs and such.

As expected I didnt quite have enough US $ left to pay for my 4 night stay here in Saigon and so I ended up paying with both dollars and Vietnamese dong, which is always fun and I am only glad that the hotel people were on good terms with my friend here and so they were much less likely to scam me for the exchange rate.

I had been warned that a taxi to the airport will cost around 100,000 dong and could take up to 45 minutes with semi bad traffic so it was a relief to arrive in around 25 minutes and only costing 80 000 dong, well actually it was only 72 but taxis have to pay an additional 5 to enter the airport complex and I guess he gave himself another 3 as a tip which is not really worth grumbling about ) and so with plenty of time I was at the airport.

En route I passed quite a few sights that I would have liked to have taken a photo of, and yet they were not mentioned to me by either of my friends, on the city tour or mentioned in my travel guides and I think the reason for this is that despite their beauty to me they are not necessarily of any significant importance. Every city will have plenty of places where, time and money allowed, would make great photo opportunities but knowing and finding them can be a painstaking process especially if they are not considered important or relevant by the locals, and this is why I like to take a stroll myself around the local area to see what I personally feel beautiful.

The problem is that time and time again I have spotted things on the way to the airport a fair way outside of the city centre and with no real reason to go there at any other time it would be almost impossible to find them. But considering this, could anyone really ask a local taxi driver, "Can you please take me to the city limits and just drive around a bit in case I see anything that I want to take a photo of?" and even if they did how many times would the journey turn out to be fruitless through random luck?

In the far east there are probably more motocycles than in the rest of the world put together, it certainly feels like it when you are out and about dodging cyclists coming at your from every direction. Here the traffic is much like logs floating down opposing rivers, each of them takes the route of least resistance, often rubbing noses shoulders and occasionally coming to a nasty collisoin but more often than not one gives way peacefully and slowly and eventually they all make their way down stream.

Another analogy I came up with last night is to do with travelling in general. Now I accept that I am not a parent, but I am uncle to enough to have some experience to know a little on the subject, so I do not think it unreasonable for me to suggest that travel is like the difference between having a baby and babysitting. Short time travel is like babysitting, it is fast, you get to do all the highlights and hopefully before it gets to tricky for too long you can hand it off to someone else and are off back home again to safety and familiar surroundings. But long term travel is like being a parent, you can lighten the load occasionally with having good friends and family around you but in the end you have to accept that it is your responsibility and instead of hoping that bad things will never happen to you it would be much wiser to plan ahead as best you can and deal with each bump as it comes. Finally although many people might have complaints from time to time, and from the outside people might wonder why they put up with it, the emotional and spiritual rewards of both are priceless and everyones experience is uniquely their own in so many subtle ways.

Arriving at the airport earlier than expected, I checked in easy enough, once my clerk found my booking with the help of their colleague, and security was not as tight as I had expected and within minutes I was in the waiting area outside my departure gate, waiting for boarding and take off.

A tummy malaise in Saigon

With my wifi adapter on the fritz yet again, I gave in and went off in search of a new adapter which turned out to be a bit harder than planned. I knew that it would be next to useles to expect a taxi driver to understand what I wanted, so I asked the hotel receptionist what I wanted only for her to take me to a internet cafe and smiled eagerly hoping that she had taken me to where I wanted.

It wasnt, but as she had walked and taken me herself I could hardly be upset or angry, so I thanked her and then went off in search of an electrical computer store, which on my third attempt was successful after a short wait for the cycle courier to bring it to the store, it being a unusual item to request.

On the way back to the hotel I passed through a street market where the smells of a hundred different kind of fruit and spices filled the air and lent a unique aroma to the region. Passing one clothes stall after another I was glad to see that the locals looked well enough nourished to feel that they were not starving and some even wearing the same quality of clothes that they were selling.

I almost made it out without incident, but at the end I could not help but overhear a very irate woman screaming at a fruit seller, myself being totally mistified at the source of her outrage but maybe it was that the fruit had gone off or was overcharged. The scene caused a minor stir amoung the other sellers, with those who were ithout customers all rubber necked to see what the ruckass was all about.

Back in my hotel I sighed with relief when I managed to get my new wifi adapter all set up only to fall back done again when it became obveous that the wifi signal in the hotel was not constant enough to use for anything other than sending out emails without photos, and then more by luck at finding the right spot to receive a signal than anything else. I did try and hop down to the main reception area to see if the signal was any better and instead found it worse, so I gave up and went back to my room.

During the day my digestion continued to play its silly game and I ensured that I was never too far away from the happy room for too long.

My friends had all agreed, seperately that they wanted to meet each other and that a karaoke night might be a good idea, so around 6pm we met up and after going for a snack we tried to hit a karaoke bar. The first one we tried was almost opposite our hotel, but on trying to get us all in, me and four women, we were turned away and the girls laughed saying that this must be one where only couples go and I am fairly sure that I heard someone mentioned prostitution, thought I cant be sure who it was. The next couple were in a hotel and in centre of downtown but it appears that karaoke really is big business here and without a reservation we were told that we would likely face a wait of a couple of hours before we could get in.

Finally we came back to the hotel and tried another bigger karaoke place just down the road and thankfully they had a room free and so we all piled in and with bar snacks provided and a waiter just outside willing to run and grab us some drinks it was full steam ahead. It was a nice club but the technician really needs to do a sound check before each group enter, as the mics batteries were a little flat, the sound was u pway too high and so full of echo that twice we had to ask them to come in and tone it down and i only wonder who on earth could want to sing with so much echo as I found it really distracting.

However once those tiny faults were rectified we all had a great singalong, finding songs of Vietnamese, Filipino and English that we all knew and loved. I found out that I have probably the worlds worst Rod Steward voice imaginable, either that or the machinery was worse than I though, but I didnt sound too bad when singing a few of my all time favourite rock ballads.

As I knew that I had an early flight I wilted early and by 9:30 felt it a good time to head on back to my room and get an early night but I think all the girls could have stayed out for another few hours easy. I thanked them all for their fun, hospitality and of course offered to be their guides should they ever come to UK in the future and then did my best to get some sleep.