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.
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