Cravings

Pictures from Mui Ne, Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City

Sunbathing in Mui Ne.

Jesus statue watching over Vung Tau citizens, but not Mia.

A Ho Chi Minh local helping Mia to cross the street.

Christmas Eve celebrations with Paula, Davina, Neal, Tim, James, Clive and Gareth.

Christmas Day celebrations with the same group of people.

Local nastiness in the shape of rice vodka.

Pictures from Angkor Wat

Sunrise over Angkor Wat, 5:30 am.

Monks climbing Angkor Thom.

Christmas celebrations

Christmas Eve wasn't exactly spent in a very traditional way but what can you expect when it's 40 degrees hotter than we are used to, all the Christmas songs are sung in Vietnamese and you get robbed the day before? We spent our Christmas in Ho Chi Minh just sorting out things after the robbery and decided to move the celebrations to Christmas Day. It didn't stop us from going to one of the small road bars serving big Saigon beers for 10 000 VND (30 pence!) and where we befriended people from Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and England. We got along so well we all decided to meet up and celebrate Christmas Day together.

Christmas Day started with a well deserved lie in and then we headed out to buy presents! Ben Thanh Market is huge, hot and hectic and perfect for Christmas shopping. We set up a budget of 100 000 VND (I'm going to miss this currency, it's a very special feeling withdrawing two millions in ATMs) and managed to get really good presents for each other.

During the day we had deliberatly been starving ourselves to really be able to enjoy a pricey special Christmas dinner. It was indeed very special actually, and absolutely the first time I've ever had curry on Christmas! After that we met up with our new friends, went to yet another road bar and had loads of rice whiskey, something I suspect we are all regretting today. But all in all a very nice Christmas and now we feel ready to move on to Hanoi in Norh Vietnam even though we are not exactely looking forward to mere 20 degrees and rain.

Robbery and Vietnamese police

The past few days have been dramatic, to say the least. The second day in Vung Tau started with me being robbed of my bag (containing pretty much all my valubles), me panicing and Diana screaming "police, police" (again using the charads) to attract everybodys full attention, us finally finding the "police station" (read: one table, two chairs, one hammock and a vollyboll pitch), us desperately trying to retell what had happend (I guess you can all see the scene in front of you, me hysterical ripping Dianas bag repeating "stolen, stolen"), us finally getting the non English speaking policeman to get a translator (maybe the only English speaker in the city) and explained for the thousand time what had happend, us getting lift from the two policemen on motorbikes to a second "police station" (looking pretty much the same as the first one, but with a filing cabinet full of unorganized reports, very convincing) and the police to finally start writing a report in Vietnamese while constantly smoking a cigarette looking very grim (as we woke him up from his nap in the hammock).

Finally, after many hours spent with the Vietnamese police we left the station empty handed. Apparently insurance companies are a rarity in Vietnam and the grim policeman couldn't understand why we kept on insisting for a report (how do you explain "insurance company" using charades..?).

Well, I can't say we slept well that night, knowing that the theives had our key to the hotel room along with all the other valubles. I'm still crying inside when I think about long busrides without beeing able to play tetris on the phone, listen to my music and use facebook/skype whenever WiFi becomes available :(

Anyway, luckily nobody got hurt and the passports were in safe hands by the hotel receptionists. Yet another story to tell the grandchildren I suppose (god, they'll be tired of stories).

Vung Tau

Vung Tau is not a very touristy place. Not that I have any numbers or anything but the fact that people actually change seats in restaurants, to be able to stare unabashedly at us without having to turn their necks sort of tells me that. We like it though, coming straight from Mui Ne which was so touristy the menus were written in Russian.

Here everything is in Vietnamese, even our conversations with the locals (though very limited, the only words we know so far being 'thank you', 'man', 'woman' and 'two'). The menus are also in Vietnamese, with a few words translated into English or more common, Russian. It's absolutely an experience, I don't think Mia ever imagined having to act as the sun while I pretended to sunbath when hunting for sunscreen (she did a very convincing job by the way).

After a while it sort of gets a little bit tiresome though, especially after trying to get a new toilet paper roll using our very limited Vietnamese vocabulary, or when inspecting the food you've ordered and discover that you have to eat a turtle in something that looks like a sauce made of just butter in order to get full (not that that has acually happened to us - yet - but turtles actually seem to be a pretty popular dish here).

Still it's a great experience and we have always enjoyed charades.

Mui Ne

After leaving Ho Chi Minh City behind we ended up in Mui Ne, on the east coast of Vietnam. We stayed in a cheap and nice guesthouse close to the beach and enjoyed a few days of sunshine and motorcyckle rides (Mia being the experienced driver!)

But every sun has its cloud and we quickly got fed up with all the luxurious resorts and Russan tourists (they were EVERYWHERE!) and decided to try our luck somewhere else. After a grey and rainy Tuesday (when not much is going on in a place like Mui Ne) we packed our bags and left early this morning.

The bus ride and today's happenings are a story by themselves and we'll tell you all about it in a separate blog post.