Have made it back to Hanoi - was only 2kgs over my luggage limit! Am working crappy split shifts and fighting with my laptop to get to acknowledge my camera so i can get the photos from it so you'll have to wait a little longer to feel jealous about all the things I did on holiday!

Yay fireworks! There was some marching band thing going on in KL tonight and there were some fireworks to kick it all off! Didn't stick around for the band thing as I was hungry and it was raining, but fireworks!

Also saw an awesome display in Hong Kong. It was the opening of the East Asia Games when I was there and there was a big opening ceremony by the harbour that was free to watch. There was a light show, and a bunch of boats sailed past, then there was 15minutes of fireworks! Thats was pretty cool! I do like a good firework display but Vietnam doesn't seem to agree on that matter. It's probably a good thing tho - Vietnam is FULL of the sort of people who would go back to a lit firework and get their face blown off :o/

Have been doing lots of shopping Kuala Lumpur. Lots of new books and clothes! Am gonna take a break from the shopping centres tomorrow (provided it isn't raining) and go to Putrajaya to have a look around. Also intend to go to a museum or two at some point, and to the park to enjoy sitting on the grass before I get back to Vietnam where grass there is purely to be looked at, not walked on.

Love my flash hotel - it has the biggest, most comfortable bed in the world! It also has a decent bath so am using up all the bath bombs I somehow found myself buying in Lush in Hong Kong - I walked past and before I knew it I was walking out with a bag full of bath bombs! I would say that this will make my bag lighter for my return to Hanoi, but thats a lie given that I've bought 10 books in these past 2 days. Not looking forward to packing on friday and getting my bag to 20kgs or less.

Figured I'll wait til I'm back in Hanoi to give you the mind-numbingly boring blow by blow account of all the things I've done with the added bonus of some pics. For now tho I'm in the Cameron Highlands and it's heaps cooler here than down in Penang, which is nice. I spent the day at the beach yesterday and ended up with a bright red face despite using heaps of suncream AND wearing a hat. Thankfully it faded overnight so I look less retarded today. Hoping to avoid major sunburn here by spending most of my time in the jungle! Walked out to a couple of waterfalls today and tomorrow I'm going on some tour to some of the sights in the area.The day after I'm thinking about hiring a motorbike to go to some other places but I've learnt my lesson from Laos and will be covered up to avoid getting horribly burnt!

In a couple of days I'm heading to Kuala Lumpur and I've booked myself into a fancy expensive hotel as now I have a Real Job I have money and so don't have to risk another bed bug infestation in a dodgy KL hostel! Can't wait for my bit of luxury.

I want to tell you all the mundane things I have been doing recently but whilst I'm staying in classy joints in expensive cities I can't justify the internet costs! You will have to wait til I'm in Malaysia with lots of time on my hands and cheap net access for all the details, but right now I have just arrived in Hong Kong after a couple of days in Macau (strange place) and a few in Singapore (cool place).

Going to Singapore tomorrow - hooray!

It rained nearly the whole time we were in Hoi An so for something to do I got lots of clothes made! Sadly there was no beach time as it's no fun on a beach in the pouring rain.

Now we're in HCMC. We went for a day cruise on the Mekong which was nice, mainly because there were very few motorbikes and trucks in the area beeping like crazy, and we also went to the tunnels from the war yesterday. Today the weather has been shockingly nice and we've just been taking in some of the sights in the city. Whilst we've been here I also caught up with some friends from Sussex who live here over a nice meal at a French restaurant.

Can't wait to get out to civilisation tomorrow!

I've escaped from Hanoi!!!

Had a few days there with the parents and took them to see some of the sights and eat some of the local food. We then went on an overnight trip to Ha Long Bay and somehow ended up with our own personal boat! It was pretty luxurious and we had lots of good food - a couple of 7 course meals that were hard work to get to the end of. We did a bit of kayaking out to a random cave and we also went to one of the big cave systems that you can walk through. Went to a floating village too in the middle of the bay - I don't think I could live somewhere like that tho as it's far too far away from civilisation for my liking.

Suffered through the ordeal of the overnight train last night to get to Hue. The bunks aren't that big and as I was at the top I had a random metal bar poking into me some of the time. The train also featured a lovely squat toilet and a loudspeaker system that made announcements through the night. Not fun! It's been raining in a very English way for pretty much the whole day here. Have got used to short downpours living here, not the crappy day long drizzle that set in today. It's been chilly these past few days too, but at least I should be grateful that it's no longer really humid. Plus it gives me a chance to wear my pink kiwi hoodie, and an excuse to get a coat tailored in Hoi An! We're heading there in a couple of days and I'm hoping the weather is a bit better as I want to go to the beach!

Today I met Lan for an early lunch before work. We went to a nice place by the Temple of Literature and whilst waiting for food to arrive we faffed around with cameras taking photos of random things, including the Bun Cha man on the street below:



He's cooking up the pork which will then be added to a bowl of broth and served with noodls and some other veges. It's good stuff!


We started our meal with some Nem:



Otherwise known as spring rolls. They taste so much better here than the ones you can get back home at Chinese restaurants. You dip them into the sauce and eat them with noodles and a leafy herb of some description, or just eat them by themselves.



We then had an assortment of food



with some fried tofu action (the texture was a bit too weird for my liking) and some pho xa which consists of noodles with lots of garlic and green stuff. This place also offered a croque with FOUR!!! kinds of cheese so I had to have it as this is practically unheard of in Vietnam!




The place also had some nice looking cakes in the window but we were full from lunch so we didn't try any of them.


Tomorrow there is a teachers meeting at lunch time so we get fed with pizza and ribs, and then on Thursday it is exam day so I will have a longer lunch break than usual between my morning and afternoon classes and no lesson to prepare so shall no doubt end up going somewhere for lunch with other teachers in the same position.


After that the parents are here so there shall be lots of eating out. Yay!

This term has gone by pretty quick! I've not done a whole much else other than work and chill out at the weekends. I did go to the silk village last weekend with Minh and I managed not to buy quite so many scarves this time. I did see some awesome bags though and I couldn't leave the shop without buying one for me and one for Gem as they reminded me of our countless shopping trips! I've also managed to catch up with a few people on Skype the last few weekends. Last night I caught Gem and ended up scrapping my plans to mark assignments as we ended up chatting for over 4 hours. I did my marking today instead and it wasn't as painful as I thought it might be.

Today I've finally started booking some hotels for my trip - I have four more days of work, then the parents arrive and I have Stuff To Do! I found a couple of decent places in Macau and Hong Kong and have now booked some stuff. I had a look on some of the hostels websites for Macau but there was only one place that came up on the sites. Instead I found this place for around the same price as the dodge hostel place. It's right next to the ferry terminal to Hong Kong which is convenient (now I sound like one of my students - everything is convenient for them!)

I also booked my hotel in Hong Kong - I managed to get a decent price at the Ibis so get to stay in a real hotel. I looked for something cheaper but most of the cheap places were in that Chungking Mansions place which I don't really want to stay in. I then looked at some of the guesthouses around the city but most of them would say privates starting from a price like $20 but then once I looked into making a booking with them it would turn out that it was $20 per person in the room so most places would end up costing $40 just for me. In the end I was getting bored and frustrated with looking at all these small places in HK so just went for the Ibis as it was the same price pretty much as these guesthouses but much better quality - it's in a good location and as there is quite a bit I want to do in HK I think it's worth staying in a decent hotel rather than some crappy fire hazard so I can actually get some sleep at night.

I haven't got as far as looking for places in Malaysia but as I don't really know exactly where I'm gonna be and when there's no real need to book things now. Plus there is a lot more in the way of budget accommodation available there without resorting to a really bad place so it will be easier to find something closer to the time.

Most things are sorted for when the parents are in Vietnam, and they are trying to find a place in Singapore, but they leave Singapore the day before me so I'm trying to find a place to stay for one night. I have to be at the airport at like 4am the next day so I was hoping to find a place by the airport but all the places that I can find on the net are really expensive. I am bored of looking at hotels so have given up for the night and will just try and find something another time!

4 more days to go!

I have quite a busy term this term! I am mentoring a new teacher so I ahve to go and meet him Monday morning each week then I teach an afternoon class who I really like. They follow the rules and work hard, and they get really stuck into speaking activities and offer up millions of opinions which makes a nice change. The teacher I share the class with said "they practically teach themselves" and it is kinda true - there is no needto babysit them - you just give them a piece of work and they get on with it! I teach them on Tuesdays too, and then on Wednesdays I have a morning class with the new level I've not taught before. So far it's going pretty well and the book for this level isn't too bad, and they're another class who work well and are willing to share their opinions. I teach them on Thursday and Friday morning too, but on these days I also teach an afternoon class who are horrible! There are a group of boys who act like they are five years old. Thankfully they other teacher had already raised the issue so before I taught them for the first time last Thursday the manager went in and shouted at them, plus the naughty students got letters sent home threatening them wih expulsion. They're better behaved than before but they're still hard work, plus as they are a lower level I have to be really careful with how I speak to them otherwise I'm met with 17 blank faces. Doubles are a real killer - geting to work at 7am to get everything sorted, then teaching for 4 hours, a one hour break then another 4 hours until 5.15. I also have to keep the lower level class entertained - I can't set them up with a big academic writing and instead have to constantly give them things to do to keep them focused on English. Still, I'm earning a nice bit of money for my trip at least!

Other than work I've not done that much recently. Calder flew to America last week and then after a week with her parents here Alison flew there to join him yesterday, so I went to Derrys for a drink or two on Thursday. They're gone for 3 weeks so my partners in crime for Derrys are no longer in town :'o( I also went to a cool cinema to see some Mexican films a couple of weeks ago. It's the place we go at the end of each term to show the students a movie on the last day and as it's set up as a private members club it means they can avoid the censors and show films that mainstream cinemas just wouldn't (couldn't) show. There is a nice courtyard to sit in beforehand and inside the seats are really comfortable, plus you can take your drinks in to enjoy during the film. It's a nice place to go - far nicer than the regular cinema! I only go to see new films at the proper cinema if I can go to a lunch time showing in the middle of the week as then there are only a handful of other people in there, but at any other time the cinema will be full of people making as much noise as possible and making it really hard to actually watch the film. This members place is much nicer but tends not to show lots of new films. There is usually a theme for each week - Mexican, Vietnamese, art house, silent films - and some appeal more than others but as membership is something like £5 for a year, plus a donation per film it's not a bad place!

I only have three more weeks at work to get through and then its holiday time! I should really start to actually think about things I want to do I guess and start getting things sorted!

Also this is kinda cool!

Yes yes! Shapeshifter! Sucks I missed them in Brighton this year :'o(

My kitchen floor is currently home to lots of dead and dying cockroaches. The bug killers came today and sprayed the house in chemicals and now all the roaches are crawling out of theih hidey holes to die. Nice!

Yesterday was the last day of term so was a cruisy day with a trip to the cinema and then back to the school to hand out certificates. All the students in my morning class passed which is always nice. I don't know about the afternoon or evening classes I had as I don't teach them in the second half of the week so I didn't mark their exams but hopefully they all passed. My afternoon class were nice - they kept giving me random gifts. Granted, not very nice gifts, but still! I got given mooncakes (last weekend was the mid-autumn festival and people go nuts over mooncakes for the festival) but don't let the word cake fool you. They look a little bit like pork pies but are filled with all sorts of random things like green sticky rice. After Alisons description of one - "if you're really lucky there's a duck foetus hiding inside" I decided to give them a miss. Still, that they liked me enough to give me things is good. I also covered a class the other week that had quite a few of my old students in it and they all cheered when I walked into the classroom. Always a good way to start a lesson!

The next term is the last one before the parents come out and I have a term off. I'm teaching a new level that I've not taught before so I have new stuff to teach and I'm also being a mentor for a new teacher who is starting this term. I even get paid for doing this - $50 at the end of the term! I do have morning classes three days a week which means early starts, and on two of these days I'm also working afternoons so I'm gonna be knackered by the end of the day but the money will cover lots of shopping in KL and HK!

These past few days a friend's brother has been in town so I've been meeting up with him and giving him some advice about Hanoi and (more importantly I feel) taking him to good places to eat. There are some people in HCM City who went to Sussex Uni and studied on the same courses as me and one of then had a visit from her brother. After spending time with my friends in HCMC and Cambodia he flew to Hanoi for a couple of days and I offered to meet up with him here. He arrived on Thursday and we went for dinner (timed beautifully to avoid the worst of the torrential rain) and I gave him a few ideas of places he could go on Friday and Saturday and and then helped him find his way through the maze of the Old Quarter back to his hotel. I had to work on Friday but we arranged to meet in the evening for Indian food and then some drinks at Derry's. In the end I went to Derry's to wait for him to arrive as Alison and Calder were already there so we just ended up ordering Indian food into Derry's. As they are pretty much next to each other you can place and order and they just bring the food around on a tray - one of the good things about this country! We stayed there pretty late - well beyond curfew - so as we waved him off in a taxi at the end of the night I was concerned that he'd get back to a locked up hotel but thankfully there was still someone up to let him in. It probably wouldn't have been a great idea to end up getting him accidentally locked out of his hotel! Today we met up and went for lunch where we witnessed some responsible Australian parents letting their 2 year old kid drink beer - what?! - and after he got in some last minute shopping for gifts we parted ways and he went to the airport for a flight to Hong Kong and I went to the bookshop (AGAIN!).

It's always nice to meet up with random people in Hanoi. Usually if they are in some way connected to friends then they're good fun as we tend have things in common (as well as meeting Michael this week I've also met up with a friend of a friend from home, Rachel, which was cool). I've also met people occasionally in places like Hoi An and deemed them cool enough to meet up with them when they come through Hanoi which is nice. It gets me thinking about the positive things in this city rather than just the negative stuff I encounter all the time. It's also good to have some interesting people to talk to!

In the bookshop today I picked up a guide book to South Korea for £1. It's from 2005 but I tend to only use a guide book for ideas of places to visit and general info about travelling around a country, not to find places to stay so it's not so important if it's an old book. You can usually pick up guide books for places like Laos and Thailand pretty cheap as there are lots of second hand copies in this city but there aren't so many books for Korea, and those that I do see are usually pretty expensive so when i saw this one for the bargain price of 30,000 I had to buy it! I plan to go to Korea at some point so now I'm prepared with a guide book for the place! I did also buy yet more books despite the fact that I have plenty already that I've not yet read. Oops.

I have no plans for tomorrow aside for a trip to the gym and a bit of swimming. I'm gonna get that out of the way in the morning then I have the rest of the day to get reading some of my books! I might watch a film or two as well as next to my massive pile of unread books I have a stack of unwatched DVDs. I must stop buying books and DVDs!

Randomly this has entertained me greatly - how to fly in Vietnam!

On Thursday I ventured to the dentists to get a filling sorted out. I decided against taking my chances with a cheaper Vietnamese dentist as the filling was behind my veneer so I didn't want them to make a mess of it and leave me needing a new veneer as I HATE having the old one and then the temporary drilled off. Instead I went to a modern foreign owned dental surgery with modern and hygienic equipment and got a good filling put on by a French dentist without damaging my veneer. It was expensive for Hanoi but still cheaper than a filling back home plus they gave me a free mug and were tripping over themselves to help me and offer me things in the waiting area beforehand - a much better experience overall than some of the horror stories I hear about Vina dentist destroying people's teeth or doing unnecessary work to rake in more money. Once feeling returned to my mouth that evening I got me a delivery of okonomiyaki-

Good stuff!

On Friday I went to the Old Quarter in an attempt to find string. I went to a massive stationers but they didn't have any and from the amused looks on their faces I think i was the first person to ever go there looking for string. It wasn't a total loss though as I got some cheapie books and a detailed road map of Vietnam for motorbike adventures. I then tried to get string at the post office but apparently they couldn't sell me a length of string - it seems it is reserved for wrapping packages only. I decided to go to some hardware stores but they had nothing of any use there either. Finally I walked past a paint shop where everything was hanging from the ceiling with red twine so I stopped and asked if they had any for sale. At first the woman thought I wanted to buy various assorted paint brushes but finally she understood my request. She pointed to a big roll of twine on the floor and sold me several meters for a few pence so I've finally been able to hide the dodgy paint job in my room with all my pretty scarves (you can also see my funky elephant throw thing I got in Laos!)-

I also learnt that string doesn't exist in Hanoi, or if it does it's kept in a top secret location that no foreigner has access to.

On Saturday it was really sunny and when driving past the temple near my house I saw that the gate was open - it's usually all locked up - so I went to have a quick look around





Also on Saturday our housekeeper Huong came and she bought us flowers!


She's much happier now our dirt-monster housemate has left - Huong felt really intimidated by her and was never sure what she could move after Fiona went crazy one time when Huong took some old beer bottles to the recycling place. Now Fiona's gone Mark and I have cleared out all the crap and we have a grown up house again with clear surfaces. This makes Huong's job much easier as she no longer had to clean around piles of crap and our house is now much nicer as there are no longer piles of paper all over the lounge and we can actually use the table in the kitchen for eating as it's no longer covered in bags and books and whatever else Fiona felt like leaving there.

My motorbike burn is finally getting better too which is nice. Fiona didn't bother using the kickstand on her motorbike and instead she just propped it against a step outside our house. One day I was putting my bike into the yard when I got home from work when hers fell over. I turned to catch it to try and stop it crashing into my bike and in doing so I ended up with my leg pushed up against the burning hot metal of my exhaust pipe. First my leg was all red and stingy-

Then after a few days it was covered in blisters and was really itchy-

then finally all the scabs fell off and I'm left with a strange patch of skin on my leg that's lighter than the rest around it-

Most people in Hanoi have a scar like this tho so now I'm part of the club!

As I'm going crazy uploading pics here is my pink sparkly Hoi An skirt (tho it's too blurry to see the sparkles!)

Got caught out in the rain THREE times today! At work all week Chad has been telling us a tropical storm was on the way in and it started raining last night whilst we were eating dinner (Japanese!! Salmon sushi, ebi tempura and okonomiyaki makes the best meal ever) so I got soaked riding over the Derry's after dinner for a drink or two with Alison and Calder (and some Germans) then it rained all night as far as I can tell. It was raining this morning but I dragged myself out in the rain to go to the gym as I figured if didn't go first thing in the morning I wouldn't go at all today.

The rain stopped later so I decided to go and find the fabled cross stitch shop in Hanoi so I have something to stop me fidgeting when watching my stack of DVDs. It's tucked away in a lane by the citadel area so round every corner there were soldiers with guns guarding army buildings but I found the place in the end and got some Vietnamese cross stitch - they're not bad actualy I guess. I then stopped in Bookworm on way back home and got some books - my punishment for buying books I don't need was to walk home in an absolute downpour that I would have missed if I'd gone straight home. I've just been out for dinner and when I came out of the place it was hammering down again and I'd left my wonderful poncho at home drying out after the afternoon soaking so I had nothing to keep me dry.

I now have various pairs of shoes and all sorts of clothes aroud the place drying after a tropical drenching. The rain is quite something!

On Wednesday everyone went crazy celebrating independence day with a big traffic jam over pretty much the whole city. I had the day off work and went to the Old Quarter to meet Alison to pay bike rent. It took me forever to get there as my normal route takes me past the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and I didn't take into account the fact that the entire population of Vietnam appeared to be making a pilgrimage there to celebrate independence day. People were ambling along in the middle of the road and all the intersections were a disaster with nobody obeying the traffic lights. Eventually I made it in and the Old Quarter was filled to bursting with tourist and locals getting in the way so we escaped to a nearby cafe to kill time til we could get the bikes back. We sat out on a balcony and watched a retarded tourist stand in the middle of the road to take a picture and nearly get mown down by a taxi - you can get just as good a pic from the pavement with a reduced risk of death so why stand in the middle of the road?! Was glad to get out of the melee once my bike was ready and I escaped to the gym - it was empty! I also went swimming in the fancy outdoor swimming pool and made use of the jacuzzi before heading back home. I contemplated heading out later on in the day to see what was happening for the celebrations but after the experience in the morning of all the crowds just milling around I decided instead to just stay home. From what I saw on TV I didn't miss a great deal and staying at home meant I managed to stay sane!

Thursday at work was exam day so it was a pretty easy morning, and then yesterday I went to watch a movie in the morning before going back to the school to give the students their results. I went back to the cinema in the afternoon but didn't fancy watching the movie for a second time so instead I went to the bank and then sat out in teh courtyard of teh cinema with some of the other teachers. Finally in the evening I had to teach for a couple of hours but I made the lesson pretty cruisy with a song, a game and then a timed writing so in the end although the day was long it wasn't too taxing!

Today I helped the housekeeper clean the kitchen and chucked out all the old food that's been there since before I moved in. I wan't much use when I opened one of the drawers to find some cockroahes but Huong set upon them with a rolled up newspaper and slaughtered them all. Unfortunately there is no air con in the kitchen so it was horribly sweaty work but at least our kitchen is clean now and there's no more mouldy food!

I've just been out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant as I was craving some okonomiyaki. I tried a different one to the usual and found a place that specialises in the pancakes so tried that one instead. The chef cooked it up on the hotplate right infront of me which was pretty cool! I was origianlly gonna go to the usual place with Calder and Alison but they are suffering this evening so instead I tried this new place and I'm glad that I did. It was so good! We have plans to go to the usual place later this week which will be nice as the place I went to tonight doesn't do sushi so later on in the week I'll be able to get my sushi fix. Good stuff!

After finishing work on Friday I got a taxi to the airport and checked in for my flight to Hoi An. Was given this notice when I checked in -

Not what you wanna see before boarding a flight! As I didn't get one on the way back I presume it was because I was sitting in an exit row but at the time I had visions of someone opening the doors mid flight! The said, seconds after landing when the plane was still going at some speed people started standing up to get at their stuff so it's not too hard to imagine that someone was so desperate to get off the plane after lading that they made a dash for the doors before they were opened. It's quite entertaining to watch Vietnamese people being forced to wait to do something - they're not very good at it! They were all desperate to get onto the bus to the plane (maybe they thought it would go without them?!), then they pushed and shoved their way off the bus to try and get up the steps onto the plane as if they were racing against the clock, only to have to sit there waiting for the rest of us to get on. They were also itching to get off in Da Nang and were pushing and shoving to get off. I did notice though that all the exit rows were pretty much filled with foreigners, even those who didn't speak English as a first language and that each one of us read the card about the emrgency door and had a good look at the door itself. The only Vina who was in an exit row just put the card into the seat pocket without even looking at it!

I shared a taxi to Hoi An with a Canadian and checked into my fancy hotel before going down to the river. Last time I was in Hoi An I didn't get to see the place in the evening as I had to get transport back to my beach shack so it was nice to see it this time - it's quite a pretty place! There are lots of lanterns all over the place and everything is lit up. I also went to a tailors and got measured for a dress and a couple of skirts then went back to the hotel to collapse into bed.



On Saturday I briefly contemplated hiring a motorbike and driving out to some Cham ruins but it seemed like too much effort in the end so instead I had a lazy morning ambling around the town and getting measured for a pair of shoe and another skirt. I then hired a bicycle and cycled out of Hoi An. I came across a random Japanese grave

and a river

but it was a bit of a killer in the midday heat so I headed back into Hoi An to get something to eat. I picked up my new sparkly pink skirt (not as lame or childish as it sounds!) and then decied to cycle over to Cam Nam island to see what it's about. There's not a great deal there but it was a nice place to ride around for a bit, plus there is an ace bookshop where I was able to pick up another James Clavelle book. I went back to the hotel after that as I was a bit sunburnt and had a monster headache but after lots of water and a bit of time relaxing I went out to find some nice local food for dinner and caved in and got another dress made.

After breakfast yesterday I hired the bicycle again and cycled out to the beach-


It was pretty! The sand was pretty hot though and trying to walk across the sand burned my feet up, but apart from that it was a really nice place to spend a couple of hours, plus the ride there and back was nice.

I had to head back and check out of my hotel and then I went to collect my silk dress - not very practical for Vietnam but so pretty!

This week is the last week of term and there is a bonus day off on Weds for a public holiday so it's not too bad a week this week, apart from my 8 til 8 shift on Friday.

Rest of the pics here

I'm really looking forward to going away tomorrow after the monster long day I had today! I couldn't sleep last night so I got to work at 7am after about 4 hours sleep and was really looking forward to finishing at 12, spending a bit of time marking assignments and then coming home to get stuff sorted for tomorrow and watch a film or something to relax. Instead I spent nearly three hours marking the damn assignments after lunch as half of them were absolute crap. There were also some issues with students who had copied from past student's papers which meant I had to get the director of studies involved and so I finished marking at 3.30 and headed home for all of an hour before going back to work through the horrible rush hour traffic as I'd somehow let myself get talked into covering an evening class. It was a pretty cruisy class but still it sucked to be working til 8 and then having to get all my stuff sorted for tomorrow when I got home.

Am about to go and pass out in my bed now. I've just gotta make it through my morning class then at 12.45 I'm in a taxi to the airport. Woohoo! Beach!

After several days fighting with the internet company they have reconnected our internet! It died on Tuesday and finally yesterday morning it got fixed. I think they got sick of the sight of me showing up at their offices all the time to pester them so yesterday a guy finally came to sort it. There was a problem with the cable and fixing it required him to balance on the seat of his motorbike and fiddle around with a bunch of wires in the rain. I had visions of him getting electrocuted but thankfully that didn't happen and he was able to get the wires sorted. Somewhere in this jumble of wires is our internet cable:

and the guy had to cut bits off and faff around with live wires. At least he got it sorted!

Now I've got the internet back I've been able to book some plane tickets for December. They day after the parents fly home from Singapore I'm flying to Macau to spend a couple of days there, them I'm gonna get a ferry across to Hong Kong. After that I'm flying to Malaysia - Air Asia only fly to Malaysia or Thailand from Hong Kong so those were my two options for budget flights. I'm flying into Penang so I'll spend some time in Georgetown then I'll go explore the island and go to the beach. Then I intend to go to the Cameroon Highlands to see what that's all about. It's up in the hills and there are tea plantations and stuff and a bunch of hikes so I think it'll be a nice place to spend a couple of days. Then I'll head down to Kuala Lumpur. I think that's my favourite city in Asia so I'll prolly spend a bit of time there. I want to go out to the forestry research centre place for a day as they have a canopy walkway there which sounds cool, and I'm sure there are still a bunch of sights in the city that I've not seen. There's also a lot of shopping to be done there and lots of good food to be had so it'll be a nice way to finish of my time off before I return to Hanoi and go back to work.

I also found a hotel yesterday for my weekend in Hoi An. I got some cheap flights to Da Nang so on Friday I'm heading down to Hoi An for a couple of days. Last time I went there I stayed in a cheap shack by the beach in the middle of nowhere for $5 a night but this time I've found a decent hotel in Hoi An with a swimming pool which will be nice. I don't intend to do too much whilst I'm there - go to the beach or lie by the pool mainly. I'm gonna prolly get some clothes made and get a couple of my skirts copied, and I might hire a motorbike to head out to some Cham ruins out in the country but thats about all I've planned. I'm looking forward to getting away from Hanoi and getting a bit of peace and quiet for a couple of days!

The beast now has a basket on the front:

so yesterday I kitted myself up in my riding gear:

and went up to Tay Ho to get some goodies from the shops there. It was quite a nice ride over - the sun was out and the sky was bright blue. I realised it's been a while since I've seen a blue sky here and the city just looks so much better in the sun. Even the polluted lakes don't look too bad! I did witness an accident as I was leaving the supermarket - it wasn't major but a couple of bikes crashed into each other and the riders ended up on the floor. What really bugged me was that whilst these people were getting up and picking up their bikes other people were beeping their horns as they had to wait for a minute or two whilst these people got out of the way. The beeping of the horns here is really starting to annoy me. People beep for no reason and hold down their horns for an unnecessary amount of time. When I was sitting in the internet cafe by my house on Saturday I was there at peak time in the lanes and pretty much everyone that rode past felt the need to beep their horns. It drove me insane! There is also far to much beeping on the roads too and I think I'm starting to go deaf from all the horns! I want to get at the electrics on all the motorbikes in Hanoi and rig them so that if people hold down the horns for too long or too many times in a period of time they get an electric shock!

I've joined a gym at a swanky hotel and I went there this morning. There is also a swimming pool, jacuzzi and sauna so I made use of all of them today to get my moneys worth! The swimming pool is open air and it was nice to swim under a blue sky for a change. I've spent the rest of the day doing nothing much to make up for my hectic day yesterday running backwards and forwards to the internet company trying to get reconnected.

Yesterday after work I went to West Lake for a fix from the chocolate cafe. It perked me right up after my early start and 4 hours with my lameo class! I sampled a caramel coffee and a selection of their cookies. They were soooooo good! I then went to a few of the import shops to get things that are a hard to find in bog standard Vietnamese places, and I went back to the deli for more lovely French ham and bread. I finally managed to round up all the ingredients for Mexican food and discovered a stash of bounty bars in one of the shops so I returned home happy. The good thing about working mornings and finishing at midday is that I have the whole afternoon to do stuff. Just about makes up for dragging myself out of bed at 6am!

The parents have just booked some flights to come out and visit at the end of the year so I'm getting excited about planning trips again. Once they've gone I'll have nearly 3 weeks left of my holiday so I'm thinking about going somewhere lik Hong Kong. I was origianlly thinking about going to Taiwan too but flights seem pretty expensive so I might ahve to give that a miss. There are no budget flights between HK and Hanoi so I think I'll prolly end up flying from HK to Kuala Lumpur and then back up to Hanoi a few days later. That's no real hardship I guesse! I might even have some time to go to other parts of Malaysia as the only place I've been on peninsular Malaysia is KL. Yay holidays!

I played some Crowded House to my students yesterday!!! As we lost a day due to floods last week yesterday was a full lesson rather than the usual movie and so I had to entertain my students for 4 hours with no books to teach from. Ended up playing games most of the time and using songs as fillers. Jim had a few Crowded House songs so I used one to numb the pain of the Savage Garden song I used earlier in the lesson. It was actually quite a fun lesson in the end. Lots of phots were taken at the end though - this class seemed to love me so I had to pose for numerous photos with them all at the end of the lesson.

After work today I went to Derrys as usual and met Alison, Calder and Lyle there. A little while after arriving one of the owners, Huong, got back from Singapore. She brought McDonalds with her!! We had some Big Mac and some cheeseburger goodness. Man it was good!

BOOKS!

Apparently BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible (parts of it anyway)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Total 1-10: 3

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk X
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger X
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

Total 11-20: 5

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X

Total 21-30: 2

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres X
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X

Total 31-40: 5

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan X

Total 41-50: 5

51 Life of Pi - Yann Marte X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Total 51-60: 3

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt X
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Total 61-70: 3

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson X
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome X
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

Total 71-80: 5

80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry X
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

Total 81-90:2

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Eupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Total 91-100: 1

Total: 34

I've just finished Bill Bryson, Notes From A Small Island. The last part of his book was all about Scotland - now I have tentative plans to head up there whenever I'm next home! I'll prolly take a term off whenever I decide to go home so will hopefully have some time to squeeze in a trip to Scotland whilst I'm there! It won't be for some time yet though so I have heaps of time to change my mind! I'm now keeping an eye out for his book on the English language as that cound be pretty entertaining too.

It's the last week of term this week so I get to do heaps of speaking exams and then mark a bunch of other papers on Thursday. Fun times. As the school was closed for a day last week due to flooding we have regular lessons on Friday rather than the usual movie and party thing. This means that I have to try and motivate a bunch of teenage girls who really don't care about learning English on a Friday afternoon after their exams are all done. That's gonna suck.

I've finished my cross stitch!



It's taken me months. I don't know what to do when I'm watching films and TV now - I need something else to keep me occupied and stop me fidgeting.

For the first time in a long time today I got up before 8! I went to Derrys as usual last night for a drink or 4 after work and the owner Victor invited me to join Alison and Calder at his hotel for a buffet breakfast this morning. It was worth the early start tho - the eggs were freshly made to order and there was lovely jam! I was kinda surprised to find that it was really hot so early in the day - I always assumed it would be a lot cooler first thing.

After breakfast I caught the bus back to where I live and there were a bunch of tourists on the bus going to see Uncle Ho. The conductor herded them all off at the appropriate place and then tried to send me off with them too, assuming I was a tourist too. It took a lot of work to convince her and the driver that I did in fact want to head further down the road to go to my house but they got it in the end!

Later on in the day I headed over to West Lake to go to a couple of places that sell lovely Western goods. One was a deli with an amazing selection of meats and cheeses with some decent bread too. I got some ham that was imported from France and it was nice to have real ham rather than the watery stuff you can buy in a bog standard Vietnamese supermarket! I had ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner and they were good! The other store was kinda like a dried goods store and had a bunch of sauces etc and MARMITE!!! They also had stuff like biscuits and chocolate - I got excited to see Cadburys but upon closer inspection it turned out to be Australian and so I decided it wasn't good enough to justify the high price. I did find kit kat chunky's though for a fairly reasonable price so I am soon to enjoy a bit of British chocolate goodness. The best thing about this shop though is the range of coke products they have - the only place in Vietnam to sell coke zero and the only place outside of Singapore and Brunei to sell lime coke (as far as I can tell!) and it's not even expensive. These imported cans cost the same as a regular can back home - bargain! I also found some sour cream so tomorrow I'm gonna make some sort of Mexican dish and them I'm gonna try a recipe to make dip as that's something that's not available here and I really miss it.

Travel plans have been discussed a bit recently and I'm getting excited about the prospect of travel, even though it is quite far away. As I have taken an entire term off for when the parents come over I will have some time to fill when they have gone home so I'm considering options like Taiwan and Hong Kong, or maybe Indonesia. Last night I discussed plans for China with Alison and Calder too which got me excited (except for the thought of the cold). Sadly there is no travel for me for a while unless I maybe have a weekend here and there, but at least it means I can save my pennies!

Have been playing around with google maps (OK, looking at stuff in Auckland) and decided to have a look at Hanoi. They've finally put the street names on! when I was looking for a place to stay just before I came out here there were no street names so I had no idea where I would be doing my CELTA course but now there are street names so you can see where I live!

A map of Hanoi I live in a lane just off of Doi Can. If you draw a line up from the letter H (VIKI Weddings!!) and one across from the swimming pool you can just about make out a little to the right above the H my house is about the point where they meet! As you can see its a fairly densely packed city. I also had a look at what comes up in google images for Doi Can - on the first row there is a pic of the horrible traffic on Doi Can in this article This is why I try my hardest not to by tackling Doi Can in rush hour!

After a few days with little rain it absolutely hammered down today. It was raining when I woke up and I waited for it to stop before going to work but no joy so eventually I had to give up and ride through the rain. My timing turned out to be really good - when I was driving there were rather large puddles but within about half an hour of getting to work the street outside began to flood. After about 20 mins of more heavy rain the water had risen above the pavement and was lapping at the stairs into work - this was the point the morning classes finished so all the students headed downstairs to shout loudly at each other about the flood. The delivery man bringing my lunch managed to get through as the water at that point was only at one side of the street but later on the entire street was flooded. I teach the afternoon class and my students all squelched in after having to wade through the water to get in. I'm impressed they made the effort! I tend not to leave the house unless its absolutely necessary when its raining as I really don't want to end up wading through minging water.

I've not done much recently aside from a lot of eating out. Last Sunday we went for brunch at the Melia hotel - $30 gets you free flow drinks and all you can eat food from the buffet. The Melia is one of the swankiest hotels in Hanoi so the quality of food is good, plus they have a chocolate fountain! The day before I met some people from work for lunch at a place called Cafe Smile - it is a training place for disadvantaged youth and all the staff are being trained so there is good comedy to be had as long as you have plenty of time and lots of patience. Tomorrow is gonna be decent pasta at a good Italian place as Tuesday night is pasta night, and a Moroccan place is on the list for sometime soon.

Other than that I got some awesome shoes the other day -

This is just gonna be full of random stuff from my brain!

Firstly - have just been browsing a kiwi t-shirt site and found this - I want this shirt! Maybe if its still available closer to the time the parents head out to visit I may order it to be sent home and get them to bring it out for me! There are also some good hoodies but I picked up my other kiwi one when I was home and don't think I'll be wearing it for more than maybe the month or two when its a bit chilly on a motorbike so getting another one right now would be pretty pointless.

Last Wednesday I went to Derrys after work and Calder presented me with this article from the Vietnam News - dangerous driving the main cause of traffic accedents. Its almost like people were shocked to find that driving like a douchebag might get you killed! This was particularly fitting as on the way over to Derry's I'd got stuck behind a family of four on a motorbike. None of them were wearing a helmet and the father was driving with only one hand whilst using the other to hold his phone to his ear. They were veering around all over the place and several people nearly crashed into them. Also in a bid to ease congestion at some of the junctions they have put barriers across several crossroads closing off the junction meaning that you can no longer go straight ahead and instead you have to turn onto the other road, ride along to a u-turn area and then drive back to where you want to turn. There is one of these barriers on my way to work so I have to ride along then do a u-turn into the face of oncoming traffic, but I have seen several people decide not to bother with this and instead they decide to try and get their bikes up and over the median strip. They definitely need to do something about drivers awareness of rules of the road as curently the population act like there aren't rules and so are causing Ministers a great deal of puzzlement as to why people seem to keep dying on the roads!

Last night at Derrys Alsion showed us the new ad from one of the other language schools in Hanoi -

I'm so glad that I don't work at a school that wants me to take part in a lame advert!

On Tuesday morning I had to drive to work in really heavy rain. It had been raining for some time and showed no sign of ending so I had to just suck it up and kit myself out with my plastic shoes and poncho and go for it. The road outside work floods in heavy rain so there was a little bit of a flood for me to drive through and I managed to get the bike through the water which was impressive. I also managed to ride up the ramps into work for the first time! Usually I just get off my bike and push it up the ramps as I'm scared of falling off but on Tuesday getting off the bike would have meant standing in the flood so I decided to give riding up the ramp up the kerb and the stairs to the building a try. It worked! The only good thing to come out of the heavy rain and flooding.

Thats all the exciting info I have to share with you so now I'm going to get back to my TV box sets and enjoy my last four day weekend for a while.

How to get home from work in the crappy rain - the lovely plastic poncho to keep most of me dry and hideous plastic shoes wont turn to crap in the water. They even have holes in to allow the water to flow out when some retard stops right in your path forcing you to put your foot into an ankle deep puddle! The dodgy face mask is part of the every day ensemble when riding a motorbike to try and keep some of the pollution out of my lungs. It's a good look!

Got some pics up! I've added some pics from my detour to visit my relies on the way to the airport Home pics

I've also put up a bunch of photos from my trip to Thailand Thailand

My weekend in Bangkok with my friends involded lots of eating and some shopping with little else. We did check out an ace cinema tho. It had REALLY comfy reclining seats and they give you blankets! Check out the Nokia screen about 1/2 way down the page

The day after they headed back to Hanoi I got the train along to Kanchanaburi and got there in time to walk up to the Bridge over the River Kwai before the sun set. The next day I hired a motorbike and rode in the pouring rain up to Hellfire Pass and walked some of the way along to path of the old railway. I also went to a couple of the war cemetaries in the town. The following day I decided to join a tour thing to save riding in the rain again and went up to Erawan waterfall. It's a 7 tier waterfall and I climbed my way up to the top of it. I then slid back down and sat by the lowest tier for a bit with my book. A monkey came and eyed up my food when I was eating but soon lost interest when he realised he wasn't getting anything! In the afternoon we went out to the Death Railway site and went to the cave, then we travelled along the railway a bit before returning to Kanchanaburi and feasting on Thai curry.

On the Friday I got up early and got a bus to Bangkok where I did a bit of shopping then went to the golden mount and walked up to the top to see the view of the city. I then had to go to Kao San Road to sort ou my flight then I headed back to the hostel and went out for some ace lebanese food. The Saturday involved browsing shops so I could get my fix before returning to Vietnam and then I had to head to the airport for one last meal at Burger King before flying back to Hanoi!

Am back at work now and am dying in the heat. It set in whilst I was away and its horrible!

Have been rained on every day since getting to Thailand :o/ However, as it is currently the rainy season I was fully expecting this to happen and so I can prepared with my sexy Vietnamese plastic poncho. It can withstand a monsoon!!! Sadly it doesn't extend to my feet so my converse are now soaked through after I got caught out in an epic rain storm this evening. They're gonna take days to dry out!

The past few days in Cha-am have been a bit wet but generally the rain only lasts for an hour or two and then its hot and sunny again. I just took to going swimming in the pool when it was raining! The only time it really caused much of an issue was yesterday when the heavens opened in Petchaburi. I was at a temple at the top of a hill but i was pretty much done there anyway so once it started tipping down I headed back down in the cable car then got a tuk tuk back to the bus station to head back to Cha-am. No biggie really!

Aside from my trip to Petchaburi I have done very little these past few days - just lying by the pool, walking along the beach and eating Thai food! Got the train back up to BKK this afternoon and arrived a few hours ago. Went out to try and find a place that was still open and selling headphones as mine died in one ear today (either that or my mp3 player is busted) but had no luck. Whilst making my way back to the hotel the heavens opened and although my poncho kept most of me dry my shoes got so wet I squelched my way across the hotel lobby. People (locals!) are very impressed by the poncho monstrosity tho - they all think its a great creation!

Am staying at a fancy hotel for 3 days with some mates from Hanoi. We got a good deal through someone in Hanoi but its still a lot more expensive than the rest of the accommodation on this trip. Its something like 25 quid a night compared to the ususal 10 ish I've been paying but its very fancy compared to my 10 pound rooms. They've not been bad - ensuite, a swimming pool at the last place, air con, TV, breakfast, CLEAN!! - but this place is a whole lot of fancy. I guess its still not exactly expensive tho, and it will be nice for a few days! Just waiting for Alison, Calder and Lyle to arrive now - their flight has of course been delayed so I'm just killing time til they finally get here!

I'm heading back to Asia today! Have managed to fit heaps in despite the short time I was in the country.

I saw Gem in London, and also met up with the crazies in Brighton where we went for a nice Chinese meal. I also caught up with Mat in Brighton as well as getting heaps of shopping done. On the Thursday we headed up north, got some pub grub then went to my grans funeral before driving back down that evening - glad I was able to make it back for it. On Friday I went to Avebury with the family then went out for dinner with Jen in the evening - dinner included treacle sponge with custard!!!!! Finally yesterday I met up with Nina in Swindon. After going for lunch we were hard pushed to find much else to do to entertain ourselves but it was nice to see her. It almost wasn't possible but thankfully we managed to make it happen in the end.

Some pics

On the way to Heathrow today we are stopping in to visit some family as my flight isn't until 10 tonight. Joys of an overnight flight again. I arrive in BKK tomorrow afternoon and I've found a palce to stay for the night then I'm heading to somewhere, I've just not decided exactly where yet. I thought about Koh Samet but now I'm thinking maybe a place called Cha-am as its less touristy therefore less expensive and home to fewer drunken tourists. We'll see what happens tho. Who knows where I'll end up!

I'm home! And I'm wearing a big sweater and slippers in a bid to be warm! Its hard to decide whats worse - being cold in MAY or sweating within minutes of leaving the house back in Hanoi. Both suck! I want nice mild British weather - not too hot, not too cold, and NO RAIN! I thought I'd escaped the monsoons but as I was waiting at Reading station it was raining very much like Hanoi rain.

I'm glad I got that hotel room yesterday. It was nice to be able to sleep and chill out before my flight. Although the view from the hotel was rather uninspiring -

- the place was nice enough. I wouldn't choose to stay there if I was staying in BKK but it was convenient for the airport - far enough away to not be right under the flight path but easy to get to and from without getting caught in traffic. It was quite quiet too!

There was a road near the hotel with a bunch of places to eat and some shops, plus a temple across the river -

so I managed to kill time in the area.

The flight wasn't too bad as there was an empty seat next to me so I had some space! I was originally gonna be stuck in a middle seat but when I checked in I asked for an aisle seat so when I got to the gate I got given a new seat! It was nice to have a bit of extra space rather than being stuck in between two people. Am hoping that the same happens on the return flight next week.

Had a wonderful cab ride to the airport with a sleazy driver - such a nice start to the day. Thankfully the flight to BKK wasn't very full so I was able to stretch out across 3 seats and attempt to sleep to pass the time. I wasn't very successful tho so once I got to the airport and one of the toursm rep dudes approached me and told me about day rates at a nearby hotel I decided to take him up on the offer. 12 hours at the airport just seemed like too much to take, and wasn't really that fussed about going into BKK - I'd have to deal with left luggage, transport to and from the city and then try to find something to do once there. I'd also be all sweaty for the next flight so instead for 20 quid I've been able to have a nap on a comfy bed, have a shower, and go out for food nearby for a fraction of the price it would be at the airport. This means the next flght shouldn't suck quite so much as i won't be feeling all skanky when I board the plane!

So tomorrow morning I'm flying back to the UK for a week to go to my grans funeral. Am currently trying to work out what I need to pack! I'l be flying back the following week and staying in Thailand for just under a couple of weeks so I need stuff for there too, and I'm trying to work out what I need to take from here and what I can just pick up when I'm back home. It's hard!

I'm flying down to Bangkok tomorrow morning then I have 11 hours to kill before I can check in for the flight to London :o/ As I already had an Air Asia flight booked down to BKK next Thursday it made more sense to just bring that forward but AA only fly twice a day to BKK. The evening flight gets in too late for me to catch the connecting flight so I shall be sampling the delights of BKK airport instead. I looked at other flights to BKK that would get me in later in the day and reduce my waiting time but it seems that Vietnam Airways can't keep their planes in the air long enough to get all the way to Thailand as they go via an assortment of places, including Cambodia! All the other direct flights cost close to £200 which is about 4 times as much as my AA flight so I'm just gonna suck it up and camp out at the airport. It will give me plenty of time to check out my Thailand guide books and make a few more plans for my trip, and to enjoy Western fast food. Burger King!!! All ex-pats here talk about how much they miss stuff like BK, and how exciting it is to go overseas and find BK, McDolalds etc so its good to know that I'm not the only person who sees trips out of Vietnam as a chance for a feast! If I can find some left luggage facilities at BKK I might venture out of the airport, but I'm conscious of the fact that its gonna be even hotter there than it is here and I wont have access to a shower so if I go and sweat around BKK I'm then gonna have to sit on the plane all sweaty. That wouldn't be nice. Lets hope BKK airport has more going for it than Hanoi. It might be bearable if theres places to eat, places to sit and no pervy men staring at all the women who pass by!

Started the day today with a walk through the rain to go and see Ho Chi Minh in his mausoleum. We got there as it was closing but we snuck through and snaked our way along the queue to go into the mausoleum where we followed the path through and up some stairs to get to the room where Mr Minh is kept. He was surrounded by soldiers in white and ooked very much like a wax work. It was a strange thing to see!

Since I've been home from the visit to the peoples hero I've edited down my 1000 pics from Laos and put some of them up here:

Vientiane
Luang Prabang

Here are some of my favourites:

Sunshine at the top of a statue


3 headed nelly - want one!


Note the house hanging over the edge of the mountain!




An abandoned Wat - I had to cross the river, walk along dusty track and sweat my way up heaps of stairs to get to it


Nelly riding!


Swimming in the waterfall


I walked past this view several times a day to get to and from the centre. I took a LOT of photos of it!

Had a proper holiday day today! I went for an elephant ride through the jungle then headed out to some waterfalls. Went swimming in the waterfalls and clambered over the rocks and generally enjoyed the peace and quiet of the place. Once back in Luang Prabang I had a crepe then headed back to my guesthouse for a shower before walking down to the Mekong river to sit sipping a cocktail whilst watching the sun set over the mountains! Am going to go find some food now - maybe Indian tonight? I'll avoid the night markets tonight but I'll probably get sucked in tomorrow and buy stuff I don't need. Currently I'm trying to decide whether I REALLY need a duvet cover. It's very pretty but I already have two kinda pricey duvet covers back in Hanoi (the choice when buying linen was expensive white stuff or cheap gaudy vomit inducing stuff. I went for the white sets!) so perhaps I should make an effort not to buy it?!

Yesterday was my first positive experience on a motorbike! After wandering aimlessly around Vientiane first thing in the morning I decided to make my way up to one of the big temples on the edge of the city and then to a park about 30ks out of town full of Buddha statues. I could have got to these places by tuk tuk or maybe even bus but I decided to rent a motorbike as it was pretty cheap to do so. Vientiane is pretty small so it was easy to navigate my way around on a bike, plus I'd walked a lot of the city already so I knew where the one way streets were. I made it up to the big gold temple no problems and then headed out of the city towards the random park. I even managed to successfully fill the bike with petrol!

The road out of Vientiane was good quality as it is the road that links the capital with the bridge over the river and across the border into Thailand. The other side of the bridge section the quality wasn't quite as good but it was still nowhere near as horrific as the roads in Vietnam. It was like a smaller country lane might be in the UK - a few bumps and minor potholes but nothing major. There wasn't too much traffic and any that I did encounter obeyed the rules of the road as I know them. The road followed the Mekong river along the edge of the country and eventually I came to the Buddha park - it was basically a field full of stone statues. It was something a bit different and was worth it for the biking experience alone. I also explored some little country dirt roads on my way back into the city but I was wary of getting hopelessly lost so I didn't venture too far.

Today was a shocker of a journey to Luang Prabang. It was so long! And the whole journey was accompanied by Thai karaoke videos blasting out of the sound system. I was supposedly on the VIP bus - it looked nothing like the other VIP buses I'd seen in Vientiane with fully reclining seats etc but I guess they were maybe the buses to Thailand. Still, the bus had relatively comfortable seats and a toilet that was actually usable on board so it wasn't so bad I guess. The journey took us up and over the mountains. The mountains seemed to be never ending! After descending down from one we'd come round a corner and see another mountain to be crossed. The roads were really windy but thankfully there was no Vietnamese style driving - no overtaking on blind bends or speeding or any of the other crazy things Vietnamese drivers do. The journey was just soooo long a took two hours longer than advertised - I think it part this was due to the rain we hit about halfway here - the driver slowed down on the wet roads which I was really grateful for when we rounded a corner and saw a car balanced at a 45 degree angle over the edge of the cliff face. I guess all the occupants had managed to get out of the car but it was just balancing there over the edge of the road looking like it would roll over at any minute. Maybe the driver was Vietnamese?!

Was grateful to finally get to Luang Prabang and I joined the other Westerners from the bus on a tuk tuk into the centre where I dumped my stuff at the first decent guest house I came to and headed out for some desperately needed food. I then browsed the night market and bought a really pretty elephant embroidered throw!I looked at a couple of tour options too and tomorrow I'm going to go book some stuff - a trip to some caves and a waterfall, and a day at an elephant place trekking and looking after them. Elephants!

Must go now so the guy can close up his internet cafe!