I do intend to write about what I got up to in the UK, I've just been rather busy since getting back to Vietnam - so much so that I haven't watched even one episode of a TV show since I've been back - before I left I was watching several a day from one of my many box sets!

I got back on Friday and Calder and Alison kept me awake by taking me for a manicure and pedicure and then a drink or two in the evening. On Saturday I stupidly gave in to the jet lag and slept til late and so didn't have that much of a day! What i did have was spent trying to unpack and then in the evening I met my mum's cousin's daughter, Basmah and her friend Louise. We went for some Pho in the Old Quarter then to Bia Minh's for a milkshake or two - they're not normally very nice in this country but those ones were good! I managed to get things done the next day after sleeping til stupidly late again and then on Monday I went to meet Basmah before work and gave her a lift on my bike round to the Temple of Literature. We had a drink at KOTO and then I had to work. After work I saw my friend Tuan for a couple of hours, and then on Tuesday after work I took Basmah round to Derry's and we had a curry and a drink or two. Wednesday I actually wasn't very social, and then on Thursday I attempted to be a tourist with Alison and Calder. I only work evenings on Thursday and Friday so have the day free to do things. As it was such a nice day they decided to get out and about so we met at the citadel and were going to go and have a look around, but of course it wasn't open. They'd even got someone to phone ahead and find out if it was open but of course as this is Vietnam the info was wrong! We walked up to the top of the citadel and went to the gate tower thing that was open, then Calder declared it beer o'clock and so we went to the pub for a few hours. On Friday after work I went to the beer hall the next street over with some of the other teachers to get some dinner, and then yesterday I went to a pot luck supper that a guy from work was having. Spent most of the evening with Alison and Calder, and my boss Emma and her husband as we didn't really know many of the other people. It was a fun night tho as now the weather is cooling a bit so we sat outside in their nice courtyard, and there was lots of nice food. I'm not normally this social tho!

Shiny new laptop is now being used to write this...

Oh, Vietnam :o/

Am in the UK! Have spent some time with the family, and went to London to see Gemma for a couple of days, then tomorrow I'm going to Brighton followed by Newport for some munter times. Woohoo!!!!

Had a nice last day at work today. Got a free lunch at a teacher development workshop and then as it was the lst day of term today all I had to do with my afternoon class was give them their results, but they seemed quite keen to talk so I stuck around for a while. They got me flowers, and a few hours later a couple of them came back and gave me a gift and a card saying that I was the best teacher they had ever had. That was nice! Had to teach my evening class, but it was quite a fun lesson, and they bought cakes and threw me a little party at the end. It's nice to know my students will miss me!

Spent a while trying to pack tonight. I'm trying to take some stuff back home but I had far too much so I had to take stuff out and repack a few times. Think I have managed to do it, but my bag is probably over the weight limit. Lets hope that's not a problem! I still have some time tomorrow to pack and repack but hopefully nothing else needs to go in as there is not an inch of spare space.

In 24 hours I'll be on the way home!

Failed to have a productive weekend this weekend. On Friday night we ended up going to Derry's for a curry and a drink that became several. I had to drive home slowly again, this time so Eva could follow me on her bicycle as she didn't know how to get home. Got up late on Saturday and went to the Old Quarter but didn't really achieve anything that I was supposed to. In the evening I drove round to Alison and Calder's place and left my bike there to get a taxi with them to the work summer party. The food was OK but the booze was free so a good time was had. About halfway through the event all the Vietnamese left to get children to bed and only the diehard foreign staff remained to finish off all the booze. Then wound up at Derry's again with Alison, Calder and Eva and let Alison order me strange drinks. One was a mouldy blue/green colour and I have no idea what was in it! This morning Alison came by to give me a lift back to hers to get my bike and I managed to make my way to West Lake to do my shopping for the week (about the only thing I managed to do this weekend!) Went to the gym this afternoon to meet some personal trainer guy who made me lift weights and stuff to see how fit (or not) I was. Need to get back into going to the gym as I've been a bit lazy recently, and it was closed for a few days last week while they renovated. I only have 2 more full weekends left before I head back to the UK so I have to be more on the ball next weekend to get stuff done. The weekend after that hopefully Tuan will be coming to Hanoi from Ha Long Bay so we have a chance to catch up before my trip as it's been far too long since he last made it to Hanoi, and the weekend after that is when I fly! I guess I kinda have the Saturday day time to do stuff, but I'm not sure how much I'll actually achieve so I've gotta do it all before then. Must be more proactive!

I'm slack at updating!!

So flood day ended with me riding home through some floods but thankfully I managed not to kill my motorbike. I had to go round the long way as I came to a flood that was pretty deep and had vehicles abandoned in it but on the route I took the water only reached up to my footpegs once and the part where the flood water was green and slimy (and probably full of turds from the sewerage canal) was thankfully shallow enough for me not to make contact with the mank. Had to go to the pharmacy once I was home tho and the part of Doi Can near my house was still pretty flooded:



This dude is awsome. He's rolled up his pants to keep them nice and dry and yet hasn't replaced his fancy black work shoes with some cheap plastic sandals. Why?!



Some people enjoyed the flood more than others!



Glad that I didn't have to push a dead bike home through the flooded streets!



Life has been pretty uneventful since then. What was supposed to be an easy week without too much work last week turned into a horrible week as I did a whole bunch of covers for people. Thursday and Friday ended up being 12 hour days with stupid early starts which was horrible, plus I was the only person teaching on Friday morning so the place was empty and kinda eery. It's also meant that this weekend which was supposed to be a nice relaxing one is now busy as I have to do all the stuff I couldn't do during the week :o( LAME!

Day off! The first monsoon of the year hit last night and is still chucking down over hanoi. Half the roads in the city, including the one outside the school, are flooded and so classes were cancelled! Sadly this means (presumably) teaching a make up class one weekend. Unfortunately with flooding in my part of town comes power cuts and after a couple of hours I decided to try and escape to get some air con and light asmy house is pretty dingy. Doi can itself is knee high in water so I had to find another way out of the lanes. I tried two or three routes but kept meeting a wall of water before finally my last possible route out of the lane maze was dry enough for me to drive along without killing my motorbike. Am now settled in at Joma with air con, light and hot food. Fingers crossed the route I took to get here doesn't flood in the meantime as I really don't fancy pushing my bike home through deep dirty water!

Have now booked some plane tickets for my trip home! I'll be in the UK from the 12th Sept til the 14th Oct and hope to see lots of important people and eat some good British food! Ended up booking with Thai all the way as the travel agent managed to get the return ticket for $1200, which was a pretty sweet deal as on the web it was coming up at nearly £2000, so getting the same flight for less than half the price was good. Plus this way I only have a couple of hours in Bangkok each way and don't have to deal with Thai immigration whereas most of the other options I looked at involved flying out of Hanoi on Air Asia to other Asian cities at ridiculously early times and then waitng for several hours in most locations to connect. Also a lot of the deals (stuff like supposed £500 returns between London and Hong Kong) either didn't seem to really exist or were't happening when I wanted to fly. The only cheaper option I could find was a combination of Vietnam Airways and British Airways. Not gonna be doing that any time soon as I actually want to get home!

Alison and Calder are leaving Vietnam for good a couple of days after I leave so we're all counting down to our departure. 9 weeks! I will have to return though and without Alison and Calder will probably become something of a hermit because they are my main partners in crime. Nat and I usually only make it our with their encouragement so who knows how social we will be once they have gone. My trips to Derry's probably won't be as frequent after they've left either. I went there on Thursday with them for what was supposed to be just a quick drink so we could discuss the end of Dexter (no one else at work has seen it and so we weren't allowed to talk about it in the teacher's room!) but it turned into several drinks which probably didn't help my current insomnia. I got talked into covering a morning class on Friday morning (I went for my break on Thursday and Alison starts with "Nic do you love me?" followed by "YOu know you just bought that expensive ticket home? How would you like to earn $80 by covering an easy class?" and I couldn't say no!) so it sucked waking up at 6am. Haven't been up that early for a long time! It was an easy class though (exactly the same as my afternoon class so minimal prep was required) and as an added bonus the power was cut at about 10.30. The school policy says that if it's not gonna come back on any time soon we finish class early as without air con the place basically becomes an oven and so all I had to do in the morning was watch some presentations and give some feedback. An easy $80! It does make it along day though and unlike the long days I did in place like ASDA it is pretty tiring, as you actually have to use your brain for 8 hours rather than daydreaming for 8 hours whilst carrying out simple repetitive tasks. Thankfully both the classes were full or noce students.

Went to Derry's last night too with Alison, Calder, Nat and a new teacher, Poor Steve. Nat seemed to be in the mood for drinking and so was I (normally we have a drink or two each then stop) so at one point we ended up with tequila, and Poor Steve sampled some potent homebrew so it was a rather merry evening. Poor Steve wasn't entirely sure of the way back home from Derry's as it was his first time there and so at the end of the night I had to lead him back to a familiar part of town. He was on a bicycle so I had to drive along really slowly for him to follow making it an intersting journey home!

9 weeks to go!

This month has been birthday month in Hanoi. A few days after I got back from my holiday it was Alison's birthday and we went to Derry's for the evening. We ordered in some Indian food from the place next door and then had champagne and strange Vietnamese birthday cake.

A few days later it was Nat's birthday and we went to Alison and Calder's place for dinner. We had home-made hamburgers and a spam birthday cake. Apparently Hawaiians love spam so Alison put together a cake of sorts consisting of crakers with spam and pineapple. There were even some candles in the pineapple! It was very bizzare.

The last birthday was mine. As it was on a Saturday I didn't have to work (woohoo!) and I skived off from the gym. My friend Tuan was in town and he took me out for lunch at the training place, KOTO. Was presented with a passionfruit cheesecake with candles in it (who knew candles would work in cheesecake?!) and we had a nice lunch in the bar part upstairs with the really comfy sofas. In the evening I met Nat, Alison and Calder at Kamon for some Japanese food and then we went on to Derry's where there was another fancy vina birthday cake.


A great deal of effort seemed to be required to light the candles:


The cake came complete with an umbrella with Alison insisted on placing behind my ear:


Special candles for special people:

Update is coming soon, I promise! Have started writing it and will try and finish it some time this weekend.

Things I did with my sister:

Vietnam -


• On her first day in the city I threw her into the madess of Hanoi on the back of my motorbike and we went for breakfast at Joma, took a walk over to see Mr Le Nin, headed to the Old Quarter for a bit and then went for a Vietnamese lunch at cafe smile. After lunch I had to go to work briefly so I left her to check out the Temple of Literature then when I was done at work we came back to my house for a bit before going for some sushi and other Japanese goodness for dinner.




• We went to West Lake and went to the froufy Love Chocolate cafe (for breakfast. Is chocolate cake with cream cheese icing a bad idea for breakfast?!) and ended up not only eating lots there but also taking some of their awesome cookies away with us. It's probably a good thing I usually do my West Lake shopping on a Sunday when the place is shut or I'd be there a lot more often I think!




• I attempted my longest ride through the mental Hanoi traffic to go to the silk village. In the past I've always gone by bus, or got a lift from Minh but I finally work up the courage to attempt a long ride on one of the really busy roads in Hanoi *proud*


• Bec experienced the joy of climbing 5 flights of stairs to Alison and Calder's place as Nat was being taught how to cook Mexican food by Alison and we were invited over to sample the end results before heading to Derry's for a drink or two.


• I talked her into joining me for a yoga class at the gym. I don't think she'll be seeking out a class back home! As a reward for all the effort (it's so much harder than it looks!!) we went to the Melia for the champagne brunch.


• I went to see the water puppets for the third time. As a result I knew exactly when they missed stuff out like the cat running up the tree!


• We went to Ha Long Bay with the same company that I used with the parents, but this time we didn't have our very own private boat :o( Still, the boat was very nice and there was still lots of yummy food. Went to the same floating village and cave as last time but as the place is so peaceful it's a nice break from Hanoi, even if it's not as exciting as the first time I went there.


• Finally went to see the war wreckage that is just a few minutes walk away from my house. I've often walked past and thought about going in and I finally did it!




• Went for my second viewing of Uncle Ho as my sister was keen to go and have a look at him.


• Next up we spent a few days in Hoi An where we ate lots of good food (pancakes, good Italian food and some really nice and dirt cheep Vietnamese food) and got several items of clothing made (well I did anyway). Went back to the same tailors that I've used the past 2 times and one of them invited me to join her family for coffee and breakfast one morning which was cool.


• Went for a bicycle tour on some of the islands around Hoi An which was much better than I thought it was going to be. We went down the river on a boat to our destination then cycled through the countryside (the proper countryside, not the one laid on for tourists) and saw lots of local life. Took another boat back to Hoi An as the sun was setting. It was really good fun and I like that I can still find new things to do around Hoi An as this was my 4th trip there.




• We hired a motorbike for a day and shot up the highway to Marble Mountain and China Beach where we went to the funky hill temple and a nice empty beach.




• The last place we went to in Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh City and for me a trip to HCMC generally consists of eating food that can't be found in Hanoi so we went to lots of nice places to eat, including the New York Dessert Cafe which served ace apple crumble!


• Went for another visit to the Independence Palace and this time made it as far up as the roof and down into the basement tunnels.




• We booked a trip to the Cu Chi tunnes through the same company as last time and ended up with the same crazy guide, but this time there were no other tourists so it was our own private tour! As my ankle didn't hurt this time I actually managed to go into the tunnels and it's not nice at all. The tunnels have been widened for fat foreigners so I can only imagine how horribly tiny the original tunnels are!



Rest of the 'Nam pics here.

Next stop, Cambodia!


• Took forever to get there as we spent three goddam hours waiting to get stamped out of Vietnam and one hour getting into Cambodia as everyone in Vietnam had decided to go to Cambodia that day to gamble away their 4 day weekend. Plus the bus broke down on the way for some added fun. As a result we ended up in a more expensive hotel than we'd originally planned as a tuk tuk driver took us to one at the waterfront and after managing to get $10 a night knocked off the price we decided to just stay there as the thought of trying to find a hotel in the evening after that rubbish journey was just too much. Turned out to be a great hotel for watching the nightly dancing and aerobics classes by the river though! The day improved greatly with some authentic Thai food for dinner.


• Did a fair bit of shopping in Phnom Penh as the tourist tat that is available there is different to the tourist tat in Hanoi. There are also some cool boutiquey shops so I indulged in a little shopping. The same is also true of Siem Reap. Oops!


• We went to the royal palace and checked out the colouful buildings and temples, and died a little in the heat.




• We ended up hiring a tuk tuk driver for the day one day. He took us out to the killing fields at Choeung Ek where there is a small museum and then you walk around the mass graves. There are still bits of bone, teeth and clothing lying buried in the ground and in the centre there is a stupa filled with skulls of the victims so it's a little different to many other memorials/battle sites/etc as you can still see the human remains right there. After that the tuk tuk dropped us at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum which was a school that had been turned into a prison. Finally the driver took us to the Russian Market for a bit of a break from death.




• In Phnom Penh we went on a boat trip on the river. We went to a silk factory and a temple, then we sailed past a Vietnamese floating village that was pretty much identical to the ones on Ha Long Bay.




• Next up we spent a few days by the beach in Sihanoukville. It was low season so there was quite a strange atmosphere to the place - lots of sex-pats and few tourists. It was nice to do nothing for a few days though, plus there were lots of places selling British food (sausages!!) and good cheap Cambodian food. We went to a national park and sailed down a river to a beach, and we also booked a boat trip to one of the near-by islands which was really good. The boat was nice and there was lots of good food, and on the way to the island we stopped to go snorkelling over a mini coral reef. On the island we went wading throuh a river past some mangroves. I was wary at first as the water was murky so I couldn't see the bottom but it turned out to be really fun. We also went on what was billed as a jungle trek but anything that can be done in a swimsuit and flip-flops isn't really a jungle trek in my mind!





• Saw lots of good sunsets in Sihanoukville as we were staying at the beach facing to the west. There were hammocks on the beach so we spent lots of time lying in them in the evening or walking along the pier as the sun set.





• We took a long bus ride up to Siem Reap and checked into our awesome hotel, then went out for a roast dinner. ROAST CHICKEN AND STUFFING!!!!! It's been a while since I've had a roast and I enjoyed it very much.




• The main reason for a trip to Siem Reap is of course to go to Angkor Wat and we spent a couple of days checking out some of the temples. It was stupidly hot and hard work clambering up heaps of steps but it was very impressive. The advantage to going at the hottest time of the year was that there were fewer tourists so most places weren't too packed. We went to watch sunrise one morning but it wasn't the best time of year for an amazing sunrise so it wasn't as spectacular as some of the photos would have you believe, however it was still pretty sweet. We also tried to go for sunset but the sun didn't really seem to set that night.




• The least impressive thing I did in Cambodia was get my feet nibbled by fish. It was such a strange experience and I can't say I'd go back for more!



Some more photos from Cambodia.

We flew from Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur and then got another flight across to Borneo.


• Went back to Koto Kinabalu and just like last time it rained every single day. Spent a lot of the rainy time in the shopping centres all around the city!


• We took a trip to Kinabalu national park (in the rain) and just like last time it wasn't possible to actually see the mountain. We also went to Poring Hot Springs and went on the tree-top canopy walkway which was pretty cool.




• Spent a day at one of the islands close to the city but sadly unlike last time the tide was in so after sweating our way to the end of the island we couldn't walk back along the shore and had to go back the way we came. It was nice to chill out on the beach after our sweaty walk across the island.




• We left Malaysian Borneo for a couple of days in Brunei, which doesn't seem to have changed one bit since I was last there, apart from the Thai food stall at the food court apparently closing down and the great Indian restaurant no longer offering blueberry juice. Just like last time every evening apart from the one with the torrential rain was spent at the mosque watching the sun set as it's aways impressive




• Took another trip down the river to see the funky monkeys and the water village, and this time the tour continued on land to take in a couple of the mosques in the city. After this tour we were dropped back at the youth hostel and an ice cream van was set up just down the road selling the Brunei equivalent to Mr. Whippy. YES!




• We went by speedboat to Bangar and found a local dude to drive us out to Bukit Patoi and made our way to the top of the monster hill to take in the view. It seemed easier this time than last time and I'd like to think this is due to going to the gym heaps rather than just knowing what is ahead this time!



Some pictures of Malaysia and Brunei.

After Borneo we flew to Kuala Lumpur (after spending 3 extra hours waiting at Brunei airport and getting free but disgusting food whilst waiting) and after a few days there went to Singapore.


• In both places we did pretty much the same things - shopping, eating a whole range of good food from all over the world and (on my part anyway) making the most of being in modern cities.


• In Kuala Lumpur we went out to Batu Caves with the bajillion stairs and insane monkeys and we also went up the Petronas Towers, whilst in Singapore we went on the Singapore Flyer (or London Eye, according to the taxi driver who took us from the train station to the hotel!) so we squeezed in some tourist activities. We went for a drink at Raffles too for a bit of sophistication.






• On the last day in Singapore we walked past a British pub so I convinced my sister that was where she wanted to have lunch so I got a taste of home to end the trip with!




A few snaps from Singapore.

Finally after all that we headed our separate ways home at Singapore airport :o(

I'm so bored!

I'm on my way back to Hanoi but the budget airline from Singapore had no flights available when I wanted to fly so I have had to resotrt to the air Asia flight from kuala lumpur back to Hanoi. Sadly it leaves at 6.30 am and as the last place on our trip was Singapore I had to fly up here on Friday night and am now spending the night at kl airport til my early flight back to dirty Asia. I'm not even at the good terminal :0( The budget terminal is a bit of a crap terminal with not much going for it, but they don't seem to mind people camping out here over night. There are hundreds of us! Have spent the last 3 hours at starbucks killing time and using their free wifi. Also watched a DVD until my crap Chinese DVD player ran out of battery. Can't face sitting out on the floor in the terminal to charge the thing up from the plugs out there so have resorted to trying to find stuff on the Internet. I'm running out of things to entertain me! Any suggestions?!

Once I'm back in Hanoi and have done all my chores will try and update this thing as it's been a while. Hopefully you won't have to wait much longer to find out about my exciting life!

Paying 3 months rent in Vietnam -



Despite making me appear to be rich, this is worth only about $600!

This past weekend I was rather social as a friend from uni was in Hanoi with some friends so we met for drinks at Derry's on Saturday night. Ended up staying there so late that banana fritter lady had packed up for the night by the time I got home - she's normally sitting at the corner of my lane til well into the small hours! About an hour after getting to bed I was woken by a phone call from brusque German Tomas telling me my friends had left their bag at the bar they had gone on to and that he needed to know how to return it to them. He called several times over an hour asking for info like their hotel, full names, room numbers etc. I'm glad that he was the one to find their bag as he knew who to call to go about returning it to them and didn't steal anything from it but it still sucked that every time I was drifting back to sleep I got woken by another call from him. On sunday I was pretty tired as a resut and so I very slowly marked some assignments in the aternoon before going to Alison and calder's place for dinner. The art of lowering the key down from the fifth floor balcony is improving but I'm still crap at wheeling my bike up the ramp into their parking garage. It's too steep for me! We ate beef stew and then settled down to watch some Phoenix Nights. They're into British comedy so I thought I'd take it round so the could give it a try. Wasn't sure if the Northerness would be an issue but aside from having to explain a few things to Calder they enjoyed it. Alison did at one point ask if Calder needed the subtitles but he battled throughthe heavy accents without them in the end. The night before at Derry's he and our German friend Carmen had had issues dealing with the poncy British accents of my friends and I but apparently Northern accents pose no problems!

It is the last week of term again this week so the usual lazy week has been under way. Have slacked a bit on the gym this week as I just couldn't be bothered - I needed more sleep on Monday, and I got there a little late yeaterdy so didn't have much time and then today I had to cut it short as I had one of my strange sicky leg crampy things and I didn't want to make it worse so instead I had a shower and went to work where I just walked back and forth through reception to control the cramp, much to the amusement of the Vietnamese staff. Will be doing lots at the gym tomorrow to make up for it as there is no preparationto be done for tomorrow's lesson so I can go in later - I love exam days! After work tomorrow I'm gonna come home and kill time til the taxi comes to take me to the airport to meet my sister (provided I actually get round to booking it tomorrow morning)!!!!

I have a 6 week holiday lined up with her which I'm excited about. Hoping for some good weather on this trip as he weather in Hanoi has been pants recently. There has been a very British rain which has settled over the city recently which is no fun! Have a feeling it is monsoon season in most places tho :0/ Still, my sister is bring some creme eggs with her which will make everything better!

Yes that is my motorbike. And that is a massive beanbag strapped to the back of it.





I picked it up yesterday and then made my way home with it balanced on the back. I stopped for bread on the way and the parking guy at Joma gave me a strange look. I succeeded in weaving through the traffic though and got home with both me and the beanbag in one piece.

And today I've been treated to this ALL GODDAM DAY!


There is a funeral going on next door and this is what happens at a Vietnamese funeral. They pick the most uncoordinated and out of tume musicians as they possibly can then get them to start playing at 6am. It stops at random points throughout the day for a little while but for most of the day they're making this racket. After being worken up at 6 I tried reading my book for a bit but eventually I gave up and headed to the gym at like 8.30 this morning. Dung looked rather surprised to see me there so early as I'm normally there at 10 at the earliest on a Sunday. I spent aaages there today - partly to avoid the funeral of doom and partly as I didn't go yesterday because on Friday I had a really bad back. I could barely stand up straight, much to the amusement of my students and although it felt better yesterday I didn't wanna risk it at the gym. It was fine today though. I also finally got round to buying a yoga mat thing today so that I can do sit ups and stuff at home without the humiliation of other super fit people watching me! AFter the gym I headed up to West Lake to buy food and to further delay my return home. I thought about getting lunch there as all the Bun Cha places smelled really nice but I couldn't be bothered in the end. Got home to some peace and quiet but it wasn't long before the lame musicians got back into their "music". At least I'll be gone for most of the day tomorrow so if they're still doing it tomorrow I'll miss it. Just hope they don't start up at 6 am again tomorrow :o/