Before & After

BEFORE




This is "roll your own" spring rolls with beef, peanuts, salady bits and sweet chili dip. And Beer.. DELICIOUS!

AFTER

Day 4 - Da Nang to Hoi An

We arrived in Da Nang and set the cab drivers against each other to get the best price for the 30klm trip to Hoi An. After setting on 170,000 VND we pushed through the crowd and into the minicab.

To those of you who know me you must be wondering how I am coping in country where road rules are almost non existent and where they do exist, they are ignored. A land where the biggest vehicle wins and where foreigners are not permitted to drive a car. Well I am coping quite fine thankyou!.

My strategy has been to sit behind the driver and to keep my eyes locked on my side window admiring the strange and unusual sites as they go past. I ignore any exclamations from Dawn (usually muted hmmmm sounds) and I ignore any braking from the driver because I know braking only occurs when you are heading for certain death because they cannot go on the wrong side of the road or mount the kerb to avoid becoming a splat on some other vehicle.

The cab driver ignored our request to go to a certain hotel and instead asked us to talk to the door lady at another for 5 minutes...no obligation. Lucky for him we fell in love with the room and decided that as we hadn't even booked the other hotel there was no reason why we couldn't stay here. I hope he got a good commission. Our hotel (Thanh Xuan) is considered to be on the outskirts of Hoi An. Which is funny because it is only like a 3 street walk to the centre of Hoi An.



Our plan is to stay 3 or so days , get some clothes made, do a cooking class, take in a tour or two.

It's raining at the moment so our patrolling of the shops was limited . We did however manage to get measured up and will go back tomorrow for a fitting. I must get some shoes made too!

I collapsed into bed utterly exhausted

Day 4 - Celebrity Guest Blogger Or How I Tried To Sell My Best Freind To Some Vietnamese Train Boys

This incident was so bizarre I still cannot write about it without pissing myself laughing. So here it is in Dawn's words.

Anyway, this morning after the Irish couple had disembarked at their 6am stop, Allison and I were jolted awake by two teenage Vietnamese boys who ripped our door open and sprung into our first class carriage. I would like to point out at this stage that we had repeatedly tried to lock the door to our carriage (and even more so after this incident) but to no avail.

The two teenage boys brandished 5 small green boxes each carefully bound with rubber
bands and waved them around at us. "You buy, you buy?" they said. I have to say I was so stunned by their entrance and was so confused from being awoken so rudely, that I was ready to buy anything to make them go away. So after battling with my wallet to try and hand over the required 10,000 dong to purchase the wretched things (and shouting at Allison not to purchase any more), one of the boys pushed my legs over, sat down on my bed, stared at me and said "You are so beautiful". So to avoid the awkward moment, I resorted to pulling out one of the objects from green boxes to find green slimy mush wrapped up in plastic (which Allison later said she thought looked like urine cakes) and ate some. Mmm slimy and sweet. This caused a lot of giggling from the boys (maybe they were urine cakes?) and finally blowing kisses, they departed.


Allison and I stared at the remaining four boxes of green slime, agreed that we would give them away to small children and then went back to sleep. About 2 hours later, the boys returned. This time, my suitor sat even closer to me, told me I was beautiful (repeatedly) and patted my hair. The other boy acted as our interpretor, writing down questions that my suitor was asking in English.

First we were asked our ages, and then came the important "Have you husband?" question. Allison announced that she did have a husband but that I did not. She then pointed at me and said her best asian-woman-bargaining voice "I sell her to you for 2 MILLION DONG". I would like to point out that as impressive an amount as that sounds, it is actually less than $200 Australian. When my jaw dropped at this proposition, she insisted that 2 million dong was a good amount of money. Luckily, I don't think they caught the offer and the conversation continued.



The second question written by our interpretor was "He ask if you love he?" complete with a "Yes/No" option for me to circle. I said no because I already had a husband(while glaring pointedly at Allison). I explained that my husband was in England(sorry, Nick. I know this is a little premature) and that I was on my way there.

The third question "He ask why do you go with husband". Now Allison and I were a little flummoxed by this question. After trying to explain with "Well he's very tall,
good looking and a wonderful person", we summarised it to "He's a nice man", which they seem to accept quite grudgingly. Finally they seemed to realise that their quest was pointless and departed once again, much to my relief and Allison's mirth.

So if I fail to turn up after our two week trip in Vietnam, I suggest that those of you who care turn your scrutiny onto Allison to find out whether she successfully sold me on our next train trip ;)

Day 4 - Train Toilet Terror

I had a shithouse sleep as 4 people in a small compartment with airconditioning that seemed to be working only when it felt like it made for some steamy atmosphere.

The Irish couple were woken up and kicked out before 6am which left Dawn and I to sleep...but I needed the toilet.

Now I had contemplated buying a a pack of P-mates to allow standing urination. Falling into a squat toilet is not on my list of things to do while in Vietnam. And just from experience in Australia I knew train toilets rate about a 96 on the rank scale. So I don't want to write too much about what I saw in my first Vietnamese train toilet. Needless to say that the toilet at one end of our carriage was broken, overflowing and stank like nothing I have ever experienced. The toilet at the other end was locked.



I was scarred! I developed an instant train toilet phobia (but isn't a phobia an irrational fear? .

There was 8 hours left on our trip and I couldn't hold on that long. It took a lot of encouragement from Dawn and her reconoitring the toilets in the next carriage for me to finally screw up the courage to go to the loo. Every muscle in my legs was screaming as I held myself , and the window bar , and my pants halfway to relieve myself. BUT I DID IT!!! *cue Rocky theme*