Well well well where to start, where did I even finish last time-LAST YEAR!?! ...Mmm that then is as good a place to start as any....
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
Can't wait to hear all your stories of what, where, when you all did, and of course who with!!
I don't really know how to describe our night...all of it..till dawn...(BLERG) but...
I know it started well, thanks to a little lady called Lady Eden..of the free cocktail variety, and a street party held by Miss Saigon.
I know it ended well, as we woke in a room full of glitter, most of it plastered to our bodies (its worse than sand I tell you, gets EVERYWHERE!!!), strange hats (one alarmingly claiming we'd been to Havana...?!?!) and wrappings looking suspiciously kebab-like. To confirm these sightings I stumbled bleary eyed to the camera for a memory inducing inspection. The reason for the aching body and feet soon became apparent....seemed I had plummeted right down that slippery slope of drink induced stupid dances, I hope my victim, for of course I had to drag someone down with me, was aware that this (silly dancing) was my aim (mmm of course, normally I'm all stylish like!), and not just some warped pulling style.
Oh god, the head ache got worse.
But was soon fixed by a day well spent in Saigon (or Ho Chi Mhin City, depending on who you talk to) watching trashy chick flicks and eating trashier food!! Nothing like starting the year as you mean to go on....
Now my memory of events prior to this are somewhat more coherent...funnily enough...I have managed to fall over in some quite spectacular ways, including off a motorbike and a waterfall- not at the same time I'm afraid, I know that would've been far more impressive...but still I'm sure most of you kind hearted folk out there are having a good old chuckle at the imagery non the less...would you like to add to that a combined total of about 3 days since spent on the bumpiest most uncomfortable, tear jerking buses ever...now I bet you're laughing!
Against all odds I've had some pretty cool, not too bruised times as well- in fact some of them were positively suave I tell you; such as the 3 (...maybe 4, it was all a rather wonderful haze) days we spent in a town call Hoi An, having nearly a whole new wardrobe hand tailored out of silk. It is quite a step up from the Primark I'm renowned for I think you'll agree, though the prices are pretty much the same!!
Then there was the exceedingly tough Christmas spent in the lap of luxury C/O Darragh...and (because I'm a glutton for punishment and couldn't bear to leave on our last night in the area) me!! Darragh is proof that Santa still exists, in fact he is the very man, as Libby's Christmas present he put us up in a beautiful luxury resort for 2 nights over Christmas. Simple but effective idea and very brownie point earning we loved it! Santa even found us there as at our..erm...gala dinner (the hotel called it that not us OK?!) I won a facial and a manicure at the hotel spa! Cue 3 rather gluttonous days spent by the pool- or beach (oh the difficult decisions with which we are faced in life), eating, drinking and being excessively pampered! Heaven. Then back on the traveller bus with a bang...I'm sure they looked at us funny when we clambered on from our 5 star hotel... Surrey strikes again!!
Actually I have been asked if we have actually roughed it yet, and it is rather shamefully that I must confess that, well....
GOD NO
We haven't!!! Well with rooms averaging out at the princely sum of US$4 a night each tending to be quite nice, there's been no need. or occasion to. We have, on occasion, been kind enough to share such accommodation with rats, fleas, bed bugs and rather too homely smells- sometimes probably even a combination, but other than that, I'm afraid it has been beds and 4 walls all the way! Must try harder...
We've also had a few amazing days spent zooming through the country side and city streets on the back of bikes (with out falling off..ironically that was on a 5 min journey "just around the corner"..of death..as the driver didn't feel the need to slow the over laden bike down at all on reaching said corner. It wasn't over laden for long.) I have reverted truly back to my child hood and been made really very happy by a real live secret garden and a "Crazy House."
The Garden was in the outskirts of a city called Hue. We were on a day tour, and as it was just the two of us we were taken quite off the beaten track- it was amazing! At one point we were riding through rice paddies, and it was raining leading the water levels to rise in the fields, it felt like we were biking over the ocean. Anyone who knows me knows that how amazing that would've felt, there were even boats out and everything! The garden its self was actually part of a fairly depressingly dilapidated tomb. Set back in the grounds and guarded by a high thick wall the actual burial sight of the Emperor can be found in the gardens but no one has been in there since he was laid to rest, and no one knows where he is. Of course I had a look through the key hole!
The "Crazy House" as it is actually called, is in Dalat, another (less cloudy) hill station. Dalat claims notoriety for its mock Eiffel tower. Some might call it a radio mast...especially if they were to continue further south of the country and see that ever city, town, dirt track even, has them. Oh maybe I'm being cynical, maybe they're all feeling the Parisian effect, who can say. Though a few of the "great sights" I have seen here have left me rather suspicious that the Vietnamese are in fact tourism touting geniuses, call anything a legend and they know it makes money- hell there is even a Chicken Village, so named because of the huge and incredibly ugl-mystical concrete chicken statue in its centre!!!
Anyhew, "Crazy House," is actually the home of the architect. She is renowned for her controversial designs, so much so that she kept being arrested because of them...until her father took over from Ho Chi Mhin (or Uncle Ho, as he is rather upsettingly all too often referred to). This house is the stuff of children's fantasy...and nightmare! I'm sure if was plucked straight from "The Labyrinth" or at least some of the tales of the Jabberwalky! I entered the grounds first and my jaw dropped, I swear I started skipping and oh-ah'ing. There were huge plants and flowers everywhere, the main house was made of an intertwined mixture of "tree trunks and roots" and was a maze of rooms and corridors and stairways, some inside, some precariously balancing over the whole city. There was even a cave section to the house. Surprisingly the dining/living room was a bit of a let down, what with its table and chairs, but all of the rest of the rooms had their own little creepy quirks (usualy a large animal with glowing red eyes) and lots of alcoves for bed etc. I opened a wardrobe and was rather upset, and surprised NOT to find Narnia!!
And now we have commenced a madcap DASH to the Cambodian border as our visa's run out tomorrow and we were too busy being hungover to get a move on...oops! Its got the Great Race/Escape written all over it...wish us luck!
Keep in touch, would love some more tale from home, they are never boring- even news of the weather...and actual news is much welcomed! Oooh what was Christmas Number One? The Powder Puff Girls? Noddy? Some Xfactor robot? See there is so much we are missing.
By the way some of you glutton's for punishment have actually been asking for photos, I have been putting a few on Facebook, here are the links...
Vietnam: http://rhbncac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021272&l=6449d&id=200901546
Hong Kong: http://rhbncac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021271&l=fdf6e&id=200901546
China: http://rhbncac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018233&l=cc838&id=200901546
...and... http://rhbncac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018237&l=b4ee3&id=200901546
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