Beijing

I arrived in Beijing feeling like I’ve spent the last 4 days in a solid state of transit. 2 buses and a vegie truck from Kandy to Pottuvil, then slept at Whatshisname’s place. I had a bit of a swim in Arugam Bay, Jasmine made lunch, I had a nap then caught the over night bus Pottuvil to Colombo, an hour in a Tuktuk to the airport, flight to Bangkok, flight to Beijing and a hour on a bus to get to a hostel.
Beijing is cool, it’s got a funny feel to it. There are some very cool fashions, they most defiantly have the coolest shoes, and loads of big cosy jackets. I think it’s maybe just because the only things I’ve seen people wear for the last few months is flip flops and T-shirts. I was listening to TripleJ on my iPod on the flight over, and caught a story on the underground Chinese punk rock scene. They had an interview with two bands from Beijing, it was just a nice reminder of the funny underground scenes in places like this, I might try and check it out..
After a good look around, I fell asleep pretty early, but then woke up fairly well rested at about 1am. I went for a pretty good wander to find some food and a beer, this area is pretty dead at night but I did find a little restaurant. Seeing the little drinks menu on the table, all in Chinese I realised there was a fair chance I would have no idea what I was going to order. The waiter bought out the menu, a menu with pictures, one of mans best inventions. I picked out a redish soup with bits of beef and stuff in it. As the waited brought it to the table he also brought a waft of the familiar and some what disturbing smell of offal. A quick taste informed me what I thought was beef was liver, I piled in a fair bit of salt and got stuck into it. It was ok, the soup was tasty, but the texture and lingering aftertaste of the liver was getting to me. I soon realised there were some other whiteish chunks floating in it, they seemed to be fat, but were more rubbery, like skin. I ate around them, and finished most of the kidney, until after a quick swish with the chopsticks to grab the last few bits, a piece of white flesh floated to the top. I prodded it gave it a quick examination and as I lifted it out of the soup I realised it was a fucking snout. That’s right, yum yum it must be favourite around here kidney and pig face soup. I felt my stomach tighten just that little bit, had a fair bit of trouble swallowing my last bit of kidney and gently pushed the bowl away from me.

Eastern Sri Lanka

Oh yeah, If your actually reading all of these, good work since I lost my camera I’ve started writing a crap load, it’s as much for me as you guys, but I hope you enjoy.
I had made plans to head east, and set my sights for Arugam Bay on the east coast, John and Scott’s Lonely Planet advised it’s a chilled out surfie town. The whole east and south coast was very badly affected by the Tsunami, and it was a few months past the surfing season, so I wasn’t that sure what to expect. I caught a 2 pm mini bus east and after a bit of a breakdown and a roadside bearing change we made it after dark to Ampara. I was lucky enough to make it just before the next bus left, and with lots of pointing at the map and broken English, caught another bus south to Siyarnbalanduwa. I had some pretty funny conversations with the guys on the bus, they were all pretty friendly, the bus was continuing on to Colombo. At Siyarnbalanduwa, we stopped for some food I grabbed some curry and roti, and when looking for the dunny bumped into the guys I had been talking to, out the back having a sneaky spliff in the back room. I joined in, and wandered out a few minutes later fairly red eyed looking to be pointed in the direction of the closest guest house.
Not quite going to plan, a guy (whose name I’ve forgotten and will now on refer to as Whatshisname) from Pottuvil (the town just near Arugam Bay) offered his services as a taxi in his vegie delivery truck. Over some broken English and a bit more pointing, I accepted and jumped in his truck, his 2 buddies Osama and Assif also piled in and my bag was chucked in the back.  As we started heading down the shoddy dirt track in the dark, I firstly realised I had left my bottle of water on the restaurant table and had the dries like a mofo. The check points were pretty regular, and proper army turret style. The check points consisted of a chicane to slow the traffic, a big pile of sandbags with a few pairs of eyes and a machine gun or 2 peering out through a hole. With introductions underway Osama informed me his last name was Bin Laden, and laughing saying how famous he is. Whatshisname kept repeating “I am legitimate businessman” but at one stage did mention the heroin trade, he even did a little “chasing the dragon” action with his hands to indicate the consumption method of smack around here. To make things worse he kept calling his house his bed, and when he meant to say I am tired and want to go home, with his bad pronunciation he kept saying “I am very bad, very bad” it didn’t fill me with confidence. All the checkpoints just looked at us as we slowed down and let us through, Osama bought it to my attention “ooooh lots check point, but no checking, ‘cos I am Osama Bin Laden, very famous.” Cue the hysterical laughter from Assif and Whatshisname as we bumpily headed down a dark dirt track in far eastern Sri Lanka totally deserted apart from military checkpoints. Cue the stoned paranoia from me.
Whatshisname (who spoke the better broken English fro the trio) was saying “soon elephant, elephant 10 kilometres, 4 kilometres” and low and behold in about 4k’s Whatshisname slammed on the breaks ‘cos there was fucking great big elephant and its baby standing in the middle of the road. We flicked our lights a bit, Osama jumped out with the torch and did a little dance waving the torch at the elephant. After about 10 minutes they both wandered off into the bushes. Over the next 20 minutes I think I saw about a dozen elephants by the side of the road, it was super super cool.
We arrived an hour or so later, dropped Osama off at his place, and arrived at Whatshisname place where he honked and honked until Jasmine, his wife woke up, got out of bed and opened the gates for us. We had quick introductions, Jasmine headed off to the kitchen to make us cups of tea, and fixed me and Assif’s beds.
A few days before I had realised hat I had gone a few days and not actually spoken to a female, I had asked for directions and they pointed and nodded, I had bought things they handed me change, smiled an nodded,  but no actual conversation. I really don’t think female rights are that high on the political agenda in Sri Lanka. After a fairly long and arduous journey and very tired I crashed out on their spare bed, so damn tired I had to pause and try to work out if my cup of tea had been drugged and I was gonna wake up minus my iPod, laptop, credit cards, cash, passport and a few essential organs. I opened my eyes nice and wide counted 1 through 10, and then back down to 1 was pretty sure I was feeling ok then fell into a deep slumber within a minute or 2.

Will Cowan.

Sri Lanka

I flew into Colombo late at night, and got a taxi into town to the YMCA, which from what I’ve heard is on the of the few budget backpackers in the city.  There was a nice little curry shop over the road where I ended up eating about 5 times, never paying much more than a dollar for a Roti, Dahl, Chicken Curry and a cup of Tea. I had a decent chat with a Spanish guy living in Goa, India. He filled me with confidence with words or recommendation like “This country is full of thieves” “Don’t trust any of them” “Colombo is a horrible place” “I can’t wait to get back to India” and one I know Roy will like “I’d rather be in Tasmania, during winter.” He was pretty much right though, due to the presidential election the whole city was shut down, with army and police setting up check points through out the city and very very few shops open. If I’d read the Smart Traveller Aussie government website would have advised me

• We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Sri Lanka in the lead-up to and the period following presidential elections scheduled for 17 November 2005. The security situation throughout the country, including in Colombo, may deteriorate during the campaign period. Numerous violent incidents, including murder and assault, occurred in the lead-up to elections in 2001 and 2004. Incidents often occurred on roads as party officials and candidates travelled between campaign engagements. You should be vigilant and watch the media for information about possible new safety or security threats.

The next morning I went to the train station to book a seat up to Kandy, a smallish city I had heard of in the hills. I met 2 guys from UK who had arrived the day before and were also booking the same ticket. We grabbed a 50 rupee Tuk Tuk ride together to check out what was meant to be a big beach side market, but due to the elections it was deserted. No worries, I started to walk back to YMCA to grab my bags and stuff and then head to the train station. This is where a funny thing happened, I was offered a Tuk Tuk, just over a block from my Hostel, and I said “No, It’s just around the corner” “No Worries” “No Worries?” “Yeah, Hop In” “Give me a lift if you want but its free ok?” “OK”. During the ride, I told him I needed to head to the Train Station in about an hour, he agreed to meet me back outside for that fare. I packed my bags had another bit of curry and met him outside to get to the train station. The Train station isn’t far, a 50 Rupee ride. We arrived and I handed him the 50, and he refused babbling “two rides 50 each, 100” “no the other one was free” “Give me 100” “dude, it’s a 50 rupee ride” the usual stuff, but when I went to give him a now slightly generous 60 rupee he refused “It’s 100 rupee ride, I want 100” “here take the 60” “I’m no beggar, I wont take 60” I handed him the 60 and turned away to walk into the station, he jumped out and pushed the money back into my hands “If you cannot afford to pay me 100 then you must need the money more than me” shit?! He was refusing the fare. He went to drive off and I put the cash on his back seat, he pulled over jumped out and gave it back. It was all a little strange. The train was nice, a few hours a bit of a nap and we were there. A quick run down on Kandy, shared a room with John and Scott, (the guys from UK) once again every thing was closed the first night. The next day we went to the Buddha’s Tooth Temple, supposedly housing a tooth from Buddha. The Tamil tigers bombed the temple in the 90’s so that was a little strange, a fair bit of security (pat downs and stuff) getting in, and a whole bunch of photos from the bombing and rebuilding, not something you expect to see at a temple. We then went and had tea at the Royal Botanic Gardens. The first time I had actually done touristy things in ages…….

Bangkok, Round 4.

Bangkok felt strangely familiar, it’s my fourth time back in less than 4 months. Kao San Rd is the backpackers Mecca of Bangkok with pirated, CDs, DVDs, T-shirts, shoes, shorts, university degrees and ID cards all available. It’s weird that so much action goes on in this tiny pocket of the city. I really noticed how much smaller it all seemed, not being blown out by every smell, sound and sight, I was fairly comfortable wandering through the hustle and bustle, checking into my guest house and wandering down stairs for a beer.
I ended up have a few Sam Song and Sodas sitting in the street, with a few Thai guys, a Finish guy and Dutch chick that had been living here for years. It was good, not only since I couldn’t afford to drink in a bar, but they were an interesting crew. Nui, was from Chaing Mai, down in Bangkok selling clothes in a stall. And (I’ve forgotten his name and I feel stupid for doing that but it was Aran or something like that, from here on I’ll just call him Aaron) the Finish guy called Aaron, he lives in Edinburgh but goes home to Finland every so often and drives a reindeer sleigh at some tourist park.
The next day I awake with a fairly solid hangover and proceeded to sort out the police report for the lost mobile phone, then went back to Kao San Rd and had a pretty good chat with a bunch of Aussies who were straight off the plane. After a fair few beers I had hatched a plan (as I had told Julia I may not be able to make it to Bangkok in time) that they should head out to the airport with me. They stand there with a “Julia Goulia” sign and when they see her, tell her that they met me in Cambodia, I couldn’t make it as my bus was broken, but they had flown and said they would catch up with her for her stop over. Well I ended up losing them in Kao San rd. (I expect they wussed out and did a runner) but on the way to the taxi rank I saw Aaron (a much more solid choice) in the same spot in the street, and with in a minute he had agreed and we were on out way out to the airport.
We got out there about 15 minutes after the plane had landed, quickly checked the Bus and Taxi lines then proceeded to the info desk to find out where people from Julia’s flight would be entering the Terminal. We quickly grabbed some beers and Assumed The Position, Aaron by the stream of people clutching a section of beer a carton with Julia Goulia written on it with a permanent pen. I was outside keeping an eye on what he’s up to waiting for the confused meet-up, let him set the scene and mosey out side, cue me jumping out from behind a pillar, surprise and hilarity ensues. After asking heaps of people what flight they were on, and a few more beers well over an hour had passed. I expect our info booth experience miss guided us, and we were waiting at the wrong exit.  We jump back in a taxi and feeling quite unsuccessful return back to town.

Cambodia to Bangkok

I caught the $US12 bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok. The lonely Planet, and most travellers had dissed the trip, saying its rough bumpy and time consuming. Well in my rush to meet Julia in Bangkok it was pretty much my only option. It was a mini bus of about 15 frarang, all fairly cool with a good international mix. The bus trip started off well, for about the first 5 minutes until we left Siem Reap. I had originally though that the crappy bus ride would entail a huge mountain range, but no. It's all very flat, apart from the fucking monstrous pot holes scattered intermittently through out the road. It was an interesting zig zag path weaving between the trenches. I found the best technique was to stick my sleeping bag under my arse and loosely brace my self so when we hit a bump, and every one bounced I just managed to land on something soft. Apart from a few elbows hitting the window sill and one or two miss calculations, my butt hit the sleeping bag nearly every time. It was going fairly well for the first 6 or so hours, until a fairly lage ditch caused the suspension to bottom out and with a bit of a crunch it broke. We continued on, but the tire was hitting the wheel arch. We pulled to the side and piled out on to the dirt trip, a few local kids tending the fields wandered over and inquisitively stood at a distance. They gazed at the dozen funny looking white people climb under a bus ask questions then start a game of hacky sack. The quite funny Russian born Canadian had the right idea, and with in a few minutes had her thumb out at the Ute loads of confused Cambodians.

Soon, a plan was hatched, we hitch to the next major town where they will organise a different way to get us to the Thai border. I threw my bag on to the roof of a ute and climbed into the back as 3 others did the same, unluckily the ute had at least 20 Cambodians in it already. So say it was squishy was an understatement at least sardines in a can have olive oil or tomato sauce to slosh around in a bit. It all started to get pretty uncomfortable including a near panic attack from the British girl who was positioned precariously on the edge rail, with her cousin sitting on her lap and fuck all to hang onto. I think the highlight of the trip was me realising I had a bunch of postcards in my bag that I had scored in Phenom Pehn, I caused a fair bit of excitement was I passed them around, translating the English descriptions and locations of kids on buffalos waterfalls and street scenes. We pulled over to drop some one off ( or pick some one up if that was even possible ) as a larger truck cruised past with plenty of room, I quickly jumped shit and jumped onto the back of the other truck. I quickly made friends with the people on the back. My Khmer vocabulary is zero, and their English was about the same but with a few place names, allot of pointing and some strange facial expression my new circle of friends included the guy with aviators, the weird guy with the freaked out crazy man laugh, the guy who's bag I accidentally trod on, the first Asian I've seen with a full face beard and one of my favourites, the middle aged lady with a wicked cackling hoot of a laugh. She would say something in Khmer (usually including farang) point at me and virtually piss her pants. She had a giant big full face grin and sound effects any Sitcom sound engineer would pay top dollar for. When she made the connection with the bearded Asian and my self she nearly fell off the back of the truck.

After about a while we arrived at the next town, I met up with the other tourists, and my bags that I had left on the first ute. We were told to put all our bags onto a ute, then climbed ontop of our bags for the rest of the journey.

We made it to the Thai border but it did seem the driver felt the need to somehow make up the 2 hours we had been delayed during the course of the hour long journey. It was good to be back in Thailand, we waited around a bit got some food changed some cash, got hassled by a crap load of beggars then jumped into what seemed like excessive opulence, not just being inside, but air-conditioned, not just having a seat, but it being soft and reclinable. I must have been in such shock that a few hours later when I got off the bus in Bangkok I fucking left my phone in the seat pocket in front of me. Bringing the tally to a camera and a phone in about a week, after 3 months of a fairly unblemished record I was fairly pissed off. Luckily I had backed up my stuff just a few days before so I should have a fairly easy restoration of phone numbers etc.

Cambodia to Bangkok

I love this photo, I wish it showed how really really jam packed the back of this ute was. I'll go into details tomorrow but jeepers the guide book says its a hard trip and it really really was.
Cheers

Angkor Wat

Well I'll be honest, this trip I've never actually done the temple thing, I've steered pretty well clear of them all together. Apart from the few times a guide snuck one into a tour, I really didn't see any. But Angkor rocked, unlike any thing I've seen before. It's huge ancient and powerful. I can now imagine how Nicky felt as the clouds parted high up in the Andes to see the wonders of Machu Picchu. I had left Roy the day before in Phenom Penh as I was going to rush through in the plan of meeting Julia Goulia in Bangkok on the 13^th, he was going to head to the beach at Sihanoukville. I booked a moto driver for the day, and at 5am met him out side my hotel. $US10 for a moto driver sunrise til sunset seemed like a good idea and $US20 to get into Angkor seemed steep but well worth it. I got to Angkor Wat about quarter past, unluckily the stars had faded and the sky was beginning to get light.

I spent the first few minutes taking photos of the lines of paparazzi style tourists (my old camera managed to take photos in between intermittent weird beeping and turning its self off). Think sidelines of the grand prix, with a line of zoom lenses on tripods. I found a nice spot off to the side and sat while the sun came up. Unfortunately not an amazing sunrise but, still good to arrive in near darkness and see it all appear in front of you. There was a pretty solid stream of people heading in, I grabbed my iPod, chucked on 1 Giant Leap, and proceeded up the stairs. Angkor Wat is pretty huge, fucking old and made of a shit load of stone. It's weird to sit there and just think how big every one of those bricks are. How heavy they all are, and how far they were lugged to be stacked up. Nearly every single one was intricately carved. There are hundreds of Buddha carvings and massive scenes depicting king's life stories and huge battles.

I found a nice little spot, wrote a post card to George st. and enjoyed watching, listening, and soaking it all in. I managed to spend about 3 or 4 hours there, including a full hour in a nice spot over looking the main entrance where I listened to Stay Human start to finish. There was loads of reminiscing, thinking about the past and future, a very nice little bit of Zen time.

Next was Bayon Temple in Angkor Thom, It has over 200 massive carved faces, it was impressively cool but it was getting crowded and quite hot. After lunch and a nice long snooze in the restaurant's hammock, we cruised to the very famous Ta Prohm. Film set of Tomb Raider, cover photo of the Lonely Planet a beautiful temple superbly engulfed by the surrounding jungle. It was very photogenic, I had a local show me through and point out the good spots. With the day nearly over I made it up to Phnom Bakheng, a crowded smallish temple on top of a biggish hill to watch the sunset. The walk was fairly steep, but quite entertaining watching the package tour fat bastards struggle up getting way out of their comfort zone.

Click here to watch a slide show of the photos…. Most are pretty cool, it was a very very cool day.

Cheers

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Http://www.WillCowan.com

Cambodia

The next morning Patchy and I had planned to meet bright and early (8am) to catch the bus to Phenom Phen, and Roy was gonna stay so he could do a tunnel tour. Patchy no showed (I later find out the lazy prick didn’t get up until 2pm) so I solo to Cambodia. I had managed to purchase some flip flops the night before, we were playing pool against a local he and laughed at me for having no thongs. I offered him 50000 dong (about $3.50) for his, and he obliged. I later found out that he only paid 30000 for them and by the time I wandered back past that bar, he had already bought a replacement pair. We swapped and I kept the new pair.
So I arrived in Cambodia, and had made friends with a nice but timid Japanese guy (think, opening line at the border crossing “ohh I am travelling by my self and I am so so lonely” he was doing a visa run as he was meant to be flying to France soon but was “so so scared” or the riots. I advised him of the irony that he was scared of going to France, so went to Cambodia instead, then had some really good chats about him studying in Australia and holidaying in Tassie and stuff. He found Tassie nice but devoid of fellow Asians. I also met Tony from London, he had shared a bus with Patchy a few days before, and we had met at Go 2 bar in Ho Chi Mihn. The first night was pretty quite, funny how a day on a bus doing SFA can make you tired.
The next day I did little but went out for some drinks with Tony, He had organised a Killing Fields moto (motorbike) driver for the next day, and he was our personal limo driver for the evening (that’s if you can call one of the most clapped out pieced of crap mopeds a limo, but well he did drive us places, until I got drunk enough that I hassled him to let me drive) we drank Beer Lao, I had a great hot and sour chicken soup, and we chatted to the kids selling rip off books about Cambodia and south east Asian guide books. Tony had picked up a Cambodia Lonely Planet in Vietnam, it seems they go for something close to 10% of the cover price. But you can see the dodgy photo copy marks and stuff. The new ones are a heap better, the covers look better and all the text is nice and clear. Although the girl selling the books was referring to us as either lady boys or monkeys (I get the monkey call often due to the beard) she had moments of being very sweet, and polite. She had great English and was planning on being a teacher when she left school, so I bought a book.
The next day, Tony’s moto driver arrived as promised, and I hired a 250cc dirt bike. Although I didn’t get a chance to really let it hit top speed, zigging through the traffic with twice the power of any thing else on the road is quite fun, its big and comfy and good on the crappy roads. Our guide dropped off at a firing range first, and for $30 Tony got to fire 30 rounds on an AK47. there was a price list covering ak’s, M16’s, Tommy Guns, a range of hand guns, some machine gun that looked like a small turret and grenades, who ever scored these relics from the wars must be making some what more than minimum wage. Depending on how affordable the police bribes they’d pay to keep the place open.
The photos are here of the Killing Fields, its an odd experience a fairly small plot of land where close to 9000 bodies have been excavated from mass graves. The Genocideal Pol Pot regime of the 70’s was unbelievable, a shrine on the site has 17 layers of human bones, the first layers filled with age and sex classified skulls. Seeing skulls with execution style bullet wounds between the eyes, or a 14 year old’s skull that had been caved in was a moving experience. As the photos show there was just so many of them. It’s hard to think each and every one of them was a son, daughter, mother or father and trying to fathom what a country would go through with its government ordering mass murder like that.

first update in ages.

Ok so after getting an email from Mel friggen ages ago that we should re-confirm our flights make sure its done at least 3 days before etc, etc. Us being “Don’t need to do that we’re gonna push back those flights I’ll just ring up one of these days and push it back” So I awake from a almighty slumber, rock down to Crazy Kim’s bearing the brunt of a relatively sever hangover, to teach a second day of English. After, I wander into a net café to “Make the Call” I dig around and find my phone where I have the flight details and contact number for Air Sri Lanka, and then “Holly Shiiiiiit” the flights at 9.15pm Thursday November the 3rd, “Shit that’s real close” I think to my self and double checking the calendar my heart skips a beat as I realise I‘m on a beach side resort 6 hours north of Ho Chi Mihn City, with a flight to catch from Bangkok in about 9 hours. Running sucks, dong it barefoot in Nha Trang sucks (Halloween was a big night and I awoke sans Flip Flops) having a thumping hang over related head ache sucks also. So as I sprint back to the hotel, side stepping shards of glass, piles of goo and trying to keep to any surface under about 60C, my head jostles around in my skull, with the thoughts of “Crap we’re gonna have to forfeit the flights, I wonder if they will… I hope they….. ohhh crap.” So I burn through about $15 of credit calling Air Sri Lanka for them to tell me to call STA in HCM. I Call them and they Bu (my new best friend) advises “ohh ok, come to the office and we’ll sort it out” I’m “We are in Nha Trang” “Oh no worries come in tomorrow” I’m dubious and reword the situation to see if he still agrees and tells us it cab be fixed, “yeah it can” I try again and he still agrees.
We book the night bus and head to Ho Chi Mihn, and low and behold the day after the flight has already left, we wander in pay $USD25 and he gets us on a flight on the 18th, and pushes our Beijing flight back respectively.
We celebrate pretty hard that night. The next night we cross paths with Patchy Jim (from Ha Long Bay) again, so Ho Chi Mihn City was a bit of a trash fest, on my last night I manages to loose my new digi cam on a stumble home. Sucks the big one…. Luckily I’ld done a recent back up to the iPods and Laptop so only lost a few good photos from that night.

Over and out.

Hoi An, Vietnam

Hey, well we spent a few days in Hoi An, a funny town of about 60,000 people, with over 200 tailor shops. I was recommended a tailor by Melbournian I’d met in Hue, so we went to check it out. It was a fairly big tailors, and not as pushy as the majority of the smaller places. We spent a while flicking through some catalogues and magazines, a fairly simple process of point at a picture, point at a fabric get measured up and it head back the next day for a fitting. I got a shirt, casual jacket and a pair of pants made up, it came to about $100. There are some photos here. The next night on the walk home form a few beers we heard some guitar and singing coming from round a street corner. Welsh Loy, and I cruised over and invited our selves to join the group of about 7 or so guys. We sat under a street light singing a fairly strange collection of English and Vietnamese songs. The only English song they all could sing was Happy Birthday, so we get a few rounds of that to start with. It’s quite a challenge to sing along to Vietnamese songs. We mainly just got stuck into the rice wine and a few weird little nibbly things. Sitting around singing and even a bit of dancing, it was a really fun night.
Now we’re in Nha Trang, another over night bus got us down here, once again fairly painless. I was even given a sleeping mat and blanket and slept in the aisle. Some bad news regarding the bus trips is that we are finally out of tamazapans. Unfortunately from what I can tell the Vietnamese aren’t too big on the over the counter sedatives either.
Nha Trang’s been good so far, a big Halloween party at the Sailing Club was out introduction to the night life. At one stage of the night after a fair few drinks from the witches cauldron (bad ((but free)) sangria style red wine punch) some of the staff used a combination of toilet paper and packing tape me dress me up as a zombie, it worked quite well for about 10 minutes until the extra layers just started me make we sweat. Unfortunately for the staff I had no plans of wandering the streets of Vietnam, Pissed, dressed up like a zombie and suffering from heat exhaustion, so I pretty quickly escaped from my bog roll outfit.
This morning I taught English at a local community centre, some of the postcard selling kids had told me about it yesterday. It was a really small class, and about 7 volunteers turned up. We spent most of the lesson doing previous, current and future verbs. I think the kids did a better job than us teachers. After class we met up at the beach and had a fairly rigorous game of soccer in the afternoon. They were all really quite smart and well spoken, the community centre is set up by Crazy Kim, who runs a bar and a “Hands off the Kids” anti Pedo group. I think we’ll head down south a bit further on a night bus tomorrow.