day 32

Definitely the last day

We went to the cafe to wait for the bus and waited for ages, it didn't come until about 5.25 or so, but we still got to the airport at about 6.10am so that was ok. The line for the flight was soooo long and people kept trying to push in. But Nicole wouldn't let them, yay... Unfortunately we saw the same people later had pushed in front of an old guy which was annoying.

We got some breakfast with out last few hundred baht. I had a ham and cheese focaccia thingy.

The plane was ok, there were lots of movies to watch but i was tired so i kept falling asleep. Apparently the flight was overbooked as well so we couldn't sit together and both had window seats.

I was very glad to get back to Australia by the end of the flight, just because I was sick of the plane and I knew Tim would be waiting at the airport. yay! But i had to get through customs and stuff first, and we had to do some last minute shopping. We went to the duty free shop and i bought 1 litre of 50%alcohol Vodka and 1 litre of Cointreau for less than $50. I also bought a 100ml bottle of my favourite perfume J'Adore. Very nice

So we got to customs and quarantine and I had my lovely Thai pillow. It was very nice. I was sure Tim would like it. But the guys took one look at it and said... Oh dear, you have a thai cushion. That is about to cost you a lot of money.

Apparently is it full of seeds (der I am a Biologist I really should have thought of this) so it has to be destroyed or gamma irradiated. And it takes 4 weeks, and costs $60 (incl postage). so after much thought i have decided to get it irradiated even though it only cost $20 because its special and from Thailand and I can't get one the same (i.e. that's from Thailand).

So Tim can look at the lovely picture. His one is quite similar.

At the airport I was very happy to see Tim after all this annoyance and he seemed pretty happy to see me. He even had earl grey tea waiting for me in the car, and mint choc ice cream. He is the bestest :)

The next morning i went to work. And was very tired. and now i week later i have finally recovered.

day 30

Ok! the last day! (sort of)

We decided to save money on our last day and check out of our hotel because our plane left on the Monday morning (the next day) at 8am, so we had to be at the airport at 6am and had to leave Bangkok at 5am. So we decided to just stay up all night.

I got up at about 9am so i had 3 hours sleep by the time i got to bed. We packed all our stuff and you can see the pictures of us carrying my huge and ridiculously heavy bag.

We found a place to leave our bags and book our bus ticket, then we did some shopping for Nicole. (ok i did some more as well). I think we had breakfast or lunch at some point but I was so tired i can't really remember too clearly. umm... We had manicures... that was nice. We met some people on the street and had a huge bowl of ice cream, like it was 7 scoops between us. And after we had finished the ice cream guy was still trying to sell us more ice cream.

We walked down the the river to check out some restaurants that were supposed to be good, but one was packed and the other was closed, so we just went to a touristy one instead. I was so tired I nearly fell asleep. um... these events are not in order.

I bought Tim a Thai cushion and boy would that cause some problems later on... :)

We went to a restaurant for dinner and had rice soup as well as a main meal which was waaayyy too much, but it was our last meal so we thought it was ok to splurge. We were walking down an alley thing, and i saw a man who sells bags and i bought a handmade purple leather one for 800B it is gorgeous, i can't wait to use it.

Then we decided we needed massages, we were going to get neck and shoulder massages, but we got Thai ones instead after they talked us into it. It was quite good, but a little odd. They get up on the bed with you and move your legs and arms around and push their feet into you and stuff. So that wasted another hour.

After that we found Diow again he was packing up his paintings (he is an artist as well as a busker) and said we'd meet his to sing later.

I wanted to get a facial, as they had them for 200B. It was really good, i had my face steamed and exfoliated and all these other things, cucumber and orange (that what it smelt like) and a masque and a massage (another one) for about 45 minutes.

It was about 12.30 by then so we found Diow again and sang with him for a while. Then he made us fried rice which we ate with an English guy who came out hang out for a while. Diow made me a ring out of a straw so i said he must want to marry me (he made one for Nicole too). Diow asked me to help him fill out some forms because he was going to the embassy the next morning to try to move to Germany for a year, so we did that, then Diow and his friend took us to play pool for a while, until about 4.30, then we figured we better go catch our bus to the airport. So we said goodbye, and diow said its ok we are married now, and i said you have to come visit in Australia some time. I think the day ended around there somewhere.

Day 29

The next morning i decided to go shopping by myself because Nicole and i weren't really talking, we had gotten a bit sick of each other by then i think. So i went on the Internet and found that i could catch a ferry down the river to the skytrain. Before i left though i had fish and chips at an English restaurant, and they were surprisingly good. Then I went to the HUGE weekend market. http://www.asiatraveltips.com/PicturesofChatuchakMarket.shtml

I bought a few presents for Bridey and Bonnie (my sisters) and just had a nice time wandering around.

I caught the sky train back to the main part of Bangkok where the 5 star hotels and stuff are and noticed a Hard Rock Cafe. So i decided to do something really cheesy and touristy and go there for dinner. I had a pulled pork burger and it was really tasty, although being an American serving size i couldn't finish it. the staff were really friendly after I had my meal one waiter asked if he could get me anything else so i said yes a date, so he sat down with me and had a chat for a while.

After dinner I went back to PatPong market cause I knew there was good shopping there. Not necessarily cheap, but had everything you want in the way of presents and souvenirs. I really wanted to buy a bunch of DVD's but i decided they were overpriced and not worth it, because they cost 100Baht each which is nearly $4 and if you buy a box set, like say Gilmore girls, that 8 discs, so 800B which is about $32 and i can get in Australia a real copy that will definitely work for only about $35-$40.

So instead i bought a watch, a couple of handbags, some t-shirts, and heaps of other stuff. I was soooo tired when i was finished so i caught a tuk-tuk back to Koh sahn rd and planned to go straight to bed. But as i was walking down the main road i ran into Diow my busking friend. He bought me a coconut juice and we sat and had a chat for a while. Then I promised him I would put my stuff in the hotel room and meet him on the street for a bit of a sing. I went back down a while later and we stayed for a little while, then a bunch of his friends came and we sang and drank on the street out the front of a 7-eleven. Then Diow asked if he could take me to show me something and he must have seen the look on my face cause he said "no!! not like my room or anything, just a place i like that i haven't been for a really long time". So i was slightly apprehensive but he had been really nice for 2 nights so i said yes. He took me for a long walk through a park full of homeless people sleeping on the grass (and i mean full, there were hundreds of people there) and past the grand palace etc. then we went down and alley, and down another alley and past some women cooking something i think. Then we were on a jetty on the riverbank. And we could see a HUGE temple called Wat Arun across the river all lit up. It was definitely the most awesome and beautiful thing i saw the entire time i was away. Unfortunately I only took video of it, i didn't have the camera. Diow and i sat there at chatted for a while, until i got tired again, so we walked back. I went to bed at about 5.30am. i just found some pictures, neither are as spectacular as my actual view, but the night one gives you an idea of how gorgeous it was.

Day 28

Australia Day!

We decided to just bum around on Australia day and in the form of true Aussies we started drinking by the pool at around 12pm. We had a few swims and read our books and drank. and then i got a bit sleepy after getting to bed so late so i went and had a snooze. We went back about at about 5 or 6 and had street food for tea. We ran into Kate the girl we had met earlier in Luang Prabang. She just wanted to have one drink because she was going to India the next day, but we ended up meeting a group of Aussies and drank a lot. We sang on the street, at one point there was am impromptu Australian nation anthem and out of about 30 Aussie's i was the only one who knew all the words. But strangely enough we managed to sing Waltzing Matilda without my trouble.

The rest of the night was just lots of drinking and singing etc.

then bed.

day 27

We woke up in our hotel which was fairly crappy, and decided to have a look at one that's a bit nicer. We found one with a pool that was really nice looking, so we checked in there.

We went to MBK a big shopping centre to do some shopping, I bought 3 pairs of shoes, yay!

We came back to Koh San Road to have dinner, i had a corn on the cob and some meat kebab things. mm tasty. then i got a pedicure and Nicole got her eyebrows waxed. I have always wanted to get a pedicure and i wasn't disappointed. I think i will get them sometimes at home now, but I am sure I'll have to pay more than $6 Australian for them.

We went to a bar and had a bucket and made friends with a French guy and a hmm... I've forgotten... maybe dutch guy? we went to another bar and had another bucket, so i was a bit tipsy by then, then Nicole went home and I went with the guys around the corner and found a Thai guy busking. I asked him if he knew a couple of songs, and we ended up singing together for ages. Then a french guy came along and the 3 of us listened to songs on my ipod, because the police came and Diow (the busker) had had his guitar confiscated a few nights before so he didn't want to have to pay the fine again to get it back. At about 3am he made us fried rice with his friends' food stall. i went home to bed after that.

Day 26

We woke up to the usual Hanoi loudness at about 7 or 8 this morning. We were planning to go to the Ho Chi Minh museum after we booked tickets to the water puppets. we booked our tickets but she gave them to us for the wrong time which was quite ammoying so we had to line up and book them again, so we were a bit late. We caught a cab to the ho Chi Minh Museum and the guy tried to charge us twice what the meter had said only a few seconds before, he had obviosuly pushed a button or somethig so he could change the price. I stayed in the cab and Nicole went to get Huy who was waiting at the corner, and he noticed that the sign on the side of the cab said the name of a cab company, but there was no phone number. Huy asked the guy what is the number of yoru company, and he said there is no number. Huy decided that his was obviously a "fake" cab so he told the guy unless he gave us a reasonable price he would call the police. the price promptly halved. sooo dodgy.

We went into the Ho Chi Minh Museum and they took our bags and cameras and stuff, and we watched a video about Ho chi Minh's life. The Vietnamese really love him and the video said that he was a pretty cool guy who just wanted to help people and lived his life pretty simply without a lot of money or anything. He travelled a lot even in the US and England, and govered Vietnam from 1946 til 1969 when he died. He got independence from France for Vietnam. You can read more about him here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh and see a photo, he looks basically the same now but the box he is in is bigger. His obituary in the New York Times is quite interesting http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0519.html

We went into a large stone building to see his embalmed body there were guards everywhere telling you to take your hands out of your pockets, take off your hat etc etc. It was quite weird but kind of sad to see him. His actaul wish was to be cremated, but the leader after him decided to have him embalmed instead. Apparently for 4 months a year the exhibit is closed as they have to work on preserving his body. Also you aren't allowed to take photos, or speak, it is really like a funeral, even though he died 37 years ago.

We also saw his house and his two cars, but we had to be relatively quick as the place closes at 11am, it is only open for 3 hours a day.

After we left we went to a cafe nearby that sold weasel coffee. So finally Nicole could partake in something a little weird (i had it as well). It is coffee beans that have been eaten by a weasel and digested and then excreted, and you then drink the coffee. We were (very maturely) calling it poo coffee. It actaully tasted quite good. Huy had to leave soon after as he had a family lunch to go to. Nicole and i walked to a czech Bar and she had a beer, but my cold had well and truly kicked in and i was feeling crap, so i just had some soup. I had to blow my nose a few times while we were there, and i ran out of tissues to i used 4 or 5 serviettes and they charged us extra for them. Ahh the service is wonderful. hahaha.

We then walked to the lake and i was feeling crap still so we had a coffee at the lake, (well i had a honey and lemon tea) and relaxed for a bit. It was then getting towards when we were going to see the water puppet show, so we went on the internet for 20 mins and then went to the puppet show. It was surprisingly good and enetertaining, even though it was entirely in Vietnmese. we don't have any photos as Nicole's battery went flat, this guys website is pretty cool and the show is exactly as we saw it. http://www.dsturgeon.net/vietnam/puppets-e.html

After the show we went to a restaruant Nicole wanted to try called little hanoi, she really liked the food she had so that was good. I can't remember what i had, i think it was another fried meat thing cause that had been so good everywhere else.

We got a cab to the airport and caught the plane to bangkok. We had originally been planning to go to Koh Samet, but it would have taken us about 5 hours the next day and we were really tired from the plane that got in at 11.00pm and then the taxi etc. (We had the only slow taxi driver in Bangkok as well). So we decided to spend a bit of extra money on the hotel and get one with a pool and just stay around Bangkok.

Day 25

We caught the train back from Sapa and got into Hanoi at about 5am. We decided to walk back to the old quarter where we had stayed previously and find a room. On the was we saw people around the lake doing aerobics. it was still dark and about 6am by then. Gee they were enthusiastic. I was still basically asleep. We found a room for $6USD a night and had a sleep. Then we tried to call Huy a few times and eventually got in contact with him. We wanted to do some more shopping so he took us to a nice big shopping mall, but we didn't end up buying anything, we did however find a Gloria Jeans and have a really nice coffee. It had only opened 4 days earlier and it was an aussie guy who was training all the new staff. The coffee was really good and Huy was so enthused he had 3 coffees in half an hour or so.

We went to the sofitel metrolpole after coffee because they had a chocolate buffet. It was great, it had heaps of little chocolate and different chocolate cakes, chocolate fondue fountains, make your own hot chocolate and a banana and chocolate pudding with raspberry coulis. Very nice. It was 10USD but we decided it was worth it.

We went shoe shopping for a couple of hours after that and Nicole bought some shoes, I found some I liked but they fit kinda weird so I didn't get them.

Huy had talked us into catching motorbikes this day too which was very fun and a bit scary, you just go to the corner and ask basically anyone to take you wherever you want to go and it costs about 15,000 Dong.

we met Huys girlfriend Tu for dinner she was really nice, and they talked me into eating snails. They were actually really really tasty i quite liked them, they were flavoured with chilli and ginger. the place was really cheap too. Yay!

we caught their motorbikes to a bar near where we were staying and i had a whiskey and coke. It was nice but I was feeling a bit weird in the head as i had taken some cold and flu tablets earlier, so we went home to bed after the drink.