I've been commenting about my travels but I haven't given you the skinny about what's really going down. here's a few stories...
my first night in vietnam...i was greeted with some fresh fruit and a knife to cut them...Mmm the fruits did look good so i thought why not indulge..then I had a look at the knife...had some black stuff at the end of the blade that wouldnt wash off for anything.
I should have stopped right there huh? but did I...nope...i carefully cut the mango making sure the end part didn't touch it. After one 1/2 of the mango my lips felt a bit tingly...did i stop?...nope I kept at it....and what happened in the end..my upperlip swelled up a little bit in the center. What did i do???...well luckily for me....I have an amazing Japanese friend who just happens to be a pharmacist and stocked me up with medicine! where would I be without her...way worse than i swollen lip I'll tell you.
Now I gotta tell you guys that I took a big risk coming here, and no getting any vaccination shots what so every...which is all the more reason why i have to be extra careful!
But did that stop me from trying some street food. NOPE!....Met 2 Aussie girls on my first day tour and after that we went out for dinner, the tour guide recommended this place...but when we got there, it was well...lets put it like this....the lady was cooking out in the open with the cooked minced meats on a table and some hot kinda plate thingy to make the fresh rice pancakes on. there are like children size actually 3 year olds size seat and low tables for u to eat on and its all Vietnamese peeps up in here....all looking , staring cuz they know we are foreigners. Oh did i mention this is infront of an office which has closed for the day and is covered so in the night they just set up infront there like a restaurant..now to make matters worse...there is no sink...just a hose to the side laying on the floor....and.....of course we are charged double price...hahaha
Sunday morning I arrived at Hanoi station and expected to be greeted but someone to take me back to the hotel. but you know, there was no one. and when i opened my bag to find my guidebook which had my hotel info...it was no where to be found in my bags. HA! forgot it at the hotel up in the mountains!...OH how GREAT!
so here i am 6 am in the morning with all these taxi and motorbike people haggling me and these are not metered taxis. Left with no choice I take out and when i arrive to the hotel its CLOSES DOWN...the electric gate thingy is down and I don't even realize the hotel, I was reassured it was by the taxi man. SO here I am...with this taxi guy and this old lady with her morning bread tryna sell me one and some cheese! So I try calling my tour group and I don't get through...no one answers...and then i notice there is a doorbell so i ring it and the shutts go up and I see the 2 concierge men are sleeping on their makeshift bed on the floor in their PJS getting up and rubbing off the sleep from their eyes!! there I am baffled by this...thinking...what de ass am i doing in this place?...but after a 9 hrs train ride with one eye open and dozzing off clutching my camera bag..i'm too tired to bother so i take my key and even though the bathroom is unclean and i'm not sure if the toilet has been cleaned, i do nothing cuz in 2 hrs the bus will be picking me up for halong bay.
In Hue...I arrive in the morning and I'm already like this place more than Hanoi. Hanoi was just too busy, noisy and too many people always wanting you to buy something never giving you a break to breathe...not that you'd want to take a deep breath there anyway, that would be considered toxic with all the dust and exhaust fumes in the air. They got more people wearing masks in that city and I've seen in japan. Even my ears collected dust while i was there.
Back to Hue, So it seems pleasant, and when the pickup-upper stops pulls over and informs be we're here at the hotel area, i'm a bit bewildered, cuz I don't see it anyway and we're infront of a side road...so where the hell is this hotel, it cannot be down that alley now...seriously!. Guess what...it is!....and each step I take further down in the alley way the more uneasy and uncertain I becomes about this hotel. And then we arrive...and I'm greeted with a rose in light of women's day!...How Nice!...i get up to the room and there's another flower on the bed along with some rose petals...and the room is pimped out with a 20" flat screen monitor computer and big ass flat screen tv on the wall and me gots a king size bed to myself. Awesome huh...just my luck...its looking good. Ha!...yeh it is...and then...just like that...14 hrs later. There i am, in the shower facewash on ma face, toothbrush in my mouth and I'm trying to push the nob up for the water to come through the shower head and what happens....the shower head comes off! So what do I do?...now i gotta wash me face brush my teeth and call the front desk...I don't feel like putting on my clothes cuz im a bit wet with soap on me cuz the water sprouted out from where the cap was covering. so i take the bath towel and wrap it around me as best I can since its small! the front desk person comes up and he can't do nothing about it, btw when i realised it was a guy coming up to check the water I put back on my shirt. Now I gotta do the ole school trick and take a shower with a glass cup!.
12 am..i make it to bed. finally!
