Adversity Breeds Creativity

Jokes, jokes. I’m too busy to get wasted!  I am enjoying the first drink of the day today at 8:00pm and it’s,of course, a tequilla sunrise. My vacation beverage.

Took a bus yesterday from Phan Thiet to Nha Trang. When the while girl in a no-tourist town goes to the travel agent she gets “no bus -all full” even if you are asking about the next 48 hours, yet I ask ( actually is was more like begging ) Grant to assist and he’s got me on a bus in 1.5 hours. Funny thing about the sleepy town of PT – we had to go for an hour long swim before he looked into it. Awesome! An interesting thing about the Vietnamese is that they treat the ocean like their own person garbage can. It’s fairly shocking at first to see the amount of shit floating around in there. while I was walking the beach looking for shells I saw a few women bring their trash bags right down to the coast and drop them.

WOW I JUST NOW GOT THE NEWS THAT THEY FOUND MY BAG!!!!!! YAHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST NEWS EVER!!!!!! They are going to send it to the Sing Tours right down the street from my hotel here. That’s honestly made a damn near perfect day exactly that. GODS!

So – I started diving today. Up at the crack of dawn ( not uncommon for me here – my internal clock wakes the second the sky starts to brighten ) and had my first breaky at the Ha Van. They have a 5th floor rooftop patio that is just lovely and I get a complimentary breaky with my stay. The lounge area has plush wicker furniture, good tunes, free internet and cheap drinks. The restraunt is on the opposite side with a city view and both sides have a lovely breeze in the evening. I was at the dive center for 730am, on the boat at 8am,  and in the water for 8:45. I am diving with Angel dive in Nha Trang and they dont fuck around with this pool training business – it’s right into the water! The amount of information they jam into your dome in such a short period of time is amazing. I was expecting a 4 person dive team, but no way – I had my instructor and a dive master in training that was there just to make my experience that much more comfortable. Very nice. My instructors name is Marcus and he’s a german with a funny sense of humour. There is no sensor. We did 2 dives today -a training dive at Fisherman Bay, and a fun dive at Mushroom Bay. The training was intense and I found that my hindered breathing caused a bit of a unique learning curve when it came to getting the hang of it, but by the second dive I was in the zone. I didn’t realize that there are so many things you are doing at the same time while diving, however once you get those down it’s smooth sailing. The crew is so nice and very helpful. In fact, the owner said he would get his wife to take me to the market tomorrow to shop however that doesn’t appear neccessary now. CAN I GET A FUCK YA?!

Anyways, back to the day. We were back inland for 1:30pm and had an inclusive lunch together. I chatted with a lovely couple from Aus, and a lone wolf from Michigan the whole day and had a great time. Afterwards, errands to the bank to get some dosh, book my sleeper bus to Hoi An friday night ( where I then again took the opportunity to berate the staff as it’s the same company that lost my stuff ) and wander a bit before heading back to the dive shop to watch 2 of the 5 videos that are part of my course, Then I went down to the gorgeous beach and walked with my feet in the water as the sun set, creating a beautiful backdrop to a beautiful day.

I am pretty fucking pleased with February 8th, not going to lie. HOORAY!

Best pedi EVER

Shell stash

Fish cooked at your table, anyone? DEEEELISH!

My host, Grant, in Phan Thiet night

Gorgeous Fin in front of Gossip!

What suntan? Hahaha. I think I was mere moments from disaster. I’m red, sure, with some funky tan lines at the moment – but it could be FAR worse, and I still feel fine

Well it’s 12:42 an in the west coast my laptop tells me, and my new bronze slip-on watch I got today reads 3:45 pm,  Saturday. It has a bull on both sides of it,hahaha. So funny!! I had contacted a couch surfer in this city which is about 5km out of Mui Ne and he offered to get me a room at the hotel he lived in if I wanted to come into town. Considering the 500% markup of ANYTHING in Mui Ne and my obvious need for oh… I don’t know, everything, I decided it best to get out of there. I hired a motorcycle driver and hung on for dear life for the 5 miles for $2.67 CDN. Awesome. Grant is from Australia and it was really amazing to get to spend a few hours with somebody that didn’t look at me like I had 2 head’s. He was also insanely helpful and toured me on foot through pretty much the whole town here. The population is about 150,000 and they get next to zero tourists here so I was quite the spectacle walking around. They love to point, and touch. My tattoo on my arm gets attention from everybody I walk by and they are not shy to run their hands across it. On our travels he took me to a supermarket where I was able to buy soap, a toothbrush, and a much needed razor before venturing into the market. Very dangerous place, that market. The stalls are so condensed you can only have one person walking down them at a time and Grant warned me to hold onto my belongings tightly to ensure I left with them. I don’t have claustrophobia but I don’t think I would have wanted to spend anymore time in there than we did – operation obtain a new pack was a success. a Medium sized bag ran me $200,000 VND or just over $12 CDN. The thing with anything you buy here is that the quality is very suspect so I just hope that it lasts the trip. I made sure to buy one just large enough to hold a good amount of items but hopefully all future buses will let me bring it in the coach with me. Fool me once…., haha.  I was also able to buy 2 dresses, a long sleeve sheer top ( the sun here is devestating ) and a pair of sandals. The heat is so intense that wearing flip flops has given me a minor heat rash between my big toes! About 20 minutes after I purchased them they started falling apart. hahahaha. The attempt at branding is laughable – they say converse on the top, and something else on the bottom, and have a nike swish!

I’m staying at Grant’s place  at the Hoang Kim hotel which is on the coast as you can see here. After our much needed shopping trip he went down for a siesta ( side note: everywhere here closes every day,pretty much, for nap time ) and I wandered down to the beach. Not a person in sight! I had already been walking around in the sun for about 3-4 hours and my shoulders were crisping nicely into a funny box tan from my tank and pack so I wanted to run around in my suit a bit to even it out. Found some beauuuuutiful shells. It was fun checking the insides to make sure I didn’t bring any hermit crabs home with me At this rate the #1 thing I’ve been packing is shells, haha. 

It’s been really handy that everywhere I go has wifi, and I cant thank my parent’s enough for this netbook. As much as I would like to be running around the entire day it’s just too hot – down time is essential, especially when you are up at 5:45am every day. In the last 24 hours I have read 402 pages out of the 702 book I got yesterday morning. I cannot wait to pick up some more reading material. Also, my camera seems to be alright here… only taken a few blurry pics. I think it has to just be humidity. It’s going to cost me 4,000,000 VND if I need to buy a new one. which is $220. I’m torn – I don’t want to have shit photo’s of this trip but that it a large expense I didn’t anticipate -especially considering I had to spend a million bucks today on items that needed to be replaced. When I get into Nha Trang I’ll asses the finances and figure out what to do on that front.

Grant told me that every single bad thing that could happen to me here has already happened, with the exception of getting sick, so I am looking forward to smooth sailing going forward.

Bean out!

Turned the frown upside down! Took care of myself today after shaking off the “fuck!” of the bag loss. I walked from the epic resort I mentioned all the way to Sinh Tours ( the shitty bus company ) this morning which took me about an hour and did so at 8:00 am. I’m a big walker, and I had water, AND it was super early in the day and even I was extremely fatigued by the time I got to the place. No help,really. I emailed the head office and they haven’t bothered to reply, either. Anyways… I stopped in at a restraunt that offered WIFI and chatted with Vanella and eased myself before searching for a guest house. I had been reccommended Pin Pong, across from Pogo Bar, from Bec’s but they were full. I ended up next door across from Tien Phat ( which has free wireless so I’m sitting in the courtyard of my bungalow chatting and drinking a Saigon ) which is a very quaint and lovely elevated guest house. I had the choice with no air con for $12, or air con for $17 – and while I’m getting used to the heat as every hour passes I am still not ready to sweat it out tonight. Anyways… I went searching for a guest house at 10am and they told me to come back at 1pm, so I went to pogo. My camera is fuckaroo from the humidity, I think.  Most of my pics are half blurry but I dont think its the cam because others are fine?

This is POGO!

And this picture sucks because of the blur – but I spent 2 hours today in that same hammock. There is a beautiful small beach just on the other side of the retaining wall you can’t see that I had some nice swim time in earlier. It’s a big issue here with erosion as alot of the beach in the area I am tonight is getting eaten. Further down the way I came from they have ample beach, which is where the kitesurfing goes on.  Anywho… I picked up the 702 page copy of Breaking Dawn, the last Twilight book ( fuck off ) and spent 2 hours munching on yummy spring rolls and stretched out reading before securing my guesthouse. Then I had a mani/pedi/and an hour long thai massage. I can now say that a Vietnamese woman has walked all over me while I listened to an instrumental version of a Simon and Garfunkle song! Blessed be! ALSO… now this is extremely, absoloutely amazing. While at pogo this morning I was the only person there save another gent that had alot of really weird circle marks on his back ( reiki? ) and he chatted me up when I commented it being strange he was drinking milk in 30 degree weather. We got to chatting about music as a Freestylers song that I loved had just come on, and before that Lorin Bassnectar ( wonder if I thank jpod for that? ) and he mentioned that if I was still in town tonight they were hosting the very first DNB night to ever hit Mui Ne. AS IF!!!!! So… across the street from my guest house tonight a super sweet beach front bar  is playing my FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC EVER AND I HAVENT GONE DANCING IN MONTHS!!! Who needs clothes, this is rad!~

This place is pretty sweet, not gonna lie! My backpack has not made it’s way with me, unfortunately, and has taken off on a journey of it’s own. No worries – I’ve got my essentials in my day pack, lappy, passport, camera, etc – just have no clothing. Hahaha!! I suppose there is a chance that is can show up at some point in the next day or two, however I’m not holding my breath. My strategy of only packing stuff I wasn’t too fond of turned out in my favor. Kinda cheesed my snowboard shell is toast, tho.

I hadn’t bought myself an adaptor for my laptop before leaving because $40 seemed steep but while having an ice cold Saigon beer at GO BAR on the backpackers trail I asked the waitress if she knew where I could find one. Finding very very basic english is easy, however I seem to have the knack for coming up with words foreign to their language. Either way she brought a motorcycle driver to me who took my laptop cord away saying he would come back with the adaptor. I had just logged onto Video chat with JJ so I wasn’t even really paying that much attention when it dawned on me… whoa, that might have been dumb. Fortunately he came back -  with a replica of the cord I already had. So off he went again and came back with the correct item. It cost me about $80,000 dong which is about $3-4. I had a few hours to kill so I went with him on a tour of the city afterwards. Holy cats. He took me everywhere I needed to go. The bank to cash some $$, a book store to get a notebook to write in ( another great example of my inability to communicate – I kept asking for blank paper, however they don’t even have blank books ) and a sweet leather wallet for the boy. I’m pretty sure i paid too much money for everything but that’s alright with me. I might have spent $2 too much but if an item is $4 it’s hard to feel burned. I’m sure I’ll get better as time goes by.
 
The resort I stayed at last night was like a page out of a bird sanctuary. There is a thin line of beach houses from the main street going back about a mile to the ocean. There are Coi ponds, a beautiful pool, lots of foliage, and several cages with a strange bird that bobs up and down and talks to you when you get close. When I exited my bungalow this morning they were cat calling me! I walked down to the ocean this morning and… wow. Miles and miles and miles of beach, with a secluded and gorgeous area for guests. The nudist in me was dying to rip off the clothing and go for a dip but seeing as the beach already had 30-40  people on it and dealing with a missing bag was already on the plate I decided to skip a to the local jail. These people are very modest!
Vietnamese coffee is DELICIOUS! And served with sugar cane and condensed milk so it’s crazy sweet. The climate here is really intense. This city doesn’t have the humidity that HCM does, thankfully, an I read nha trang has the least amount of humidity in the country. I’m hoping once I lock down a bathing suit to do some kite surfing today. The shopping is caaaalllllllling me!! Must stay away!
 
Anywho this is a sufficient enough blurb for ya’ll. I’m doing well. I’m excited, and hot as fook! 
Bean

Safe and sound!

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=218

This is the time difference, and the sweltering statistics. HCM is fucking nutty. I’d been warned about the traffic but it’s really something you need to see to believe. Have a ticket to Mui Ne tonight on the sleeper bus and hope to spend tomorrow with cervesa in hand, ass in hammock, feet in sand.

MUCH LOVE!

Bow chika bow baby, 58 minutes until liftoff!

Had a fantastic time last night with the friends that made it out. Always sSo wonderful to get to hang out with the people you love! Even Mom and dad made it out for 2 pints and slipped me an extra hundred for the journey. So nice of them!

Got up with the boy this morning and after he left had a nice session with Paul. Was a bit worried about how I would cope at customs but thankfully a chai latte set me right. Had 2 hours of free wifi at Milestones, a glass of wine, a pint and a chicken ceasar…. and now quite toasted for boarding call.

I AM SO FUCKING EXCITED!!!!!!!! It’s pretty crazy knowing that I am getting on a plane in 45 minutes and won’t see a single person I know for a month. I cannot wait for the experiences that I am about to delve into. Stay tuned!

I am officially 1 minute into my vacation. Let the good times roll!

What a stunning shot!

Hahahaha!

I’m not sure if my absoloute adoration of this shot is because I grew up here, or if it’s because it’s so different. Either way – I love it