So, far no luck on managing to get these things posted, may have more success here on the Island. We stayed in Chau doc three days the last hotel we stayed in had a fabulous view out over rhe river where I would just sit and watch the river traffic, the toilet was amazing, it was like a throne room, a long tiled floor lead to a small stair case upon which rested the throne from which an imperious view of the minions below could be had. Vietnam is huge on package tours and if you wish to do anything other you are at the mercy of the public bus conductors who endeavour to charge you four times the correct price on things, this can easily sour your experience in the country and I think it's one of the reasons Vietnam has such a bad reputation amongst the independent travel scene.
We then headed to Rach Gia, the bus trip was eventful, there was the woman who sat at the end of our row who as the bus pulled out took out about a hundred packs of cigarettes (hero brand)all intricately bound together with an elaborate web of rubber bands, she (in full view of any passenger who wanted to observe), began strapping these around her body, two deep then popped a large blouse over the whole when she was done rendering her a much fatter woman than the one who had got on the bus, now I have no idea why or to where she was smuggling this contraband though I did comment to Glen if he wanted to begin swallowing his condoms of heroin now would seem to be the appropriate moment to begin as apparently no-body here would bat an eye at such behaviour (yes Mum I am only kidding). After all the bus was due to cross no international border (at least not while we were on board, suffice to say it was all a bit weird) The bus conductor girl did indeed try to charge us four times the correct price, we ended up paying twice the correct price (hey she's in with smugglers I'm not pushing my luck), there comes a point where you just have to let go. The bus raced along through town after town (without bathroom breaks) houses stretched the whole way pretty much the road ran along side the river and the houses strung out along the way were half on land with there rear ends hung out to dry on stilts over the river (reminding me of my increasing desire to avail myself of bathroom facilities).
No matter the size or quality of building materials used to construct some of these shacks every place has a tall elaborate aerial poking from it's roof, proving that in deed the people within may not be able to afford anything else but damn it they have t.v., the asians are mad for it I discovered (unbelievably) that the Thai people per capita are the biggest consumers of t.v. globally, I've seen Thai t.v. and much like the t.v. here it is rich with a diet of cheap home made vaudeville style entertainment and similar quality soap operas. A smattering of USA fair (the ubiquitous Jerry Bruickhiemer productions) and re-runs of Hollywood blockbuster movies.
As the bus rambled on and my bladder began to feel like it might just explode the bus paused (as it frequently did) I leapt off, and was directed into the house of some person who just has the misfortune of living next to the bus stop, very weird, I waved my hellos and thank yous' as the bus beeped out the front and I dashed through the front room, lounge and kitchen startling every family member in turn on my frenzied dash to the bathroom, it was very funny in retrospect.
After an uneventful night in Rach Gia we caught the boat to Phu Quok, Phu Quok is quite beautiful and laid back, it still hasn't attained the level of tourism that is it's due so everything is a bit basic but the beach is quite beautiful and most of the roads are dirt, the place is over populated with ridge back, blue tongued dogs and lizards (also ridged back and in some cases blue tongued). We are staying in one of the string of beach side bungalows but to my chagrin not the one with the beautiful three breaching porpoises and mermaid statues on their beach front, (this mermaid may yet make the 2007 Christmas card as something rating higher on the takk scale seems almost impossible to discover.
Despite it's still relative obscurity as a tourist destination there are a number of foreign tourists Glen thinks they are Russian I personally think they are from Urksomestan. Anyway I'll see if I can't get these posted tomorrow.
Cheers N.J.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Chau Doc 10 March
Here I am back in Vietnam, I'm actually sick as a parrot (are parrots sick because their green?) So I am on the antibiotics and trying to keep food down. I caught "the nasty" in Cambodia though, Cambodia appears so dirty and poor compared to its neighbours (with perhaps the exception of Laos).
Vietnam still impresses me with it's lush pastoral peace, the people are tall and elegant accentuated by their choice of simple elegant dress, the women don't go in for any of this coy side saddle motorbike riding they wear practical pant suits or traditional Ao-dai (which look fabulous) and are infinitely easier to get around in. Chau doc is a nice city, bigger than anticipated we caught a boat here from Phnom Penh yesterday, I love the boat rides, up through the floating villages and past everyones back yard, fascinating stuff. The food is not as good as I remember but so far I have not really been in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. Bottled water, especially the brand called "water world", includes reassuring notes on the side telling you it contains 0% Coliforms, salmonella and fecal streptococci (amongst others), so less full of shit than the Kevin Costener movie which shares it's moniker, I wonder if you have to pay extra to get such nutrients included in your beverage??!? (I think I may have got some for free in Cambodia).
When the boat docked, there were a number of little cyclo dudes who swept us away to our hotel, it always surprises me that there is still such a big industry in people powered craft, nothing makes you feel like an over priveledged fat westerner quite as much as being peddled around by a rake thin wizened white haired guy who looks old enough to be your grandad. This people powered transport has been superceeded by the motorised versions in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. At brekfast this morning we sat by the river and I watched a woman who spends all day ferrying people across the river, she must have unbelievably muscular arms, I think I would struggle just making one crossing on those hand powered craft, I'll try to include a photo.
Right I'm off to wander up the promenade and gaze at Sam mountain, catch y'all later.
The promenade was great, I loved the some what austere looking fish sculpture, in fact they really groove on sculpture here, a cow sawn in half (eat your heart out Damian Hearst) I do note that communist sculpture often appears very blockish in form but surprisingly not unpleasantly so. The local children like to fly kites along the river front and it adds to the relaxed atmosphere of the town, anyway time for dinner and to post this (hopefully).
Besos, Nikki Jayne.
Vietnam still impresses me with it's lush pastoral peace, the people are tall and elegant accentuated by their choice of simple elegant dress, the women don't go in for any of this coy side saddle motorbike riding they wear practical pant suits or traditional Ao-dai (which look fabulous) and are infinitely easier to get around in. Chau doc is a nice city, bigger than anticipated we caught a boat here from Phnom Penh yesterday, I love the boat rides, up through the floating villages and past everyones back yard, fascinating stuff. The food is not as good as I remember but so far I have not really been in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. Bottled water, especially the brand called "water world", includes reassuring notes on the side telling you it contains 0% Coliforms, salmonella and fecal streptococci (amongst others), so less full of shit than the Kevin Costener movie which shares it's moniker, I wonder if you have to pay extra to get such nutrients included in your beverage??!? (I think I may have got some for free in Cambodia).
When the boat docked, there were a number of little cyclo dudes who swept us away to our hotel, it always surprises me that there is still such a big industry in people powered craft, nothing makes you feel like an over priveledged fat westerner quite as much as being peddled around by a rake thin wizened white haired guy who looks old enough to be your grandad. This people powered transport has been superceeded by the motorised versions in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. At brekfast this morning we sat by the river and I watched a woman who spends all day ferrying people across the river, she must have unbelievably muscular arms, I think I would struggle just making one crossing on those hand powered craft, I'll try to include a photo.
Right I'm off to wander up the promenade and gaze at Sam mountain, catch y'all later.
The promenade was great, I loved the some what austere looking fish sculpture, in fact they really groove on sculpture here, a cow sawn in half (eat your heart out Damian Hearst) I do note that communist sculpture often appears very blockish in form but surprisingly not unpleasantly so. The local children like to fly kites along the river front and it adds to the relaxed atmosphere of the town, anyway time for dinner and to post this (hopefully).
Besos, Nikki Jayne.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Schools out for summer
My god a month since I last posted (I'm not dead, well at least I don't think so).
"Schools out for summer" (yay).
Man was that teaching gig hard bloody work, and strange! the characters who teach English in foreign climes are a weird ecclectic bunch to say the least (I must write some bad fiction using some of these guys). Yes the year is over (thank god) and no I haven't decided what to do next year yet, I am going to have a holiday and recover, I must say I don't particularly like teaching. (the actual classes are fine but the preparation and politics is god awful). I think it's just too many personalities and odds on someone is going to be having a bad day, it's not a bad means to an end kind of job (ie: it makes travelling easy) but not something I plan to make a career out of (much to my boss's chagrin he adores me and wants me to stay).
The partying is wild at the moment as so many people are moving on and goodbyes all around. So the bars of Bangkok are seeing a lot of us. I must say many of the bars here are completely uninspired, they figure if they turn the lights down low enough people will sit in any old environment as long as the alcohol is cheap enough, sadly they appear to be right as epitomised by the mats they just roll out along the filthy footpaths of Khao san rd after dark and are always packed with back packers drinking whisky and soda through straws out of communal buckets. As you can gather from my tone I tend to demand slightly more from my surrounds (hey a stool at least guys it's too damn close to the rats down there on the ground) I prefer a margarita even if it does come in a plastic cup and why they bother to encrust the edge with salt and then serve it with a straw strikes me as weird.
I went to the New zealand embassy the other day (wow did my accent ever sound like that?) they surprisingly (I thought) handed me Glen's two passports more or less without demanding id very strange, I kept thrusting my own passport at them but they really didn't seem that interested. The new New Zealand passports have a big nasty back page with a "chip" inside and are only valid for five years (my current passport is not due to expire till 2013 though I believe they won't let you into the states with an old style passport anymore. They still have that very distinct new passport smell though, it's almost but not quite as good as the new book smell.
I fly to Cambodia in a few days, I'm kind of worried about crossing the border with not one but three passports on me (of which only one is my own) I'm not sure that it is entirely legal to carry someone else's passport across international borders and I wonder if the new chips will make the thing beep and I will be spending my birthday in a prison cell in Sth east Asia. (that is just a joke really).
Other things I have done since last I wrote included Chinese new year (year of the pig) apparently extremely lucky for us goaty types, chinatown was packed and crazy as usual but I still managed to bump into one of the guys I work with (how weird is that), there are literally thousands of people in this city and I must know only about half a dozen and yet this is not the first time I have just randomly bumped into someone I know in a completely different part of the city.
Saw a very young girl (maybe 9 or 10) with a t.shirt with extremely inappropriate english language on it, I nearly told her parents that I thought the t.shirt was not a good idea it was a promotion for Rancid (a punk band) I'm sure the parents wouldn't want to know their daughters shirt told mother fuckers to fuck off (then again maybe they felt it was an appropriate warning). I was at Chatuchak market again today and decided to once again try some new weird looking drink, it looked invitingly like raspberry kool aid but tasted like sweet tears, weird.
I packed the house and am storing all my stuff at the house of one of my colleagues I can't believe I have collected so much stuff in a year, what on earth am I going to do with it all (not to mention all the resources I have accumulated for teaching (In just one year) just like my Mother I couldn't bare to throw them out, if I decide not to return to teaching I will just have to be brutal.
Basil and Kevin have been given away to good homes. So I guess it is the end of the Mickey mouse factory for me, (though initially cynical I now admit the idea of making your school look like disneyland to encourage kids to want to go to it is in deed a stroke of genius).
If I had been anything like a good correspondent I could write much more about the exciting adventures I've been up to but honestly I can't remember them now.
Anyway I am now ceasing to make sense, I will write from Cambodia.
Love Nikki Jayne.
"Schools out for summer" (yay).
Man was that teaching gig hard bloody work, and strange! the characters who teach English in foreign climes are a weird ecclectic bunch to say the least (I must write some bad fiction using some of these guys). Yes the year is over (thank god) and no I haven't decided what to do next year yet, I am going to have a holiday and recover, I must say I don't particularly like teaching. (the actual classes are fine but the preparation and politics is god awful). I think it's just too many personalities and odds on someone is going to be having a bad day, it's not a bad means to an end kind of job (ie: it makes travelling easy) but not something I plan to make a career out of (much to my boss's chagrin he adores me and wants me to stay).
The partying is wild at the moment as so many people are moving on and goodbyes all around. So the bars of Bangkok are seeing a lot of us. I must say many of the bars here are completely uninspired, they figure if they turn the lights down low enough people will sit in any old environment as long as the alcohol is cheap enough, sadly they appear to be right as epitomised by the mats they just roll out along the filthy footpaths of Khao san rd after dark and are always packed with back packers drinking whisky and soda through straws out of communal buckets. As you can gather from my tone I tend to demand slightly more from my surrounds (hey a stool at least guys it's too damn close to the rats down there on the ground) I prefer a margarita even if it does come in a plastic cup and why they bother to encrust the edge with salt and then serve it with a straw strikes me as weird.
I went to the New zealand embassy the other day (wow did my accent ever sound like that?) they surprisingly (I thought) handed me Glen's two passports more or less without demanding id very strange, I kept thrusting my own passport at them but they really didn't seem that interested. The new New Zealand passports have a big nasty back page with a "chip" inside and are only valid for five years (my current passport is not due to expire till 2013 though I believe they won't let you into the states with an old style passport anymore. They still have that very distinct new passport smell though, it's almost but not quite as good as the new book smell.
I fly to Cambodia in a few days, I'm kind of worried about crossing the border with not one but three passports on me (of which only one is my own) I'm not sure that it is entirely legal to carry someone else's passport across international borders and I wonder if the new chips will make the thing beep and I will be spending my birthday in a prison cell in Sth east Asia. (that is just a joke really).
Other things I have done since last I wrote included Chinese new year (year of the pig) apparently extremely lucky for us goaty types, chinatown was packed and crazy as usual but I still managed to bump into one of the guys I work with (how weird is that), there are literally thousands of people in this city and I must know only about half a dozen and yet this is not the first time I have just randomly bumped into someone I know in a completely different part of the city.
Saw a very young girl (maybe 9 or 10) with a t.shirt with extremely inappropriate english language on it, I nearly told her parents that I thought the t.shirt was not a good idea it was a promotion for Rancid (a punk band) I'm sure the parents wouldn't want to know their daughters shirt told mother fuckers to fuck off (then again maybe they felt it was an appropriate warning). I was at Chatuchak market again today and decided to once again try some new weird looking drink, it looked invitingly like raspberry kool aid but tasted like sweet tears, weird.
I packed the house and am storing all my stuff at the house of one of my colleagues I can't believe I have collected so much stuff in a year, what on earth am I going to do with it all (not to mention all the resources I have accumulated for teaching (In just one year) just like my Mother I couldn't bare to throw them out, if I decide not to return to teaching I will just have to be brutal.
Basil and Kevin have been given away to good homes. So I guess it is the end of the Mickey mouse factory for me, (though initially cynical I now admit the idea of making your school look like disneyland to encourage kids to want to go to it is in deed a stroke of genius).
If I had been anything like a good correspondent I could write much more about the exciting adventures I've been up to but honestly I can't remember them now.
Anyway I am now ceasing to make sense, I will write from Cambodia.
Love Nikki Jayne.
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