Hoi An

Welcome yo Hoi An! (In the virtual world, at least). Let me describe Hoi An to you.
It's a fairly small town on the waterside. The streets have a certain sameness - bumpy paving, mud, street vendors, cafes and tailors - so it's very easy to get lost. I am managing by turning right at the karaoke place with the neon sign and I get a little stuck when they turn off the light! But luckily it's not very big so if you do get lost you keep on wandering aimlessly until you see something you remember. Like a small roadside petrol pump for the endless stream of bikes, or the ATM with airconditioning....
Hoi An is known for its tailors and I spent much of the bus journey here thinking "resist, resist" but I just didn't. There is no plainer way to put it. I will soon be the proud owner of custom made leather boots, tailored pants and a jacket, purchased for a ridiculously small price, considering. Luckily there are some fellow Melbourne-ites on my tour so I will ship it all home... funnily enough I don't fancy carrying boots I won't wear all around Egypt! The tailors are quite amazing. You sit and look through a catalogue featuring a whole range of pictures from magazines, or items they have made in the past. You select, every part of your anatomy is measured (I am glad I don't speakVietnamese, I think, I don't want to know what the two girls who measured me were saying!) and you are photographed in a booth from various angles.
Anyway, must go, on my way to a cooking class!

Royal dinners and motorbikes

Hello all
The last night and day have been pretty fantastic. Last night we had a royal feast where we dressed up in traditional costumes. The food was beautiful. I don't mean that from a taste point of view predominantly, though it was fairly tasty, more from an aesthetic point of view! Think birds carved out of carrots, flowers, hens carved from tomatoes and beautiful dumplings made to look like the feathers in a peacock's tail. Too pretty to eat, really! But eat we did, all seven or so courses. Lovely tasty beef rolls, spring rolls, soup, chicken in broth, coconut jelly... gah! Really extremely full afterwards. Perhaps I won't come back from the trip skinny!!!
As for the costumes.. i was a concubine (yes Matt, I know what you're thinking) and wore a pink robe with a red headpiece. It should have been pink but I have a frighteningly large head, even for a westerner (apparently!) The bloody thing was still a little small and flopped alarmingly toward my meal every time I nodded. Makes for more graceful eating I suppose!
This morning we went on a dragon boat and a motor bike tour of Hue, which was fab! :)) A little bit of grit between the teeth never hurt anyone, now, did it!?!! (don't worry, I didn't fall on my face, just the kind of grit that eventuates when sweat, sunscreen, wind and pollution collide, mmmm). I also didn't actually steer the motorbike Mum, so don't stress about that. And I wore a helmet. And I have certainly made it back alive!! lol
We toured all the tiny backroads of Hue, waved at children, visited some pagodas and temples. It ended at an orphanage, which was the stuff my nightmares are made of. I am going to send them books when I get home (dual language Vietnamese and English of course). I didn't cry, but wanted to... think beds pressed together with no mattresses or toys, children with scabs looking after smaller children, it was horrible. But good to see, I think. That was apparently one of the nicer ones. I bought them a couple of little toys so I guess that's a start. You can understand the likes of Madonna wanting to take them home.
Anyway, free internet has queue and I really need to go and buy some (more) water.
Love lots
D x x

Hue (and filling in some of the missing bits from previous posts)

Well, I'm now in Hue, which we reached via train (14 hours, give or take). The train ride was very uninteresting, but in some ways that's a good thing. Fell asleep very early, there is something about trains that makes me sleepy....

So not much to tell today, but I will hopefully have more to tell tomorrow evening that's interesting!!! We have a couple of nice activities planned in Hue, so there are sure to be some more embarassing photos I can share with the world very soon :)

As I ran out of time last time I didn't tell you about the water puppets in Hanoi. So here goes. We left the hotel in cyclos. For anyone who doesn't know what a cyclo is, it's a small bike with a little person-carrier on the bike (see left). Mine was driven by a man who was so old and slender I really wished that I'd dieted for a year before I inflicted myself upon him. Poor bugger was gasping and wheezing, and had to hop off every now and then to push the bike. Now that's a way to make a gal feel good about herself! lol I almost felt like offering to peddle him, but who wants to brave THAT traffic! Not this little black duck, that's for sure and certain!!!

After driving around the city for a hour or so we reached a theatre. Inside the theatre was a mock temple and in front of that was a water stage. Out of the water popped the most gorgeous wooden puppets, mainpulated by actors hiding behind a bamboo screen (wearing gumboots, it turned out) I really don't have much of an idea what the show was about, to be completely honest with you, but the puppets were beautiful. Dragons that spat fire, dancing phoenixes, fairies, warriors, a farmer and his wife... great!

So, is anyone actually reading this? No followers, no comments :(( c'mon guys, make me feel loved, even if it's just one little teeny weeny comment....

x x

Halong Bay, water puppets and seafood....

to be
,
Hey again all,
So I am back from Halong bay after a night on a boat! Can I just please say at this point OMG it was THE MOST AMAZING couple of days! Soooooo much better than I expected! To be honest, when I read that we were heading for Halong bay to spend the night on a boat, I had imagined pretty basic accomodation: smelly loos, sleeping in tiny short uncomfy beds, grilled fish slapped onto a plate... that type of thing. Well, let me tell you what eventuated....
First of all, we reached Halong Bay (stunning) and were lead to a 1940s style (I think) old wooden boat, and were greeted by a smiling man with a silver tray of hot towels (!) We were then lead to a simply deluxe restaurant with lovely silverware and, of all things, white tablecloths! You could have knocked me over with a feather. It was so very lovely. We were served in the formal fashion with a tasteful repast of fresh cooked prawns (caught mere metres away, as we afterwards found out) fresh spring rolls, etc. It was so very lovely. And our rooms were great! That afternoon we visited the Amazing Cave where our guide spent a great deal of time pointing out very subjective objects in the stalagmites/tites (I can never remember which is which). It went something like this:
"see that one? It is a baby lion, see the nose and the hair"
Group response, "hmmm, yes of course" (most of us faking it with impugnity). It was very beautiful, probably not the highlight though. I then decided that I was not going to spare the world the sight of my white thighs and go for a swim... which was just fab. How many people can say that they have floated in between islands in a bay in Vietnam!!!! It was the most spectacular scenery, probably up there with the best I have ever seen.
Fish dinner was spec-tac-ular, more amazing seafood and wine.... mmmmmmm. Literally the best meal I have every eaten. Massive prawns, baby limes, crayfish type thingies, crabs, fish cakes, mmmmmmmmm. I don't think, somehow, I'm going to be losing much weight this trip!
Anyway, I was going to write about the water puppets but I think I need
to be polite and let someone else have a go at the free Internet!
Love,
D x x

Hanoi, Vietam

Well, hello all! I am finally actually blogging from outside the country! And my camera upload actually worked! Minor miracles, all!
So, at the moment I'm in Hanoi, having met up with my tour group yesterday. A great variety of people, though predominantly a bunch of Aussies, which is no particular surprise. I am sharing a room with a lady who is exactly one year younger than my mother (!) and at the moment I am using one of the most FAB things in the whole wide world - free Internet!
Now I am completely obsessed by food, so I hope everyone will forgive me if I tell you what I'm eating, just 'cos I find it fascinating. Last night we went to what I would describe as the Vietnamese version of Jamie Oliver's restaurant - the one for street kids (I can't remember the name of the series but you know the one I mean!) Effectively it does the same thing. So food was very expensive, but it was extra tasty and you got to feel very self-righteous and noble for eating there. Yay on both fronts. I had a claypot with pork and, of all things, lentils. Tasty! Breakfast was included (yay again) and I went traditional and had a deeee-licious bowl of pho (noodle soup), mmmmm. And for lunch we had a plate of Vietnamese noodles and veges which cost around $2 Australian. Noodles are great :))
Spent much of the day today schlepping around the typical Asian tourist stuff shops. Incredible how you can see the same souvenirs from one side of Asia to the other! And we saw the corpse of Uncle Ho, as our guide describes him - otherwise knows as Ho Chi Minh. Eerily similar to seeing the body of Mao in China, hey to be a philistine about the whole thing, seen one old dead guy, seen 'em all...!!! lol
So some impressions of Hanoi. for you.. very much a part of Asia with ten billion bicycles that somehow manage not to run you over in the street, lovely skinny buildings in the French style that are only slightly wider than your average phone box yet stand five stories high, people crouched over tending weeds with very small scissors and traditional hats, friendly people, confusing winding streets, insane quantities of all sorts of stuff from chickens to bonsai somehow packed onto bikes (see above piccy of balloons, there's a chick riding that bike under there somewhere, believe it or not!)... I love Asia!
Anyway, I should probably stop hogging the free internet and go. We're off to see the water puppets tonight!
x x Donna

it's amazing how much you can achieve online in 20 minutes...

How much do I love the information age... some days! At the airport at the moment with one minute to go, so this will be quick! I have managed to check on all sorts of things in my 20 minutes so am feeling rather proud of myself. And not so nervous any more! on to Vietnam!
Love, Donna

Hello!

Well, hello everyone and for those of you who have managed to stumble here with very little idea as to what a blog is, yay you! Don't stress, there's no pressure to do anything once you get to this blog other than read it. A blog is like a diary that I can show the world, fitting in with the current trend of self disclosure and communication/interaction ad nauseum (twitter, anyone? facebook? linked in? myspace, meebo, MSN? gah!!!) If blog readers feel inclined they can log in (you will need to create an account) and leave comments, but for all you blog-virgins I won't expect it! Email me instead if you feel the urge.
So I leave on Wednesday - technically - but in reality I fly out in the small hours so it's really tomorrow (Tuesday!) In some ways the arrival of this trip has dragged and in others stormed ahead, so it's kind of odd that it's finally here. I also FINALLY feel like I'm on holidays. I caught myself emailing journal articles to my supervisor last week. Now if THAT is not a sign that I need a holiday, I don't know what is!! lol
So not much left to do now other than a bit of cleaning in honour of my lovely house sitter (thank you Gabby, take care of Mo =^.,.^ =), collecting money, buying obvious displays of my nationality (yes Mum) in the form of ghastly plastic Aussie luggage labels and the like. This whole week has felt like one long string of errands interspersed with online scrabble games (tsk tsk!)
Anyway, have to go, plumber is here! Keep your fingers crossed for a healthy hot water service...
x x x Donna