The Uk

What is it a English man misses most about England? In my case it was Fish and chips, the first night home I had to get myself a proper drink and some of the greasiest and most vinegar soaked fish and chips I could find.

These are some pictures of my new tourist view of the UK.

Last night in Vietnam

My last night in Vietnam I pulled my moped to the side of the road near a fishing village and watched the sun go down with tourists and locals alike. It was an amazing place with the fishing boats still built in the traditional style bobbing in the sea and the chatter of five different languages all mixed into one. A nice way to end.

(also sorry about all the spelling mistakes, I got lazy about that.)

Vietnam goes for a swimin

Forget Thailand, poor old Vietnam seems to be getting the worst flooding in south east asia.

The first full day in Hue was flooded up to my knees but the second day, after a night of rain was much higher.

The bus I was supposed to catch south was canceled so I booked a flight just minutes before it becoming fully booked.

ha noi

Couple of random pics of the crazy city.

Some pics of the village,
Top: Little kids hunting tourists trying to get them to buy bracelets, everybody said no to them but I wanted one, after I bought one they went around everyone else again one by one until they had all bought at least one bracelet, very skilled and cunning, using there small eyes and pleading voices to pry open the visitors wallet.
Middle: No communist country would be complete without the propaganda style of poster, this one is about family or something I never could get the guide to translate it properly.
Bottom: by the river that runs runs down the whole village, complete with beautiful location, fruit trees, rice fields and local family fishing.

The Village.

For a small amount of money we book a 12 hour sleeper train, a bus and hire a guide to take us over rice fields, mountains and streams 3 hours untill we reach her village where we stay the night with locals of the village. Its not quite what I expected, the village was spread out along a huge valley which went much further than I ever saw and with a total of 400 houses with at least three inhabitents each, the population was huge. They had two schools, shops selling coke, sweets and beer as well as restaurants (in a loose sense of the word) which had a variety of meals. Along with shops selling 'hand made' bags and carvings which I never figured out if was actualy hand made or if this was just somthing said to make me spend my tourist money (which I did not).
Some things where as expected, unmaintained swing bridges and wooden hand made buildings and farm yards as well as the locals choice of cloths (see pic).
but all in all an amazing trip even when the ladys who had walked with us and made freinds with us the whole way to the village suddenly turned into mobile shops wanting to sell us bags, braclets or pillowcases and got affended when I said no.

Good morning Vietnam

Its been on the list of places to visit for a few years and so far it has not disappointed, I have not checked this fact but I was told that ha noi is the densist populated city in the world, Weather this is true or not it does not change the fact that while walking around the city for the first time you would be forgiven for curling up into a little ball and never moving again. as the traffic is an unforgiving swarm of motorbikes, mopeds taxis, bikes, street venders on wheels and little old ladys trying to sell everything from fake ray bans to doughnuts on a stick.
It takes a day to become one with the flowing mess of traffic or motors and humans but once you have figured out the fluidness of the traffic you become one with the grand machine that does not obey traffic lights, road sighns or even pedestrian crossing. The general ruel is if there is space go for it.

Vietnam

(sorry, picture quality still sucks)

what to do on the road? Along with getting lost a few times and ending up in a village with a scooter that would not start and a guy who wore nothing but warn out jean shorts with hair down to his ankles that had not been washed in years, who liked to stare and hold his long weapon looking thing up high while walking in my direction. I also climbed 2000 stares to the top of tiger cave, a buddhist temple in the middle of the forest, where, at the top I was greeted by a 40 foot budder who overlooked amazing views of the country.

On The Road Again.

For the last full day in Thailand it was time to hit the road. I rented a fast old scooter and hit the road, I was not far until I realised that there was no fuel sitting in the tank. Luckily there was a gangster old lady only about 5 Min's down the road who seemed to only sit and wait for red nosed happy tourists with there brand new scooter looking to fill the tank with fuel that was far more expensive than that in the city. But when the fuel station was as cool as this one, who cares about an extra 10 cents a liter.

The Beach

Took a all day boat trip to phi phi island also known as the place were they filmed the beach, (I could choose between this or the James bond island- the man with the golden gun) unfortunately Hollywood lies had fooled me into thinking this would be a beautiful lonely spot with waterfalls but tho it was beautiful it was also packed with tourists which took away from the beauty of the place. But anyway was a good day, saw monkeys and got drenched in rain and then snorkeled with topical fish. Not bad for 1100 Bhat.

April

Street food is cheap and yummy.

My place

Flood water

I was staying outside the main city so managed to avoid the worst of the flooding (which comes at night as the sea level rises) but during the day while I walk around Bangkok I see more than I want to see of the flood waters. Everywhere I look there are sandbags around shops and cement around the government buildings, the unfortunate shops that cant afford protection against the water remain as normal and will stand no chance when the main flood comes.

The water is coming from the north from the rainforest and mountains, a local man tells me, and is making its way down the country to the sea, the government is trying hard to divert most the water away from the capital but the newspapers are telling the residence to brace for the worst.

These are a few pics I took of the flood water, its the worst I have seen first hand but Ive heard the worst is yet to come.

Thailand

After a five second free fall on board the Air Asia plane which nearly turned my seat brown I nearly kissed the ground when I finally stepped off and at that moment I vowed never to fly Air Asia again.
The temperature was 32 deg and I had no real clue were to go. I headed for the subway (mrt station) and bought a ticket to a area I thought might have a hotel, after strolling through back alleys filled with staring locals I found a beautiful hotel for 700 bath a night (around $30nzd or £15 ukp), I would say at least a three star, I showered using the complementry shower gells and fluffy towels and by the time I had finished the weather had changed from white cloud during day to rain, thunder and night.
I turned on the tv (36inch widscreen plasma) to see the news, the words I could not understand but the pictures spoke for themselves. The city I had just walked through was in the firing line of the worst floods the country has ever seen.

A bad workman

Sorry about the picture quality. I lost my last camera (which makes i think five or six since I got to New Zealand. im using aprils camera but it wont take pictures in the dark and its really poor quality. But they do say a bad workman always blames his tools.