Saturday, October 29, 2011

The traffic in vietnam

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As soon as I got in the car from the airport I was greeted with this crazy traffic

YouTube Video

10 minutes after they stopped laughing at me for recording touristy video the traffic got 100 times worse.

The use their indicators only when they feel like it, scooters dodge between traffic using their hands to buffer between cars.

The Side of the road you choose to drive on depends on if oncoming traffic feels threatened by your horn or not.

All this considered I love driving around on Tuyets scooter. She Directs and I drive. All I got to do is not die as try to avoid all the rocks and potholes on the road.

I went to the markets the other day to have a look around but aside for some gift ideas I think I might wait until we get into Saigon to some shopping.

The water you want to be drinking when you get here should look something like this




Note the fact that when you open the lid the seal is unbroken and it has wrapping around the lid to show it hasn't been tampered with. And you drink a shit fuck ton of water over here.

When the stores are closed and there is no water to be found it isn't too bad because Tuyet's mum boils water and chucks it in the fridge. It still feels like it has a weird taste but that's probably just because it is stale.

Pho.... Pho for breakfast. It's weird. And I don't usually finish it. Pho just doesn't seen like a breakfast food. But meh, adapt.

Lunch is usually some type of rice or noodle with some sort of meat.

My favourite meal of the day is dinner. That's probably because we keep going back for ban sow. Or something like that. It's the same stuff that Nat's mum makes. It tastes awesome.

I also love the way they make their coffee here. It's always ice coffee. I'll get a video of it next time and slap it up here.

Tuyet's dad keeps asking for arm wrestles.... He has started using two hands... I still win. LOL but it's all good fun. He also likes to take me drinking and when we drink we have this squid that he makes me dip in chili sauce (everything here has chili or some sort of spice). And then I found out that I was drinking some alcohol that he had made himself (fuck it was strong. And they drink their whiskey straight here) using fermented seahorses and some other shit... He then told me (mimed and got Tuyet to translate) that it's healthy for you but has a Viagra like effect... After we had been drinking -_-.

Google translate on my iPhone has helped a lot. And Tuyet has been teaching me more and more Vietnamese. Body language and drawing has also played a part in getting along here.




Tuyet's dad took me to this house full of women sowing embroidery onto material... I don't know why he took me but when I walked in the made a lot of noise, used all 3-6 of the English phrases they knew at me and then stared and asked questions. People here aren't used to seeing white people... And I'm too tall for this place. Keep hitting my head on shit.

Don't drink the "Pepsi" here. I did... It's not pepsi... And it was quite obviously rebottled. But even after all the food I've eaten and shit I've drank I haven't got sick yet. Knocking on wood.

Tomorrow the beach. Today... Chilling out. Might see if I can head down to one of the market places.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Vietnam

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The flight from Australia

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The airline I flew with.



The route we took. No stops, just one uncomfortable ride.


This is how the time difference works.


Where we were when I discovered this hahaha.

That'll do. BlogPress is fucking up on me so I have to blog in tiny posts.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Necessity for Vietnam

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Water... Dear god I need more water!

Especially for someone as fat as me. Today is probably going to be the hottest day. Then again the shock of that first step outside the airport was pretty horrific.

I have a headache at the moment, I think it's because I haven't had too much water today.




Just a dude rocking the old ox and cart amongst all the scooters driving so crazily on the road.

This place is crazy. But that's what I like about it. It's so different from Australia.

I'm pretty sure they use their horns over here instead of their indicators.

But I must have a death wish because I've been going around riding bitch on the back of Tuyets scooter only to find out today that she doesn't have a license to drive here either LOL!

I understand where the stereotype comes from.

They don't have iPhone sims here so Tuyet just cut the one I'm using now to fit... And it worked hahaha.

I went with Tuyet to visit her grandmother yesterday. Literally had to bend myself in half to walk in her place.

Most of the dogs don't like me here, they remind me of Nat's fat dog except these are all skinny and bigger. But they're also scared of me so that's good.

Finally got some 3G hahaha. $5 for 1gb mwuhahahahaha. And I got a new iPhone case for like $1.50. Those are the Aussie prices. I don't know how much dong it was. Hehehe dong.

I'm gonna post this now and write more later.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone... In VIETNAM bitches!!!

Location:Vietnam