I'm back:)

... So I've got some catching up to do:) ... and I've got 50 minutes to commit to you guys before I meet my friends to see something called Water Puppetry (no, I don't know what that is either) in Honoi... so I will try in earnest to produce something for you now...

Last time we spoke (that's 'we' as in, 'whoever is reading this thing) properly I was in Laos... well now I'm in Vietnam... the countries are really quite different, like Vietnam is a couple of rungs up the social ladder to Laos (that doesn't necessarily mean better)... My journey in highlighted the difference in bus form... my bus to Vinh in Vietnam from Phonsavan in Laos was a crappy seated number which seemed to be used both for public transport and international import/export (as soon as we arrived in the first town in Vietnam we dropped off like 1000 rugs to a shop)... the bus in Vietnam was actually approching justification for the term 'sleeper-bus'... you could lay horizontal and actually sleep:) ... but then again, Vietnam has another set-back to compensate for the comfort provided by the bus quality... the F***ing horns on the cars... you seem to honk people for everything over here... and horns are agressive... they make me feel angry... that is my new discovery... ...

... the bus journey here was a long one because an overturned truck of sweetcorn blocked the mountain road, so just a little 9 hour delay (but I think I've already mentioned that)... oh yes, I didn't mention the Plain of Jars in Laos... I went to this place because it broke up a potential 36 hour-ish bus journey between Vang Vieng (Laos) and Hanoi (Vietnam) (but it actually turned out to be about a 36 hour journey because of the sweetcorn based delay anyway (doh!))... it is just this place with loads of sites with ancient stone jars (see earlier photo)... they don't know why they are there... the legend is that Laos used to be inhabited by giants who drunk Lao-Lao (whisky) from the jars and then throw them upon the group... a far more plausible explanation is that they are old-school tomb stones as some French bird found human remains under some... but I'll let you decide... ...

... When I arrived in Phonsavan there was no rooms avaliable... I was panicing... it turned out to be some kind of ethnic new year and so the whole town was booked out... I was beginning to worry that I'd have to book to sleep on some hostel floor but then a man from what looked like a shop said, "You come with me." ... and then led me to a lovley family run guest house behind their shop which was a fifth of the price of the only other avaliable room in town (yay!) ... there I met some German totti (I'm trying to use every word I can to describe a women in this post... sorry if people find it offensive, I only mean jest)... I forget her name (as one so often does with random totti;) but she was nice and we took a tour to the jars together and shared meals in this strange kind of Ghost town (despite the place being apparently booked out because of some festival) ... When I left her and said good bye, I found it strange but didn't get her facebook contact details... I will never see her again for sure... but even so, there was something unusual about saying goodbye in such a final way... we have social networking and facebook etc almost literally (but not actually literally) dripping off our face these days... goodbyes are not so important because someone we met for two days is now a facebook friend and we see whenever they put a random update on facebook (which is especially random if the updates are in another language) ... so it was kind of nice to be like, 'it's nice to have met you, but why the pretense of random friendship' (OK, so if anyone I've met travelling who I have added after a very transient-friendship will now thing, 'well screw you then')... but anyway, it was just a (probably pointless) point...

... In Hanoi I got a tour to go for 3 days to Howlong (certianly the wrong spelling) bay... I spent one day on a boat among this bay of thosands of islands which included water villages where the people live on floating houses and never step on land (to the extent that they need floating schools and hospitals (we had to kayak to visit these villages... and very nicley my friend Matt (an actual person not me talking about myself in third person) pondered, 'Where do they go to the toilet?' as I was splashing around in the village... the second day we spent on an island owned by the tour company... just us and the staff, no-one else... I booked with a 'youthful' company and so experienced the nearest I ever had to an 18-30s holiday... needless to say, I didn't feel so rosy yesterday after it finished (I became a little worried when, during my hangover, I felt like I was going to fall off my chair... maybe I'd just spent too long on a boat?) ... I met some great people like Matt from NZ (hopefully I will visit him in Wellington when I am there), Kay, a bit of skirt (sorry) from London, Marchya, some tail-feather (even I'm cringing) from Holland, Paul from Oz... and so on and so forth... it was good but I probably wouldn't do it again... a bit too much party for me... but still good:) ... When we went swimming in the evening on the island I noticed something super-cool (yes, super-cool;)... there was some plankton or alge in the water which as a defense mechanism flashing flourescently to warm off predators... so when you run your hand through the water, they sparkeled green in the water in the wake of your hand... it's kind of like what I think it would look like if a wizard waved (... hummm...) ... also on the island we did water sports and I had a go at Ubing (like in an inflatable U behind a speed boat getting pulled about)... it was fun but a bit scary for me... you would get thrown off and into the water with some force... once, with so much force that my shorts feel off (honestly... I know that sounds more like an excuse that wouldn't stand up in court!) (Jesus... I think that 18-30's type thing has turned me into some thuggish, rough-talking scoundrel... from now on I'll only use lovely words to describe women to make up for my poor form in this post)

... so yesterday I slept and today I've enjoyed beautiful sobriety while visiting dead-Ho Chi Min (if only I'd visited Chairman Mao, then I'd have the whole set of dead people with Lenin in the mix... it was kind of surreal today getting led about by guards in white with Bayonettes to visit some dead guy) and visited the history museam for Vietnam ( a bit boring really!) ... but now I need to go to see these water puppets with Matt NZ, David (a cool Irish lad... good banter with him about English people, but I'm still pretty sure he doesn't like us!), and Kay (the lovely lady (much better:) from London)... tomorrow I get the bus down the coast to Hue... let's see what I find there:)

I miss you all... keep well... love from Matt:)