30 June 2005
"The best place to grab a fistfull of dong late at night"
How long do you think it took the Lonely Planet writer to think that literary gem up? That has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but we wanted to include it anyway. After watching the Lions suck it up against the All Blacks (and watching it snow, thank god we did not go to New Zealand - have fun Johnson) we went to the Vietnameese Water Puppet Show. Yes, we are experiencing the fullest range of culture here: from monstorous men running around stomping eachother to delicate wooden figurines planting rice in water. It was actually pretty impressive and also on display was the rare (I wish) feral Japaneese package tourist - quite a sight to see!
The next day we headed off to the Perfume Pagoda. It smelled really bad. Actually, I smelled really bad after climbing 4km in 36 degree heat (thats celsius) and 98.99% humidity. I sweat out enough to water an entire rice paddie. As soon as we can accurately capture this on film, we'll post it. The Pagoda features a huge cave at the top that has a stereotypical rock stairway leading through the jungle, flanked by prayer flags and people selling water, snake wine and naked baby figurines (the three staples of Buddhism I am told). The main temple area was deserted (apparently no one else was stupid enough to go out in the heat, though to our credit we did buy awesome hats to protect ourselves) so that made it really nice to explore. There was an acient swastika which was pretty interesting to see. The most interesting part were the other backpackers we met including the three guys who had travelled through russia, mongolia and china to get to Vietnam. They were looking forward to their "short" 88 hours on the train in Vietnam and Thailand.
That night we saw what passes as sex education in Vietnam. They erected (haha) a stage in the middle of a road and put on a performance supposedly benefiting HIV/AIDS. Naturally it included an army man beating up three kids, two gymanists supporting eachother from their mouths fifteen feet above the stage, a guy jumping across seven kids and karate chopping a board, two gay jugglers juggling and switching clothes at the same time, a girl breaking bricks with her head and a man holding three boys in various posititions. Apparently the message was if you see AIDS, use your ninja skills to beat it up or do some sort of crazy acrobatics to confuse it and escape. More impressively, the Vietnameese "forgot" to close down the street. So all these people just stopped their motorbikes (yeah, i was surprised they had brakes) in the middle of the road forcing the bus drivers to physically push people out of the way from their windows. Simple incredible.
We're in Hoi An now, had a good trip to Ha Long Bay (pictures and info soon) and will be down to Nha Trang in a few days. Any bets on whether Ed finishes his thesis on our trek?
Same Same But Different
Steve (and Ed, except he is sleeping)
The next day we headed off to the Perfume Pagoda. It smelled really bad. Actually, I smelled really bad after climbing 4km in 36 degree heat (thats celsius) and 98.99% humidity. I sweat out enough to water an entire rice paddie. As soon as we can accurately capture this on film, we'll post it. The Pagoda features a huge cave at the top that has a stereotypical rock stairway leading through the jungle, flanked by prayer flags and people selling water, snake wine and naked baby figurines (the three staples of Buddhism I am told). The main temple area was deserted (apparently no one else was stupid enough to go out in the heat, though to our credit we did buy awesome hats to protect ourselves) so that made it really nice to explore. There was an acient swastika which was pretty interesting to see. The most interesting part were the other backpackers we met including the three guys who had travelled through russia, mongolia and china to get to Vietnam. They were looking forward to their "short" 88 hours on the train in Vietnam and Thailand.
That night we saw what passes as sex education in Vietnam. They erected (haha) a stage in the middle of a road and put on a performance supposedly benefiting HIV/AIDS. Naturally it included an army man beating up three kids, two gymanists supporting eachother from their mouths fifteen feet above the stage, a guy jumping across seven kids and karate chopping a board, two gay jugglers juggling and switching clothes at the same time, a girl breaking bricks with her head and a man holding three boys in various posititions. Apparently the message was if you see AIDS, use your ninja skills to beat it up or do some sort of crazy acrobatics to confuse it and escape. More impressively, the Vietnameese "forgot" to close down the street. So all these people just stopped their motorbikes (yeah, i was surprised they had brakes) in the middle of the road forcing the bus drivers to physically push people out of the way from their windows. Simple incredible.
We're in Hoi An now, had a good trip to Ha Long Bay (pictures and info soon) and will be down to Nha Trang in a few days. Any bets on whether Ed finishes his thesis on our trek?
Same Same But Different
Steve (and Ed, except he is sleeping)
