movement

flight to Hue on thursday booked; then overland to Hanoi from where I will fly back to Saigon about a week later...

one million dong!

some dude was just in this internet cafe waving a floppy disk and saying that yesterday it worked in one of the machines and now it was corrupted, and that there was 900000 dong worth of data on the disk... sucker!

india

rough india plan something like 1 week each place:
delhi->calcutta->madras->kerala->goa->bombay->delhi

schedule

this is approximate schedule for next few months

now	Vietnam
September-October	India
last week of October	Singapore
November-December	Commonwealth of Australia
January-early Feb	New Zealand
Late Feb-Late April	USA: California (sud/nord); Chicago; New York

its grim up north

MTV Asia VJ Denise refers (on air not web) to Britney Spear's forthcoming baby as to be named after "a small village in England" (headline news: Changes to some bin collections for the bank holiday (and please note these changes are not reflected in bin collections online))... don't they know that it is England's newest city?!

i want to ride my tricycle

Ended up being peddled around the streets of Sai Gon in some tricycle taxi where I (as passenger) was placed in something like a recumbent cushioned chair in the front basket, where i was projected by the driving standing behind me into streams of moving traffic - miraculously only once was I crashed into another vehicle (a pedal bicycle). Arriving at the Indian Consulate (the main task of the day) I found no trouble in getting admitted and between 2 and 4 Vietnamese consular staff happy to spend an hour or so occasionally telling me facts such as "here is how much to pay" or asking me to write down the serial numbers of all my banknotes on a bit of paper. All this being completed, and some more time being waited, I was shown into another office, where between 2 and 3 Indian consular staff chatted about where I was from, read my application for, took the piss out of my passport photograph, came up with random places in india and demanded to know why I wasn't going to visit those on my six week tour, and eventually expelled me back into the world with wishes of a good weekend.

first day and eve in HCMC

fell asleep around nood and caught up on the sleep that I'd missed the previous night in Bangkok due to the necessity of clearing out the beer stash. Then went for a walk round the local area which is all backpacker tourists and the industries to support them (i.e. botels, bars and travel agents in about equal proportion); sat for three beers watching the world go by as I read my book, surviving four power outages in that time (the bar had oil lamps on the tables for ambience and survival so my reading was not overly impaired). Then moved back to sit in the street on plastic chairs outside my hotel where I chatted for a while with the people who staff the in-house travel agency, read some more, drank water (!), and played with a little kid that they all were playing with (I think it belong to a lady working in the shop next door.. wasn't too clear). He had a plane with attached battery pack that made annoying noises and flashed annoying lights. I spent some time teaching him how to operate the 'on' switch so I'm sure his parents will be annoyed with me now.

HCMC

Here I am in Ho Chi Minh city!

At the airport, the only obvious ATM was bork, so I resorted to taking Japanese money to an airport exchange booth who gave me a presumably poor rate for some Vietnamese money. This had led to weird currency thoughts (for example, than this internet salon costs less than one Yen per minute...)

From an initial quote of 10USD for a taxi to the backpacker area, it went down to 6USD and finally I got one who had a meter and was prepared to use it with a final cost of 70000 VND... rather less, even though I suspect the route was more than usually circuitous.

In hotel 'Le Trung' which is quite tall and has no passenger lift (though there is a big electric hook that descends and rises through the centre cavity of the stairwell bringing with it heavy packages). Nice other than that.

Roman-based script here, for the first time since Sweden. Nice to be able to read the signs everywhere even if I don't know what most of them mean.

some thailand pictures

http://photo.hawaga.org.uk/orig/2005/08/24/

ping pong

only "interesting" offer on the street this eve is to see a "ping pong" show. ahem.

4sf

Earlier today I negotiated with a taxi driver to take me to the airport. The price was lower if he got to take me to some shops'o'crap as he gets commission, and as I had an hour to kill I thought I would go look at some crap. One shop was the Worlds Biggest Diamond Shop! where I had my own personal cute thai sales assistant to attempt to persuade me to buy gem-laden jewelry for my mother or girlfriend, translating each price out of Thai Baht into Sterling Pounds with a 4 significant figure exchange rate on pocket calculator, in the somewhat misguided hope that I'd find the latter more easy to deal with. The other shop really was just a bunch of crap.

kittens

In a bookshop on Khao San Road, a senior cat (brown) and three junior cats (black) reside. One of the latter had caught a roach to play with, and was chasing all over the shop amongst the feet of casual browsers. The kitten had not worked out that if it put the roach on its back, it would not run and so would not be fun any more.

back in BKK

back in bangkok, living in the kingdom of the backpackers for a few days

+852

+852 phone number will shortly run out of money. After that, I'll be back to my secret +44 number.

Phuket Town

Now I'm in Phuket Town and undergoing some kind of sensory deprivation as I am not being harrassed from all sides "you want tuk tuk?" "you want massage?" &c. Most of the town seems to be closed (it being, I think, Sunday?) and its sweltering hot, but its still interesting to walk round and look at stuff... tomorrow (being, I think, Monday) I'm heading back to Bangkok. Highlights of last night: i) snorting tequilla (south africans and australians all excited about some kind of rugby match so there was plenty of extra-drunken drunkenness going on like that); ii) negotiating with a street urchin who was selling roses for THB100 such that I ended up paying THB1 for one leaf. He though that was hilarious!

return of the accent

It seems that I am still in Patong. last night sat at The Original Shipwreck watching the world go by - nihonjin families wandering amongst overweight close-shaven englishmen wandering amongst the ladyboys (one of which, I think, had just had a fine new pair of breasts installed (shaped well but the nipples didn't seem to work out quite right) - she was merrily showing them to all and sundry, and the waitresses from the Shipwreck were all fascinated to go have a poke and a feel). some english girls turned up at some point after doing laps of the street three or four times (I'd previously drunkenly oggled them from my perch looked out over the street but that failed to scare them away...). Today (and part of last night) is the birthday of one of them. For some money I purchased a lei as a birthday present from one of the hawkers also making laps. From another wandering vendor, an English pie-man, I purchased a cornish pastie from the stock of those and shepherd's pies carried warm in an eskie. mmm. After asking them "are you english?" the non-birthday girl confessed that she couldn't work out if I was from Australia or NZ... I showed them my Calif. drivers license, and then when they talked about being from Camberley (?sp) I showed them my GU4 adorned GB driving licence (travel as far as Thailand they may have but they were not so worldly wise to have heard of the village of Merrow (in the same or next over county from Camberley (travel as far as Thailand I may have but I'm not so worldly wise to know whether Camberley is in Surrey or Hants, nor even how to spell it))). Later on, while I was punctuating my short walk home with stops at various skewer stalls for the purchase of skewered meat and at FamilyMart for the purchase of water, I encountered some Australians who enquired why my Australian accent had become so skewed. Now I ponder whether it would be foolish of me to stick around in the belief that the english girls' invitation to drink more with them this evening is genuine or whether it would be terribly rude of me to assume that they were drunkenly insincere and not turn up for the birthday party...

water

must drink more of.

I have one tanned leg! (first exposure of leg to sun since I left Sydney I think)

cell info

in thailand I get "useful" cell info on my phone -- it appears to display the place where the cell tower is located (for example, "Holiday Inn" or "Airport terminal 1"). I got that once in Russia (one place displayed the name of the town I was in), but other than that I've not seen anything - neither my US t-mobile or UK Orange SIMs allowed me to even turn on cell info display (though I wonder now that I've turned it on if they'll keep it that way?)

I am here.

I am here.

In a copy of Lonely Planet that I was reading the other day, it was suggested that this town was not really the place to bring your children. Haha. It was amusing last night to sit in an open front bar watching ladies(?) handing out flyers and trying to entice all of the white men into their bars, with others dancing on pedestals in minimal clothing for the same purpose, and amongst all of the occasional confused looking family would stumble, wife leading the way, children looking bewildered, husband clearly wanting to stick around. Its possible (or so I am told ) to go to bars here where you order women by number...

One more night here (making a total of two) then I will head off somewhere else on Phuket - either to some deserted beach or to Phuket City.

fuck it

booked a flight tomorrow to go to Phuket, back again on Monday when I will proably stay in some hostel in Bangkok before one night back with friend and then off to Vietnam...

not dead just not resting

some people have complained that i have made new postings recently. I am not dead, just not resting enough to write.
In the meanttime, here are some pictures: (click for more)

four passport stamps in 24h

Four passport stamps collected in 24h! Plus a half hearted customs search by some bored customs officials. Timed my return just right as I caught just about the last train back from Hong Kong island to Kowloon... many many pictures but those will not be uploaded for a bit.

in the streets of Hong Kong...

I encounter by chance a gentleman who I last met in Beijing... he's off to perv over Chinese girls back in the UK soon, though...

misadventure

an interesting evening (perhaps to be written about later, but the guesthouse internet is all b0rk so I cannot sit and write for long - I pointed out no link light from the ethernet cable that disappears mysteriously into the ceiling and a person was called but he was not too impressed with my hungover description of "there's a wire going into the ceiling and it has no green light") has caused my foray to Macau to be postponed... perhaps tomorrow...

peak

up the peak today on the Peak Tram - by using my beloved Octopus card, I got the potential for cheap return ticket whilst actually only paying for a single (it magickally detects that you went up the hill that day and charges you much less if you go down again) if you actually don't go down on the tram - I didn't, instead (after escaping the tourist area but not before paying too much for tourist-food (five-spices duck liver - I thought that might have a tiny bit of flavour at least but it didn't)) I walked along the Morning(?) Trail which winds downwards through the park on a shady well paved and mostly deserted path for 2.8km before dumping out into the residential towerblocks of the midlevels (from where I took a pretty random downwards path that dumped me back at the waterside on the north of the island).

Off to see (I hope) fireworks at 2000h.

mid levels

went up the midlevels escalator (which is a series of trav-o-lators and escalators with a bit of walking necessary inbetween) yesterday, twice - once in the day time to the very top and the second time just as far as "The Dublin Jack" fake Irish pub.

today the plan is to go to the proper top, which the midlevels escalator does not reach (being only for the midlevels); there is instead apparently a tram...

also tonight, fireworks by the river! (second time in 8 days)

15 minutes

of free internet at public kiosks in Central metro station... so inbetween Irish pub #1 and Irish pub #2 (with son-et-lumiere against the skyline of Hong Kong island) I get to check my email... hurrah!

now back to the Guinness...

mmm octopus

I like Octopus!

Some Scotsmen in Osaka gave me one as they didn't need it; its a mix of Oyster (its the system Oyster was mostly modelled after, as far as I know) and BruinCard.

books

Finally purchased 'The Confusion' -- two different editions on offer. Following my port-selection algorithm, I purchased the cheapest one.

Also got a guidebook for Hong Kong. Alas, neither a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide available in that shop (though they had them for many other places in the world) so I had to settle for Fodors; although not as bad as I remember, they're clearly aimed at Grown Ups :-(

Most obscure in the travel section were 5 copies of
Collin's Glasgow Street Atlas.

GSM this!

+852-90185-94373792

I think there might be a shorter form (certainly there is from within HK) too but I don't really know...

Mind the Gap

Here I am in Hong Kong, having made it from the airport (which was saturated with adverts for vodafone SIMs but did not actually seem to have anywhere to sell them...) on the airport express and then around on the subway system using the Octopus card given to me by the Scotsmen who dropped me on my head in Osaka. At least roads have names here and there is none of the japanese/korean chome bollocks; but I found only one building actually had its number on the side - luckily the one I wanted to go to and only by chance did I notice it. Its hot here. There is paper money issued by multiple authorities - HSBC, Bank of China and the SER government.

notes on guesthouse

this is an interesting guesthouse. last week slightly different crowd to this week; one gentleman with a laptop letting us watch his girlfriend strip for him in a far away land over MSN-with-webcam; another drunk all the time and angry that everyone else seems to get more girls than him and especially angry at aforementioned gentleman for allegedly stealing a Japanese girl who had stayed here before. the owner came up to me one day and asked if I wanted to go to meet a korean girl who wanted to meet English people - I had nothing else to do that evening so I went along, and found someone who not only is cute but also likes to drink lots; between the owner, myself and pretty girl got through four bottles of soju at a nearby bar (along with a few plates of good spicy food). Somehow from there, her and I ended up back at hostel where first-mentioned gentleman proceeded to hit on the girl and secondmentioned (after not talking to anyone) handed over a note to her along the lines of "I do not like [the first person], but here's my email address if you want to hang out alone". Eventually (0600 or so) people passed out around the place; at 0800 I tried to wake girl to go to work without much luck; she continued resting all day and didn't go home until the evening. Then I went to Tokyo, returning to discover in my absence that one person in a drunken fit had voided his bladder all about the place (thankfully it had been cleaned up and even better none of it appeared to have sprayed all over my possessions (for once)). Others in the hostel have suffered from (2x) not being able to move into their new apartment and (1x) deportation. So it sounds like my weekend was generally more successful. Now I have been told that the girl is not allowed to visit the guesthouse (not sure if its some no-visitors policy that the owner is trying to enforce, or if he is terribly embarrassed about the behaviour of some of his guests (me?!) being seen by other Koreans). Drunkard has tidied his behaviour rather since the weekend, but still lies in bed muttering to himself for some time before passing out. One last evening in Korea tonight (which will involve alcohol, no doubt - preferably the cute Korean girl but failing that there are a bunch of other people in the hostel who might be persuaded) and then I am off to do it all again in Hong Kong.

taxilingua

Was fun to listen to Japanese air traffic control -- more than I've heard elsewhere it was people who didn't speak much English and were just using set phrases, mixing in little bits of Japanese every now and then.

酒

酒 is the unicode for sake! mmmmmm

tricolor mucus

In the week preceeding my weekend trip to Tokyo, I had a lot of unusually viscous snot with a funny smell.

In Tokyo, I got some cotton swabs from Mats (labelled on packet: do not insert into ear canal). Upon inserting these into ear canal, I removed large amounts of brown ear wax - I realised I had not cleaned my ears out properly for several months.

Also in Tokyo, my Mygga swedish mosquito repellant bottle snapped in half (the thick glass bottle had become cracked in China when I accidentally threw it at a hard concrete floor) leaking mosquito repellant into the bottom of my rucksack. At least my sockmonkey won't get bitten...