no no no no babe

this place seems to be playing the same two songs as MTV singapore. One of which is Green Day - Wake me up when september ends, the other is black eyed peas, don't lie which I did not like at first but after being exposed to it 15 times in one hour on that channel while in Saigon I developed a fondness for it...

je suis ici!

Travelled to Pondicherry with stoner dude that I've been sharing a room with for a few days. First attempt was to get the train from Egmore station, just across the road from hotel. Next train was not until 1830, some 7.5h in the future. Second attempt was to get a long distance bus. This decomposed into two subproblems: i) getting to the long distance bus, ii) getting the long distance bus. ii) turned out to be pretty trivial, but i) was harder as the tuk-tuk drivers demanded what we deemed to be an overgenerous fare (>=Rs100/-); however, once we'd agreed that we would never agree on a price, they helpfully told us how to get a direct bus from the bus stop that we were already standing it (it doubles as a tuktuk stand) for only Rs4/- each. Stoner dude suffers from eternal munchies but I managed to get him to postpone lunch enough to wait for the bus to actually show up. Onto the interstate bus, for Rs55/-; we get on and sit round for a few minutes; stoner dude gets the munchies and wanders off to a stand, leaving me on the bus in custody of his pack. Of course, moments after he wanders out of conciousness-range of the bus (i.e. as soon as he is not looking at it) the engine starts up and the bus begins to back out. I shout and shout out the window but am not prepared to get off myself. Of course, stoner has chosen to not go to the food 5m away from the bus, but wander off to one further down the concourse that appears to sell exactly the same stuff. Luckily the bus conductor has noticed that two white boys got on but that the bus is now moving with only one, so blows his whistles and scuttles into the crowds to find a white boy to replace the missing one. He chooses the right one and thrusts a dazed looking Irishman upon me. We sit on the bus for 4h until we come to a bus station. Its not clear if this is Pondicherry or not. We sit awhile, until the conductor decides that we should get off. We do. Rickshaw drivers want 100Rs to take us to a restaurant chosen from L-P (so that they will not try any "come to my friend's hotel", "come to my brother's restaurant" shit). Stoner is desperate to find a rickshaw which has a working meter - haha - I haven't seen a working meter in taxi or rickshaw since I've been in india, and if I ever did, I wouldn't trust it anyway. But the attempt is eventually enough to lower the price from 50Rs each to 30Rs for the two of us. We go to a nice little cafe near the beach. I have omlette sandwich and frites and french coffee. Then I walk to my hotel, where a woman who does not speak much english at all puts me in a nice room with a fan and a big bed and some lights. I offer my passport but am told to wait for big boss. I relax. Later on, a couple of hours later, after I have been lazing awhile, bossman turns up at door and speaks to me in French. I ask him if he would like my passport now and hand it over. He says he'll copy the details down and come back in a bit, which he does, sheepishly switching to English now that he's read my passport.
I set out to find an internet cafe. On the way, tuktuk drivers tout their vehicles to me in French. I ignore them, in French. People walk round with those stupid fluffy poodles as if they were Parisien, not Indian. I get to the internet place - coffee.com, with the cunning DNS entry coffeedotcom.net. It is nice - clean, fast net connection, big windows and wood panelling and music like some kind of North American coffeeshop.

Bingo!

On the television this morning (either BBC World service or the Indian state broadcaster) when they showed the selection of "weather views from around the world", I had been to all of the places! (usually I have been to most but not all - they always come up with somewhere like Munich to spoil it for me).

fort

Also went to the Fort in Chennai today - its still an active military base, as well as an Archaeological Survey of India monument (those were the fuckers that charged me Rs250/= to go the the temple a couple days ago), and all through it are all sorts of stalls selling stuff. It was a bit like an Indian version of the citadel in Quebec.

classy upmarket hotel

tomorrow I will hopefully stay in a $20 per night more-upmarket-than-usual hotel in Pondicherry - I'm interested to see what I get for my extravagence.

beach

There is a beach in Madras. Its nice - yellow sand, fishing boats, a beach-market, people swimming, people taking a piss on the sand, people taking a dump on the sand, all the usual things one might expect. Walked round with three indians who I met on the train on the way there - they were going basically the same route as me and seemed quite concerned when they were unable to take me all the way back to Egmore station (they got off one stop earlier - I reassured them that foreigner though I was, I was quite able to go one stop on the train and then get off - they don't even have doors on these things to get in the way). Then more electrolyte/water mix and a Rs2/= fried up vegetable squidgy thing that was yum - they have other stuff at that stall so maybe I'll go back for more.

london dollar

One of the Indians that I met today repeatedly asked to see samples of London Dollar and how many Rupees there were to it. Despite repeated attempts at explanation otherwise, I think the fact that I was able to quote a INR:LOD exchange rate (about 60, cough) proved that it really did exist.

mmm not-pocari-sweat

Have been drinking oral rehydration salts... tastes like a wonky version of my favourite Pocari Sweat!

madras

In madras - back to city life - rickshaw drivers by the train doors ready to pounce etc. Good food from an indian fast food place that is actually fast (relatively speaking). Now sitting in an air-conditioned, broadband-connected expensive internet cafe, part of a national chain; it still took them about 8 minutes to work out how to log me in to a computer. (my suggestion of "can't you just click on the 'guest user' icon?" was pooh-pooed...)
One more night planned then to the former french colony of Pondicherry.

konark

bowels better today - actually slept pretty well (although the unsolvable problem as always - be too hot with fan off or be annoyed by noise with fan on - persists). Up early, breakfasted, showered (ridiculously large number of mosquitos living in the bathroom today, bitches), off to the train station to buy a ticket to Madras - something of a novelty I appeared to be at the booking office - I suppose most tourists buy their tickets from the travel agents here instead. The train is from a different town, so first I must discover and take a local train to that place. Booking man was a little vague about how to do that - just told me a time to come to the Puri station. wandered some more, to the bus station. overcrowded minibus rides are fun! on the way out, cute chick in red sari was puking out one of the front windows, so on my side we had to batton down the hatches for a while to avoid splashback. On the way back, not enough space inside so ticket conductor was climbing from the roof, down and along the side and into the main cabin whilst the bus is pounding down the toll road, swerving to avoid cows. fucking autorickshaw driver charged me 20Rs to drive me 10 mins walk from bus station to the temple, which I got because I couldn't be bothered to wander round on foot trying to find the way in. then the indian government bitches charged me 250Rs to get in (10x what Indians were charged, and more than I spend in a day normally including hotel). Got a pretty good guide though - round the outside, then up on high stone walkways with no guardrails and plenty of scaffolding (some kind of restoration work?) to get in the way. The sides of the temple are carved with all sorts of carvings of people going about their daily business: elephant processions, giraffe presentations, people sleeping, washing, eating, men fucking women (in a range of positions), men fucking two women, two women fucking each other, women fucking dogs (apparently a cure for syphillis?!). Only two other non-Indians at the temple, so much interest amongst the sightseers to talk to foreigner Ben, look at guide book, practise english, blah blah. Likewise on walk home I took a wrong turn but was still going in approx the right direction so kept on down that road - lots of people there wanting to say "hello" - just a few hundred metres away from the resort/hotels district, but I suppose none of my kind ever goes up there.

wait...

korean language is not enabled... so why this shit still comes through? only swedish french english enabled...

Korean spam

So much Korean spam comes through since I told spamassassin to allow Korean language email. but hardly any Japanese spam since I enabled the japanese language.

powermonkeys

someone let the magic smoke out of the town's electrical system, so everything was switched off for a few hours. unlike in Western Civilisation, no one really blinked an eyelid.

frrr

The plan was this evening or yesterday to go to Madras. Not going to do that. I have a few days slack in my schedule, though, so hopefully I'll still get to see everything on my plan.

In this town, they have government licenced bhang shops where you can go and get drinks to make you stoned. I will not try those today, though, as I don't want to unbalance my body even more.

fluid nonretention

oh dear, up all night on the can letting my bowels empty repeatedly. dunno how so much can come out :-(

I have postponed my departure to Madras until it all solidifies and lessens in frequency.

..water

first hot (well, warm) water on tap since I left Sài Gòn - so a warm-tepid rather than cold-tepid shower!

so many mosquitos here, some of which have bitten me. I hope I do not get nasty blood-bourne parasite disease :-(

night train from calcutta

interesting indian man on the night train who was into classic British cars and lamented the decline of the British motor industry. Also he ranted a while on how the world needed to run on some fusion of capitalism and communism, and that the young indians of today measured their worth in the number of stupid possessions that they accumulated, such as cellular telephones. [at that point, I took my cellular telephone out of my pocket and entered into an SMS conversation with a young indian in Calcutta] Also talked about Skodas, how anyone could elect a monkey like bush, subsidisation of foreign weapons by US and UK governments for the purpose of supporting their own arms industry. Was interesting.

lazy

too lazy to move away from internet cafe; i think i am just dehydrated.

today I decided to wear the cheap flipflops that I got in Shanghai instead of my DMs; but it makes me uncomfortable trying to leap across the roadside cess in them so maybe I will go back and change them again.

@puri

in puri. the internet cafe here seems to use an analogue modem to connect their four machines to the rest of the network. also the left-arrow key doesn't work. for the first time in 15 years, I've turned NUMLOCK off.

-> puri

To puri at ~22h on the night express, 3-tier aircon...

pics from vietnam and india

small number of pics from vietnam and india are here: (there will be more when a Big Upload happens, some day, some day...) http://photo.hawaga.org.uk/orig/2005/09/18/

a fair haired blue eyed european nurse...

... did not directly recognise me today, but when I happened to comment that I'd been dancing in the street with three children on my head, she said in some foreign tongue to her friends something that sounded like "oh, he's the crazy fucker with the long hair who was dancing in the street with three children on his head."

bootlaces

even more exciting than the festival, I have new bootlaces! (Rs 20/= for 2)

more festival...

The festival that featured the goat reconfiguration in the morning continued in the evening on Sudder St. where a small temple-like structure had been errected for the day; loud loud music was being played, with initially one crazy man and a few kids dancing, growing in numbers over the evening. Attempting to get closer to watch, I was grabbed by the dancers and thrown in - once one foreigner was in there, others soon joined in... eventually the crowd took over the whole width of the street (though of course crazy people still tried to ride their cars, rickshaws, motorbikes through the middle). At one point, I was dancing with one little kid on shoulders and one in each arm, although I accidentally dropped the little one that was sitting on my shoulders into a pile of rubbish head first... upset for a few minutes but it (he/she?) was soon back in the crowd, going from me to some Japanese chick to some european man and back again, throwing flowers on everyone. Some whiskey given to me and the Japanese/Korean? man who were the first foreigners dancing, though as the night progressed, it became weaker and weaker as desperate attempts to make it last longer were made.

slang is a cock

It seems that the bloglet blog->email interface doesn't put the post subject lines into the email it sends out.

goat

Went to Khalighat this morning and watched a goat have its head cut off in one clean strike of the blade - pretty interesting to watch the eyes still moving round in the head when it was clearly not attached to rest of body... apparently they got through several hundred today as it is some festival.

street food

there being no nice looking bars in the immediate vicinity of my hotel, I sat with a bunch of Japanese and Koreans (teaching each other Korean and Japanese - turns out I still remember enough Japanese to know what they were teaching! hurrah! ich spreche kleine nihongo!) and ate a large plate of rice for Rs5/= - I intended to read my book (Eye of the World... seems to have rather similar story line to lord of the rings) but instead just talked to random people. Some street kid who had given up asking for Rupees instead played awhile with my camera; he had difficulty understanding that if he wanted to see someones face in the resulting picture, he should arrange for that face to appear in the view finder at the time of taking. Korean girl tried to help him out but he didn't really understand; nevertheless, he was quite delighted to take pictures of her backside and of my t-shirt and of the road.

laptop

if I buy laptop in Singapore, what laptop should I buy in Singapore?

more plan

I have been thinking in more detail about where to go in my remaining time in India, and have come up with something like this:

sep
16 calcutta
20 puri
23 chennai
27 pondicherry
29 kochi
Oct
1 Goa
8 Bombay
12 Messing round in Rajastan
20 Delhi
22 Singapore (not strictly in India; will they whip the soles of my feet for my having long hair?)

queen victoria would not approve...

... of the delightful gardens in her Memorial being availed by the multitudinous youths of Calcutta to suck each others face. I suppose walking amongst that is better than walking amongst people who are "collecting coins from foreigners for their daughters" and the like. If this were back in the Raj, we could've sent some red-coats out to massacre them away...

humping dogs

so many street dogs in Varanasi that appeared to be joined to each other back to back. I've never seen so much fun since that day with Shane and Trooper in the doggy park in Illinois...

Calcutta

So this city seems less tourist-aggressive in its backpacker district than either Varanasi or Delhi was -- walking down the road at noon, it was eerily deserted... spoooky... By about 1400h it was a bit more lively - only one person attempting milk scam on me and nothing else.

Today I have used one word of French (at some chick from Belgium) and one word of Japanese (at some chicks from Japan). Also I bowed at them. Also a dude from Denmark and a dude from Roehampton Institute commented on my Interesting Accent.

Later on may go to see memorial to Queen Victoria or perhaps just walk in the park.

I plan to remain almost a week in Calcutta, so have a few days to decide where to go next - would be nice to go to Assam but I think I should probably head equatorwards instead.

calcutta

Finally, a city in India that is not a complete shithole. thank god.

poop

flakey net but amazing there is anything at all given that there is difficulty even maintaining basic electrical mains supply. going from varanasi to calcutta overnight on train. raining. i am wet.

hutch noninternational

hmm. no one has successfully reported a send or receive of international SMS to my indian number, though it works in-country nicely... oh well... "fog in the channel... subcontinent isolated"

all aboard the corpse train

every five minutes or so a body gets carried down on a stretcher with shouting men lifting carrying, down to the river to get cooked.

footstool

in this cafe, I went to put my feet up on the footstool under the table, when suddenly it turned into a sleeping dog...

earlier, my passage home was blocked by a large number of schoolboys watching dogs fighting in the alleyway; other passage blockages caused by large cows barely wide enough to fit in the alleyways.

lodge

called hotel from station to come pick me up and waited about 50 mins for them to do so whilst being told all sorts of stories from the touts lurking in the station lobby wanting to take me to their own preferred hotel - my hotel is too expensive, my hotel is too cheap, my hotel is full of heroin addicts... got there eventually and it turns out to be quite nice though rather basic (but I'm only paying Rs55/- per night for it so not a problem)

have been this morning down to see bodies being cremated (as pretty much everyone seems to do, although I did not see many other westerners there watching).

then more sleep - was rather restless on the night train here, so was good to lie under a fan in dorm and not have to worry quite as much about all my stuff being stolen...

9/11

After 1500h on the anniversary of 9/11 and I have only had one opportunity to show people my extra tasteless Osama bin Laden / twin towers with red LED explosion / 747 / musical coloured flame cigarette lighter :-(

The future's bright... the future's Hutch(tm).

SMS +91 9837094857

more delhi

went to crazy Main Bazaar road and was inundated with people trying to sell me shit (this after only managing to get there by agreeing to take a half-price autorickshaw ride from the same driver as yesterday who is hooked like a heroin addict on getting his "delivery of tourist" commissions)... after nice food went to Rs 15/- per hour internet cafe - cheap, crap link and after 1h, the building lost power (hosts stayed up as they all had baby UPSes (which it turns out the machines in the hostel do too) but the network went away so no use...), then got cycle rickshaw to red fort through another crazy market street (cows, horses, cyclos, cars and buses all mixed in together with the peds) which had shops selling hardware - one for example proudly proclaimed its range of asbestos based products. Red fort was nice -- inside the paid area no one trying to sell me shit; all sorts of indians interested to see a white face (surprisingly few of those given proximity of cheap traveller area) and often stopped just to say hello or take my photo. Some police reservists wasting time before going on duty took me for tea in a cafe in the fort; then to a hotel bar which looked like a fake english pub (the coffee house I've been frequenting also looks like a fake english pub -- maybe everywhere in this country does?) then RS5/- street food paid for with RS100/- note - oops, then walked down random road twoflower-like until I found a bunch of autotaxis waiting outside a crowded gurdwara - took me a while to find an autodriver who would take me so far as the hostel I'm staying in - the one that did seemed taken aback by my acceptance of his first price offer (in fact, they all seemed taken aback that I wanted an autorickshaw...), then spent 10 mins with a large number of other autorickshaw drivers trying to work out wtf it was I actually wanted to go... delivered me back OK, though, to hostel where I had to fuck round for 20 mins getting them to fix the internet so I could write this.

Tomorrow leave and go to next crazy city.

delhi

here I am in New Delhi, in YHA hostel that is a little lame (its not very well located, and half demolished while being refurbished). However not bad enough to make me change, as I'm off to Calcutta tomorrow evening (on the train, stopping at Varanasi on the way for a few days...). Crazy autorickshaw drivers trying to take me to their own little commission shops (Connaught Place does not open until noon, I was told when I asked to be driven to Connaught Place -- thats like saying "Trafalgar Square doesn't open until noon"... whatever... I made him drive me there eventually). Sat in United Coffee Shop in the E block of Connaught Place and had two pots of tea, some ground meat pastry thing and three beers, and talked to a few Indians who gave me phone numbers and email addresses. Asleep by 1900h and slept well all night - my first good nights sleep in some time.

numerical

since leaving my job at ISI: (much of this from memory so probably somewhat crap)

0: cute airline stewardesses bedded
0: moleskines sent by slang
0.12: cheapest bottle of beer/USD
1: customs searchs
1: ladyboys who have shown me their breasts
1.92: total cash compensation awarded due to delayed flights /USD
2: times puked in street
3: cheapest hotel /USD
3: embalmed communist leaders visited
4: lonely planets
4: SIM cards
5: times puked or pissed on or at or near
5: most times through the same airport (BKK)
7: longest internet cafe session /hours
8: longest period without shower /days
9: most passport stamps and from one country (China)
10: countries visited (US, UK, NO, SE, RU, JP, CN, KR, TH, VN)
11: CF cards
12: weight of luggage /kg
15: most expensive pint of Guinness/USD
16: flights
21: longest drinking session/hours
26: passport stamps and stickers
72: longest train ride/hours
431: fastest train ride /(km/h)
15600: largest dollar exchange rate (VND/USD)

puppy with roach

in Hanoi outside hotel, found a puppy who had got a pet roach - it was not actively playing with it in kittenish fashion; instead, was allowing it to do as it pleased as long as it remained on the puppy's rug - if roach strayed off the, puppy picked it up and moved it back on, but other than that, no interaction.

card check

uh oh... they tried to check the validity of my gold card with united, as they noticed it had no expiry date. but thwarted by failure of united office to be open.

boots

got my DMs polished and shined for 50 cents, after being chased down the street by the boot polisher, who was progressively discounting his original one dollar asking price... seeing as they haven't had that done since at least April, probably worth it.

also changed some more pounds into dong for street traders, at an even more appalling rate than the other day, so now I have another 1.50GBP. I think I only do that because it amuses me to participate in the back end of the scam... (assuming they are not somehow scamming me in a way I cannot determine?)

roach

roach from this morning was still lurking in bathroom so I squished him with one of the flippers that the hotel had provided in my room. bye bye roach.

free roaming

my Hong Kong SIM ran out of money a while ago -- it seems I still get inbound SMS, though - hurrah! just can't send...

quote of the day

"I'm in Hoi An, which is like Macau or Hong Kong, an ex-French colony..."

small dogs

another roach tale... last night, while sitting in a bamboo chair in the open front of a bar on Le Loi Street (each town in vietnam has one of those), I watched a dog alternate between predator and prey with a cockroach which was running round in the street - as long as the roach was heading away, the puppy would chase, but as soon as the roach turned round, it would run away. A second dog joined in the mischief after a few minutes, but they eventually accidentally pawed it to death at which point one lost interest and wandered off and the other ate the roach.

trousers

have been measured for new trousers (2 pairs, different styles) which will apparently be tailor made and delivered to me at 5pm this evening... also purchased tasteless 9-11 lighter from a street trader (the other choice was a saddam hussein one).

papa roach

woke this morning and strolled into the bathroom to empty my bladder, as I am prone to do each day, and discovered the cheeky grin of a giant roach peering up at me from behind the waste paper basket... I jumped and peed on the floor... he jumped and scuttled off somewhere. No more sign for another hour as I went back for a little snooze, but at 08h or so I was cleaning my teeth when he popped up again (at least I hope its the same one... would rather there not be two of the fuckers lurking in my room) from somewhere and ran across my foot. Me and Doc Martin chased him round the bathroom and bedroom awhile but he was too wise in the ways of nooks and crannies to get squished, so I left him there while I went out for breakfast. Maybe he'll have found his way home later on.

black market currency trading

kids on the street in this part of vietnam often ask for English coins "for their collection". haha. whilst lurking in the dark alleyways of Hoi An, I got to see the backend of this -- a bunch of kids sold all their sterling and australian coins (about five GBP worth) to me for vietnamese currency at 27000VND/GBP, 13500VND/AUD (pretty much rates I guestimated on the spot - UK rate better than Yahoo's 29200 but Australian rate worse than their 12100). these are the same kids that want to sell you little trinkets such as whistles and necklaces (buy two, get one free for "happy hour" as they put it - no matter what hour of the day it is...)

hoi an

at 1330, bus (3.5h) to Hoi An where I will stay a few days... apparently they filmed (part of?) The Quiet American there.

pillboxes

countryside here in the centre of vietnam is littered with pillboxes -- its just like being in the south of England!

session

On tuesday at 1830h went to Allez Boo for a few beers... people from the day before (a girl from London Victoria and a Canadian man)... Canadian man was going round scaring various people at the bar away -- thats normally my job. Also in this first phase was some teacher chick who had done teacher training in Woking a few years ago - she'd arrived a few hours before and like the sensible girl she was headed immediately out on a small tour of the local bars. Eventually the Canadian mysteriously vanished, teacher girl headed off to sleep and victoria girl decided she wanted a snickers bar and wandered off into the night to find one.
Under lid of each bottle of Tiger beer is text which may or may not indicate that a prize has been won -- two days previously (sunday), I'd got one with a picture of some kind of keychain lighter/torch but they'd told me to come back later. So I'd gone in on Monday and ended up giving barmaid Tien lots of shit about her refusal to give me a prize - so she took bottle cap from me and said she would bring prize back tomorrow (tuesday, the day of this story...). "Ha ha," I thought to myself, "that's the last I'll see of that"; but Tien turned up mid evening and handed over my prize - a white LED keychain torch powered by three watch batteries... hurrah!
I was getting ready to go home and sleep, when a Frenchman appeared at the bar and started downing shots of whiskey, wildwest stylee - him drinking shot, bar girl standing in front of him with open whiskey bottle re-filling his glass immediately. After 12 shots, he stopped to pay and discovered that he had insufficient funds... wandered off into the night to "get some more" which we all assumed meant he was gone forever. But ten minutes or so later, he reappeared, payed and continued to drink. He was trying to make friends with a Vietnamese girl from Hanoi who was also drinking at the bar, but getting progressively less able to. Eventually he took a break from the girl and issued a liquid yawn all over the floor at our feet (thankfully, he missed me and my possessions -- it seems the french have better aim than the russians). Barmaid Tien asked me if I speak french and to make him go home. The vietnamese girl and I dragged him into the lavatory where he coughs up some more and then took him out into the street and back to his hotel (luckily he could remember where it was, and luckily it was only three doors down), which is all locked up for the night -- we ring on the bell and the vietnamese girl talks to the night watchmen (I presume something like "we've found this drunken frenchman who claims to live here"). A phone call was made and a frenchwoman appeared from upstairs - most displeased that she had been disturbed to collect her friend; also not sure if it was appreciated that he kept trying to kiss the vietnamese girl on the neck in front of her. I dragged him upstairs and deposited him in bed...
Back to the bar where my beer and Lonely Planet were still waiting for me, along with boys from Epsom... around 0300h the bar switched into half-closed mode -- almost all the only people left were all at the bar, leaving the table area to the rats (big big motherfuckers scavenging for leftovers). As I was walking out the door, I somehow ended up sitting down with two mongolians, brother and sister of each other (both live in HCMC, it seems)... eventually the staff also left, turning off the lights, leaving only a night watchman who kept telling us to leave in Vietnamese which we ignored... through the shutters that had been closed across the
windows we ordered coffee from some street vendor outside... around 0800h the morning shift staff arrived, and we got the first order in for breakfast (before they were open, but as we were already seated they didn't turn us down (at least the second waiter we asked didn't)). Pancake, croissant, ham and cheese omlette... mmm. Around 10am I was invited back to house of the girl, where the three of us sat drinking (a crate purchased from the shop over the road was delivered right into the kitchen by one of the shop workers), eating, hanging out with some other mongolians (boxers or wrestlers or something... can't remember), until 1600h when I had to leave to get my passport -- hopped on the back of a motorbike taxi, still feeling as if it was early tuesday evening, got passport (6 mo, multi entry, more than I'd asked for) and took same bike back to hotel, where the female staff of the hotel and attached travel agent crowded round me to find out why I hadn't returned last night (they all knew I hadn't been back). Then to bed, up at 0340 to puke, shower, pack and get to airport for an 0700h flight to Hue, where I am now.

email

added bloglet form at side of page -- it allegedly will let you get postings to this blog via email.