I’m clenching my bum cheeks so hard that I’m concerned I may get piles. I don’t even know if you can get piles from clenching your bum cheeks but I’m giving it a good go. My left bum cheek is roughly 2 inches higher than my right because my foldy upy aisle seat on the bus is wonky which means if I don’t clench I have a tendency to slide to the right. And this means I’ll end up in the foot well next to the door. It’s a tricky situation I’ve got going on here and one that’s not entirely comfortable. I’m also very aware that our tour guide has been holding a ski sit in the foot well for the past 3 hours because there are no seats left on the bus back from Halong Bay. Every time the bus makes any form of movement other than straight forwards I start to slide off my chair towards the ski sitting guide in the foot well and I’m turning blue from clenching so hard. But I can’t stop clenching because I realise that if I completely slide into the foot well there’s a chance that I could end up sat on our guide mid ski sit in front of a bus load of people and that would be embarrassing. I’d rather get piles. However I am making use of my time in between slides and thinking about ideas for our Vietnam blog…

     Firstly there are some very important things that you should know:

• Vietnam (and everywhere we’ve been in Asia) have tiny chairs. Tiny chairs at the roadside cafes. Tiny chairs on the street. Tiny chairs everywhere. It’s like Asia has just been on a dolls house raid to claim all of their chairs.
• I may or may not have a toe infection. It started after my Indian pedicure (the one that we got with India’s worst haircut) and some of my toenails fell off. Since then it’s been an ongoing mission to get my missing toenails back.
• We’re not sure if we have been washing our hair with dye. It comes out really thick and brown, not unlike hair dye. We’re going to keep using it and see what happens because we’ve come to the conclusion that with our fringes nothing can make our hair look any worse.
• Myself and Lyvette have developed weird habits. For example Lyvette takes her mouthwash to bed with her every night and spoons it. I seem to keep all my prized possessions in the safe. Possessions such as my hairbrush (that I don’t use), toothpaste, bobbles and occasionally a free map. Basically everything that is valuable. God only knows where my passport and bank cards live.
• I have become a poncho (pac a mac) collector. Somebody stole my poncho in Cambodia and it appears that every time I venture outside without my poncho it rains. And I come back with another, brighter, more floral one. They live in the safe. Obviously.
• Beware of the big red buses. They are lethal and have no problem with overtaking on blind bends and driving you off the road. The drivers are maniacs. Nearly as crazy as Indian Tuk Tuk drivers. Nearly, but not quite.

Vietnam – The Border

Another hangover, another bus journey – this time taking us from Cambodia to Vietnam. Apart from the feeling of nausea the journey was uneventful. The only slight bit of excitement was when we had to march off the bus with our passports and walk the 30m over the border to then get back on the bus once we’d crossed the Vietnam border by foot. What’s all that about? And then we had to put our bags through a security scanner and we had a slight panic because Lyvette’s knife was in her bag. No one seemed to care. They were all asleep. Equally no one seemed to care about my broken left shoulder blade as I dragged my bag along grunting and moaning.

Ho Chi Minh and Moustache Matt

So on the first morning because I was in so much pain I decided to get a massage on my broken shoulder blade. This was my first massage since I left England so I lay there with my head in the massage table hole hoping that the woman wouldn’t just tickle me and would get deep into my muscles. What I was not expecting was for her to do a flying mount and land straddling me with her knees clamped round my ears. I swear I didn’t breathe for 2 minutes as she flopped and flapped my ears around with her thighs. I grew slightly concerned and began to wonder if I’d accidently entered a brothel. Would she ever let go of my head? Had I lost an earring? Did she have clothes on? Where was my bra? Yessss my back cracked – maybe I’d let her continue then. Apparently this is all legit and part of the Vietnamese massage. It was pretty good to be honest, once she’d de straddled me.

Most of our time in Ho Chi Minh was spent being electrocuted by my bedside lamp and on Google researching the Vietnam War because we went to the war museum and obviously didn’t understand any of it. I spent the rest of the afternoon revising to give Lyvette and James (our bunk neighbour) a history lesson. “Basically these guys didn’t like these guys so these guys took over and that’s what happened”. James looked at me in awe as if to say “God, you’re really good. You’ve got this nailed”. In all seriousness though, it did all sound horrendous for Vietnam even if not by my intellectual version of events.

Because we were getting into our history we then went to the Cu Chi Tunnels where the people of Vietnam lived underground and hid/fought off the enemy during the war. It was quite impressive, especially because these tunnels were pretty small and we had a chance to crawl through them. We had to get a coach to the tunnels and as myself and Lyvette were last on the bus we weren’t able to sit together. I sat next to Moustache Matt, a really nice French Canadian who Lyvette felt up crawling through the dark tunnel. He had this amazing moustache and informed me that he had recently styled and superglued his tache in place. I had to feel it. It felt super glued. Lyvette managed to do one of her epic falling-asleep-on-the-bus moves and woke up with her head in a Malaysian guys crotch. Myself and Moustache Matt found this hilarious and after that made a conscious effort to fall asleep away from each other as we didn’t want any crotch sleeping to ruin our new found friendship. Then to top it all off on the way home Lyvette sat next to a British guy and I looked across to find her cuddling him. I could tell that Moustache Matt had noticed this as well because I could feel his moustache tickling me (I slapped him thinking it was a fly) as he chuckled. All the time I was thinking about how I could nick his poncho.

Ho Chi Minh was also the place where Lyvette and James went wild and indulged on a £30 steak. I went along for the free shots.

Mui Ne – James and the Giant Bee

Accompanied by James this was our first sleeper bus experience. I didn’t care for it much and found  myself craving an Indian train. The seats were narrow bunks with a foot well for your belongings. There wasn’t much room and with my broken shoulder it was an effort to get up and down the bunk. Everyone looked like they were in coffins. But I’m not one to complain…did I tell you I’d broken my shoulder?

Sunshine! YEEEYYYYY. From here on in we hit the good weather, actually some of the hottest weather we’ve had (sun is exciting when you travel in rainy season). We woke up at 4am to visit the sand dunes for sunrise. James still had his eyes shut, I’m pretty sure he was sleep walking, but not for long because as we settled into our jeep ride to the dunes the happy hardcore tunes started busting out. It was like being back an under 18’s nightclub again, with the occasional bit of ‘Uptown Girl’ randomly thrown in there. Then Aqua made a comeback and we discoed our way though the roads of Mui Ne waking up every house, dog and mosquito in the area. James was no longer asleep and he took on the role of DJ.

We arrived at the sand dunes all partied out, witnessed a stunning sunrise (Lyvette nearly wet herself in excitement) and I decided that my broken shoulder wasn’t hurting enough and forward rolled down the dunes. We were just shaking the sand from our knickers when ‘the thing’ attacked. We’re still not quite sure what it was but it had wings and was the size of my fist. Lyvette instantly took off fly-fitting her way across the dunes at a speed that would have given Usain Bolt a run for his money. James tried to follow but unfortunately for him ‘the thing’ had already taken a shining to him and refused to leave him alone. James then did a combo of flipping, thrusting, hopping, running, squatting and jumping whilst jabbing ‘the thing’ with his sandals which he wore on his hands (I’m not entirely sure why his shoes were on his hands). He was also making a lot of noise whilst giving the appearance of having a boxing match…with himself.

“What the F**K are you?!
No response. Squat, jab, jump, shimmy.
“Are you a beetle? Or a bee? Or a bird?”
Still no response. Hop, run, summersault, lunge.
“STOP LOOKING AT ME!!!!!”

‘The thing’ was clearly enjoying this attack. As was I. I could see Lyvette still running in the distance – she’d managed the 10km back home in less than 2 minutes. I was laughing that much that I popped in intercostal muscle and my broken shoulder vibrated dangerously.

We’re still unable to identify ‘the thing’ as Google was unable to interpret ‘giant flying thing the size of fist in Vietnam’.

Dalat
Sadly James didn’t venture to Dalat with us, possibly because he was still scarred by ‘the thing’ and possibly because he was sick of us using his deodorant.  We stank. There’s only so long you can wash your hair with soap for and we’d ran out of deodorant a long time ago, luckily we then met James and his Lynx. We ventured to Dalat where we went canyoning and we jumped onto the bus to be greeted by our guides:

“Hi everyone my name is Kdhfhhghghg, but it’s hard to say so you can call me Tiger”
“Hi everyone my name is Cbdsprititngit but it’s hard to say so you can call Tree”
“Hi everyone my name is Hlalskcmbbype but it’s hard to say so you can call Banana”

Yes I can see how you would get Tiger from Kdhfhhghghg. Same same but different…

As it turns out Tiger, Tree and Banana were a hoot and provided us with much entertainment throughout our canyoning tour. The first activity was abseiling down a waterfall and free falling the last 4 metres when the rope ran out. Now, when we bought our disgusting walking sandals that are great for everything, no one mentioned that they weren’t great for walking down waterfalls. This should be put on the label as a warning. They were slippy. Really slippey. So slippy in fact that Lyvette spent most of her time on her knees worshipping the rocks, while I spent a lot of time dangling upside down. My shoes weren’t so bad but everytime Lyvette got up she slipped again and looked like a spider (with less legs and in a very fetching helmet) on ice skates. It was ok though because she had Banana shouting words of encouragement like “Stop, hold it there. Smile for the camera” as her legs wrapped themselves in knots and she skidded left and right across the waterfall. Stopping and posing for a photo was about as likely to happen as her posing to have her picture taken with a wasp…

Next came the free jump. Just the sort of stuff I like. It was only 11 metres, which isn’t actually that high. The height wasn’t the problem it was more the fact that we had to take a run up and jump out and over the protruding rocks jutting out below. And those rocks looked like they were sticking out a fair way. We all looked and then stared at Banana:

“But what if we don’t jump far enough out Banana?”
“You have to…”
“But what if we don’t?” We all knew the answer
“You must or it is not good. Not good at all. Don’t slip. And remember you bend your knees when you land – the water is very shallow and you hit the bottom…”
Say what….?! The water is very shallow?! Where did that piece of information come from?!

So now we had new information to digest – that we had to jump out and over protruding rocks so as not to have our bodies battered to death on the way down whilst remembering to bend our knees so as not to shatter both legs on landing. Brilliant.

I’m not really a nervous person. The only things that scare me are sharks and holding hands. Holding hands with a shark would be my worst nightmare. But on this occasion my legs did do a little shake (just a cheeky one). But I also realised that out of all of us I was most likely not to break my legs on landing as I was one of the shortest. The anticipation was too much so I had to shush Banana and go for it while everyone else was umming and ahhing. It was fine, enjoyable. Much more enjoyable for me than the Irish guy that landed on his head and spent the rest of the day looking like he’d rubbed his face on the sun.

Hoi An
Vietnamese women are crazy. Like completely nuts, waltzing around in their pyjamas (it seems this pyjama wearing isn’t just a Cambodian thing). They don’t take no for an answer and they have grips of steel for people so small. This is where we had clothes tailor made because some woman accosted us and we feared for our lives. These outfits were measured to fit and we selected our own designs. Apparently I ordered a playsuit with one leg longer than the other.

Then we got accosted again by a cheerful lady who claimed she would look after me because I looked like her daughter. Pretty sure her daughter is Vietnamese. She then gripped Lyvette and took her off to have her legs threaded. This was too painful and Lyvette refused to let her continue so the woman got out her scalpel and decided that instead she would get rid of the dead skin on her feet. Lyvette’s face dropped as she witnessed the woman pulling the tools from her dusty biscuit tin whilst grasping her foot hard so she couldn’t run away. Then she had her feet shaved as she sat on a tiny chair with her leg in the air looking like she was about to have it amputated. The woman next to us had everything threaded. She’d only promised to buy a postcard but had been held into position by her Vietnamese woman until she’d threaded every part of her body including her face. Her poor husband was sat on his tiny chair being shaved with a machete. We looked like prisoners awaiting a death sentence. When our woman finished with Lyvette and pointed to my (lack of) toenails I ran. Before she could unleash her grip on me. It was a tiny chair related pedicure in India that got me into this nail-less situation and I was not going to do that again.

That night as I lay admiring my lack of toe nails and Lyvette admired her freshly razored feet whilst we discussed the politics of the Vietnam War (we read it from Google) my ponchos dived out of the unlocked safe and ninja rolled onto the floor (a skill I’ve been trying to perfect since India). It was as if they were saying “Enough is enough Heather. The safe is no place for a pac a mac”. So I retrieved the rest of my important belongings from the safe and off we went.

Hue via the Hai Van Pass
We hired a motorbike to get from Hoi An to Hue across the Hai Van Pass – one of the most beautiful passes in Vietnam, made famous by Top Gear. This happened to be one the hottest days we’ve had. It was scorching and no amount of sun cream seemed to protect us, especially me. I felt like I was becoming more and more tomato-esque. Eventually I had to put Lyvettes’ multi coloured sarong around me. Who knew rainbows could drive motorbikes. Mid journey we stopped at Elephant Springs to cool off. I had forgotten to put my bikini on that morning and so had to go in the water in my knickers and sports bra. I looked like a 29 year old primary school child going to a PE lesson in her knickers and vest. They weren’t even matching. I didn’t have a bikini but I did have 12 ponchos.

We pressed on through the 40 degree heat, narrowly avoiding the cow that was roaming down the Vietnam equivalent to a motorway until finally the rainbow driving a motorbike and her comrade made it to Hue in one piece. We stayed at a hostel come home stay, which was fine until the 4 year old child chased me round trying to stick a comb up my bum, his cousin insisted on karate chopping me to my knees and the puppy ran off with my shoes. Eventually I shook them off and climbed into bed. Just as I was falling to sleep I heard a rustling and opened my eyes to the child running off with my 100% DEET. I panicked that he would spray it and his skin would disintegrate hence I wrestled him to the floor. As I returned to my bunk I found him climbing into my bed wearing my head torch in flash mode thinking it was a camera. Following these antics I was too scared to go to the toilet during the night for fear that I’d get attacked by a child or a dog. I woke up the next morning with a comb between my bum cheeks.

Halong Bay
A beautiful place and definitely worth a visit. We only had time for a one day tour, which was a shame but totes worth it. Despite the natural beauty we were surrounded with the highlight of Lyvette’s day was when I asked a Japanese man what language they speak in Japan. I didn’t mean to say it…it fell out. I was embarrassed.

Which brings us back to me clenching on a bus while Lyvette was dribbling on the Chinese man next to her. Eventually our guide stopped ski sitting and went into a crouch. It was at this point we decided to have an English lesson and as a student he read some English with me filling in certain words he couldn’t pronounce. This meant I had to concentrate extra hard on not sliding as no one wants to be straddled by their English teacher, especially when they haven’t used deodorant for the past week and have missing toenails. I think, if I’m honest, I’m a bloody good teacher and when we parted ways I left him being able to talk about the ancient capitals of Vietnam with a Mancunian accent. On departure he even informed me that we had to take 2 buses to the airport the next morning…whilst holding up 3 fingers. I clearly teach well. I think I’ve found my new profession.

Next stop…

The morning will see us fly back to Thailand to explore the islands in the south. We have loved Vietnam and in reality could do with some more time here, there’s so much to see and do. It’s been a good two weeks and I have now got half a toenail and my shoulder finally seems to be easing off. Lyvette is currently cradling her Listerine whilst admiring her newly shaved feet and doing a head count on the ponchos. I think between us we’ve found the meaning of life.