After a lovely but very early bus journey across the border we are now in Vietnam. And I love it here. Its such a change from Phnom Penh. Admiteddly there aren't any tuk tuks, too many scooters, and the taxi drivers are a bunch of swindling arses, but i love it here.
We got off the bus yesterday to be greeted by a very very eager taxi driver wanting to take us to our hostel. After a moments deliberation we jumped in and off we went. We stopped at a cash machine on the way to take out some money, basically had to fish from different accounts as i was running very low at this point and Henry hasn't got any yet. We got to the road that the hostel was on and the meter was at just under 500,000 dong. we jumped out and gave him the money, he seemed to be sharing a joke with a nearby policeman, i'm pretty sure it was about us because unwittingly we had just given him 24$ for a 15 minute taxi ride. Swindling arsehole. Anyway after a bit of searching and being guided by a friendly vietnamese lady we found the hostel and in we went. We threw our stuff down in the room but we're only staying for a night as it's a bit pricy. We went for a little wak, for the first time in what felt like forever we were'nt being hassled everywhere we went. It was a good feeling not having to say no thankyou every two seconds. After a while we reach this little park called 23/9 and wander round, a way in a Couple of people from Melbourne waved us over and there started a day long friendship. We initially went for a bit of food in a western restauraunt, I had a fantastic club sandwhich. After a while they had to meet some Vietnamese guys theyd met the day before and had planned to meet again. when we met them we played hackey sack for a while in the park and then went out in search of table tennis tables. They'd already agreed to play so we just tagged along. After a few thrilling road crossings, scooters everywhere. we got to the tabletennis place, it was just a hall full of tables, unluckily for us they were all in use so we went for a walk, ending up playing hackeysack in a park much like the last one but bigger. We played this for a while but everyone got hungry so we went for a long walk to find this traditional vietnamese restauraunt they wanted to go to. they had a meal, but we weren't hungry so we just nibbled and drank ice tea. After a while we were ready to go so we set off back to the road our hostels on. A little walk later and we come across a set of bumper cars. Five minutes of hilarity ensues involving 6 fully grown people and six little person sized bumper cars. eventualyy we were turfed out, our time was up. We bid goodbye to our vietnamese friends and went to find the bar we had originally gone to. Had no money so we went to exchange some Dollar for dong. In the bar we spent the whole night sending song requests to the dj which if he played we had to down the whole of our drinks. He played all of them no matter how obscure. Lots of drink was drunk, happy hour leads to a bottle of Saigon beer being less than a dollar so it was a pretty cheap night. when we got thrown out at 12.30 we went in search of other bars, we found one made to look like a pirate ship and juumped in there. unfortunately it was full of Middle aged guys surrounded by young vietnamese girls. Seedy place if there ever was one. Left there an went to a bar just a short walk from our hostel. I spen the remaining hour starinf transfixed at a tv showing wwf. It was a good night overall but i dont feel too good this morning, but we must go find new accomodation so away i go.xx