September 27, 2008.
As if one water-oriented disaster wasn't enough, after Vang Vieng we headed to Vientiane, the laziest capital city in the world, and after discovering that there wasn't much to do there other than eat, we signed up for a 1 day river kayaking excursion, not realizing that the "grade 1 rapids" were in fact really moderately sized tsunamis. Our hungover guides assured us that it would be easy, but after Heather and I smashed into Duncan and Tyler's kayak, capsized, lost our helmets, and bounced up from the bottom of the swirling, gurgling Mekong only to discover that we were trapped under the boat with very little breathing time left, it was certain that this adventure was to be categorized like everything else in South East Asia - you just never know what you're going to get. We're not good with water on Mondays; this coming Monday, we're scheduled to be on a boat in Halong Bay, and with my luck I'll get my tsunami, although in reality, our misfortune is more likely to come in the form of a trip cancellation due to rain, at which point I will cry because I have my heart set on sleeping on a junk and on a romantic private island. Which is what I've dished out a lot of dong to do.
Nam Lik kayak drop off point - there were no kayaks. And no water anywhere to be seen.
After a long hard day - Vientiane sunset.
We flew to Hanoi a few days ago, and I don't have too much to say about it. Robin Williams is nowhere to be found. There is no order to anything here, and everything is an ordeal. Getting a Vietnamese visa was an ordeal. Changing money is an ordeal. Finding somewhere to eat at 10 pm is an ordeal. Crossing the street is an ordeal and often very life threatening. It's dirty, and it smells like fish. We ordered soup from a stall on the street the other day and are mostly positive that the broth we were served was actually smelly street water. There is so little to do here at night that last night we chose to drink at a bar called Half Man, Half Noodle because the sign outside read: "Drink here or we'll shoot the puppy" and lord knows, we wouldn't that to happen. We drank glasses of sambuca and drinks called "Virgin Prayers" and then dong-jipped* our way to a bar called Roots which was seemingly closed - but we were let in via a secret entrance, and while I'd like to share my account of what that bar was like - well, I really didn't want them to shoot that puppy.
*Dong is Korean for Poo. Jip is Korean for House. Literally, dong-jip means shit house. However, it is also the term adopted by young Korean English students to describe the action of interlacing ones fingers with the index fingers extended in order to quietly approach another person and scare the bejesus out of them by shoving those fingers up their poo house. Classy, I know.
