Crusoe in South East Asia

Been busy guys. Will update later.

Still in Hanoi at the moment. But a big flood has come (been raining for all night and no drains here)  and Im stranded in an internet cafe near my hotel. Cant reach the bank to pay for the hotel and cant walk accross the street to the tourist info to find out about the minibus  to get to the airport! Flood is too deep!
If I do make the crossing of the flood  I’ll be in Da Nang by the end of the day. Gotta catch a flight there. May not internet for a while so will try and write stuff on paper for the blog.Just took an awesome picture of the street flooded but cant put up as I dont have a cable for my camera here.

Wish me luck!

I’ll be back!

p.s A passing car just sent a wave of the flood off the street into the internet cafe….(theres no door/wall)

Part II

I think today was cursed. First the flood, then the afternoons events paled the morning in comparison. I’ve travelled thousands of miles for now just about 3 weeks and without any mishaps. Today, the first major problem occured. And hopefully, my last.

The staff at the ACD hotel, my base for Hanoi, all seemed to suffer chronic depression. I tried not to complain about the place but wasnt the best of places to stay in. For example, the bathroom felt smelt of shit put the toilet seat down I found rotting toilet rolls that had turned brown with age…Not sure if that was causing the smell but I doubt it helped.

This morning, I found myself locked in my hotel room. Now this was entirely my fault and was due to me locking myself in my room each night for security. Except this time I’d completely forgotten where I’d placed the key. To make matters worse, I’d woken up with a terrible stomach ache and felt not exactly top of the morning. It had been my intention to visit the Ho Chi Min mausoleum at around 9.30. This is where Ho Chi Min’s  (the Vietnamese Communist leaders) body  has been stuffed for members of the public to come gawk at. Unfortunately, my stomach wasn’t up for it especailly due to the food poisoning.

There was one plus point to losing my keys however. Hunting under my bed amongst the cigarrete buts and inches of dirt/dust, I found Michael Palin hiding, the book I thought I’d left on the plane from Singapore. Now I can find out if he made it round the world in 80days!

A taxi picked me up from my hotel earlier than required but this was due to the rain, I’d been unsure how much time I’d need to allot to getting to the airport because of the floods. About 3/4 of the way there, I realised I was mising something. Something pretty important. My passport! Now it just so happened, my taxi spoke no english. Doing Charades for I have no passport is pretty difficult but somehow I managed it. Before I turned around though he demanded I gave him more money. Felt furious about how stupid I’d been not to remember the passport and hence having to go over budget by 15USD.

The flood:

Was beating myself up when I realised, it wasn’t really the end of the world. Nobody was dead, I hadn’t lost my money, I got my passport back, and most importantly I was still alive. Still plenty of time for something else to happen!

My new hotel room I had a visitor waiting for me. Made me jump out of my sunburnt skin: