Crusoe in South East Asia

Woke up at 9 am this morning with massive stomach pains. Think its because I only ate one meal yesterday resulting in too much stomach acid.

Headed out into the streets to scavenge for food. I entered a Vietnamese street restaurant where the old woman serving behind the counter took a profound disliking to me immediately. When I asked her how much for the food she shouted a string of Vietnamese sentences (most likely profanities) where upon every in the restaurant looked at me and laughed. Can’t think of a better way to start the day.

Bumped into Crazy Steve again but didn’t chat long. I spend the rest of the morning going for a walk round the nearby lake. Its known as the heart and soul of Hanoi and it is here that many locals practice Tai Chi and chill out. Went for a brisk walk round the lake while many locals tried to talk to me about football while others attempted to sell me the usual brick-a-brack.

I was very saddened when I realised Michael Palin and I are no longer travel buddies. I’d left the book on the plane last night. Guess I’ll have to find out if he makes it round the world in 80 days once I get back home. Dug my camera out instead of Palin to kill some time. Nearby, 2 girls were posing by the lake with a D40x and a sweet prime lens. Figured they’d be good at cameras (and trust worthy) so asked them to take a photo of me for the blog. Turned out the girl wasn’t a pro and so I gave her some pointers about how to use our camera (she was trying to shoot fully manual all the time). Ended up going with them for a drink at a nearby cafe.

The girl who owned the camera was called An, had been studying in Winchester University this year. Later on, I found out her name meant Peaceful, her friends assured me she definitely wasn’t a peaceful person. Everyone laughed. Posing for photos, her friend, Nhyong studied Finance in Hanoi. They introduced me to their friend Hoang, a 21 year old Vietnamese man. They were all very friendly to me and infact paid for my drink which I felt bad about but couldn’t decline.

I have to admit at first I was initally paranoid about their intentions. I feel a bit guilty about this but since then realise it is necessary to be a bit paranoid when travelling alone in order to protect oneself. A little paranoia is healthy until more experience is gained.

We all swapped email addresses and Hoang and I arranged to meet up at 10pm. I said goodbye to the girls and Hoang drove me back to my hotel. My second scooter adventure!

Slept until 7pm and then venture out to a local internet cafe. (Unfortuantely, no memory card readers and I don’t have the cable for my camera so updating everyone with pictures is proving to be difficult. Still will see if I can find somewhere later…) This was where I found out my exam results. To be honest I couldnt really believe my eyes when I saw I’d passed and am burning to find out my grades.

Headed back to the hostel where Hoang was waiting for me. We went to 1 of the 2 night clubs listed in Rough Guide. Solace, is a river boat moared on the Red River, a huge river estuary. Vietnam, being near the equator gets dark at about 6pm. The ‘club’ was totally different to anything I’d ever experienced before. Was a reasonably small boat however the music was well mixed and the view of the huge river sensational. Hoang and I discussed differences between UK and Vietnam. Somehow the subject of the Vietnam war got raised and was interesting to hear what he had to say about it. I feel bad how Vietnam was affected by the Americans during the war and realise that the older Vietnamese, some of which still don’t particularly like westerners (understandably). H0ang tells me that the newer geneartions haven’t been affected because they didn’t live through it. Certainly, him and his friends have been very good to me. Hoang is very softly spoken and it is difficult to tell how well he understands me. However, I greatly appreciate his company.

Walking home was once again terrifying. The best advice I can give about crossing roads here sounds terrible once I tell it to myself: “Don’t think, just keep moving forwards”. Crossing 4 lanes of traffic in the dark with no crossing and heavy traffic is challenging at the best of times. Still, Hoang pulls me back everytime I nearly get hit by a car. Will have to buy him a drink sometime.

The girls had suggested we all met tomorrow early in the morning to go look at the lotus flowers at a lake on the outskirts of town. When I asked how early, he suggested not to early…6 am?…..Another lie in for me then…