Good morning Vietnam! I'm sure everyone that has been there has said that the first morning they wake up there, so I didn't want to break the trend...!
Ah, it has been quite a while since a messenger pigeon has winged it's way to you.... so here is what has happened since we left Koh Tao last month!
Went to the July full moon party on koh phang ngan which is a tick the box thing you have to do if you're in the area - it was properly crazy - neon painted dogs running around and too many 'special' milkshakes sitting on the mountain side - but we did see a full circle rainbow round the moon at some point, and had this verified by someone responsible, so all in all prety good night!
Then hotfooted it to koh phi phi for some R and R and diving - it was pretty stormy and rainy as it was monsoon there, but was nice to see the chilled out side of thai beaches, and met with some people we half knew from Uni so hung out with them as well. On the last night there we met a crazy swede called Troll who collected people's names, and Gary in his less than sober state was convinced he collected souls, so we left the next day....
And so to Cambodia for the somberest part of the trip so far. Started it in Angkor Wat, and saw the awesome temples, especially the ones with massive tree roots all over them... hooked up with some English guys who were doing the same cambo/vietnam route so we had friends for 2 weeks and I didn't have to pretend to read cambodian newspapers when i got bored of gaz's ramblings!...(only joking Tina!)
From here went to phnom penh to the genocide museum which was really shocking and sad - no glossy billboards like you'd get in the U.K - just big rooms with torture beds in them and a photo on the wall of the last inhabitant - all gruesome stuff. We topped off this with a visit to the killing fields - they have built a shrine to the dead there, and it is a see through monolith filled with skulls form 8000 vicitms of the khmer regime - just a tiny portion of those still in the field surrounding the area. On the lighter side of cambodia, the people were super friendly, and they have amazing croissants for breakfast!
And so onto 'Nam! Went straight to Saigon, which is a crazy busy city - we took a motorbike ride of death and even our 'experienced' drivers were screaming which was pretty worrying! decided to rely on the good old legs after that - not ours but the grandad aged dudes peddling us around on their cyclo taxis of course...
Topped up our horrific history levels with a visit to the war remnants museum form the vietnam war - it used to be called the 'American atrocities museum' and you can see why as it is chock full of pictures and stories of the fall out of chemical warfare, and when we got to the real life pickled siamese babies in a jar we decided we'd soaked enough of that up...
So onto the 'fun' war part - crawling throught the tunnels the real life vietcong used - they are about 0.8m wide and just over a metre tall - as this is 'Nam there are now safety breifings, lights or even oxygen down there. I managed a whopping 15m before i felt like i was being buried alive, and Gaz when the whole 100m and came out looking like those guys that get stuck down mine shafts for weeks - very glad to see daylight, and kinda skinny...
We decided we were missing the beach after 2 straight weeks away and so went to Mui Ne, which is a small fishing village on the coast, really pretty, full of kite surfers and the like - nice for a few days, but we had to keep on movin'!...
Onto Singapore for a pit stop before indo - we just had 48hrs here so went straight to mecca - Raffle's for a singapore sling! the guy behind the bar was really unimpressed with how excited I was, and just poured it straight out of a pre mixed jug - could only stop for on as they cost about $30 each! filled out pockets with free peanuts and left to wander the clean sparkly city...
next day went to singapore zoo which is really cool - the monkeys are pretty much free to just swing around everywhere, and we were reading a sign when suddenly it started to rain - rain which smelled suspiciously like orangutan wee - the little bugger was sitting on a branch above us pi**ing himself in more ways than one...
And so to Bali!! We are super excited about this bit, and have been here about 10 days now! got straight into the surf when we got to Kuta, and the little waves are clean and perfect for me, and sunny all day! Kuta itself is like newquay with less 17 year old scallies, so we left after a couple of days and hired a little jeep and drove around bali - went to epic surf break Medewi first, looked alright but was too Reefy for me, gaz had a good wave though. Drove through some amazing scenery and 75% hills which we went backwards down a few times, but made it to Ubud where it was Galangal which is the balinese hindu version of christmas so it was a tropical party atmosphere - lots of street dancing, offerings to the gods and gambling, which is apparently what they do in the afternoon - very traditional!
Then down to the bukit peninsula where some of he best waves are to be had - missed the rip curl search posse by a day or 2, but no great shakes as there are some absolutely ripping locals surfing on tea trays and hub caps who love nothing better than to laugh manically, snake in front of you and then perform repeated 360's, awesome to watch! Gaz got some epic waves at uluwatu and dreamlands (for those of you in the know) and I got some great pics.
So that brings us finally (thank god as it's hotter in here that is legal), to Nusa lembongan, off the coast of Bali. It is a little bit of heaven, with 'epic, speedy heavy rights' (according to Gaz) and to top it all off today we went diving and saw 3 Mola mola (sun fish) within 20minutes of each other, all so close you could touch them - it was like diving on the moon they are the weirdest looking things ever!
we have squeezed shed loads into the last month, and it looks to get better and better with mates form London (Mike, Hels and Patch) coming over for a week of debauchedness, surfing and my birthday!
Thanks for all the emails and stuff guys, will try to do better on the news updates honestly :)
laters for now, keep happy and soak up that last little bit of sun before it leaves your shores for another 11 months - hee hee!
Luce and Gaz x
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