Quy Nhon Hotels
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Kiwi barb
Entry 44 of 49 | show all | print this entry |
Shane: the train we took here was crawling with bugs. I do not exaggerate dear readers, no no. There were bugs crawling on the floor, over peoples shoes, and somehow I found one in my seat arm rest when I tried to pull out my meal tray. Anyone who knows me but at all knows that that I would not have considered this a pleasant experience. I'm the sort of person that likes no skid marks in my toilet, no cat hair on my bed, and no bugs dancing on my freaken feet. As one can imagine, I enjoyed the ordered cleanliness of Germany. Even Berlin - the grittiest most industrial city in that country had not one solitary piece of rubbish on the ground. The junkie hooker I saw in Frankfurt may not have been wearing any underwear, and she might have smeared lipstick on her forehead thinking it was her lips, but she did have the courtesy to discard her used syringe in a sharps bin before passing out in a pool of her own bodily juices. I digress
Basically because people in south east asia have no idea what a bin is, they throw their empty trash on the floor. This trash mainly consists of chicken wings and other meat items that have been purchased from the cart going up and down the carriages, coke cans, tissues and well general trash. now discarded food items will as we all know, attract a variety of unwelcome visitors - mainly bugs. Also most of the 6 hour trip was spent with a grotty womans feet touching my shoulder, as they all seem to put their feet up on the seats. Maybe to escape the bugs. Now the feet is supposed to be the dirtiest part of a body, and its a big faux pas in most parts of S.E Asia to point them at another person. obviously the vietnamese were out taking a piss when this unwritted law was passed down. What I'm trying to get at is a nation of people that use a squat toilet aren't going to have the cleanest feet, and to touch someone else with them is disgustingly not cool.And its not just a 'fuck you' to westerners or anything, they do it to each other. They aren't that tall, why do they need to stretch out!!!! ahem. Point is that the train ride was not the most pleasant experience. Also I was a bit grumpy because they didn't have any bacon left in the buffet breakfast at the fancy hotel we stayed in at Hoi An. I really wanted a bacon and cheese croissant which did not help my mood at all. Life just isn't fair sometimes.
Again with the digressing..
we arrived in Quy Nhon on a miserable night, pissing down rain with a driver that didn't understand English but assured us he know where we wanted to go. After what seemed like an eternity we arrived at the street we wanted to be on, paid the main and bade him farewell. we were looking for a person quite famous in the local community. Kiwi Barb.
Now Barbara has been living in Quy Nhon for about twelve years, and had two guest houses running which Lonely Planet had recommended. In fact she is also listed as the resident tourist information guru in the Provence, and we thought it would be a good idea to find her, and eat at her Kiwi cafe - which was part of the guest house we were looking for. I really wanted some home cooked food. After walking around in the rain, we found what should have been Kiwi Barbs guest house. it was no longer there, in its place, a quaint little local cafe, the proprieter of which tried to convince me to forget about Kiwi Barb and come in for a coffee. We walked to the taxi rank and asked some of them, but the just looked at us funny, then a local rocked up on a motorbike asking if we were looking for Kiwi barb. Yes we were I replied, told him that we were now going to look for Kiwi Barb's other guest house. The gentleman replied by saying 'no more' and the squished both his hands together. Milli took this as Kiwi Barb meeting her untimely demise and nearly started crying, but no he was just saying that she no longer ran those two places and has a new one about 1 km up the road. he set us on our way and we started walking, not knowing what we were looking for, wet, cold, hungry and a bit pissed off at each other for getting into this situation but then the man returned on his motorbike with none other than Kiwi Barb on the back!! so we went back, had a hearty meal of tacos and seafood marinara, and spent the next 36 hours in our room watching Lost, and eating food, which incidentally, is all we did in Hoi An, and now we weigh a little more then we did before we got here. hmm...
M: There isnt much more I can add to this entry, but yes the weather settled in and we may have stayed longer with Barb but it drove us further down the coast. Oh the joyous vision that was Barb coming out of the night on the back of a motorbike, it made us happy and relieved and she was quite familiar being part Ozzie...hehe, so it was noice. While the hotel she was working with spoke no English, we got a room and though we didnt order room service from them (lots of dog and Ox tongue etc on their menu). It was fun watching TV and eating all day and night (bringing up Barbs food from her place next door), only pausing to look out at the windswept coast and islands, and the fishing boats rocking as it bucketed down ferociously, but we decided to make a move. Barb told us the storm was going North so it was meant to be. We grudgingly went back to the train station as there was no other means to get down it seemed, and went back to being stared at and having the train run an hour late. Hurrah!!
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