One Night Stands in Vietnam

So this has been our itinerary thus far:

Saturday, 16^th of January: Vietnam – Hanoi

Sunday: get on a bus

Monday: Hoi An

Tuesday: China Beach

Wednesday: get on a train

Thursday: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Friday: Can Tho

Saturday: Ha Tien

Sunday: Cambodia – Kep

Now you see why I'm behind on the blogging.

We’re breaking with the one night stand thing – now that we’re in Kep, we’re staying two nights and then getting on a bus to Siem Reap to go to Angkor Wat. I honestly think someone should put us in straight jackets. Its sheer lunacy to travel this way. Our sleeping patterns are so screwed up that this morning, both of us naturally woke up at 6am because the buses and trains keep arriving at our destinations at 4 or 5 in the morning. And then yesterday (was it really yesterday? It feels like so long ago…) we voluntarily got up at 5am to see the floating markets of Can Tho. And even today, Jason bought bus tickets before we sat down and reviewed our itinerary and realized, hang on, we actually have time to spend in this sleepy little crab fishing village… I guess it was habit.

I promise neither of us have ADD or are taking speed but even though this is by far the craziest thing we’ve ever done, we’re having so much fun! Yes, I think it’s crazier than moving to China. When I got on the bus from Rach Gia to Ha Tien yesterday with the drunken uncles, the 50kg sacks of rice and half of Southern Vietnam crammed into a small bus going at break neck speeds on narrow roads with canals on both sides – and we had to sit for three hours on tiny seats made for little Asian tooshes – then, I decided if there was an official example for craziness, it would be us. Its not to the point (but almost) where we’ve developed a head jerk and an eye twitch and we don’t talk in stutters (yet) but I do believe we got off that bus with a very dazed expression, not really knowing any longer, who we were, where we were or even for that matter why we were there. No it was more of a returning solider type of thing were we literally got out of the bus and wanted to kiss the ground because we were alive! They tell me the driving between Siem Reap and Bangkok is worse so I consider it my breaking in period. I’m just thankful that I have experienced my usual bout of motion sickness this trip!

Our hearing will probably never be the same after all this either. Vietnamese (and so it seems with the Cambodians) like to use their vehicle horns. I mean they like to continually use the vehicle’s very loud horn. And when they put their cars in reverse, they make music like “Jingle Bells” or something from Joplin, making one think of an ice cream truck only minus the ice cream and children in tow.

Often, we just look at each other and bust up laughing for no apparent reason (another sign of lunacy I know). We ask each other several times a day “what day is it?”. If I’d have been the guard at the Cambodian border this morning, I’d have thought twice about letting us through after I think I had to ask the guard three times for the date before I got the whole thing.

So this afternoon, while we were both sitting by the beach (which in Kep is technically sand less but I don’t care – its gorgeous here. My new retirement destination!), our conversation went something like this:

“So, whatcha wanna do?”

“I dunno – what you wanna do?”

“Well I dunno – what do you want to do?”

At which point we realized this was ridiculous – so Jason went and bought tickets to the nearby island for the following day and we decided that the best option for that afternoon was to take a nap because we were so obviously wound up that we both needed some down time. Nothing that a little hammock and some fresh sea air can’t fix!

And this is my resume picture that I'm sending to Lonely Planet.