The 5000 Project

A lot to cover when first glancing at that post subject, although most of these places I rushed through to get to hanoi quickly in order to get home to my parents, so I’ll just sum up each location:

Nha Trang:
The party town of vietnam, mainly full of english party-going backpackers, also plenty of aussies. Drinks, drugs, sex and exploitation.

Hoi an:
A really quiet town with old buildings and a beach full of happy locals as far as the eye can see. Visited old hindu ruins at a site called ‘My son’, turns out the same people who built the temples were the folks back in indonesia who built ‘prambanan’ (the dudes who left jogjakarta for bali after scary earthquakes, which gave birth to the hindunization of the unique island). During the vietnam war, the US bombed the shit out of the ‘my son’ site as they assumed the viet cong were hiding there, when they were actually hiding out in the surrounding jungles.

Hue:
Nice old royal temple, was there for half a day.

Hanoi:
well, the old town is really awesome, old buildings and old markets at every corner; cheap beer hoi. Just don’t do what I did and get rather drunk on the night before flying home and accept a free motorbike taxi ride to my hotel by a couple of very attractive local ladies. The second lady jumped on the back of the bike, behind me, and managed to distractingly feel my pants for my phone and sneak it out very so subtly while the riderlady accelerated in any direction fast enough for me not to want to risk jumping off. My hands were firmly on my pockets knowing her motives, although when I got off the bike, I assumed everything was in their rightful pockets and accounted for, except when I had a proper check. Running after the speeding bike was quite futile. The same night, my english travel buddy who was sharing the hotel room got a knife to his throat and was robbed of whatever notes he had in his wallet at the time. Not the best place to walk the streets drunk and alone.

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Next post will resume the project, after a month of quality time with my parents during the difficulties that my dad has endured, I am confident now that he is heading towards a significant recovery.

I just arrived back in hanoi, this time I’m staying with expats that I met at a pub when I was here before, in a hope to get a more positive outlook of this city. Still eager to get a bus ticket to sapa rather quickly, however.