Goodbye Asia - hello hospital!

After fleeing Vietnam we had a few nights in Bangkok before heading south to celebrate Charlotte's birthday on the beach. Spending a night with a bunch of Mancunian drug smugglers and human traffickers wasn't part of this plan, but you never know what Bangkok has in store and we made it through the evening without taking anyone up on their kind offers of work or accepting any "gifts" to pass on to their friends when we got back to the UK !

The next day we jumped on the bus for Koh Lanta and started our 16 hour journey hoping to be on the beach by lunch time the next day and sipping cocktails to celebrate Charlotte' 33rd birthday !

Turns out that the "bus" was actually 3 different buses and after an exhausting night of switching bags from coach to coach we finally reached Krabi - mere miles from our final destination. As we boarded the last bus Charlotte looked down for her back pack. Apparently at the previous changeover Matt, in his lack of sleep / valium induced delirium had thoughtfully picked up someone else's backpack leaving Charlotte's a mere 2 hours drive away ! Charlotte thought she was pretty understanding about spending the next 5 hours of her birthday sitting by the side of the road and patiently waiting for her boyfriend's mistake to be rectified. She hopes that at some point in the future her boyfriend will remember this incident and be more tolerant should (heaven forbid) she forget, drop, lose, ruin or break something......something else that is.

Matt's mistake was soon forgotten when we arrived in Koh Lanta and he revealed that as a surprise for Charlotte's birthday he had booked us into a luxury villa for the night....

Thanks also go out to Charlotte's Mum for turning it into two nights and to Charlotte's Dad for the birthday meal...

But all good things must come to an end and after this brief taste of luxury we were back to normal life - eating chicken Tom Yum and staying in $8 a night huts!

Complete with our usual standard of facilities

Admmitedly not quite as classy but the sunsets on the beach every night more than made up for it (and you know how we love a good sunset !)

After a week of chilling on Kho Lanta we heard a rumor that the Mighty Finn / Horn Dog / Jukkis would soon be on an island called Kho Lipe - a 3 hour boat ride south and in the direction we needed to go so we went to find him.....and we were so pleased we did!

Koh Lipe turned out to be an island which was difficult to leave, especially when Jukkis introduced us to Rich and Sam, two Brixton boys, Juha, Tina, Jo, and Nathan. Our time there was one of favorite in Asia and we laughed so much Charlotte cried regularly. It is best summed up by the following...

The only slight downer was the HUGE barge loaded with rubbish that was parked up on the beach for the first few days....but even this couldn't deter Jukkis & Charlotte who swam out to take a look at it...

During our time together we learned several things about each other namely that Sam & Nathan smoke even more than Matt (amazing but true), Rich - despite his best efforts - isn't going to make the 2012 UK Mens Volleyball team and Jukkis believes that every time a man and a woman are in a room together "they must be making sex !". After a week of banter and drinking we were a tight group but we felt something was missing....so we adopted a dog (Kelly, aged 6 years 11 months and 3 days) and our family was complete

When we finally had to split the group up we were gutted but all good things have to come to an end so after one last night of drinks and laughs we said goodbye to our new friends safe in the knowledge that we would at least see Rich & Sam again when we get back to London

From Koh Lipe we headed south to Kula Lumpur in Malyasia where we met up with Jukkis (again) who was this time accompanied by Finland's number 1 radio DJ for the last 6 years running (not that hard when there's only 16 people in your country and most of them are fishermen). Charlotte was quite ill with fevers and shivering by this stage and although not fully convinced by Matt's diagnosis of a 24 hours bug she didn't want to be accused of being a drama queen so stayed in her bed quietly. As Charlotte didn't leave the hostel we can only rely on Matt for information of what Kulua Lumpur is like. Apparently it's "alright"

Two days later (with Charlotte still not better) we got the train to Singapore. It was here that Charlotte's inner drama queen eventually won through so sadly the only thing which we can tell you about Chinese New Year in Singapore is that the A&E department of the hospital was very quiet !

After 5 hours of saline solutions and waiting for blood tests the doctor assured Charlotte that she didn't have Dengue fever or Malaria (as she had feared) and instead diagnosed her with a chest infection. Matt's smug "told you so" didn't go unnoticed as Charlotte was wheeled out of the Fever Zone carrying enough drugs to set up a field hospital in Syria 

We were assured that Charlotte would be better soon and there would be no problem with her flying to Australia the next day. So with our fears for Charlottes health allayed we packed our stuff and prepared to say goodbye to Asia and started to look forward to our whirlwind 2 week stay in Australia.

Or so we thought.......

Vietnam - now we know why the Americans lost !

So having finally managed to escape the clutches of the two Daves at Oocha bar and after spending two days recovering in Kampot we loaded all of our stuff onto a minibus and set off for the Vietnamese border on what we were "guaranteed" would be a 9 hour journey to Saigon.

After crossing the border we were instructed to change buses and it was here that we got our first taste of what lay in wait for us in the form of the angriest man in the world shouting and screaming at us in Vietnamese whilst at the same time waving his arms windmill fashion in a vain attempt to communicate something to us....Eventually we figured out that he wasn't threatening to kill us and every other member of our families in a violent frenzied attack but did in fact want us to get on to the bus he was standing next to.

Finally after 14 hours we arrived in Saigon checked in to the nearest hotel and then went for a quick recovery beer before collapsing into our beds.

The next day we flew to Hanoi in the far north of Vietnam where we due to celebrate Christmas with our Spanish friends Josu & Roberto who we had last seen when we left them by the roadside in Orcha, India. Having successfully tracked them down we made a beeline for a place known as "Beer Corner" where you can buy a draught beer for $0.25 !!

The next few days were spent wandering around Hanoi checking out the city (which was easily the craziest one we had encountered since leaving India) and learning how to deal with the traffic !

We also stopped off at Ho Chi Minhs Mausoleum to check out his waxwork corpse in its glass box (no pics allowed inside unfortunately)

And discovered a HUGE catholic church..

..which we sat outside drinking coffee and eating sesame seeds (apparently they've not heard of biscuits !)....

Oh and Charlotte made Matt visit something called the "Vietnam Womens Museum" which despite how it sounds was actually quite interesting and at the same time terrifying in it's revelations of 14 year old girls and 65 year old women who between them "had killed over 150 American pig dogs using only a vegetable peeler and some knitting needles".....we were starting to get the message - Don't mess with the Vietnamese


During our time in Hanoi we had started to notice a certain animosity towards Western tourists which seemed to manifest itself in glares, angry shouting & wild gesticulating but we figured that maybe this was just their way and it seemed it was how they spoke to each other any way! Besides we had bigger fish to fry as Christmas Eve was just around the corner...

We celebrated this in true English style by heading to Beer Corner (honestly we were spending more time there than our hotel room !) and having a few celebratory egg-nogs with our Spanish friends....

....before making our way to the catholic church for the midnight carol service where we became instant minor celebrities with the younger Vietnamese carolers

The only slight downer on the night was when Matt got pick-pocketed and his beloved iPod containing all of our music & movies plus 6 months worth of videos & photos from our trip went off to a new Vietnamese home....we hope they choke on it ! We decided not to let this ruin our Christmas and the following morning after swapping gifts we headed off to have a real Christmas dinner which turned out to actually taste really good (despite how it looks)....

...and celebrate with a few drinks and a pickled cobra......

....before catching a traditional ride home

The next few days were spent arguing with the locals over everything from the price of can of coke to refusing to pay the "police" (or as we called them the mafia) a $50 bribe to provide us with a police report so we could make a claim for Matt's stolen iPod.

We also used this time to hone our survival skills by crossing the road, a process which involved each of us telling the other person that we loved them and then kissing goodbye before bravely stepping out into the maelstrom that is everyday traffic in Hanoi and hoping that we'd meet again on the other side.

Before we knew it New Years Eve was upon us and we decided to head up to Halong Bay to celebrate in style by spending the night on a "luxury" boat. Things got off to an auspicious start when as we pulled into the car park we were greeted by a scene straight out of Peter Jacksons King Kong complete with rolling mists, looming cliffs and a decidedly dodgy looking crew.

Our fears were not allayed when we made our first stop at a set of caves and our boat, along with about 100 others, used the "crash into the 2 nearest boats" method to slow down enough to be able to dock.

Still we decided to make the best of it and come the evening we sat down with the rest of the passengers on the boat and we all cracked open the drinks we had brought aboard to start the celebrations. About an hour later the crew decided to join the party....or so we thought until in a co-ordinated move they made a grab for all the booze ! Apparently they had copped the hump that we weren't buying enough of their onboard booze and so had come to confiscate ours, naturally after a couple of hours of merriment we were all ready for a reasoned debate about the situation. 15 minutes, a raging argument and a $15 bribe later Matt had retrieved the alcohol and the party continued....

but this was not to be the end of things....

The following morning an argument developed over the fact that the crew were refusing to return the passports of some of the guests unless they paid a $20 "fine" per head for violations of some unknown code, before we knew it this had descended into a full on fist fight with one of the crew members hitting a female passenger in the face which resulted in 3 of the guys jumping on him and dislocating his shoulder ! All of a sudden the captain of the boat came charging up from below deck swinging a MEAT CLEAVER at various passengers and screaming obscenities in Vietnamese.....This was the final straw, we had tried to enjoy Vietnam but it had fought us at every turn, thus it was that we found ourselves standing at Hanoi airport the following day making like a pair of GI's and getting the hell out of there with only 10 days of our 30 day visa used.

Back to Thailand......again !