Growing up, my family was dirt poor. We were living paycheck to paycheck.

My father was a gambler. And my mother smelt of…nah just kidding, my mother was pretty normal.

Anyways, my father had a gambling addiction. And an alcohol addiction. And a numinoser(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/numinos#German)(cigarettes) addiction. It’s probably where I get all my issues to be honest. But gambling was definitely his worst habit. Every night he’d go to the tavern and meet up with some questionable characters, and come home late at night reeking of booze and numinosers. Oh, and the distinct smell of “hey sorry I lost all our money”.

Anyways, we had a stretch of a couple of months that were especially bad. We only eat every couple of days. Dad was off work due to an injury, and we were getting desperate. The fellows Dad was caught up with offered him a deal of a lifetime.

One eight sided die. If he rolls a 2-8, they would give him a 5 years worth of food for his family. Roll a 1 however, and they would get his wife as a sex trader.

My dad thought it over. Of course he didn’t consult my Mother about this. She didn’t need to know, because of course, he wasn’t going to lose. My dad was a drunk, but he still understood basic math. 12.5%. That was the chance that this would go bad. Those were pretty low odds he thought.

Well he thought wrong.

I was sitting at home, doing god knows what — probably nawwing on some wood because I was so fucking hungry — when these slavers busted in, grabbed my mom, and left. I was too in shock about how fast it happened to do anything.

Oh, and before they left, one decided to take his lit numinoser and toss it on our thatched floor, setting our house ablaze. I tried to put it out to no avail. I ran out of the hose just as the flames were reaching chest height.

I took a couple of deep breaths to calm my nerves. When I came to my senses, I quickly ran to my Dad’s regular gambling spot to find it deserted. Well, besides my Dad lying there dead on the floor. In his hand was a single 8 sided die. I grabbed it, kissed him goodbye, and ran out. Eventually I found out that my Dad fought the slavers — almost as if he was trying to fight reality itself — and died when one slit his throat. Tragic really.

With no mother, nowhere to stay, and no Dad in sight, I became homeless. I wandered the streets, looking for shelter and food. I of course vowed that I would find the slavers that did this, murder them all, save my mother, and make the world a little less shit. Ya know, batman baggage.

===== The circus days ===

To put a long story short, I was picked up by a travelling circus. They felt bad for me, and really, I didn’t have anywhere else to turn. They laid the foundations of all my skills — they taught me rope work, acrobatics, card tricks, juggling, you name it. My years with them I would say were the only ones where I had any true friends. This lasted for about 10 or so years. I’m not going to get into detail, because there’s not much to say. We travelled all over the country of <INSERT COUNTRY HERE> performing. Unfortunately, like all good things, they have an unequal and lame ending. The travelling circus lost money, went bankrupt, and had to be disbanded. I was back on the street once more. But this time, with a little more skill.

== The Skilled Criminal ==

Back on the street, but a bit wiser, fully grown(at the age of 45), I became a organized criminal. My bread and buttery was burglary. I had no strong moral compass, but I would not do wrong just for the sake of it. Often I would steal from the rich and give to the…me. Of course. What did you think I was going to say, “the poor”?

Anyways, stealing was my go-to. Sometimes I would do other jobs though.

This one time, I saw a wanted ad for a horse thief. Apparently some schmuck decided running off with the High Prince Tha’lat Hushar’s noble steed was a good idea. The chief of police didn’t think so though. “A 1000G bounty for whoever returns the horse and the man dead or alive back within these gates”. Well, he wasn’t too hard to find. Using my network I was able to track him down in the matter of a few days.

It would have been easy to just have brought him back alive — he was a scrawny dude — but I wanted to have fun. I slit his throat — and that of the horse as well. Then I cut open the horse, stuffed the guy’s body in the horse, and brought the horse into the gates of the town under cover of darkness. I stapled a note to the horse “here’s a gift for you”.

I thought it was funny anyways. Get it? A trojan horse? I realize after the fact that payment was going to be an issue. But then that probably wasn’t going to happen anyways since I killed the horse. Oh well, it was funny.

Anyways, sorry I got a bit carried away. Back to Thieving.

One day I took my thieving too far. I was sneaking into one of the many houses owned by Ms.Margarine. She was off in another kingdom — the mushroom kingdom I believe — and her home was empty. Or so I thought anyways. Turns out, she was there. And not only was she there, but she was there fucking <INSERT SOME DUDE> on the side without her husband knowing. I saw her, I saw everything. I tried to escape, but one of her noble guards — again, what were they doing there? —  caught me and stopped me.

She knew the situation she was in. While she did have my life in her hands, I had a bargaining chip. Being a noble and all, she wasn’t about to just off me. Instead, she offered to lessen my sentence. In exchange for not going to jail, I was to work for the NSA(National Spying Association). There I would pay back my debt from burglary — amongst other crimes I had committed. Really, she was the sister of the head of the NSA<CHECK WITH ANDREA ABOUT THIS>, so she knew she could keep a close eye on me there. SHe couldn’t let her secret be exposed.

Anyways, so I joined the NSA.

== NSA DAYS ==

Of course, being forced into this job, I got the shit position. They had me watch the high passes of the Low Mountains(note they are called the Low Mountains but they’re anything but low — some tower almost 20,000k. I like whoever named it’s style though). They wanted me to make sure no contraband was coming into or out of their borders.

I would spend the nights sleeping in my tent, then during the day pull out my binoculars and just watch the caravans going through the pass.

The work was boring at first. But then I realized, nobody’s watching me. Let’s have a bit of fun.

So I started stealing. Duh! I would steal a bit here and there from the caravans when they slept — a little gold, a little steak. Sometimes I’d do shit just for fun — I’d cut into their axles, but only enough that they’d break when they start moving. Then the next morning I would watch, cup of tea in hand, as they started their journey and their axles broke. Oh man, that shit was great.

While the NSA wasn’t obviously paying me a wage, this made me good money. All the stealing of gold. Oh and the steak. Salty salty steak. Occasionally I would go into town to resupply, make my reports, and sell the things I had stolen.

To pass the time I would practice climbing the mountains around me. Using my pitons, rope, and skills I learned in the circus, I would climb to various vantage points to watch the caravans. That at least gave me new angles, and kept things interesting. Plus, a few times I had been spotted, so people knew to look out for me at certain locations. If I was going to do my job correctly, and continue to steal, I had to change things up.

Now look, while I was doing all this, I was slowly getting stronger. I hadn’t forgotten about my mother — she was out there somewhere, being used by god knows who being told to do god knows what. I needed to save her. But I wasn’t strong enough yet. I couldn’t take on a whole clan of slavers on my own. But more importantly, I didn’t know where she was.

But of course, that changed. After a few years(I think it was around 3) of doing this watching, fate was on my side. One evening, as I was crouching behind one of the caravans stealing some delicious salty plantains, a bunch of the guys from the caravan were gathered around the fire just chit-chatting. One of the guys mentioned the slaver that my Father had lost the bet to — Thomas Shane of Dingleworth.

Holy shit man, what are the chances. But the chances didn’t matter, because *THIS* was my chance.

While his mates — there were three of them — weren’t looking, I quickly dropped some poison in each of their drinks. It was slow-acting, so they wouldn’t know they had drank it for a few minutes, giving me time so that they wouldn’t catch on. While they slowly choked and tried to figure out what was wrong, I captured the one who spoke of Dingleberry. Long story short, I was prepared to torture him for info about Dingleberry, but after a bit of persuasion gave it up. He told me straight — Dingleberry had died in a freak avalanche on a lesser pass up to the Low Mountains some 20 odd years ago. He said they had picked up a new elf in the town of <INSERT HOME TOWN HERE> and were preparing to sell her off to the slavers in <INSERT FOREIGN COUNTRY HERE>.

It took me a second to comprehend what he was saying. The day my mother was captured — or at least a few days after — she had died on her way to be transported into slavery.

She was not suffering.

She wasn’t even alive.

She had died the day my world had fallen apart.

I fell to my knees. I didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, she was gone. But on the other hand, all these years of me worrying that she was suffering — they had been unnecessary. She had never really suffered, albeit for maybe a few days during transports.

I laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed. I was doubled over laughing. What a cruel cruel world. It taketh everything, but tossed me a small bone — “Hey DASH”, it says, “AT LEAST SHE DIDN’T SUFFER. BUT YOU DID THINKING SHE DID FOR 20 YEARS! AHAHAHAH”.

While I was doubled over in laughter, the man I captured tried to get up and escape. He was still bleeding profusely from his sha-la-la(did I mention I cut it off to make him talk?, so he wasn’t fast on his feet. I quickly stopped that and stabbed him. Where? I stabbed him everywhere. And killed him.

And I tried his flesh. Ya know, cause I always had been curious and this seemed like as good of a time as any to be a cannibal. There was nobody else up here at 20k feet. I had killed the rest of his caravan.

Anyways, I decided my time with the NSA was up. There was no more point being here. Hell, there wasn’t a point to begin with, but now even more-so. There was nothing left to train for. My mother was dead. I thought of my next move.

Shit.

I didn’t know what to do. Life didn’t really have meaning you know? It was all just a joke. So if that’s the case, why not go for the funniest shit that life seemed to contain? I spent a couple days in the mountains. I wasn’t moping, I would say, rather I just didn’t know what to do. I was thinking of my next move. I thought if I listed the things that made me happy, I’d gain inspiration on what to do with my life. So I went through them. But it was all shallow stuff. Drugs. Sex. Alcohol. Numinosers. Alcohol again. More Numinosers. More sex. The occasional murder. Money. Alcoho-.

Hey, that reminded me.

During my time as a criminal in <BIG METROPOLITAN CITY> I had heard rumors of a Flasken of Booze. It was like the fountain of youth, but for alcohol. It was a flask that would never empty of whiskey. And it was rumored that only the most worthy — whatever the FUCK that means for a whiskey flask that never empties — would be able to discern its location, and use its power.

So that seemed like as good of a goal as any. And so I set off to The dwarven island of Blooshcat — the dwarven equivalent of “the golden city” — so called because their rivers run gold from the hops that they dump in the river. Others say it’s simply the golden city because of how much beer they brew. Whatever tickles your fancy.

But if there was any place that would know where I could find this “Flasken of Booze”, it was a whole ISLAND of alcoholics. And So I headed off.

Now of course I realized this would make me a wanted criminals, ditching my post like this. To be honest, if I’m braggings, I was already somewhat known in the thieving world for the terrible tragedy that happened to me. That, and the horse thing. Or horse-like incidents. I won’t go into them. Lets just say…I’m known.

But I digress. As I was journeying towards the city of Blooschat, the ship that left from the harbor of <MAJOR PORT CITY> got caught in a bad storm. It ended up capsizing. The last thing I remember was seeing the mast come crashing down on top of me as I floated in the water. Then I woke up here on this beach.

So who are you guys again?

This was a fun trip! I want to point out that, besides booking the hotel and the Futbol tickets, we had nothing else planned. Sometimes you just go with the flow.

I went with my good friend Vanessa. She’s awesome, and she speaks Spanish. Here she is:

We were in Mexico for 4 days — over Presidents day weekend. What better way to celebrate our president than to leave the country?

We flew in with a red eye. Our flight plans were actually pretty great — 4 hour flight, direct to Guadalajara, $300 round trip. Not too shabby for a weekend gateway. It was the best way to make use of our time. Any longer of a flight and we’d be wasting too much time. Also, there was only a 2 hour time difference between us and were we were going, so we wouldn’t loose much sleep either.

Anyways, we arrive at our hotel around 8, and take a fat nap. We wake up again.  We wake up around noon, and then proceed to get the first tacos of our trip:

They were street tacos. Pretty awful TBH.

Next, I got a SIM card which ended up costing me $30! This was thankfully the only time I really got ripped of in Mexico. Having a sim card is super useful in other countries though. If you need to look things up(which you always do), call ubers, do other things, they’re invaluable. Vanessa had data through her provider(as did I), but they’re 2G speeds so not very good.

 

Next more food. This whole trip ended up being a food trip(as a lot of my trips end up being).

These “nacho” looking things are called chilaquiles. They’re fucking delicious. As far as I can tell, they’re literally just chips with cheese on them. An official description: “Typically, corn tortillas cut in quarters and lightly fried are the basis of the dish. Green or red salsa or mole is poured over the crisp tortilla triangles, called totopos.”

I kept calling them “chaquitas”, which means little girl. I had also learned the word “jugo”, which means juice. You can also conjugate words to be adjectives, such as juciy, which would be “jugosa”. So at one point, I figured I’d  just to fuck with Vanessa, I said “chaquitas jugosas”, which means “Juicy Little Girls”. I thought it was hilarious saying it in public and embarrassing the hell out of her. In the uber, on the street — “CHAQUITAS JUGOSAS”. Freaking great. Anyways, we’ve also decided this is what we’re going to name our beer baby(the first batch of beer we brewed). Hopefully it turns out well.

 

So anyways, after that we took some pics in front of a cathedral:

This place was beautiful in real life. Sorry for the shiet picture. It makes you wonder how they built it way back in the day.

Then we went to a market. It was pretty big, multiple stories, lots of stuff. We hung around, got some ice cream, then decided to start the drinking(at around 3 pm).

Here’s a pic of the market from above:

A couple people cussed me out in Spanish. As Vanessa put it, they said “what’s up fucker”. I should have talked trash back in English, but I was already too far away when I realize it. Like a real-life shower thought were you win the agurment after going over it the next day in your head.

So yeah, we went drinking:

Everything is bigger in Mexico. These goblets were HUGE.

Then we went to a cute little restaurant called BANANAS. They had this fun tradition where you could buy a shot, and a “shake”. But what that meant was you’d take a shot, and they’d little grab your head and shake you around, then take a piece of bread with some nuetalla on it and make you try and eat it, and smoosh it in your face when you took a bite.

Yeah, idk wtf that’s about either. But it was fun to watch 2 different groups with birthday girls try it.

Next up: Karne Garibaldi. This was a “top 10” resturant in Guadalajara. They are famed for getting your food out to you in 20 seconds or less after ordering.

And they did deliver on this. Basically the food was a bunch of meat in soup. It’s a dish that Guadalajara is known for. I thought it was fantastic, but Vanessa disliked it and thought it was overpriced. She also didn’t believe it was an actual Guadlajara dish until I showed her later 😛

Then we went to take ANOTHER nap(a reoccuring theme), and then went out for drinks. We went to a couple bars, drank some Mezcal(which was freakin’ delicious!), and then tried to head to a club.

Now here’s the thing. I really wanted to go to at least one club while we were here. The waiter at BANANAS had recommended us a place called “Club Americana” that we could go to. Unfortuntely, when we tried to go to the place that Google map said was the club, it was just a normal looking house. No club to be seen. Damn guy lied to us 🙁 This was also a reoccuring theme — people in Mexico can’t admit they don’t know something. They’d rather just make something up 😛 Well that, and a combanation of us just sucking and not being able to find the club.

Defeated, we wandered around bar to bar. I had some more late night tacos(which were actually good, and some of the best tacos on the trip). At one point at one of the bars, Vanessa ordered 4 shots for us. “Cuatro?” the waiter said with confusion/concern. “Si, cuatro”. But there’s only two of us, he probably thought. Like Ron Swanson once said,

 

We then wondered into some bar playing live music.

And this was one of the coolest parts of the night. We walk in, and they’re playing Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing In The Name Of”. We get literally a front row table, and we’re rocking out to the song while everyone else is just kinda “meh” about the song.

The lead singer and the guitarest also totally had a thing for each other. They kept eyeing each other up, looking all cute and stuff. The band was really fun, and they played 50/50 english/spanish songs.

After that we went home. Time for a new day.

Day 2

We slept in till 12, then vanessa took us to a resturant. We ate, the same sort of meat soup that we had had the other day. Apparently it was liver in mean juice. Looked like this:

I was a fan of the “meat soup” we had had the day before, and Vanessa like this stuff more.

While we were here, we met a guy named Martin. He spoke English. He just started chatting us up about every little thing. Kind of annoying, but friendly. He told us we should visit this lake nearby, only a couple of hours to get there. We kinda planned on going, but then changed our mind.

We wandered around a bit, and decided we wanted to go on a tour of somesort the next day. Problem is, there weren’t a lot of tour “shops” that we could go to. We decided the best way to setup on a tour was just to drop into a hostel and see what they had to offer.

So we go to one, and I ask if we can go on one of the tours they offer, even if we arn’t staying there. The lady was polite and was like, “no you can’t, you have to be staying here.” Then Vanessa started speaking to them in Spanish, and she made a “call” to ask someone if it was okay(in reality she was just talking to the person on the phone about something completely different), and then told us, “yes, they said it was okay”. Like bitch, Vanessa knows exactly what you were saying, you weren’t calling about the tours. Funny how someones tone changes when you speak their native language 😛

But in any case, we signed up for a tequila tour the next day. We were going to the TOWN OF TEQUILA ITSELF. HOW cool is that?

Anyways, we wandered around a bit more, and decided to go to a museum.

We saw some cool paintings:

Some creepy ones:

Some cool sculptures:

all surrounded/within a “hospital” with some cool paintings:

 

Then we went back to the mercado to buy some Jerseys. Orginally they were asking 300 pesos for one. Both Vanessa and I suck at haggaling, but there’s always a few tricks you can do — like walking away. I told Vanessa to walk away(cause lets be honest, she’s always doing all the talking in these situtations), and he was like, “okay 200, okay, 300 PARA DOS. PLEASE SENIORITA, POR FAVOR, COMPRAS MY SHIT”(I’m dramatizing a bit here).  and as she did they dropped the price to 300 for 2. We came back a while later, and purchased them, thinking we just got away with a steal. A little while later, we saw the same jerseys on sale for 100 pesos. ;____; guess we’re not as good hagglers as we thought. Still, 300 for 2 aint bad!

At this point we decide to get some more food. We go to a place to try tortas gordas(I’m spelling the second part wrong) —  basically bread with COLD meat, where the bread is soaked in spicy sauce. The place we ate at looked sketch-as-hell. That, combined with the fact that the meat was cold and looked unfamiliar, we were both certain we were going to get food poisoning. Here’s a pic of the alleged food:

Luckily we were both fine, and never got food poisoning.

We took a nap at our hotel AGAIN. We woke up a bit before the game to try and pregame and get a little buzzed~~~.

About an hour before we need to leave for the game, we head off from our hotel bar to try to find a bar with cheap hard alcohol. We search on Google for nearby bars. We go to one bar, it’s closed; fine. We try another bar, also closed. We try a third bar, and walk up the stars into a place with no sign. It looks abandoned/runned down. Two guys say hello to us, and walk past us and out the door. Wtf?? We get out of there fast as hell lol.

Okay, so we still haven’t found a bar. We try this cafe across the street, sit down, only to realize they don’t have hard liquor. We quickily apologize and leave.

At this point its about 20 minutes before we need to leave, and we’re getting desperate. We start literally RUNNINING down the street looking for a bar. At one point we run into a bar, Vanessa sees they don’t have hard liquor, and then we run out. We must have looked like two insane fools.

Finally we admit defeat about 15 minutes before we have to leave, and just settle down at a bar that serves beer. We have 2 really strong beers and call it.

So now it was finally time for our soccer game! We went to see Chivas(Guadalajara home team) vs some other team whos name I can’t remember.

We took an uber there. The driver was very friendly and we chatted about various things — gun laws, drinking in the street(he said it was legal), who was going to win the game(he said the Chivas were), how late bars stay open(oh yeah, they stay open until 7 am). By the end of the trip, we’d learn that every one of these statements were FALSE. Basically everything coming out of his mouth was a lie lol. Why do you have to lie??? Don’t make stuff up ahaha.

Anyways, Vanessa got us some dope-ass seats. We watched the game, cheering and just having a grand old time.

Here’s us pimped out in our shirts:

And a photo from our seats:

The soccer field was MUCH smaller than I imagined. I’m not convinced it’s not a smaller field than what’s in official world cup games.

Behind the other goal was the away teams fans. I have NEVER seen so much enthusiasm in my life. They were constantly jumping in sync, always shouting and cheering. They were legit louder than the rest of the stadium most of the time. It was pretty crazy.

The game was really fun to watch. Probably the most amount of fun I’ve had watching a sports game. At one point they were selling top ramen(i know right?), so I just had to get my hands on some.

The game was really close. They opposing team scored a goal, then we scored on a penalty kick in the last 20 minutes. It was tied 1-1, and the other team got a penalty kick. BUT THEY MISSED(bounced off one of the posts), and the game ended in a tie of 1-1. I didn’t realize that they let games end in ties, and felt pretty let down that they didn’t just keep going into overtime. I guess the games would last forever if they did lol.

After that, we decided spur-of-the-moment to go to a Casino! And boy was that a fun choice.

We got there, and I headed straight to the tables. Everything was so cheap! The min was 25 pesos, which is about $1.15. Paradise! I could actually gamble at these tables which was awesome. I put $30(around 500 pesos), and went to work at the Craps table. I taught Vanessa how to play Craps(again, her first time in a Casino). I was having a blast. I tried to do some blackjack, but all the tables were full most of the time. We also did some Roulette, where I promptly lost a good portion of my gambling money in like 5 minutes.

Near the end of the night I sat down at what I thought was blackjack, but turned out to be 3-card poker. Like, wtf is 3 card poker? I had never heard of such a thing. I quickly nopped out of there after a lovely spanish lady helped me with my one-and-only hand.

After that we went home. It was about 3 am when we went to bed, and we had to be up at 7. Big mistake, but worth it at the same time.

Day 3

This was the tequila tour day!

We got to our bus at around 8:30(after waking up at 7), and we were EXHAUSTED. We basically slept the first hour on the bus.

The tour was pretty fun. We first stopped at a distillery were they told us about the process of making tequila. The lady said at one point that the tequila is fermented by fruit flies(I just looked this up, it doesn’t seem to be true, or at least very exaggerated). At one point, they told us the distillery had partnered with Rammstein for a certain brand of their tequila. The tour guide asked us if anyone knew the band, and I was the only one who did(or at least who was vocal about it). Apparently Vanessa listened to them/knew them as well. Very odd to hear about some German band from my past that I listed to religiously. I didn’t expect them to pop up on a tequila tour, lol.

We ended up both buying a bottle of tequila. We also got to see the tequila fields which was fun:

 

After that, we went to lunch. It was buffet style. It was really good; there was even a lady who was hand pressing the tortillas! It had a pretty nice view next to the tables of a canyon:

After that, we FINALLY got to go to the town of Tequila. Yes, the actual town of Tequila. So cool.

As we walked down the street, there were these 5 liter jugs of tequila liquor that we could sample FO FREE. Fantastic! We were pretty buzzed after only walking 2-3 blocks.

Then they were selling these Vampiro drinks four about $3:

Yes you got to keep the mug! Unfortunately mine shattered immediately when I dropped it on the bus back lol.

We walked around a bit, took some pictures, I bought a shot glass. Overall a grand old time. At one point, I got a michelada:

Freaking massive. Everything’s bigger in mexico.

I also took a fun picture of the town:

Here’s my doggy friend:

I wish we could have spent more time here, as the place was so cute and fun to hang out in. Unfortunately we only got to spend 1 1/2 hours, and our bus had to go back. Oh well.

On the way back, we watched a movie called “Rush” — about a rivalry between 2 formula 1 drivers. One of the drivers ends up getting in a horrendous accident that burns up his lungs, but he continues on to race. It’s a great movie and I won’t spoil the ending, but both Vanessa and I were on the edge of our seats watching it lol.

After that, we went and took another nap, waking up at 10 pm.

We go to one bar –Peter Brown Bar. This place was amazing! They had some really good food, which name I forgot.

There was a bartender with the COOLEST tattoos. It was basically 2 black lines across his face. They kinda looked like whiskers. We called him “Mr.Whiskers”, the most appropriate name. I didn’t really get a chance to take a picture of him, this is the best I got(from a video snapchat of something else):

We stayed till 3 am when they turned on their lights, and kicked us out. We got some tacos nearby, which were Vanessa’s favorite of the trip, but I thought were just meh. And then off to bed.

Day 4

This was our final day here. It was basically just us going around trying food. We had originally planned on taking a food tour, but it cost $50 to go on the tour, and it was sold out. BUT, they published their itinerary, so we just ended up going to the restaurants they recommended. They were pretty good, but nothing too standoutish.

Btw, I would like to mention that I had SOOOOO many Pina Coladas on the trip. Like, I must have had at least 15. For example:

and

oh and

This was all in one day too lol.

At one point, a coworker of mine sent me an article about a building in Guadalajara that had to be moved 15 meters to make way for the widdening of a street. Rather than tear down the building and rebuild it, they decided to put it on rollers and move it. What’s even more crazy is that it was a telephone company, and to prevent loss of service for the area, they decided to move it with all the telephone lines attached, and the PEOPLE INSIDE STILL WORKING. Pretty crazy.

Anyway, the civil engineer who orchestrated the move had a statue built in his honor. Since it wasn’t far from were we were, I decided to take a pic:

Clearly I’m working harder than he is.

After that, we hung out at some more bars, then went home.

On the flight was a great movie called “me after you” — about a trust funder who becomes disabled to an accident(to no fault of his own), and then falls for the girl that ends up taking care of him in his disabled state. Spoiler alter though, he ends up doing a doctor-assisted suicide anyways in Switzerland after 6 months with this “newfound-love”, because he just doesn’t have the same life without his ability to move on his own. It was a touching movie, and really makes you rethink the idea of death and taking your own life on your own terms.

Reflections

This was a great trip. I’d like to thank Vanessa for coming with me. Hopefully we can do it again sometime! Puerto Rico maybe? 🙂

Also I ate way too much on this trip. To the point of being uncomfortable. I also gained like, 5 pounds. So I really need to cool it on the vacations and eating.

Guadalajara was fun. Any city can be fun if you know what you want/what to look for, and most importantly, if you’re with the right people. If you’re not with someone fun, you’re not going to have a good time.

You should also know what you’re travelling for. While I did have fun on this trip, I know that I wouldn’t be able to do something like this for longer than 4 days. If I’m going to t be travelling for weeks or months, I’m going to need something more fulfilling than just going out to bars and eating. Namely, I’d want to do more outdoorsy adventures and travels. City travelling has it’s place too, but at some point all the cities blend together, and then you really wonder what you’re travelling for.

Anyways, a fantastic trip, a nice break from the work grind, and some great memories with a great friend.

 

So I’d like to take a little bit of time to reflect on this trip.

First thing I’d like to say is THANK YOU to Sean for putting up with me this trip. I know I can be a pain in the ass to be around, and to be honest I’m amazed we didn’t want to kill each other after spending 20 straight days together. But I had a fantastic time travelling with you buddy! Let’s do it again sometime.

I also apologize for some mean things I might have said about you on this blog. I realize I sometimes use it as a place to “vent”, even though it’s a public form can see it, and it might not be appropriate to type those things here. Plus you can’t really defend yourself when I’m the one typing it. In any case, I think I cleaned up most of my blog posts to get rid of any angry rants I may have said about you or anyone else.

Again, thanks for travelling with me. I hope you had as good of a time as me 🙂

Next, I want to talk about the things I lost. On this trip, I lost

-2 charging cables(plane from SF to LA)

-A neck pillow(plane from LA to Taiwan)

-My $70 20,000 mAh charging block(may he rest in peace, left on a bus from Sappa to Hanoi)

Really I’m only sad about the last one. But I do constantly lose things on trips. My 2 month trip to the east I lost sooooo much shit(I think I have a blog post about it).

In terms of things I learned, I think I learned a bit more how to travel with someone else. This trip was the longest time I’ve spent with another person travelling — it was really fun, but you realllllly get to know a person, both the good and the bad(Sean has the *BEST* German impressions — ask him to do one sometime lol). It can really strain a relationship — I had a friend that told me she went on a trip with her best friend, and after that they didn’t talk for 6 months. I didn’t want that to happen, so I tried to be pleasent, and when I saw I or him was getting sick of the other, gave some space. Maybe even just spending a day or a couple hours away from each other can help with that.

Next, I learned a lot about Vietnam. I went in not knowing much about this history of the culture of the place, and I feel like I have a bit more understanding of it and how people feel(especially towards Americans).

As always, I learned a lot about myself. I realize what I think is important to me — rock climbing, going on adventures, having stories to tell — and what’s not so important to me(massages). I think I want to focus more of my trps around the outdoors and beautiful sights I can see — some of my best memories during travels are always outdoors stuff. The cave lodge in Thailand, the trail in Iceland, climbing on Cat Ba. So I want to do more of that, and less “fluffy” stuff — like hanging around Hanoi and eating a bunch. While that’s FUN, it’s not really fullfilling to me; it can be a fun treat at the end of a long day, but I don’t want it to be the primary reason for me travelling.

I learned there is a fine line between planning things out a bunch when travelling — having every hotel booked — and being a bit more flexible when you travel, maybe only booking the first night. I realize Sean probably likes more of the first thing, and I more of the latter. Everybody’s different, and there’s no right way to travel.

I think I got a bit better at “making friends” during this trip. I met a couple of people that were really cool that I added on Facebook, and even one person who climbs in SF that I’ll probably meetup with again really soon!(Also because I have some of her gear lol).

All in all, it was a great trip. I think we ran out of things near the end(I was struggling to find stuff to do in Mue Ni, and I was realllllly disappointed that we weren’t going to be able to spend time in Hue). But luckily it all worked out in the end.

I think if you REALLY want to get to know people in these countries, you need to move even SLOWER. 2 weeks is enough if you want to plane and overnight bus to places. But if you had, say, a MONTH, you could really slow things down, taking the train through the whole country, staying in the same spot for a week or so, travelling with other friends, etc.

But anyways. I had a great time.

And I think, with this, I’m done with Asia for a while. I think I want to concentrate on either South America, or maybe finally hit up Europe, or go to the Phillapines, or something like that. Maybe even the middle east, who knows. But Asia I need a bit of a break from.

And that’s it! Onward and upwards. Thanks for reading.

This blog tales  kite surfing, drug deals, and a reflection of the trip.

The last evening I spent in Mue Ni, Sean had already left to Siagon. I was staying one more day to do another lesson of kite sufing.

So I end up staying at some hostel — it was about $5 a night for a room with 6 people in it. This hostel was nice — a bar, a pool, breakfast/dinner, the works. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

Everyone at the hostel is like ridiciulously hot. All these young Europeans, with their perfectly tan bodies and perfect abs, and same for the girls. I’m just thinking. how do you look *THAT* good and drink that much? How great it was to be young.

Me being an old geezer decided just to go to my room and go to bed. At 10 pm. Luckily I just turned on some music and was able to drown out their partying.

The next day, wake up, eat breakfast, buy some sunscreen that says “very water resistant”, and then kill a few hours before my kite surfing lesson.

It ended up being a great lesson. I learned how to try and stand up on the board. And I did it successfully 2 times!, going about 30 meters on the water each time. It was soooo much fun. But it was also really hard. A couple of times I gave the kite too much power and ended up slamming face first into the water(really painful…). Near the end of the lesson, I had a problem getting the kite back out of the water; it ended up getting tangled in a bunch of fishing lines, and I had to eject from the kite and swim back to shore(FYI, this kite surfing area is FILLED with fishing lines attached to water bottles that float the surface. Pretty freaking annoying, as you constantly get caught in them).

After the lesson, I took the sleeping bus back to Saigon. I told Sean I’d split the hotel both nights(the hotel was $100/night which is OUTRAGEOUS for Vietnam prices). The main reason we got the hotel was because of the “infinity pool” on the top. Unfortunately because I was getting there after 10 pm, the pool would be closed. So the only time I’d be able to enjoy it was the next morning.

So anyways I get there around 10 pm that night. Then we go on the search for food. I get some boba(YAY BOBA), and Sean ends up asking some friend he knows about a good place to eat(since everything seemed to be closed). She suggested this “backpacker ally”. And boy was it a good suggestion.

Here’s a video of the area, and Sean dancing:

I eat some street food which is obviously delicious. Then we begin the drinking!

Now at around this time I had decided I wanted to get a gift for my friend Molly — there was this really cool tobacco in the north we smoked called “thuoc loa”, which basically means loa tobacco. It’s actually  just tabacco that is 8 times stronger than regular tobacco. When you smoke it, you get a sort of weed high for about a minute, then it goes away.

You can read about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotiana_rustica

Being tobacco, I assume it is legal to bring back to the US. But never having bought “drugs” before, I wasn’t quite sure how to find it. It’s primary smoked in the north(like all in the streets of Hanoi and whatnot), but not so much in Siagon, which is where we were.

So I try to smooze up a guy. I find one of the bartenders at the bar we were at, buy him a shot, and then ask about 10 minutes later if he knew where I could buy some. He asks a guy, who in turn asks a guy, who disappears. And I never hear from them again. Well damn, that failed 🙁 But hey, at least he enjoyed his shot!

And then we bought another guy a drink, because why not. Here’s said guy:

Next, we go big. Last year in Thailand we bought a “tower” of beer:

This year, we did the same:

Some things don’t change ahaha.

After that, the night gets a lot more-drunk. We go play pool at some point. At this time I’m pretty sure I’m plastered judging by the deteriorating state of my selfies:

We go to the top of a club and go dancing. I remember dancing all about, keep bumping into tables and stuff. In hindsight I realize I was probably drunk of my ass, but at the time I just figured it was a small dance floor(which it was!). Finally at like, I think 4 am or some shit, we go back to our hotel. At some point before getting back to the hotel, I call Molly. She had the kid she was babysitting in the back of the car, and I apparently was like, “make him say shit! Make him say motherfucker! Fuck fuck fuck!”. Sean said something like “this is what I’ve been putting up with for 3 weeks” in the background. Of course she promptly hung up on me. Super inappropriate. Guess I’m not a very funny drunk 🙁

I thought I had set an alarm for 6:30 so I could go up the infinity pool the next morning and see the sun rise. But I missed the alarm somehow. That’s okay though, I still got to go up and enjoy the pool. Ladies:

and I had some delicious pad thai:

After that, Sean left. Goodbye Sean! Thanks for putting up with me!

Dissapointed in my failure the previous night to find the Thuoc Lao, I set out today to find some. I was going to do a food tour that morning, but this was much more important. I was on a MISSION!

I first ask the bar tender if he knew a place that might sell it. He referred me to a hookah-like louge, saying they might sell it or they might know. Seems reasonable. I uber over there, and the place is closed(of course, it’s the middle of the day). There are some guys doing construction inside, I ask them about the tobacco, and they just point me to the convenience store across the street. Nope, that’s not exactly what I want…

So next I head to a boba place to think it over. I had read online(on reddit, of all places) that people were able to buy at local markets. So I find the closet street market, and head over there. The market ends up being pretty weak, with not much stuff being sold. No bongs/thouc lao to be found. Damn.

So next, I head to an indoor clothing shop called “Siagon Square”. I don’t think they’d sell it here, but it was a 4 minute walk, so why not. Anyways, no such luck there either.

A quick note about the shopping in Vietnam: people say its AMAZING and the stores are CRAZY, but it’s seriously nothing compared to Bangkok. Hell, the shops in Vietnam seem smaller than some American street markets!

Anyways, I next head to the holy grail of street markets, ben thanh market: the biggest street market in Vietnam. I was hesistant to shop here because I figured they’d rip me off, but I had no choice.

I get there, look around, and no thouc lao! Wtf! Internet you lied, there’s no tobacco here. I walk to some shop that was selling cigarettes, and I ask them. The woman laughs at me, and points me to a hotel down the street. Hmm, strange a hotel would sell it, but whatever. I go to the hotel, which is very fancy looking, ask about it, and no such luck! Damn. Wtf lady, what are you on about?

This was turning into quite the adventure.

I then find a cigar shop on google maps. Maybe they’d know! I walk to the shop(sweating my balls off in the process, why is it so hot in Vietnam!?!?), only to find out that the shop is CLOSED. Also it looked to high-class to be selling this kind of tobacco.

At this point I was pretty dishearted. I had spent about 4 hours searching for this holy-grail-tabacco, with nothing to show for it.

I was just about to give up and get some food, when I decided I’d go back to the backpacking area we were in last night and try there.

So I uber over, and ask the first sketchy-looking guy I see, “thouc lao”? He just points me down an ally way. I’m like, uh…okay. So I go down the ally, and it’s actually not that sketch. It’s got hotels and shit, and white people walking all around. I ask a few more people in the ally, “thouc lao”? And they just keep pointing me deeper and deeper down the ally. Uh oh D:

Finally, I come out the other side of the ally, and onto the street. Damn, I must have missed it. I ask a guy near a cigarettes stand, in desperation, “thouc lao”? He says, hold on a minute, I think I got you. He talks to a few other people, and then this guy comes up to me, and says he has some. But we’d have to take a ride to where it is.

Oh-kay? I guess. I ask him how far and he says “15 minutes”. So we hop in his VAN.

Didn’t my Momma tell me not to do this? Anyways, being slightly scared I was gonna die, I start live sending Molly my location:

Indeed, what the hell am I doing.

The guy was a taxi driver, so he turns on the meter. Already I’m getting fucked, because he’s charging me like 5,10,15$ for this cab ride.

He starts making chit chat like a normal person, talking about how he loves americans, but northern vietnamese don’t(Vietnam war and all that). The he tells me his grandfather fought in the war. Oh god, is he gonna murder me because I’m American?

Then he asks me how much I’m going to buy. “10 kilos”? “You sell back in America, yes?” Oh jesus, now he thinks I’m a drug dealer! I can’t carry 10 kilos of this shit, jesus christ. “No no, 100 grams”. He doesn’t seem to understand. At this point I don’t want to upset him, since he’s going out of his way to drive me here, and if he thought I was going to buy massive amounts of tobacco and I don’t, will he murder me? Oh Jesus ._.

He’s confused by the 100 grams, so I say “0.1 kilo”. “Oh, 1 kilo?” No motherfucker, that could smoke out all of the bay area for a year. “No, 0.1 kilos. 100 grams”. Finally he realizes, “oh :(” with a sad face. But he keeps driving and doesn’t murder me. Yusss.

He then starts making obcense jokes, “oh, Americans very big like THIS(gestures with a wide circle)”, but vietnamese girls very small, very tight(gestures with a small hole). Oh Jesus dude, like I just met you, I don’t wanna talk about this. “I have a girlfriend” I say.

This whole time he’s driving, but not to anywhere sketchy. Eventually he gets off the freeway, and to this brightly lit street where they’re selling a bunch of Chinese new years stuff. He stops in front of a cart that looks like it’s selling bongs(bingo), and tobacco! Maybe I’m not going to get murdered after all? We hop out, and I can see more clearly they have these HUGEEEE bags of tobacco. They’re like long thin bags, about as half as tall as me. He tells me they’re about 800 grams each. And he wanted me to buy like 6 of those? No way that’s allowed through TSA lol.

Eventually he shows me the bags of “Thouc lao”, and they’re pretty small. Maybe a bit bigger than a brick. I’m like oh, that’s not too bad. So I ask how much for a bag — only 100,000 dong!!! (That’s like $5). Like fuck yeah, give me 2 of those! Each bag has roughly 100 grams; so this ends up being the equivalent of about 200 cigarettes worth of tobacco. Which actually isn’t that crazy of an amount if you think about it. But remember this is about 8-9 times stronger than normal tobacco, so it’s really like 1,8000 cigarettes. Lol.

So anyways, I tell him 2 bags, and a bong(100k dong, or about $5), and then I’m like okay, I’m done. Lets go. He offers to drive me back to my hotel — I feel bad if I say no, and I don’t want to upset this guy. He says yes, and doesn’t turn on the meter. Sweet!

We get back to the hotel in a mostly uneventful ride. At the end, he’s like, “oh I drive you there and back, so just double your one way fare”. I originally thought he was just going to drive me back for free, but that’s foolish thoughts lol. It ends up costing me 460k(about $20), which is the most expensive ride I’ve taken in all of ‘Nam. I give him a 500k, expecting him to give me change. Nope, he just takes my money. That’s okay, I just want OUT of this car lol. I’m feeling all sketched out.

For some reason, since this is basically the last Vietnamese person I’ll probably interact with, I offer him a USD $1 — just as a keepsake. He takes it, thanks me, and hands me back a “fake” $100 bill he was carrying around. Haha.

I hop out of his car, and END that terrifying, but kinda fun experience. Yay, I didn’t get murdered!

Now how to get this through TSA…

Now technically, the stuff is tabacco. You can read the wikipedia article I linked higher up. So there’s nothing illegal about bringing it through TSA. The problem is, it looks sketch, and it doesn’t really have proper labeling(just a white placard that says “thouc lao” and a picture of a guy smoking). Also I didn’t get a reciept, so if customs needs that, I’m SOL.

I figure I’d keep it on my carry on so if it DOES get confiscated, I’d be there to see it. I don’t want them shifting through my checked in luggage without me knowing.

If you look on the website, you are allowed to bring x number of cartons of ciggerates through. You are also allowed to bring “rolling tabacco”(which is what this technically is”), but they don’t say how much. I guess each “port” or city of entry has different requirements of how much you can bring through. San Francisco didn’t really say how “much” you could bring in, but it did have a PDF from 2006 saying all rolling tobacco was taxed at 50% the price you bought it at, and I’d have to fill out a form. So I’m like okay, that’s what I’ll probably have to do.

So I get to the airport, and get through Vietnamese security no problem. The guys actually didn’t even look at the screen when my bag went through.

The same thing at the Taiwan transfer security checkpoint — don’t even bother looking at the bag.

When I get to the US security checkpoint, I’m sweating bullets. I’m not really worried I’ll get arrested or anything — again, to the best of my knowledge, this stuff is legal — but I *am* worried that my shit will get tossed for not having proper labeling. I look at the customs form, and it doesn’t have anything for tobacco — which is weird since tobacco is a pretty common thing to bring through customs. They do have a section for “plants”, which I guess tobacco technically is. I decide to say I have “nothing to declare”, since technically tobacco wasn’t on there. But when I got to the passport checkpoint area, and the guy asked if I had anything to declare, I just said “tobacco”. “How many cartons?” “Oh not cartons, just rolling tobacco”. He just looks at me a second, writes something on the back of my customs form, and lets me through. Okay.

Then I got to the customs guy that scans your shit. He was sending most people to the left(people who didn’t need shit scanned I assume), and some people to the right for extra screening. Oh god, here comes the anal probing. He takes one look at my customs document, AND SENDS ME TO THE LEFT. No extra screening. Didn’t care to see my tobacco. Woohooo! Home free. I walk as quickly as I can out of the customs area and into the arrivals area and into the cool, San Francisco night.

Now I never *lied* at any point during this process, and I technically didn’t bring anything illegal into the country. But I definetly skirted a few gray lines. For one, on my customs document I probably should have said I had something to declare; but I told the guy verbally, so no harm there. Second, the guy that checked my passport probably should have said I had something to declare, but I guess he thought checking the rolling tobacco wasn’t worth it, so signed my documents saying I had nothing of interest.

So I got lucky I get.

And that’s how I “smuggled” a bunch of tobacco into the USA. CBP, if you’re reading this, IV’E GOT NOTHING TO HIDE.

hahaha…

 

I’ve lost track of the days. But I’ll try and recount the events that happened. This post recounts the time I spent in Mui Ne(besides the last day which happens tomorrow), and the stories within. We learn about local culture, learn about our food, learn lots of kite surfing, spend time chilin’ and learn stories from people we meet.

Here’s where I’m typing from. I’m in a hostel(that only costs $5 a room for the “mid” teir room!). I picked up my smoking habit again:

Here’s a pic of the room:

 

The story starts were the last post left off. The bus we are from Sappa on makes it to Hanoi.

We make it to Hanoi, and go to our hotel. Sean booked a fancy-ass hotel($50 a night, wow!), so we were greated with TANGY/ORANGY soda-water. Sean tells me this is the standard greeting at high-end east-asia hotels.

We get into our room, and they have only one King bed :O. We’re like, “hey, this isn’t what we ordered, we need 2 beds”. Turns out, it IS just two beds, just squished together. So one of the hotel attendants spends the next 30 minutes undoing the beds and putting separate sheets on them while we sit there awkwardly.

We then go out for food. Sean wants to go to a “place that’s rated well”. TBH though, I’ve just been using a list of resturants in Hanoi recommended by Lonely Planet, so any place we go to will be filled with white people. But we go anyways, and alas, it’s filled with white people. Food is good though.

We then walk back home(its about 10 pm by this time), and I try and stop at a very very local-looking shop. It has no english writing, and it looks like a whole in the wall. I thought they sold boba. As I’m trying to translate some of the words the menu has on my phone, some buff Vietnamese guy comes up. “Can I help you?” he says. “Yeah, we’re trying to buy food here. It’s boba right?” “Sorry”, he says, “locals only”. “It is sweet soup here”.  This was the most polite xenophobia I had ever heard. It basically translates to: ‘White people not allowed here’. We’re like, oh okay, and just quickly go on our way. I’m not going to argue with this guy, he looks like an Asian Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I’m a bit disheartening the rest of the night, as I’ve never been turned down by my race. I guess this is how minorities must feel when they’re turned down for some shit-ass reason.

Here’s breakfast the next morning. I was disappointed the pink thing wasn’t filled with meat(I’m forgetting the name for it):

The next day, we make a trip to the “Hanoi Hilton”. This is a place that was used by the Vietnamese to hold American prisoners during the Vietnam war, primarily American pilots that were shot down over Hanoi.

What I DIDNT know, however, is that it was originally built by the french in the 1800s to hold Vietnamese political prisoners. Vietnam had a war against the french (the first indochina war), which the VIetnamese successfully defeated the french. The french treated the Vietnamese like SHIT this whole time, often torturing them and holding them in solidarity and wahtnot.  According to Sean, at some point before WWII, the french released control of Vietnam. But then after WWII, they were like, “hey, we want Vietnam back”. So they tried again to take control of Vietnam. They started losing(see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_in_the_Vietnam_War). During this time, Communism was making big waves in the world, and as we all know America was like “fuck communism!”. So seeing the french losing, the US gave more and more help to the french to win this war. Because we didn’t want North Vietnam to become communist! Eventually, we started our own war, and started trying to kick the Vietnam’s ass. As you know, we lost, and were eventually pushed out of Vietnam. But during our time trying to fight them, they used the “Hanoi Hilton” as a place for captured soldiers.

So the vietnamese seriously got the bad end of the stick. The whole time, they were just trying to have independence from colonialism. And to their defense, they fought off the french twice, and the americans as well.

The funniest part of all this, which Sean pointed out, is if we had just let them be after the first french occupation, they probably would have been a republic!(And I think they were breifly between the 1st and second french occupation). But because the french/americans tried to take them over, and other external factors during the time, they turned to communism as a form of governance.

Now obviously some of this is oversimplified and might be incorrect, but I think it’s important to understand our past, and how the world came to be what it is today. And most importantly, understand that sometimes you arn’t right, and your country isn’t right. In this case, and I’m sure most Americans would agree, the Vietnam war was a mistake(by the way, they call it the “American war”).

Speaking of not being right, I’d like to point out that the Vietnamese like to down-play the conditions Americans faced in the prison. They pretended(according to all the videos they had on display), that american were constantly playing basketball, and drinking, and celebrating Christmas, etc etc. I doubt this is true. But it’s always fun to see a government downplay the atrocities it committed.

Sorry for the long rant. Lets get to the fun stuff. Here’s some pics from the prison.

These would be used to hold the feet of prisoners:

Here is the alleged bag and shoes they’d give to american prisoners during their time in the prision. I doubt this very much though:

Fun story, that at one point on Christmas eve(when the french occupied Vietnam), over 100 Vietnamese escaped through the sewers. Here’s the sewers they crawled through. Even at my thinnest, I could NEVER fit through this:

We also saw a real-life gillotine which was used to kill political prisoners during the French occupation:

Some holding cells with all the Vietnamese people’s legs shackled:

 

Morbid stuff.

Anyways, after that we got some ice cream, and then hopped on our plane to Mue Ni. Pretty uneventful flight, we got some food in the airport, I got a shotglass for my collection, called Molly, then we hopped on our bus. Again, it was a LUXURY bus, so all leather everything, just like Sean liked it.

We finally get to Mue Ni at around 10 pm. We roll up to our hostel. Here’s a picture of the sign:

We walk in, and it’s got a nice garden area in the center, and a little bar. There are russians EVERYWHERE. More on this later.

When we go to the bar, we see a few americans drinking with some of the locals. We join them for a bit of fun. It turns out they had all been drinking since around 3pm, so they were pretty drunk. We join them in their shenanigans. Also, since all the food was closed at this point, they cook some ramen for us. So nice! They just put all our food on a tab(or rather, we put it on our tab; they trust us to write the correct stuff). We talk with the other Americans; one of them just moved to SF 6 months ago, and lived in Nob Hill. What a coincidence! So many San Franciscans(and nobody from NY, sorry Sean!).

They say they’re going to wake up at 6 to go to the market to buy some fresh fish. So we decide to join them.

Next morning, 6 am, ring ring ring, we wake our tired-asses up, and head to the market. Since we don’t have enough scooters(there’s 5 of us including me and Sean), its decided that they’d take a cab and we’d take a scooter.

So we ride me and Sean on a scooter. Sean being a bit shy holds be by the shoulders. It’s actually really hard to control a scooter with two people on it and I struggle a bit to not drive us into a ditch. I eventually get the hang of it, and Sean starts to get intimate with me and hold me by my love handles. Finally the intimacy I had been hoping for the whole trip!

We get to the market at 6:30. It looks like this:

Each of those “boats” is a circular. I had never seen boats like that. It was the tea cups in Disneyland. Very strange. A couple days later I saw some “use” those boats; basically they just paddle around in oars. They’re not really meant for going fast.

We walk around, a bit. Btw, if I didn’t mention, one of the ladies running the guest house(Lien) had come with us. So she was helping translate for us of us and bargin for us. Everyone at the fish Market knew here(they would be like “Lien! Lien!” which I thought was really cool).

Sean ended up buying some crabs and some Shrimp. I don’t eat sea food, but I had a grand time going around and being like, “how about these? how about those?” Every time we bought something, 2-3 Vietnamese people would come up to us with fish hoping we’d buy something.

Here’s some of the items we saw(note the ice means it’s not fresh):

Here’s Sean with his takeaway:

Shit was SUPER cheap. Like maybe 10$ for all of that.

At one point, our other American friends went off to buy some fish on their own. They almost ended up buying some old fish(which I learned you could tell it was old/dead/not fresh by the fact that it had ice in the container), but luckily Lien stopped them before they made the mistake 😛

Next up: get me some chicken! Lien said we were going to go somewhere local to buy fish, and I didn’t realize what this would truly mean. This next part is not for the faint of heart, and would be one of the most memorable parts of my trip.

So we drive over to a local farmer, and are presented with this: a collection of LIVE chickens to choose from:

They wanted me to pick a LIVE chicken, then they would kill it, de-feather it, and sell it to me. I told them to pick the smallest one, (about 1.6 kilos), which cost about $10.

They kinda treated the chickens like shit TBH. All the chickens feet were bound, so they couldn’t fly/hop around. And when picking them up, they’d pick them up by one wing, which would cause the chicken to cry/sequel/whatever chickens do.

After I picked the chicken, they weighed it(while it was alive)he took it out back to kill. I asked if I could watch, and Sean filled them.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT FOR THE FEINT OF HEART. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO WATCH A CHICKEN BLEED OUT, DO. NOT. WATCH:

To summarize the video, he basically slits the chickens throat, and lets it bleed out. It definitely squirms and flaps its wings and cries out. But its all over in a minute.

Even Lien, we eats chicken a lot and lives in Vietnam, did not want to watch this process. I thought it was horrific and horrible animal cruelty. Later on, I did some research, and it turns out this is a pretty standard way to kill chickens(we do this a lot in the US). It seems it only lasts about 15-30 seconds for the chicken and then they become unconscious. Doesn’t seem *that horrible*, but if you’re a vegetarian maybe you disagree.

After that, he like greased the chicken up with something. Not sure what it was. Then, he put the chicken in this defeathering machine. I didn’t really get a picture of it, but it looked like a container with a bunch of jets in it that’d spray the chicken. After about 30 seconds of spraying the chicken(with really, really hard water I’d guess), the chicken was completely defeathered!! Absolutely amazing. Then he washed off the chicken:

Next, he cut open the chicken. He cut out it’s stomach and some other organs. When he cut open the stomach, we could see some of the food the chicken had recently eaten. The stomach was like a yellow hard sack with what I assumed was bird-feed the chicken had recently eaten inside of it.

He also took out the intestines and some other stuff. I don’t know what it was, I’m not good at anatomy.

They it gave us the chicken in a bag, and we took it back with us.

Pretty freaking surreal that this chicken was alive not 5 minutes before, and now it looked like something you’d buy in a super market.

We went home, then took a nap. After napping, we woke up, an asked Lien to cook our chicken. She had offered to cook the chicken and sea food for us, which was really nice.

She basically just boiled the chicken for us for 15 minutes, and gave us the whole chicken(on a plate), along with 2 plates of rice.

Sean had gone off to get some money at an ATM at this point, and had left my high-and-dry to deal with this chicken situtation. I rarely cook, and have NO FUCKING IDEA how to cut a whole chicken into edible pieces. So I  grab a kinfe, and try my best to cut the chicken into pieces that I recognize/are edible. I do an awful fucking job. At some point, I think the Dad of the two sisters running the place comes buy and says something in Vietnamese, all the way laughing at my white-boy-ways.

Here’s a pic of the chicken after I had cut it up and had a bit to eat:

Note you might not be able to see it, but the chickens head and everything are still attached to the left.

Again, it was fucking surreal to eat a chicken that had just been alive like an hour before. I picked it out, watch it get slaughtered, de-feathered, and then the end result cooked. All the mystery of where my food comes from had been removed.

I’ll be quite honest, I definitely lost my appetite a bit through this whole process. It felt fucking weird eating a chicken that had just been alive. Completely surreal. I’m sure this is normal for you(the reader) or many people throughout the world who do this all the time, but I wasn’t used to it.

This whole experience will definetly stick with me for a long time. It makes me question if I really need to eat as much meat as I do; it makes me not really want to eat all different types of meat, and makes me want to respect the food that we DO eat.

I’ll be honest, me and Sean didn’t eat like 50% of the chicken(we ended up throwing it away), and I felt AWFUL for letting the animal suffer for basically what was my “enjoyment”. We didn’t know how to eat many parks of the chicken(neck, head, feet, etc), and weren’t hungry enough to eat some of the meat. I want to make sure that if I do ever eat an animal live again, I know how to properly utilize all the parts.

Okay, enough about the chicken.

Next, time to Kite surf! Sean and I headed off to a Kite surfing school on the scooters we had just rented after our chicken-eating incident.

Here’s Sean on his scooter:

A bit about kite surfing: its a sport where you use the wind and a giant kite to propel you along the water. It requires somewhat windy days, and is really, really fun. And relatively safe compared to other sports(snowboarding/skiing, rock climbing, etc).

It takes about 17 hours to get confident enough to kite board on your own. We didn’t have that kind of time, so we decided to just take lessons and see where it went.

We showed up to the place, went in the back, and were greeted with this sight:

As you can see, the kitesurfing shop as seen better days. Apparently it was high by a typhoon/giant wave a few weeks ago, and it was a bit of a wreck. But it didn’t deter them from running their lessons!

We ended up booking 7 hours worth of lessons with a guy named Hong. Cost us $260 USD each. Typically things like adventure sports costs the same amount of $ no matter what country you’re in. Which is really a good thing, because it means they don’t lower the bar on the training for these types of classes.

Anyways we go out the first day. They first show us how to use a small kite on the beach two handed; then one handed; then he moves us onto a bigger kite. He teaches us how to fill up the kite with air, how to attach the lines from the bar to the kite. He teaches us how to safely escape/detach from the kite if it were to get dangerous/pull us down/ect. Then, he takes us into the breakers, and makes us control the kite from there. It’s hard to control a kite when the waves are constantly bashing you all over and trying to knock you off your feet!

Finally we get fully into the water, and do what he calls “body surfing”, were we use the kite to accelerate our body while swimming. Pretty tough stuff to do!

Here’s a pic of Sean practicing on the beach:

Kite surfing is interesting. You were a belt, kind of what you would wear in the gym when lifting heavy weights. The kite attaches to this belt, and all the “power” from the kite is transferred to the belt. Because of this, you feel all the power of the kite in your back.

Here’s a picture of the bar:

The kite has 4 lines running from it: two “power lines”(the center ones”, and tow “steering” lines(the left and the right). All the power/pulling goes through the center lines, and into your back. When you steer, you use the left and right lines. To steer, you kinda pull it like a steering wheel. Note you DO NOT USE A LOT OF POWER to do this. You can steer with your pinkies if you want to, because all the power of the kite is going through the center lines. This was a really hard lesson for Sean and I to learn; when the kite is going out of control, your instinct is to pull hard on the bar and try and force it to turn. When in reality, you don’t have to use much power to turn the kite, which is what causes it to go up/down.

Anyways, he showed us a lot of kite surfing techniques. This guy was a GREAT teacher. He had actually won 2nd place in an international kite-surfing competition, as I later found out. Great guy.

After a long day of kite surfing, we headed back to the guest house. We got dinner, and I promptly went to bed at 8 pm. I was FUCKING. TIRED.

The next day we woke up at around 10 pm. I had slept for 14 hours. Lol. We didn’t have kite surfing lessons until 1 pm, so I was bored without much to do, so I didn’t wake up. If I don’t have anything to do in the morning, why wake up?

Btw, the night before I had a “vanilla milkshake” as part of my dinner:

This shit was FUCKING DELICIOUS. I ended up having 4 over the course of my stay here. It was basically condensed milk with vanilla in it. Soooo gooood.

Also another note, Mui Ne is FILLED with Russians. Like, it’s even known as “little Moscow”. A lot of restaurants are in Russian, and the menus at most restaurants have Vietnamese, English, and Russian. After a bit of googling, I find out there’s direct flights from much of Russia and Russian-block countries to Nhan Trang and Siagon. And a lot of tour companies have packages to stay at Mui Ne. Plus, this is winter for Russia, which is FUCKING COLD, so obviously they’d want to go somewhere warm. And since the flights are only 5-6 hours, then why wouldn’t they come here?

Anyways, back to the story. Next morning we wake up, eat breakfast(Sean falls on the bike a little bit on the way to the restaurant and gets a scrape), and we go to the kite surfing place. The wind was bad, so there was to be no kite surfing that day.

No problem. We decide to do one of my vietnam bucket-list items: JET SKI!

For $30 for 30 minutes, YOU can get on a jet ski! They bring two of them out, and we go to town.

Unfortuntely I don’t have any pictures of this because I hadn’t planned on doing Jet Skiing on this day and didn’t bring my go pro.

But let me tell you, Jet Skiing is AS EVERY BIT OF FUN AS YOU THINK IT WOULD BE.

Basically you just have a control that you pull for throttle, a wrist bad that’s attached to the ski for automatic shutoff should you be thrown off, a start button, and thats IT.

We fucking cruise around, going this way and that. I try going “full throttle” a few times, but get scared because it’s really fucking fast, and you get quite a bit of air, which means you get slammed back down on the waves pretty hard.

Me and Sean do a little bit of racing(I win of course), we spin around and stuff, just a grand old time.

Seriously, jet skiing is better than sex. Actually, it kind reminds me of sex. For some strange reason. Maybe just all the power between your legs, the exhilaration, the total absorption in the moment. It’s amazing.

At that moment, I really wish I had a girl with me riding on the back. The only thing that would have made it better. I’m looking at you Molly.

As one point I use the bouys as markers and make a game of weaving in and out of the bouys. Pretty fun stuff.

Eventually the guy waves us down with a life jacket to let us know our time is over. We return the skiis. Then something really embarrassing happens:

When I went to get on the jet ski, there was a key on the table; I picked it up assuming it was for the jet ski, put it in my pocket, and promptly forgot about it.

Turns out it was one of the Vietnamese guy’s keys to his motor bike. It had come out of my pocket at some point during my Jet skiing, lost to the ocean. And this guy didn’t have a spare.

I felt AWFUL. And like an idot. I had lost this guy’s key! Why he hadn’t stopped me from picking it up in the first place I don’t know, but I was still responsible.

I talked to Hong(our Kitesurfing instructor), and he told me that it cost 250 to replace the locks on his bike. 250 DOLLARS??? No, 250k Dong(about $10). Whew. I felt horrible, so I learned how to say “I’m sorry” in Vietnamese, and then gave the guy 400k and apologized to him. I felt super bad.

He came back up to me 5 minutes later and gave me 200k back. Apparently he only needed 200. That really restored my fate in the Vietnamese people. Left and right on this trip, people had been taking advantage of me, ripping me off. But this guy had enough honestly in him to say, “hey this is too much”. Which I thought was cool.

Anyways after that we went to some bar, got a bunch of sushi(yes cucumber sushi *IS* sush*), and headed back to our guesthouse.

There I took a FAT nap, while Sean wandered around and did whatever. He got a “massage” ;D

I woke up, and got a chance to really talk to Diem and Liem. Remember the name of the place we were staying? Diem and Liem Guest house? Well apparently that was the names of the sisters that ran the place! Here they are:

And with Sean:

They ran this guesthouse and lived here with their family. The one on the left is married, the one on the right was not.

They originally used to be waiters at a restaurant a couple years ago. After doing that for a couple of years, their family decided to sell “fish sauce” to local Vietnamese people. After making enough money doing that, their father decided to sell some land, and then build some guest houses. They built 5 houses about 4 years ago. They took out a loan with the bank, paid it off, then built another guest house. Then then took out another loan, built another 5 about 2 years ago, and then built another 6 about 3-4 months ago.

They run this house with a third sister(who’s name is not part of the place LOL). Apparently it’s standard to have 2 names for a hotel, but 3 is “not good”. The third sister also doesn’t speak english(Lien said she was “lazy”), so she’s the one who ends up cleaning a lof the rooms/preparing food.

Lien(the one on the left, who I talked to the most) studied tourism in college. That’s also how she learned to speak English.

She mentioned that they didn’t have any more land to expand any bigger, and even if they did, they would need to hire more help, but they wouldn’t trust anyone else to clean/help run the place(because of stealing).

It was really cool to be able to hear their life story. They were super friendly, and if anyone ever has to stay in Mui Ne, I would *HIGHLY* recommend this place.

 

Also, that evening we got to talk to a Russian guy. He worked for a guitar manufacturer, and lived in Syberia? I think it was. He had travelled to Corona(near LA, which I had never heard of), as well as SF and other places. He was there with his family. He had paid $500 all inclusive(including room + flight) to be there in Muni. I told him I paid $1600 just for the flight, and he started at me blankly lol. #Privilege I guess. But he was very friendly! In a reserved Russian sort of way. His wife and daughter were fucking gorgeous. Sean is right, Russian woman are on another level…

So anyways, that closes out that night. We went to bed, because at 4:30 AM the next morning we had a jeep tour the to sand dunes. We were originally going to ride our motorcycles to the dunes, but there were apparently police traps along the way that would stop you and make you pay 1-2 million dong(about $100) for not having a license(note that you need an international license to drive a scooter over 50cc, and we didn’t have that license. Most of the Vietnamese government doesn’t give a fuck about this, but here they like to milk the tourists for all they got). A lot of time, they wouldn’t even be “real” police, but entrepreneurial Vietnamese dressing up as policing, and creating road blocks to slow you down. People online said if they didn’t look like real police to just keep driving past them(even if they are following you). Sounded sketch AF if you ran away from real police.

Lien said if we went early enough in the morning the police(and fake police) wouldn’t be there, but Sean and I didn’t want to deal with that stressful situation, so we decided to get a jeep hire for $20 instead.

We wanted to see the sunrise on the dunes, so that’s why we had to wake up at 4:15 AM.

But before we woke up, I posed for a shot behind the bar:

So. wake up, make it out to the dunes, and I get some sick shots:

This was my favorite shot of the day. I’ll probably do more processing on the raw file when I get home. Breaking bad style:

I’ll probably frame that one.

We had to pay a guy 400k to take us on an ATV to the top of the dune to watch the sunset. I talked him down from 500k, which I was proud of. Though it was still a super-rip off, because 400k is about $20, for about 5 minutes of riding to the top(we could have probably walked it in 20 minutes).

Anyways, here’s more shots:

And here are some of the red sand dunes. Sean was so sleepy, he kept falling asleep in the jeep. I don’t know how you sleep like that!

Here are the sand dunes:

After that, we went to the “fairy stream”. This place was beautiful, and only 4 minutes walking from our hotel!

 

Absoultely beautiful. Some of these are going on the wall.

After that, we went back for more kite surfing lessons. But not before stopping at Joe’s Cafe and getting some food!

Then we go back for some Kite surfing lessons. Since the lessons started at 1, and we had a bus back at 4, we could only stay 2 hours for the lessons. Seeing as that wasn’t a lot of time, and the wind was supposed to be really good the next day, I opted to stay in Mue Ni another day while Sean went back to Siagon. I really wanted to complete my (kite board) training (unlike Anakin), so Sean and I split up. I would stay in Mue Ni another night, do my kite surfing lessons the next day, and take the bus back that night. Sean would go back today, and I’d meet up with him the next day in Siagon.

So that’s where we’re at! I’m typing this from a backpacking hostel right now. I’ll meet up with him tomorrow, enjoy my infinity pool, and fly back Wednesday. My flight is late on Wednesday, so instead of doing the Chi-chi tunnels, I’ll probably go on a food tour in Saigon(because I want to be *properly* introduced to Vietnamese food. It’s my last chance!).

So if you read all this, thanks. This was a Looooong blog and probably took me 2-3 hours to write. I’ll probably try and make them a bit shorter(maybe 2 days combined max), as this was a fucking marathon to type out.

Thanks for reading!

This blog post will combine all the stuff that happened in our trip to Sa Pa.

Our trip started out taking a night bus to Sa Pa. I’d never been on a night bus before; basically, you sleep on the bus in these reclining chairs. I thought we’d get a horrible night sleep. Turns out it wasn’t that bad! The only thing was the seats were meant for Vietnamese people, so they were a bit short. But I was able to shove myself far enough up the seat to make it comfortable.

Here’s a pic of Sean in said seats:

We arrived in Sa Pa around 5 am. We were supposed to get picked up by a guy would would take us to a hotel, and from there we’d start our trek. Unfortunately, nobody showed up. This was from the internery Mr.Micheal had booked for us way back in Cat Ba, so we didn’t really have the name of the company or anything that was supposed to pick us up. It took us about 30 minutes of looking at our paper, staring at other people, and texting Micheal before we figured out what to do. Sean hadn’t gotten much sleep on the bus, so he was rightfully grumpy during this ordeal. I was a little worried, but in the end realized shit happens and if we couldn’t figure it out we’d make another plan.

Finally, we looked on the BACK of the paper, and realized it had the name of the hotel that we were supposed to go to. So we headed off to the hotel. Apparently a lot of people on our bus were going to the same trip, and they had all gotten picked up, just not us. Darn you Mr.Micheal.

But anyways, we ate breakfast, and geared up for the trip. I was going to wear my tennies for the hiking, but the guide said that we were going to be stepping in ankle-deep mud, so we rented some cheap rubber boots from her for $2. And thank god I did.

Oh, and remember that Indian couple that was on the party boat with us? Well apparently they took the same bus to Sapa, and were also on the trek with us! Don’t forget that, because they come into the story later…

So anyways we head off on the trek, and it is SUPER foggy. I was really worried we wouldn’t be able to see *ANYTHING*. Luckily, it cleared up as we went. Here’s some pics from the trip:

A cute doggo. I kept saying these dogs looked like Benjaman Button:

Other wildlife:

A somewhat decent view. This is about as good as the views got. But you can appreciate the scale of these rice fields. The valley went on for miles, and it seemed every viable square meter was covered in rice fields:

Here are some other pictures from the trek:

They also let us stop at one of the schools. I think it was elementary school. They were at recess, and when it was over, instead of chiming a bell, they hit a giant drum. I thought that was great:

Also kind of weird they just let foreigners roam around a kid’s school during recess, but what do I know.

I think this was one of my favorite pics from the trek. I wish I had a bit better zoom, but it’s pretty cool to just see one of the locals chilling along the rice fields:

More pics of us, yay:

On our way over, I saw this house with the rock in it. They literally built the house isn’t the rock. Why move it when you can use it?

They taught us a bit about making clothes on the trip. This here is indigo:

They use it to dye some of their plants. There’s a complex process of extracting the die from the plants that I don’t quite remember, but requires letting the dye to sit for a couple of months, followed by combining it with some sort of sand before using it for clothes. They said even a small field of flowers can yield a couple kilos of dye, which I thought was a good return on effort 😛 The whole process of growing and extracting the dye takes about a year.

During our hike we meet two girls from South Korea. One was from LA, the other from some city outside of Denver. They were English teaches in Korea. It was really cool to hear about their live stories.

We also got to see how the indigenous people made clothes. They sewed hemp using a manual sewing machine. Then they died it using that indigo died I talked about. Often the die would make the clothes very shinny, so to de-shine it, they would use wax. To apply the wax, they would basically get on this hover-board looking rock, and rock back and forth across the cloth. It looked really tiring, but the lady who did it looked really impressive/experienced.

They said in all it takes about a year of work to make a dress. ONE DRESS. Good lord.

The most entertaining story we heard on our trek was about how people get married. So some people have arranged marriages, and other times they “find love”. There is a “love festival” that goes on once a year where everyone in town gathers and meets other potential mates. If a guy likes a girl, he will kidnap her(yes you read that right). He basically takes her back to his family’s home for 3-4 days, and see if they get along. Since everyone in the village knows everyone, the guy’s family will tell the girls neighbors where she is so they don’t get worried. After that trail run, if the guy and the girl like each other, they get married. The guy pays the girls family 50 L of rice wine, along with an ox I think? and get married. Again, since everyone knows everyone else, they don’t give each other wedding rings after marriage. Everyone just knows. I thought that was pretty cool.

So anyways, after hearing this, I start talking to the Indian couple again. It turns out the girl works for some company near mine in SF! I don’t know what it was called(couldn’t quite understand), but I guess she travels around to lots of different offices to work, the SF office being one of them.

So anyways, I’m talking to her, and we get to talking about these arranage marriages. I was like, “oh, that’s somewhat similar to Indian marriages, right”? Seeing how you have to pay the other family, and the families are very close knitt, ect. She was like “NO. It is VERY different. The woman’s family pays the MAN for the marriage”.

And she’s right, there’s a big difference between the two cultures. I was just trying to make small talk, and I felt kinda bad I offended her. But I also felt like she also over reacted. Obviously I wasn’t trying to offend her, just trying to understand these different cultures and their similarities….

So anyways we keep trekking. Near the end of the 1st day of trekking we saw this bar. I thought it was a pretty funny name:

I also want to note that everything was SUPER FREAKING MUDDY during the hike. It was very hard to not fall into the mud. I think during the trek Sean fell into the mud twice. And one of our English-teaching south Korean friends fell once.

Anyways, we eventually get to the homestay. It wasn’t quite a homestay as it was a hostel. It had a few private rooms, on the first and second floor, with most of the second floor just being an open sleeping arrangement. We got there at around 4ish, so we basically had the rest of the evening(besides the cooking class and the dinner) to fuck around.

This is when the first trouble happened. Remember that Indian couple that had been following us since the begginning? Well I guess there was some mix up with the rooms, and all the sudden I hear from the Indian woman,

WE PAID 30 EXTRA DOLLARS TO STAY IN A PRIVATE ROOM WITH A BATHROOM. I DONT CARE HOW YOU FIX IT, IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED. CALL THE COMPANY AND FIX THIS NOW.

She was really laying into our tourguide/homestay people. So a couple things:

1. First, while this isn’t technically a homestay, you’re still in someone elses house. You shouldn’t really be making demands from them
2. Don’t be a laying into this people! That’s so dickish. It was obviously a mistake and they’ll fix it. But being rude to “custom service”(as our other english-speaking friends called it) isn’t going to get things solved any faster.

Anyways, everyone who had a private room decides to offer up their private room for this lady if it’ll fix her problem. Everyone was super nice about it. We technically had a private room as well I believe(on the paper it translated to that), and though it never ended up materializing when they assigned us sleeping arrangements, we offered it up as well.

Eventually they got everything squared away. But after that incident, we didn’t really see much from the Indian couple besides dinner and breakfast the next day.

Now in her defense, this is probably not what she asked for. She slept on an overnight bus like us and woke up at 6 am(not the best sleep), then had to trek through all this shitty mud to stay in one of these rooms. They were both carrying “roller” luggage, which is not ideal for a country like this, or for activities like this. Pretty amateurish if you ask me. So they probably were used to more “lavish” travelling. Which there is nothing wrong with. But if that’s what you’re expecting, and then you have to go through all this, I can see how you’d snap.

So anyways, that was fun.

And actually, the rest of the night got pretty fun as well. We all got to meet each other.

We met a female German solo traveler who was travelling for 4 weeks on her own(for the first time!). She was really nice. Apparently germans get 4 weeks off a year! Who knew!

We also met the english teachers in Korea that I spoke about before. They taught us a lot about Korea, like everyone in Korea *must* go into the army for about 2 years(or was it 9 months?).

We met a couple that had met in Australia on a work-board program. One was french and the other from the UK. They were both pretty cute 😛

We met a Canadian couple and their friend. There were cool as well, though I didn’t speak to them much 1:1. There might have been 1-2 others but I’m forgetting. All the accents and names and stories tend to blend together.

So the night  devolved into drinking. First we played Kings cup(I had to drink the cup), then we payed some phone game that had fun requirements(like would you rather, do this strange thing, ask questions, get to know each other, etc). It was a pretty fun night.

We ended up going to bed at 10pm that night because we were all exhausted, and didn’t wake up till 9 am the next day.

Here’s some pictures of the girls:

On the left is Ahsley, a teacher in Korea. In the center is Johanna, the solo german traveler. And on the right is Natalie, also a teacher in Korea(she’s from LA).

Here’s a pic of us cheesin’ with Johanna:

So anyways, the next day we wake up, eat breakfast, leave. We do some more hiking, Sean falls in the mud again, you know, the usual. We eventually head back to Sapa. We originally had planned to go to Hanoi that night, but decided to try the cable Car on the suggestion of Alvaro(the Peruvian guy we met on the Junk Boat). We say goodbye to our friends :'(, then go to our hotel.

And then I shower for the first time in 2018. And what a great shower it was.

Leaving these people makes me really sad. They were all really cool, and I’d love to be friends with them. When you constantly meet people, and then never see them again, it can be hard. I find it emotionally draining really. I think someone like meet, I like to make deep lasting connections with people. I have a small number of friends but I’d like to think they’re good friends. But when you have a trip like this where you make a friendship and just end it the next day, it’s hard.

Although on the otherside, if you ever happen to travel to their part of the world, then you’ll have a friend there to visit!

So that night in Sapa, we decide to go out for some food.

Here’s our attempt at Hot Pot. I title it, “Two White Guys Fuck Up Hot Pot”:

The waiter constantly came over to show us how to do hot pot(even though Sean had done it before), we also set the place on fire because we couldn’t turn down the heat. Yeah know, white-guys-in-asia sort of stuff.

We call it an earlier night because we’re both exhausted again from the night. But not before I take my favorite picture of Sean on this trip:

The next day, we check out, pack up, eat breakfast, and head for the cable car. This car goes to the top of Fansipan, the highest peak in IndoChina. We sacrificed 1 1/2 days in Hue to see this cable car — basically we could spend a day here, or a day in Hue. I like mountains(sorry Jordan, gonna steal your phrase), so I decided this would be better. And Sean had already been to Hue.

Unfortunately, it was COMPLETELY fogged out. We couldn’t see anything.

The cable car ride up was cool though:

Kinda like you were floating in the air.

We got to the top, and took a couple of fun pictures:

Some random family approached Sean and asked him to be in their picture. First it was just the dad, then the dad and the mom, and then finally the whole family. Pretty funny:

 

Again, I was really disappointed in not being able to see the incredible views. When you think about it, you save up time all year to go on these vacations, and spend lots of money, and then you get there, and you can’t do the activity you wanted. But that’s just the nature of travelling. A lot of times things just go wrong, and to expect them to be perfect all the time is foolish.

I wrote a post on Instagram that summarized my feelings:

Not every day when travelling can be a winner. Sometimes things just go wrong. In this case, we planned an extra day in Sa pa and sacrificed a day in Hue to see the view from atop Fansipan, and got completely fogged out.

Part of travelling is accepting things won’t go as planned. I’m learning more and more to let go of my expectations and embrace whatever experience comes my way. And through these experiences I realize I’m not so much learning about the world around me, but about myself.

So that’s it! I’m on the bus now to Hanoi, Hanoi for a night and 1/2 a day, then Mui Ne. Onwards and upwards!

I’m going to try to combine two days into one, because they kinda flowed into each other. I’ll be going over NYE and new years day.

Here is the sunrise on January 1st, 2018. A great way to start the year if you ask me:

Record scratch. 

Now you might be wondering how we got here. So let me start from the beginning.

New years day we woke up at 6am on Cat Ba. I was so damn tired, but we had to catch a bus to Cat Ba Habour at 7 am. We wake up, pack, and catch our bus to the habor. Then we hop on a boat, which takes us to ANOTHER boat.

We do a mid-ocean boat transfer that is less safe, but oh-so-fun. I love the lack of regulations here. This was the first boat transfer of many. Here’s generally how the transfers work:

Anyways, we got on the boat, and proceed to wait like 3-4 hours for people to show up. Because we were coming from Cat Ba, rather than Hanoi, we got there much earlier than the rest of the guests.

Finally people show up, and the captain proceeds to tell us we have to get on ANOTHER boat(boat #3 at this point). We had already gotten cozy in our room, so we had to move all the stuff off. We eat lunch with our new-found guests/friends, and then hop onto the other boat.

It turns out the boats were part of the same company, and they actually tied them together during the evening party so we could easily move between them. Again if you look at the procedure for how to cross these boats, you can see why a bunch of drunk people trying to cross the boats might be dangerous in the middle of the night. But that’s Vietnam for you! *shrugs*

During lunch we met a Vietnamese child that must have been 11-12 with his family. He was from Ojai, CA but I thought he said Ohio. Sean proceeded to make fun of me the rest of the trip for misunderstanding him(because I had been saying stuff to him like, “oh, California is very cool, lots of fun stuff” etc etc).  I never did address him about this…

Sean and I were talking about cruises, and I mentioned how they had a BDSM cruise. We then talked about BDSM for a good couple minutes. We didn’t think the kid would understand what we were saying(because he was Vietnamese), but I’m pretty sure he understood every word. How embarrassing *face palm*

After lunch,we started the first activity for the day: Kayaking.  Me and Sean head off in our kayak, and using trusty google maps, we find a cool hidden cove we can kayak through. I REALLY had to go pee. So I told Sean lets go to the cove, I’d hop out of the kayak (with my shoes on this time!) and take a quick piss.

The first time I tried to hop out, my foot got pretty deeply stuck in the mud, and I had to come back in before taking a piss. I told Sean these muddy conditions are probably akin to what people experienced at the Battle of the Some or Verdun.  I told Sean we should try another part of the cove to try and hop out.

The second time, we backed the kayak up a couple feet, and rammed FULL SPEED into the shore to try and get the kayak up as high on the mud bank as possible.

This time I committed, and it did not end well. I ended up sinking up to both ankles in mud. My sandals came off, and I had to physically pull them out of the mud to get them back with my hands. This whole time I was struggling Sean was literally having a laughing attack. As was I. It was just so ridiculous that I couldn’t leave the boat to take a piss! I think that’s the hardest we laughed the whole trip.

Anyways here’s a pic of my footsteps after I got back into the Kayak. Note that I failed AGAIN to actually take a piss:

I ended up being covered in mud all over my pants. When we finally got back to the boat, the captain was like, “Where did you go, Japan? Why are you so muddy?” Pretty funny stuff.

After that, we had dinner. Safe to say it was DELICIOUS:

We met the other guests we’d be partying with that night. There was a group from France/Britain/Ireland, Hungary, a Lithuania guy(where my last name is from!), a couple from France, a Kiwi couple, some friends from Myramar, and a solo traveler from Peru/Australia.

After dinner, we started the Shananigans. Here’s kinda how the boats were parked, sorry I don’t have a better picture:

 

We slowly got more and more drunk as the evening wore on. Later on, they gave us free beer for a couple hours(but it was pretty shit). Here’s a picture of me with the bartender:

There was also a foosball table on the boat. Me and the guy from Peru(Alvaro) formed a team, Sean and one of the french ladies formed a team. We all had a good time playing, although Sean and the french lady were pretty unstoppable that night:

At one point the ball got stuck, so I tried to lift the table and spilled all the beer that was on the table. Whoops.

Sometime during the evening we some of the locals smoking something out of a bong. I asked if I could take a hit and they obliged. As soon as I hit it, I realized it was *not* tobacco. I thought it was weed and I’d be high all night, which is NOT what I wanted. I don’t like being high in public. But after about a minute, it wore off.

So I’m not really sure what was it in, but it was definitely a mix of tobacco and something else, and immediately had a coughing fit. One of the locals joked and asked Sean how many fingers he was holding up. Sean also started sweating PROFUSELY. One of the Myaramar girls was concerned for how much Sean was sweating. I thought it was hilarious.

I took a video of all this, but it’s one of those things that probably shouldn’t go on the internet. Ask me if you want to see it.

After that, more drinking. At one point I put on some bachata music again(because I wanted to DANCE damint), and danced a bit; Alvaro was a pro as usual.

Next we did some Karaoke. Or at least, we tried. Their song selection was absolutely rubbish(who doesn’t have Hotel California or backstreet boys???). So that stopped after 15 minutes.

As the night went on, I got drunk enough that I started hanging from one of the rafters in the dinning room…upside down with my feet. Unfortuntely, I have no pictures of that.

There were some Candian bros that were also there(think backwards caps). I start talking to them about weed, and then they promptly changed the conversation to Canadian football. Literally just confirming every stereotype I have about these kinds of guys. At the end of the party, one of them hooked up with one of the girls from the British/France group. And other people were telling me they were talking trash about the other passengers. I guess that’s what I’m doing now, but consensus seemed to be nobody really liked them. Lol.

At some point before midnight I gave one of the locals $3 and called my Dad. His birthday was on the 31st, and was happy to hear from me!

Anyways, we counted down to New Years, partied for about another hour, and then went to bed. All in all, a perfect new years. Couldn’t have asked for a better day.

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The next day, we woke up at SIX FIFTY. 6:50. Yes, on New years day. That’s when breakfast was, and they wouldn’t budge.

So we stumble out of bed, and take some sunrise pictures, which in hindsight was absolutely worth it. The one at the beginning of the blog is from that:

We had breakfast(delicious!).

After breakfast, we had to pay our tab for our drinks from the previous night. The staff said we had drank 14 beers and 6 waters, a couple cocktails and some wine. The last part was fine, but 14 beers and 6 waters??? Bullshit. He ended up charging us $80 for all the drinks!!! Probably the biggest rippoff the whole trip. We should have talked him down, but at the end of the day, $40 drinks/person for a whole night of partying on a boat really isn’t that bad…

Anyways, after that we went on another kayaking trip. Turns out they took us to the SAME PLACE we had been 3 days before on our boat tour around Cat Ba. This time though, we got to ride on a bamboo boat, and I had my nice camera so I could take better pictures.

Here’s the cave we kayaked through:

Other end of the cave:

A GREAT picture of Sean in my opinion:

Btw, here’s the pic of our boat docked at the kayaing station:

Then, we had a cooking class! They taught us to make Fresh spring rolls. I think I did pretty good and Sean did terrible. In his defense, he only had like 2 hours of sleep. Sorry Sean 😛 Here’s a one minute video of me making them in case you’re interested.

After that, it was time to say goodbye. We had to transfer to ANOTHER boat( I think this is boat 4 by this time).

Here’s some of our friends on the boat we left. They were staying an extra day so they stayed on our original boat:

Left is the couple from London(the girl was the one that was super drunk with me and danced/sung/had a good time). Middle was the french couple, and the Lithuanian dude is on the right.

The guy in the London couple didn’t drink at all, and had tattoos all up his arms and on his neck. The tattoos on his arms were blacked out(he had filled them in). He wasn’t at all like the stereotype you’d expect someone with that many tattoos would have. He was actually one of the nicest guys on the boat.

Lithuanian dude was Chill AF as well, but I didn’t get to talk to him much.

Anyways, we finally get to Ha Long City/Habour. There, we transferred to ANOTHER BOAT :O We then got on a bus, and made it back to Hanoi.

Our trip from Ha Long to Sapa and back to Hanoi is really confusing, and I had to explain the itinerary 5-10 times to Sean. In his defense, he misunderstood how we’d be doing some things. But I think it highlights how he likes things a bit more planned out, while I’m a bit more fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda guy. Like we’ve changed our Sapa itinerary a couple times now. But I’m thankful he hasn’t murdered me yet, and that he’s been chill with how many times I’ve changed the plans.

On our way back to Hanoi, Sean made a funny comment about the air quality in Vietnam. As you can probably guess, the air sucks here. Also a lot of people(read: everyone) here smokes. Sean says if you’re going to breath it in, you might as well enjoy it. Thought it was funny.

Anyways, that’s about it for today. We’re catching a night bus to Sapa, and should arrive there at around 5 am. We’ll see how well we feel. We really haven’t gotten a good nights sleep for a couple of days now. This is how my trip was with Molly as well: every day jammed pack and not much resting. Tomorrow night and the next night we’ll have actual places to sleep(not buses), and we might take a train back to Hanoi, so that should suck a bit less.

Anyways, that’s it for now. I’m typing this from a Harry Potter themed cafe(which is for some reason called “Always”). Here’s some pics:

And I finally got my Egg Coffee/Tea!

TTYL internet.

This was a day of recovery, new friends, and climbing.

We started the day hung over as fuck. We we still planning on going climbing with Beckie.

At this point in the journey I want to note that we’ve been waking up before 8 am basically every single day. I don’t wake up this early in my normal life. But that’s just how it goes when you go on an outdoorsy vacation.

So we wake up at 9, and go down to a restaurant to get some food. When we’re there, we run into some of the Kiwi’s from last night. They join us at the table across. We get some food, try to recover. I have the TERRIBLE spins, to the point where I don’t feel safe driving a scooter. I wasn’t sure I’d recover in time for climbing. Beckie also happens to walk past us and confirmed she’s hung over as well. Whew, I was afraid it was just us!

Anyways we eat, drink tea(Vietnamese tea is great!), and try to recover. We finally make it out around noon.

On the way to the crag we get lost 2-3 times. We keep getting directed down these ally ways that turn into dead ends. We also run into Beckie(again!) on our way, and together we finally find the way to the crag.

There was a bit of a hike in, and we took some pictures with the local cattle:

And the CUTEST THING EVER happened on the way in. We ran into some kids, and they guided Beckie BY THE HAND down the path to the crag. So cute:

Which reminds me, the previous day we had run into some local kinds when we were climbing in Butterfly Valley. They were watching us, looking at our rope and stuff. Sean asked if they wanted a picture and they posed like this:

They promptly ran away right after the picture, before Sean could show them. Lol.

 

Anyways we finally get to the crag, and we have it ALL to ourselves. Beckie leads the first climb, a 5b, and then I lead it after, followed by Sean. Pretty fun stuff.

They beckie leads another climb that has an overhangy bouldery problem near the start. It was pretty tough. I was able to get up it on top rope after falling a couple times.

Here’s me trying to cruse over the crux:

Beckie leading it:

Note this picture is a weird angle, I promise I was spotting her better than it looks!

At this point Beckie had proven she was a bad ass, and lead the rest of the routes for the day. I learned a new term for someone who just throws up routes: a “rope gun”. Thanks Beckie!

She then lead a fun dihedral climb:

Not sure what climb this is, but she’s looking like a BAMF:

(Great photography skills btw Sean!)

More obligatory butt shots:

Here’s some of Sean following on this route:

 

Next, Beckie lead this hard fucking 10b. After following her on it, I realize I still have a lot to learn before I can confidently lead all 10b. This one was scary AF, and a bit runout in places (change for 20-25 foot fall). It was also VERY sustained and pumpy.

 

Here I am following:

Me being silly on top of a tufa:

And here are some other random pictures:

Beckie Hanging out, being a cool belayer:

If you want to see the full album of pictures, it’s here:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOfp9xz1bNxGBqjs0yR1R7ima3vGuH2hwT1TA0ZQnbcE0eC0m6PMWNhPxDJyp0mtQ?key=aDNXVmtHNy1WaTd2MVdzbW55RGFUZ3ZxTkF3ZjBB

After that, we headed back. We returned our gear to Asia outdoors.

I then took a picture with Travis, our guide from our first day of climbing:

This guy was great. He took time out of his day to teach us SAFE climbing. I’m sad that I didn’t get to do screw loose, but part of being a climber means sometimes letting go of your plans to stay safe and stay alive for the next climb. I’m also sad we lost a day of climbing so we could go over some climbing fundamentals with Sean. BUT, it allowed us to explore the island, I learned a new technique for lowering that didn’t require me to undo the rope, so that was pretty cool. So thanks Travis!

Also a BIG shotout to Asia Outdoors for all their help, suggestions, etc. They also maintain 90% of the bolt routes out here. Definetly one of the coolest outdoor shops I’ve been to. You can check out their website here:

www.asiaoutdoors.com.vn

Also worth noting that it’s customary to lower off the rap rings here, which is much safer than how we do it in America. Of course that wears out the bolts faster. I was going to donate some money to their access/bolt fund, but I forgot to do it before I left. If I ever find myself in Cat Ba again, I’ll be sure to donate. Thanks for all your guys hard work!

That’s it for today. I’m typing this ON the party boat right now, at 11 am. Time to go enjoy the scenery.

Today we climbed, met locals, and drank excessively. It was a great day.

The plan today was to go back to Butterfly Valley for some more EPIC climbing. I was planning on doing a 10c that I had seen that looked doable.

We went to Asia outdoors to get rope and rent bikes again. We returned both yesterday because we had done the boat tour.

While we were there, Sean The Magnificent, with his eagle-hawk eyes, saw ad ad for a climber looking for a climbing partner. Her name was Beckie, and she said to look her up on FB. I did, and I found out she lived in SF, and I had a mutual friend with me! She seemed to climb the same level as us. So I decided to message her. Hopefully she’d respond…

After that, we headed off to the valley. My bike was much worse then before. It would die if I stopped or wasn’t giving it any power. I feel like I was in the movie Speed with Keanu Reeves, where if I went below a certain speed my bike would blow up.

So we make it to the valley, and everything is MUDDY as hell. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to do any climbing. We went off to find a route called Roots Reggae, a 4+ something. We had a lot of trouble finding it, and we realized a giant root that had originally been there had snapped off. But eventually we found it.

While we were climbing, there was a farm across the valley that was playing some pretty hardcore EDM.

Here’s a video. It might be a bit hard to hear:

We joked that they played this every morning when slaughtering the livestock.

So next I lead the 4+(which was actually a 5b because we were off route). This might have been one of the scarier leads I did this trip, not because of the rating, but because it was muddy as hell. My shoes were covered in a thick layer of mud, a lot of the holds had mud that had slipped down from above, the holds were slippery, and all in all a bit of a shitshow. But I made it to the top.

Here’s Sean at the top of the route:

You can barely make him out with his tiny orange helmet. Here’s a closeup:

Next, we did a 5c to the right. Also a really fun lead! Here’s a pic:

It traversed a bit left, and then back to the right. Really fun.

Next, it was time to push some grades. I lead a 6a(5.10a). It had a really hard mantle near the 2nd to last bolt. Here’s sean at the top of the route:

You can see the mantle to the left after the 2nd to last bolt. This angle makes it a bit deceiving, it was pretty vertical.

Next, came the most fun route of the day: time for a looooong 10b. This one was 110 feet.

First off, I want to make a note about ants. Ants were EVERYWHERE on these routes on both days we were out here. This route in particular. There was one point where I was holding on with one hand and trying to clip with the other, and the ants were just crawling all over my jacket, shoes, shirt, ect. And a few were biting. But you just gotta power through and clip, or you fall. lol…

Anyways, I really struggled on this route. There was one traverse move where  I committed with a slightly dyno move without seeing where my hands were going. Luckily there was a wonderful undercling that I could grab as soon as I moved.

Then later up the route, there were a few times were I had to climb PAST the bolt, and then reach down and clip. A good 10 feet run out. with a 20-25 feet fall factor. My heart was RACING, probabily akin to what people feel when they get a panic attack. I was able to clip two of these scary falls, and calm myself down after.

Looking back on the route after another guy lead it after me, I could see if I feel there it wouldn’t have been a bad fall, as it fell mostly into air. Though it would still have been scary!

Anyways, here’s a pic of Sean at the top of the route. He’s hiding in the little cave at the top:

Here’s a closeup:

After that, we planned to do one more easy route. But the sun was setting, so we headed back home.

When we got home, it seemed that Beckie had responded to my text! She said she would be down to climb the next day, and we should meet up to figure out logistics.

Me and Sean went out to dinner at Oasis. There were two girls and a dude sitting next to us that were drinking out of this giant coconut. I asked them what it was. First I asked the girl on the left; she gave me a disgusted look. Then I turned to the girl on the right, “it looks really good. What is it?” another disgusted look. Finally I turn to the guy and he tells me it’s just party bucket that they put in a coconut to drink out of.

Thanks dude. And fuck you girls. They were clearly European, and very attractive by anyone’s standard. Maybe that’s why they thought they could be so mean, but whatever.

The food we ordered here was DELICIOUS. Here’s my southern noodles:

And some ice cream to top it off:

Beckie then texts me that she’s on her way. She shows up with a friend, I think her name was Jessica. Jessica and Beckie had known each other for a looong time, and they were hanging out in Vietnam for a couple days. Jessica was going back tomorrow, so it was just going to be Beckie climbing with us. Cool. They said they were going to a spa and would meet up with us later. Sounds good.

After dinner, we headed to our favorite bar, “The good bar”. There we played some pool. Here’s a great pic of me doing my “special face” shot:

I learned during this that Sean sucks at pool. I kicked his ass twice. Sorry Sean 😛

While we were playing pool, some Vietnamese dude came up and asked if he could play with us. Sure sounds good. He kicked my ass easily, and I could tell he played at lot. But that’s not all he did with my ass. A couple times he brushed past me a little too close, or  pressed himself onto me. I didn’t really think anything of it, and kinda forgot about it until Sean mentioned a similar experience. Cool, so it wasn’t all in my head. Me and Sean left before he could use the pool cue for more than pool.

That’s the second time people have gotten handsy with me here on Cat Ba. Remember girls, guys can be harassed too!

Next we joined Beckie and her friend at Rose Bar. This is probably my favorite bar on Cat Ba; it’s got loud music, cheap drinks, and a “fun” atmosphere.

This is where the night also starts to get a bit wild.

There was some really cute french girl that didn’t speak any English. She was clearly plastered, and she remained that way for the entirety of the night(until we left at 3am). We started out with a couple beers, mixed drinks, did some more laughing gas. Beckie and her friend Jessica went outside to talk with some other people.

Remember how I said I wanted to buy a whole bar a round of shots at some point? Well that point was today. I counted the patrons in the bar, something like 18. Thats about 36 worth of shots, easy. So I turn off the music, and I shout

ALL YOU MOTHERFUCKERS GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE, I BOUGHT YOU ALL SHOTS

or something along those lines. I got to ring a giant bell a few times which was fun. A couple people came up and shook my head, I kissed a few babies on the head, you know, people were taking pictures and video. I felt like a famous politician.

Here’s a video of them pouring the shots. I apologize I don’t have better footage:

At this point, I’m pretty drunk. The drunk french girl is going dance crazy, and I decide to join her. I put on bachata song(you’re allowed to control the music in these bars, and everyone takes turns putting something on). I dance with her for a song, realize she’s too drunk to dance properly, and call it at that. Still fun though!

After that I head outside to join Beckie and friends. Sean stays inside and hangs out with the friend girl, putting on his moves.

Beckie and friend had found a group of Kiwi’s. They were all dressed in pajama onsies. Apparently one of them was getting married, and this was their bachelor party. We talked for HOURS apparently; I don’t remember much, I was pretty drunk. Stuff about climbing, biking, other outdoorsy shit. Music and stuff. I don’t recall. At one point I buy a sandwhich from a guy right outside the bar, and then the sandwhich guy joined us a bit to chat as well.

I go back inside for a bit to check on Sean, he’s still working on the french girl. I saw this guy in the bar which was pretty funny:

This basically continues until 2-3 am, when we decide it’s time to go home. Me and Sean leave; Sean’s pretty grumpy(probably because he’s going home with me :P), and we go to bed, ready to start the next morning.

Today was an action packed day, with injury and regret.

WARNING: If you’re sensitive to a bit of blood/cuts, you probably shouldn’t read this post.

So today we had planned a kayaking trip. We were supposed to have a van come pick us up at 8 am to take us to the boat for kayaking. The day basically would go like this:

1. Go to monkey island, do a bit of hiking(see some monkeys)
2. Go to a place to kayak, do some kayaking
3. Have lunch
4. Go to a place for swimming, then go home

We started a day a little rushed because I spent all morning writing a blog from the previous day. This stuff takes a lot longer then I’d expect; it usually takes me an hour to write everything down from the previous day. And even then, stuff is pretty “raw”.

Anyways, we were able to order some banh my just in time before our ride came. They picked us up, we got on the boat, yadda yadda yada, boring logistics.

The trip itself also started out strong with some beers at 8 am. Here’s Sean double fisting:

Once we got to monkey island we did a bit of hiking. Here are some pics from it:

That beach on the left is where we started, just before the house.

START OF INTROSPECTIVE RANT

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Remember those girls from the previous day that we met while climbing? The California ones’ from around Shasta? Well I ended up running into them at the top of the hike. We chatted a bit, I found out they were staying at the Full Moon Party Hostel for $2 a night in a dorm room. I asked them if they were climbing again and they said that renting the rope was a bit expensive($10), and there weren’t a lot of climbs they could do(which is true for us as well; a lot of shit is 10d+ or harder). Then I told them we were staying in this “fancy” place with a sea view on the 9th floor and that it was super cool. I don’t quite remember the phrasing, but they said something along the lines of “is that an invitation?”. I laughed it off, we chatted a bit more, and I said we’d probably see them around. Then I left to go to hike back down because I didn’t want to miss the boat.

Once I was back on the beach, I saw them again. Or at least I think I saw them again. I’m fucking god-awful with faces; even though I had just talked to them, I wasn’t 100% sure what they looked like, so I didn’t want to go approach some random people that looked like them from far away and start chatting them up just to realize I had the wrong people.

Anyways, I regret not asking for their contact info so we could meet up later and have drinks or something with them. It seemed like they were open to the idea, but I was being kind of closed-off  to them and sort of shooting them down. It could have been really fun to hang out with them, seeing as they also climbed and were California, near SF. And were girls of course and pretty cute.

Maybe I was reading into it too much, maybe they would have turned down the offer. I also don’t like “hanging out” with people I meet while travelling if they’re not into it. A lot of times people will hang out with you just to be polite(especially if you’re a solo traveler). It really bothers me because then I can’t tell if someone genuinely enjoys my company, or just being polite. In this case, even if we exchange contact information, it might just be because they were being polite. But then again, they initiated the conversation with me at the hike, so maybe they did want to chat?

I also have this weird problem where I suck at socializing, so anyone that I DO end up socializing with I do it to the point where they get annoyed/irritated with me.

But alas, I’m thinking too much into it. The moral is just take more social risks, and talk to people more.

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END OF INTROSPECTIVE RANT

Once I got down to the bottom of the island, we took a couple pictures of the monkeys. I even got a picture of a monkey drinking a beer, and another picture of the monkey holding my finger! The quality on the second picture isn’t that great because it was on Sean’s older phone:

Here’s two monkeys making out or something:

Sean and I hanging out on the beach, waiting for our boat:

 

Here’s me being a goof on the boat ride:

We also saw some fishing villages earlier on the boat ride. They’re basically houses and everything you’d see in a village, except they’re on the water. Here’s a pic:

Here’s a video of the fishing village:

Anyways, once we got to the kayaking place we went exploring. Here’s a pic:

I really liked the rock formation on this spire, the way the diagonal lines cut through the rock:

Here’s a cool pillar we saw on our way in that would be so cool to climb:

The kayaing was really fun. There were tons of little tunnels that we went through(I’ll upload a video of one once I get can get my gopro footage working).  There were a lot of spires/walls that you could “talk to”, and your echo would talk back to you 1-2 seconds later. It was really fun.

This is also when the injury happened.

So at one point I saw an outcropping that would be cool to take a picture on. I asked Sean to row me up close to the rock, I’d get out of the kayak and jump on the rock, climb up to the top, and Sean would take a picture of me. Note that I was not wearing any shoes, because the tour guide told us to take them off before we got in the Kayak(probably because he was afraid they’d get wet; but I was wearing flip-flops anyways). But I took them off. So when I went to climb this outcropping, I was barefoot.

When I first hopped out of the boat, the rock was super slippery, so I instantly slipped and almost fell into the water. I caught myself, but I’m pretty sure I stepped on some really bad stuff. Then I slowly proceeded to climb up the piller. This was the SHARPEST rock I had ever felt in my life. So sharp you couldn’t stand. It was basically like standing on coral, but much much worse.

I got to the top and Sean snapped this picture:

You can barely make me out in my gray-outfit(groutfit) against the gray background.

In the process, I really cut up my foot. I think when I fell in the water it happened. Here’s a picture of the aftermath just after:

I had created a bunch of lacerations on my foot, the worst one on my toe.

You can see in a bit more detail here:

I cut up two toes, a gash on the outside of my foot, and a couple of gashes elsewhere. Luckily because I have such thick callouses most of the lacerations didn’t bleed. Yayyyyy

Anyways, I cleaned it up, got all the rocks out of the cuts(thanks to Sean for having a SIM card remover that acted as a tweezer!), and I think I’ll be just fine for climbing tomorrow.

The rest of the kayaking was uneventful(comparatively). We found a secret tunnel that went to another cove, but the cove was filled with a bunch of bro-y australians. I’m pretty sure I heard something along the lines of”Hey all, I know we’re all in our 2o’s, and I’m glad you’re all here”. “Actually I’m only 18!”.

We paddled out of there as quickly as possible.

Next we ate lunch. I talked to a cool German family, we also met some cool folks that are from Mexico and were studying abroad in Seoul. They told us some cool tales from visiting the DMZ in North/South Korea. I definitely want to go there at some point.

Next up was swimming. The water was really cold, and after saying I wasn’t going to go in for 30 minutes I finally relented. I jumped of the top of the boat a couple times(which was fun!). I’ll upload those videos later…

After that the boat trip was over and nothing else noteworthy happened.

Later on that evening we decided to go to the Full Moon Hostel and see if we could book our Junk Boat. Most Junk Boats were booked up at this point, seeing how it was just about NYE. However, as soon as we walked in, the manager of the place saw us, and motioned us towards a little “travel-agency” desk. This was the same manager that we bought the Santa Hats from a few days before.

We talked to the guy there(I think his name was Micheal). We told him we wanted a party boat for NYE, and after making a BUNCH of calls, he landed us a room in the 2nd-most expensive boat(the most expensive one was already booked). We also mentioned we wanted to go to Sappa, so he booked that for us as well. It’s quite an action-packed itinerary, as we’ll be sleeping on buses and getting back to hotels around 4am. But it’ll be fun.

I think both Sean and I are relieved that we were able to book both the Sappa trip and the Junk boat. We were both a little worried we wouldn’t be able to find anything.

I would like to say that booking these two things was a MUCH more pleasent experience doing it through a person. If we had tried to book it on our own, we might not have gotten a boat with the right “vibe” that we were looking for, or been able to link up or boat tour and our sappa tour so nicely. But because we’re talking to a human and not a search bar, he understands these things, such as “vibes” and logistics. So he was able to create a great itinerary for us.

I’ll have to book stuff in person more often.

I’d also like to note that both Sean and I are getting a bit sick of the island. We’ve been here 4 days now, and I think it’s wearing on both of us. The day activities are fun(climbing, kayaking, driving around), but the going out to drink every night is getting tiresome. We’ll be climbing for two more days, and then moving onto our next destination. And having that destination booked makes us both a bit more relaxed.

One more note to close it out on: I had some pho today, and this time, it was delicious:

Time to sleep. Tomorrow we’re going back to the crag(Butterfly valley), and we’re going to do some more climbing(foot and weather permitting).