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So I finally found some Honey Bees...We went to a bee farm on the Mekong Delta and there they were...asphyxiated in jars of honeycomb for no extra cost! Poor little bees. In Ho Chi Minh City we spent a little too long absorbing the tragic realities of the war. By the time we got thrown out of the museum, we'd temporarily lost the ability to speak and wandered around the city in a concerned daze. But by the evening we were back to sitting on tiny plastic chairs in the street, sipping on questionable beer that costs less than 50p a litre. Apparently it tastes pretty awful but to my ignorant, beer deprived palate it only tasted as bad as a ny other beer i've ever tried.*
From Vietnam we flew to south Thailand to sample a Full Moon paryt. As amazing as it was, it was exactly what I was expecting - a lot of drunk people partying on a beach. By the time we got there at midnight, there were already people being thrown around like dead fish in the waves because they were in such a special state that they couldn't quite figure out how to stnad up in ankle-deep water. After hearing an inifinite amount of horror stories involving entrapment and Thai prison cells, by the time you get ot the party you're suspicious of everyone in case they try and sell you something, try and plant something on you or just feel like arresting you because they drank too much Samsong at the station. Nevertheless, we survived and left when our UV bodypaint stopped glowing - there's something profoundly wrong about partying after the sun's come up.
Next I went for a VIP break in Hong Kong which left me feeling vaguely normal. More due to the presence of family members than the many activities that our team captain managed to fit into our schedule. The itinerary included:
-Digging for chocolate eggs on a beach (with a kid who may or may not have belonged to ANgelina Jolie)
-Visiting Disneyland with a group of adults and being the youngest by a significant margin. I spent a lot of the day having people shout AVATAR at me and trying ot take picture. It may have been the blue face paint, braid and blue poncho combination.
-We also spent a whole day on a boat anchored just off an island where there wasn't much to do except invent new combinations of vodka, lemonade and cranberry juice and ask why no one had 'I'm on a Boat' on their iPod. The game got more fun the longer you played.
The more normality-inducing activities included being reunited with MAriokart, yorkshire puddings, salad and tidying up. I was very sad to leave the permanent summer camp for professionals that is Hong Kong but this was just a warm-up for when i'm back in a few weeks!
Special thanks to Angie, Greggy & Pt who treated me like a princess and without whom I would have been eating steamed rice for a week. I still have no idea how you fitted that mountain of things in to your mary poppins suitcase!
I'm now trying to escape from the gorgeous island of Phi Phi which aside from the Tsunami warnings, scorpions, scorpion-eating monkeys, sharks & sea snakes, is a scenic paradise...even Lonely Planet warns it 'is so beautiful it will evoke tears'. By night the picture-perfect beaches become sprinkled with fire coated skipping ropes, hoops and limbo competitions and the route there is paved with free shots, free buckets and the chance to lose your dignity in a Muay Thai ring for nominal amounts of alcohol. I wouldn't be surprised if the medical centres here fund all the evening activities considering the small fortune they must make everyday...
*Sorry to any of my South African relative who may have been inadvertantly offended by my indifference to beer.
- comments
Eve Hi Catherine Brilliant blog, so glad you enjoyed HK and glad to hear you're surviving Phi PHi. Looking forward to the next installment. lotsalove Trish and Eve xxx
Mandy But she is Mary Poppins!!!! Loving your blog, sounds like you are having a whale of a time.
Your ever youthful cousin! Oi, cheeky! Significant margin indeed!! Pete and I were 6 and 7 when you were born and Siena graduated the same year as you so must be about the same age (Fair enough about Greg though!!) xxxx