Two blogs in one day aren't you lucky. But then again I haven't written that many over the past few days. So sorry about that.

So first things first. I should talk about some of things we've done since we got here that I forgot to write about during the last entry.

We did a bit of a cultural tour the other day, they sell tickets in town for all sites and you pay for 5 entrances of the 18 sites so they take a tab at every place you visit. We visited a small bridge that's almost 400 years old (just quickly all cultural sights are modelled on either Japanese, Chinese or Vietnamese architecture/culture) in the case of the bridge is was Japanese. Very simple but still an amazing piece of architecture, we wandered a little further down and came across a small house that has been in the same family for over 200 years and it has influences from all three cultures, given the historical value of the site, it has been turned a world heritage site and it's no wonder why. We got led around by one of the young daughters and she told us about the history and what not and then took us upstairs, which had been turned into a tourist shop. Now this is nothing new world wide, all historical sites in Paris had a shop inside, the pantheon, the notre dame, the effiel tower. So I shouldn't have been surprised but for some reason this time
I was. We did end up buying something for dad but it was the same stuff as everywhere else, but I suppose it's for a good cause, or is it? I'm never really sure here.

Went jet skiing as well, which was good fun but not much more to speak of there.

The massage is a different story though. Oliver, Phip and I wandered down the road a bit and found a place that was around $20 an hour. They got Swedish massages and I opted to get The "Spa" special. I put spa in quotations because that's the name of the place. It is a combination of swedish, Thai, and Vietnamese massage. So they cleaned out feet with this salt and then led us one by one so the back room... Actually I want to have some stories to tell when I get back and not put everything in the blog. Ask me later and I'll tell you what happened. It's a decent story to tell.

Anyway, today a few of us went to marble mountain, which as you guess it is a mountain (or 5 mountains) made up of mostly marble. The fokelore goes that it's the remaining shards of a dragon egg and have named them according to the elements, earth, wind, water, fire and....(NO NOT HEART YOU MORONS) metal. But I do wonder what captain planet would've been like if it's been metal instead of heart. Ever seen Don Cheadle is Captain Planet? Probably something like that. Anyway mark, oli, ally, Phip and myself climbed the mountain, which doesn't take long to do but it's an amazing view from the top, took the most amazing photo of my sister up there, it's on her Facebook I think, if not I'll show you later. we got a bit of a tour from the smallest woman I've ever seen and she was a personal photographer half the trip as well, was a lot cheaper than the guided tour. But I didn't understand a word she said, not many teeth, and I swear the teeth she did have we're so black that I was certain they were fake teeth. There was a statue of Buddha that was by far the biggest I've ever seen a good 8-10 metres in height. We climbed through a small cave, which led out to the very top, through a hole not built for Australians (too small, if you weren't sure why). But it was worth the struggle to get there, over the slippery marble and through the sweat dripping in places I didn't even know I could sweat (too hot, if you weren't sure why). But other than that there isn't much to say about the mountain.

The taxi ride home however, the driver we had was driving very cautiously and kept slowing down to an almost stop and then driving normal again. Mark asked him if there was anything wrong and he said no but then about a Km later he points at a couple of cars and says that they're police cars, so maybe that had something to do with it. It gets better. He spots another taxi across the road and starts tooting and waving and flashing his high beams at him so the other taxi turns around on the freeway and follows us, then they pull over and out driver GETS OUT OF THE TAXI it was the weirdest thing, he takes a bag with him (and btw there was passengers in the other car as well) and them gives the bag to him and gets money in return they talk loudly for a little bit and then he comes back and we drive off. Now I don't know what to make of it but it's no exactly something I've see before, I don't think mark tipped him this time.

At this stage I could talk about some of the restaurants we've been to but it's too hard to go into detail but I'll be happy to talk about them when I get back.

I land this Sunday so my trip is almost over and I don't suspect I shall write too many more but there will be at least 2 over the next few days.

A la prochaine

E