Singapore

I always envision Singapore to be pretty similar to Sydney but there I some things I come across that I definitely don't think I'd find in Sydney.

• All you can eat durian in the supermarket for $S9.90
• Citibank offering a cheaper Brazilian wax- only $S46 if you use their card (would they do this in Sydney?)
• Daring a guy to eat 5 durian products in Singapore Cleo magazine. He only managed to sample 3
• A bar where you can only go in if you're over 25. The cheapest thing on the drinks menu they had displayed outside was a $S180 champange
• A bar called "Clinic" where you can sit in wheelchairs and have a drink from an IV drip bag
• Free entry and drinks for women on ladie's night

Vietnam food

The food in Vietnam was really good. Some were:

Congee- This is the smoothest congee I've ever had. I think they might make it from rice powder. They give you congee in a small bowl and cut up a fried dough stick so basically you're getting a little congee with your stick.

Avocado shake- I've heard this is popular in Asia but hadn't had the chance to eat it until now! It is really smooth and creamy- delicious!

Fruit salad shake- They put about eight different types of fruits into a cup- longans, strawberries, mango, avocado, watermelon... They put coconut milk and evaporated milk in it. They give you a dish of ice. You put the ice into the salad mix and mash it up and add ice as you go along.

Pho- The typical Vietnamese meal did not disappoint. There were several grades of pho, but I did have a couple which were delicious.

I think the Sydney Vietnamese food is really good too! A lot of Sydney food is exactly the same as what was in Vietnam, if not better.

Sapa

Sapa was my highlight of Vietnam north of Hanoi near the Chinese border. If I hadn't seen Sapa, I think I would have left Vietnam a bit disappointed. It's a town among mountains. On the mountain side are rice terraces that look amazing. I also managed to swim in the river and sit in a hot spring, well it was actually warm.

I did a two day trek in Sapa. Women and children dressed in traditional ethnic clothing follow you for a couple of hours just holding your hand when you're holding it out for balance. They made us all a wreath also. The point of this was to try to sell us something at the end. Pity they have few things on offer to sell but I did manage to buy an applique belt I liked. It's also a pity I saw people handing out pens to children and them fighting over them before chucking them on the ground. And children begging for water bottles and the tour guide saying it was okay to give it to them.

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is a few hours from Vietnam where people go to see the limestone structures from the water. It looked similar to Krabi in Thailand. I went on a boat for one night. Eight years ago there were 20 tourist boats, and now there are 800! We did visit quite a large cave and went kayaking. There are people that live on boats in the sea and sell sea food. There are people that row boats full of alcohol, drinks and food that come to your tourist boat. It is beautiful and a relaxing trip but there is a quite a lot of rubbish and the water was not as clear as it should be.

There was bit of karaoke on the boat so this was a good introduction back into Western culture. Mostly it was British people on that tourist boat. Actually most of the backpackers I've met have been from the UK. I haven't met that many from Asia.

Hanoi

Hanoi is far less hectic than the rest of Vietnam. It did bother me a little that many people try to ask whether I want a ride or whether I want to buy something as I'm taking a stroll down the street. This happened far less in Hanoi. Plus the weather is much better here. Mostly the guys are more persistant and bother me more than the women. Apart from that, I'm quite happy to walk around by myself- I'm not concerned about security or anything these days. I'm staying in the old quarter where the roads are narrow and most of the buidlings are old, french style ones.

I managed to try dog meat while I was in Hanoi. This happened because a couple of my room mates were pretty keen to go. We sat down on the straw mats at the restaurant and the waiter laid out a couple of sheets of newspaper as a tablecloth. We had three dog dishes. One was thin slices of roast meat. It barely tasted different to pork. We ate it with a very pungent shrimp paste- based dipping sauce, raw lemon grass and other raw vegetables. We also had it deep fried. That tasted exactly like fried pork and there was no way to tell that it was dog meat. It was also in the form of a sausage with nuts in it which was quite tasty. Disturbingly we could here dogs barking in the distant background. I think this will be the first and last time I'll try dog.

I'm not interested in trying snake but you can have a Bloody Mary with snake blood, snake bile and its beating heart. I don't think I'm tough enough for snake that yet but eventually I'll have to do it. I'm slowly matching what my parents have eaten in the past. I have yet to eat snake, cat, possum and bear. I don't know whether eating cat is illegal in Australia, as eating dog is, but I'm pretty sure I won't ever have the chance to eat bear and there's no way I'd do it anyway. My dad said he ate bear in Hong Kong at the zoo when the experienced an overpopulation. How wrong is that?

Hue

This city is the old imperial capital of Vietnam. There is a citadel which I think it means it's a walled city where the emperor used to live. Here the culture shock hit a high. The 37 degree temperatures didn't help. I had to bargain down a meal to a third of the price because the guy just named a ridiculous price. So I had to do the Asian thing and pretended to hear incorrectly, laugh at the first price but by the end I think I was visibly annoyed. It's the only time it's happened to this extent in Vietnam though- I don't generally bargain for food and meals in the Asian countries I've visited.

I went for a tour by boat to visit the tombs of the emperors where they've built very elaborate gardens and buildings. This tour was really cheap, but you get what you pay for. I couldn't actually find any decent tours unfortunately. I had to resist them selling me lunch, overpriced motorbike tickets, hand- held fans and drinks. The leader collected everyone's entry tickets into the UNESCO sites at the end because I think she gets some kind of kick backs. She didn't even bother to ask for my tickets because I kept refusing her offers. This is bad because I would have given them to her but would have asked for some cash! I would recommend doing a motorbike tour instead. I didn't want to be on the back of a bike without my own helmet so that's why I didn't do the tour but ended up getting on the back of a motorbike as part of this trip anyway. Then the shop keepers ask me to buy the driver a diet coke because he's thirsty. I refused- he should be drinking water was my excuse because I know they'd just split the cash!

I managed to get an overnight bus to Hanoi. The buses are interesting. They're cheap because people pay them to stop at the particular rest stop and particular hotels. On the sleeper beds they have three rows of beds, two high.

Mui Ne and Hoi An

Mui Ne is a beach up the cost from Ho Chi Minh city you can kite surf and visit some sand dunes. It was a bit too quiet for me on my own. I managed to go for a tour up some red sand dunes which were ok. A bunch of young kids follow you asking whether 'you want to slide miss' ie whether you want to rent a plastic sheet from them to slide down the dunes.

Hoi An is a pretty town that is UNESCO heritage listed because it has old French- style buildings. This town has somehow become a tourist attractions for its ability to tailer clothes. Funny because Vietnamese people generally don't wear suits! I wonder how they got to have 400 tailors.

I made a day trip to My Son from Hoi An where the Cham people built some Hindu temples. The ruins of them are left and they are over 1000 years old. Quite amazing.

Ho Chi Minh City

I have returned to Asia after two and a half weeks home in Sydney. Ho Chi Minh city was more of a culture shock than I imagined and it stupidly took me a few days to realise I had it after wondering why I wasn't enjoying my trip as much as I should be! It's actually not overly busy or dirty compared to other Asian cities but nevertheless different to Sydney and much busier than Vientiane! It's just a bit more commercial than I'm used to.

The War Remnants Museum with some good information about the war and some scary cells and torture instruments. There was a general section about bombs and I particularly appreciated the pictures of Laos. I liked the pictures of people sheltering under a large rock as they had done during the war while they were destroying a pile of bombs. There was a picture of a girl rowing a boat cut out from a bomb- something I didn't know they did.

The Cu Chi tunnels where the Viet Cong dug some tunnels near Ho Chi Minh City. Unfortunately on the tour I was on I only got to see 30m of the tunnels but I guess I got what I paid for! The Fine Arts Museum and the Ho Chi Minh city museum had a lot of communist elements similar to museums of Laos. People got the chance to fire a machine gun of their choice at the shooting range. The AK47 was the smallest gun there you could use. Needless to say, it was not quite up to Australian standards and the noise was very scary. Other machine guns included the Carbine and the M30 and M60.

Return to Asia

I've been back to Sydney for a couple of weeks but am now returning to South East Asia. I had wanted to travel after finishing work in Laos but I couldn't extend my plane ticket home to come home later. The best thing to do was take the free flight home and pay for myself to come back. I'm visiting Vietnam which should complete the Lao experience. I want to go there because Laos considers Vietnam its main role model and I'd like to see what it's really like there.

I'm also visiting northern India because it's convenient to go to Nepal this way. A guy at work showed my pictures of his recent trek in Nepal and told me how good and easy it was. I was convinced so I've booked a trekking tour in Nepal. Treks can't be rushed so that's why I thought I'd go while I have the time. Then I'm going to Hong Kong to visit my 90-year-old grandma which had to be done.

It seems like a huge, major trip to go to Vietnam from Australia but if I can switch my mindset to Laos it should be quite easy in terms of adjusting to the place and culture. I'm a bit concerned about finding work when I return but I should travel and enjoy it while I can!