Tour 2

The day after the first tour we went on another tour where we got to have a private driver and explore one of Vietnam's nature parks.

Our first stop on our private tour was the cave of pre-historic man's cave. We had to hire a torch to go in because the cave system went on for EVER, it was pitch black once you got further in.. As we entered we thought we had been scammed for the torches because all we could see was a big hollow in a mountain, we then saw a keen little girl scurry out from under a huge stalagmite. We  found the way around this stalagmite then saw (with the help of our torch) lots and lots of small red dots which we all agreed, must be iron, pushed down from the water dripping through the ceiling (on the way back out of the cave we thought we saw a small bit of silver on the roof of the cavern but ,unfortunately, could not pick it off).

As we went through the caves I saw a small iron deposit on the rock, so decided to pick it off but almost touched... a weta! (for those of you who have not seen a weta before, they look like this:
                         
*uuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!! it's a bug!!!* these small bugs are native to New Zealand or so we thought before we saw this specimen).

So yeah... unless we saw some type of mutant cockroaches they obviously live elsewhere than NZ.

After a short time walking we found an old, rusty ladder that lead up,vertically, so ,naturally, we climbed up (well mum and Lockie didn't) and (no it was not a giant slater at the top!) saw...  (no the ladder definitely did NOT brake at that moment)  another impressive cavern with nothing much inside except bat poop. We went back down the ladder and joined mum and Lockie (the wusses) again.

Next we went to a monkey rehabilitation center. We saw some monkeys that had not yet been eaten by hungry human beings (well what else did you think we'd see? Aliens?!). After them (it took about 1/2 an hour) we went to see the turtle conservation center (Bruno called this the turtle conversation center) I usually like turtles but at this place, in the searing heat, you had to find the right language on the signs (that's all there was) and also burn in the heat.

 We had had a boat trip through a valley planned but it turned out that if we went for a boat ride (3 hours) we would miss our night bus and that would not be good. The night bus (which I really enjoyed)  is a bus filled with beds. We're headed  for Nha Trang , the city on the beach.

the sad story of the man who tried exporting artifical tanning booths to Asia

 Thís is only going to be a short story.!!

I have been thinking: people in New Zealand ALL want tans and probably people in many other countries as well, but HERE everybody LOATHES the sun for fear of having... A TAN!! *dum dum duuuuuuuuuuum!!* This is because having a tan makes them look like hard-working farmers instead of wealthy and educated people. Yesterday we saw someone wearing a SWEATER!! and under that was a SHIRT!!!! and get this, it was at the beach!!!.  When we asked her why she said: I don't want my skin to get darker!! Crazy eh?
here's the story!

Once upon time, there lived a wealthy millionare who loved having a tan so much, he bought 1,000,000 tanning booths. The next major problem was shipping them from his home to Asia. Eventually (at considerable cost) he paid a shipping company to send them.  He then paid for his flight there by buying a private jet and fuel (he was 3 million dollars in debt by now).. When he landed he got out, ordered a taxi to drive him down to the shipping docks. When he got there he found out there was a bit of a problem. For a room 4 metres by 6 metres by 6 metres ,the booths wern't even close to fitting in.

So the booths were all piled on top of the small building because other wise they would flood the street. The rich man , (his name was Mr. Dunce), had to order a crane to get them all down (by this time he was 30 million dollars in debt and counting).Unfortunately, it was busy for the day but the crane driver said he could come tommorow.

Mr. Dunce found a hotel just across the street. As fate would have it, he had a room with an actual window (the only one in the hotel) so he could see everyone gathered around the shipping company with their cameras ready and disposable raincoats on because they knew something that Mr. Dunce didn't: There was meant to be a terrible storm with heavy rain and lot's of lightning.  Mr. Dunce (being Mr. Dunce) slept through the whole ordeal.

The next morning he still couldn't understand why the whole shipping company building was charred  from the lightning that had hit the huge lightning rod on the roof ( his tanning booths) and why was there was so much ash on the ground?He soon figured out something,, all his tanning machines were gone. As a small, burnt piece of  paper flew by, he caught it. It read: Sunny-chine MK III : (that was the brand name of his tanning machines) Use this tanning booth sensibly AND if you get cancer it's NOT our fault! He crumpled the paper and threw it away then said: "I wish I could read!" Now where have those tanning booths gone?

He searched far and wide but only managed to find one that had been  piled up on the roof.  This was the only one that hadn't been destroyed from the massive electricity spike. He took it out on the streets, hailed a taxi and went straight to the bank, where he asked to loan some  MORE money. They declined saying he would have to pay off his 70.5 million dollar debt  and find something DECENT to invest in, to loan any more money.

So he went out on the street and there were no hotels around (even if there were, he still had no money!). He opened the sun tanning machine packet and tried sleeping in the cardboard box but then it started raining...... Inside the sun tanning machine however, it was dry and warm (he accidentaly turned it on but he didn't have to plug it in,  because the lightning had put enough energy into the batteries to last 7 weeks so he slept inside the booth.

The next morning he was very sick with cancer but couldn't afford to go to hospital as he was dying. His dying wish was to sell the tanning machine. Finaly, a rich man felt sorry for him and bought the tanning booth. The man could then afford to go to hospital. ,Crawling, he went to the hospital, scared for his life. They told him he would die eventually.

NOW,whenever he has a good idea, he emails his mother first and waits for the response .This is usually filled with swearing and abuse.

That is the sad story of the man who tried exporting artifical tanning machines to Asia!*




*note: this story was meant to be a fictional comedy, no characters of this story actualy exist.

The moral: artifical tanning gives you cancer and there's not much you can do about it once you've got it! Mr Dunce didn't make any more foolish investments ( As he died shortly after this fictional story was written).

-the fabulous story teller

TOUR 1#

Yesterday we decided to buy a tour off the fab hotel we were staying at (I forget the name coz its now one hotel after another). Anyway so the next day we got up early and went downstairs. There, we saw 3 majestic... motor bikes! that's right so on we hopped with mum and Lockie, Dad and Bruno and me and the tour guide. We drove around for a while and saw rice drying out on some of the minor streets (at the time we thought it was hay) because the process for rice apears to be drying it out (after it's been harvested) right on the street where you live. After that you lift the rice up and gather all the grain that has fallen from the rice itself. They then lay the grain down to dry while the leaves and stalks are fed to live stock i.e. water buffalos, cows and little porkers! (Note, we were quite far out of town so instead of big appartments, busy roads and cramped houses, there was: no huge appartments, next to nothing in the traffic zone and not many houses at all, 1 every 5 Ks, roughly).

After a bit of  motorbiking, we finaly drove into a little dirt car-park thing on the side of the road. (At the back of the place, under the canopy of trees, there stood a little outhouse. Now, when I opened the door to the toilet (I needed to go)  the first few things that sprung to my mind were: The Out House Of Doom! (premieres start monday) or: The Night Of The Smelly Squat Toilet! (comming to a theatre near you). So yeah... I guess that says it all). Anyway... we then were directed to a small mini-market (now in Asia that has a whole different meaning, that being: a "mini-mart" is just a collection of street vendor's stalls) From there we were told to walk ,in the searing heat, up a road, up a huge hill and  then to "Vietnam's biggest temple/pagoda" which... Guess what? Hadn't been built yet but there were a few big temples around it so we looked inside 1 ,and only one, and inside was three massive, painted gold, Buddha statues! we looked at them for around a minute then got:
A: hot
B: hotter
C: hottest
D: hotter than hottest
E: died from heat exhaustion
So we headed back down to the car-park and told the tour guide: NO MORE TEMPLES!!! he just laughed and said OK next, we headed to a place where you had to walk up a huge amount of  steps up a sheer cliff face (I lóst count at 426 and you had to PAY for the that! What is the world comming to??!!) So anyway we walked all the way up the sheer cliff face and when we got to the top... you know what was there? (no, it was NOT a sign saying good work!) it was just a small statue made of wood (and no it was not a huge bar of chocolate!) so we sat down and rested then what else was there to do but go back down? so we carefully ran down the stairs (note: if you fell down these steps you could die so yeah... try not to do that when on top of huge stairwells in the midle of no where).

After we got down, we went into town to do a nice, relaxing boat cruise for about an hour. I went with dad and Bruno while mum went with Lockie. As soon as I found the spare paddle in the bottom, I started rowing as fast as my arms could go! It went from a pleasant boat ride to a battle between the boats, The amazing Oscar Vs The Fat, lazy slob: Lockie because that's exactly what he did whith his paddle instead of paddling he tried fanninig himself with it!

After a while Lockie gave up even fanning himself because even that required too much energy!

After a while our boats floated through a grotto it was dark and cool as little kids say but I did get to stand up and touch the rock above us. After the boat ride (I won the race by the way) we went home and fell straight to sleep!

-a fried child

Photo recap

Mum has put a real spanner in the works by uploading those pictures so I'll try my best to say what's happening and where it is.(If you click on the Flickr link posted in the last blog, you will sê the phtos).

As you can see in the first few pictures, there is a snake coiled around my neck just like crocodile dundee! (it cost 5 Rm (still in Malaysia at this point) 2.5 NZ dollars to take a couple of pictures)

CROCODILE DUNDEE

In the next scene you will see us in a fort hundreds of years old (shortly after this a whole bunch of Malaysian tourists showed up and ALL wanted their photo with us!

PAPARAZZI

In the next few photos, you will see us swinging across the bars in a public train while it is moving (while we were doing this, mum was really paranoid about "the bars bending" 

RUMBLE IN THE CONCRETE JUNGLE

In the next pic, you see us hiking up the huge amount of steps into the famous ,and iconic, Batua caves where there was... can you guess it?... No? well... a cave!  there were also monkeys on the steps that occasionally barred their fangs at passer-bys and also were stealing cans of Fanta. There is also a shot of a statue.

THE CAVES OF LEGEND

Now this photo ,on the other hand, is very recent. It is a picture of me jumping off the top (while it's not moving) of a boat. Yesterday I was to wimp to do it but today I had an opportunity to do it so yeah... I did

This is a photo of me wussing out because it was about 8 meters off the sea and was terrifying. Underneath me a group of English girls were saying: "oh you don't have to do it, don't let peer pressure get you" a few seconds later they were shouting at the top of their lungs, "DO IT!" DO IT!" "HURRY UP AND JUUUUUUUUUMP!!!" 

Away from the action now, we were swimming in Halong bay, one of the world's amazing wonders, unique, world heritage site. truly UNESCO