Skinny bitch-nation

It must have been quite a rude awakening if your BMI level exceeds 25 (BMI is short for Body Mass Index, obesity starts at 25). Our Vietnamese tour guide, who bore more resemblance to a crazy native American Indian who likes his bong, started his tour with a very extensive and rather painful explanation as to why Vietnamese people are not fat. “They don’t eat cheeeeeeessseeeee!”. He continued by pleading his allegiance to the American soldiers who once roamed the streets of Saigon (an exceptional statement in a communist country which still oozes a grizzly pride for killing and torturing so many of the ‘US aggressor’ through ‘educational’ videos and information boards at every historical war-site).

Winnetou would take us to the infamous Cu Chi tunnels: hide out of Viet Cong fighters, littered with very creative but gruesome booby-traps. The Viet Cong actually lived inside those tunnels underground, not visible if you would have taken a casual stroll there with B-52s doing some extensive landscaping from the sky. It was mentioned, before entering the tunnels, that they have been doubled the size for the sake of the tourists (and probably the poor soul who would’ve otherwise had the pitiful task of midwifing the overweight tourist out of the narrow tunnels).

I entered feeling confident; it would be only a short crawl. When the moment came I imagined we would be at the end, we were instead going one level deeper (6 meters below the surface). By the time we had to go deeper yet another level (9 meters), I was in a state of subdued hyperventilation and fled for the ‘tourist-that-shit-their-pants-stairs’ to breathe a big gulp of air. American burgers -woops- soldiers would have never-ever fit through the original tunnels.

That evening I stumbled upon the epitome of ‘Skinny bitch-nation’: a mobile BMI-meter. For only 5000 Dong you could be enlightened by the knowledge of your own BMI. As a professional Skinny Bitch I of course went for it. The result will remain top-secret.

That is what true horror looks like...

In case the Viet Cong were in need of a serious armpitt trim.

Saigon... the city were open fire functions like a social hub.

The BMI meter. I know, it looks more like a mobile shower, which -considering my previous blog- I needed more at that moment.

Practised my posing. Never mind the two huge mosquito bites on my leg.

Another day, another Viet Cong hide out. This time in a mangrove forest. Brilliant if mosquitos are amongst your best friends.

We were warmly greeted and send off by the camps new inhabitants.

The reign of the sweat mustache

The first time talking to my mother over skype, she carefully -but with great emphasis- warned me that in no case I could allow myself to become a stinky, moldy backpacker while traveling (backpackers have established a pretty solid name for themselves). I soothed her with the info that although maybe less developed than Europe, in Asia people do enjoy showering and even soap. Now, after spending close to two months abroad, I am redefining my hygiene. It is your human right to stop reading now.

Instead of smelling like Thierry Mugglers ‘Angel’ with a hint of gentle almond scrub, an intense citronella odor is now always accompanying me. I stopped sniffing my hands after visiting Chinas restrooms and BF V today even hesitantly admitted my neck has become a bit greasy. But he loves me none the less. Woops… 

Since traveling here in South East Asia I have even grown a mustache. A sweat mustache. It goes with me wherever I go, day and night. No matter how much I keep dabbing my mouth with tissues; the sweat has grown very fond of my upper lip. With temperatures going way beyond 30 degrees even at night and a humidity level close to a 100%, this is not a strange thing though. Sorry mom! So remember this while browsing through the photos below: before they were taken some serious dabbing was going on. Now smile!



I took my sweaty mustache to see Hoi An: a pretty little town, Disney-fied by UNESCO, that lights up at night in any color imaginable. 





See...

 

A sunset like this one might illustate the scorching heat that comes from the big frying orb.



Finally.... there was sand and the ocean. I got the chill at a beach!

And lost 10 lives at a water park were I had to plunche myself down near vertical Tsunami-called water slides. Why do people enjoy staring into deaths eyes so much?



The Fairy Stream in Mui Ne was more my cup of tea.



The massive sand dunes got my two thumbs up as well, although grinding sand with your teeth the whole time took some getting used to.

Then again I could vent my frustration during a cooking course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Service with a smile…

… is not included when booking a 2 day cruise to Halong Bay for 40 dollars or less (seriously, what where you thinking?).  Our tour guide -20 minutes late- was standing across the street, stressed out and sweating profusely, summoning us with frantic gestures and a lot of flying saliva to stuff our luggage into the very tiny and already cramped back of the bus. As I hesitantly -startled by this warm welcome- told him my bag wouldn’t fit anymore he disagreed with a firm kick to the luggage already inside and threw his full body weight in to show me just how ‘well’ the bag does fit. There. Easy does it. Now get inside the bus, shut up and start enjoying yourself.

“We a’e going to Halong Bayyyyy. Weather is nice, no lain, so no wollies anymo’e! I allanged for you betta boat, so you can call me supaman!” So superman took our passports away from us and like a group of stifled hostages, too afraid to speak up, we let ourselves being flocked through an overcrowded cave onto our supa boat.  We swam inside a cave, kayaked through a fishing village and I jumped off the boat, the very top, after 5 minutes of hesitation I think I became the biggest attraction of the day. Will she jump or scramble back to her sunbed? There is an ultra-boring  film clip that will prove I hit the emerald green waves bottoms first. They turned ruby red within minutes.

Halong Bay has some quite peculiar fish roaming it's underwater mountain landscape...



Superman even 'allanged' a rainbow to show up.

Taken from the entrance of the cave... which was not crowded at all... no...

Rowing franticaly to try and avoid a collision with the occasional mountain here and there...

As for V... well as you can see he rowed as if his life depended on it...

And so, after two days we said goodbye to beautiful Halong Bay.

Bia Hoi

Vietnam: the land of the liquid gold, topped off with a thick white foam layer and some ice cubes. Upon discovery it sent V into a frenzy. A calculating frenzy… Bia hoi, the national drink in Vietnam, freshly draught when ordered and sometimes chilled with some ice cubes, costs only 10 euro cent a glass. And those are decent glasses. For just one euro you could get pretty hammered. For 5 euros… well… you might not survive with all the poisonous stuff they probably use to produce it.

While glaring at the check we just received from the waitress after our first dinner in an actual restaurant that wouldn´t look bad in Amsterdam, I could see something brooding in V´s mind. I was sipping on my chilled glass of white wine, ferociously enjoying it,  when out came the now legendary words: “I could have 170 beers for this money.”

And there it was: the ‘Beer Index’ saw the light of the flickering lanterns outside for the first time. I could not escape it anymore. I almost even got the evil eye for ordering an can of soda or an ice coffee, which could easily have been 5 bia hois instead.

Now please just take your time, sit back and try to imagine the expression on V’s face when –while strolling through our hotels street in Hanoi- I discovered we had picked just that one street to sleep in where all the boutiques which sold the most sublime Chanel bag copies of all time where clustered together… They only cost the same as 3000 bia hois…

The scene of the crime. I'm still blissfully unaware of what is about to happen. 

The perpetrator and his poison...

Testing V's nerves.

This picture cost at least 10 beers.

Hanoi... The man who gave us the 'Beer Index' is of course also responsible for all these pictures. What would we do without him?

Hanoi (or is it Bia Hoi?) makes one act questionably.

Stinky business

Although the ankle-deep puddle of piss I had to make my way through, so I could sqwat next to the white bare asian butts belonging to women doing their 'business', were all very welcoming, I decided my blather was not exploding after a 10 our train trip. I was perfectly fine. Zen. You have to draw the line somewhere. Right? After dangling above porcelain hell holes while trying to minimize the gag-reflexes, doing 'it' in a shack above some wooden planks with a crack between them and actually paying to go to a place where you couldn't lock piss-stall 1, number 2 had a fresh stinking pile of China shit lying right next to it, not in it, number 3 had no door at all and the last one, number 4, well... the blood bath in there indicated a girl with some serious menstrual problems was there before me.

In short: Chinese toilets are the worst. After visiting Laos, ranked one of the 20 poorest countries in the world, you'd think China, the secretly reigning super power, would be a delight for a blather in need. You see, China is beautiful. Absolutely stunningly gorgeous. And they know it. They got a little arrogant if I can just be honest with you for a second. It is the only country so far that I know of that lets you pay to take a picture of nature, asks 30 times the price for a beer in a restaurant than you pay in a super market and charges you for the horror they call 'restroom'.

I always see cleaning equipent at the entrance, but the fact that you can already smell the presence of a toilet while you are still 50 meters away from it, makes me think the moldy mop is just for show, to trick you into paying. The last 'restroom' I delightfully visited to find some relief had such a bad ammonia stench I was afraid it would eat away the flesh in my nose. I left cursing out the lady sitting in front. No money was given back to me, nor did she magicaly reach for the cleaning equipment, she probably didn't even understand me, but it was finaly the relieve I really needed.

One of the inhabitants of the Yunnan province in China which I am sure has a higher hygiene standard as its owners.

The enchanting city centre of Xin Jie, from which we ventured out into the rice paddy hills.

The rice fields... Like I said: China is beautiful.

More stinky stuff...

The smell of success

"Those f*cking mules where sniffing up my butt the whole damn way up the mountain" is the funniest one-liner I heard while trying not to collaps at 'Half Way-Hostel', sitting on the terrace overlooking the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, numbed by an Ibuprofen pill and my first bottle of beer.

We were half way through what is called the 'Tiger Leaping Gorge' in China. One of the deepest gorges in the world, carved by the mighty Yangtze river. Of course to get a good view of it and really experience the magic of backpacking you first have to climb a mountain top that roughly reaches the 2700 meter mark.

I lost exactly three lives there. Never before in my life I collapsed and cried bitter tears because my body just could not go on anymore at all. Finito. Never before in my life I got up again on my own, all three times (with a concerned and ridiculously sweet V feeding me banana's, walnuts, Snickers and Red Bull) and carried on to make it to the end. With a Chinese man on a mule behind me the whole time, like a vulture waiting for me to give up and paying him to carry me up the mountain. I let the mule snif my sweaty little butt all the way to the top.

Reached the top! I will spare you the mule-sniffing pictures preceding this little gem.

It's so gorge-ous up here!

This one is well deserved!

Look for something pink. That's me!

Going down the gorge we came across a ladder or two.

And reached the bottom as well. Say 'Yangtze'!