Travelling Adventures & Hurrah! For Friends

Ray peer pressured into cutting a pig with a plate

Eating the most famous Hanoi pho on Bat Dan. Meat questionable and delicious

Fancy pants ice-cream at Fannys

Halong Bay

Cooking in Sapa

Sapa trekking

Ending Hanoi on a high at La Badiane. My head is on a weird angle because it's about the 10th photo Johnny took and I was wondering WHAT he was doing.

Giants in giant bonsai

It feels like a crazy couple of weeks and yet it's all gone way to fast.

It started with my trip to Malaysia. Woop! As I was landing I suddenly felt terribly nostalgic and "homesick" in a way. I realised it had been about 2 years since I was there (Johnny and I went just before I came home from HCMC), and it seemed like way too long. Funny because it is and it isn't, and the first time I ever went was when I was 17. All I know is that I love my family dearly over there and probably do because I don't have to see them all the time! That and it's undeniable that I'm very spoilt there.

So what did I do? What everyone does in Malaysia: eat and shop. I spent one full day at Mid Valley and was in actual physical pain by the end of it. I can't compete with Aunty Jennys shopping style of managing to find something in every single store we go into, I'm more of a give me 5 seconds to scan this shop type of person. We did have some very good fried oysters and fried oyster noodles at the end of it.

I met with Ray & friends which was exciting although with didn't get to dance OR get a photo together. A bit of fail on both accounts, after all WHO KNOWS, we could be 80 when we see each other again*. We did however get to sit outside Zouk and feel very old looking at "the kids" in awful outfits. Is that what the youth are wearing these days? If so, we're all going to hell.

I also met up with Constantine and Daniel who used to work in HCMC and who bought me Assam Laska. I LOVE Assam Laska, especially when it's free.

When I got back to Hanoi, it was very exciting because Laura was getting in on the same day. Amazingly we did a whole heap of things on the first arvo/ night she was here which mostly included eating. For the following couple of days we were adventuring off in Sapa and Halong Bay. When I say "adventuring" I really mean "being wussy and playing phone games". It was fabulous. It ended with a very amazing dinner at my favourite french restaurant and feeling swish at the Metropole. What more could you want (besides more time).

Once Laura left Jimmy and his brother Pete were here. They had less then a week and in Hanoi and also went to Halong Bay so their time was short lived. I did of course make them get up at 5:30am to go to the exercise park to see booty dancing. You can't not.

Since then we've been trying to get back into a "routine". This past week I've been sick, and after days of feeling crap food poisoning (the worst I've had since I've been here) Johnny made me go to the doctor who pronounced "YOU HAVE BACTERIA". He didn't elaborate. Did I mention I had to get a blood test? You can guess what happened when I got the needle.

In exciting news we're going to Thailand in two weeks to visit the Terricanis and Ben and Erin! Then Malaysia in October, and thinking of Sydney in November?

* Dramatisation: I fully expect to leech of Ray when he moves to New York