We arrived in Hoi An, a beautiful town on the central coast in Vietnam, after a reasonably hideous overnight bus in which I felt like I was riding in a coffin. I didn't really see the attraction of this UNESCO World Heritage Site in the daytime, but by night the Old Town is lit up with thousands of lanterns, and is a really beautiful place. We sampled the local cuisine and took a boat ride out to sea, where our driver cooked us fresh tuna, squid and Cao Lao, the local speciality, with noodles cooked in a specific water from the local well. Halloween was a lot of fun - we got shipped out to a beach party, only to find a load of cracked out locals dancing around like lunatics with pumpkins on their heads. A few more bus-fulls of tourists later and we were all going crazy to Gaga and Beyonce.
I then took the long lonely overnight bus to Hanoi on my own, leaving my friends in Hoi An to go crazy in the bespoke tailors shops.
I read in the Lonely Planet that Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam in the north, was the Grand Old Dame of the Orient. More like the Scabby Old Drag Queen of the Orient. I hated it. Don't know if it was a mixture of the crappy cliquey hostel, leaving friends, traffic, more traffic, the fact I knew I was flying out in a couple of days, overbearing heat and the fact the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was closed (I really wanted to visit but they stuff his body a bit more every November), but I just couldn't bear it. I didn't have time for Halong Bay, and if I saw one more gonk with a tubing t-shirt from Laos I was going to cry. I promptly checked out of my hostel, got a nicer place and sat indoors and watched movies and ate burgers all day. I know it was cheating but it made me feel so much better. I wasn't going to let this taint my experience of Vietnam, it was an amazing place to visit and I would definitely encourage people to go.
So onwards back to Thailand. Flying directly out of Hanoi to Bangkok and then out again to Surat Thani, I enrolled at the Agama Yoga School in Ko Phangan, which I attended for a week and was a really awesome experience. There was a lot of theory and I learned all about my chakras and cosmic energies and I'm going to be such a teacher's pet when I get back to London. I stayed in a very basic bungalow right on the beach, hired a motorbike and cruised round the island, salutating the sun and feeling very zen. 6 weeks ago I could hardly bear to get into a tuk-tuk and now I was literally Easy Rider. It was a fantastic experience, sitting on my hammock listening to the sea and getting back to basics. Big thanks to Gabriel for sorting out the bungalow and introducing me to beach life :)
I should also mention that I skipped yoga class to go to the Full Moon party on Thursday. I won't blog on too much about it though, this is a public blog and I need to get gainful employment when I return to London, but from what I can remember 3 buckets on it was a lot of fun................. ;)
Before the Full Moon Party though, we celebrated the Thai festival of Loy Krathong, held yearly to celebrate the end of the rainy season. I cut off a little bit of what's left of my hair, and set if afloat onto the sea in a little basket boat made of banana leaves with a candle and incense sticks, as an offering to the Water Goddess. Seeing all these little things floating off into the darkness from the shore was really very beautiful. I made a wish; in retrospect, maybe I should have wished for no more buckets.
With the monsoon rains on the Gulf Coast threatening, I made my way to Krabi, on the Andaman Coast, where it turns out there was also monsoon rain of biblical proportions. Krabi was kind of crappy, but I had fun down at Hippie's Bar, and staying in my bamboo bungalow at the Laughing Gecko in the middle of a cashew nut orchard. I saw my second snake of the trip and only froze for 2 seconds. I'm learning.
I've now arrived in Ko Phi Phi, near where The Beach was filmed. White golden sands. Turquoise clear sea. And SUN. I'm not moving for 2 weeks. Next stop - Malaysia.
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