PICS

Mum, at your request =)


My little black bear


One of the 6:30am-7:00am breakfasts with my grandpa


Hanging with my grandma


My grandma & my cousins Loi and Y


My aunty and my two cousins Quang & Minh at a Medical Convention in Saigon

The Bad / The Good

THE BAD

DOGS: Why is it that every dog I have seen over here are oh-so-ugly? I've always thought they were cute to look at (but not touch) but over here it's a different story! Their bottom side is so big and saggy and almost all of them look like thin ill sausage dogs (yuk!) It makes me think, are all the cute and healthy dogs butchered and this is what remains?! Hmmmz... Ugh I get the shivers from looking at them long but you can't help but look because they're everywhere.. they're around your table when you eat out (breafast, lunch and dinner!), they're on the streets as you walk or ride by, they're everywhere! Even my grandparents has two as pets! Ugh!

MOSQUITOES: They are everywhere. "Aeroguard Tropical Strength" is a MUST!!!

TOILETS (double yuk!): How can I forget. Luckily my grandparents has got the western style toilet but even with it, you still have to throw away the used toilet paper in the waste bin provided. Of course I often forget and throw it down the toilet by mistake and some time last week I managed to clog up my aunty's toilet :[

DIRT: You can't hide from it

*just yesterday*
PERMANENTLY STRAIGHTENING HAIR: It kills! I never knew they would pull your hair with the straightener that badly! I think they managed to stretch my hair an extra 1cm or so!! I'm serious! I don't know if that's the standard way of straightening someone's hair or they sinply have bad quality hair straighteners but either way, it was 4hrs of pain. And now, i have to leave my hair unwashed for 3days!! In asia ahh!! :{

THE GOOD

MOSQUITO ZAPPERS: It was once shown on Rove and it's such a kool device! It looks like a tennis racquet (only the wires are charged up) and by pressing the button on its side, you zap every mozzie you whack! I bring it into the toilet with me hehehe coz it's crazy how many mozzies you see in the toilets and bathrooms here.

FOOD: The portion over here is just perfect for me and I can finish the whole bowl! Every soup I've tasted is yum-yum-yum! From Bo Kho to Pho to Hu Tieu, yummy! I also love the Bo La Lop (beef wrapped in leaves). Somehow the food over here just doesn't compare to AUS (except for my mum's cooking of course)-it's so much better here!. David- I'll do my best to eat all the yummy food over here on your behalf!!! -anything BUT dog meat ok!

PENNYWORT DRINK: yummy! I love it! As cheap as it is, I try not to drink too much of it because then i'll need to go to the toilet and as mentioned, I HATE using the toilets!! =/

1 week into Vietnam (Ba Ria)

WEIGHT: 51.5kg (yes Oanh & Dave- I will do my best to eat as much as I can and gain some weight over here. I already have this huge hunch that by the time I hit UK, i'll lose it all again! So I'd rather come back to AUST looking the same than scrawny than before hehe)

I just got my hair and face washed for $10000 which is equivalent to $1! I might as well go back tomorrow and get my hair straightened (for $20) considering there is not much to do down here at my grandparents place. My uncle & aunt has a store down in the markets and across it there is this Internet Cafe which I go to whenever I've had enough of sleeping hehe

SCHEDULE IN BA RIA: Wake up at 7am, go out to have breakfast with my grandpa, then go back to nap til 11am, wake up to have lunch with my grandparents (there are only them two and a housekeeper in the house), hang with my grandma abit (she can't move around much), nap again and don't wake up until around 4pm, hang with my grandma again before having dinner at 5pm, then go out for abit with my uncle and aunty and am back in bed by 10pm!hehe I really don't mind it though, I'm glad to finally be able to REST and I'm really down in ba Ria to hang with my grandparents for a few days before I move off to my other relo's places. In the weekend coming, Ill be going down South to Mekong Delta to visit a temple and do abit of praying with my aunties and the following week hopefully I would've booked a tour to travel up North of Vietnam to check out the beautiful sites.

I still have the sniffles... it comes and goes as it pleases and it's a real bugger!!! =(

Guess what I ate yesterday??? Well, you know how I LOVE eating duck's blood?hehehe (sorry Terry, you can skip this whole paragraph if you are reading it) Well, it ain't suitable eating this in Asia so my uncle and I went to eat Pig's blood instead! Dun worry, it looks and tastes quite the same =) I was afraid to eat it at first in case I would get an upset stomach (and already I had just had Bo Kho for breakfast with my grandpa) but... I ate it anyways and all was good! I planned to eat it again with my uncle this morning for breakfast (yes, breakfast!!) but after talking to my mum last night on the phone, she told me not to eat it again!!! hehe even after I had convinced her that I was fine from the first round, she said NO NO NO! So.. I wasn't allowed to eat it... and instead I had Pho with my grandpa this morning hehe BUT just to say.. the pig's blood was Deeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious!!!! hehehe no complaints ;)

Darling sisters... hope you both are behaving yourselves over there and am looking after each other and mummy! (I'm sure you are) Yes, don't miss me too much now!! =) Oh Phuong! I accidentally took your brown thongs by mistake! I will do my best not to scrape it :I

PICS

SYD AIRPORT: Don't worry mummy, i'll see you again!!!

BIEN HOA: After spending a luxurious day in Saigon, we got dropped off at Bien Hoa and had to find our own way to my grandparent's place in Ba Ria, an hours drive away. We stand on the side of the road in the crazy heat to find and catch public transport i.e. a van with no air con and with a lot of ppl!

VIETNAM AIRPORT: Dropping my uncle, aunt and their kids off at the airport to fly back to AUST. I regard my little cousin Y (the one next to me) as my cute little black bear hehe coz she is so black(she looks Indian) and is soooo round! =)

5th day in Vietnam (Ba Ria)

Thank you thank you thank you!!! I finally got some sleep!!!

Last night I couldn't sleep at all and it was dreadful! I seriously can't stand really cold or hot conditions and last night I experienced them both! I slept in my grandma's room with the air-con on right and I began with the sneezing and sniffling. I really wanted to turn the air-con off and turn on the fan but couldn't coz there were others sleeping in the room and I didn't want to be a nuisance. SO I continued with the sniffling, sneezing and coughing one after the other until i couldn't stand it and went outside to sleep. I made sure to spray on the Aeroguard before I slept outside coz there were no mosquito nets so I was basically sleeping on a rock-hard bed with no covers. Since I couldn't spray the Aeroguard on my face, i was so paranoid that I'd wake up with bites all over my face so I couldn't really sleep. I was feeling a little better to be away from the air-con until it got really hot (coz I didn't turn the fan on) and ended up with a runny nose!!! Grrrrrr!!! I began to sweat so I ran back in the room. What do you know... runny nose turned into the sniffles and coughing again until it woke up my uncle and he turned off the air-con for me BUT didn't turn on the fan (probably coz it was directly above him and it would've been blowing on his face). Far out, i got a little better until it started to get really hot without the fan or air-con and by then I had rubbed my eyes so badly it had began to swell up. I ended up getting up and going straight outside to the living room and turned the fan on and sat right in front of it. I swear I couldve just slept-sitting right then and there until I saw the hammock behind me and laid on it. By then it was 5:30am and i managed to rest my eyes for half an hour before my cousin was up for school and my grandpa was up for his morning jog. Vietnam awoke whilst I ran back into the room, turned on the fan and went to sleep!!!! I managed to sleep for a few hours before my grandpa came in and told me to eat. At first I said no but after his second attempt, I decided to wake up but PRAYED that i could get back to sleep after breakfast.

After breakfast, I took a shower to refresh myself from last night's mess, took some medication and went back into my grandma's room to sleep but the sniffles and sneezing returned!!!! Ahhhh!!! I finally decided to go into my grandpa's room this time to sleep and there... with the fan on and no noise, I finally slept safe and sound until 4:30pm, yay!!!!!!!!

Since my uncle and aunt have returned to AUS yesterday, I can now have my grandpa's room to myself! YAY!!!

2nd day in Vietnam (Bien Hoa)

Holler!

Thanks for all the well-wishes in the comments ppl! I will do my very best to stay safe on this trip, not to worry =) Oh and thanks to all those who called or msged me prior to my departure- I'm sorry if I didn't reply or return the calls, I had no credit left!! =D

Well, after a transit at both Melbourne Airport and Bangkok Airport, I finally got into Vietnam 16hrs later (yes, 16hrs!!!), all safe and sound! But then we went to eat in Saigon and abit of shopping before taking a 1 1/2hr drive to my grandparent's place in BA RIA. I was quite buggered by then but I just couldn't rest my eyes (I still can't)!! I won't forget the moment when I stepped into the house to greet my grandma- she was oh-so-happy to see me I came to give her a BIG hug and in return she hugged and kissed me all over my face i didn't think she'd stop! But then again, I think she was really kissing my mum (through me if you know what I mean) because my mum lives on the other side of the world to them and I know my grandma misses her heaps! So I got a little teary when she constantly kissed me hehe

So it's almost 10am in Vietnam right now and I just had coffee with my cousin at some "fancy" cafe and am now at an Internet cafe resting abit. I had to get up at 5am (yes, 5am!!!) this morning to shift from one relo's place to another. Everything happens so early over here. Everyone goes to work/school around 6-7am and they don't finish until around midday or just after. My cousins and I will be going on a tour up North in 2wks time but for now, I've made no plans so I'll just take things as it comes!

I have plans to gain some weight over here and my relos are telling me to follow and eat whatever my little cousin Y (pronounced "e") eats because she's a little round girl who eats A LOT!! I saw her eat and I don't think I can do it!!!!

Well, time to visit some more cousins now

I will try to post some pics along the way...

It's almost time...

Wow, the day is almost near! Only a few more days remaining before I venture out into this Great Big World!! I've waited for this day soooo long now and I'm so grateful that nothing has got in the way of my plans. I have studied and worked hard already so now it's time for me to equally PLAY as hard!! hehe but within budget of course.

This trip is anticipated to be a personal one, a journey of self-discovery through travelling the world (or half of it), taking on roles that I may never be able to do again and definitely meeting interesting people along the way. It has been planned to be a long adventure only because I don't know if I'll ever have this opportunity again. I have no real thing holding me back right now so I'll take it as an advantage and travel about since I know that when I do return, I'll have committments to fulfill (which is all to be another exciting chapter in my life). For now, my travelling is what I look forward to most and I will definitely make the most out of it!

I surely will miss my family and friends back here but I know i WILL see all the beautiful faces again but for this trip, I may never see the world like this ever again. SO it is my time now to fly, because I can! =)

Now, it is time for the preparation... there is still so much to do in so little time!!