There is a definite cycle to this traveling malarky. It goes: city, mountains, beach, city, mountains, beach, and so on. And so it came to be that after descending from the peaks of north-west Vietnam we should head for the near-coast town of Hoi An and all its associated tailors.

Halong Bay was both beautiful and enjoyable. Firstly because it consists of thousands of separate island and caves and secondly because Vietnamese people trying to hawk me stuff don't generally get out to sea much. Halong bay is a World Heritage Site, which means it gets all sorts of special protection; but that doesn't stop ships captains' tossing their plastic bags of rubbish into the water. We went as part of a tour with six other travelers - I would definitely recommend such a thing as it is a great way to meet like-minded individuals from across the world.



And meeting such people in the days since Halong have caused me to realise how ridiculously expensive my home city of London really is. During my only day back in Hanoi I got chatting to a local who was studying English at university. Now remember folks, to work out a price in Vietnamese dong one must multiply the British pound by 27,000. 27 is a bastardly awkward number to work with. Also bear in mind that a long distant bus takes 12 hours might cost about 50,000 dong. And furthermore I ask you to consider that I am not doing the patronising phonetic representation of my Vietnamese chum's attempts at English; although it was rather good anyway.

"How much does it cost you to get to work in the morning?"

"Er.... *insert many seconds of furious thinking here* about 150,000 dong."

*makes face of surprise and concern* "How much do cigarettes cost?"

Ah. This was easy - it's the same price: "150,000 dong." I reply speedily looking smug as if I had just done the maths again but in super quick time.

"Really?"

"Yes."

A packet of Marlboro Lights here in Vietnam cost about 17,000 dong I am told by those who buy such things. Which is a mixed blessing for them I guess. I also guess that with no regulations on what the evil tobacco manufacturers can stick (get it? Weak pun there) into their product, ciggies here probably contain something nasty and highly addictive like heroin or the like.

"How much does a house cost in London?"

I baulk.

How much is the average London house price? I ask my friend Rob. "300,000 pounds" he reckons.

I baulk more - adding to the previous baulk - at the mathematics ahead of me. I decide to estimate a rough approximation. It's a billion dong I believe.

I put on my best Ren and Stimpy voice:

"A biiiilleeon dong!" I exclaim. It turns out I was wrong; the actual figure is more like 8,100,000,000 dong but he gets the message anyway: study English but don't visit England. Not unless you're prepared to be bank rolled by a Vietnamese tobacco company.

Yesterday I met a Japanese chap called Yoshio. After the initial and mandatory conversation about Manga and the marvelous Takeshi Kitano and his new film Zatoichi we move onto prices. Or rather I move the conversation on to it. I always thought that Tokyo, from where Yoshio hails,
was possibly the only city more expensive than London, but oh no. I won't bother with more details, but now I'm more pissed off than ever about the ridiculous expense us Londoners' are put through on a regular basis. Yoshio pays $100 a month for his Tokyo apartment.

Bah.

Today I paid $35 to get a tailor made tuxedo. It is very nice thankyouverymuch. Such an item would cost me double this to rent one for a weekend - although to be fair it would probably cost double anywhere else. I'm still baulking.

Finally here is a very sad man indeed. Or is it just a spoof website? Don't send your answers to me.







Fruits in Vietnam.Try the Sapodilla. Yummy.

I've been in northwest Vietnam and it is beautiful. Where there are tourists it is hard to escape sales techniques and locals trying to squirrel every penny out of you. Where there aren't people smile and every single person waves and says "hello". What does this to people? Vietnam is hardly that touristy. Furthermore, Vietnamese people spit, chew with their mouths open, stare at you, and throw their rubbish into the beautiful hills.

To really enjoy this country, find a place away from the tourist trail. Then it is as wonderful as any place you might visit. Don't do that and you will most likely leave this country feeling it is the worst place in South East Asia. And many people do.

Shamefully I cannot write the lengthy peice I wanted to about Sapa (the pretty but touristy hell hole) and Lai Chau (the pretty but untouristy place of pleasure). This is mainly because I have calculated my time on this machine badly and I need to get to bed. And that is because we are going to Halong Bay tomorrow and we have to get up at 7am.

So I leave you now with a half-week of pleasure ahead of me having left my Weblog to rot.

Do I care? Well actually there is a touch of bother within me.

But not enough to sit here for any longer.

And so I arrive in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

There is only one word to adequately describe this city: CHAOS.

The legal standard side to drive on here is the right, but reality states that there are no laws. Motorbikes and bicycles crowd the streets and flow down the streets of Hanoi like water gushing through. I use this analogy because to cross the road one must simply walk to the other side whilst the traffic magically weaves around you. It is quite an unnerving experience, but one you get used to. Westerners are still rare enough to attract young children into approaching you and saying "hello". But also to make you a target for locals looking for a bit of business. Expect to say no to taxis (cars), cyclos (bikes with seats at the front), and motos (moped drivers who want you to cling onto the back), and also to postcard salespeople, shoe shiners, representatives outside of restaurants, cafes and bars, and any other service you might not want.

It is understable of course when one considers that most people here are pretty damn poor when compared to the West. If only the US had paid the $6 billion in reparations they had promised as part of the ceasefire agreement, or had not waited till 1994 to end their embargo. Such pettiness. In fact with 27,000 dong to the pound, most visitors here are billionnaires. Which isn't bad when you consider that four of us ate at a street vendor last night for 30,000 in total.

So yes. It's damn cheap.

And the most luxurious thing to do here is to find the most expensive restaurants in town and treat yourself to a gourmet meal for something less than $10 per person. It's hard but I managed to find the finest place - and it is Bobby Chinn's. His steak is second to very few most likely; it melts in one's mouth.

It is thankfully cool here. After the heat of Bangkok it is wonderful to be able to wear long trousers and socks; the biting insects however still visit my room at night. The bastards. The buildings are fairly old and life exists on the street - much as it does on Bangkok. However Bangkok is a sprawling beast compared to quaint little Hanoi. The centre of Hanoi city is a lake which surrounds a small temple and an even smaller ancient ruin. And that's pretty much it for the major landmarks.

I need to stress again at this point the chaos that are the streets here. Bikes weave in and out and around each other like termites on a termite mound. I wonder at how I have yet to see an accident but somehow the Vietnamese avoid it. It is anarchy in action. Hence large vehicles like lorries have the run of the road. A lorry's method of approaching a busy crossroads is to honk its horn repeatedly and drive steadily onwards. It seems to work. The horn on a vehicle is used to indicate to others your position - thus the frequency of their use is magnificently high.

Tonight I head for mountains. Cities are only so good, but I need mountains and clear air for a few days. Frequently differing smells are good for only so long.

There is much to come from this trip no doubt.

If you could take a glass, dip it in an ocean and then somehow label each individual atom. Then pour the water back, wait eleven years, before taking your glass and re-scooping from any ocean or sea. You will have a better than evens chance of finding at least one of your original labelled atoms. So it is then that if you were to wait eleven years scoop a glass full of sea and examine the contents, you would certainly find some atoms that originated in the bladder of some drunken Full Moon Party reveller on Koh Pahnagn, Thailand. For many were wading ten feet into the water to urinate, bak turned from the beach.

But I shouldn't start this review of the Full Moon Party on a negative. It was a pretty good occasion. Everyone was friendly, there was lots to see and do, and the alcohol was bountiful and cheap. At one point I got to stroke two large Eagles. Dance floors ring the beach and revellers flatten the sand. It's quite a night. And no wonder for days leading up to the event tourists and travellers fill the resort of Hat Rin and then empty it in the days after.

The other day I went into our bathroom and there sat a cockroach the size of my arm. I swear had I not recognised it as a specific species of the Earth I would have convinced myself it was an alien visitor sent to communicate with me via it's massive waving tentacles.

After duly dispatching it into the night, we espied a mosquito hovering about our room. Books in hand we chased it for many minutes. I settled onto my bed defeated. There! It was crawling up my fucking leg. Like a fool I flicked it away. "No!" Rob cried from the neighbouring bed. "Why didn't you crush it?"

"I don't know", I admited.

I now have a bite the size of New Malden on the inside of my right foot. Bah. Now I have to decide wether to plaster it over with a, erm, plaster or to endure the constant itching that accompanies the abrasion of sandel on bite. If only I had crushed the fucker when I had the chance.

The following day we studied a long thin red worm furiously hurtling it's body around in an attempt to transport itself up a beach. It seemed like a thing one would normally only see on a nature documentary. After we walked off a couple of other lads went to study it, satisfied that we had vacated the area. They didn't want to be seen to be copying us. No doubt the worm's journey was followed entirely be seperate groups of lads peering curiously at it. Odds are, one chap would have crushed it eventually.

Which is what I should have done with the bastard mosquito.

Let this be a lesson to you all.

Aahh. There is nothing more satisfying than picking at a scab. The large scab on the upper part of my right arm was the subject of much attention from the fingers on my left hand this morning. It is currently being fashioned into the shape of the two islands of Ko Samui and Ko Pah Ngan, but sadly there is still a land bridge between the two forcing the multifarious boat operators to lose much business.

My scab:


Intriguingly, the bit that might represent Hat Rin on my scab was the first bit I picked off. And that is where I am a now - the Ibiza of Thailand at the south-east tip of Ko Pa Ngan. This place is as touristy as it will get during my travels and I'm still not sure about the vibe. Although Thais are almost universally friendly, if you are to find an exception it is probably where they are constantly in contact with annoying Western holiday makers. So that's at customs in Bangkok International Airport where the singly most glum looking individual welcolmed me to the Land of Smiles and here, where a laundry woman directed some unknown rant towards me for indescernable reasons.

There is a stark contrast here to the laid-back feel of Hat Yao or, for that matter, most other parts of the coast. This is the place where the monthly full moon parties are staged, and the next one is this coming Sunday. I expect the town to fill steadily with holidaymakers during the intervening days. And holidaymakers is the correct word; although there are undoubtedly many travellers like me here, the mood is dominated by people on a two week jolly, and they are a very different type of animal. Expect loud music, drunken revelry, sports bars and bars playing dodgy copies of movies. Forinstance I watched a DVD replay of 'Love Acctually' complete with absurd attempts at English subtitles.

Don't get me wrong, Hat Rin is still a fun place to visit, but you need to be of a certain persuasion socially. A dreadlocked traveller I met last week advised me Hat Rin was "a shithole" whilst the three Glaswegian Celtic supporters baring their stripey football tops seemed to love the place. I am somewhere in between. Sitting on the beach sampling a Bucket (hip flask-sized bottle of whiskey plus eastern-style Red Bull emptied into a bucket for 160 bhat) watching locals speedily manipulating blazing sticks and having people approach you hoping you will pay to have a monkey sit on your lap or to stroke an eagle etc etc is okay. But I still prefered finding a bar in Hat Yao built like a treehouse and chatting to all comers from around the globe.

Two different experiences; one island. And a bloody terrible road connecting the two.

They call the phenomena a Ko Pah Ngan Tattoo. Mopeds are the most efficient way to see this beautiful island and when you fall off one the scrape you get leaves quite a scar. And that's what I've got. Perhaps unsuprisingly then, I'd advise against hiring one of these mopeds - the roads here are atrocious and anyone not experienced will surely have a dangerous and hair-raising experience. Even my friend Rob, who rides a 600cc road bike in Blighty, had a minor accident.

At least the locals here are ridiculously friendly. Everyone who came past stopped and offered assistance. A local boat owner gave me a lift on the back of his moped to a clinic where I had some treatment administered. I should think myself lucky though - in hindsight I have been hearing numerous horror stories from others about accidents where peoples faces have been permanently damaged - and I'm told that 12 farang have been killed here on the roads since January... The local who kindly transported me to the clinic told me that he used to hire out bikes but after seeing the injuries they cause and then having to charge the victims for the bike damage on top of their doctors bills he gave it up.

Not many people wear helmets here, and there are many children who ride motorcyles as well. Naturally they are competent as hell. Bloody typical.

So I'm sporting a few bandages and experiencing a bit of pain. Which is both bad and good. Bad you probably know about; good is I've met more people in the hours after treatment than in the entire period I have been out here. In fact I've met countless people thanks to some white bandages on my right arm and hand. It's great.

I've moved from my original resort of Hat Yao on the North West side of the island to the busy tourist trap that is Hat Rin on the opposite corner. Not really my cup of tea to be honest but still fun. Hat Yao was great in that it was beautiful and fairly small. We got to know people and continued to meet them at bars all week. Definitely to be recommended. We stayed at a place called Long Beach - probably the most picturesque location on the beach and although the younger staff were great fun, their was an underlying atmosphere I didn't like. No enough to ruin the spirit, but the way we were bundled off after we checked out was unnecessary. If I were to go back I would try somewhere else - and I would consider going back to that beach.