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Location Date South America 1364256000 North America 1361923200 Europe 1341097200 Asia 
1322784000 Africa 1308524400 -
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Location Date Hanoi 1314745200 Ha Long 1314572400 Hué 1314140400 Hoi An 1313967600 Dak Nhé (2) 1313622000 Kon Tum (2) 1313535600 Buon Ma Thuot 1313449200 L?c Thi?n 1313362800 Nha Trang 1313276400 Ho Chi Minh City 1312930800 Dalat 1312153200 Phan Thiet
1311980400 Vinh Long 1311462000 Can Tho 1311375600 Chau Doc 1311289200 -
Location Date Sat, 30 July 2011 1311980400 Fri, 29 July 2011
1311894000 Thu, 28 July 2011 1311807600
It looks like I was indeed very very tired... I arrived at the hotel around 2 am and could not sleep until 3:30. I had slept maybe one hour in the bus, not more. I had the firm intention of renting a motorbike in the morning to go and check out everything there is around : red canyon, white sand dunes, fishermen villages, Cham tower, etc. So I asked for a 9 am wake up call.
During breakfast, I managed to check my emails, at last. Indeed, wifi does not work in the rooms for the moment because... thunder stroke here a couple of days ago and basically grilled all the sea view bungalows wifi... Yes ! Well, I had an important email which means that I am going to have to interrupt my trip for a week. So I started organizing for this.
My day was very very busy. Check it out. :-))
At 11:00, I went back to my room and... slept until 2 pm. I woke up ten seconds before my dad's phone call on my Vietnamese number... Hehehe. I went back to sleep until around 4 pm. Then I went back to the lobby for a quick snack and web stuff again (trip, visa, choices...) then back to my room at around 7 pm for... A nap ! I fell asleep again until 11 pm ! I am now awake and it's half past midnight.
I have the firm intention of sorting out tomorrow the rest of my trip until the break (I leave Vietnam on August 2nd and will be back on August 10th) and seeing what needs seeing around here... So tomorrow will be a busy day now that I am rested...
I made up my mind about one thing : I extended my stay here for another night and will be heading for Dalat on sunday afternoon or evening. There I will have two nights in Dalat before probably (that's what I have to sort out and decide tomorrow) taking a plane back to HCMC and then... out of Vietnam. When I come back, depending on what's available, i will either fly to Con Dao (in the archipelago of Con Son) which is something I would really really like to do. If it's still complicated, then I'll be heading straight to Nha Trang where... diving, I hope, will be awaiting me.
That's it for now folks !
Nadege
No ! That's not it ! Strange how I get answers or, let's say, new angles... Relativity ! It's 2 am and of course I am not sleeping ! I am watching National Geographic channel and one of its shows called taboo. The theme today is... Childhood and how it's either aborted early or maintained too long. The first is about kids in New Delhi who follow their brothers and fathers into self-inflicting wounds for an annual Muslim religious ceremony (you've all seen that on TV haven't you ? Did you ever see children ?)... Well I saw 9 year old Mahmoud and his three brothers inflicting themselves with razor blade wounds on their chests. Ouch. Yes. Imitate parents to get love right ? And the mother comments :"we're proud they are participating, they help promoting the family name"... And if the kids had died, the father says it would have been an honorable death, sacrificing their lives for Moulah Hussein... As the psychologist interviewed on TV says, children will go to any length to gain their parents' love and pride... Well, a bit like the next example...
Three year-old girls and boys in Thailand kickboxing for money (big crowds and big bets !), trained by daddy and encouraged during the fights by mummy... "That's the way life is", right ? Right ? - "oh Jasmine never got big wounds from kickboxing, only bruises", says the mum. "and neither did my other children", she adds, candidly... In two days, their six kids fought and brought back 270 dollars. That's three times the average monthly salary of a peasant in Thailand.
The psychologist says we are doing the same to our kids by encouraging them to practice injury-pruned sports such as soccer or skiing... But what shocks us here is the fact that these kids here are encouraged for... financial reasons.
Third topic : an Australian mother is still breastfeeding her 5-year old kid... Our reluctance, as westerners, to see this is actually associated with the sexual component of breasts... That's actually, deep down, according to the psychologist, the only reason why we believe this is inappropriate and... gross ! (yeah, it's gross ! Yuk !)
Oh well... Cultures and mentalities ! No big deal. Right ? Hahaha ! As my granny used to tell me, I'll always find worse than what I thought was worst and better than what I thought was best.
Good night !
Nadege
- comments
nadegeb72 Oh and I forgot to say ! I am soooooooo happy to have actually booked a very nice hotel with a sea view bungalow... With the weather we had today, I would have felt miserable in a cheap 8-dollar-nighter guesthouse... I know backpackers, real ones, look at me like I'm a fake - which I probably am - but honestly I don't give a damn what anybody thinks on that matter :-)))
LUDO Sorry you have to interrupt your trip...put some white renaissance make-up on so you dont look so tanned!
LUDO In life there's two kind of people... people with hygiene and backpackerslol
LUDO I couldn t convince my kid to follow my steps racing dirt bikes... I dont know why he says the scars on my body made him think of other fun activities.... :-( weird!
supet-toutounet Personally, if my daughter at the age of 5 still wants to breastfeed I would more than happy to do it :) Anyway, at that age "breastfeed" is probabily not the right word, it is rather"breastcomfort". It is like a hug. But isn't it the sweetest, the warmest, the most intimate, the most peaceful and the most complete hug in the world ?
nadegeb72 Hey Ludo, don't i have a right to be tanned in July ? And what if I like sun beds ? :-) regarding the interruption, no big deal. A lot to lose if I don't to it and a lot to gain if I do so it's a no brained and it's actually fun. The "putain fais chier" was definitely the reccuring dad-nad private joke :-)Regarding dirt bikes, well remember you started late and... there are many ways to get injured in other sports, such as the white shark attack I saw yesterday on animal planet on this south African guy who lost a leg in the process. No more surf for him ! Oh well. I scuba dive, ride horses and ski... So...Hey Claire ! Happy you're back on the blog ! Maybe it's because I don't have a kid yet but I don't feel comfortable with this. It feels to me like a way of not granting independence to a kid. If a kid can be cocooned, he will choose (I think) that option. It's also our responsibility as adults (I think) to best prepare them for life on their own. Of course, the 3-year old kickboxing is pushing the envelope a bit far IMHO (hahaha) but breastfeeding until 5 looks a bit extreme to me too... and actually quite selfish (baby please don't grow)... (no judgement, just opinion)Life is so interesting ! Yeah ! It rocks ! :-))))))
nadegeb72 Oh and re backpackers... Some truth in what you say but not the general idea though. 8 dollar guest houses are also very clean, they just don't offer the same kind of luxury and view the resorts do. Let's say that I am lucky to be able to afford it... Or that I also make the decision to spend my money on this rather than something else... Priorities ! :-) I was speaking to a nice viet girl in Saigon who was a travel agent. She was amazed when she learnt that i had booked here... She said that all westerners are always looking for the cheapest, cheapest, cheapest places... And still haggling ! 4 dollars ? Can you make it for 3 and with A/C ? Ouch. Good I gave her another idea about westerners because she really believes that we are all "crevards" :-))) she told me i was Mike asian people : holidays are holidays and they should be pleasant ! And comfort is part of it, money is secondary ! Yeah !
gil7429 La durée de ton "interruption" devrait te permettre un A/R sur Brest. Je prends en charge le billet avion. Bisous
gil7429 Hi Ludo J'ai connu une backpackeuse qui utilisait la salle de bains, c'est vrai ce n'était pas dans des hôtels à 3$ la nuit ! (baignoire d'époque, laquelle ?, au Raffles de Phnom-Penh !)
nadegeb72 Haha ! Oui mon daddy... Mais je crois que justement, ils n'ont jamais vu de backpackeuse avant au Raffles de Phnom Penh ! C'est bien pour ça que je dis que je suis pas une vraie :-))) mais, en fait, who cares ? Hein ? :-)))))
Mini me T'es en train de me dire que tu n'es plus narco des transports ??? comment ça t'as pas dormi dans le bus ?
nadegeb72 Ben un peu si, mais pas assez pour me rétablir ! Et c'est dur, je trouve, de dormir quand tu as tellement de paysages nouveaux autour de toi ! C'est "exciting"... Pas comme dans un avion où tu vois des nuages des nuages et des nuages... Et encore. Si t'as un hublot !