The title of this blog "One man, One rotten bit of luck - Part II" is echoing from a blog 1 year ago "One man, One rotten bit of luck".
This week last year I experienced a spell of bad luck, something about a car, and injuring myself a lot in this exact week. Well, the same luck repeated itself this year...

20/07/13

We should have stayed in Hoi An. We rode the night bus to Nha Trang. Arriving at 6am, we opted for the Hoi An approach and dipped into a café whilst we looked for a room. We got 2 doubles for $20, $5 each seems to be the standard cost here. We dropped our bags and walked to the beach, after all; Nha Trang is known for its spectacular beach. It was less than spectacular, located 10m from the main road and without the shade that Hoi An's beach offered it was too hot. The sea got deep very quickly too, so it wasn't very relaxing. After a swim, I went to get Claudia and I some water at a nearby stand, taking the money out of my wallet and leaving it next to her as she was sunbathing. Obviously the unusual focus on my wallet in that last sentence should give you an idea that it wasn't there when I returned, however, I didn't notice. We checked in at 12 and after a morning in the sun we were whacked. Whitney is still ill and none of us slept very well on the night bus. Alec was the only one who left, Whitney slept in her room whilst me and Claudia watched the first 20minutes of Anchorman before too passing out. We awoke around 4ish and lay there drifting in and out of sleep for an hour. Then it was dinner time! Phone, Keys, Camera, Wallet.... oh crap. crap, crap, crap crap, CRAP! Only last night did a Canadian on the bus ask me if I'd had anything stolen in Asia. I proudly replied "Nope!" and life went "Alright then, you smug b******!". We went looking for it in the bins and the local area in case it was a money grab, wallet drop situation. But it amounted to nothing. I'm not the sort of guy to dwell over something like this. It happened, it was s***, but I've learnt from it, so lets get on with life. I made all the right moves towards cancelling my cards, I have my backup travel card for money and I only lost about 600,000D ($30). So on with life! We went to a restaurant along the night market and ordered plates of Ostrich, Frogs, Snails and Prawns. We got some beers to go and headed down to the beach, earlier on I scouted for wood for this exact situation. A fire would be ideal right now, I had something s*** happen to me, so let's enjoy life and do something I love. Life still had other plans, whilst we napped in the afternoon; it had rained, giving me only damp wood to work with. I still tried and had a short lived palm leaf fire before giving up. The only thing to do then was drink a couple of beers and go in the sea. Only 2 of us going in, me in my swim shorts (because I knew this would happen) and Claudia in her underwear. I can't say I was complaining. We walked back, and being the gentleman that I am, I gave her my t-shirt to wear. I packed my bag and slept at 1am.

21/07/13

...and woke up at 5:30 for the bus. This is where I write this and the entry for yesterday. We watched Back to the Future because the girls had never seen it before, or even heard of it!? Apparently Hong Kong is a bit out of touch when it comes to classic films. The distance between Nha Trang and Dalat is small, but because Dalat is 1,500m above sea level, there are a lot of hills in the area. All I can think about is how much I'd love to ride this road. Maybe one day I'll get a proper bike licence and ride through the whole of Vietnam properly, it is absolutely stunning.

23/07/13

Why have I not written anything over the last 2 days? Whenever I miss a couple of days, it's either because I've been having too much fun, or nothing has happened. I'm afraid to say it is the latter of the two. When we arrived at around midday on the 21st, we stepped off the bus to exactly what I was expecting; a cooler climate. This 19.c was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of the rest of South East Asia. However, this was short lived. I put my jeans and my hoody on and we went out to explore Dalat. What I failed to realise was that this cooler climate also comes with a side of rain. Not 2 hours after getting here, I was hating it. Cold and wet. I miss Hoi An. If it's raining in Dalat, there isn't a lot to do. All the attractions lie a little away from the town which is at least a moped ride away. So we did nothing. We chilled out in the hotel room, watched films, went out for food.. and that's about it for the last 2 days. The room though, wow. 3 king size beds and enough space to play frisbee (trust me, we did).

24/07/13

This time last year, this exact week last year, I bought a car. A broken car for $1100. I put it down to bad luck and carried on travelling, enjoying my life. This week, this year, my luck has repeated itself. Wallet, and now this. But! Every cloud has a silver lining, so strap yourself in for a little rollercoaster (in both the literal and metaphoric sense of the phrase).

Yesterday morning, we had nothing to do, so we waited. Waited for something good, waited for my drinking buddy Lars to arrive from Hoi An! He got to Dalat at around 12ish and we rented some bikes. We rented some bikes to bite the bullet and go full on British on Dalat! It's wet, it's miserable, but we have to get on and do things. The main thing about Dalat are the waterfalls nearby, we hired 3 bikes for 6 of us, I had studied the maps of the surrounding areas and we were set. Off we went, my flawless navigation got us to the first waterfall (of which I didn't even know existed). Whoever was involved in the tourism around this waterfall has got it spot on. A rollercoaster? Which drops you off at the waterfall and then you ride it back up? Screw steps, screw slopes! This is the best way to get down to a waterfall! We had brakes if we wanted to use them, but Claudia and I are hard core and brakes are for pussys! Although, when there was a line of cars at the bottom of the slope, we needed to use them. But that was the only time! We took some photos, walked around and headed on. The rollercoaster cost about 45,000D, and it was well worth it. We biked down the highway, the rain holding off for most of the day, we reached Pongour Falls, the largest falls in Vietnam, and there was nobody around. Nobody. It was an absolutely stunning sight. There is a famous image of monks walking across this waterfall and me being me, I had to reinact it. I changed out of my jeans and into some shorts, climbed up the waterfall which had formed long platforms across the entire width, and I walked, luckily the girls had the initiative to take pictures from where they were sat. Now, I said about my luck, right? I said about how this week is a terrible week for luck? And here I am, climbing a god damn slippery waterfall, just to re-enact a famous picture. So what happened? Nothing. This was sweet as. I climbed back down and we got back on the bikes. It's 5:30pm and we need to get back by 7pm. Well we better make good time! Speedily, but safely, we rode in the rain. That is when my luck dropped again. Riding along, suddenly the bike just stopped working. I've always believed things don't "just stop working", surely something has to be done. If something was done, it was not a conscience decision of mine. The belt had snapped. We asked a local and he directed us to a garage about 300m up the hill. I pushed it up the hill to the garage and obviously these people didn't speak a word of English. There was a mass of confusion as we struggled to get the phone number for the hotel and explain what the problem was. Eventually getting through to both the hotel and the garage, we were told that they can give us dinner whilst we wait. What nice people! Lars and Ann rode their bikes back, whilst me, Claudia, Whitney and Carmen stayed. Things were looking up as they fed us, entertained us and gave us drink. Drink which I am now regretting. I'm on the bus, pretty much hungover. It must have been some dirty ass alcohol in that bag. Yeh, it was in a bag. Anyway, the language barrier wasn't an issue when it came to entertaining each other, laughing at each other and drinking. We were fully submerged in Vietnamese culture once again, accidently this time, but you cannot put a price on this experience! Then the world crashed again. Lars phoned us, they had been in an accident. On the dark journey home, they had crashed. Relatively unscathed, he assured us they were okay, but Ann may have broken her fingers. This was a massive crash back down to earth for us, but I felt the need to keep smiling and laughing with the locals as they were kind enough to host us for the evening and nobody wants to host miserable guests. So we waited, and half an hour later, Lars and Ann show up in a taxi and a man from the hotel shows up on a bike. Things came crashing down once more, these seemingly nice men from the garage were now charging us for their hospitality. In no position to argue or barter we had to pay. 500,000D for the privilege. A ridiculous sum of money for these people, the small amount of food we had and the dirty bag alcohol. We took the taxi home, again, paying out of our ears for the service, and went for a drink. A drink to calm the nerves, a drink to nullify events that have passed. This time next year, I think I'll just lock myself in.

That sounded depressing, and you probably think I'm really down, right? Wrong. If you've been reading my blogs, you should know how I deal with this sort of thing. My wallet, the car last year, this. It's all s***, but it happens. The thing all these times have in common is; I am not alone. As long as I have a group of people or even just 1 person who I can have a good time with, the s*** things that happen don't bother me. Luckily for me, I had Lars, Claudia and Whitney. 3 people who I am not going to let leave my life as easily as they came in. I am now in Saigon, having parted ways with each one of them, but Claudia; I intend to see in the UK when I get back, Whitney; Hong Kong in the future at some point, and Lars, well, like most German's, I'll be seeing him at Oktoberfest!