Well....what the hell can I say about Vietnam....?

I'll tell you a story that set the tone. So, Basically, I took a crazy 25 hour bus-ride to Hanoi from Luang Prabang (laos) and i'll tell you it was pretty bloody intimidating and scary. Imagine that you're the only westerner on a bus full of Vietnamese and basically what happened was there was a lot of flooding in Laos where the Mekong River was rising to insanely stupid levels (even the Laos people had to pretty much take a day off work to build a big wall of sandbags to subside any damage to be caused!)....we went through this flooding!

Anyway slightly off topic....I thought I was literally going to be murdered on this bus as they kept turning around towards me and probably saying something similar to "farang" and giving me dirty looks. I was scared witless at the back of this bus. However, it all came clear when I got towards the end of my journey and this nice vietnamese guy told me that everyone on the bus were playing a huge joke on me trying to intimidate me....they were all really nice to me when I got off and just found it funny how scared i looked!!!

As soon as I realised this I knew that Vietnam was going to cheer me up from the Laos nightmare!!!!! :D

How right I was!!! Hanoi was just what I needed after a sleepy place! I had a great time there and ended up booking a short excursion to Halong Bay which is the best thing you could ever do in your life.....we ended up buying a 50 litre beer keg for 240,00 dong (less than $20!) and we couldn't finish it so started shouting "10000 dong all you can drink...we pulled lots of people in and having a great night!!

Also I managed to sleep under the moon and stars on the boat there on my second night and had a great conversation with an aussie girl called rachel...bliss! I went to Hue and met another few awesome aussies there too and the vietnamese were so fun and friendly. (one of the guys at the hotel taught me really rude words which is what my vocabulary generally stems to these days!)

Next stop Danang where I met the most cool people EVER at Hoa's place (this guy that owns this place IS the most awesome person ever...hands down) and he treated me and the other guests like family...great place to be away from home when you're missing your family. He said the most sweetest stuff about his wife and well look at my facebook quotes to see how much of an impact he made on me in 3 days!!. China Beach....FANTASTIC!!

Also made a brief stop off at Nha Trang Beach which is just as gorgeous (I noticed people going to this beach 6 in the morning just before work walking their dogs and playing badminton!) and finally my last stop was Saigon which opened my eyes to alot.

I volunteered at a disabled kids nursery for a few days and before i went to the war museum, I was absolutely hurt by what I heard the next time I volunteered again. I enjoyed looking after the kids....it was really hard to grasp at first...they're completely dependent on you and love the attention that sometimes their parents probably don't give.

I went to the remnants war museum and was intrigued to hear about a chemical called Agent Orange...which was used by the Americans during the war. Can you believe this Agent Orange is still present in the vietnamese waters and some other war-hit areas to this day...so basically people are still affected by this......ESPECIALLY THE KIDS. I went back to the disabled kids nursery and was hurt to hear that 50 out of the 420 kids there were affected...and still are....I could see the deformities that are caused by such a fucking awful toxic.

You think you have it hard.....think of these kids....they're lives aren't going to be the same again. You grow attached to these kids quickly and vice versa. I loved feeding these children as well.....you could tell their mannerisms straight away! Take Na for instance, he would smile everytime he wanted another spoonful of food and another kid would make a gurgling noise when he wanted another spoonful! It's awesome how much human intuition can help you! My other days with the kids were just as great and it was a great pity Saigon was so expensive I had to leave.

I'd say it was pretty funny to be called Ass all the time (the vietnamese couldn't pronounce my name properly so when i'd say Ax.....they'd say ASS!!!) They are incredibly cool and fun people...if you don't piss them off they don't piss you off....EASY! Although, I have to say I did come across a few of the temper-tantrum prone vietnamese...One hit a girl in the face with a cardboard cylinder and my friend nearly got into a fight with a built up vietnamese guy (who I had to hold back for nearly 5 minutes!) who lost it over a broken plastic stool (my mate was drunk...big factor in this!) but I managed to worm him out of that one!

Overall good times....and well I got compliments left, right and centre, men and women alike - "You are very Hansommmmmeeeeeeeee!"...How can you not like vietnam it's exciting, has beautiful scenery (take the 25 hour busride and you'll realise how amazing it is....if you're not a lazy bastard!) and the people are top notch...most the time!!!! ;p