This was quite a funny conversation I had with a friend. I don't know why it's so funny, but here it is. A little toilet humour for the afternoon.
Tan: think SL racist
Tan: he didnt want to be alone in a hotel room in the middle of the night with an aneh cha bor
Me: He scared kenna assraped ah?
Tan: nope
Tan: he scared he come home with coconut oil smell
Then we talked about SL's wife..
Tan: no la she's fierce n has his balls in her hand
Tan: when they walk together
Tan: she leads him by the testicles
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Vietnam - Part 1
Vietnam
I think it's about time to make good my promise to update at least one of my trips, and I shall start with the earlier one - Vietnam!
Frankly I didn't quite enjoy Hanoi as much as I'd thought I would. I actually returned from the trip more exhausted than I had left for it.
It was a 3-day-2-night trip and I had arrived in Hanoi on a Thursday night - 8pm. The itinerary was to tour the area and acclimatize myself as well as scout for travel deals for a 2D1N trip to Halong Bay, one of the must-not-miss sights in the outskirts of Hanoi. According to the conceirge at my hotel, most of the local sights (at least those that require some sort of admission into some sort of building) were closed on Fridays. Since I had only budgeted for 1 day to do the city tour, that left me with no choice but to book the Halong Bay trip for the next day, and tour Hanoi city when I return. And here's the kicker: ALL the tour agencies were closed by 8pm. So left with not much in the way of choice, I had to book the trip with the hotel.
2 reasons why that was the W-R-O-N-G move.
1. I got ripped off by a good USD $25-35, depending on whether you choose to believe that the dodgy travel agency is farming out the trip to a more experienced company and not doing it themselves, or not.
2. The "tour agency" at my hotel treated me REALLY REALLY shabbily. I shall explain point 2.
From Hanoi city to the wharf where we take a junk boat to Halong Bay is 3 hour bus ride. I had expected to be on the same bus as the two Canadian ladies I had made friends with at breakfast, where we found out we had booked the same trip. BUt no. Since I Was a lone traveller, they took it upon themselves to squeeze me into the front seat of an already-full minivan so as to maximize seating. Not the comfy sort of front seat, mind you. I was squashed between the driver and the tour guide. It was so uncomfortable that it's seriously not funny. And naturally, the ang moh ladies sat in some other comfy van lah.
You know the important thing about travelling solo, kids, is to make friends. This widens your horizons and allows you to meet new people and learn interesting stuff about their culture. So imagine my irritation when my new friends were callously ripped away from me (though I don't think they felt a similar connection, but hey! I was alone and needy!). I was too shocked to protest, and by the time I had recovered from that, I was already in the van.
Like any streetsmart traveller worth her salt, I quickly bounced back and got to know 3 Kiwis - Eamann, Caroline and Steve. (No I didn't go to the local Cold Storage and buy fruits. Kiwis are people from New Zealand.) And don't ask me why I hang out with the angmohs. Seriously, it wasn't intentional. Eamann (pronounced eh-men) was really nice and super friendly. Even when we played cards and Steve was trash-talking him and he was losing rather badly, he was really good natured about everything. When Steve was like, "Eamann, may I have your XXX card (which was the final card to cement Steve's utter and absolute victory)", Eamann was like, "yes you may". I'd be like, "KNN WTF you wanna take my card. No! I'm not giving you my fkg card. In fact, I'm not playing with you anymore! &*#@#$^@%" and so on.
So we hung out. And to be fair, Halong Bay was breathtaking. Pause for pictures.
Back to my narration about how I got stiffed by the Vietnamese.
When I booked the trip with the moron at Conceirge, I chose to stay in a shared room, because it would otherwise be an additional USD17 to sleep in a room by myself, and I didn't mind a room mate to get to know. I had asked specifically if it would be a female room mate. "Yeah yeah, of course", said the moron.
So imagine my surprise - wait, make that horror - when I found out that I was going to share a room with a greasy haired PRC-looking 40-year-old-looking man. I was apparently not the only one horrified by the prospect, because Eamann was raising hell about how that arrangement was completely ludicrous. I actually said that I would pay the additional USD17 for the single room. The tour guide protested, saying that they didn't have any more rooms available. (It turned out that there were 3 more empty rooms on the junk, so believe you me, I don't understand why he said that.) In any case, after Eamann's hissy fit, I got to stay in a double room by myself, *grinz*, at no additional charge, *double grinz*. So at least one effort to mistreat me was thwarted. Vietnamese kow tow to the angmohs, it seems.
Our little group of 4 grew to include 3 Brit girls and an American guy. We had shitloads of fun and on the last day, the tour guide came up to the group and pointed to me. "You'll be taking another van on the way back". Now, obviously surprised that I was singled out yet again to be ill treated, I was more or less mute (As you can tell, my reflexes aren't great, and I have the word PATSY tatooed in invisible ink on my forehead.) I dumbly and quite impotently asked, "Why me?". Tour guide chuckled, "If you come into the van, we'll have to tie you to the roof because there's no space. Hur hur." It's really not that funny. And not a good explanation too, since he could have asked the greasy haird solo traveller instead. He clearly didn't make any friends during the trip. I didn't put up much of a fight, and obediently went along. And because of my quick departure, I didn't manage to grab the contact details from any of my new found friends. *cue sad violin music*
The story is long, and I'm gonna just call this part 1. Stay tuned to part 2.
I think it's about time to make good my promise to update at least one of my trips, and I shall start with the earlier one - Vietnam!
Frankly I didn't quite enjoy Hanoi as much as I'd thought I would. I actually returned from the trip more exhausted than I had left for it.
It was a 3-day-2-night trip and I had arrived in Hanoi on a Thursday night - 8pm. The itinerary was to tour the area and acclimatize myself as well as scout for travel deals for a 2D1N trip to Halong Bay, one of the must-not-miss sights in the outskirts of Hanoi. According to the conceirge at my hotel, most of the local sights (at least those that require some sort of admission into some sort of building) were closed on Fridays. Since I had only budgeted for 1 day to do the city tour, that left me with no choice but to book the Halong Bay trip for the next day, and tour Hanoi city when I return. And here's the kicker: ALL the tour agencies were closed by 8pm. So left with not much in the way of choice, I had to book the trip with the hotel.
2 reasons why that was the W-R-O-N-G move.
1. I got ripped off by a good USD $25-35, depending on whether you choose to believe that the dodgy travel agency is farming out the trip to a more experienced company and not doing it themselves, or not.
2. The "tour agency" at my hotel treated me REALLY REALLY shabbily. I shall explain point 2.
From Hanoi city to the wharf where we take a junk boat to Halong Bay is 3 hour bus ride. I had expected to be on the same bus as the two Canadian ladies I had made friends with at breakfast, where we found out we had booked the same trip. BUt no. Since I Was a lone traveller, they took it upon themselves to squeeze me into the front seat of an already-full minivan so as to maximize seating. Not the comfy sort of front seat, mind you. I was squashed between the driver and the tour guide. It was so uncomfortable that it's seriously not funny. And naturally, the ang moh ladies sat in some other comfy van lah.
You know the important thing about travelling solo, kids, is to make friends. This widens your horizons and allows you to meet new people and learn interesting stuff about their culture. So imagine my irritation when my new friends were callously ripped away from me (though I don't think they felt a similar connection, but hey! I was alone and needy!). I was too shocked to protest, and by the time I had recovered from that, I was already in the van.
Like any streetsmart traveller worth her salt, I quickly bounced back and got to know 3 Kiwis - Eamann, Caroline and Steve. (No I didn't go to the local Cold Storage and buy fruits. Kiwis are people from New Zealand.) And don't ask me why I hang out with the angmohs. Seriously, it wasn't intentional. Eamann (pronounced eh-men) was really nice and super friendly. Even when we played cards and Steve was trash-talking him and he was losing rather badly, he was really good natured about everything. When Steve was like, "Eamann, may I have your XXX card (which was the final card to cement Steve's utter and absolute victory)", Eamann was like, "yes you may". I'd be like, "KNN WTF you wanna take my card. No! I'm not giving you my fkg card. In fact, I'm not playing with you anymore! &*#@#$^@%" and so on.
So we hung out. And to be fair, Halong Bay was breathtaking. Pause for pictures.
Back to my narration about how I got stiffed by the Vietnamese.
When I booked the trip with the moron at Conceirge, I chose to stay in a shared room, because it would otherwise be an additional USD17 to sleep in a room by myself, and I didn't mind a room mate to get to know. I had asked specifically if it would be a female room mate. "Yeah yeah, of course", said the moron.
So imagine my surprise - wait, make that horror - when I found out that I was going to share a room with a greasy haired PRC-looking 40-year-old-looking man. I was apparently not the only one horrified by the prospect, because Eamann was raising hell about how that arrangement was completely ludicrous. I actually said that I would pay the additional USD17 for the single room. The tour guide protested, saying that they didn't have any more rooms available. (It turned out that there were 3 more empty rooms on the junk, so believe you me, I don't understand why he said that.) In any case, after Eamann's hissy fit, I got to stay in a double room by myself, *grinz*, at no additional charge, *double grinz*. So at least one effort to mistreat me was thwarted. Vietnamese kow tow to the angmohs, it seems.
Our little group of 4 grew to include 3 Brit girls and an American guy. We had shitloads of fun and on the last day, the tour guide came up to the group and pointed to me. "You'll be taking another van on the way back". Now, obviously surprised that I was singled out yet again to be ill treated, I was more or less mute (As you can tell, my reflexes aren't great, and I have the word PATSY tatooed in invisible ink on my forehead.) I dumbly and quite impotently asked, "Why me?". Tour guide chuckled, "If you come into the van, we'll have to tie you to the roof because there's no space. Hur hur." It's really not that funny. And not a good explanation too, since he could have asked the greasy haird solo traveller instead. He clearly didn't make any friends during the trip. I didn't put up much of a fight, and obediently went along. And because of my quick departure, I didn't manage to grab the contact details from any of my new found friends. *cue sad violin music*
The story is long, and I'm gonna just call this part 1. Stay tuned to part 2.
