Mekong Delta

I haven't written much about our time in Nam so far, mostly because I've been having too much fun. Also most of the things I have to say are about what the country is like (which you can read on Wikipedia) or how much relaxing I've done (which will only serve to make you jealous) or how warm and nice the weather is (and I would lose my entire Melbourne readership).

I know you much prefer stories like, say, if we went to get a massage but the massage parlor also doubled as a secret brothel... Or if we suddenly found ourselves on the back of random motorbike with a man who speaks no English taking us to who knows where for about 25 minutes and losing each other on the roads. You know, fun crazy stuff like that.

Well both happened. So keep reading.

The first story doesn't have much more to say except Toby was asked mid massage... "I massage your pee-pee now?" to which he replied a firm NO I'm married thanks, to which she replies "awwww please why nottttt it will be our little secret... Shhhhhh". A firm no thanks returned, the massage ended and she left with a much smaller tip then she was originally expecting. Toby was a little harrowed as was Matty, however I still can't help but laugh at her use of the word PeePee.

The second story has no ending yet. We booked a tour through the Mekong Delta, two days, spending one night at a homestay. One of our tourist friends on the bus described today's tour as 'fucking boring' (sorry for the language kids) and I had to agree. The 30 of us just got herded around from bus to boat to bus to pretty much no scenery and only seeing tourist stops. To add to the annoyance, we met up with some tourists who joined our tour group that afternoon who said they had an AMAZING time in the morning, remote cool locations and awesome things to see with only 6 of them on the tour. The most annoying thing about that was that we all had paid for the SAME tour at the SAME price with the SAME company... Um please explain??! True Vietnam style nothing gets explained you just go with the flow.

So after complaining most of the day we hadn't seen the real Mekong experience at all (we hadn't I assure you) our tour friends agree together we will all look forward to tomorrow with positivity and we can sit around at the homestay tonight (which is really more like a hostel) drinking beer and swapping stories.

Suddenly however, Toby and I are shoved on the back of bikes to go to our night homestay. Do they speak English no. Do we know where we are? No. Are our tour friends there with beer? No.

Oh well, one 'cooking class' later (really it was a lesson in wrapping pre-made spring rolls and frying them) and an awkward dinner that we ate alone being attacked by mozzies (hello 95% DEET bottle) we are now in our little squat reading and looking forward to a day on the floating markets in Can Tho tomorrow.

Ps. This all sounds quite dramatic... Apart from a couple of 'holy crapballs I'm gonna die' moments on the road, the motorbike trip was good fun!! Here is a pic to prove it. And we also got to see heaps of the cool city and the locals all hanging out in their shops and the river.

PPS. Tank! I lost my Louvre dress! I know you will empathise. It's in a bag on a train somewhere along with my Vans, and my nice retro-ish bathers and Toby's board shorts. The bathers were a bit scungy though so oh well. BUT THE LOUVRE DRESS TANK!

NAM!

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddd MORNING VIETNAM!

Hey, this is not a test, this is ROCK AND ROLL!  

SO what have we done in Nam?  Soooo much fun!  Flew into Saigon and spent a day there, then took a 9 hour train ride up to the seaside town of Nha Trang, Vietnam's version of the Gold Coast.

The boys drank beers

I went parasailing - look at me overcomng my fear of heights.. woot!

Me and Han - up and away!

I patted a big sea turtle... what a cutie.

We went to the Mineral Mud Baths.

And got a BIT muddy..

Ok,...more than just a bit.

But then we washed off in a waterfall.  A warm one!

We went on a snorkelling tour, the snorkelling wasnt great  but the floating pool bar was.  You had to dive off the top to get there though!  What gracefulness my husband has.

We did some "kayaking."

Went to VinPearl Land - a big amusement park.  $20 entry got you a giant cable car ride across to the island then all day amusements for free.. only had to line up ONCE and had HUGE waterslides and HUGE fun. This one was the scariest. 

Saying goodbye to M and H now, then off to the Mekong Delta for a couple of days.

  

Adventure is out there!!!

For those who've come across the seas

We first spied him at Starbucks in Singapore Airport, we could hear him silently chuckling at us as we sorted our new currency (140,000 dong = $7AUD?! My mental currency converter will be put to the test... Thank you thank you iPhone app)

Then we spied him in the terminal, sitting with his well dressed wife, smiling at us across the way.

Then lo and behold, they sit across the aisle in row 7. It's time to say hello.

They are Vietnamese Australians. They live in Perth now and have for years. His wife tells me proudly that they have 4 adult children 'they all finished university, my youngest daughter just finished Uni, I am very happy, I am very lucky'. She also has 5 grandchildren, and we laughed about how grandchildren are more fun then children. 'When you are young you work so hard you are stressed. When you are old, you have more patience'

She was a midwife in Vietnam. In Australia she just worked as an 'assistant' in the hospital. She is retired and helps with the grandchildren, her husband is a welder. They are off to visit family in Saigon.

When I ask her how long she has been in Australia she sighs. 'Aah, long time' Then she leans forward across the aisle ever slightly and lowers her voice as if to let me in on a conspiracy.

'I am boat people'

I express my amazement. Having worked with all sorts of refugees in the past few years, I don't often meet many who have come by boat. She tells me that they took three young children with them across the sea for 5 days and ended up in Thailand. Then three months in a refugee camp and they were picked to come to Australia.
'Three months is pretty quick' I say.
'I know, we were lucky.'
'It must have been awful on the boat'
Then she tells me it was her only choice for a future and opportunity for her kids. That she escaped her city before the communists took over. She knew there would be no chance for them there and needed to find a better life.

Now four children later all finished university and happily married and I just can't help but get emotional when I think how brave, how hard, how dreadful, how inspiring. They did it.

Pics

I promised you pictures and I will not fail you!  This is to prevent us having to have hour long slideshows on our return that I'm sure will just put you to sleep.


Here is the Adelaide River Croc Jumping Cruise!  RAW POWER!

Did I not tell you it was so close I could have patted it?

Sunrise over the Yellow Waters Billabong, in Cooinda, Kakadu

We hiked up to the Edith Falls first rockpool and had a delicious swim. 

More swimming!  Here we are at Mataranka Bitter Springs.  They weren't very bitter, just beautiful crystal clear and warm! Some tourists saw a big brown snake swimming in the water chasing a toad about two days after we were there...SO glad I didnt see that!

Got up close and personal with a little wallaby and her joey.

Sunset over Katherine Gorge...gorgeous (puntastic, too!)

We hiked two hours to the top of the Gorge and felt pretty proud of ourselves.

Then scored a beautiful swim in the Rockhole.  No photo that we got can capture the beauty...it was stunning, with a little waterfall and a few small fish.  So breathtakingly serene.  The colours were amazing, red earth, blue sky and greenblue water all bouncing off each other.

Then we drove to Litchfield National Park and found some termite houses.

And had some MORE waterfalls and swimming.  Truly spoilt. 

Here we are at Florence Falls.

And Buley Rockhole!

Adding this photo just so mum is assured she's not the only bright white lady glaring her legs around Australia.  You might need sunglasses for that one.

Roadtripping the NT is great fun and now we're super relaxed.  Next stop...NAM! 

Chat to ya then!

Weird

For some reason my blogging app sometimes mixes up the dates and posts. I might upgrade to a better quality one. In the meantime, I've tried to put them back in order or you can have fun piecing the puzzle together.

Tomorrow I want to do a photo dump so stay tuned and if you're lucky you might get lovely waterfall swimming pics and a video of Toby pooping his pants when he hand feeds a barramundi. You might not actually see any poop. Sorry.

Fine weather, fine ales

OMG... Get yo asses down to Darwin Wooly's, Sierra Nevada Pale is going for $14.99 a six pack!!

Mataranka

Went and swum in some natural thermal springs in the middle of nowhere. Beaut. The water was so crystal clear you could see to the bottom and 32 degrees warm! Not that you need warm water up here but the warmth and minerals certainy do good things for your skin muscles and bones.
Toby hand fed a barramundi which was funny, they are lightning quick and could chomp your finger off if they wanted to. No luck catching them yet but he's certainly enjoying an ale or two by the banks of the Roper River.

Now in Katherine, going to the gorge but are told not much open as crocs around but hoping to get a swim or two in after some bush walks. Then on to litchfield for an awesome waterfall time!

Looking up

I found out that my nana calls Kakadu, KakaDON'T. As in, dont go, too many mozzies. Good one Nana.

We bought an esky and a fly screen which our company Travel Wheels (never ever use them!) will reimburse us for. Really the nature in Kakadu is AMAZING and if you are K Brinsden or G szabat you would LOVE IT. I loved it too. It was unlike anything else. We woke up at sparrows fart this morning to go on the Yellow Waters Billabong cruise and watched the sunrise over the Billabong. We saw hundreds of birds, we saw crocs, snakes (a golden tree snake even i had to admit was pretty, and im not really a snake fan as you know) and beautiful plant life. We saw a huge Jabiru and a little Jesus bird and its teeny tiny babies! we had to pay like $100 each but it was worth it considering that included full hot buffet breakfast. My fathers daughter, I was so happy to be eating and ate my breakfast and lunch worth!!

Seriously I kid you not there were MILLIONS of mozzies out where we camped. When you woke up in the night the sound you heard was of the bush buzzing. Loudly. There were about 20 that made it into our fly screen and even though we were wearing 80% DEET Bushmans we got a few bites or two. A 3am phernegan each knocked us out till we had to be up at 5:45 for the sunrise tour.

We then got the hell out of Kakadu. Now we are camped at Edith Falls which are beautiful. They look classic NT, waterfalls ad swimming holes and sheer red rock faces. We went for a 1.6k walk to a beautiful waterhole and had a dip. It was so refreshing and delicious and beautiful. Maybe, in true Carnes fashion, every holiday needs that first 'everything is going wrong this is crap let's go home' week that makes you truly appreciate the rest. It's a twisted type of holiday niceness.

Half an hour after that

We Realise the fridge is broken and food going off. Add 'working fridge' to the list.

I then prove to Toby that we are NOT hardcore but having a meltdown and crying. I AM NOT HAVING FUN AND I AM SO ITCHY.

One phernegan later and I'm cruising.

One hour later

L: are we hardcore?
T: there's a difference between being hardcore and underprepared. But I guess if you consider taking everything that comes your way and not letting it get to you, I think THAT is hardcore.

Hell is a hot van full of mosquitos

Urgle. Nurgle. Blurgle.

These are the sounds of me waking up our horrendous night sleep. Night 1, NT camping adventure.

We hired a campervan at the recommendation of the nice lady in Darwin tourism. She said, yep well priced company, heard good things and don't go with Wicked Campers. We have ended up with a completely different campervan to what we expected. For the purposes of helping you understand, all the words in apostrophes are things that we were told the campervan HAS, that it clearly DOES NOT HAVE.

It's a 'new' Mitsubishi van with air conditioning and 'working sound system'. It sleeps two, has a gas stove fridge and 'microwave'. It is cheap with 'no hidden extras'. And most importantly it has 'fly screens'.

Really, the rest of the van features we could not care about not having. But people, I deeply, deeply regret driving out of that car yard without checking for BLOODY FLY SCREENS. Kakadu is mozzie central. Mozzies of Australia have their annual conferences here, to learn how to become more ruthless and more badass mozzies. They are huge. Not only are they itchy, but they HURT when they bite. They are, in a word, bastards.

We made dinner too late which meant we cooked in the dark, but here you might as well say 'in the mozzies.' because where there is dark, there is mozzies. We escaped to our van and managed to kill about 50 that had found their way in. Then we went to sleep. Half an hour later we woke drenched in our own sweat. The van was an unbearable hothouse. I jump at the window to open it for some fresh air.... For 5 minutes the window gives some relief. But then we realise, hell hath unleashed its fury on us. The whole van is FULL of mozzies. I make the trip to the front reception to ask how much a cabin costs for the night. $170. Not happening. Do you have any fly screens? No.
Toby has spent these 20 mins On a killing rampage and while he may not be the Crocodile Hunter let him from this time now be known as Tobias, Mozzie Slayer.

The night was spent waking every two hours to turn on the van and blast the air conditioning for half an hour. This morning is still, beautiful in Kakadu, and there is not a.... No wait, one little bastard just bit my arm!!!!!! $&!?!*#

So what to do today? Do we drive two hours back to darwin to sort this out ? Or do we just continue on in this bizarre fashion and come back with zero body fluid due to over sweating?

I have not the answer.



Ps. We did the Croc jumping cruise yesterday... It was AWESOME! I was so close to a massive croc I could have reached out to pat it.

Darwin

Have I only been here 2 days? It feels like an age. We spent Sunday morning eating breakfast at the Nightcliff markets. I had a strawberry and nutella crepe with extra cream (because calories don't count on a Sunday). Toby had an egg ham cheese and special chutney crepe. Yummmmmmmmmo.

We spent the day cruising around town lookin at stuff. We went to the museum which was fascinating. They have a Cyclone Tracy exhibit where you can go into a dark room and the play the sound of the cyclone loudly above you, imitating what it would be like to be trapped in a bunker. I thought, oh thus is ok for 10 minutes but I could not imagine what it would be like for hours and if the sound was the sound of your neighbourhood being ripped to shreds

I also found an irankandji jellyfish, and to give you an idea of size, here it is on the right next to a smallish box jellyfish.

We also caught up with JR And Robyn which was delightful.

I died and went to Bali

So apparently I'm in Bali. Okay, not REALLY. Technically I'm in Darwin, but staying in such an amazing house that it feels like a Balinese resort. The owners have been kind generous and warmly inviting - thanks gals! Their son B has taking instant admiration to Toby (who doesn't really) and we have spent a warm afternoon lazing about their house. 'house' doesn't really describe it though. 'villa' comes close. They designed their place themselves having been inspired by Balinese design and had most of the furniture, wood and tiles made in or imported from Java. More photos to come but here is the bathroom alone.

WHAAAAT?!

It's SO nice.

Ps. Yeah I know it's only day 1 of my trip and I'm already blogging, but I use writing to relax. So for all those 'stop being here and go and have fun' type people., don't worry: I certainly AM.

Tomorrow!

We leave tomorrow!  It's exciting.  We are doing last minute house cleans and sorting out all the stuff four our housie housesitter to move in to.  Op shop runs and vaccumming take up most of the day.


Saturdays forecast:
Melbourne:  17 and showers
Darwin: 32 and sunny!  Hooray!


In bad news, I think I have a cold.  I am going to try K's 'sweat it out' method which was recently successfully implemented by D!  Tonight, going to be in the sweats.  No cold will stop ME from all the fun in the world!


While we have a 23kg limit on our bags, we have only packed about 12kgs each, which I think is doing pretty well.  While I have tried to be frugal in the packing (sorry hair straightener you dont make the cut), I have been wheeling around my bag saying to Toby "I've packed too much!  I know I've packed too much!"  To be fair to myself, the bag is really only at half it's true capacity and there is still plenty of room for lots of fun bought items along the way.  However, I opened up the bag and got rid of ONE lousy tshirt which did not really redistribute much weight.  I know nobody needs as many clothes as I have packed, but I really seem to have a use for EACH one - "No, I NEED to walk around the Louvre in this dress!  It's the perfect Louvre dress!"  (?! tf ?!)

Ready for a holiday

I cleaned out the pantry today.

The pantry won the battle.

It's time for a holiday.

Note: this is my crying face, NOT my
Laughing face.