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so we're back. we survived, and will live to blog another holiday.

everything finished up well with excessive amounts of shopping and eating.

in summary some of the highlights of the trip for me would have to be:

the first night in siem reap - eating amok and everything just being perfect and beautiful and amazing.

wandering the streets of the old quarter in hanoi and marvelling at the streets of like shops (shoes street, glasses street, tinsel street)

riding in hue through rice paddy cemetries and over dirt paths and bamboo bridges and thinking we were lost and local women appearing and calling out to us "you" and pointing down the path.

meeting the apheda people and having so many of my ideas about aid and development changed.

riding around dalat and seeing the various industries and realising how much tension there still is between north and south vietnam

the last night of the trip going over to the china town area of ho chi minh and buying up piles of random red and gold tet decorations whilst presumably high on ventolin, involving lots of animated non verbal discussions with the nice lady running the shop enthusiastically miming to us how things worked.

so now its just a matter of working out how to find the money to get back there as soon as possible. also i plan to try and learn khmer if possible, if anyone is interested. i also plan to learn spanish. hmmm. pity i dont have any sort of gift for langauges.

i hope to be able to go back later this year and do some work with apheda, i dont know what or where yet. working in developing countries has always had a romantic appeal to me, but i didnt think i could actually handle living away from home. being away has made me realise that however difficult it may be, the experience would be worth it. although clearly i'd have to finally get over my phobia of squat toilets. although having made it through japan, cambodia and vietnam has really just made me feel like its my new life's challenge - to travel the world without ever using a squat toilet.

clearly posting photos just isnt going to happen. or at least, not by me. talk to laura and she'll probably organise something.

ho chi minh hospitals

so the story of our holiday is rapidly becoming the story of my failing health. oh well. yesterday was really just a long bus ride, although we did stop a small ethnic minority village where they produce weaving. we gave the kids there a soccer ball that had been bought with intentions of playing soccer on the beach that never eventuated. the kids got great joy out of this, which was great - except that the older boys were pretty good at hogging the ball... some things are the same the world over. there was also another cheaper plastic ball that we gave them, but a nearby monkey chained to a tree grabbed it when it went astray and quickly sunk its teeth into it.

so yes, then in the evening i went to a fancy western 24 hour clinic, and had all sorts of wacky things done to me, like having my pulse and oxygen saturation checked. they gave me plenty of ventolin and actually monitored my response oooooh fancy. eventually they decided that i should stay overnight to keep on the nebuliser every four hours so they could monitor my response, but instead they agreed to lend me a small portable nebuliser so i could go back to the hotel. we both probably would have got more sleep had i stayed at the hospital, but i'm sure i would have paid dearly for the privilege!

anyway i went back this morning and i seem to be on the improve (although i'm not exactly cured) they gave me a bunch more medications, which hopefully will assist, and i'll probably go back on monday before we fly out to check that i'm good to go. right now the most painful part is that my stomach muscles are sore from all the coughing.

after coming back from the hospital i went and had a quick bite to eat with the apheda people, who'd just said goodbye to the rest of the cycle crew as i got back, it was nice to hang out with them and get a chance to chat.

this morning i have also just been and found the most perfect excess luggage bags ever - stronger better versions of the stripey cheap as chips bags. so good! i might be able to get all my stuff home yet... if malaysian dont charge me for every kilo!

anyway, thats all for now.

Xin Cio,

Ashley is curently at the hospital getting another hit of ventilin, she went with Hian form the APHEDA office becasue she speaks vietnamese and I didn't think my ER impersonations could get us through this time.... plus I don't want my fiance doctor in Nha Trang to think i'm shopping around for better offers.

had a fantastic time in Dalat the motor bike trip was a blast and made me even stronger in my resolve to buy a Vespa when I get home. sadly we had to bid farewell to our German friend Branco, we made him a vegemite and toast as a farewell present....aprently the rest of the world is not so keen on vegemite.

We arrived in HCMC and had dinner with the APHEDA peps. Tomorrow we are off to visit the Corprate Resposibility Program and other ADPHEDA projects. You can find out more about the projects on the APHEDA website http://www.apheda.org.au apparently there's also a story and pics of this study tour somewhere on the site aswell.

sorry for the short and boring post but I have comrades waiting to have a night cap or two.
See you soon.....awww I can't belive we leave on tuesday, it's way too soon!

brrrrrrrmmmmm

so yesterday we went travelling around on the back of motor bikes, no injuries, no accidents, just a lot of fun. we saw all sorts of cottage industries (broom making, rice wine making, coffee production, a silk factory, vegetable farms, flower farms, weaving) plus a pretty nice waterfall and some other stuff. it was a lovely day.

of course then we got home and my asthma started getting worse again, probably serves me right. anyway long day of sleeping on the bus today will hopefully help, and then i might find a doctor in saigon before i get on a flight home.

cant write more now as i need to pack etc. but all is relatively well.

Travel All Over the Country Side

Hello,

Here's another post from The Baron, in which she once again talks about sleeping and a little bit about riding bikes. She supplied me with the subject heading, "Travel all over the country side", which I presume is a reference to the old Layland Brother's theme song. If you can remember how it goes, try singing "Travel all over the country side. Ask the Baron! Ask the Baron!" whilst reading the below post.
yours,
Ianto Ware



so more riding. long days of riding for four hours through rice paddies, which turned into coffee and rubber tree plantations, corn fields, and all sorts ofother amazing things. two days ago we had a 90km day, of which i did 70km. one of our riders got run off the road by a truck andended up coming off her bike in the dirt - shaken up but not injured. a similar incident then occured again when our own support bus tried to get laura to stop and not ride past our lunch stop. she stopped,but ended up with a lot of dirt and some gravel rash. she has a bit of a bruise and a graze on her shoulder which she intends to pick at so it scars, so she can claim its the scar she got in nam.

anyway, another day of cycling yesterday, starting out with some reasonably gentle hills and some not so gentle headwind, which equals not a lot of fun. eventually the wind died down and the roads flattened out and we made it in to nha trang, a beachside town. today we're heading out on a boat to swim etc (i'm still waiting to see if the weather improves!) a day without cycling will be a good rest for all of us who are feeling a bit weary. will leave it to laura to tell more details about her crash and also about last night. suffice to say the trend of me sleeping / laura partying across SE asia continues. sorry for the lack of intersting stuff to tell, but am at a point where all the days are blurring together. looking forward to a day of something different today.

holidays, hospitals, haircuts

so apparenlty ianto has been making free with his blog access. hmmm. he's also failed to actually keep up to date with posting my real posts. perhaps i will be forced to revoke his privleges. we'll see.

also, i would like to point out esp for the benefit of certain people who have "given up trying to read this" that i dont actually run my words OR paragraphs together usually. Terrible grammar and use of punctuation, yes, but yahoo is responsible for the worst of it. so dont criticise! dont read it if you dont want, its more for my benefit than anyone elses anyway

I'm going to miss a bunch of days and try and pick up where i left off, even though ianto hasnt posted the last post yet, so it will get a bit disorderly.

yesterday morning we woke up in nha trang, a beach side resort, ready for a day of boating and relaxing. i was somewhat disturbed by the continued worsening of my asthma, which has progressively deteriorated from totally managed when i left home to a pretty constant issue. i realised yesterday morning that i was heading for hospital within the next few days, but after consulting with our tour guide decided i could handle a day of sitting around doing nothing, and planned to get him to take me somewhere in the afternoon for medical attention.

we set off on the boat and went out a ways to a beautiful area where the others jumped in and went for a swim. knowing that there was every chance that would tip me over the edge breathing wise i was forced to stay on the boat and get a massage. we then headed to a beach where laura went up in the air attached to a parachute being pullled along by a boat while i sat under a beach hut thing, enjoyed a chocolate icecream and got a manicure and pedicure (why not really). the weather was less than perfect, but whilst occasionaly raining and being overcast it was still warm enough to be very pleasant.

we then headed off to a seaside lunch, which involved a short taxi ride in one of the round fishing boats that i'd been looking forward to seeing. another unnecessairly large but good meal, and we began the boat journey back to shore.

arriving back on shore the bus dropped the group back at the hotel before our tour guide took laura and i on to a local hospital. he briefed the staff on my issues, and what treatment i was looking for before they came and saw me, and i explained some more about my history of asthma, and that i needed a nebuliser, and if possible a spacer that would have meant i could more effectively deliver my inhaler. whilst spacers were unheard of (i've since come to the conclusion that they dont use my puffer style of inhaler but the crushed tablet ones) they new all about nebulisers and soon had been breathing in foggy goodness. no medical hisory, no list of other medications i'm taking, no taking my heart rate. no peak flow meter. they did listen to my lungs, but i dont think they heard much, as i wasnt wheezy just really really tight. ah well, i was pretty happy with being able to self diagnose and prescribe - i knew what i needed! we drew attention from a number of doctors and nurses wandering around - i dont think many westeners end up there - we even took my photo whilst on the nebuliser with some of the doctors - its all part of the experience you know! thank god for our guide, or i think my holiday finances would have just suffered a major hit, instead they gave me a bill for $25 australian dollars, and a script for a preventetive medicine i've taken in the past...

our guide then returned us to the hotel, with me a little high and jumpy from all the ventolin. after a quick change we headed out again for a hairdresser. after deciding that i might regret following our guides lead and getting my head shaved, we headed down the street to a "beauty palour" where through a series of gestures and "same same"s we established that i wanted by hair cut off quite short. which she did a fine job of. and then she charged me $2.

later than evening my asthma began to deteriorate again. i became a bit concerned, knowing we were heading to a smaller town today, not to mention that we were supposed to be riding 120kms. becoming increasingly unsure about what to do i went into crisis mode and called my parents. the problem with my asthma is that its not fast and chronic attacks, but a slow build up to a really unpleasant level, but it makes it hard to judge when it is necessary to take treatment to the next level. obviously this is really a massive advantage, because i dont have to fear chronic attacks. anyway, my parents gave me the only sensible advice they could and told me to ring my uncle who is a gp. after running through my circumstances and medications etc, he concluded what i had hoped he would, that i should return to the hospital and go back on the nebuliser. also that while i had upped my preventative medication to double what i was on at home, i could double that again.

so laura, inspite of my claims that i was able to go alone, once again accompanied me to the hospital, via taxi. inspite of my insistance that i was fine on my own, i was very grateful to not set off on this adventure alone. a taxi dropped us out the front of the same hospital and we wandered in and wandered around until we found a counter with someone behind it (and turnstiles although there was only one other person their) eventually the lady looked up and saw us and yelled out to someone else what i would translate as "there are two western girls out there, they must want emergency, take them around their" the second lady then appeared made a vague gesture that we took to be "follow me" and led us back to where we'd been earlier that day. one of the doctors remembered us from earlier, and understood my comments of "more more". he sat me down and again listened to my chest. he made some comments to the effect of my lungs sounded ok. i made strangling gestures and explained that my chest was tight. he basically again conceded to my self diagnosis. another young doctor came over and actually took my pulse!

they then told me they were going to give me a injection into my vein of something which sounded like gluco something or other. to which i was pretty much, whatever, give me what you want. laura meanwhile began freaking out. while ostensibly her concern was about me being given some medicine that we didnt know for a purpose we were unsure of, her *real* concern was the needle. my response was "they're wearing white coats, it will be fine"

more nebuliser and i was feeling much better. we watched the goings on of the emergency department which remarkably enough seemed to not even *have* a waiting room, and was possibly over staffed! eventually they came over to give me my jab, while laura cowered at the other end of the bed and i made soothing noises in her direction...

they then got laura to go over and complete the paper work (required information: name, date of birth, age, nationality and address in vietnam) and pay up the $5 (!!!) fee. i remained on the bed, feeling the drugs rushing through my system and my heart rate accelerating (normal response to nebuliser). One of the older doctors who spoke the most english came over with a student doctor and started chatting to me about my asthma, and what it was reacting to (humidity, car fumes, dust) and then proceeded to attempt to set me up with the student doctor, although his mixing of personal pronouns had me somewhat baffled for a while. eventually i heard laura over at the desk, surrounded by about doctors and nurses saying something about ER as in the tv show, and drew the conculsion that she was no longer conducting official business. i went over to discover they were attempting to set her up with another young doctor, and were generally having a hilarious time trying to converse in broken english. we ran through our collection of poorly pronounced vientamese and they were reasonably entertained that about 50% of our phrases were vietnamese versions of "cheers" and drinking expressions.

they gave me a script for 3 drugs, of which i sought of got the gist of 2 (an antibiotic and ventolin in tablet form - something i'd never heard of). i had no idea how many i was supposed to take when but we trotted off to the chemist, who pulled out a sheet of tablets which were the antibiotics, a couple of other sheets she cut up to give me the tablets prescribed (the ventloin) and then she counted out small organge tablets into a plastic bag (the ones i dont know what they're for) packaging? who needs packaging!

we walked back to the hotel with me in a state of drug induced delirium and laura highly entertained by it all.

this morning, whilst feeling much better, i knew there was no way i was getting on a bike. instead we talked to the tour guide and decided to get a separate bus from the group rather than spend the day travelling at 20kms an hour trailing the riders. laura again insisted on coming with me, which was very generous given that she had otherwise maintained a perfect record with the cycling on the trip. another girl in the group had also injured her foot the previous day on the beach, and so agreed that our plan sounded far more comfortable. the three of us had a pretty pleasant bus ride to dalat - the honey moon capital of vietnam. while i'm still not feeling great, and am not really coping with a great deal of excertion, we've been for a short walk around the town, and have also organised a tour of the town for tomorrow with a highly recommended group of motorcycle guides. possibly this is not the most responsible thing i could have decided to do, but the guides are amazing, speak fantastic english and do awesome tours of the surrounding countryside that i wont otherwise see... and if i get worse i'll just get them to bring me back. of course, the fact that this also requires me to sit on the back of a motorbike is an entire other issue.... but sometimes you've just got to get with the programme or something.

anyway, we'll see how things go. but most importantly, i'm ok, i've got a million drugs and i'll be in saigon the next day anyway, so nobody worry ok? (clearly that means you mum and dad)

More news about the Baron and Laura

Ashley hasn't given me any more blog entries to post on her behalf, so in the mean time here's another exciting excerpt from Matt Rendell's 'The Death of Marco Pantani' which I'd be willing to bet is an almost exact representation of what they're doing right now.
yours,
Ianto Ware

"In four kilometres the Baron made five killing accelerations. The Colombian Satiago Botero was the first to give chase, but Ashley floated thirty metres ahead of him, and the gap remained. Then, behind them both, as Ullrich led Joseba Beloki, Roberto Heras and Laura Butterworth around the outside of a right-hand curve, Laura launched an unanswerable attack. Every three turns of the pedals, she moved a length away from Ullrich and a length closer to Botero. She passed the Colombian at the same rate, fixing him in the eye as she cruised past. Then she bridged the gap to Ashley, finally lowering herself into the saddle ten metres before reaching him. On the way past, Laura turned to the Baron and spoke, before positioning herself in the Baron's path and offering up her slipstream. Ashley had to stand on the pedals to match Laura's speed and even then Laura turned in the saddle, looking to make sure the Baron was still there, pointing an outstretched finger at the space behind him, to say she wanted to work with, not against the Baron, to build up her lead. It was also understated intimidation, as if to say, 'Even at this speed, I'm in complete control.'"

Actual cycling

Another Introduction from Ianto
In today's post Ashley and Laura actually begin cycling. And the Marco Pantani comparison continues as Laura, taking on the role of Lance Armstrong in 1999, drops Ashley and sprints off to victory. Meanwhile, Ashley/Marco is left being pushed along by her domestiques and eventually withdraws into the broom wagon.

Except in the case of Pantani and Armstrong, they didn't go and get cheap tailor made clothes afterwards.
yours,
Ianto Ware

***

you know how when you find a computer with a flatscreen and a clean keyboard you automatically thinkits going to work well, access all the sites you wantand be really quick? yeah, i'm suffering from thatdeception again i think. oh well, another post viaianto.So we are really on a tour now - long days of goingfrom place to place, and getting up early to go to thenext place. We left Hanoi at the crack of dawn, and flew down tohue without incident. We arrived at our swanky hotelabout 8am, had our third breakfast, and then the rainset in. our bikes also took longer on the drive fromHanoi than anticipated, so we spent a little timewaiting to start riding some impatiently, others notso much. We became highly entertained by the largeponchos all the locals adopted, which are perfectlyadapted for riding bikes (motor or otherwise) being alarge sheet of plastic with a hood in the middle. This means that the sheet of plastic can be extendedover your hands on the handle bars and behind you caneven cover your passengers. As the rain worsened, werealized we all needed one of these, and purchasedthen in an array of colours (photos were naturallytaken). The bikes still not having arrived we set ofto the ancient citadel by bus, and wondered aroundwith ponchos. Several of the group opted to acceptthe invitation to dress up in costumes of the ancientpalace and pose for photos. Naturally I was not oneof these people. Naturally, laura was. The citadelreceived an icecream rating, and we returned to thebus and on to lunch. From lunch we returned to ourhotel to find our bikes had arrived and the rain hadstopped.We set off with our regular guide, Ngoc, inappropriate lycra gear, our other cycling guide,Choum, in Giant pro cycling gear and the coolestbottle cap attached to his sunglasses to act as a rearvision mirror, and also an additional local guide, whoknew his way about the back lanes and dirt tracks ofthe surrounding countryside. This included going overa rickety bamboo bridge, much like those seen inmovies, although admittedly with an undramatic drophad the bridge actually given way. It was amazingriding past rice paddies. Twice laura and I thoughtwe'd lost the group when we could no longer see anyoneeither infront of us or behind us, and on bothoccasions, local women appeared and shouted to us"you" and pointed in the direction we needed to go. It was amazing.The second day we began with another similar trekthrough small villages and general country side,stopping at a preschool of about 12 5 to 6 year olds,who came rushing out to greet us chanting hello hello- ben (one of our Sydney participants) took videofootage of them shouting and waving at us, and thenplayed it back to them, much to their delight. Wenaturally felt the need to sing kookaburra sits in theold gum tree (did I mention we can do this as around?) and they in turn sang us a song, which wasapparently about baby ducks and other small animals. We eventually tore ourselves away, leaving their poorteacher to deal with an overexcited bunch of kids. Wethen rode through an amazing area where mini templetype structures had been erected as part of acemetery, with each one on its only little island inamongst the rice paddies - so serene and beautiful. In his attempts to video the scenery whilst riding,ben failed to notice until the last minute that acouple of buffalo had wandered into his path, and inhis attempts to make a rapid one handed brake, cameoff his bike. Both he and his camera suffered onlysuperficial wounds, much to our relief. In the afternoon we were told we had a 10km ride uphill to the top of what I will call a mountain. Comparing this in my head to the pain caused by riding8km up a minor slope from the city to magill I becamethe first wuss and took the bus option. In my defenceI was also feeling pretty average and knew that we hada lot more cycling ahead of us. And we'd already done40 kms and it was already apparent that I was theslowest amongst the group, even with choum regularlyriding along side me and pushing me along with onehand. Anyway, excuses excuses I know.So I sat in the bus, and watched as the rest of thegroup struggled up this unrelenting nightmare of ahill. Gradually a couple of others joined me in thebus, and terri became support crew jumping in and outof the bus and running fresh bottles of gatrolite tothe riders and literally mopping their brows. Much tomy (and I think there) amazement most of the groupmade it to the top, including our own undertrained,still smoking laura. I think that whilst the hilldidn't kill her, the shock of making it nearly did. Unfortunately for me, this has given her unyieldingdetermination, and I suspect that I'll be doing a lotof sitting in the bus on my own. Also for those whohad concerns, it should be noted that laura hasactually gained weight in our time away (lessfortunately so have i). she has now resolved to turnthis fat to muscle and come home lara croft shaped.That night we arrived in hoi an, tailoring capital ofVietnam, and lauras personal shopping heaven. Unfortunately (or perhaps, financially at least,fortunately) we arrived at about 6.30pm, and had toleave at 7am the next morning. Alas no tailored suitsyou think? NO! We left the hotel, came to the firstshoe shop we saw (yes they also tailor shoes!) anddiscovered an array of good things to order. Butcould they be ready by the morning? Of course! Lauraordered two pairs of shoes in a rainbow of colours,whilst we both decided on the same style of boot -laura in white, me in brown. boots at $43 US each,shoes at about $13 a pair. Too good. So did theshoes lady know a tailor who could assist us in buyingcoats? Of course! She took us to a lady who was nextdoor to our hotel, where we both ordered the samehooded coat (laura in red, me in grey) and lauraordered some skirts. Coats at $35US including fabric- how could we resist! Esp when they can be ready by 6in the morning. In fact, when walking back fromdinner, the lady informed us that they would be readyby 10.30. frightening but true. Whilst the rest of uswere eating a pleasant dinner, laura managed to findanother tailor and ordered a dress, purple of course. That night our coats appeared, a good fit all roundand quite well made. For me it was amazing to have acoat that actually fits me properly given my nonaverage proportions. The next morning the shoes anddress arrived, all wonderful. Its truly amazing.The next morning we had an early start and a lovelymornings ride through more country side. We'respending a lot of time riding around the country sideyelling hello at everyone we pass. its prettyhilarious. i love that as fascinated as we are by thepeople here, they're just as entertained by us. itsso nice, i sort of expected to feel like we weregawking at them, intruding in their lives, but insteadi feel like we're actually all equally happy to seeeach other. they think we're hilarious, at least inpart because we're wearing bike helmets. ah hilarity. i've also had many a vietnamese woman come up to beand spend a lot of time prodding my arms and doingskin colour comparisons (i think they're alsomarvelling at how *fat* my arms are), i like tocontinue these not verbal conversations by pulling mypants up to my knee so they can see how white my legsare - i think my arms are relatively tanned!! ah its atrue cultural exchange.
After lunch we climbed on the bus to head towards ournext destination, however were soon forced to stopwhen the bus had a tyre problem.we climbed out and wandered down the road to find acoffee shop where we spent considerable time watchingthe traffic go past, and tried to get photos of thepeople with their crazy loads on their motorbikes. eventually we headed back to the bus which was nearlyfixed, and headed off. unfortunately (or again,fortunately depending on your perspective) this delaymeant we couldnt fit anymore cycling in, and we had along bus ride to our next destination. our hotel thistime was right on the beach front, and most of us haddinner in the restaurant, with the sound of waves inthe distance. we also discussed the dilemmas ofwanting to support the development of this country,but also feeling like that means supporting workpractices (such as 8 hr days/ 6 day weeks) that wehave fought against at home. the next morning we headed off at a very late start of9am. we rode about 30km before being warned that wewere now facing 7km up hill - i took the bus optionagain as i was already struggling, and knew we hadanother 30 or 40km to do in the afternoon. again mostof the others made it without the bus, and we had apicnic lunch at a small eatery place, with baguettesand salad and some kind of pork thing for those whoeat it - it was very lovely, and nice to not have a 5course meal for once!after lunch we headed off on our bikes down the hill,and then into a long stretch of reasonably up anddown... again i made it up thanks only to choum'sefforts pushing me up the worst of it. coming downone hill we got up to about 55km an hour, which wasgreat fun, and somehow not as frightening as it wouldbe at home. the traffic here is really very good atrecognising cyclists as legitimate traffic, and alsothe seeming lack of rules and order on the roads meansthat everyone takes responsibility for not hittinganyone else, rather than the attitude at home whichseems to be more a sense of pushing through inspite ofpotential danger because the driver feels they havethe right.last night we arrived at the swankiest of all the nicehotels we've stayed at yet, where several of theriders decided to visit the hotel massage palour. themen returned extremely relaxed if slightly traumatisedfrom the efforts of explaining that they did notrequire any additional services...after writing a large part of this blog post we had alovely dinner, which once again i bailed on straightafter i'd eaten - i think my asthma playing up hasleft me more tired than usual, and lets face it, ilike to sleep at the best of times.which brings me to this morning... and the fact thatwriting this is keeping me from eating my breakfast!hopefully all is well in the land of oz, again stillnot able to log into the blog - or anyone elses - sofeeling a little out of touch... having said that wekeep realising that time is passing much more slowlyfor us and laura and i will often complain that wehavent heard form someone in "ages" before realisingits actually only been a few days!

A Rough Overview of What Ashley is Doing Right Now

Ashley hasn't posted today, but I thought I could give you a fairly accurate portrayal of what she's doing by citing from Matt Rendell's 'The Death of Marco Pantani' - a biography of drug addled super cyclist Marco Pantani. With the exclusion of the drug addled part, both Ashley and Pantani are remarkably similar - they're both short, they both ride bikes and they both get a little grumpy at times*. Hence, I've adapted a passage of Rendell's book and just changed the details a little so it's more directly about Ashley and, to a lesser extent, Laura.
yours,
Ianto Ware

"Laura dropped some Vietnamese kid on a bike and believed she was heading for a stage win when Ashley catupulted past. Laura managed to catch Ashley's slipstream, but what was, for Laura, a fearsome sprint, was a speed Ashley could sustain for kilometre after kilometre. Seconds later a second burst of speed from Ashley distanced Laura, who dropped away. Laura's speed was impressive enough, but by the time she reached the 'Three kilometres to go' marker, Ashley led her by thirty-seven seconds. If Ashley sat in the saddle at all during that four-kilometre pursuit to the line, the television footage doesn't show it. It was the supreme display of climbing; repeated, unanswerable accelerations followed by sustained speed. Ullrich wasn't here, of course, but the recognised cream of world climbing - French (Virenque), Spanish (Heras and Jimenez), Italian (Simoni and Gotti) and Colombian (Gonalez and Buenahora) - was, and no one could rival Ashley.

Again, there was no finish line celebration. Ashley's eyes were obscured behind dark, reflective lenses, set in an eccentric yellow frame. Her mouth was open in a grimace."









*In other ways they are, admittedly, very different. For instance, Ashley has never won the Giro and the Tour de France back to back and she's never died of a cocaine overdose.

Doing Actual Stuff

Hello,
This is Laura writing to you. In answer to questions regarding what I do after Ashley goes to sleep, I would like to answer as follows. Those of you who know me know that, for many years, I have harboured a desire to become a professional boxer. In Australia, unfortunately, the boxing industry is owned by capitalist pigs and features an extraordinarily strong gender bias. In Vietnam, what with it being a communist country and all, neither of these exist. This means that I have finally been able to pursue my dream. Each night I go out and take part in a boxing match. Most nights I win. This should not surprise those of you who have seen me at parties rolling up my sleeves and making you feel the muscles in my arm.
yours,
Laura Butterworth, M.D

P.S
You may notice that I now have "M.D" after my name. I recently became a doctor. Please consider me for your next medical emergency. I charge very reasonable rates.

P.P.S
If you do not believe I am either a boxer or a doctor, I will beat you silly, then I will use my doctorate skills on you to fix the damage I've done. And then you'll have to endure the shame of admitting you were wrong on both counts. Ha!


Now here's the Baron's post;


so today we actually went and visited aid projects. we were collected at 8am by our minibus and everobliging apheda host, sharon. he had managed torearrange our schedule slightly to allow for the dayto begin with a quick trip to see a waxen ho chi minh,which we had been unable to do yesterday to greatdisappointment. i did not feel the need to queue up,get ordered around by vietnamese men in militaryuniforms in order to get my glimpse of a dead body, soi stayed on the bus. those who went, including laura,were greatly thrilled with what they saw.from there we began our journey to a province about 90minutes from the city. on the way sharon briefed uson the projects run by apheda in vietnam, which waspretty fascinating. they're currently running aprogramme for victims of agent orange (who are largelyactually 2nd and 3rd generation victims, who suffer anarray of disabilities), programmes for HIV Aidssufferers, a corporate social responsibility programme(which sounds amazing), a revolving loans programmeand lots of vocational training type things.we began by visiting an amazing complex, run by anamazing woman is part of the women's union. her workwas recognised by the government and they gave her alarge sum of money with which to build an awesomecomplex, from which they run vocational trainingprogrammes, and which also has dormortries to allowparticipants in the training programme to live theirduring their training. after explaining theprogrammes to us and answering lots of questions, theypresented us with an array of gifts, including localsweet foods, and embroidered bags produced by thecentre.they then took us to see some of the trainingprogrammes. the first class we visited was a group ofabout 30 young people (aged 15 -26) who were beingtrained in embroidery. the work they produce at theend of their training is amazing - large lengths ofcloth for korean kimonos. the programme producesproducts contracted by companies, so they dont sellthe end products themselves. one of the girls who hada disability had been trained their, but then wasstaying on to work their, and was saving $15 US amonth to send back to her family. the students werelovely and tolerated our intrusive questions well. wethen sang them Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree(clearly that wasnt my idea!) and then sang us a songabout liking being at school. it was pretty awesome. several of the students had disabilities or healthissues. the programme ensures that jobs are availablefor the students at the end of the programme, orassists them to work from home if they need to. Thetransition to employment is 100% except with the youngpeople with disabilities (72% success) some of whomare prevented from working by health issues.from this room we went next door to what is usually acrochet class. today there was only one girl, who hada disability thanks to her father being a soldierduring the war. when i say crochet i dont meanscarves and doileys, they make entire garments toorders from manufacturers. the cardigans and dressesthey'd made were really amazing. this girl talked tous a bit about her training at the centre - her familylives only 2km from the centre so her mother drivesher to and from work each day as she is unable todrive due to her disability.having talked to her the staff then decided to presentus all with one these amazing crocheted cardigans,which take 2 days to complete each. the awful part isthat there not necessairly something any of wouldwear, or at least not laura or i. it was a reallybeautiful gesture, and there were many tears.from there we visited a group who were being trainedin polishing gems. when i say gems, i probably meanfake gems, all that diamante type stuff. it was quiteamazing witnessing the process of shaping andpolishing these little sparklers.unfortunatley by this time the tailoring class hadgone to lunch, but we had a brief look at their classrooms and i actually got quite sentimental aboutindustrial sewing machines.this was our cue to head to lunch too, where wefeasted on the most enormous feast i've ever seen. which given that last night we had a vegetarian indianbanquet, is truly saying something! the mostimpossible amounts of local dishes just kept rollingout, with a special range for the four vegetarians. quite amazing.after a lengthy amount of time eating, we then headedback to say our farewells to the those we'd met in themorning. from there we headed to a nearby HIV Aidsclub, which has a number of members in the area whoeither have or are related to someone with HIV. theprogramme director told us about the club, whichoperates as a support group, and also seeks to raisecommunity awareness and overcome discrimination. several of the club members were there, including oneman who has HIV, who explained to us that antiviraldrugs are not an option for HIV sufferers due to thecost. by the sounds of things they stuggle tomedicate the associated simple illnesses that arecommon amongst sufferers. an older lady told us shehad lost her son to aids a few days ago. he hadbecome addicted to drugs, and had sold all thefamilies possessions to feed his habit, leaving themwith nothing with which to support him when he becameill... it was a very emotional experience.having had a very moving and mind opening day, wenaturally needed to stop for some shopping on the wayhome, and visited a village famous for its ceramics,where i bought some very adorable and frighteninglycheap bits and pieces.the bus ride continued, with the group deciding theyneeded to sing union songs, and then rewrite one suchsong to be about solidarity with APHEDA. i told youthis was going to be a noisy two weeks. Sharon didsing us a nepalese song (his native country) which wasquite impressive.and now i'm back and really need to go to bed, astomorrow we get picked up from the hotel at 4.30am tofor our flight to hue. arghhhh.and then the riding begins.maybe i should just come home now!

The people united will never... stop shopping

An Introduction from Ianto
Once again the Baron has asked me to post online for her because she is feeling lazy and appreciates my introductions. I've been trying to convince her and Laura to have a "Laura and the Baron" New Year's celebration at some point in the weeks after they get back, possibly blurring in with yet another Sophie Green and Ianto Ware Birthday Bonanza, but she doesn't seem too keen on the idea. Who would have thought the Baron would ever turn down a chance to kick up her heels and engage in a social activity!

Anyway. In this post the Baron and Laura make a failed attempt to visit the embalmed body of 'Uncle Ho' and she talks about taking some photos of her in her much discussed Credit Agricole hat. Unfortunately, Credit Agricole have not included Thor Hushovd as part of their team in this year's Tour Down Under. However, I'm sure the Baron would ask me to point out that Cyril Dessel will be part of the AG2R team. And Baden Cooke will be leading the Unibet.Team - who have just been granted their pro tour license. I'm not really sure why the Baron hasn't mentioned this in the below post herself. I'm sure she meant to.
yours,
Ianto Ware

***
So last night the group trip officially began. thepeople from APHEDA vietnam welcomed us, and gave us abit of an overview of whats happening, and we met ourtour guide who will be accompanying us.we went of our itinerary for today - the ho chi minhmosaeleum, the temple of literature, and a cyclo tourof the old quarter. the clarification of "cyclo"rather than "cycle" was a great relief to those of uswho've come to fear the old quarter traffic. and aneven greater relief to those of us who are petrifiedof getting on a bike again. the group was, as was tobe expected, somewhat roudy throughout the meeting - ipredict two of the noisiest weeks of my life await me. we then went on to dinner at a very pleasantvietnamese restaurant, where large portions of thegroup began the evening with margaritas. i stuck withsprite, as i have been feeling a little under theweather (not tummy wise, just headachey) and as usualleft quite early after dinner. i'm feeling a littleout of my depth surrounded by such hardcore unionists,and find myself in the position of wanting to defendthings i dont necessairly believe because i feel likethe left side of the argument is so heavilyrepresented. anyway, it will be an interesting twoweeks.today we stuck to the itinerary, heading off in a minibus to the ho chi min complex. there was greatdissappointment at the announcement that as it ismonday the mosaleum (i really cant spell that) wasclosed, and so whilst we could walk around thecomplex, we would not actually get to see uncle ho'sembalmed body... personally i wasnt tragicaly upsetwith this reprieve, but others are now trying to workout a way to get back there at 7.30 tomorrow to seethis worthy site. we did see many other large andsignificant buildings, and, to satisfy my insatiablereaders, i even took a myriad of photos of me in thehat. however, still the downloading remains an issue,so you will have to wait a little longer for a montageof me, credit agricole, and the highlights of southeast asia.our tour guide quickly realised that he had an unrulytribe on his hands, who are far more likely to becomeengrossed in the souvenir shops than the actualcultural experience at hand. i'm not sure uncle howould approve of our wanton consumerism in his name.from ho chi minh we went to the temple of literature. this temple got a high rating from laura and i whohave a new system of temple ratings based solely onthe availability of chocolate icecreams.from here we went to lunch. our tour people took usto a very lovely, if somewhat expensive by hanoistandards, restaurant. in the interests of upping thevegetarian representation on the tour, and avoidingmercury poisioning, i'm attempting to eat vegetarianfor the next two weeks - a challenge when i've gottento the point of eating fish or seafood twice a day.after lunch we spent an hour meeting with some peoplewho are sort of from the government, sort of from theunions here. to be honest much of it went over myhead, but they spent an hour discussing with thegroup industrial relations and the union movement invietnam, and its challenges, which are of course goingto be significantly aggravated by vietnam joining theWTO.from here we were given our one hour (read 45 minutes)cyclo tour of the old quarter, which was verypleasant, if somewhat too late to be of as muchinterest as it would have been had i done it a weekago.which pretty much brings me to now. oh ,andyesterdays freak out about internet costs proved justhow out of it i was - when the lady told me 10 perhour, she meant 10 000 dong, not $10US, which worksout to less than a dollar an hour. arggh.ok, so now its time for me to rest up before anothergroup dinner. apparently tonight we're going to avegetarian indian place mmmmmm.

sunbathing anyone?

Another Introduction from Ianto
In this post Ashley finally addresses the topic of her hat, proving that 'people power' can still produce a reaction. Otherwise the below post is predominantly occupied with talk of boating and the weather. If you enjoy these topics, I predict you will enjoy the post.
yours,
Ianto Ware

***

So we have returned from halong bay, and moved hotels to be with the cycling crew. new hotel has only one computer, so i've found myself an "internet cafe" from which to do internet things. Its actually a travel agent, and when i walked in i checked the price, being aware of the potential for rip offs if this recaution isnt taken. however, i think she said $10 an hour, and yet i sat down anyway.... hmmm... oh well whatever. to its credit its the nicest, fastest computer i've used in weeks, and i actually get on to the blog! hoorah! no more intros from ianto... even if they probably are more entertaining than my actual posts.

before we begin we need to get into this hat issue. firstly, i still love my hat. to me its just an amusing green cap with a smaller brim than normal, so i have no issues about wearing procycling gear. its not like its made of lycra. secondly, in cambodia it was largely too hot for such a small brimmed hat and i got myself a wide brimmed hat that i wore more than the promised cap. hanoi has been cold and therefore hatless. HOWEVER, tomorrow the cycling begins, and the hat with come to the fore. i do have some pictures with the hat, although not as many as i would like. and in case you havent all realised this yet, there's clearly not going to be any pictures posted til we get home.

so, to halong bay. ridiculously early morning, forced to leave the bulk of our luggage tucked behind some stairs in a hotel we've never stayed at... which has all worked out ok.

minivan carried us out on the 3 hour trip to halong city, with some commentary from a pleasant guide, stopping half way at what i will simply call a tourist barn. a place set up particularly to capture the tourists half way between hanoi and halong.

arrived in halong, and had the interesting task of clambering over another boat to get to ours - all survived without mishap. our group of 12 sat down on our boat to await lunch, with plenty of picture taking of the 100 odd chinese junk tourist boats all jostling to get in and out of the quay thing... eventually we departed, halong bay is pretty amazing - if you dont know what it looks like, google it - but there are 2000 of these small islands in a 100km area, so its one of those things where it just keeps going forever... very scenic and quite cold. stopped at an island thingy that contained a massive, extremely *cavernous* cave, with lots of strategic lightly, and assurances that its the most beautiful cave in halong. it was very nice.

somewhere in there we had a pleasant lunch on the boat too, and met a lovely english couple who we chatted to throughout, although we were nearly overcome by jealously of their 3 month travel adventure...

we travelled on to a beach, where another boat was anchored, with a large group playing a game of soccer, laura and i were just commenting that one of the soccer players must be called ashley, when we realised it was actually one of our cycle crew calling to me from the beach - and so we spent a pleasant hour catching my with several of the group, and enjoying watching a highly competitive game of strictly boys only soccer...
back to our boats, for more crusing around, a pleasant dinner watching the lights of the other boats anchored in the harbour twinkle in the distanct, before laura and i continued tradition and i went to bed while laura stayed up to befriend the rest of the boat.

now, all of this was very nice. Except it was FREEZING. the cold was fine during the day, we rugged up and sat on the roof to see the views, but upon going to bed and discovering we each had one thin blanket, things became a bit pained. i slept in my pyjamas, with my clothes over the top and my towel thrown on top of my quilt and still froze all night. pity really, cause everything else was lovely. and to think we'd envisiaged swimming and sunbathing. oh well.

anyway, more cold cruising and eating this morning, lunch in a hotel back at halong bay, and the bus ride home. all reasonably uneventful really. tonight, we have dinner with the cycle crew, and tomorrow we're supposed to be cycling the city. which is probably good, because the fear of the traffic is drowning out my fear of the physical pain of riding.

probably should stop before i spend all my money on the internet...

Money? What's Money?

Another Forward to Today's Post
The Baron was once again unable to post and has thus asked me to post on her behalf. Today's post is predominantly about the things Laura and her have been able to buy for discount prices, including a vast array of cultural commodities and glasses for Laura's eyes. The Baron also briefly details turning 27 and generally wandering around. Apparently she spent most of the day at a boxing match, watching a wide array of athletes from every age, race and gender category beating each other senseless. She doesn't talk about this till right near the end, so you'll need to read the entire post to make sure you don't miss out on it. It really is most enthralling.
Also, you will note there is still a distinct lack of talk about her hat. I realise I may seem to be harping on this point but believe me once you see Ashley wearing said hat you'll understand why.
yours,
Ianto Ware

***

so tomorrow morning we're heading to halong bay, whichhas been heralded as amazing and awesome etc. as wewill be cruising about on our VIP boat tour overnight,we presumably wont have internet so i thought i'dbetter catch up to where we're at now.yesterday was a very quiet day as laura continued toexperience a range of symptoms, for which we wereunable to determine a cause or cure, although in thenend bed rest and cable tv did the trick. we hadattempted to visit the women's museum in the morning,but a combination of it being freezing cold, us beingunder dressed, laura experiencing stomach cramps, andthe museum being largely closed for renovations, meantthe trip was a bit of a let down.having returned laura to her bed i spent another dayout wandering the old quarter, which if i didnt feellike i was in constant threat of being bowled over bya motorbike, would be one of the best things i couldpossibly hope to do. i wandered through the streetfresh food market, which strangely, inspite of beingoutdoors, and involving lots of butchering meat onwoven mats on the ground, felt surprisingly clean andenticing. the seafood is kept in large tubs eitherfull of ice, or with pumps where the seafood is stillalive. it has so much potential to be gross, butreally isnt.last night i went out to celebrate my 27th birthdaywith dinner at a local vietnamese restaurant. thefood wasnt as fantastic as i'd hoped, but i was kepthighly entertained watching the staff dote on a frenchfamilies baby, which was amazingly well behaved, andquite enjoying being passed around the restaurant. icame outside and discovered a small french patisserienext door, so bought myself a mini chocolate moussethingy and a plain looking butter cake for laura(because of her stomach being dodgy, not because i'm abit meany) and went back to the hotel to eat thesetreats while watching yet more cable tv.today laura was bouncing back so we decided to make itto at least one of the 5 museums we'd orginallyplanned on going to and went to the museum ofethnology, which was well set up and quiteinteresting. we then taxied back to spend theafternoon completely laura's shopping list - after 2days of lying in bed she had a pretty clear idea whatshe wanted. i'd also come across a street full ofshops selling glasses (the seeing variety) so lauraspent some time agonising of the vast array, whichincluded some interesting dated 2nd hand numbers, ofwhich laura naturally chose a pair. at $15 US withlenses, who can blame her. she also managed to chooseanother pair of prescription sunglasses, which at $20US were again a pretty amazing deal. Those of uswho've witnessed laura lose her glasses for days at atime should hopefully find things much easier into thefuture...laura's list also included DVDs.... so we returned toa place we'd found the other day, where lauraconsidered by the complete set of every series ofeverything thats ever been on. The guys sales pitchwas largely the more you buy the cheaper it gets...which is all well and good in theory... and somewhatof a trap... someone how i too became caught up in theexperience, and started deciding i too needed to buydvds, in spite of the fact that i've never bought advd in my life at home....the guys sales pitch was also largely about the "newtechnology" which means you can get 10 times as muchstuff on each disc, therefore meaning an entire seriesof a show is one disc - so much better for our excessluggage!! each disc was therefore at a starting priceof $10 US... which roughly equates to the $1 a discprice thats popular in Saigon for the oldtechnology... yet when you're buying 5 seaons ofsomething, still works out to $50... so the guyconvinced us that if we bought all 29 discs we wereconsidering, he'd do us a super deal of $6 a disc, andthus we'd get away with all of them for the bargainprice of $176 US. for reasons we both now stuggle tocomprehend we agreed to this. damn visa cards. so inow own the entire 5 seasons of six feet under. whichi've never seen a single episode of, but am takingeveryones word i will love. I also own 12, yes thatsright 12, seasons of ER. For those of you doing themath you will have noticed that i bought more dvdsthat laura, who gotta a wider array of programmes, buti wont spoil her surprise by telling you what. Shedid resist getting the entire buffy, even with thebest ever spelling mistake on the cover whichproclaimed it to be the story of "Buffy - the VampireSlaper"we then journeyed off in search of warm clothing,having discovered that not only is it damn cold here,but that its likely worse in halong bay. Somehow thisbecame a reason for laura to buy an old school adidastracksuit in black with gold trim, with a Missy Elliotlogo thing on the back. apparently this isntshamefully hideous and is infact seriously cool. i'mnot convinced. meanwhile, i bought a very plainpurportedly lacoste mens tracksuit, in pretty much thelargest size they had. these people are tiny. or i'mvery fat. either way.another pleasant dinner, this time as a place"casablanca" with entertaining bob marley music and aterrible looking american movie which i concluded mustbe called "beverly hills cops go to miami and getattacked on the beach by ninjas". Amazing.so our stay in hanoi may appear to have lacked anyserious cultural experience, but i say we've justfocused on culture for sale - besides, we're doing abunch of that cultural stuff with the bike group.oh, i should give recount the background to our halongbay saga... so i'd read that there were a range ofhalong bay tours on offer, from super budget to superfancy... i immediately encountered this when the firstplace i asked were charging $120 per person, while thesecond place were charging $30.... i've asked at somany places in the last few days, and every time itsbeen the same -- either super cheap or superexpensive... when all i really wanted was midrange...so finally it dawned on my yesterday that maybe ineeded to ASK about whether places had more expensivetours... this was a pretty weird concept, going insomewhere and saying, "i know you can give me thispackage for $30, but could you give me a package ofessentially the same things but let me pay $60 forit?" Anyway, this is basically what we did today...and so the lady got out her VIP tours brochure. whichbasically appears to involve chucking a few extrasuperlatives in to the descriptions... when asked toexplain the difference between the budget and the vip,the lady assured us that on the budget everything wasvery cheap and on the VIP "everything" was better...so we'll have to wait and see if we've just paid twicethe price for the same tour, but hopefully it will allwork out for the best... will keep you all updated.

Hello Hanoi

A Forward to Today's Blog Post
from Ianto Ware

Hello,
The Baron has asked me to post today's blog post for her because she was unable to do so from the computers accessible to her in Vietnam. Let me take this opportunity to provide a brief synopsis of the following text;

In today's post she depicts her arrival in Vietnam, which involved a somewhat tumultuous taxi trip before moving onto the quintessential themes contained in earlier posts - Laura going out and getting drunk and having adventures whilst Ashley goes home and has a nap. Notably, she does not provide any pictures of her wearing her much talked about Credit Agricole cycling cap, despite large scale public pressure. There are two probable reasons for this. Firstly, she is ashamed of showing herself wearing a pro-cycling promotional garment after giving me so much shit over the years for wearing bike clothes. Secondly, she is building the suspense before finally producing a mass of pictures. Let's hope it's the second.
Also, there are a number of typographical and spelling errors in the below post. I include these so as to retain the original sense of 'character' behind Ashley's writing.

Oh, also. Today is Ashley's birthday. Happy Birthday Baron!
yours,
Ianto Ware


so after a leisurely half a day of sitting outsidereading our books and sipping on chocolate shakes, weheaded to phnom penh airport - some of the craziestairport security i've seen in that you're not allowedinside the airport without a ticket... anyway, foundme some australian cadbury chocolate in the duty freeshop, which was awesome before our flight to hanoi,stopping briefly at the airport in laos.. which isnext on my list of places i want to go, although notjust because of the quality of the airport shops...landed in hanoi, where once again someone was waitingwith a sign with my name on it. piled into the vanwith one other guy who i think was vietnamese. thedriver had a mobile call so apologised to us beforetaking the call, and actually sat in the carpark whileon the phone without starting the car. "wow" i'mthinking "what a sensible driver" fatal lastthoughts.the traffic system of cambodia ie everyone do what youwant and try not to hit anyone else, has just aboutreached breaking point with the far higher levels oftraffic in hanoi. plus the ratio of car to bike hasgone back in favour of the cars, which seems to makethe critical difference, from goodwilled workabletraffic to horn blasting nightmare traffic.it appears that there is a special language of trafficin hanoi. on the highway in from the airport, theleft lane was largely reserved for the motorbikes andslow trucks, while the right hand lane was for thecars, fourwheeldrives etc. therefore when our driverwanted to overtake someone he would indicate (inspiteof the fact that there was a barrier stopping him fromactually changing lanes into the oncoming traffic) hewould then tailgate the car in front, whilst honkinghis horn repeatedly and flashing his lights -presumambly the car in front is supposed to find a gapin the endless trail of motorbikes and swap into thatlane, allowing our driver to progress one more carspace and do it to the next car...once in a while, just to mix things up a bit, ourdriver would overtake someone using the other lane...naturally no indicators were required for this pieceof manouvering...the honking of horns appears to be used to mean"you're in my way" as well as "you're not in my way atthe moment so just stay over there while i take youover" and "i'm about to enter an intersection withoutlooking to see if theres any traffic coming so stayout of my way" and "i'm about to break a road rule" aswell as "hey look at me i'm going real fast" and just"hey look at me". basically what this means is thatthere is so much continuous honking that no oneactually pays any attention to any of it. its a lotscarier crossing the road here than it was incambodia. anyway, we made it to the hotel, and up the manyflights of stairs to our 5th floor room, beforeheading out to a nearby cafe where we'd told somefriends of lauras we would be in they were free - itwas their last night after spending about a monthtravelling through cambodia, vietnam and laos.i'll leave it laura to give you the details of thatnight, except to say that when they were all startingtheir third cocktail, i bailed and went home to bedNYE all over again...lets just say that when laura came home she wasntoverly well... maybe its the food... anyway, she spenta portion of yesterday resting close to the bathroom,while i went for a wander around the old quarter...its a pretty amazing place - a street of shoes shops,shops just everywhere really... and specialising inthe stragest things. anyway, i went back and gotlaura for a late lunch, before we continued to wanderthe old quarter... we were trying to make it to amuseum, but that kind of failed... something whichlooks increasingly likely to repeat itself today.we attempted to find the main market last night,having read that it was open to 10, but this doesntseem to be the case, nevertheless the streets remainpretty fascinating on their own... we found a lovelyplace for dinner,with some delicious desserts (ah thefrench) before staying up far too late watching badamerican tv on cable...anyway, we really should get today under way - themuseums here also do this crazy shutting for two hoursover lunch thing, which really impinges on our plans,when we dont get going until right about the time theyshut.we dont seem to be able to access the blog at themoment, so i will get ianto* to post this, but we mightnot be able to read your comments for a while...


*I have entrusted Ianto with our blog password because he really is a top fellow. I'd just like to thank him for being trustworthy enough to post this for us. I know he won't misuse our password because amongst his many virtues perhaps the second most notable is his trustworthiness. His most notable virtue is, of course, his immense humility. He is, without doubt, the single most humble person I have ever met, and indeed I do not believe I will ever meet anyone more humble. He's just outrageously humble. It really is most alarming.

farewell cambodia

so what laura forgot to mention in the recount of her new years eve was the three hours of shopping hell that proceeded this outing... because foolishly i suggested that new outfits might be in order for new years... this suggestion occured about 5pm. however the hotel staff quickly confirmed that the market would be shut.... however they then tell me the shopping centre is open to 8pm. so we rushed off in a tuk tuk to the cambodian version of a shopping mall. which was pretty entertaining for the first hour. by the second hour my enthusiasim had some what waned, however lauras ability to actually make a decision appeared to have been left back in the hotel and only returned with the impending closure of the shops. oh well, eventually we made it out. apparently when the shopping centre opened a couple of years back the security guards had to teach people how to use the escalators. awww.


so obviously i slept through new years, one of my preferred ways of seeing in the new year. i did wake up at about 12.30 and begin to question what i was thinking letting laura go out on her own, but fortunately she walked in soon after, before i'd actually begun to call people in australia to ask them at what point it would be reasonable for me to panic.

today started pretty late, with another late breakfast before a day of not much. went to the main market, but i think we're actually beginning to reach market saturation point. having said that i bought a number of green turtle objects and jewellery... oh well... went up to wat phnom, the temple which contains the story of the naming of phnom penh... phnom means hill, penh was some woman who found something washed up on the hill... buddas i think it was.... this particular wat was surrounded by a small park area... full of MONKEYS. laura was a model of lara croft style strength and resilience, walking through the monkey park and even stopping to take pictures of the monkeys!! we found our way make to the hotel via an irish pub of sorts... i managed to fall asleep again briefly before we decided to check out the much talked about foreign correspondents club and their half priced happy hour margheritas. laura seems to feel its her mission to introduce me to cocktails. anyway, it was a nice place to sit on the balcony and watch the people along the riverfront, before heading to a nearby khmer restaurant for our last cambodian dinner... more amok, and some delicious fish in palm sugar...

we've bought a lot of random books from street kids in the last few days.... including a camodian lonely planet and a vietnam lonely planet. we probably dont need them, and they are just photocopied fakes, but they're handy, and for $4 they're probably worth it, at least for the kids if not for us. anyway, we have big plans to come back.

so now to try and get all our stuff into our bags. we suspect we will be shopping for a large extra bag in the morning. excess baggage here we come!

Funniest new years ever.

So as I think ash has explained yesterday we met some kids over lunch who told us where apparently the best party in town was happening for NYE. It was a club called sparks. They suggested we meet them back at the cafe and head there that night.

After dinner and our staple jug of $2 beer we headed to our room to get partied up. Ash soon realised she couldn't keep her eyes open after our exhausting day so I was left with the dilemma of do I go out and party or take my sleepy head to bed?. After about 20 minutes of contemplation I of course decide that it would just be wrong to be in bed before midnight on NYE and head out.

I had a chat to the dudes in our hotel and they assure me I'd be safe at Spark but suggest that I get a driver to take me there and back. This cost $9 which is about 2 weeks wages here but I figure it's less than a cab ride at home. My driver was one of the dudes from the hotel who we've come to know quite well so I felt pretty safe. We drove across the city in a very swanky looking black merc. We arrived at spark and the driver dropped me out front and explained that he'll wait in parking lot for my return, feeling a little bit like Paris Hilton, I got out and joined a queue out the front.

As I get to the front of the queue the door person, who has a big looking gun strapped to his back, asks me for Five dollars. I hand over my Five bucks and am issued with a feathered masquerade mask, a pink fibre optic torch and two tickets. I'm then ushered to an area for a bag inspection and body search. This actually makes me feel better as I hope it means no one else inside is packing anything. I'm told I have to leave my camera behind at the desk, ohhhh this seems wrong but I can hear the party and just want to get inside, what the hell you only live once eh....

Inside is less like a club and more like a mini version of the entertainment center. There's a big stage decorated by neon lights with screens either side which are showing star wars with Khmer subtitles. There's a boy band on stage all dressed in white adorning an amazing array of bling singing a pumped up version of happy birthday that went for 10 minutes. It was one of the funniest and most surreal things I've ever seen, I was laughing out loud. Hundreds of Cambodian kids are at this thing and there really getting into it. Then 20 or so birthday cakes appear from somewhere in the crowd and are placed on tables on the edge of the dance floor. A table of lovely kids that I'm standing near gesture for me to blow out the candles. Sensing my confusion they explain that in Cambodia on New years everyone becomes a year older, so apparently it's my Birthday! (It's ok mum, you can shower me with gifts when I get back).

After chatting to the kids for a while I make my way to the bar. As I stand there trying to work out how and what to order one of the waiters comes up and asks for my tickets. I hand them over. he tries to explain something but unfortunately we can't understand each other. He then returns and hands me a can of Guinness and a straw! Again I find my self laughing out loud. I'm going to finish 2006 drinking Guinness out of a straw in a Cambodian night club dancing to happy birthday the mega mix! Brilliant!

I quickly find a new group of pals to hang with and we chat while Cambodian boy bands and beautiful pop diva's grace the stage and play us their hits. one of the highlights was when the guitarist from one of the bands brought his scooter on stage and played guitar whilst burning up and down the stage on his scooter....I did happen to notice his guitar wasn't plugged into the amp but I wasn't going shatter the illusion for my new pals as this really excited them!

As it neared midnight you could feel the antisipation building in the room. I decide to leave new pals and head to the front of the stage to be amongst all the excitement. Just before midnight the diva's and boy band sensations all come on stage together. The overwhelmingly excited crowd joined the stars in the count down and welcomed in the New Year. Hundreds of balloons fell from the roof as the stars performed a melody of pop songs in Khmer. I realise this when I hear the unmistakable melody of lovely lady lumps!

The stars then gesture to the crowd to join them on stage. I'm dragged to the stage by some very snappily dressed gals and guys and we dance up a storm together. With Streamers glitter and balloons still falling from the roof and snap's "I've got the power" playing I wonder how the night can get any better.

We eventually clamber off the stage and I head to the bar. I spend a good 10 minutes trying to order a vodka and tonic, I end up with some weird looking cocktail but what ever it is it's fantastic. Next on stage is a troop of break dancers. There ages range from about 8 - 20 and they are wearing matching doo rags (is that the right term gem?). They are amazing; this is the best break dancing show I've ever seen. A guy next to me tells me he thinks these kids should be in bed by now as they will not learn anything at school tomorrow.

Next up is the "fashion show". Not a lot of fashion was shown but lots of scantly clad women and more boys in doo rags. After the fashion show back to more dancing, several more versions of happy birthday and a jingle bells remix...hottt.

The snappy dressed crew invite me to dance with them. After a while I decide it's time to head back before ash starts to worry. As I bid the snappy dressers farewell what starts playing...oh yeah people you guessed it my main man JT!! Sensing my delight snappy dressers pull me back to the dance floor for more dancing. Oh what a night!

Eventually I break myself away from the dance floor and head back to find my driver..la de dah! One the way home I think about what a bizarre day it has been. I started the day at the killing fields looking a hundreds of skulls of Cambodian's brutally killed by the Khmer Rouge and ended the day watching hundreds of young Cambodians partying up a storm celebrating the New Year. Not that this makes everything ok, because it obviously isn't, but it gives me some hope.

Happy new year everyone! Lets get rid of our stupid government this year people. Here's to a great 2007!!

Lauz
xxxx