Well, we spent a few nights resting and staying in nice accommodations in Sihanoukville to recharge our batteries, which basically meant sleeping in until midday and drinking until late every night.
I had just nipped to the bar to get some beers and when I returned some of the lads had told me a girl had gone into our room. So, we rushed over, and we could see no one, then saw that the toilet door was shut. We all sat in the room in silence not to disturb her and waited for her to come out. After about 10 minutes she came out. She saw us, and just said, “I just threw up in your toilet, and it does not flush”. I went in to see if she was joking, but unfortunately not. It absolutely stunk, and we all nearly vommed as well. I wasn’t going to say anything to her though, she was built like a tank and had shoulders like a prop forward and would eat me alive.
That night I decided to show the people of Sihanoukville the famous, “Windmill” on the dance floor, one of the first nights I got really drunk. After a few hours and about 15 beers later I decided to wander home as I was getting too drunk.
I get back to the room, now feeling extremely drunk, and then I decided to call Holly, which was not the best idea, as her cousin was with her and she put me on loudspeaker. I had never met or spoken to her cousin before and Holly took advantage of my drunken state and thought it would be a good idea to put me on loudspeaker, and both were laughing at all of the drunken shit coming out of my mouth. Holly was really keen to keep me talking and asking me questions, I won’t be doing that again.
The next day I went for a haircut, it was a bargain at $4. It was probably the most entertaining haircut I have ever had. I was sitting chatting to a ladyboy in the next seat to me, who was telling me some pretty funny stories, then behind there was a “lady of the night”, who had a few different phones and talking to different men, she put the phone on loudspeaker which was even better, as apparently every bloke who rang loved her and could not wait to see her.
When her phone stopped ringing she then started talking to me. She was sitting behind me on a sofa, and whenever I looked in the mirror she tried to make eye contact, and she kept telling me over and over, “oohhh handsome man”. I did not mind this, helped my self-esteem so just politely nodded every time she said it.
The next day we actually made it to the beach, seeing we were at a beach resort but none of us could be bothered walking the 400 metres to the sand.
To my utter excitement, there was a play area in the sea. Shaun and I paid the $3 and swam to it. Jesus Christ it was hard work, the water was shallow too. Climbing up these things and going on the slide was shit scary as it was clearly not deep enough and there were rocks everywhere. I did the slide twice, which was pretty cool. We then both decided to, “Conquer the wall”, which was not really a wall, and not really that high but we tried to make it sound even tougher than it was. It did not go to plan. I managed to get to the top after swallowing loads of seawater, which was about 20-25 feet high. As I was making one last push for the top, the strap that you use to pull yourself up suddenly rips off the floating wall, and it felt like I was in slow motion quickly trying to find something else to grab onto, but there was nothing and I went into the sea like a sack of shit. Shaun said it was the funniest thing he has seen in a while. He said all that he saw was a handle fly through the air, and then a few seconds later an almighty “BOOOMMMM” when I hit the water. It hurt like a bastard. I decided to give the wall a miss and I swam over to the trampoline. I had a little bounce, then I noticed blood on my foot, then I suddenly developed an almighty limp and then decided to swim back as I had clearly hurt myself.
That night we went out for something to eat. I ordered an “Emperor Burger”, with a name like this I had high expectations and eagerly awaited its arrival. Twenty minutes later he came over and said “We have no burger buns left. Do you want toast instead?”
A few seconds passed and then he shouted, “COME ON HURRY UP THE KITCHEN IS CLOSING, YOU HAVE NOTHING IF YOU DONT MAKE YOUR MIND UP”.
So, I asked for a Toastie Emperor Burger with no bun. He looked at me and said, “WHAT, WE DON’T HAVE THAT WE ONLY HAVE A BURGER, DO YOU WANT TOAST”. I replied I would love toast. It came 10 minutes later, bread. That hadn’t seen a toaster for the life of it!
We then headed to watch the match, there were only a few bars that were showing the football, and one place was offering free shots for every goal scored, this looked a good deal until I remembered I was watching Liverpool which would mean the bar would be safe with this bet, as we cannot hit a barn door at the moment.
I eventually decided on a bar that had a massive screen, I got myself a Fanta and sat down to watch the match, on my own. It seems everyone else thought it would be more fun to hit the beach bars and get buckets.
Halfway through the match the game suddenly froze on the screen. I waited a few minutes, but every screen froze. I then the decision to go to my room and watch it on my little TV. I must have looked ridiculous to anyone who saw me run to my room. I was wearing flip-flops, whilst holding onto a Fanta with the straw in my mouth. I get to my room and turned the TV on, but it had also frozen. FFS!!! That was pointless, I was now sweating away, Fanta all down my leg. I then turned the channels and found the match working perfectly.
Sihanoukville was nice, but there were lots of annoying tuk-tuk and bike taxi drivers though, but is a very nice chilled-out place. There are a few nice big hotels getting built so in a few years’ time I really think Sihanoukville will be a popular beach destination.
Seeing all the people begging is very sad, we were out one night at 1 am and a little boy was curled up asleep outside a bar with just shorts on. He could not have been any older than 4 years old. The tuk-tuk drivers told us that he sleeps there every night and has no parents that they know of. I woke him up and gave him some money and tried to ask if he had any family that we could help get him to or get him anything, but he did not understand. Heartbreaking!
There are a lot of people begging, a lot with missing limbs. You cannot really give to them as then they all come over so you just have to look away. It’s the hardest thing to do, very upsetting. I lost a $100 note in Sihanoukville, I just hope someone like that found it and it helps them.
We decide to leave Sihanoukville and get to Vietnam, so we booked our 13-hour bus ride to Saigon and we got an early night. Back to roughing it in dorm rooms now instead of sitting by the pool in private rooms.
On the bus to Vietnam, we first got a sleeper for 5 hours then a normal bus for 8 hours. We got to Saigon after a knackering journey, no sleep, and very grouchy. As soon as you get off the bus, taxi drivers are on you like a shot “Taxi my friend” “Where you go”. After a long trip, with hardly any sleep or food it is not the best way to be greeted.
We eventually haggle a taxi to $5 as it was a “long way from the bus stop”. We then get driven around the City for miles. Twenty minutes later we pull up at our hostel. The taxi driver now says it’s $5 each for the taxi, which is not what we agreed.
We kick off and refuse to pay. He gets dead arsey and we try and walk away, but in the end, we end up paying $5 each. It was not the fact it was $5, it was the fact he had conned us.
I get a shower and decide to go for a walk to find some food. As our hotel is down an alley, when I get to the end I say to Shaun, “This place looks familiar”. I then see the bus stop where we had got off. The bastard had really done us.
I see the taxi driver, and he sees me. I had not slept, not eaten, and was moody. I then storm across the street, avoiding all of the mopeds and he got up and sat with his friends. I went over to him and just said “YOU LYING BASTARD. YOU HAVE TAKEN US ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND ITS ONLY 50 METRES AWAY”. His reply was, “One-way street”. I then turned around and there were literally cars moving in both directions. Shaun by this time had caught up to me, he had a bit of a go at him again and then we just decided to leave it and get some good instead.
We booked a trip and went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is 2 hours from the centre of Saigon. These tunnels were built underground tunnels during the war to help them move around and not get seen as they were fighting.
It was a pretty cool place. I crawled 100 metres in one of them. It was pitch black and very hot. You could either do twenty metres, or the whole tunnel. Most people on the tour did 20 metres, as you could get out early or do the whole tunnel.
What we did not know though was that the whole group was waiting at the exit of the tunnel that we were coming out. Tunnels echo, a lot. As I get out of the tunnel I got a few smirks and some weird looks. A few seconds earlier I had decided to shout to my mate “JESUS CHRIST LAD, SWEATING MY TITS OFF IN HERE, SWEATY BALLS”. That was awkward!
It was fun going around the tunnels, seeing all the traps they used, and talking about how they fought people. What was crazy is that at the end of the tour, you could fire a machine gun, so as you were doing the tour, you could hear all of the machine gun’s going over, making it feel a bit more real.
That night about 10 of us decided to go get something to eat, we went to the same place as the night before, I do not know why, the food was shit the first night. I did not have high hopes. As we sat there the biggest rat I have ever seen in my life climbed down the wall. We all shit ourselves, as I leaned back to get away my plastic chair buckled so I lost my balance, my flip-flop bent over and I ended up on Simon’s lap. Everyone thought I had shit myself and jumped on Simon in a panic. I didn’t.
I decided to call it a night as I was tired, so I started to walk back to the hostel on my own. As I was walking back I was getting hassled by hookers. They seemed to be one every hundred metres. One decided to walk with me trying to get me to agree on a price. This made me uncomfortable, as other people were walking past looking at me as though I was taking her home. So I sped up walking, so did she. I ended up going into a MiniMart to get away and thankfully she did not follow me. I bought a water, and as I was paying I noticed her watching me in the window. I paid for my water and saw that she was waving at me and pointing at the bloke.
I then leave the store and she shouts, “NOOOO 600,000 TOO MUCH”. I said, “I am not paying 600,000 for you, sorry”. This went on for about 50 metres, back and forth, until she then said “YOU PAY TO MUCH FOR WATER, YOU GAVE TOO MUCH”. I then realised I had given 500,000 not 50,000. So, I headed back, my new friend with me, of course, and asked for the change. He looked at her and shook his head and gave me 200,000 back. So my bottle of water cost me £6, which should have cost 60p, but at least my new friend helped me out a bit in the end.
If I could sum Saigon up so far. It’s a dump, everyone is trying to rip you off, rats everywhere. A place I will never be back to!!
We got a 5-hour bus to Mui Ne, which is up the coast a little bit, it’s a very nice resort, very expensive with lots of high-class hotels on the beach, with $180 for the cheapest room. Definitely not a backpacker-friendly place. Very nice though.
We have been on a day trip to the sand dunes today. We went to a place called Fairy Stream which was basically a stream that you walk down and end up in a valley with high clay rock faces on either side. Not sure how it got its name. It’s a very nice place to see. We then went to the dunes and went quad biking, this was brilliant. The first thing I did was get stuck in a massive dune. I did not see the massive signs that said STOP!