43. Last dive for a while

I left Ho Chi Minh City and caught a coach to Nah Trang. It was a coach unlike any I’d been on before because the aisle wasn’t lined with seats, but little plastic beds. I think these beds must have been designed for the Vietnamese physiology, because mine was a good few inches too short for me. It was a pretty fidgety, uncomfortable 10 hours.

When the coach eventually pulled in I unfolded myself from the bed and had a good stretch. As I got off the coach I was immediately pounced on by a gang of men who had various offers for rooms in hotels. Despite having scouted a place to stay beforehand I decided to haggle a little anyway and got a pretty great price from one of the guys. I hopped on his bike and we set off there instead of the one I'd picked out from the guidebook.

One of the first things I did in the town was to book a couple of dives in the area.
In the dive shop whilst I waited to go off on them a severely drunk Russian man stumbled in. He spoke in slurred English to the girl working there, demanding she phone the police. He claimed he had been swindled out of 20 dollars by the people working at the bar next door.
The unfortunate proprietor of the bar was actually outside the dive shop trying to reason with him through the door. For a few minutes the Russian man kept slurring his demands that the police be summoned, and I started to wonder if I could intervene. The girl in the shop stayed resolute, firmly telling him that they would do no such thing, and so he eventually lost interest and wandered off.

The dives that day were fun. The slight problem was that I had last been diving in Sipadan - and that is quite an experience to live up to. Indeed the Nah Trang waters felt relatively cold and fish free by comparison. That being said there were some stunning coral formations there, and I had a lot of fun - so was not disappointed at all.

42. A confession

If I’m honest after leaving Ho Chi Minh the remaining 3 or so weeks in Vietnam were not really the best. It’s nothing to do with the country, which was stunning and full of things to see and do, and I had a few amazing experiences.

I think one of the problems was that early on I had decided to stay in Vietnam for four weeks for no other reason that it was what my tourist Visa got me. I figured my severely depleted funds would just about suffice, but to be honest I should have cut it short. I didn’t consider doing that that though. I suppose I wanted to keep the dream alive for as long as possible. It was a mistake which contributed to a few problems:

• I was severely low on money, so was forced to spend (and therefore do) as little as possible, which was a problem given I had 4 weeks to fill.
• I found it much harder to meet people here. Largely due to my lack of money forcing me to not do as much - but also because I was not staying in more social “hostel” style accommodation.
• I was getting sad that it was the end of the road - and had some anxiety about returning to England and the “real world”. I think this was affecting my mood as well

As a result I spent a lot of time in Vietnam by myself feeling a poor, lonely and depressed that my travels were coming to an end.

That being said I was aware that this was still the opportunity of a lifetime - so made every effort to fight the negativity and make the most of the rest of my time in south east Asia.

41. Ho Chi Minh City

After landing in Ho Chi Minh City I headed to the area my trusty guide book suggested was good for low priced accommodation. Here, like in Phnom Penh, instead of roads there were rivers of scooters. I had to readjust to the knack of crossing the road, which was to step into the motorised maelstrom and keep walking trusting that nobody will hit you.

Once I found somewhere to stay I rang Mike, the guy who I’d saved the life of in Cambodia*. He was working in the city and had extended an invite to visit him in the new year.
We chatted for a while during which he told me a fitness boot camp was happening that night and invited me along. I thought: why not.

I hadn’t really done any exercise since Cambodia, so that night was a strange combination of being happy to catch up with Mike and almost dying of exhaustion.

The next day, rather sore, I decided to check out some cultural sights in the city. It didn’t take long to track down an enterprising bike owner with a custom tour offer.
I hopped on and we charged off into the blizzard of scooters, but almost as we’s set off we had to slow to pass a crowd in the road. There had been an accident. A scooter was on it’s side and people were gathered around a prone individual being given CPR. I couldn’t help but give my diver a pat on the back and urge him to be careful.

On the last night I met up with Mike again and a friend of his. It was a fun evening. We visited a few bars, ate some truly exceptional street food and watched a random fist fight that erupted between some Russians.

* Carried some distance from a sunbed to his guesthouse whilst unconscious

40. To Vietnam

The following day Cassie and I said our goodbyes. She was the last of my “long term” travelling companions. Travelling with her had been good fun, and it felt very sad to part ways.

The route to Vietnam began with a brief visit to Kuala Lumpur. It was a clean and modern city, but if I’m honest a little dull. I had one night in chinatown. There was just enough time to walk to the impressive Petronas towers and then the grand mosque, before heading back to the airport to catch my flight to Ho Chi Minh City.

I had a strange feeling of apprehension as I embarked on the last leg of my journey. It was a similar feeling to the one I had when I’d first got on the plane at Heathrow. I think the reason was that I was once again destined for a completely new place by myself. I’d not actually done that since leaving Ko Phangan in Thailand some months before. Even then it was only the next day that I bumped into Pat.

Really I’d been very lucky to have the company of some awesome and like minded traveller friends for all but a couple of weeks of the trip so far.

Still, whilst I was feeling some apprehension - I can’t deny that I was still excited to visit Vietnam

39. Monkeying Around

We’d seen an awful lot of wild proboscis monkeys thus far in Borneo - as they were almost a daily fixture at nature lodge cruises. But we’d not had enough of them, so took a short bus ride to a sanctuary dedicated to their protection: the sandakan proboscis monkey sanctuary.
Once there we were lead up some walkways to a tree lined clearing. That’s where we found them - relaxing in the trees; on logs and so on; even on the walkway as we passed.
We wandered around for a while, taking pics and saying “wow” a lot.

After a while we came across the alpha male of the group (we could tell he was the alpha as he had the biggest nose of all). He was sat on a handrail of our walkway a short distance ahead.
I got my phone out for a quick snap. As I did that he turned to look at me. Then he gave an almighty whoop, jumped down from the handrail and came thundering at me! I had a “rabbit in the headlights” moment and just stood there, wondering what was going to happen.

Just about got a pic of the alpha before he charged

Luckily must have just been interested in seeing off a rival male or something because he just charged straight past.

That evening we decided to have a farewell feast of pizza and beer, since Cassie and I would be parting ways. She was destined for the Kingdom of Brunei and I was headed to Vietnam.
Earlier in the day we had coincidentally bumped into a Belgian chap we’d met diving in Sipadan. He was also staying in our hotel so we invited him along to our shindig.

It was a good evening, marred slightly by this guy saying a lot of blatantly racist comments in an attempt to be funny. Turned out we’d forgotten how annoying he was so I decided to try and get so drunk I didn’t notice.
We eventually stumbled to bed.

Shortly after nodding off I was rudely awoken by a loud banging on our door. I groggily put something on and went to answer. I was confronted with our Belgian friend, now appearing to be both amused and irate. Apparently we’d wandered off from the bar and not bothered to pay our tab, leaving him to pay all of it! I apologised and gave him some money, feeling silly.

He left, muttering “Typical sneaky englishman”