So HCM. Epic city. The sheer number of scooters, the misplaced zebra crossings (i mean, at the end of the expressway??), the uneven skyline, the incessant hornings, boy was HCM a city to remember. I vividly remember how it felt to cross the road halfway, turn around to check the traffic going the other way and whoosh, a fucking humongous lorry goes by and we unintentionally swear. God, the satisfaction of crossing the road felt quite like the relief of still being alive. Aside from that, the language barrier made it quite an experience when we ordered our streetfood aka the experience of not knowing what we are eating. But it was all good though and not a single one of us fell ill with food poisoning (Y). We walked around the city for about 8 hours straight on the first day, joking and laughing @ the most trivial of things & I guess I shouldn’t forget to mention that we were EXTREMELY triggerhappy heh. But you see, the weather at HCM is sweltering and so much more intense than the heat at singapore. Therefore, we decided to change our plans, spend just one day at Mekong River Delta and head up north to Dalat where temperatured waver at 18degC or so. And mind you, we packed light for the heat. But I shall elaborate more on that later.

HCM is simply put, very dirty. Our ren2 zi4 tuo1 actually left a ren2 on our feet and the minute I turned on the shower, the water turned a suspicious black colour but whatever. We went for happy hour the first night there and boy, were the drinks cheap (whisky, rum, vodka, gin..all the hard stuff man. I didn’t see a single bottle of bailey’s or kahlua, I guess that’s OJ for the viets? haha but the most potent drink of all there was the rice wine, 70% alcohol no kidding. I just had a sip hurhur). Pubbing there is kinda communal(?), like everyone just starts talking to everyone. There was this thai guy we met there with quite an unforgettable name. When he spelt it out for us, I really thought he was kidding (I mean farkmih wannaporn? Apparently wannaporn is a common surname in thailand so yea). Please read out his name, please do. We hit the sack at about 3am and woke up early for our MRD tour. Took a boat out, ate lots of honey, coconut candy, rode bikes and camwhored. And now, here comes the veryEPIC part. As I mentioned earlier, we wanted to head north to escape the heat right? and since we planned to be cheapskate and save on accomodation, it meant that we had no place to go back and bathe after a day out under the sun at mekong! Therefore -lightbulb on-, ethan smartly suggested that we use the public toliets at the shopping mall to freshen up. So we trudged our way to the Paragon and em…washed up using the basins there. It was SO epic we took photos of each other with our legs in the basin etc. But we emerged clean HAHA. Then we chilled @ highlands coffee (the viet equivalent of *$. they have no *$ there, only CBTL and gloria jean’s. Like cool eh, HCM is prolly one of the few cities *$ hasn’t invaded) before making our way down to the highly disorganised bus terminal at 11pm and after a hateful 7hr ride, we arrived at Dalat positively freezing at Dalat in our tees and shorts but we were happy. I mean, we did come here to escape the heat right? So the first thing we did was bathe like duh. And then we napped for about an hour and then headed out to explore Dalat and EAT since we were all starving. the grilled sweet potato cakes were gooddddd and so was the bahn mi (Y). We scoured the city & once again, made a very impromptu decision, i.e. to head out to the countryside for some trekking and canyoning.

Ok, let me skip straight to trekking. We got a tour guide to bring us up Langbian Mountain (sp?) and boy, the route was….I mean macritchie seems like a walk in the park right now. The entire journey up and down took 8 hours and honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish it without my friends there. It hit me right there and then that these 4 lovely people are the ones I can count on. I guess that’s why we went on the trip in the first place. Anyway, back at the city, we dinnered at the night market. OMG THE PHO IS SO BLOODY GOOD, ITS SMOOTH AND CHEWY AND I WANT TO EAT IT NAOW. We ordered some grilled shellfish thingys which had blue roe (nat and russell lost the game and had to eat the roe and they wasted all our water LOL)  and we bought an array of pastries to share. Oh AND WE TRIED FRIED CRICKETS. THEY TASTE LIKE POTATO CHIPS HONEST. AND THEY GAVE US DIPPING SAUCE IN THE FORM OF CHILLI SAUCE AND THE LEGS KEPT FALLING OFF THE CRICKETS INTO THE SAUCE LOL. I would actually buy a pack of fried crickets if they sold it in supermarts, that’s how much I liked it lol.

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Anyway, let me share an epic moment.

‘Omg Dalat has seriously beautiful flowers and so many kinds omg’

‘Dear, its a flower shop you are looking at’

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So, the next day, we went canyoning. Basically, canyoning involves climbing up a waterfall and then abseiling down the water and its mega x-treme whee. The climb up was TREACHEROUS I tell you. You really have to get down on all fours and climb monkey-style if you don’t want to risk falling to your death since the viets have kept the tourist attraction au naturale (in another words, its a jungle out here). but once again, the climb was made possible because (as corny as it sounds) my friends were there. All the times we slipped and almost fell, the worst didn’t happen cos well, we would just grab each other back to safety. Anyway, awesome experience, its really something you have to do while you’re still young. SERIOUSLY HAHAHAH. And I cannot forget the VIP of the day, it was this cityboy from HCM who headed to Dalat to escape the heat (sound familiar?) and he actually climbed up the waterfall in flipflops -read non-advisable- but anyway, he knew that we were gonna head back to HCM that night (and we saved on another night of accomodation! ^^) and so decided to treat us to dinner+ happy hour (why idk but always accept a free treat and btw, happy hour at dalat starts at 3pm…tells you sth about the place eh). It was only 9pm by the time we were done so we bid farewell to our new friend and walked aroung the lake there to pass time (a calculated move honestly, we wanted to be maximally clean on the bus and so we had to pass time before heading to this spa place where we could bathe for free. cheapskate much? ahhaha and zomg, i only realise now that the walk around the lake was 6 km. No wonder we felt like we worked out LOL) Anyway, we had a htht around the lake. Everything started spilling out and it was such an honest conversation. I shan’t divulge much here. Anyway, after about an hour, we were done and went for ze body massage before bathing and heading to the bus terminal for the ride back to HCM. 

I should mention the eiffel tower replica at dalat. It looks like an oil rig bcos they used those red and white bars to build it and unlike the bonafide over at Paris which actually lights up to a pretty blue (I need to head back to Paris. Must.find.Company), the one @ Dalat lights up to an unflattering yellow. I’m sorry, its too far from the real thing to be awed at.

We arrived at HCM at 6am and with us having had hardly any sleep, a very hilarious and incoherent conversation ensued.  Okay, i wrote so much about vietnam i feel like summarising cambodia and penang in point form haha. yes, i actually feel like falling asleep on the plane because for those of you who know me, I usually cannot do so but 2 weeks of sleep deprivation does work wonders I guess.

Okay, Cambodia, less of an obstacle to navigate around since we’ve been there once. And before I forget, I need to applaud the guys’ navigation skills with the map. -kudos- HAHA. We walked around the main city and chilled at this park ( having a htht again <3) before zzz-ing at the hotel. The next two days were spent at a homestay in the countryside. The place was beautiful and I felt so relaxed there. But of course, we had to do something impromptu and decided to climb up a mountain. hee. I really miss eating the snails there. The French would probably have a fit if I call the snails there escargots haha. 

And so, how did I end up at Penang after Cambodia right? Well, Nat’s parents were at a resort there so Ethan and I decided to bum there since we were free while Des and Rus headed back to SG. Ok, end of story, I am going to sleep.

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Dear 4 of you, I hope we travel together again, budget-style of course. <3

As always, a trip with friends is invaluable

Back to good old Singapore and right in time for the GSS. Shopping+dinner date tmr and then Rhythm25(we.are.old)!

God’s been pretty good to me. Sometimes its good to take a step back and appreciate what you have instead of thinking about what you don’t have and could have.

And if you have managed to last till the end of this post, I salute you. I can’t even bothered to scan for grammatical errors because my eyelids are heavy and the sandman is beckoning. Gonna upload the pix when I get them and have the time.