From the Pen of Marc

There are a few things that I would like to share with our fans. I know Veronika had touched upon some but I will add to those events. I will start with our day today.

We had booked a tour to see some royal grounds in Hue city. This place is called the Citadel or the forbidden purple city. We were to be picked up by no later than 12:30pm for the buffet lunch. We were supposed to go first thing in the morning but I was supposed to draft my fantasy baseball team. The draft didn't happen so we spent the morning drinking coffee. Literally we had 3 or 4 coffees each waiting for the bus. Needless to say, the bus didn't pick us up and when we called the travel agency they decided to send a waitress from the restaurant we were to have lunch at. We kept asking the tour operators as to why they didn't pick us up but they were convinced that a waitress walking us to the restaurant instead of the bus is just as good.

We finished lunch and made it to the purple city. This site was once home to the royal families and is now in some areas a place of worship. Once again there was a diferent line and price for locals and foreigners. It was incredibly hot today and combined with all the coffee Veronika and I drank, we weren't exactley the best people to take on a tour. We found out that the grounds were built like 200 years ago. "Big deal" Veronika said to me. She made a good point though, after visiting Angkor Wat (900 plus years ago) anything less shouldn't wow us. The tour started and the guide explained something about the dragon representing the king and went on about unicorns and the phoenix and other mythological creatures. I could have given this tour and made a bunch of garbage up about Ligers and Bigfoot too. So Veronika asks the guide the first question of the tour, "Does the king actually believe that dragons exist?" I obviously couldn't stop laughing and at that point we decided that we couldn't listen to the guide anymore. We kept our distance from the rest of the group and took some pictures. The heat had made us delerious so most of the pics were of us doing kung fu moves. Veronika will post these picks on facebook so stay tuned.

Next stop: Pagoda. I always thought that pagoda was a bench by a pool, at least that is what the controls for the light in my backyard says. A pagoda is a place where the Vietnamese pray and monks study. We saw these monks picking their noses and shouted for them not to clean house in public. Good thing they don't understand English. It was at this last stop we were supposed to hop on a boat to take us across the river with the rest of our group. Veronika and I ducked out of this tour early as well. Actually, we didin't participate in this one at all and we waited on the steps in front of the boat.

"There is our boat 357, it just got here" I told Veronika.
"It looks like it's leaving" she says.
"No they wouldn't leave without us". Immediately after I said that I remembered the way we behaved and it only made sense that they would leave us behind. Good move guys. So Veronika and I hired a couple of scooter drivers that took us throughout the city and back to our hotel. At the end of it all I have no hard feelings about the worst tour I will ever take.

Veronika mentioned the sleeping bus we were on but left out some details. The bus has three rows from the back to the front and there is the top bunk and the bottom bunk. My seat was the middle row so I had Veronika to my left and a gross person to my left (as always). This guy was coughing in his sleep and kept snorting. Not dry snorting either. You know when someone is sick and they are really congested? Yeah, he consistently sounding like this. Since we were the second last row to the back I had probably the grossest feet (other than my own) beside my face the whole night. Whoever designed these buses could not fathom that there are people over 5'9". The best part is that this is a sleeping bus and you have to pay more. My question is why should we pay more when the bus driver slams on his breaks every 100 metres and is leaning on his horn for 10 minute intervals. Not even two gravol pills could gaurentee me a good nights rest. The over night travel wasn't very peachy.

The morning made it all worth while when majority of the travellers got off the bus and new travelers got on. I was half asleep when I heard the two loudest Vietnamese guys ever enter the bus. Guess where they sat. Right beside me. At first, I was annoyed but then I heard a familiar voice. I thought I was still dreaming but when I was fully awake I got confirmation. One of the guys sounded exactley like the Cookie Monster. I was obviously amused and found myself eavesdropping on the conversation. Then Cookie Monster started talking and ended his sentence with the words "gobble gobble." I almost pissed myself. That guy made the uncomfortable trip absolutely priceless for me.

Veronika has also posted some pics of my new haircut. I originally went to the salon and asked them to shave my head. Obviously the lady could care less and cut my hair like Arsenal striker Robin Van Persie. Veronika and her convinced me that it looked good. I know that next time I will offer the person cutting my hair double the price if they can shave my head in under one minute. Give me a chance to chicken out and I will 10 out of 10 times. Angelo, I might consider flying you to wherever I am to give me a proper haircut next time.

Another thing about South East Asia, no matter where yo are every 3 kilmoetres it smells like farts. I share your amazement. The reason for it is still unclear to me but I will find out and report back to you as soon as I uncover the truth.

Over and Out

P.S. If you haven't seen a funny movie in a while watch Hot Rod. You will thank me later.