Day 1: I Hanoi idea wtf is going

I never manage to sleep the night before a holiday abroad which was lucky this time around because I had so much stuff left to sort out, most of which were things I could have done weeks go.

My flight to Hanoi was leaving Heathrow at 11am which meant leaving my house at 6am. At least because the train wasn't a viable option at that time on a Sunday morning Aaron had offered to drive me there. It was a lovely drive accompanied by The Prodigy and Radiohead and Aaron's car's amazing sub woofer of a left speaker,

My bag was over the 7kg limit for carry-ons by 1.5kg but the woman at the desk didn't care. Happy days. The flight was ok, spare seat next to me but a child in the row behind me which prompted me to write this limerick

On flights I can just never win.
A noisy kid getting under my skin.
But when his mum went to pee,
she failed to see me
lock her son in the overhead bin.

They gave us some paper flip flops which almost balanced out the fact that I couldn't sleep because every time I'd drift off the kid would just randomly shout something. The food was adequate.

We arrived in Hanoi at 5am and it was still dark. There was a weird army looking dude staring at me as I walked through customs. Perhaps he was thinking if I'm guilty of something then I'm going to panic. I didn't I wasn't. I'd had a bit of a read about transportation to the city but hadn't properly figured it out. After speaking to a lady at an information desk who tried to get me to take the most expensive option (I have no idea why,,,) I settled on booking a Grab (Asian Uber, Uberasian) and the driver messaged me a few times to check where I was so I was feeling confident. Then a car pulled up and the guy beckoned me in, I showed him phone and asked if it was him, he said yes, so I got in and off we went. It didn't take me long to realise I'd made a mistake because after a minute or so he asked me where we were going. I think the beginning of the number plate was the same but I'd been too half asleep to properly check it. Needless to say I was now stuck with this guy and I knew he was going to charge me at least double what the Grab would have cost. He even got me on the phone to who I assume was his boss who spoke slightly better English and confirmed where I was going. He said he wasn't even going to take me exactly where I needed to go and would drop me off at the lake because he knew where that was (10 minutes walk from the hostel, yeah cheers mate) When we got there he asked for $30 (the Grab would have cost about $7/8, no chance mate) I offered him $20, he asked for $25, I gave him $20 and got out of the car.

It was bloody hot for 7am. 32C I think. I hadn't actually booked the hostel but I'd narrowed it down to a few. I walked to my first choice hostel and had a quick look around. They only had a 10 bed dorm available, I said that many beds would be superfluous to my sleeping requirements but I don't think she understood. There was another hostel round the corner so I thought I'd check that one out before deciding. The atmosphere and layout of the first one seemed better so I went back and checked in... although I technically couldn't check in for another 7 hours. They said I could hang around in the lobby, bar or the TV room where they had some cushions to sleep on. So I went up to the roof and nabbed the WiFi password from someone up there and proceeded to die in the heat... but at least I could now access Facebook (Thank the maker! No, not Zuck) I ended up going to sleep in the TV room for about an hour but then they kicked us out for a staff meeting so I just sat in the bar for a bit. I chatted to a couple of people, Carlos (40) from El Salvador who was trying to sort a visa and Conrad (21) from London who was planning a motorbike ride in the north of Vietnam.


I got a bit bored so went for a little walk to get some cash. A ten minute walk took at least thirty minutes due to how long it can take to cross the road. There are basically no traffic rules in Hanoi, even red lights seem optional with some motorbikes simply mounting the pavement to avoid the traffic. By the time I got back to the hostel I was allowed to check in so I did that and then chilled in the room for a little bit. I decided on a vegan cafe near the hostel for dinner and I had the vegan pho which was delicious. I listened in to some people chatting about tourist stuff to get some ideas of what to do in Hanoi.

I was feeling exhausted so I went back to have a nap at the hostel but then a group of young people arrived. They said they were going downstairs for the quiz so I obviously joined them. It was at that point there was a power cut so I just sat down on the nearest chair and joined a stranger's team by default. The people I joined were an American couple, Madison and Kevin, we had a little chat while waiting for the power to come back on and then Conrad joined us. He's a very talkative chap so I just let him take over the conversation. I suggested a few quiz team names from my extensive collection (the non-filthy ones) and we settled on Quizness Time. It was a bit of a shambles of a quiz really, having to be the first to put your hand up to answer the question. Needless to say I knew most of the answers and we got to have a shot (I'm not sure of what) after every question. The final question was worth a ton of points making the whole quiz pointless but I got that one correct to so we won. The prize was 400,000 Vietnamese Dong which we used to buy beer.

Madison and Kevin went out for food so I hung out drinking beer with Conrad. We were joined by left wing Rob from Oldham who proceeded to talk politics with Conservative Conrad. To be honest I thought it was going to come to blows at one point so I tried to join in and mediate a little bit. They calmed down a bit and we had a few drinks together. Rob was doing giant laughing gas balloons, I did not partake. Conrad went to bed just as Madison and Kevin got back so I joined them for a final beer and a good chat about life.

Back up in my room it somehow ended up that everyone was in the bathroom brushing their teeth at the same time. A lovely end to a knackering but enjoyable day,

Mark's Non-Bogus Journey

For my new adventure through Asia I've decided to start this up again. As with the US blogs it's more for my benefit so I apologise if it doesn't read very well.

I've packed this 40L bag plus my fanny/bum bag with enough clothes to last a week

My journey will begin with 3 days in Hanoi and then I'll be meeting up with Dan Poole (and his girlfriend) in Cebu (an island in The Philippines) on Aug 30th and tagging along with them, possibly island hopping for a few weeks. After that, Asia is an oyster... or something. 

This has been a most excellent adventure...

Day 90 (Tuesday Dec 21st)
"da da da daaa, da da daaa!"

The first thing Lacey did when we woke up was call the numbers she knew off by heart to see if she'd left her phone in the car. It turned out that she had and that her phone was now back in Pennsylvania. The repair shop had left a message on it saying that she could pick up her car in Jersey. She didn't want to make the journey without a phone so after I'd said good bye to Suzy and Mike we went to the nearest T-Mobile shop and Lacey bought the cheapest phone they had. We went to the Port Authority and had some food before Lacey got a bus to where her car was as 5pm. I hadn't really planned how I was getting to Newark airport but after a quick look around I found a bus that was leaving immediately for $15. I'm sure I could have found something cheaper but I was tired and it was the easiest option.

 It was very busy at the airport and but I cut the line and went straight to the 'carry-on baggage only' check-in. I made my way towards my gate but when I got near I couldn't remember if it was 36 or 38 and the screens were down for that section. I decided to guess at 38 and proceeded through security but when I got to the gate the screens were still not working. After half an hour of figuring out what to do, with no staff to ask but with a lot of time to kill, I decided to leave that section even though I knew I'd have to go through security again. I stared at the screens for another ten minutes and when they came back up it turned out I'd been at the correct gate. Back through security I went and this time I got to go through the naked scanner, yay! It was at this point that I decided to look at my boarding pass and noticed my gate number was on there, I'm an idiot. There was quite an interesting atmosphere as more people started arriving at the gate. Half of the Virgin flights to London had already been cancelled that day and there were rumours going around that we were going to be heavily delayed. One woman was on the phone for half an hour having a half English/half foreign conversation which amused me for a bit. At one point I went to the toilet and there was a muscle-bound security guard coming out as I went in, he was whistling the A-Team theme music so I joined in, we were the coolest dudes in the airport at that very moment. There were two delays to the flight but in the end we only left an hour later than scheduled. The highlight of the flight was at the beginning where I read the safety booklet because it contained some rather funny cartoons. Other than that it was a very uneventful flight home, I watched Toy Story 3, Buried and a bit of Monsters.

THE END... until next time.

An Englishman In New York... again: Part 2

Day 89 (Monday Dec 20th) 
"I do believe you almost collided with that vehicle"

As per usual I got up at midday and again I tried figuring out what was going on with the Pittsburgh posse. I wasn't sure when I'd be meeting them so I headed downtown and went for Korean food at a place that Suzy had found online. I actually had to wait ten minutes before I could be seated because it was that busy, I suppose it was lunchtime. I ordered something which I thought was vegetarian but the woman brought me a fish as a starter. I told her I was vegetarian and she exchanged the fish for some vegetable things. On the table was a bubbling bowl of tofu soup and lots of little bowls containing different vegetables and rice. For $10 it was a lot of food and I didn't manage to eat it all, I think the hangover had something to do with that too.

After a quick chat with a stranger in the queue for the toilet I headed to the New York Public Library. I'd been here before but I hadn't ventured inside, mainly because I simply didn't have the confidence to enter a building where my only reason was to take photos and videos of where Ghostbusters was filmed. I spent about an hour walking around the building, getting lost, getting found and taking photos in rooms that had signs saying "no photography allowed". When I came out of the library I was greeted by a homeless looking guy standing on the steps singing 'Time Of My Life'.

I walked up 5th Avenue and checked out Rockafeller Plaza, it was heaving because they now had the Christmas tree up. When I reached Central Park I got some photos of the bridge where the pigeon lady was in Home Alone 2. There was a bloke dressed as Big Bird wandering around the south end of the park and taking photos with people, then asking them for money. I got a text from Lacey saying they were on their way into Manhattan so I headed to Grand Central to meet up with them. There was a group of women in Grand Central singing Christmas songs with satirical lyrics, there was a guy trying to move them on but he was failing miserably. Lacey texted saying they were still quite far away so I headed back to the Plaza Hotel which was also used as a filming location in Home Alone 2. I decided to go inside, again something I didn't have the confidence to do the first time I was in New York. There were lots of people wandering around inside so I wasn't too worried about seeming out of place. I was hanging around near reception for about an hour and then I wandered down to the lower floors where they had some shops and some really nice restrooms. At one point I overheard a family asking one of the staff about Home Alone and he led them into another room to show them exactly where some of it was filmed.... I followed. Something I noticed at the hotel was an unusual amount of handshaking and tipping. Those porters must be making a fortune!

It was about 8pm when the Pittsburgh people arrived. They'd had quite a day chasing after Lacey's car which had seen them venture to Harlem and Jersey. It was all kind of sorted out except Lacey had to stay an extra day but my cousin was kind enough to agree to Lacey staying the night at their apartment. Lacey's friends needed to get home that night and Lacey actually had a friend on his way to New York to drive the guys home. After a quick visit to Times Square we headed to the Port Authority in the hope they might be able to get a free bus ticket, something they sometimes offer to stranded travellers. Unfortunately there was no way we could have got that sorted in such a short space of time so Lacey told her friend to keep driving. We went for food in a weird fast food place where the food was slow but the music was amazing. We had a few hours to kill so around midnight we headed south and had a walk around Wall Street, then we decided to do the Staten Island ferry round trip. We didn't get back to Manhattan until about 3am and we immediately got the subway back up to midtown to meet Lacey's friend. It was his first time driving in New York but he agreed to drive Lacey and I up to my cousin's place........ big mistake.

I tried to direct him but the one way system confused us a bit and some roadworks totally three us off and caused us to run a red light and almost get crashed into. A few seconds later we heard a police siren and we were pulled over. The cop said "You almost got f%ckin' ploughed!" and he wasn't happy with the fact there was one too many people in the car. He took a long time back at his car and then proceeded to give Lacey's friend a ticket for almost $200 for having too many people in the car. He let us off with running the red light otherwise it would have been a total fine of about $400.

We finally made it back to the apartment at about 4am and said our good byes. I was pretty hungry so we stopped at the 7/11 and I got some veggie tofu noodles. Once again I struggled to remember which apartment it was and when we finally got up there Lacey realised she'd lost her phone. We hoped she'd left it in the car and after eating we went to bed.

An Englishman In New York... again: Part 1

Day 87 (Saturday Dec 18th)  

"Mrs Claus has positively identified the kidnappers as Martians"

I got a couple of hours sleep and was woken by my alarm at 5.15am. Vanessa drove me to the airport and I got my flight at 7.30am. I had a four hour layover in Denver and other than having a cheap burrito I did absolutely nothing. I arrived at LaGuardia in New York at about 8pm and got a bus through Queens, across to Manhattan and got off at 125th St. where I got the subway down to 86th. I grabbed some food at Subway and then walked to Suzy and Mike's apartment. I'd planned on surprising them but I couldn't remember which one their apartment was so I called Mike who said they were actually at a restaurant around the corner. I walked there, they introduced me to some of the staff (including a pretty waitress called Sarah) and then bought me a beer. We were there for less than an hour catching up and then we went back to the apartment where I fell asleep watching the 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians' episode of MST3K.

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Day 88 (Sunday Dec 19th)
"The Bitchin'mobile made it all the way to Manhattan and then died"

I woke up around midday and spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out what was going on with Lacey. She was driving from Pittsburgh with a few friends to spend a couple of days in New York but I couldn't get a clear idea of where she was or when she was arriving. Eventually I got a call from her saying that her car had broken down and she needed rescuing. I went down to where they were parked to help them figure out what to do. I really wasn't much help because I've got no idea what to do when a car breaks down, let alone a car breaking down in Manhattan. They managed to find a company to tow the car to a repair shop but when the guy turned up things seemed generally odd. Once he'd taken the car he just said they'd call the next day. Lacey was very worried and thought she'd never seen her car again.

Everyone was hungry and I sort of remembered where there was a Chipotle so we spent half an hour finding that. I had my usual lovely veggie burrito but Lacey's friend Ally wasn't happy with the quality of the chicken... I've never eaten their meat so I'm taking no responsibility for suggesting Chipotle. Nobody was really in a good mood so we decided to find their hotel in Queens. We got to Queens with no problem but it turned out the station was about a half hour walk from the hotel. I stayed with them at the hotel for a little bit and then headed back to Manahattan before midnight.

I'd decided to pop my head into the Irish pub called Gael's that I'd been to three months previous and that if there was someone there I knew then I'd stay for one drink. It turned out Aiden, the bearded Scotsman, was working there now, he'd been working at the Scottish bar when I was last in New York but had been fired in strange circumstances a couple of days after I'd met him. We chatted for a while about what had happened three months, how all the other bar staff that I'd met were doing and we were also chatting with an NYC cop about various current affairs. Six pints of Belhaven IPA later and I stumbled back to the apartment but forgot how to use keys so I had to wake Mike up to help me. Sorry about that...

The Adventures of El Gringo & El Vandita

Day 85 (Thursday Dec 16th)
"I'm at an almost Mexican grill with an almost Mexican girl!"

I woke up feeling the worst I've ever felt on my trip, I blame the cinnamon whisky that was too easy to drink. Somehow I managed not to puke but I think I would have if I'd gone out to have breakfast with the other guys. I chose to stay behind and get a bit more sleep, Coop kept me company. When they returned, Vanessa and I went back to her place, she very wisely said we should both sleep for a bit. I got up at around 7.30pm and we were looking for somewhere to eat. I thought it would be very fitting for us to go to a Chipotle because Vanessa is a bit Mexican and it's one of my favourite food places. We ended up going to one in Vancouver, Washington because the website said it was the nearest one. It wasn't too far and it meant I got to visit another state. When we got back to Portland we watched Operation Endgame and I had some vanilla ice cream that it had taken me at least five minutes to decide upon when we were at the store. Before going to bed I realised that my laptop had actually died and wouldn't even boot up. Not good news but rather good timing.

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Day 86 (Friday Dec 17th)
"That's not harmonising!"

I had a cold and uncomfortable night's sleep but managed to get up by midday, today was supposed to be our day of doing stuff in or around Portland. We went to a house on a hill called Pittock Mansion, with a lovely view of Portland and Mt Hood. By English standards it was more just a big house but it was interesting walking around inside and seeing how it might have looked 100 years ago. My favourite part was the kitchen area where they had lots of pretend food laid out. I wanted to do a little bit of nature so we walked five minutes down a trail before we realised it was getting too dark and we needed to go see Jeff anyway. Jeff was having some problems with his electricity and was waiting for the electric man to call but we had time to pop out and have some Italian food at The Spaghetti Factory, I had veggie lasagne with some amazingly chewy bread which Jeff failed to cut. As usual in America we had a cool waitress, I think I have a thing for waitresses, they bring me food and they have to be nice to me. When we'd finished eating Jeff realised he had a couple of missed calls so we went back to the house just in time for the electric man. He said the whole electric box thing needed replacing and it would take him at least eight hours. While he was sorting out what parts he needed we went to Fred Meyer to play with scary singing children's toys. By this point I was absolutely knackered so when we got back to Jeff's we said our goodbyes and headed back to Vanessa's. We were tempted to watch 'Beavis & Butthead Do America' because we'd been talking about it earlier... but I sensibly decided that getting some sleep would probably be a better idea. Vanessa insisted that I sleep in her bed and she'd take the sofa so I could get some better rest than the previous night, I refused for at least two minutes... then set my alarm for 5.15am and lay my head down on her pillow.

Wheeler: Exhibit D (plus one night in Beaverton)

Day 83 (Tuesday Dec 14th)
"Thomas is a miserable bastard of a train."

I was awoken at 10am by the cats crawling on me so I'd assumed Martin had let them into my room as a "funny joke." It turned out that Martin and Natalie had no idea about it so the cats must have figured out how to open doors, it's like Jurassic Park! It was early so not much was going on and Martin had the Wii Fit out, he asked if I wanted to have a go on it and we discovered that I was 2lbs underweight. I played on the Fit games for at least an hour. Natalie was catching up with some work for most of the day so Martin and I played some Mario Kart and watched some Family Guy. For dinner I had the last of the potato soup because nobody could be bothered to cook. We then watched Married With Children and because I couldn't decide on a movie we ended up watching a Thomas The Tank Engine compilation, it was the old UK episodes narrated by George Carlin, very odd indeed. We finished my last night in Wheeler by watching Giuseppe's Rooney Never Says Die DVD. Natalie laughed the most at my 'making of my song' bit... I'm not sure if it was more a laugh of pity...

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Day 84 (Wednesday Dec 15th)
"Did you just fall out of the bathroom?" "...Yes."

Martin wanted to leave at 9am so we all got up around 8am. I discovered that Tony's laptop had finally died on me, it had various errors and took about ten minutes to load Firefox. We ended up leaving at about 10am and The Reeds managed to squeeze in an argument about Fred Meyer gas before we drove to Hillsboro. I slept about an hour of the way so I missed the snowy part of the journey. We dropped the car at the garage so they could fix "the rattle that's very annoying, it's a very annoying rattle" and went to Joanne Fabrics for a bit of boredom.

When the garage called Martin, we both went back to pick up the car and Martin was rather happy about the curing of the very annoying rattle. We collected Natalie, I had my second Starbucks experience and then we drove to Jeff's place in Beaverton. He showed us his cool robots built from photocopier parts and we met his cool little dog Coop. After about an hour Vanessa arrived and we went to Big Al's for some bowling, drinking and fooding. It was a pretty cool place, they had lots of areas for bowling and lots of massive TV screens showing Safety Dance when we arrived. I had a veggie burger and the waitress joked about putting extra bacon on my burger, I gave her an evil look. We had a couple of games of bowling and I think I might have won one of them while Martin and Natalie were both fighting for last place. On the second floor they had lots of arcade games and Martin managed to win 999 tickets on one game. The best I did was 225 on some sort of Tetris game and I gave most of my tickets to Jeff because I'm nice like that. I also gave some to Martin so he could get an iTunes gift card... for himself. We went back to Jeff's for some party games, broken fuse-boxes, heavy drinking, comedy Martins, sleepy Vanessas, and apparently Natalie was trying to touch me all night. Vanessa had claimed the sofa but she fell asleep in the chair... so I did the honourable thing and didn't let the sofa go to waste.