Here is more of the sand Dune. It is like I was in the middle of the Sahara. Where you see the two people sitting in the background I slid down on a slide. Who says you need snow to go sliding.


Behind me is the longest over-sea cable car in the world, it's highest point is more then 60m above the sea. What a handstand though really. The yoga has perfected my balance.

How many times have i asked where I should being? what should I say this time? How about, there is no need to ever ask where to begin for everything has already started. Even in my typing things are passing by. We think nothing changes as we go, or is it that we think everything changes as we go. I have come to the conclusion that there is and never again be a time for me to ask 'where shall I begin?'.
This blog, although I am no writer, makes me feel as though I have created some sort of a following, not me, but my travels, and now I am at a loss for what to say. I have sold a bestseller and now I need a follow up.

I went diving in nah trang which was amazing, nothing compared to Indonesia but still amazing. I met two Irish guys, which i dove with and we all agreed that we best celebrate st.patty's the right way and head to the only Irish pub in town. You can all guess how that went, well! you thought I was going to say "in a debaucherous rage of drunken stupors." Well, who do you think I am, of course it ended with that and that is what i meant by it went 'well'. I can drink all I want when I get home and the point of this trip is to control myself which has been so easy that every once and a while you've got to let go. But we cannot keep talking about drink. I did it in my last post and I will not do it here. I have been more sober and am in some of the best shape of my life, but not without the help of the people that have kept me going throughout the time in which this journey has not been so easy.
An early tribute: Thanks Tuna, Lou, Mom, Dad, Art, Simon, and Stacey...I am sure there are more but I cannot become so sentimental so early. I have so far left to go. Three more countries and an endless amount of adventures. Phil keep the words flowing, Alex, get that email to me.

I hit an amusement park today, that is right, i punched right in the mouth, it is also a aquarium and a water park. I went on the craziest water slide of my life.

More of me after a drink of two at the amusement park in Nah Trang.


This is the market which I took a boat tour on. The Mekong delta hits the ocean in 9 different places in the south of Vietnam. It is known as the river of Nine dragons.


This is where I went diving. Just off the coast of Vietnam. What a beautiful coast line.

Vietnam is different than anything I have seen before. It is so easy to travel around this country, it is shocking. I bought an open ended bus ticket and It takes me to 7 cities. From here there are tours that lead to all the sites surrounding these areas. How about I just show you some pictures. Camera is dying.

Here is the amusment park, I am upside down. Smooth.

Entering the aquarium, where the amusement park and water park are.




Me and my slide, sand dune rides, whoooo! Ayoooooo!

Where to begin. Where would you begin? Where it is I am? What was it I was after? I'll figure it all out soon. I must admit that in order to write these blog posts, which are becoming less frequent, I tend to drink a few brews beforehand. Nothing wrong with that . Today, It happens to be a bottle of wine and a few beer to keep me going throughout the task. But there is something special to be noted here, the wine that I drank was from De Lat, the mountain city which I am presently residing. Only for a few days though and then off to the sandy beaches of Nah Thrang to dive the wodnerful coral that exist there. It is Vietnam's prime dive spot. Although I am new to this diveing thing I have no doubt that it will stick with me but you don't want to hear about that you want to hear about the the bigger picture.
Big pictures are good but the nitty gritty is where all the, well, nitty gritty is at and we all know that is the good stuff.
I arrived in Vietnam 7 days ago after a 42 hour bus ride through Indonesia. To be honest the bus ride was fine, long but really not at all that bad. What made it longer than it's supposed 36 hours was that 4 hours in the steering went and they dropped us at a restaurant and just left. It took a few hours of me drinking beers by the side of the road to ask our fellow bus mates what the heck was going on. We all turned out to be great friends, things happen this way if you are to spend two days on a bus with people. I would post picture of this but my memory card from Indonesia is a bit bugged, I have recently bought a new one and am sharing with you a few great images that I have captured since arriving in Vietnam. That may have been a long long run on sentence, but if I may, I blame the wine.

So I hit Vietnam after a 42 hour bus ride and a massive hangover. To be honest when I say hangover I really just mean I am a bit dehydrated because it is 35 degrees even at night and the humidity is enough to drown cats' in my sweat. For the record I would never drownd a cat but being unsure of all the random meats I eat I may have eaten one. We will save the random meats for another time because I could easily be a vegitarian.

Many people come to Vitenam to party which is different from where I have been prior to this. Where I was before did not have bars or parties, but that is no problem to me, it just makes me a bit, well, hungover during my outings.
Another thing I must point out here is that I have been travelling for 5 months, well maybe 4 and a bit but who is counting? Are you? why would you? Do you miss me? I didn't think so. POint being is that I don't need to DO somthing everyday. Sometimes it is enough to just get a tea and sit and read a do nothing.

SO back to the main point whatever that is. I arrived a week ago in Saigon. I visited the war museum which was more than intense. What went on here 30 years ago is unbelievable, really it is. So much destruction and things that are so fucked up I cannot even begin to put them into words. Excuse my language there but really it is messed up.
From there I went to tunnels built by the Viet Cong in order to fight the war against the so called liberators. I won't go into this, I do not know enough about the history to make any kind of statment. I did though take advantage of the possibility to shoot an m-16. It was fun.


The tunnels were built and lived in for months and the were barely big enough for me to fit even after being inlarged for tourists. I cannot begin to imagine living in the for long periods. The trap set up by the Viet Cong were too much as well. Such grusome death must have taken place. I am sorry for anyone on either side to have gone through it. Here is a picture of me trying to fit into one of the tunnels, the traps set and the mounds in which they disguised the breathing holes in order to have air underground.



I left Saigon to do a mekong tour. Everything in Vietnam is a tour. You pay in American money and you do a planned visit. This is very different from what I am used to.
The mekong is a river running from China down to Loas and Cambodia and Thailand, it also passes through Vietnam which is where it hits the sea. I visited a river market, the biggest one in the south of Vietnam, intense. Sarah had her Ipod stolen the night before and so we started drinking at 7:30 a.m. to sooth our minds
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From there I hit up Mui Ne, a coastal town famous for it's fish sause. Honestly it smelt like cat food but what the hell. The beach was lovely and they had massive sad dunes which I visited and rented a slide in order to go sliding down the dunes. The piture on top is me at the dunes.
This is the town of Mui Ne. A fishing town if the comment about being famous for fish sause did not give that away. I met this great kid where we were staying and he and I become bud for the time I was there, soooooo cute.



I am runing out of will to write but I hope you enjoy the post . I am sorry again that it has taken me so long to pound this out, But I am happy and healthy, living and loving. Diving on the beach of Nah thrang is next and I am more than excited. I am hiking up a volcano tomorrow but no tour so I will most probably get lost but still have a great time. the possibility to see wild horses and elephants is big, I am excited.

Here we go again, it is a hell of a ride so buckle up. I am in Pedang, south Sumatra, overlooking yet another part of the Indian Ocean. The palm trees sway in the breeze, the water crashes down (surfing is big here), and the people smile like there is no tomorrow. In September of 2009, only a few months ago, Padang was hit my a massive earthquake. Any building over three stories was brought to mere pebbles, as well as many smaller less sturdy homes. The devastation is still very present. Arriving late last night I could see toppled buildings everywhere. This morning walking around was just a reaffirmation of what I saw last night. The walk to the Internet cafe was a humbling experience to say the least. It is hard for me to put into words what I see. My camera is not working very well so I cannot even give you an image to link with the few words I've written. You can imagine though, a city of just under a million people and many surrounding areas being hit by one disaster after another yet their spirits remains high and strong. It is something that will stick with me, the strength and endurance of people in this world makes my life in Canada or any struggle surrounding my life seem like a trivial bump in a still, very sturdy road. Even now as we speak there is flooding in Jakarta, the island of Java where I am heading tomorrow to get my flight to Vietnam.

I spent the few days before this in Lake Manujau, another massive crater lake surrounded by mountains, cliffs, and dense forest known as jungle. Before that I was in Bukit Tinggie, I am not sure how to spell the names of some of the towns which seems silly but the letters do not make much sense when put in order so I'll spell them phonetically, and well, at least I can pronounce them. Bukit tinggie has a huge canyon which I spent a day walking around in. It was beautiful. I took a bus from there to Manujau where I stayed in nice treehouse style bungaloo for five days. It was the worst to get in and out of but had a great view of the lake. I rented a motor bike to get around the lake. This area about 150 Km away from Padang was hit by the same earthquake and the opposit side of the lake from which I was staying had fallen rock all over the road. Roads had been destroyed, houses collapsed and so on. It it hard to write 'and so on' when refering to such disater.
The trip on the motorbike turned out to be a 8 hour journey. There are not ATM's in Manujau and we were all out cash. The closest town was only one hour away but the ATM was out of order so we had to keep on keeping on. WTF! It is as if we were in lennoxville, ran out of money and had to drive to Montreal on a motorbike to get to an ATM. Did I mention it was 30 degress outside and we had not planned on such a journey in the blistering sun. Yeah, my arms and face were a glowing bright red when we finally arrived back. Builds character my mom would say, thanks mom. Tell that to my peeling nose. No harm done though and we did get to see an extensive amount of the countryside.

Indonesia is home of the clove cigarette and the guitar. It is their national pastime. Combine the two and that is what you see everywhere. They are a people of great hospitality and courage. Definitly a great choice on my journey and a great place to visit. If you are 11 years old and cannot drive a mottor biker a top speed, passing cars and avoiding clusless tourist you would be fit to grow up here. They do it well.
We leave Pedang tomorow in order to make the flight on the 7th of March. Why leave tomorrow it is only the 4th? Well the bus we are taking is 36 hours and the flooding in the area will not help so off we go for a two day one night bus. Did I mention my ipod does not work. It will be fun, more character building, hell, at this rate I'll be quite a character by the time a arrive home.

Bora- I crave your comments.

Keep reading, I'll try to post more often, the internet is more shoty here and the days are filled with much adventure but I am thinking of the readers. Fcaebook is also not allowed in Vietnam so email me if you need to.