The Easy Riders

Today was an incredible day! So incredible that we have packed away those bus tickets I was telling you about yesterday and adopted ourselves some easy riders instead!

Loc and Tin Tin picked us up this morning from our hotel and biked us around not only Dalat but the surrounding area for the day. Mr Loc – my driver – is a wrinkled little shrimp of a man with an incredible smile that makes his eyes go all squinty and a laugh like a little kid. He is old, I dont know how old but old in a balding, wrinkled, arthritic kind of way. He is lovely though! Tin Tin is much younger (and much taller) than Loc and is charming and funny and thoughtful and really hard to listen to because his accent is half french and half vietnamese.. very confusing!!

The bikes were great! Not at all like the little 100cc bikes that everyone around here drives but ACTUAL bikes! Its amazing how much safer I felt on a bike with a proper sized seat! The helmet also helped (although I look ridiculous it eases my mind no end!) Both Loc and Tin Tin were excellent drivers, taking it slow and being really careful (very unusual to see here!) I felt really safe – which I wasnt expecting!

Our first stop for the day was the ‘Crazy House’ right here in Dalat. The building is 15 years old and was designed by the presidents daughter, who is an architect.. it is just an incredible place! Like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz rolled into one. The place isnt finished yet but we are certainly coming back to see it when it is done. Each room is designed differently, some small and cave-like, others huge and spacious. the walls have been built up with concrete in all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes and designs and there are crazy staircases all over the place leading to different levels and different rooms. Each room is themed.. in one there is a giant Kangaroo (looking kind of evil with red lightglobes for eyes)! The windows are all crazy shapes and there are strangely hidden fireplaces in each room. Its so difficult to describe but we took heaps of photos so maybe you will get the idea. We walked around for about an hour but we didnt see it all.. there was so many details we didnt notice on the first or second look! Each of the rooms has a bed (with stategically placed mirrors which was a bit odd) and can be rented out for a night if you want to stay which we will do next time I think. The place was great.. so much fun!

Our next stop was to visit the ‘Crazy Monk’ (no relation to crazy house!) who is a bit of a local celebrity. He looks after one of the pagodas here (he is the only monk in residence) and has a reputation for being a bit loopy. He paints pictures and sells them to tourists who come and visit him. He is currently saving for a world tour and plans on visiting all the people who buy his paintings! According to the lonely planet he has painted more than 100000 individual paintings and has them hanging all over the temple! We were looking forward to meeting him and were wanting to buy one of his works so that we could become part of his world tour but when we arrived he lived up to his ‘crazy monk’ status. The temple was all closed up, all the wooden doors closed and locked.. which is unusual.. we wandered around outside making a lot of noise hoping to get someones attention. The crazy monk finally came out (or poked his head out at least) and said that he was too busy and we should come back later!!! Some Monk! We suspect that the crazy monk may have been having a little fun with a lady friend inside.. when he answered the door he was wearing a long coat.. flasher style! We went back out to our drivers who laughed about how strange the crazy monk was (the easy riders have a bit of reputation for not liking the crazy monk.. who they call the business monk because he makes so much money selling all his paintings and isnt really much of a monk at all)

After our not so successful crazy monk visit we left the town area and headed out the country.. we stopped by the side of the road at one point and chatted (or at least loc and tin tin did) to some workers there, they showed us how they cut the granite rocks off the boulders on the mountains and then chisel them all down to the same size to sell for making bridges and stuff.. such hard work! no machinery at all just a chisel, a hammer and a crowbar. When I exclaimed how much work it was he looked a little confused and asked how we make granite at home. I said I didnt know but I suspected we probably bought it from Vietnam.. he thought that was great!

We visited a whole bunch of private farms owned by friends of the guys. A silk worm farm, a coffee plantation, a rice wine distillery in some old mans basement, a bamboo weaving family, a mushroom farm, and the silk factory where they remove the silk from the cocoons and weave scarves (factory isnt quite the right word.. more like a rusty bunch of noisy machines and a lot of hard working girls).

For lunch they took us to a little vietnamese restaurant run by a friend of theirs where there was no english on the menu (in fact there was no menu!) and we sat on plastic chairs around a plastic table. They ordered a meal for us that can only be described as a feast! Delicious fresh vegetables from the area, salted fried fish, pork, a chicken dish, a tofu dish, curried prawns and a massive bowl of soup (all with rice of course).. it was – BY FAR – the best meal we have eaten since we left home.. absolutely delicious.. its incredible the difference in the food when you have locals ordering for you! We ate and ate and chatted and ate and chatted and then finished the meal with some green tea and a cigarette (which we ashed on the floor!! It is the vietnamese way according to Tin Tin.. I felt so bad!!)

After lunch we visited the biggest waterfall I have EVER seen. It was spectacular! Its called the Elephant waterfall because there are massive volcanic rocks at the base of the waterfall which – from above – look like a family of elephants. We made ourway down to the base of the waterfall, scrambling over hundreds of massive rocks.. it was hard work but well worth it.. the view was incredible! Getting up was hard work though, I am in such bad shape! It is pitiful!

The guys have a book (well two actually) that I think I told you about yesterday where people write about how much fun they had with them.. there were heaps of entries about the trip from Dalat to Hoi An which takes five days.. we read through the entries and quickly decided that spending New Years with these guys in a village somewhere would be SO MUCH better than spending it with a bunch of westerners at Nha Trang and we agreed to do it that way instead. With our bus ticket we go from Dalat to Nha Trang (4 hours) then from Nha Trang to Hoi An (12 hours!!!) the whole trip is along the national highway and they stop once every three hours for a meal break but we dont get to SEE anything. Loc and Tin Tin are going to take us through the guts of the country and the trip will take 5 days in all. We are skipping Nha Trang entirely and we will just pick up the rest of our bus ticket once we are in Hoi An.. it is going to cost (much) more this way but both Luke and I are incredibly excited about it. Both the guys are excellent, I was actually really sad to say goodbye to them this afternoon, even though we are seeing them again tomorrow morning! And from the sounds of it we are going to be seeing some really incredible places!

Anyway, we signed a contract with them today (over vietnamese coffee and green tea in a cafe this afternoon) and we take off tomorrow morning at 8:30.. not sure if we will be anywhere near Internet while we are gone so dont panic if you dont hear from us.. if there is internet though I will jump on quickly each day just to let you (mum) know that we are ok!!!

I am so excited!!! well that is enough for today! Check out our photos!!

xx

Saigon to Mui Ne Beach to Dalat

Well we are in Dalat.

Our Christmas lunch was spectacular, although we were a little unsteady on our feet after countless vodkas with lunch! Our afternoon was spent dozing in our room then for dinner we ordered pizza home delivery from a place called pepperonis because we were too lazy to leave our room. What an experience it was trying to order! The first girl I spoke with got frustrated and hung up and the second time I called I had to speak with two different people and repeat my order 13 times before the call was done.. to their credit though they got the order completely right which is more than I can say for delivery people in Australia most of the time!

On boxing day we got up super early to catch our bus to Mui Ne Beach. Our bus left at 7:45 and we arrived in Mui Ne at around 12:30. The bus dropped us off in front of a hotel and took off pretty quickly and because Mui Ne is so underdeveloped it was going to be a huge hassle to try and find another place to stay so we agreed to stay in a not very nice too expensive room (it was only $9 but we have stayed in better places for a lot less). Mui Ne Beach has no town centre as such.. basically the town runs along the beachfront so we were pretty limited in what we were able to do unless we wanted to walk the ten kilometres from one end to the other.

We found ourselves some lunch and spent half an hour trying to talk to the hotel staff about booking a tour for the next day. We managed to get ourselves booked in but it turned out the next day that they had booked us into the WRONG one! We woke up before the sun came up to jump aboard our jeep. It was painful getting up so early but the sunset was absolutely breathtaking so it was worth it. The tour that we had booked went for 5 hours, included breakfast and lunch and took us to all the natural sights around Mui Ne.. the tour we got booked on cost the same amount of money (which was strange) didnt include breakfast OR lunch, went only for 2 hours and didnt take us to half as many places (dodgy dodgy). We got to see the amazing sand dunes and the red rock cliffs and we visited the fishing village but then our driver tried to drop us back at the hotel. We were doing the tour with a french girl who had booked the same tour as us but at a different place but somehow we all ended up on the wrong one (seems like a bit of a scam to me) SO we attempted to find out what was going on. The hotel refused to accept any responsibility and got really angry at us for questioning them, our driver took us back to the tour company who also refused to accept any responsibility and wouldnt refund our money or take us on the rest of the tour. They did however agree to give us breakfast (but they had no eggs and no peanut butter lol)..

So by 8:30 am we had seen a sunrise, climbed the sand dunes, fought off some children, visited cliffs AND a fishing village, gotten into two arguements and eaten a ‘free’ breakfast.. when we got back to our hotel we were exhausted and we went to sleep! I think if it had just been luke and I we would have just given up after the first arguement but the french girl was looking for blood! she really wanted a fight and she wouldnt let us give up! so funny!

Anyway, the people at our hotel were really rude to us after that so we decided not to stay any longer. We had wanted to stay in Mui Ne for new years but after being there (even without the tour debarcle) we decided it wasnt really the place.. a great place to relax on the beach but it is mainly a fisherman town and for new years we are looking for something crazy! There are not going to be many times that we get to spend new years in Vietnam and we want to have some fun!

SO, when we were in Saigon we bought an open bus ticket. Basically you choose your stops and then you can move between the towns whenever you like (as long as you book a day in advance) We have a ticket for saigon – mui ne beach – dalat – nha trang – halong – hue – hanoi (all for $22).. so we booked the next leg of our journey.. mui ne to dalat.. for this morning.

We got up early again. The bus was supposed to arrive at 7 but didnt get there until 8..apparently thai time works here as well! the first leg of the trip was on a minibus then about half way we stopped and changed into a coach for the rest of the trip. Now we are in Dalat (the flower town apparently) its really cold which is a strange feeling for us! We dont know if we will stay here for new years or move onto Nha Trang (the party town!) we will just have to wait and see.

On our way to this internet place today we were stopped by two members of the ‘easy rider’ group. We have heard so much about these guys, lonely planet absolutely raves about them and other travellers have been talking about them as well. Basically they are a group of guys who work as tour guides around the city.. they are famous for taking you off the beaten track and showing you crazy things around town that you would never see without them.. these guys have got cult status on the ‘travel circuit’. The problem is that I am terrified of motorbikes! We chatted with them and they pulled out their notebooks, filled with rave reviews from people they have shown around. Reviews all the way back to 1989!! We talked with them for a while and told them about the places we were interested in seeing and they mapped out a special itinerary for us. We ummed and ahhed but when we first got to Dalat we had a look at some of the group tours available and each of them involves a 2.3km trip in a cable car which luke has flat out refused to do (scaredy cat!) so after talking with the easy rider guys (loc and tintin) we agreed to let them take us around (sorry mum!! if its any consolation these guys have helmets for us and there will only be one of us per bike!) It does however mean another early morning! we meet them at 8am.. and I was so looking forward to a sleepin!!!

Oh well.. thats it for now! Not a very interesting post.. but its been a while since I updated so I thought I should write something!!!

I will write again soon to let you all know that we survived our easy rider trip!!

xx

Gucci Glasses and a Rolex Watch

We are still in Saigon. We were planning on heading North after a couple of days but the comfort of a hot shower and a tv in our room has kept us here longer than planned. We have been eating pizza, drinking cappucinos and channel surfing for days.. what a novelty!

We did an organised tour of the city a couple of days ago which consisted of a visit to the ‘War Remnants Museum’ and the Unification Palace.. stupid us. After our experience in Phnom Penh we should have known to stay away! It was pretty tough, the photographs were much more graphic than the ones at S21 and taken by ‘photojournalists’. One in particular was pretty horrifying.. it was of an american soldier holding the remains of a vietnamese man. Remains is a good word because he wasnt all there. The soldier was holding the man by his hair, there was a head, and arm and skin trailing on the ground behind him. The soldier was smiling for the camera, holding the man like he’d won a trophy. Very disturbing. In another photo there were four soldiers squatting in a semicircle around the heads of three vietnamese men, their headless bodies lay in the background of the picture and each of the soldiers had one of their hands resting on the heads of the men – like hunters posing with their kill – again all four men were smiling for the camera.

There were countless photos like this, and stories of men killing women and children. There was even a story about a US Senator who had come to visit the troops and had hunted down a bunch of kids hiding in a sewer and killed all but one of them. There were also photos of people melted by Napalm, features clumped together like chewed gum. Children black and patchy, women scarred even 3 decades later. And then the deformities of the next generation. A man with an extra arm, one without legs and another with legs that didnt work, his upper body strong and muscled and his legs nothing but skin and bone.

We didn’t see it all, I moved onto the childrens paintings, rainbows and flowers, the peace paintings, then we sat outside in the shade and waited for everyone else to be done. I feel guilty. About not wanting to look, I just want to hide from it all, I have had enough of war and it seems so unfair that I should walk away and close my eyes to it when so many people had to see it and live it. And its hard to be so angry and not know who to be angry with. Surely not all the men sent out here did such horrible things? Surely not everyone enjoyed slaughtering people, when we ‘pay our respects’ to our soldiers are we respecting men who gave their lives for us or those who took the lives of others so horribly? Men who came against their will, or those who wanted to be involved?

I’m so angry and so sickened, and I want to believe so much that the world has changed but when I truly think about it, I dont think it has. We do, once again, have our troops in another country killing for something that has nothing to do with us…

The war remnants museum and the unification palace (where we watched a video in which a man was executed) were the first stops in our tour and the rest of the day wasnt so gruesome. We visited some temples and some markets, we visited china town, but its hard to be excited about these things with those images in your head.

The next day we did some shopping Luke bought himself a *Rolex* watch (for only $27 – what a bargain!) and I got my eyes retested.. something that should have been done a long time ago! My right eye is in much worse shape than the other so I am lopsided now with one lense thicker than the other. My glasses are Gucci apparently (aren’t we trendy?!?) and I am still getting used to them. I feel a little seasick most of the time but its getting better.

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Mekong Delta. It wasnt the best day for it, it was raining on and off most of the day but it was still alot of fun. We went to Can Tho by bus and caught a boat for our cruise of the Mekong. We visited four different islands, went to a coconut candy factory (although factory isn’t really the right word, it was really just a wooden hut with four women making candy) where we tasted (and bought) some delicious treats, we tasted banana, honey and rice wine (all of which tasted foul and ranged from 20% – 40% alcohol) the rest of our group got photos taken with a python.. but we had already done this in Thailand and besides our snake was much bigger!!! We watched some old men playing traditional music with some great instruments and listened to some beautiful Vietnamese girls sing traditional songs (although their rendition of ‘if your happy and you know it’ in Vietnamese kind of ruined the traditional feeling). We boated through little canals in a row boat wearing plastic raincoats and pointy hats and we tasted all kinds of weird and wonderful traditional fruits (none of which I liked!). We ate fresh honey from tiny little bees and drank honey and lemon tea (which reminded me of my mum!). All in all it was a nice day, nothing too strenuous which was good.

We were planning on going to the Chu Chi Tunnels but have decided to give it a miss – no more war related visits for us! At 2pm today we are meeting Mr Nga, an old cyclo driver, who is going to take us around town this afternoon. He is a lovely (and persistent) man so that should be fun. Tomorrow we visit the water park (lets hope it doesnt rain) and for Christmas we have booked a table at a restaurant near our guesthouse that is serving roast turkey (among other things) for lunch.

We are buying an open bus ticket for the rest of our journey that will take us North through various towns. We are planning on leaving Boxing day for Mui Ne Beach for a week of sand sledding on the sand dunes and maybe some windsurfing.. Hopefully we will be able to find a nice little (or not so little) beach party to celebrate New Years Eve..

Have to run.. our cyclo driver will be waiting!

xx

Good Morning Vietnam

Well, I don’t have much to report. We are alive and well in Vietnam. The trip here wasnt too painful. The usual walking and queues involved with an overland border crossing but nothing too strenuous. We changed buses at the border and caught a boat over the Mekhong in Cambodia but all in all quite a stress free trip.

So far Vietnam is great. We have a room right in the heart of backpackerville so there is lots to do and see. We have some plans for tours over the next couple of days. A Mekhong Delta day trip and a tour of the city.. possibly the Chi Chi tunnels and a visit to one of the local water parks for a day of slipping and sliding. Today though we are just getting used to a new country.

So far the kid/begger situation is looking good. Much better than Cambodia anyway. We have had a couple of offers for kids to shine our shoes but since we are wearing sandals we get out of that one pretty easily!

Merry Almost Christmas to Luke’s family who are celebrating Christmas today instead of the 25th!!!

Will update again soon!

PS: there are more cambodia pictures online!

Snorkelling, Seafood and Cambodian Transvestites

We have spent much longer in Sihanoukville than we had planned.. we will have been here ten nights after tonight!!! I can hardly believe it. I am figuring that the first four days don’t count though since we were rained out…

The weather cleared up for our snorkelling trip which was great. It was a perfect day. We got picked up from our guesthouse at 8am by a man on a motorbike.. just one man, just one bike.. The trip was only a block and a half so we could have walked it but it seemed a little rude to tell the man to leave so we climbed on the bike. Me in the middle and Luke on the back.. It actually wasnt as uncomfortable as it looks which was handy but even so I was glad when we got off.. My uncovered knees were terrified of falling off and getting all scraped.

We had breakfast at the travel agent/guesthouse/restaurant and then wandered down to the beach to climb aboard our boat. There were 11 other tourists on the cruise, four Cambodian men to be our guides/captains/cooks and three Cambodian children.. all boys. We boated for about an hour before docking beside a small island for our first snorkelling stop. I was expecting to pull up on the beach and go out from there but instead we just had to jump off the boat with our gear and swim around. I decided not to go (such a party pooper) but Luke went in for a little while, he wasn’t very impressed though which made me feel better about not getting in.

We had planned to stay there for an hour but everyone was back in the boat after 15 minutes so we continued on our way. It was another hour before our next stop, I was sitting at the front of the boat in the sun with a small cambodian child on either side leaning up against me.. I am surprised that I dont have kid shaped tan lines. The didnt speak english so they didnt talk to me they just lay there using me as a pillow as they chattered away to each other. Luke spent the hour talking to one of the guides but mostly the man wanted to talk about how bad he thought his english was. Luke said many times that it was good and he could understand but I am not so sure!!!

At the next island we docked up on the beach. The island consisted of a restaurant and about five thatch bungalows. We all pulled up lounge chairs and spent the next four hours lounging around in the shade and swimming in the sea. It was lovely and relaxing. I hadnt quite realised how exhausting the kids at the beach are until I spent an afternoon relaxing without them! We had some lunch (bbq barramundi on fresh french rolls) and Luke played volleyball while I chatted with some girls about our travels so far.

At about three we all climbed back on the boat and headed off to our next island but by now we were all pretty sleepy from lying around in the sun and eating too much and we all just sat around dozing. Neither Luke or I got out this time for the snorkelling and the guys who did were pretty disappointed with the ‘coral’. We got back to Sihanoukville around 4:30 and made our way to a cafe for some post tour drinks with the girls we had met on the island Sinead and … oh I forget the other girls name!!! damn!!! We sat with them for a couple of hours and had a couple of drinks and chatted until they had to leave to meet some people. Luke and I found ourselves a restaurant with chairs on the sand and we ordered a BBQ seafood plate each. It was DELICIOUS but by the end of our meal we had a cat, four children and an amputee begging for food. The cat was first in line and had gotten quite a bit from me before the kids arrived (which I felt kind of bad about lol) for the kids I divided up my remaining fish into four not so equal parts (there was one kid who was so skinny you could see each knob in his spine so he got more) then, by the time the amputee arrived we only had salad left so he got that. We bought two bottles of water when we left, one to give to the kids and one to take home but in the confusion we forgot our bottle. Hopefully someone got use out of it!

The next day we went to the other side of the beach than where we have been hanging out, hoping to get away from the kids who know us well (I figured it would be easier to say no if the kids didnt know us) in the end it wasnt easier and we bought, two bags of fruit, a fruit shake one bracelet, a leg hair removal torture thing and a one dollar lobster from an older lady with a gold tooth and a great smile. (this is much better than average!) We were doing ok and quite enjoying sitting on the beach until one of the kids who knows us came and saw that I was getting my leg hair removal torture thing from someone else. Well, that didnt go down well at all (incidently I had told her she could do it) I told her that I had tried to find her (that was a lie) and when I couldnt I let this lady do it. She was pretty upset and when I wouldnt by anything else from her she got really mean!!!! Eventually she left but she must have gone back to her end of the beach and snitched on us to the other kids because before long hayley and one of the other girls came up (hayley was crying) and told me off for buying things from the other kids when I said I would buy fruit from them. AAAAHHHHHHHHH

I felt really bad about it all and tried to make amends by feeding all the kids in sight with mangoes bought from a smiley lady who carried them on her head.. but (of course) once we got started on feeding everyone kids started coming from all over the place and we couldnt afford to feed EVERYONE so then we were in the bad books again!!!! In total since we arrived we have bought nine bracelets, two necklaces, eight cotton shrimp, two fruit shakes, two bags of fruit, one painful leg hair removal, two sarongs and nine mangoes.. (not to mention various food items we have handed over to the kids while we are eating) and STILL they are not happy… I GIVE UP!!!

We traded our kids for two Cambodian transvestites who were still trying to get us to buy things but who were much more fun and didnt cry when we said no.. all they wanted was for us to say they were pretty and go dancing with them.. besides, they called me sexy girl which always makes me happy! We were supposed to meet up with them later in the night to go clubbing with them but after our day at the beach I was emotionally exhausted and couldnt face the world so we stood them up (see? we really ARE horrible people!)

Since that day we havent been to the beach until well after sunset when all the kids are in bed. I just can’t face it anymore!! But once the sun goes down we usually sneak out for some cocktails and seafood feasts before sneaking back along the beach to come home.. its really quite ridiculous!

Tomorrow we are heading back to Phnom Penh for a couple of days then onto Saigon! Before Saigon though I am going to practise my saying no technique in the mirror, apparently it isnt working very well and it needs some work!!!

Well still no end to the rain in sight.. or the overcast weather anyway..

Not to worry, we are having fun anyway, drinking $2 cocktails at the restaurants along the beach and eating all sorts of delicious things.. though funnily enough, not much seafood.. we might have to rectify that tonight.

Tomorrow we are heading out on a boat cruise to the islands where we will do some snorkelling.. I am looking forward to it.. lets just hope there are sunny skies!

Sihanoukville

We caught the bus from Phnom Penh yesterday. It was a nice bus trip, only 4 hours and the road was lovely.. especially compared to the road from Poipet!

When we arrived at the bus station we were astonished to realise that the only transportation available was by motorbike.. not a tuk tuk in sight, not at the bus station and not on the roads. We have done our best so far not to ride any bikes.. they scare the hell out of me for one and we have met SOOOO many people who have had accidents. It was murphys law though.. just two days before I had said to Luke how well we had done not to have to get on one!

We stood around for a while trying to think of ways NOT to get on the bike but in the end we had to admit defeat and climb on. Our driver promised to go slowly (in fact he said that if he didnt go slowly enough I didnt have to pay him!) we climbed on the back of the bike (a bike each.. not like the locals who somehow manage to fit four or five people on one bike!) with our luggage up the front between the drivers knees and off we went! The road was wet (eek) and potholed (this isnt surprising) and of course we had no helmets (sorry mums) it was scary even though we were going so slowly but in the end we arrived at our guesthouse in one piece. Luckily we are right near the beach and loads of restaurants so we won’t need to do that again until the bus trip out of here.

We are staying at the New Christmas Bungalows, which is about a five minute walk from the beach (although it hasnt stopped raining since we arrived!) We took a walk down to the beach to find something for dinner and we were immediately surrounded by kids (again). We ended up agreeing to let them make some bracelets for us, four in all with our names on them (and one for melissa and lisa). I thought they would probably do them overnight and bring them to us the next day but instead they spent the night sitting on the floor behind our restaurant table (or crowding around it) making them for us.

We promised to by some cotton shimp from them the next day (8 in all – they made me pinky promise!) and this morning when we arrived on the beach all of them came running at us from different directions to make sure we kept our promise. Of the eight from the day before only 6 were around but there were probably another 10 kids as well trying to get us to buy fruit or massages or leg waxes. We bought the shrimp that we had promised to buy (what on earth are we going to do with eight cotton shrimp????) and spent the next two hours fighting off kids from all directions.. it was a lot of fun though and the guy who owns the restaurant where we had lunch was a great sport about it. I think most restaurant owners would have kicked them out into the rain but after asking us if we were ok (we were) then he was happy to let them stay.

Three kids in particular were really great, Hayley who is about 14 and incredibly smart (her english is almost perfect) and Chean and Pia two younger boys both of which made the bracelets for us yesterday. They were wrestling with Luke for ages trying to throw him into the ocean! We have promised hayley that we will only buy fruit from her, and Pia and Chean have made us agree that if we want necklaces we have to see them. In fact every section of the business has been claimed by one kid or another!

In other news I am feeling better about the whole S21 thing. I slept with the lights on for two nights (god that’s embarrassing) but last night I had them off (I didnt want to but I figured I would have to eventually) I read the first book of the two we bought and am halfway through the second. They are very sad and niether of the authors are able to explain why it all happened so I still have a lot of questions.. but I guess everyone except those responsible do.

I can’t help looking at the people older than me and wondering what their stories are. I wish I could talk to people about it but I am not sure if it’s the polite thing to do. Why would you want to relive it if you didnt have to? I guess I will have to make do with reading more books.

Well no more news for now.. let hope the weather clears up so we can get some sunshine while we are at the beach! (and lets hope our willpower gets better and we are able to say no to the kids! They are costing us a fortune!)

***DISCLAIMER: The following post may be offensive to some readers. Reader discretion (or parental) is advised!!!***