All over and back

So the New Years ended a while ago but I took the leisure of a month long vacay to go on a few weeks’ adventure. There were so many things I wanted to do and see that I didn’t get a chance to and so many things I’d never thought about doing but that actually turned out to be pretty crazy experiences. I’ll start with the least fun and work my way up from there...

Why did I ever visit Monkey Island…*sigh* I’ve never liked aminals and the feeling is definitely reciprocal. I’m terrified to death of monkeys, but so far the ones I’ve encountered have been pesky but still manageable. Monkey Island’s monkeys, however, were the meanest, most vicious, greediest, ugliest, and had the reddest most unabashed private parts showing I’ve ever seen of any monkeys. These monkeys had huge balls, both physically and mentally.

On the way to Monkey Island, thinking it's gonna be a nice lil' pitstop...MMM was I wrong

Looks innocent enough.

Greedy, evil, chip-hogging little minions of Satan

I had a feeling something was gonna go horribly wrong.

I stupidly attempted to feed a mommy and baby monkey that came by. You would think moms of most species would care for their child, but this greedy bastard hogged all of the chips leaving her baby jumping and grasping for food. I, being the kind person that I am, retarded reached over the mother monkey in an attempt to feed the baby too. And guess what the fuck happened? I got mauled, bitten, scratched, to’ up from the flo’ up by this mother monkey. I screamed, bleeding, thinking I now had AIDS or rabies or epilepsy. I even felt some foam come out of my mouth, but now looking back, it was probably just my drama queen of a nervous system. Thankfully, the park ranger said this happens every minute of the day and quickly patched me up with antiseptic. The wounds on my arms have started to scab over but I kinda hope I get a scar from it so I’ll have a really cool story to tell! :D :D

The moment when the red-faced devil leapt to feast on my delicious forearm (we were videotaping the whole thing, pretty priceless screenclip...)

Never mess with a momma and her baby.

My favorite part of the trip was motorbiking along the Hai Van pass, a dangerous but arguably the most scenic stretch of mountainous road in the country, overlooking deserted beaches and, at points, hovering above the clouds. Along the way, there were many memorials laid alongside the road to remind passerbyers of all the people who died journeying the pass.

Suddenly, death.

But at least you get to see this before you plummet to hell

No matter how many rice fields there are in Asia, they never cease to amaze me. It's the greenest of greens, almost like someone colored over the landscape with a bright green Crayola.

Along with the Pass, we rode the reputed “longest cable car in the world.” There’s another one in the country that claims the same title so one can never be too sure. Asians like superlatives, to say the least. Anyway, the ride up the hills of Ba Na was gorgeous.

The cable station near the top where we were let out onto a nice viewing point

They were building some sort of Cinderella castle at the top. I think the nice forests are fine the way they are but Asians love this kind of gaudy theme-parky shiz

Major cities we visited were Nha Trang, Da Nang, Hoi An, Hue, and Buon Ma Thout:

Nha Trang - laid back beach town

Marble Mountains in Da Nang city - I somehow never thought of marble as something you found in nature...I've always thought people made/mixed it or something...

Hoi An Old Town - it's old.

Very well preserved wooden houses

At night, people use mostly lanterns for light so the whole place gets lit up beautifully

Hue Imperial City - this is the Citadel that housed the king and all his bitches. I tried eavesdropping on the tour guides for a history lesson but it was all so boring I forgot.

Some sort of ritualistic high rise where they did sacrifices. Something like that.

Hue had awesome food but horrible weather and even worse accents. The hot springs (although it smelled like eggs from the sulfur) was the best part!

Buon Ma Thout - at this point in the trip I had dropped my camera battery down an elevator shaft so I had to resort to a shitty point and shoot *hic* Dunno when I'll get my shiz working again...

The region was home to many ethnic minorities. This pretty little girl is Ede...I think.

D'awwww!!!

Cham ruins at My Son

A much cooler experience than touristy Angkor Wat

A lady selling ostrich eggs...look at the size of that thing!!

Feeding fishies at the pagoda

Shit got crazy real quick! There were literally hundreds of them hopping all over one another to get fishy food 

Speaking of tons of yellow animals...have you ever seen hundreds of 2 day old baby chicks all huddled  together scurrying around in their pen? Death by cuteness!!!

Favoritest pic I've taken so far. Grandma just being grandma.

This morning we rode an elephant through a lake in a distant village. It was awesome.

Already halfway through my 10 months! T_T

Con Dao

Con Dao is a pretty small island with only a couple thousand people living on it. As of late, I’ve developed a healthy and flourishing hatred for tourists (yes, I know I’m really just a tourist too but stfu), so I try to avoid places with them as much as possible. On the island, we hardly saw any, so on that alone, I give Con Dao 3 thumbs up.

Even though it’s technically high season for tourism, everything on the island was super quiet. Wherever we went to eat, the shop owner would rush out from what looked to be a nice nap and smile eagerly, beckoning us to come in. It was as if we were the only people they had seen for days. Dinner was pretty lonely, as we were the only people sitting in large beachfront restaurants, staring out at the lights and the empty tables. How the hell do these people make money??

One of few places in this country with traffic this light

Somebody needs to be on this road doing a car commercial

The quietness basically commands you to relax. I haven’t read a book in years and have started to become quite illiterate, but being on Con Dao, even I had to pull out a book and enjoy some educational time (I consider book-reading education and not leisure). Other than that, there was plenty of hiking and swimming, but being that I'm not good at either, I didn’t spend too much time doing anything.

One of the hikes we did was up to the Soray Fruit Plantation. Misleading name, because it was neither a plantation nor were there fruits. Instead, there was just an abandoned old building and general creepiness. Nice view of the town though.

This was on the road and not actually in the "fruit plantation"

Tired and sweaty - I don't know why I agree to these hikes

The other trek we did took 4 hours up to a beautiful lagoon. I didn’t bring my camera unfortunately, but I did have a near death experience. On the way back, while climbing some god forsaken rocks, I lost my footing and plummeted down a ledge to what seemed to be my death. Thankfully, my bottom caught hold of a pocket between two boulders and I was pulled to safety. It was scary as all fuck but really I blame the cheap slippery Vietnam shoes I had on.