I choose you! lazy fucker!

So let me tell you about this place called Kuala Lumpur (the cool kids are callin it KL). It's by far the most western city I've seen so far. Let me explain:

-clean
-cars outnumber motos
-the sidewalk is for walking
-you aren't solicited weed (or fake weed) constantly
-you cross the street at crosswalks, when the light tells you to
-reliable, fast public transportation

The list goes on but I'll stop. All of that said, it's not the most interesting city. There isn't really much to do here. Beer is as expensive as home (which in my mind is entirely too much, I can never pay full price for a beer again). If you are caught with drugs you get mandatory jail time or caning. Like with a bamboo cane! Wowzers!

Today I stumbled upon the largest shopping mall I have ever experienced. I went inside because it started raining and as I looked up I got dizzy. I really almost fell backwards just trying to count how many floors there were. Escalators seem ineffective for that number of floors and I wouldn't be surprised to see teleporters implemented in the near future. Each one of these floors was at least twice the size of the modest national museum that I had explored earlier in the day. You could set up a bungy jump inside that thing. I bet it would go over well because you could order cinnabuns or fruit shakes on the way down, perhaps buy some sneakers or a dvd player. I left pretty quickly because I didn't want to get too far from the entrance, for fear that I would be forever trapped in the labryinthian halls.

There is a dude in my dorm room who is always playing game boy. Everytime I pass there he is playin away. Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, those of you who know me well know that I like a good videogame and can spend lots of time with the shit. But come on, you're in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and you can't get outta bed because you're playin pokemon! That shit hasn't been cool since 6th grade my friend (at which time is was very cool). My only suggestion is maybe talk to another human. there are tons around, some of them are even pretty interesting. anyway, i'm done.

Wiggle wiggle flap flap

So I just took a 3 day tour of Halong bay. It was very pleasant. The first night we slept on the boat which I also took a shower on. I've now showered on a boat and a train. I still look forward to a shower in a car, submarine, and plane. So everybody is hanging out on the boat, I've got my circle of people, probably about 6 or 7 strong. They love me as people do and we start playing some games. I introduce the animal game (thank you mr. Itzkowitz for that one) with the usual disclaimer that everybody is skeptical at first but eventually loves the game. Well what would you know they loved it. It drew the usual crowd of gawkers and late game joiners. Then these 4 kiwi's rocked up and asked to join. Now I like kiwi people and all but for 4 people to jump in the game all at once makes things a little difficult. Not only did it take forever to explain to them the very simple concept of the game, but once we started there was no order and they pretty much continued talking amongst themselves, ending the game. What the fuck. Then they suggested their own game which was complete rubbish! Needless to say, I was a little pissed off.

The next night I got rip roaring drunk, like serious cosmic bandito drunk, which is like a whole other thing. I had an awesome time but paid the price with my wallet that night and then paid with my head the next day.

I'm back in Hanoi but tomorrow I blow this popsicle stand for Kuala Lumpur.

Like a deflated balloon

So Hanoi has tons of bia hoi shops. This translates directly to fresh beer, aka from the tap. Basically these places are just little corner shops with kegs and plastic chairs. There is one intersection where every corner has a least one bia hoi shop. Tons of people are just sitting around, mostly in the street because there is not enough room on the sidewalk. Every once in a while there is a police drill and everyone must squeeze up onto the sidewalk. There is of course not enough room for that so most end up just standing there in the street. The police seem contented to believe that we won't sit back down as soon as they leave. We do. Beer's there taste like shit but they cost almost nothing. I love these places. Last night whileI was sitting down there with a big group we witnessed a moto accident. Some western guy took a mean spill. He was clearly embarrased because probably at least 100 people were looking at him. He quickly got up and drove off, even though his moto was fucked.

Before last night I was under the impression that the nightlife in Hanoi was shit but now I've upgraded my opinion to "not great". Last night we found some underground reggae bar that was quite a good time. I suspect there is quite a lot of this underground nightlife, it's just a matter of finding it without being abducted by cyclo drivers who inevitably swarm you if you stand in one place for too long.

This morning I wake up to the cleaning ladies rummaging around (maybe looting what they can). I look around the dorm and mostly everyone else has already left. Except for this one weird Russian dude. He is still in bed sleeping except that he is on top of the sheets and he is naked to the bone. He is really sleeping there with his ugly dick hanging on his stomach like a dead slug. Man I felt bad for this guy cause he really had one ugly dick. It kinda made me feel bad for all uncircumcised men. I'm sorry, because maybe this is you, but that shit just doesn't look cool. I mostly felt bad for the cleaning ladies. I wonder what they were thinking?

Hanoi'in

Hanoi. I almost died twice today from moto's. Well I really only almost died once, but I was lightly struck by a bicycle that would have killed me if it were a fast moving bus or asteroid.

I went to the Hoa Lo prison today, aka the Hanoi Hilton. This was where they kept American POW's during the war. They had John McCain's flight suit and cough drops. They claimed that the prisoners were treated very well. They have pictures on display of them playing basketball and chess, and painting christmas pictures. They had their christmas picture on display and I find it hard to believe that it was not fingerpainted by an infant or small toddler.

I'm gonna go eat some cheap noodle soup.

Vietnamese tears

Vietnamese tears
American fears
realized
don't cry baby
you weren't
though I wish you were
so I could tell you not to
It was fun at first
our lack of communique
I had wild visions of the future
would I have to learn your language?
it makes no sense to me
maybe it wouldn't be so hard
none of it matters though
it dried up quick
as most prospects do
an emotionless goodbye
not ideal
not a future
not a tear

King Kong finger

I remember a time when the prospect of riding on a sleeper bus was exciting. After finally testing the water, I can say that it is a miserable experience. I don't care to talk much about it, besides that it feels like sleeping in a sarcophagus. For the brief period when I did sleep, I had a wildly inappropriate and highly lucid dream.

Hoi An is a cool town. It's pretty but I feel there are equivelant cities in all other countries I've been so far. The nightlife is not huge but there are some decent spots. We went to a bar the other night called King Kong bar. It most reminded me of the Rat from Binghamton. Except this place didn't have nearly as much urine on the floor, and there weren't nearly as many assholes, and it wasn't packed with 17 year olds. Ok, it was nothing like the Rat but that's the vibe I got. We were walking home at about 4 in the morning and the town was dead as an old corpse. Thats until we got to the market. It was absolutely bustling. I assume everyone was getting ready to fish or sell fish. I suppose that would be the best time.

I was considering getting a suit here because you can get a tailored suit for 40 bucks. I decided against it because I already have an all purpose suit, even though it fits like a garbage bag. Instead I bought a souvenir pipe that is the baddest ass pipe I've seen.

No money no honey no honey no baby

Nha Trang, it's aight. Not quite as enjoyable as Sihanoukville and the beach is not so clean (I nearly stepped on a syringe the other day, luckily there was a cap on the needle. Courtesy). the night life is fair though. Last night Pete, Pascal, and myself went drinkin at this little place where you can get a huge pitcher of SanMiguel beer for about 75 cents. Needless to say, we drank entirely too much of it. This morning I went on a boat trip and was hating myself for being hungover. I signed up for this boat trip because I wanted to snorkel and see some islands around here. Turns out it's just a booze cruise. There was a few minutes of snorkelling in which I was able to view sand in its natural habitat. There was some free home made rice wine but I wasn't really in the mood. The best part of the whole thing was an impromptu rock concert. This dude was drummin on some home made drums and he was my idol.

I did have an interesting encounter on the boat. There was this Thai girl who I had met months ago in Pai. She had helped me when I was trying, unsuccessfully, to eat in a restaurant and everyone was ignoring me. I felt kinda like a child having her order for me but without her I may have had to just leave and go somewhere else. She's a cool girl and we exchanged contacts, perhaps she'll be able to put me up when I go back to Bangkok.

Tonight I'm taking a sleeper bus to Hoi An. I've never been so excited to sleep on a bus before. It's actually quite comfortable. On the bus ride to Nha Trang, the three of us stole some sleeper seats and had a blasty blast. Wish me luck that nobody will steal my money as I sleep.

You want motobike?

So I left the madness of Saigon and entered the boredom of Mui Ne. There is nothing to do here, and there are no people staying in our hotel (I've been traveling with two dudes). Today we rented motorbikes which was quite the hassle, as many things have been here, although in the end the guy gave them to us without asking for any collateral, and even acknowledging that we didn't have liscences to drive them. We drove out to some sweet sand dunes and overall had a wicked time.

I later saw a guy that we didn't rent bikes from and he got all angry and started giving me shit. He was rambling on, I don't know what he was saying and I wasn't listening. I caught pieces. Something about police, automatic, 50 dollars. Meh.

I should also mention that you all need to somehow find on the internet this alternative soundtrack to the first harry potter movie. Its by some comedian named derrick may, I think. You listen to this whilst watching the movie and then laugh until you can't anymore.

Booby trap-making for idiots

Today I went to the Cu Chi tunnels. This is a vast tunnel network that the Viet Cong lived in during part of the war. The tunnels themselves are tiny and it was pretty sweet to crawl through some of it (widened for our convenience). We even watched a real propaganda video from the 60's that decorated the "American-killing heroes" for their bravery against all odds. On guy was giving a little presentation. He explained that the reason the Americans couldn't get into the tunnels was because they were smoking too much weed (wouldn't you?). This in turn made them very hungry and they ate too many hamburgers and hot dogs. If they tried to get into the tunnels, all entrances were of course well hidden, they would get stuck or fall into one of many booby traps. These traps sucked. If you fell in and didn't die right away, you might later die of blood loss or cobras. There was also a shooting range that was loud as fuck BLAM BLAM BLAM. It cost over a dollar per bullet and nobody could hit a thing. It seems like lots of people enjoy paying 40 dollars to shoot dirt, idiots.

I must leave Saigon soon because I might go crazy here and also I have bed bugs.