i shot a gun today!

so im in ho chi minh city now (saigon) and its yucky hot and im being rushed to get my ass to the bar cause it's st. patricks day over here and the irish are getting antsy. anyway, i had the best time in nah trang it was just a great city with a good vibe. like i said before, too many mystery buckets but it was still fun. i was so fortunate to meet long thanh cause he's like the pimpest man in town and everyone knows him. i spent plenty of time sitting in his favourite coffee spot just chillin' and and meeting other photographers and stuff. also through him i got to meet crazy kim whose restaurant i ate at practically every meal. i think i ate my own body's weight in food there.
here's my and kim! and this photo was taken my long thanh, so it's extra fantastic.


our big day out in nah trang was on a 4 island boat tour. basically it was like a giant party boat and i had a lot of firsts that day. like i went snorkelling for the first time. and we had to wear these retarded get-ups:

i also got stung by my first jelly fish while snorkelling. and then my second, and then third. our boat crew was pretty insane and after lunch they gave us a little boy-band performance.

on one of the islands we got to go jet-skiing, yet another first. i went on mini's and well whaddya know, i also got tossed off a jet-ski as it flipped over for the first time too. it was a very productive day indeed. it was minorly horrific but then i was consoled with a coconut. it's great, you get a fresh coconut hacked open for only 10,000 dong here and they're not like the shitty ones we get back in vancouver.

and here's me and long thanh posing next to his most famous piece in his gallery! you really should check out his page, his work is absolutely wonderful.

in nha trang i also went to check out one of the cham towers which was quite interesting but we only made it to the one closest to the city centre cause well, we had no idea where any of the others were.




from nah trang we hopped on a bus to dalat, which i believe is touted as vietnam's honeymoon capital as well as the absolute most tacky and kitschy place in the country. it is absolutely true. there's even a mini eiffel tower. anyway, there's a place called the 'crazy house' in dalat cause i suppose the architecture is quite out there. i think it's described as quasi-alice in wonderland and its got themed rooms like the ant room or the bear room. the kangaroo room had a giant kangaroo in it that had eyes that lit up red; it was actually kinda freaky. it was just really fucked up.

on our 2nd day in dalat, we hired easy riders (basically guides on motorbikes) for half a day and went to a minority village where we got to drink some rice wine with one of the elders.

we also went to the summer palace which was so harsh 70's retro. as in rooms were painted seafoam green. the palace also had wierd shit like giant trolls and elephants scattered on the lawn,


lastly we went to one of the waterfalls where we could ride a mini roller coaster to the fall as well as back up. honestly it seemed creepy dangerous and felt like you could fly off at any given time but it was fun fun fun. you could control it with hand brakes but really, such practice wasnt encouraged.



so there you have it, tackiest place ive ever been to. soo wierd. and to cap off our time in dalat, we decided to go get massages where all the boys had some, ahem, special treatment and were offered 'happy endings'. good times all around! and now were in saigon which is pretty crazy cause there's so many people and traffic and i havent been in a big city in a whileso its kinda intense. it's also sweltering hot but what can ya do!

today we went to the cu chi tunnels and i got to shoot a GUN. i'm sure all the boys out there are wagging their tongues at this one. there were a bunch of guns you could choose from and you just buy the bullets and they just stick the gun in your hands. i shot an AK-47 and it's just crazy loud and when it goes off the gun just blasts into your shoulder, it was pretty coooooool.



we also got to see the different kinds of home-made weapons and booby-traps they used and that was pretty interesting. anyway i dont know exactly what i as expecting for the tunnels but i figured since people were living underground and using these things for weeks on end it'd be at least semi-livable. well it's not and basically we were crawling around in almost pitch-dark in a tiny tunnel for what felt like eons and it was just creepy and i couldnt wait to get out. respect for the vietnamese!

anyway its paddy's day and apparently they dont drink green beer in ireland so i have no idea what we've been getting up to back at home. i guess tonite i'll get to see how we're actually supposed to celebrate and so im off!