Things that have almost killed me

This will be an ongoing list of things that have almost kill me.

1. Nearly run over by a moped
2. Nearly run over by a car
3. Nearly run over by an army truck
4. Nearly getting speared in the face by a ladder held by a man driving quickly on a moped.

I have a feeling the first two are going to be quite common, so only things like 3 or 4 will be mentioned from now on unless there is something particularly interesting about it.

Change of Goals

Over new years I made 3 plans for the year. These were:

1. Move to another country (Vietnam)
2. Learn another language (Sin Chow!)
3. Take a photo of an animal I have never seen before (living and in the wild)

As I have completed 1 and will need 2 to survive day to day life I feel that they are kind of cheating. Therefore I am going to scrap them and make up 2 more. I have thought about this a lot and have found 1 more. It's quite common here to play a game called Elephant/Chinese Chess, some parts of it are similar to normal chess but also it's also quite different. So far I have watched 2 games and played 1, losing quite convincingly to a small child. Therefore:

1. Beat a child... at Elephant Chess

Firstly I will need to learn the symbols on the counters, then I will learn the moves, then tactics, then how to cheat. Not necessarily in that order.

What the face?

**This post was written over several days and in various states of delirium and jet lag**

So here I am, my first day in Vietnam. Covered in now slightly burning insect repellant and Moisturising Suncare Spray (which protects me from cancer AND insects apparently) which I had not applied in time to be useful for the 15 minute taxi ride in which my face got burned. And my leg got bitten.

But what of my flight etc? I flew with Singapore Air, the most exciting thing about this is that they provide little screens in the seat in front and remotes like Wii sticks. They also have a huge selection of music available, loads of films and general TV stuff. This involved actual new stuff, one of the films it had was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which is quite new now if you're looking at this in the future).

It also had the greatest show I have ever seen. What The Face? This is an Asian (not sure where, sorry Asia) show and involves (presumably) famous make up artists at the peak of their profession. And how would they be judged? By blurring the gender of 6 teenagers of course! A panel (again, I think they were famous because when they came in they looked cool and people clapped) had to guess the gender of the models in 2 rounds of mayhem.

Round 1!

The children appeared and said their name and did a cool move. The judges then individually guessed what they thought the gender of the child was.

Round 2 (actually 2-7, each model had their own round)!

The judges, now in 2 teams, then got to interview the child (voice modification was used to hide their true gender) for about 30 seconds. This was pretty odd, as the voice was horrifically unnatural and the child was in a gigantic misty half birdcage thing. Then it got more weird. The child had to do a dance. These were initially tame “pop dances” but they got progressively more and more weird. The final model actually did a pole dance. After the dance the judges got to discuss while the audience voted by moving to either the male or female seating stand. The model then announced their real gender.

Mental.

I then spent about an hour running around Changi Airport in state best described as euphoric delirium. I realised too late that I was in the wrong terminal to visit the butterfly farm, but I did enjoy the white tiger and Koi carp garden though.

I slept in a local hotel for my night in Saigon, I was on the top floor. A long, long way up.

And in the matrix.

The next day I caught the bus from Saigon to Duc Trong. A ride that was both insanely dangerous and beautiful.Next to me an elderly woman silently wept and vomited for the duration of the trip. In front a couple literally fought with their children in an attempt to make them stop sitting in the central causeway of the bus and sliding down to the front when it came to one of it's many sudden and erratic stops. I think the horn was used almost every minute of the journey. The scenery was incredible.

Parasites! Fat Knees! Really Long Flights!

Tomorrow I make my flight to Vietnam, stopping for several hours in Singapore before the final flight to Ho Chi Minh. Until today my entire cultural knowledge of modern Vietnam was limited to what I had seen on Gordon's Great Escape, Vietnam's Next Top Model and my really harrowing phrase book (genuinely sporting such faves as "Are there any landmines over there?" and [said by a dentist to you] "come back I haven't finished yet"). Obviously this has hasn't really made me feel reassured as I dislike explosions, pain, internal parasite-giving food and people pointing at and discussing my fat knees. As a result I have spent much of the last few days trying to find something which makes sense of Vietnamese culture and I stumbled onto this blog which made me realise that I never really will.

Saying goodbye and eyeing up some coffins

I had to say goodbye to a lot of my friends in Birmingham and London this weekend which was incredibly sad. What wasn't sad though, was an exhibit at the Southbank Centre (I saw Simon Callow, I waved, he didn't) - Fantastic coffins of UK and Ghana! It had a selection of different coffins from one UK company and one Ghanaian company. Here are some fav's.

I also ate some amazing food (I now like Red Snapper and dislike waiting for 2 hours for drinks/food to arrive [separate places, you know who you are]) and generally had an ace time. Bye guys!

A guide to dying in Vietnam

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because I've been dealing with either admin or what would happen if I die while abroad ("according to our policy if you die we will cremate you locally and then fly your ashes back to the UK. If that happens, call our emergency medical line"). This is the third time I have tried to write this and I have failed each time, so here is a video of a man having a dance instead.

Getting a job! Visa concerns! Eating a still-beating heart!

Today I accepted a job in Vietnam. After a whirlwind of rejection, I now have a job. Although not my first choice (Indonesia), I have agreed to the job for a number of reasons.

1. I watched Gordon's Great Escape (S2E2) as my research. His look of sad resignation as he was forced to down a drink containing the still-beating heart of a snake made me laugh for ages. He looked like one of those dogs with wrinkly faces that has just realised that poo isn't food.

2. It's Vietnam

3. It's one of the most beautiful and interesting countries in the world and provides an excellent springboard to see other amazing countries.

4. In the interview I asked what the weather was like, my interviewer replied "quite cool, only 25 degrees"

5. It's Vietnam

On this basis, I now need to start sorting out my work Visa (a word synonymous with speed and not having to bribe officials) and try to steal information about Vietnam, the Vietnamese and their language/s(?) from the internet.