Lunch and Leeches

The day before yesterday was incredibly leisurely. I joined Matt, Pete, Dustin and Lou-lou for a 5km bike ride to Le Pub. Here you can get the coldest beer in town and laze around in hammocks whilst they kill, pluck and cook the chicken of your choice. The bird is served with rice, morning glory and the yummiest peanut sauce on the planet. I took some photos along the way...

Matt and Pete are friends from Long Island, Dustin is also from Long Island but they all just met. They were very friendly but a bit too intellectual for little old me. Much of the conversation was about artists and musicians I have never heard of so I couldn't partake. Lou-lou was worse off than me, she is French and her English ain't so good. She met the lads in Hoi An and I got the impression that she and Matt were a newly fledged item. Either that or he's super keen and she's the biggest pricktease ever.

Yesterday was yet another trekkage in torrential rain. This time it was through thick, dense jungle and we covered part of the Ho Chi Minh trail. It was weird to think we were hiking where American soldiers had once been ambushed by the fierce, ruthless Viet Cong. The mud made it tough going, I looked like I'd been wrestling in the stuff. There were also loads of leeches, I got 3 but managed to spot them early on. Christine, a fellow trekker discovered one under her armpit at the end of the day, it was fooking massive! Her boyfriend pulled it off and it left a gaping wound in her flesh. The guide splattered it with a rock which left a huge blood puddle on the tarmac. All pretty gross and I was mightily relieved that I didn't discover any in Adilady's nooks and crannies when showering.

Dense jungle.

Karst mountains.

A cave where we went swimming. We went 200 metres in which was pretty cool. The water was fresh from the mountains and crystal clear.

Check me out, sexy birdage or what? I'm bound to pull with my battered and bruised, grazed and grizzly, pasty pins.

More 'Adilady likes caves' shots.

Picture of our lunch stop. The guy with his chest out is Hardy from Austria. We were walking buddies, the others were a bit slow so we went ahead with one of the guides. I'm supposed to be meeting up with him in Hoi An so we'll have to see how that goes. Definitely not the future Mr Adi though, he doesn't drink beeros and takes things ever so seriously. He seemed very sad, I don't know why. He is travelling for 6 months and runs his own business so potentially wedged. Not one of my priorities though and as he saw my legs earlier in the day I'm guessing he's not interested lol.

This is the guide that led Hardy and me...

And this a close up of primary, evergreen forest.

The guy on the right carried our lunch. All the locals trek in jellybeans and never fall or slip once. How do they do that?

So I took the night train to Hoi An and arrived at 8am. I'm loving my hotel, 1km from the Old Town and 2km from the beach. It has a great swimming pool and I have a bath! Haven't soaked in the tubbington since 30th June, OMG it was good. But what made me really happy? Hoi An is famous for tailoring so I thought I'd better have something custom made. Check this out, I'm having it made with cream and navy stripes. For those of you who think I'm joking it will look wicked with my skyscrapers I'm sooo missing my shoe collection right now:(

So I've seen all these amazing things but I still get excited over a new outfit, I guess I'll always be a tad shallow. Lots of love to you all, I think the next few days will be a well earned go slow. Hoi An is mightily pretty so I will include lots of photos in next bloggage xxx