A pictoral guide through my adventures

I've bought a strange kind of device for uploading pictures, so now my blog will be in glorious technicolor - you lucky, lucky bastards.

this pretty incredible-looking templey thing is right by my house but inexplicably invisible unless you're actually looking for it. i'm still not sure whether it really exists.

roadside draughts

this photo summarises the daily activity of the majority of Vietnamese: woman working really hard, men sitting around being lazy

gourmet dining

impractical method of transport

fermenting rice + rice vodka

Yesterday I went on a school trip with some students from one of my schools. It wasn't necessarily how I would choose to spend a Saturday, especially since they aren't even my students. But it was good to get out of Hanoi, and I was plied with food all day, so I can't really complain. Maybe I will attempt a commentary on these pictures but I can't really be bothered.

We went to a nature park in a province called Ba Vi, about 1.5 hours out of Hanoi. This province produces loads of the milk you get in Hanoi, and so we got given loads of fresh milk and yoghurt. It was pretty tasty. (I guess that answers the question of whether I'm still a vegan or not.)

For a nature park, it wasn't very natural. They had bears in cages, which made me feel very sad and angry for a bit, until I got distracted and wandered off. The best animal of the day was the deer. Frustratingly, no one will tell me the Vietnamese word for deer, a minor yet irritating obstacle in my ongoing quest to know everything. Someone said it was 'con de' which I already knew means goat. Then for a while I was satisfied in thinking it was 'con gai', but my Vietnamese friend said that means goat as well. I asked him what the word for deer was, and he said there wasn't one. Why have two words for goat but none for deer? What kind of language is this? I'm getting quite angry now so I'll move on.

day con la gi?!

I have never been a fan of monkeys. In fact monkeys are at the very bottom of the list of fluffy things I like.* I was initially excited to see them at this park, since there were loads of them running around free-range stylee. But my attitude quickly turned from excitement, through boredom, to fear and to rage, and then back to boredom. I am still not a fan of monkeys.

*This list is a hypothetical one. I promise that I have never sat down and written a list of fluffy things I like.

irritating a monkey with my camera

monkey attack!!

My enthusiasm for commentary has just run out, so here are some more photos:

before

after

a failed attempt to disguise my hideous ogre-osity

post-sticky-rice-binge hammock-nap, hell yeah. woke up an hour later to some free fresh papaya, double hell yeah.

this kid at the front ended up crying because he was on a team with weedy girls who don't know how to pull

These photos are from last night, which as usual mainly involved beer and motorbikes (not that I'm complaining). I love the expression of complete over-excitement in the second one:

Lastly, I would like to say hello to the poor hapless fools who stumbled across my blog from India, Iran and Columbia. I recommend more specific search queries. This is no place for you.