Planet Goon (then returning to Planet Saigon) PART 3

Leaving Melbourne was pretty sad because we knew it wouldn't be long until we had to go home. We set off, absolutely knackered, because some idiot played music in the common room really loud until 6am! I was driving so I filled my self up with coffee and sandwiches before departing for...who knows? We didn't!

All we knew is we had to get back to Sydney by Tuesday and it was Sunday. We drove for 8 hours and stopped for the night in a place called Eden. Very quiet seaside town. Was OK but we didn't spend much time there. The drive there was beautiful though! The roads were empty; there was coastline or forest the entire way. We took some good photographs for you to see. AND SO MANY MOUNTAINS! Australia is just full of them!

This is where I hit animal number 2. A lovely grey owl. But what are you going to do when it flies out of a tree and lands on the road 10 metres in front of your vehicle?!!

Moving on from Eden we decided to drive all the way up to an area 2 hours out of Sydney. We took a wrong turn and ended up finding a small village. As we turned a corner we suddenly saw...not 1 or 2 but A FIELD FULL OF KANGAROOS! It was amazing! Now I know your thinking "it's not that amazing, you are in Australia". No. All we had seen of any type of Australian animal was the back of a Kangaroo jumping away and those penguins (which I do not class as Australian animals). I was starting to lose hope! We stayed for about 15 minutes taking photos of them. Matt had a trick where he shouted "jump" and they would jump. Crazy!

As this was to be our last night in the van as a 3 person unit, Matt decided he would cook us a curry. It was SO good. I miss Matt's curries :(

So the time came to drop Dave off. Matt and I were headed to The Blue Mountains, but Dave was meeting friends in Sydney. We decided to drive through Bondi Beach as we hadn't seen the famous surf capital yet!

It was bloody windy I tell thee!! Australia was definitely MUCH colder than I had imagined. But maybe it's because I live in 35 degree heat everyday...

After dropping of Dave, Matt and I continued onto the mountains! It took us AGES to go a 1 and half hour drive. I think it had something to do with it being rush hour. So because of this we didn't get to see any scenery that day and we JUST got to the campsite before it closed! Very lucky.

The town of Katoomba is small but nice. It had a good bar and that's all that mattered by that point. BUT MY GOD IT WAS FREEZING. I reckon about 1 or 2 degrees. It bloody snowed on the day we left!! Matt was not happy about being cold seeing as he'd only bought shorts and flip flops with him ha ha!

The next morning we drove up to the cable car to have a trip down into the forest. Now I was not prepared for the actual size and beauty of these mountains. It was literally one of the most amazing sights I have seen...EVER. The national park went on for miles and there was a blue haze down in the valley. This is where the mountains get their name. The blueness comes from the oil from all the eucalyptus trees there are. The main parts to see are The Three Sisters. The story goes that two tribes were fighting for the land. The father of the girls was one of the tribe’s leaders and fearing his daughters would get kidnapped, he turned them into stone to hide them. The father was then killed before he had chance to turn the girls back so they are now trapped forever! BAD TIMES.

We next visited the town of Leura and stopped for lunch. The food was so good! The town was pretty and quaint almost reminding me of a small St Albans. After lunch we were making our way to Wentworth Falls when we saw signs for Echo Point. I knew it was meant to be a fantastic spot so we stopped. WOW. It was mind blowing! I can't even describe to you so you'll have to look at the photos.

The best part of the day was walking to Wentworth Falls. We thought it would only be a short walk so we went on our merry way. We got to the Prince of Wales look out which had a brilliant view of the waterfall. Because it was so windy the water was pretty much horizontal which made for interesting photos. We could also see that people were standing on the top of the falls! We had to get there! We walked under the cliff edge, through alcoves with the wind blowing at 100mph!

We finally made it round and it was unbelievable! We could stand pretty much in the water at the top of the waterfall. The wind kept spraying the water back up to us so we got soaked but it was totally worth it! The view was yet again, immense.

Sadly the time came for us to leave so we drove back to Sydney to stay in a hostel for the very last time. I did nearly crash the van in Sydney city centre but thankfully my tutor drummed emergency stops into my head! God dam lifesavers!

Upon arriving back into Vietnam it was time to head to 185 for some cheeky buckets of shitty Vietnamese vodka. I walked into the bar and one of the bike boys came running up to me.

"Alesk! Alesk!" he shouted. He cannot say my name so he's made up his own version.
"Hi Anh, how are you?"
"I saw somebody who look like you in movie! So much!"
"Yea it probably was me" I said. "Is it a Mafia programme and am I at the airport?" I asked.
"Yes! Troi oiiiii! Tomorrow we buy DVD."
"It's on DVD?"

Oh yes. It's on DVD. And not only that, I'm on the bloody cover!!! Haaaaaaaaaaaaa! I bought one copy but I have since realised I should buy many copies and give them as Christmas presents! I watched it and because they don't record the sound, they dub it over the picture, some eastern European is doing my voice! It's awesome!

Alright I'm off to sign autographs. Thanks for reading this very long installment. Hope you enjoyed it!xx

p.s. Goon is the name given to a box of cheap wine. Basically most people drink Goon in Australia because it's the only dam drink they can afford!

Planet Goon (then returning to Planet Saigon) PART 2

Next was our very exciting journey to Australia.

We arrived in Singapore and got to the hotel. I'd found this hotel online. It was the cheapest hotel that wasn't a complete dump. Had a bed, shower, TV and even WIFI. All was good! We didn't think to check out what there was to see in Singapore first so we got straight on the WIFI and did some speedy research.

The area we were staying in was apparently the red light district. YAY. As we read on..."the houses with the big red numbers are brothels". We looked out our window and oop what do you know?! We were right opposite a brothel.

We made our way into the city centre where we saw the Sands Towers, walked around the harbour, saw the Raffles hotel, in which I bought a $25 cocktail. Yes Singapore is not cheap, but obviously that's outrageous for a cocktail. It was an official Singapore Sling. The Long Bar in the Raffles Hotel is where it was invented apparently so I had to get one for photo purposes.

The next day we were boarding the plane, got to our seat and looked to our left. Dave was pretty much next to us! Weird! After a movie filled 7 hour flight we arrived in Australia. The holiday had begun! I was in high spirits as I approached customs! "Australia is awesome" "Australians are cool" "Life is great". Then I met him.

The ugliest man I had ever seen. Fat, one eyed, bald. Ok maybe I could be overreacting, but this guy was so mean to me. I had put my customs card in my mouth for about 3 seconds because I had no hands to sort my 3 bags out. I suddenly heard an "excuse me miss, can you take the card out of your mouth, that how germs get transferred."

I apologized but that obviously wasn't enough for the knob head. Next thing I hear is him shouting across the airport to the guy I gave the card to "HEY MATT! SHE'S HAD THAT IN HER MOUTH YOU NEED TO GO AND WASH YOUR HANDS".

This would be funny if he was joking. But he was not. He basically said that I have shit in my mouth. DICK.

So that wasn't a great first impression but somehow I got past it. We got to the hostel. The famous BASE hostel in the centre of Sydney. I gave our room 3/10. There were no plugs! What's that about? The 3 points were for the fact that they had beds in the room. Here we hired the camper van that was to be our house AND burden for the next 2 weeks!

But before I move onto the van I will briefly go over Sydney. We went out for Paddy's Stag Do. Yes I know I'm a girl but I talked about boobs and fanny as good as the others. It was a fun night. We ended up in a weird bar that was full of slot machines...AND BIG BUCK HUNT! Oh how I've missed you. The days on the Winston Churchill came rushing back to me. Of course I had not lost my game. I totally beat Paddy!! And to make it better BIG BUCK HUNT is in every single Australia bar. YES.

We saw the sights of Sydney, spent a day in the gay area, and spent ALOT of money. I was told Australia is expensive but I didn't realise just how expensive. Scooners (not even a pint) of beer cost approx $7. I got a Vodka and Coke for $10.

So a few days later we started our journey to Bundanoon. It was only around 2 hours away and we got there without a problem. The house we were staying in WAS AWESOME! 5 bedrooms, massive living room and kitchen and balcony. The guy who rented it out was awesome! He took me and Dave for a walk to an amazing spot and also let us stay another night for free! Thank god as we were all hungover from the wedding!

Patrick and Carolyn! So beautiful!!

So the wedding! IT WAS AMAZING, not only visually but the whole day was just lovely! The ceremony was beautiful then as we waited for the important people to have photographs us other guest were left with cheese, crackers and brownies! JACKPOT! The important people then arrived and the party started. We all had places where we had to sit and to my horror I realised I wasn't sitting with Matt. I didn't know anyone! I was going to have to make friends quick! And after one bottle of wine I had managed to make friends with everyone on the table, even if they didn't want my friendship. Another awesome thing was that the wedding had a props table. The theme was 1930's so everybody had a lot of fun trying on the fake moustaches and hats. They made for some pretty interesting photographs!

The wedding finished at about 10pm, but of course for us binge drinkers we needed to carry on the party. We collected up all the half full bottles of wine off of the tables like massive pikeys and we went on our merry way. I caved at about 3am but the boys went on till around 5. The next day was not too pretty.

The day after, we left the house and made our way to the capital city. Canberra's ok. Not much really going on. Nice shops, bars and museums. Massive lake. We only spent one day there before continuing on our journey to the Great Ocean Road. We were driving for around 6 hours before stumbling upon a little town named Benalla. This was Dave's favourite.

Benalla was basically the town from The League Of Gentlemen. We parked up in a car park in what supposed to be the town centre. We decided we would sleep here for the night. Matt and I went out to search for a shop, leaving Dave alone in the van. We found that nothing was open. It was 9pm and nothing was open. Finally we saw a Woolworths (which in Aus is a supermarket), stocked up on red wine and went back to the van.

Halfway into a bottle of wine an air raid siren started up, scaring the absolute shite out of us! We still to this day do not know what it was for. Was there an air raid? Flood? Or maybe the weird townsfolk were all awakening from their coffins because the siren signified dinner time. I don't know but we weren't going to hang around to find out. We left pretty sharpish and stopped at a service station for the night.

The next day we drove 4 hours to get the Great Ocean Road. We didn't pick the best day to drive it as it rained. Also I drove the entire road to the hostel and I was pooing my pants! The road was constantly winding with an epic drop to the left side or the van. As is got darker I became more aware that I was driving a camper van on a dangerous road. And to make it better there were signs for kangaroos everywhere. That would have been all I needed!

Turning a corner, an animal walked out in front of my van. I have no idea what it was but it definitely wasn't a kangaroo thank god! At first I thought I'd missed it because I had slowed down to a speed where it could walk behind the front wheels. Thinking it was safe I sped up slightly and then 'crunch'. Oops.

The Great Ocean Road is AWESOME. We visited the 12 apostles, which are 8 columns of rock. They were made by the sea eroding the cliff over many years. There are only 8 because 4 have fallen down over time. The next stop was Loch Ard Gorge. This is an area where 2 people famously survived a shipwreck. The man washed up on the shore of the gorge and as he was building a fire he heard women’s screams. He swam to where she was and pulled her to safety. There is no happy ending love story here though. They went their separate ways and probably never spoke again.

The next day it was time to head for Melbourne. We stayed in a place called The Coffee Palace in a town just outside the city centre called St Kilda. It was a very arty/studenty hostel, which was a lot of fun. The first evening I walked down to the pier to see the penguins. YES I said penguins. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Melbourne's on the south coast and next stop south is Antarctica! They were so cute! They live in the rocks and go out swimming all day then return home at dusk. It was so cool!!

Matt thought it was hilarious that he got a picture of two penguins having sex.

The following day, Matt was too hungover to eat speak so me and Dave moseyed on down to Melbourne city centre. I much prefer it to Sydney. Very relaxed, again pretty arty. If Covent Garden was going to be a city, I think it would look like this. Dave and I didn't do much, just walked around taking photographs. We did watch a street performer for a while who was constantly taking the piss out of peoples clothes whilst standing on 5 bins piled on top of each other and having machetes thrown to him by an 8 year old kid. Weird!

Matt finally emerged from his coma and we went out again that night. And that's when it ended with me getting a $10 vodka and coke! That was definitely the end of that night!

Planet Goon (then returning to Planet Saigon)

Wow! 2 months since my last blog! I'm getting lazy. I've had a crazy couple of months with the randomist stuff happening.

This is the order of events as I will tell them now!

1) My friend's farm/rave wedding to a Vietnamese girl
2) Going to the Land of Oz - via Singapore
3) Returning to Vietnam and being met by crazyness (of course)

Ok so number 1 on my list. The most random wedding I have ever been to in my life, and I've been to alot of weddings!

Matt, who ran the AK Hideaway, decided it was time to get married and who would be a better candidate that a hot Vietnamese girly that used to work for him! (not even the random part)

So we all pile onto a minibus at 2am to get to a town 5 hours away literally IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE for the wedding at 8 am!!!! Who has a wedding at this time???? We rock up at this strange "hotel" to get changed into wedding gear. It wasn't a hotel - it was a brothel. Red light bulbs in the rooms...brothel.

We arrive at the wedding location - a farm - and get ushered to sit under a canopy in 50 degree heat. My table were all sitting down having a chat and we notice a huddle around the house so I go and have a look and AK Matt's there giving fruit and shots of rice wine to the family members around the table. He then takes ages trying to put earrings in his wife-to-be's ears. All normal weddingy stuff I guessed. I sat back down and around 15 minutes later AK Matt emerges and says 'so I'm married then'.


























What? We'd missed the wedding? Apparently the fruit, rice wine and earring were the wedding. No 'I do's' no kissing the bride. Just they're married. This is when it got a little crazier. it was 8.30am by now and food that could have been dinner was brought out! YUMMY! I was starving. The last thing I'd eaten were m&m's at about 4am.

Then the rave began. And I'm not even over exaggerating when I say rave. This family weren't the richest of families but my god. They must have spent aroud 90% of the wedding budget on the speakers. They were immense. Blaring out Vietnamese at a million decibels was all fun and dandy for about 5 minutes. Thank god Pete and his laptop took over and danced the morning away to some good old rap music.

We were all obviously hammered by 11am because beer was pretty much free flowing as well as the rice wine! The time came for me to pee and I was not prepared for the toilet, or lack of. Basically you walk into a wooden cubicle in the KITCHEN. And piss on the floor. you wash it away with a scoop of water from the pot that you wash your hands in. AWESOME. God knows what happens if you need a poo.








Even funnier I was speaking to Tom about the toilet a little later about how we have to pee on the floor and Tom was like "What?"
"You know Tom, there's no toilet."
"What about the pot?"
I looked confused then clicked.
"The pot that you wash your hands in?"
"Ohhh you wash your hands in it? I thought it was the toilet!"

Everybody at the wedding had washed their hands in Toms piss. GOOD TIMES.

So the wedding started dying down around 2pm so it was time to leave and embark on our wonderful journey back to Saigon. The driver must have loved it. 14 people all passed out for 5 hours. Silence.