Travel Agents = Evil

I seem to be drowning in a sea of incompetence on the old Visa front. Most unpleasant. It all started back in Cambodia in the days before I was trying to sort out the (cue the kind of music you play when a pantomime villain arrives) Russian Visa. The company that sorted out my Vietnamese and Chinese Visas for me managed to make a minor mess of both. The Chinese one isn't so bad, they've given me more than I asked for. However they only gave me a fifteen day Vietnamese one, which expires about now. First day I got to HCMC I put my Visa in for extension and was informed it would take four days. After six I got bored of waiting, so I've left Saigon with the promise that my Visa will be couriered to Hanoi where I can have another crack at this Russian bureaucracy. I think that this is the furthest I've been from my passport whilst in a foreign country. Wish me luck.

I had become desensitised to the Saigon traffic by the time I left. According to Casey the cyclo tour we took was petrifying. I just found it amusing that I could touch passing cars with my flip-flops. None of the life-flashing-before-your-eyes, stomach-in-the-back-of-your-nose nonsense of Thursday's moto deathchase.

I'm currently in the middle of Viet Nam, right where the storms are. I overnight bussed (incidentally, best buses since Chile, maybe even better) up to Nha Trang. Now I don't mean to sound grouchy but i don't think I saw Nha Trang (a beautiful but ultimatly generic beach resort) in its best light. I just don't think beaches and rain mix that well.

We went for a spa day instead. How very David Beckham? Goss amused himself by pouring mud on my head, in fairness it was pretty funny.

Am now in Hoi An. I quite like it here, despite the rain, it's got something of the Paraties about it. It's chock full of tailor shops and it's taking a whole heap of willpower not to get some unnecessarily garish trainers handmade.