Beyond Hanoi

When we last left you I was racing to find a toilet near the hotel computer. No ammount of arsenicum & coptis would stop the spasms/ shivers & total belly gut wrenching diarrhoea. I had a feeling when tashi wanted to eat from the little side street cafe( where there were no westerners I might add!!) Yet I reluctantly agreed.

Anyway, final resorted to the big guns & took the bottle of poi chai; I mean we had a 9 hour vietnamese train to catch.

Our travel agent Mr' Hai, now our friend took us to the train station where he struggled with our huge oversized bag & we squeezed into our 4 sleeper tiny cabin waiting expectantly for our 2 new zealand girls to arrive!

5 minutes later, 2 loud drunk aussie blokes huffed, puffed & barged through the door. we were sure they were in the wrong carriage; but no, they looked as disapointed as us!!!

I felt a wave of alarm, but I couldn't even sit on the bed without hitting my head on the top bunk.! well lucky we chose top & bottom on one side.

I told them we were expecting n.zers & the younger one said in a slur "well sorry to disappoint you!! "

I knew it was going to be a long nite!!! as I frantically searched for the ear plugs; the older one, presumably the father said Im going to buy more beer! but I could see he already had a litre bottle of the noxious toxic infamous rice wine under his arm. I groaned;

But guess what!!!

I started to pray & asked to suspend judgement on these guys & to see their goodness; & it worked! they turned out to be very interesting!

The epihphany of the nights travel came when the dad norman said this trip for me is a journey to heal my heart! He is an ex vietnam vet who was a foot soldier infantryman in the vietnam war.

They fired a few questions at me & said they couldnt believe my responses. They said theyve never met anybody from australia who believed in synchronicity!

So they said " Your whole journey will be like this if you allow it!!!"

& the younger guy, Phil kept saying to Tashi, wow, girl you are so lucky! I went to Sydney when I was 13!"

This writing could take forever if I dont shorten it a bit so here goes.......

well we want to add our images now, Heres where we used to be:

An now we went to this: bangkok airport

sorry we are having so much trouble up loading our photos. these computers here are doing our heads in!!:(

more later

isabella