Holiday Summary

OK so I'm still in bed recovering from jet lag and catching up on "United States of Tara" and "Survivor" but I thought I should post a quick summary of my fantastic holiday. We ended up in Bali for the first 2 weeks, with trips to Seminyak, Kuta and Ubud. It was a pretty relaxing 2 weeks although we made plenty of trips to temples, monkey forests, did a bit of body boarding, tubing and banana boating etc etc. Myself and A flew off to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam for the remainder of the holiday and met up with M&M in Hanoi. The most important thing to be aware of when travelling in Vietnam is that there are no traffic lights, no pedestrian lights, literally thousands of motorbikes coming directly at you and the rules of the road are more of a rough guide than laws.

Here's a brief clip of crossing the road in Ho Chi Minh/Saigon. This is a relatively quiet road...

In fairness after the first time I was knocked over by the motorbike, I really got into the swing of things. By the end of the trip, I could saunter across the road, fearless of all those "family" motorbikes with the father driving, smoking a cigarette and chatting on his mobile all at once, the wife sitting at the back and three kids sitting in between.

The highlights

• Halong Bay boat trip - despite that French guy who lost €1,200 and made us wait on the boat until the police had arrived, Halong Bay was amazing. It's far more beautiful than any photo can appreciate and I loved kayaking around the bay with everyone and sitting up on the deck in the evening gazing up at the stars. I'm already planning on bringing Mr Right there on a romantic trip, whenever he shows up anyway.
• My birthday - what a day?! I got a fantastic Balinese massage courtesy of R, went for a delicious, seafood extravaganza with the class and then to top it off, we went to karaoke. L broke the crowd in as she does so well and before long 2o Irish students had taken over the bar and the band. I performed a particularly good rendition of "Sex Bomb" with Em. In fact it left such an impression on the audience, numerous women asked me to sign their chests in fluorescent pink highlighter. Easily the best night out.
• Being famous - apparently being 6'6 in "heels" (my flip flops add on the extra 1/4 inch ya see) isn't so common on the Asian continent. Numerous strangers took photos of me during the trip and I may just miss the celebrity life now that I'm home.

There are plenty more stories so I'll fill you in on the rest of them over the next few weeks. In the meantime, I have graduation this week so it's going to be a busy one! :-)