Vietnam Update

Hi All,

We left Cambodia on Nov. 4th which makes it 7 countries in as many months. We made it safely to Vietnam and this will most likely be our last country on this tour before heading back to New Zealand. As Gay mentioned in her last post we have joined a tour from the Intrepid company and I'm really glad we did as it's really nice to not have to worry about where to stay, where to go, and how to get there. Although we've been in Ho Chi Minh city for about 2 days already today was officially our first day of the tour and we started it off with an enjoyable bike-taxi ride around the city. So far so good, we have a good mix of ages and nationalities in the group.

More on India; I can't seem to shake it

Even though Gay and I have been out of India for quite awhile I still can't stop thinking about it. Cambodia and SE Asia are great places to travel but I miss the depth and awe-value of seemingly everyday experiences with thos of India. A couple of posts ago I put up a video of Gay getting blessed by an elephant. Unfortunatly, what that video doesn't show is the temple behind the elephant and the bizarre and ancient ceremony that was taking place. Brahmins (priests) in white loin cloths with thier faces painted in the symbols of Shiva pouring milk and other liquids over a lingum, a Hindu phaillic symbol that looks like a penis coming out of cup. Meanwhile the congration holds incense sticks and chants mantras and a trio of musicians bangs out rhythms and runs through scales that are uniquly Indian. Just outside old and skinny religious pilgrims, people who have been walking around for days, with thier bright oprange loin cloths and scraggly beards are begging for money and Gay is getting bopped on the head by a painted elephant. And that's just the usual afternoon service.

Whats Next

We're going to spend the next 20 days with the Intrepid group touring Vietnam from south to north. We end up in Hanoi and if all goes according to plan (which is easier said than done; we've been dealing with some ticket home dramas for the past 2 weeks) we'll be back in New Zealand by the Dec. 4th.

Pictures

Sad news about pictures and video. I seem to have contracted a virus or viruses on our camera data cards. I wanted to post heaps of pics today but I just spent a half hour freaking out with a poorly written anti-virus program that decided to delete 3 months worth of pictures from my card. So instead of going through that again we decided to wait until we get back to NZ to deal with it and post some pictures when it's all sorted.