Morsels

Thought I'd better do another blog entry because it may be the last chance I get. Ever. We're just heading out to a Karaoke bar across the road from our guesthouse and I'm not sure that we'll be allowed out alive. If only more parents sent their children to singing lessons...

Here are a few noteworthy morsels.

Alex: As the tracks got steeper and muddier and the weather became muggier and muggier, and litre after litre of sweat rolled down our faces, her grin just got wider and wider :)

Michelle: Has been sporting some sort of cross-cultural turban and eyeballing every weird-looking bug or beetle she discovers.

Rikki: Doesn't love roosters.

Erika: Stops every 5 seconds to photograph something. Just as well she had her own personal umbrella-wallah, Hayley, to shield her camera from the rain.

Jordan: A frustrated ballet dancer. Combined descending slippery muddy trails with doing the splits. And, having been given a tip on exactly where to put her feet to avoid calf-deep mud she proceeded to put a foot exactly between those two points. Clearly loves mud.

Rikki: Hates roosters.

Hayley, Alex and Me: The mean keen running team (soon to be joined by Michelle?) Turned back at the swingbridge because we had no money in our pockets to pay the toll to the village on the other side.

Rikki: Did I say she wants to personally strangle every rooster in Vietnam?

Emily and Rikki: Quick to capture a bargain foot massage on their return from the trek.

Hannah and Rikki: Ultimately the winners of the 'muddiest trekker' competition. Recipients of a well-earned dessert prize.

Rikki: Has given me instructions to make sure her room in guesthouses is pre-booked to include no roosters in the vicinity. Needs special treatment :)

Emily and Rikki: Have yet to master the squat toilet.

Daniel: Held up with study commitments, now waiting in Hanoi to join the group when we arrive fresh as daisies off the night train at 5am on the 8th of July. Wasting no time in embracing local delicacies, the last we heard from him was that he was just heading out to eat dog. We await his verdict.

Many of the group: Would question my use of "fresh as daisies".

Hannah: After the first sleep in Vietnam - ready to roll !

Erika: Bought hand-dyed and embroidered cushion covers from the shortest, cutest old woman in Sapa.

Hayley: Loves everything. Even roosters.

Janine :)