in Mui Ne, Vietnam

So I’m currently in Mui Ne, Vietnam, another beach town (if you can really call it a town, because it’s so small) in the south. To be honest, I wish I’d stayed in Nha Trang a bit longer. This place has better beaches, but there’s essentially no town – there’s only something that resembles a small resort strip.. Nha Trang had a good nightlife (i.e. rowdy, boisterous backpackers’ bars), and some of my travel friends since my slowboat trip in Lao are still there.. In any case, there are two new developments since my last Vietnam update.

The first is that I’m now traveling with a HOTTT (and i mean, excessively super HOTTT) Swedish medical student named Staffan. I met him and his other Swedish friend Anders (actually met this guy first) at the hotel myself and my two English friends (two girls who I’ve also known since my Lao slowboat trip) were staying at. Don’t get any ideas, it’s strictly platonic. But MAN, the first day we were traveling together, I could not look at him in the eye for fear of fainting from his hotness. I’ve been sharing hotel rooms with him along the way too (separate beds, mind you), which does NOT help one bit. It does NOT help that we’re also on the beach all the time. Literally, the first day we were together by ourselves, I think I went into the bathroom just to pace around and think in my head, “Shit, fuck, goddamnit man!” This has made traveling with him a bit difficult, but I think I’m slowly getting over it. At least he’s not super funny, or else, I don’t know what I’d do – I might have shot myself by now. Plus, tomorrow, I think we’re splitting up and going our separate ways. (Parting ways is always so sad, man… That’s the one thing I dislike about traveling!)

Anyway, this first development was made further difficult by a second new development I’ve had. I’ve developed a terrible rash all over my arms and legs. It’s turned out to be a really really bad heat rash (they look like boils really), but for about a half day, Staffan (who, as I said, is a med student) thought it could’ve been scabies. Thankfully, his medical contact back in Sweden thinks it’s not, which is a relief since there are no hospitals in this town. Plus I’m with a hot Swedish guy, and that would suck if I actually had something serious and contagious like scabies. Hopefully, it’ll go away in a few days because it’s terribly unbecoming.

Oh, another scare was that I thought I lost most of my travel pics, but I’m hoping I still have them – it’s a bit uncertain at this point, but I’m not going to freak out about it just this minute and I’ll wait till I get to a bigger town with better computers.. While traveling, you learn that your camera and flash drives are your life, possibly as or more important than your passport. And I don’t mean the physical camera itself, but the pictures in them, because truly, they are priceless.

I think I’m headed to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow, probably by myself… Most of my travel friends are either still behind me or long ahead of me headed towards home. I presume I’ll be by myself at HCMC, which’ll probably be a source of boredom and loneliness but I’m hoping I won’t be alone for too long and will meet some good people again..

I’m still thinking a lot about home – both the people and places back home, and also what I need/want to do once I’m back. Again, I think I’ll be home in the relatively near future. It’s gonna suck to miss Halloween and possibly Homecoming though. I’d really not prefer to miss Thanksgiving also…