SPONTANIOUS STREET PARTY // ABOUT GOODBYES

I have a plane ticket to Europe in eight days and no clue wheather or not I should use it.

A lot has happened with me the last couple of days. I've gone through so many emotions I've stopped hold on tightly in all the turns and just started let life throw me in whatever direction it pleases.

...Okay so that's not really true. I tried like a mad man to take the wheel again but it is hard when there are so much dragging me into different paths.

I've said goodbye to two of the nicest guys I've ever met. I didn't realize before then the road gives and the road takes. I thought I'd found some kind of paradise without any consekvenses.
Oh how young I was only days ago.
I'm currently in a state of trying to accept that life is like this at times. You win some and yes, you also lose some.
This text is so overflowing with clicheés now I think I filled the quota for a lifetime.

WHEN LIFE IS COTTON CANDY COLORED

We sing too loud from the public showers, too loud and completely out of tone.
We run around in our underwear, make childish sexual jokes and throw chips at each other.
We are ten and have our own treetop house, we are fourteen and sleeping in bunkbeds in the summercamp. We are Swedish camp, devided two and two in the daytime, we make time fly like kites in the sky.

WHY K-POP WASN'T ENOUGH

Life is food. Food is life.
Seriously, I kind of knew this prior to Vietnam, or I thought I did.

Then, silantro entered. Coriander. Lemon grass. Banh Mi. Pho Bo. Fresh spring rolls. Che. Anything dipped in fish sause.

Ca Phe Den. Ca Phe Saigon. Ca Phe Trung. Ca Phe Sua.

These magic words are 'Open Sesame' to a world of never-seen-before flavour experiences.

But unfortunately, talking more about food would require some kind of pictures to keep you from finding a better blog to read, and I have just been way to eager to eat the lovelies in front of me to give in to the Instagram generation-way of thinking.

So instead this post will be about... Well, you'll just have to scroll on to find out.

SLEEPLESS IN HUE

They hate us. We can feel it as they Tetris  around the backpacks to make room for our huge suitcases. We fidget in false embarrassment, because after all we are Swedish and we are raised never to make a fuzz, but really, no annoyed faces could ever make us go back to backpacks.  We've both tried the backbound traveling already and do not miss the odeur that bag could produce after a few weeks, nor the impossibility to keep a structure or find that specific piece of clothing. 

Hue has been a sleepy stopover, although I still have a hard time falling asleep sometimes. 

After rushing Hanoi, we've slowed down to recaps and find some kind of second wind. 

THE STORY ABOUT THE VISA, THE ANGRY MAN AND THE SECRET PLACE

Oh, the aliveness of Ha Noi. It strucks me with surprise every time, every day. There are scooters honking and cars driving and women in hats selling fruit and dogs sleeping on the dusty pavements. And yet, with all this aliveness, I find my inner calm here.
"It's weird." I told Claudia yesterday as she licked on her forth ice cream for the day, "that I've only been here once and yet, somehow I feel at home. Ha Noi is home in a strange way I can't explain."

We talked about nyckelböcker the other day, a Swedish word meaning books that is really written about a real person but the names has been changed, but the direct translation is "keybook". A famous podcaster had got it all wrong and thought it meant books that really captures the essence of ones soul, and now, he described in one episode, he felt like he missed the word that he once used as "keybook", as he had applied "key-" to many other things that he thought described him perfectly.

Ha Noi might be the keycity for me.
It's so vivid, so alive, it's talkative and cheerful but yet, there is this island-vibe slowing down our steps and makes us stop and smell the flowers (slash, the smell of loveliness from the endless amazing food stalls).

Yes, the pace is slow but the options eternal. The other night we were out partying and bumped in to... well, probably everyone who was out partying in the whole city, but mostly we hung out with these two guys from London, one of which had already stayed in Ha Noi for 10 days and had no plans on leaving. I totally related. Claudia keeps asking when I want to leave the city, of course, but I have no answer.

UNAWATUNA - A CAPSULE OF FROZEN TIME // LAST DAYS IN SRI LANKA

DAY 9-16 

UNAWATUNA

The 31th of January, we got fed up by the German lady and the dead corals and violent waves of Hikkaduwa and packed our suitcases for another beach town called Unawatuna, after being tipped of that there was supposed to be a beach reachable only through a walk in the jungle, that was supposed to have calm waters and very little people. Jennifer was longing for snorkling and I was just longing to get away from the hotel owner and her cheap internet, so we jumped on a train and 40 minutes later, we were there.

THE MAN AND THE WATERBOTTLE SECRET

This is the story of what happened in Hikkaduwa a few days ago. 

We stayed a couple of days in Café Ceylon and except for the weird German lady, the staff was very lovely.  One day we bought a papaya and asked if one of the staff members could split it for us since we didn't have a knife.
He came up to our room with two plates with each half of a papaya, some napkins and a slice of lime. We thanked him smilingly and he stayed to talk with us for a while. He introduced himself as Haryana.

DANGEROUS WATERS & AMAZING BREAD

DAY 2 
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA

I woke up this morning to the smell of coffee, which was idyllcal, and to the sound of my seven alarms, which was less pleasant.
"I did an experiment on you", Jennifer said from the bathroom. "I wanted to see how long it would take for you to wake up so I didn't turn of your alarms."
"And what was the result of this experiment?"
"That I wanted to throw your phone in the wall. Or possibly on you, but I doubt that would wake you up."
I laughed and drank my coffee.
"Where do we start today?" I asked.
"We need to do a cash withdrawal, find out where we are going after Colombo and hit that beach, finally..." She was abrupted by my grumbeling tummy, which made sounds suitable for ogres.
"Or we start with breakfast?"

____________

OUR WORST TRAVELING EXPERIENCE

Okey. So I've dragged myself from writing this story, but I think it deserves to come out to the light, finally. Partly because it might turn from a terrible memory to one we can laugh about, and partly so we can shread some light over the poor police system in China. Or the poor system in general in China.

But it was an experience. It sure was. 

See? Still pulling myself from doing it. Only now, I can't possibly deliver a story that lives up to the level of horribleness I've led on, so I better just tell it. 

THIS IS THE STORY ABOUT 
HOW WE GOT LOCKED IN A NATIONAL PARK 

...IN INNER CHINA