Australia Day

Hanoi, Vietnam


Ahhh Australia Day. Adam and the girls are massively hungover at the moment, while I'm only suffering from a headache (BOOYAH!!) so I thought I'd smash out just what we got up to yesterday. I'm sure Adam will add his own thoughts later and we'll throw the pics up when we get a chance.

My thoughts will appear like this. It's also an analogy of how my head feels...very fuzzy! -Adam

So the whole day kicked off at around 11ish, after a good nights sleep and a leisurely morning. Everyone met up at the wondeful Le PUB and we finally, finally got a nice phat western style breakfast. Chunky bacon, plenty of toast, eggs cooked to perfection. Delish. The bar also had a cruel promotion going whereby every two Tiger beers you ordered you scored a card that could when you a free t-shirt or hat. Adam had already won one simply by being the only person in the bar at 10am drinking and our chum Matt became obessed with acquiring one. After a few beers he got lucky and scored a shirt, thereby making Alli, Jess and myself start smashing down Tigers to also win one. It only took four beers for mine and it's actually quite a nice shirt, so well worth the $8ish I paid in beer for it.

My day actually started at 9am. We organised to meet Matt and Al at the Spotted Cow, but the place doesn't open til 3. So in a genius move I tied a note with the business card for Le Pub stapled to it on the front door. He found it too, you're a genius Adam! You should be a spy. And then I went to Le Pub, had a hearty breakfast (including vegemite on toast! They had VEGEMITE!), and when it was all over I looked at the waiter and nodded. The beer was on it's way. It was time. Australia Day had begun.

While this was going on Adam hiked it down to the local lake. Some random Aussie had let it be known that there would be a gathering there at 12 and Adam was one of the many that answered the call. Being Australians we like beer and being backpackers we like cheap things, so naturally we all got together and hit up the local Bia Hoi places. Bia Hoi for those who don't know are little Vietnamese microbrewies. They make beer fresh everyday and it is 15-20c a glass. Yes 15-20 CENTS, I love this country. Just up from lake is Bia Hoi Junction. There's four Bia Hoi places on each corner. PUB CRAWL. I think the owners of the places just crapped themselves when a hoard of Aussies sat down and start asking for brew. Thus we spent a couple of leisurely hours drinking insanely cheap beer and then moving across the street for more. They even had a local Viet style kebab place. It was 80c for the most delicious kebab I have had in ages.

5 oclock rolls around, "There's an Australian backpackers doing a barbeque" someone says, "hell yes" scream the rest of us, so all 30 of the Horde taxi it to this random place. As we get there it's happy hour so 2-4-1. Mmmm 50c bottled beer and $2 hamburgers. It was a great BBQ, really funny people, everyone mingled and had a good time. The food was fantastic and they had a massive bathtub filled with booze that never ran out. Matt and I went on a rampage and annoyed every woman on the rooftop by calling them a combination of Toots, Shiela, Dahling and Babe. Some loved it, some didn't but whatever, run along baby, man talk. We figured it's Australia day and thus, had to say Strewth, Dahling, CRICKEY and all other weird words that we supposedly use. I also for the first time ever had prawns off the barbeque. How the hell is Australia famous for shrimp BBQs and Fosters when no one actually does it?

Everyone at the Roof top bar seemed to have a voucher for the Dragonfly bar for a free beer or cocktail or something so everyone piled into Taxis except myself and Alli. I flat out refuse to taxi anywhere in Vietnam anymore because it's so bbbbbboorrring compared to flying around on the back of a speeding motorbike. So Alli and I travelled in style, smashing down alleys and through massive intersections screaming out "Xin Chao" at the lights and generally having an exhilarating time.

We packed out the Dragonfly bar and since having our bodies swimming in beer for 10 hours wasn't enough, Matt and I decided to BAM pump it up another notch and hit up the $3.20 cocktails four or five times. The Dragonfly was good but everyone thought it was a night club, not just a nice bar and since we were all craving some dance music we piled out and hit up the hilarious named Funky Monkey bar.

You know what I did at the Dragonfly? They let me get behind the bar and make drinks! Holy shit it was awesome!! I'm in the middle of Vietnam at a random bar making drinks for all my new Aussie friends. I started off with a personal creation, 60ml Bombay Sapphire, 10ml Dry Vermouth, 5ml Campari, and a squeeze of lime. Absolutely delicious. Then I threw out a few Gin and Tonics, a Blue Lagoon, and made us boys some real Mai Tais. Fantastic, so glad they let me do it! I had to leg it once the bar got busy though, which was sad. If I wasn't so drunk at that stage I coulda worked with them a bit more. Note to self: don't bartend drunk.

At Funky Monkey Matt and I continued our cocktail and beer rampage and everybody got with the funk and grooved it up to some so-so beats. At about 2am our poor mate Matt finally couldn't hack the constant dancing, flirting and cocktailing and crashed, almost literally. I'd like to take this oppurtunity to say I matched him cocktail for cocktail and I'm fairly certain I had more beer and he crashed into a druken coma and I had nothing more than a slight headache. I'm actually quite scared at the fact we've had so much beer on this trip that my tolerance is so high that I could have a 14 hour long bender involving numerous litres of beer and about 10 cocktails and come out with nothing but a dry throat and a normal sized headache. Sorry about that I just wanted to talk myself up.

We poured Matt into a taxi and Adam took him home while the girls convinced me that my dancing was "good" and that I should continue funkying the monkey. Eventually we were all together again and had one last beer and group photo before staggering off into the street and home. The only thing that would have made Australia Day in Hanoi better would have been to have more of you guys here. And a meat pie. My craving for a meat pie went unsated and I'm very sad about it.

I completely agree. It would have been so awesome to have you guys here. As I was lying in bed about to pass out I look at Drew and say "Hey man, thanks for today. If I couldn't be at home with all of our friends, I'm glad I'm here with you." And then the moment passed and so did I, literally passing out until someone (ie the girls) banged on our door at 11am. Why? Why would you do that to me?! I finished drinking at 3am! I need beauty sleep!


So there you have it. Our Australia Day novel. Photos are incoming but right now I'm heading off for a shower and 3 or 4 of those kebabs from last night. Mmmmmm hmmmmm. I hope everyone else had a good day.


Chris the bastard sent us a photo of everyone having a ripper time at his Aussie Day party. I sat there for 5 minutes just staring at it and wishing like crazy that we'd been there, but there's a price to pay to see the world. The photo there is Drew, Alli, and Jess, so you can see who we're travelling with. The bloke in the photos above is Matt. Can you see my flag?

As for the Triple J Hottest 100 that I was so damn gungho about listening to, I never found somewhere that could play it. So every fifteen minutes or so (or when I remembered) I dashed off to an internet cafe to check out the live countdown. I'm SO HAPPY that Eskimo Joe didn't get number 1. They came in second to Augie March - One Crowded Hour. A deserving winner! And a sign that the mainstream bands don't always dominate the Js.

Happy Australia Day all!

Drew and Adam