Khoi fish, baby African and more flooding.

Well well well, here we are again. Another day provides yet another opportunity for me to entertain you all and this adventure doesnt dissapoint.

It starts off on a sacred Monday. Mondays are a great day as the majority of us all have it off, allowing us to do a full day of activities and this Monday was no different.

We decided to have a Go Vap day. If you know Ho chi Minh City you know it is a whole day event to go to Go Vap, due to the fact that it's in the ass end of nowhere. It's kinda far from every district and its just a bit of a borleg to get there. But we decided if we made a list of a few things we could do there, it would be worth it for the banter. So in the week leading up we compiled a list of activities (which proved to be a task in itself) so we could truly utilise our time.

First thing on the list was the Khoi fish cafe. Honestly, this was really cool. It consisted of two large ponds, with sunken in seating and all the Khoi fish you could possibly imagine. The fish had heaps of room to swim throughout the various waterways and overall it was a pretty niche spot. We arrived just before the skys absolutely opened up which made it that much more enjoyable. When we sat down the waiter came over to us immediately and we tried to communicate the best we could. He asked us the classic question

"Where do you live?" - obviously we knew he was asking what country are we from but we decided to throw him off a little bit.

"Oh we live in District 3" we replied to him. He shoots us a puzzled look as we clearly are not Vietnamese and didnt give him his desired answer, but then without missing a beat he replied " I'm from Dalat". Honestly what a sweetheart. Emily I caved and told him we were from Aeoteroa and Canda respectively, answered a few more of questions, and then he was off.

Angus and Mollie joined us a few minutes later. After the rain had stopped and we had finished our second round of drinks, we decided it was time to head to our next attraction.

The floating pagoda. Now, what is that I hear you ask? well its exactly what it sounds like. Its a pagoda, that floats.

We caught a small junk boat out to the pagoda and began wondering around. The pagoda itself was beautiful, there were heaps of different mosaics each representing a different Buddhist gods (maybe, I’m not really sure, but they were pretty). It was there I also saw the largest amount of incense burning at one time, and that will never be topped.

After wondering around and getting one awkward picture we got back on the boat and headed to land.

It was around this time we were all getting hungry again and were ready to head to our third and final reason for being in Go Vap, a lunch spot we had all been dying to try! Now Vietnam has a lot, and I mean A LOT of different cuisines and cultural food. We were on our way to try one of the strangest though... we were headed straight to a place called "Baby African".

Now it's a bit weird to find authentic Nigerian food in the middle of Vietnam, but honestly it was fantastic!

While we were eating the rain picked up again so we thought we would wait out the rain inside "blue lagoon, bed and coffee". How ideal we thought!

However our wallets had a different idea. None of us had stopped at an ATM that day and it was painfully obvious when we walked up to the counter and realised they didn't accept card. However we had enough between us for a milk tea each, so things were looking up.

Now coffee and bed was exactly what it sounded like. There were these cute little cubbie holes that had a plastic mat inside aswell as a table.

All four of us scooted in and made ourselves comfortable while we decided to wait out the rain. As the time passed we grew more and more delirious inside the box, telling dumb jokes and more or less mocking each other. By the second hour we were all pretty thirsty again but we were running dangerously low on funds. After scraping and I mean scraping our last crusty notes together we had just enough for another drink and some spicy corn snacks (these were the real heroes of the day). It was straight back to the box for us. Yet another two hours go past and we realise it's now or never. It's now 8pm and we might as well head back now.

Walking out to where we parked our bikes and the streets are flooded! Very very flooded. Gotta love rainy season huh?

I chuck in my home address to maps, connect my wireless headphones and jump on my bike and hoon off ahead of my pals.

As I'm driving up the streets I see a bunch of bikes coming towards me, and none really going the same direction as me. As my google maps are telling me to do a U-turn, I decide to read the signs around me and go back the other way. As I'm driving through the flooded streets I suddenly hear "turn right" in my ear.

As I turn down a little hem, I hear a loud thud and then I feel the moisture. I've gone from driving in wheel high water to hip high water in an instant.

And that's when my motorbike dies. Literally dies, in the middle of a flooded street. Absolutely wonderful. I get off and do what I can, which is just start pushing. At this point I dont even know where I'm going I'm just pushing my bike. I dont know If you have ever tried pushing a motorbike, fully clothed, through a river? Yeah didnt think so, its exhausting!

I manage to find a somewhat out of the direct water where I can check my phone and figure out my next step. Thankfully I have the best mates, they saw me drive down the path of darkness and waited for me at the original cafe. So about 45 minutes after I had originally left the cafe I was back, fully soaked- bringing a whole new meaning to WAP.

By thos point I am honestly wrecked, I pass my bike to Mollie and walk around the corner so I can have a wee cry. Emily and Angus were busy talking to the security guard to try see if I can leave my bike there overnight so I can sort it out the next day.

While I'm standing there trying not to think about the water that has engulfed my shoes, a lovely man comes up and asks me

"Miss, do you have a problem?"

Which I would like to point out Is kind of fighting talk back home, so old mate is lucky he didnt get one-outs in the carpark. But at this stage, I was grumpy and tired so I responded with a

"Sir, I have many problems, could you be more specific?"

"Do you need help?" He asks me very calmly, seeing that I am on the verge of tears again.

He offers to take me to a bike repair shop just around the corner and help me translate what the mechanic's are saying. This guy was an absolute legend!

He does exactly what he says and helps me out a bunch! There wasnt much the bike guys could do except turn my bike upside down and drain the water. The managed to get the bike started and as they revved it, they could see the water splurttering out the engine. They removed my little pieces of styrofoam (yes my engine has styrofoam in it) and as they do they look into the hole they have just opened up, and with sitcom timing a big spurt of water flies directly into the poor guys face.

Thankfully the bike did start again and even though it took three times as long to get home we all made it back in one piece!

It was a long day and it's safe to say that Go Vap won that round.... But we'll be back....