The Vung Tau Virus

If I've said it once I'll say it again, I honestly cannot make this stuff up! If at any point you think I am using my birthright as a Cooper to embellish the truth, then I will show you evidence. I am prepared. But anyway here goes the latest in unbelievable yarns.

As previously mentioned we were long overdue a holiday, our first choice was Da Nang, but since that became the hotspot of the second wave, we settled for the closer Vung Tau.

Vung Tau is a small ocean side city, about two hours out of Ho Chi Minh City. There were Ten of us that managed to hustle to get the annual leave accepted so we could all be together. We decided to rent a villa as it would work out cheaper (and nicer) than booking multiple hotel rooms. Now when I tell you that this villa was lush, it was balls to the wall lush!

It consisted of three rooms downstairs, with two bathrooms, three rooms upstairs with another bathroom, two decks off two of the bedrooms and a huge upstairs balcony as well. Downstairs there was a large living room a separate dining room and a decent size kitchen. Pretty much all of the rooms had two double beds, so really we would sleep like 18 people comfortably! But we weren't there to sleep! Let me tell you about the outside. We had an absolutely luxurious pool, the main reason for the stay.

Our villa was the front villa of four or five, all of them just as fancy as the other.

Our first task was heading into the supermarket and stocking up on all the essentials (beer). Whilst heading in we decided that we would have a BBQ that night to really welcome ourselves to the neighbourhood. Each pitching in 500,000 ($30NZD) we brought four cases of beer, three cases of cider, 3 bottles of Vodka, enough juice to sustain a small village and enough food to make us hazards in the pool.

Apart from having a mare of a time with the charcoal fire we eventually got dinner on the table and were reasonably satisfied without a scent of food poisoning in sight! The next day we awoke reasonably early (11am) to head back into the town to rent some bikes for our planned adventure the next day.

While we were lazing by the pool we noticed the villa directly next to us had been rented. We saw three guys who sort of looked like big deals and some camera equipment. Not long after that we realised they kept playing the same part of a song over and over again. That's when it registered. They must be shooting a music video. The guys were on the roof, doing the most, while the choreographer was giving them pointers. We watched for awhile and then headed on our way.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We came back to the Villa and decided to see what our previous days bounty tasted like. As we were a few beers in and confident we decided to peak through the bushes to find out who/ what we were listening to. By this time they had called in the beautiful models for the "hot babe" segment of the music video. I call out to anyone who will look at me and ask them the name of the song. One of the performers (who we now know as "Yuno BigBoi") answered with a

"Coming soon"

So I asked for another one of his songs we could bump in the meantime.

Bigboi heard us jamming his song and asked if he could record us for his instsgram account. I guess the hype for him, a vietnamese rapper, getting a bunch of westerners to play his song, without knowing any words, was definitely worthy of the gram!

We had a good chuckle and continued on splashing around when 10 minutes later Bigboi appears in the bushes again and simply asks

"Wanna come over?"

We look at each other and move quicker than Australians in the toilet paper isle when they heard about Corona.

Next thing we know we are front and center surrounded by beautiful vietnamese women, getting sprayed with champagne while hopefully making the final cut if the video!

Still waiting for the details of the music video but when it's out I will share it, dont worry about that!

It was only after that we thought of the effect it might have if anyone of students walk into class and pull the video up. Dont know if that would make us "cool" or not, but we are gagging to find out!

The next day we head off, despite the advice of TLC, to chase some waterfalls. We were all very aware of our pale complexion so made sure to sunblock up.

We had a strong six bike convoy and were on our way. Naturally half of the group got lost, and of course that was my half. Getting lost lead us to some beautiful lakes, however it meant more time in the sun which my SPF81 just couldnt handle. I ended up a very crispy salmon. The waterfalls were stunning, we splashed around, took heaps of amazing photos and most importantly cooled off. We had a great time.... until....

Flashfoward 24 hours, and let me take you into the house of horrors...

Welcome welcome step right up... Pretty much everyone became horribly sick. Luckily we had so many bathrooms because we used every single one of them. There was a constant rotation of one in, one out. The sounds and smells that took over that beautiful Villa was comparable to a form of torture. It was a grim time for everyone involved.

By power of deduction the only thing that could have made us all sick like that was the waterfalls unfortunately. We didnt all eat the same food, and the food that we did couldnt have made us sick. We figured Maybe some bacteria that our spoiled western bodies wasn't used to really just did a number on us. It really put a damper on the rest of our trip!

None the less we enjoyed the rest of our time as much as we could, drifting in and out of vomit induced consciousness, making sparse eyecontant and the occasional groan.

Emily, Ellie and I managed to sneek off into the amusement park when sports were a little higher and enjoyed a few rides (this one was alot safer than the one in Maylasia so we were ok). Not the highest safety standards but not the worst. As we were sitting on the chair'o'planes waiting to go up, I realised my seatbelt was broken, I called out to the man to wait. He looked me dead in the eyes gave me the hand signal known internationally as "its fine" and pressed the start button anyway.

All in all the trip back home on the Friday was a bit of a somber one. Between the second degree burns and the gurgles coming from everyone's stomachs there wasnt a lot of chit chat going on.

But what can I say, a smooth relaxing holiday wouldnt make a good story now, would it 😏