Vietnam Week 8 - Birthday celebrations & fond farewells

Hello everyone, well we've gone up another notch on the humidity scale this week, I feel like i'm melting away layer by layer with each new day... almost everybody was visably shattered by the end of the week, and we even had a relatively early fiday night at the bar!!! (unheard of so far!)As it's my birthday tomorrow, yeah that's right (june 23), and my colleague John, had his birthday yesterday we had a joint celebration last night, starting with drinks for 15 people down by the river, which ended in a shouting match between local stall holders who complained that we didn't share the business out!!!!,It ended with pizza, drinking and lots of pool at the 'before & now' bar, where myself and john showed some Irish & English lads, and some French girls that we could hold our own, on the pool table, before i got distracted by one of the French girls and missed a vital shot! that's my excuse anyway! My former housemate (& landlady) Anne arrived here on Friday and has been sampling the delights of the Hoi An food, and tailors, and i do mean sampling the tailors, with daily trips to the cloth market!!!we have booked a trip up north in a couple of weeks too, up to the mountains and to Ha long bay which is supposed to be stunning scenery! so lots of adventure to come!! We've hired a motorbike for 3 days and i've been enjoying playing the tour guide! Work has been all about wrapping up the 2 Australian Occupational Therapy Student placement, as Nicole ( the educator) left on Wednesday and Amber & Briee left yesterday morning at some ungodly hour! I even got up to say goodbye, before returning to bed, until the bloody musical garbage truck decided it would park itself out side the house for a good 20 mins, to ensure i got no more sleep!!! I'm really sad to see them leave, because i'd only been here 2 weeks before they arrived, and it feels like I am going to be lonely from next week, but still, that's life and it was better to have them here for a short time that not at all... so a quick hello & goodbye to them from me! Briee & Amber are currently now somewhere in the Mountains of the north, and Nicole is on a plane across the ocean back home as i write this! I am due to go to 'My Son' tomorrow morning at 0700 which has old ruins and some beautiful scenery, but getting up at 0600 on my birthday is just cruel!!! I'm hoping to end the day tomorrow with a meal and swim at the beach and sitting by the lantern light with a few freinds from here... weather pending, knowing my luck it will rain tomorrow!!! Don't really want to go on too much as other things this week have been regular things like another night karaoke, including singing, 'like a virgin', 'staying green - kermit the frog' and other bizzare choices!!! i think i need to leave the karaoke along for a while! and now i need to sleep before we get up for an early day!
sorry to be short this week!!!!
Regards from Vietnam
Dan