El maravilloso viaje de Tobi a Vietnam

I finished working in Cuc Phoung some days ago and I'm now travelling around in Vietnam. I made the plan some time ago, but I changed it nearly a dozen times and decided on the night of Tuesday that I would finally leave on Wednesday noon leaving my big bagpack in Cuc Phoung and fetch it on my way back to Hanoi.

I took the nightbus from the provicial capital Ninh Binh to Hue, the old imperial capital. This was a pretty weird experience, because I went by a sleepers bus, which had rows of beds instead of seats. Unfortunately beds, which were even for the Vietnamese everything but comfortable, so you can for sure imagine how it was for me ;)
But still better than sitting all the time, although at 7:00 am, the driver put in a CD of vietnamese pop music, which isn't particulary my favorite and of course he set at a volume, where it was nearly impossible to ignore it.

So when I arrived at Hue I was half deaf and literally pooped. Instead of half an hour break I had four hours, so I decided (which a little help of one of the ubiquitary motobike drivers) to visit the sights of Hue.
Surprisingly this was pretty cool and I saw everything important in four hours instead of the scheduled two days on my way back.
As Hue as a city is not so spectacular I won't stop there another time and I will go directly to Phong Nha, where another project of the FZS is located.

Anyway currently I'm in Hoi An and it's a really nice little city (UNESCO world heritage), because it has something most other vietnamese cities are lacking of, character.
I really liked it to stroll along the old quarter and sit down in one of the millions of small cafes and restaurant to have a coffee, a beer or just a fruit shake (which is exellent here and everywhere else in Vietnam) watching the riverfront.
Unfortunately the weather is horrible, it's been raining for four days more or less continually.
Okay, we still have 26 or 27 degrees, so it's bearable.

Hoi An is famous for it's tailors (every second shop here is a tailor), who can make you custom made clothing in as little as a day.
As it's pretty difficult to get a suit in my size even in Germany, I took the chance and ordered a complete suit. So after two fittings, which proved to be necessary, because the slim Vietnamese forgot to take in count the width of shoulders, I am the proud possesor of a new business suit.
Unfortunately (I used this word today really often ;)) now I'm challegened with the task of getting it home in a decent shape. Which is, considered the amount of luggage I already have, not as easy as it seems.

And even if I succeed I'm still faced with the challenge to maintain my weight (I actually lost 10kg here) which might prove even harder.

I saw him, the KING, the king of snakes.
I came early after the lunch break and was walking around to visit some of my favorite monkeys, so my view was fixed on the cages and not on the path.

But when I heard a noise in front of me I looked and saw a big king cobras making it's way into the bushes, just a few meters ahead of me.
Damn,I was pretty shocked, especially because it was arm thick and at least 3m long. If one of these bites all you can do is go to office and call all your friends to say goodbye, because you won't survive the two hours drive to Hanoi, which is the only place where you can get an antidote.

So for some time I was still up the next tree, when someone even mentioned the word snake. But now I have calmed again, especially when Tilo told me, that king cobra, despite of their size, really like to sit in trees ;)