OK, not a whole heck of a lot’s happened the last couple of days. I’m really just chilling out and watching DVDs as the world goes by. I’ve met some nice people via the guys who run the hostel and some of the lovely folk at Blue Dragon, shared a lunch or two and showed the newbies around.

All as usual.

My parents received my new bank card a couple of days ago so I should have it early next week at which point I’ll look into travelling again. I’m not sure how much I’m looking forward to it as I’ve grown roots here! Time to head on, though, or I’ll never leave.

The Blue Dragon Website is now up and running on their own webspace. A huge public “thank you” to all of you who tore it apart, spotted the spelling mistakes and complained about the colours. Your help was very much appreciated and I hope the finished version is good enough for you!

I still have some tinkering to do (resizeable fonts, one or two pictures, colour scheme changes, shifting of menus into CSS files for easier editing later on) but, on the whole, it’s not going to change much.

Also a quick story related to me by an English girl and her friend who arrived a couple of days ago. They were in a train station further south from here, I think Hue, and one girl was shopping while the other was minding the bags. By “minding the bags” I mean they were sat beside her as she tried not to fall asleep while watching something in Vietnamese on an overhead TV.

By the time they get on the train, one of the bags had been opened and the girl who was shopping’s purse and passport had been stolen.

With the help of the staff here at the hostel, they reported the theft and informed the British Embassy nearby. In very short order they were told that her passport and card had been recovered.

Unbelievably, the man who had stolen them had walked into a bank and tried to withdraw some money using the card along with the passport for ID. Funnily enough, they thought it was a little shady that a man was trying to use a cashcard with “MISS … …” on it. And he didn’t look all that much like the photo in the passport, what with her being English and him being Vietnamese and all.

The police duly reported the recovered passport to the Embassy but refused to deliver it to them, or to the girl up here. Instead, the staff here had to get in touch with Mr Hoa, who runs the guesthouse they’d stayed at. He in turn went to the police station to get the passport and posted it up to the Embassy in Hanoi.

She didn’t get her cash back (it was less than I lost), but she has her passport and knows her cashcard didn’t take a beating.

In other news, I’ve watched Sin City and Four Brothers. Both heartily recommended. I’ve picked some good films recently. There are two more I think I’ll keep an eye out for having seen trailers and reviews: Gingerdead Man which sounds so bad it has to be good, and Mindhunters the trailer for which was on the Sin City DVD. I still can’t find House of 1000 Corpses despite the sequel being all over the shop.

Don’t forget to visit the 1000 Mile European Walk Site – it’s all for a good cause!