101 Challenges:

Today we left Vientiane for Vietnam. But first we had to endure Lindsay and Lee’s Friday Night Takeaway Challenge.

The name of the Challenge was changed though, to Lee and Lindsay’s Monday Morning Takeaway due to it a) not being a Friday and b) due to the fact we weren’t going to be in Laos that afternoon (hence the prior reference to leaving Vientiane for Vietnam) and Lee wanted his name first (vane bugger).

This Challenge was simple. Each of us had to dare the other brother to do an obscure and pointlessly stupid act. As a “life-line” both brothers were allowed one double dare that they could use as retaliation against any stupid dares given to them. This meant that both brothers had to complete that particular dare.

We had to lick each others armpits, squeeze fresh lime juice into our eyes, Lee ballet danced all around town in a tu-tu and to top it all, Lindsay had to board a plane wearing nothing but Speedos.       

After all this, we then had to endure Lindsay’s fear of flying. Prior to setting off for the airport, a huge projectile of sick exploded from Lindsay’s face. This is one of the first times Lee has ever seen how anxious and petrified aviation makes his sweet young bro and naturally, Lee being the caring older brother, offered some helpful and reassuring words and actions of planes crashing and wings snapping off. Here’s the chubby lad defying every aviation rule and regulation;

Frank got another flight – apparently he had an entourage of 12 gals who wanted him to join a club of one mile. We don’t understand – he’s only 12 inches!

We never crashed (obviously) but still traumatised after landing, Lindsay was taken to a “play-school” type beer café in Hanoi city centre by his elder brother. To help calm his nerves Lee ordered some beer – which comes from a simple garden-like hose which is connected to a keg. It was fun. Only when the price of a pint was quoted, did it become even more fun and Lindsay then fully forgot the mornings traumatising flight ordeal. 12 pence for a pint. Let us just repeat that. 1 pint = 12 pence. 12p. 12% of a quid! We had 20.

But, with every happy 12p Ying comes a disturbing and saddening Yang. Another play-school drinker decided to be our best friend that afternoon. We would have happily stayed at that little beer pad all day, if it wasn’t for the fact that this random stranger turned out to be mental!

Now, both traumatised, we decided to relapse back into our youthful and care free days by having some merry-go-round fun;

Whilst out and about in the city, we came across the Ly Thaito statue, who (according to the Vietnamese) lived from 974 to 1028 and (according to a more accurate and knowledgable us) as you can clearly see from this picture, he proudly holds on to his recipe for Tayto Crisps (most commonly found in Ireland). Great crisps.

This guy was regarded as a God by the people of Vietnam – his amazing recipe helped to feed the entire country for 314 years – during the disastrous food drought. Sadly, we never had the time to visit the Tayto Crisp Museum. We would have loved that!