„I will probably fly to some island for Christmas“ :D (Day 107 of the world trip)

20.12.2019

After the "chill day" yesterday, it's time for another day of bouldering. Ha!

This morning we had oats again but then we realized that our tomatoes and one of the pears are already starting to mold, so we would also have to go shopping...

I'm not an expert but I suspect that our fruits and vegetables are not big fans of the air in our kitchen, especially the darkness #nodaylight :p

But our first stop today was the post office. This time we were perfectly prepared and the letter could finally be sent for just under 5 euros. Yay! Now we just hope it actually arrives :D :D

After that, we went shopping as planned and then put the tomatoes in the refrigerator as an experiment. They don't really need to be refrigerated, but it was worth a try :p

In addition, we spent some time booking our accommodations for Cambodia. Due to the season and the high season, I wanted to make sure and I think it was not a bad idea because at least on booking.com there were not so many accommodations available anymore (or it was artificial scarcity :p).

We booked a guesthouse and in the next city, we will stay at the "Pool Party Hostel". The middle word is not really my favorite, but it's New Year's Eve and I can't deny Jonas his party :D And where else could you celebrate better than at a party hostel? :p I'm more interested in the pool but hey, it will be fun for me too^^

For lunch, we had instant noodles in Asian style :D It may not be the first choice before a workout but hey, it's quick and cheap :p

Strengthened, we went to the bouldering gym. While the other day it was a pure rock climbing gym, today we will visit a pure bouldering gym :) The way led us towards the highway and then through an underpass, where there is a green area and a small park with a playground - surrounded by the noise of the highway^^ That's probably the green lung ;-)

What I thought was cool was that the park was completely surrounded by a knee-high hedge or red-white beams, so that the scooter riders cannot drive through there to take a shortcut^^ It was maybe the first place here where you can walk as a pedestrian without worries :D :D

The bouldering gym was located in a back street that did not look too inviting. There were a few hotels, conveniently labeled "Hotel", but without any names (how are you supposed to know which one is the right one? :p) but well. At some point, I saw an advertisement for yoga and guessed that we were in the right place^^

Next to a carpentry where you can smell paint and varnish, you can find the bouldering gym and to our delight, it looked great right away!!! :)

The smell of paint next door bothered me a bit but it was okay^^ Also, not surprisingly, in this bouldering gym in Asia (almost) only English could be heard ;-) Some girls looked Asian but spoke pretty American English, so we assumed that they were not born in Vietnam or at least had to attend an expensive private school ;-)

I know, we were actually there for bouldering but people-watching is always fun too :p From the conversations, you could hear that they all must belong to the upper middle class. Besides the typical American fillers like "like" or "ohmygod", they were discussing whether there would be a turkey for Christmas and what kind of alcohol would be served.

My favorite sentence was the casual comment that one of them would probably fly to some island for partying. Not that you would have to book something like that in advance. No, here it seems to be very spontaneous.

Maybe it wasn't as crazy as I perceived it, but I definitely felt entertained too ;-)

Back to the bouldering gym itself - it was not too big but it had walls with different inclinations and also a roof area. The holds were heavily chalked but for me as a layman, they were in good condition and the routes were mostly easy to see :)

Besides these facts, it was just awesome too:D:D:D There were a lot of routes in the difficulty levels that I could climb or at least try <33 I hadn't found this in any of the bouldering gyms on our world trip so far and it made me have a lot of fun today!!!!

Jonas also had a great time. He climbed "my routes" to warm up and then tried the more difficult routes, which he mostly managed to climb. I also enjoy watching him sometimes. We are by no means professionals, but it makes it even more interesting - even for the trainers in the gym :D :D Sometimes they give Jonas tips, but he does it differently because he can simply skip holds or something like that^^

In total, we spent almost three hours in the gym until our arms or skin demanded a break. Oh, by the way. As a fun fact, I managed to "hit" my lip and make it bloody :D :D It's not really the classic body part for a scrape while bouldering, but yeah, it was quite funny :p

On the way back to the apartment, Jonas noticed that his flip-flops were rubbing a lot. On the way there, he could still ignore it, but blisters/scrapes are starting to form. And that, even though they're Vans!! :O ;-)

For dinner, we had our standard meal. This time we mixed the rest of our first rice pack with the next one (a different type). We don't know if it was because of the mix or the amount of water, but we ended up with a pretty sloppy mess :D :D Maybe we're not such good rice cooks after all^^

In the evening, we watched the animated film Moana, which took more than three hours because we always have internet weaknesses in the evening - presumably because everyone comes home and wants to be in the Wi-Fi at the same time^^

Anyway. It was day four here in Ho Chi Minh and we feel really comfortable with our daily routines here :)