Saturday 30^th April 2005 - Calling Phan's bluff...

After our tour of the Bing Höhle we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about the nature park and visiting the odd beer garden. There was a big stream running through it and stacks of families and groups of friends were canoeing and kayaking. It looked great fun, definitely something to come back for. There were also loads of people cycling and walking about the park. The forests were green, the sun was shining, it was really beautiful.

At one stage we were driving along and Phan started yelling out to Bradley to stop. No reason, just stop. Not an easy trick in a big bus on a small windy road with almost no verges, but clever clogs Bradley managed to pull off a bit of Hollywood stunt driving and we screeched to a halt.

Phan had seen a field full of dandelions and wanted to go frolicking about taking pictures. I'm sure Phan's just an old romantic and that it had nothing to do with the three beer gardens we'd already stopped in at...

Here are some photos from Phan's field of flowers.

Bradley took a picture of us returning to the car where he'd been waiting.

Old Phan didn't want Bradley to miss out, so he brought him back a flower of his very own.

Speaking of beer gardens, Phan had spent some time that day regaling us with stories of German beer drinking prowess. He insisted that the average German would easily drink 8 steins of beer (a stein is a one litre glass) in a single sitting. He was also foolish enough to claim that after spending so much time in Germany, he had absorbed the German culture and assimilated himself to the extent that he too could drink 8 steins with ease.

What a galah!

We didn't believe the first part about the German thirst, but the second part about Phan's beer drinking skills left Bradley and I rolling around on the floor holding our bellies. We laughed so hard we near split in half! All we could say to Phan was, "Prove it!"

At this point Phan began to back peddle furiously. It was no longer "the average German". The number was revised and qualifications were added. The size of the glass was reduced to about a quarter of the original size. It was also apparently "not Phan's day today". He was a little "too tired" for that today.

Bollocks! There's no getting off the hook that easily!

After leaving the nature park, Bradley headed the bus straight for the car park at Phan's house. The challenge was on.

It was a couple of hours after Phan's big claims by the time we reached the beer garden near their house, but Bradley still hadn't stopped laughing.

Stein number 1: ready, set go! Show us what German men are made of Phan.

Half an hour later Phan had made a cracking start on his first stein...

But Bradley had already finished...

He wasted no time explaining to Phan that he was flaccid, and that he had been talking out of his butt.

Just to deviate from the stein challenge for a moment, I really must mention what we had for beer snacks that day. Phan and Phuong had seen it before and never been game enough to try it. It turns out that a common beer snack in this area is raw pork mince on rye bread with diced raw onion and a sprinkle of paprika. It sounded disgraceful. I just had to try it!

It really is a terrible photo, but it's the only one I've got and culinary excursions like this really should include an illustration. To my surprise the raw pork treats were actually quite good, and we didn't even get sick!

Getting back to the title story, eventually Phan and I were almost there; at least for stein number one anyway.

In the end we managed to drink a whole one each.

Phan was too flaccid to back up his bold claim that day. If the truth be known, he almost had to be held down and bathed in his stein. When he was about a quarter of the way through he started complaining that he couldn't finish it, and he whined all the way to the end. He explained that it was just not his day, but he assured us that that didn't mean that he couldn't drink 8 some other day!