A sunny summer’s morning meet at Brownacres greeted the intrepid tourists for this year’s tour to Vietnam and Singapore. With a swift pint or two and a bacon roll, the Tourists, Tampon, Tiger, Balders, Danno, Bedtime, Nando, Bench, Fat Olly, Verbal, Chavdaz, Bungle, Wildboy, Danerous (Sic), Chef, Swiss, Fat Boy Fat, D’Artagnan, Biltong, Deuce, Plank, Blofeld and Aceboard the fun bus. With a large number of experienced Tourists travelling, a degree of decorum should have been expected, but true to most Tours, the roll call for the first Tour Court had begun even before we’d reached Heathrow. With Eton and Deuce failing to wear the right clothes and Swiss and Tiger getting involved in a Money Laundering scam within ½ a mile of the clubhouse, Tour was off to a flying start!

Joined at Heathrow by Bronson, the nearly complete touring party boarded the flight and began a mission to eradicate all traces of alcohol on board. Several hours later somewhere over Afghanistanthere was a vicious sabotage attempt by the aircrew, when they claimed to have run out of tonic. Not to be thwarted, Vandals rose to the challenge and immediately developed a taste for Gin and Bitter Lemon…yummy! Realising they stood no chance of victory, by the time we reached Bangladesh ‘forgotten’ supplies of Tonic were found and sensible drinks resumed. On arrival in Singapore we were greeted for a cheeky breakfast beer by Prince of Darkness, Psycho, Eton, Woody, Diver and H.. (Can you see a theme developing here, dear reader?)

After a short flight North to Vietnam, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. Much to everyone’s amusement, Fat Boy Fat discovered that if you’re going to travel halfway round the world without paying, it’s best to have your entry visa from the Tour Leader when faced with a stern faced communist official. Several hundred pounds in cash paid into the tour kitty bought him a visa and we all stepped out into cloying heat of Vietnam.

With remarkable similarity to Menorca, we arrived at the hotel to find ourselves unwelcome and a short trip round the corner found us in some less salubrious accommodation! A night out drinking dancing, riding mopeds (or falling asleep depending on your age) followed.

Saturday morning arrived and the first Tour Court. Barristers, (should that be baristas? Ed.) Balders, Fat Olly, D’Artagnan and Psycho complete with robes and wigs were followed into the packed Courtroom by Judges Woody and Blofeld. Some felt that their Lordships didn’t really need the stockings and suspenders but both seemed comfortable in their attire. A long list of serious offences were dealt with including transvestism on tour (Deuce and Eton), being AWOL (missing the outbound flight from Heathrow – even if you were direct travelling from Singapore), and the gruesome crime committed by McBeal who had arrived that morning from Singapore and which is too awful to reveal in a family publication!

With the temperature in the mid-30’s, high humidity and several players struck down with ‘Vietnam Belly’, Vandals were looking at a punishing game that afternoon against local side Saigon Geckoes. Fortunately, the Gods were smiling and an hour before kick off, dark clouds gathered, wind and rain lashed the pitch and the temperature dropped 8 degrees. Captained by Balders, a hard fought game of four, 20-minute quarters saw Tampon sent off (twice!) and a narrow 10-0 Vandal lead reeled in, to a nail biting 10-7 lead in the 3^rd quarter. Saigon, used to the conditions, produced some high-speed running rugby requiring all of Vandals hard tackling ability to keep them at bay. Vandals resorted to their strongest game plan; route-one ball with Vandals big-guns running off Nando at scrum-half to pound the home forwards and suck-in the defence! With only a couple of minutes to go Vandals scored a much needed third try to give them an unassailable 15-7 victory

That evening Vandals were taken by Saigon RFC to one of the most memorable Tour meals ever. The restaurant, consisting of a scaffolding platform with tarpaulins for a roof, whole piglets being spit roasted over oil drums in the street, table top barbecues and a menu which included whole scorpions (crunchy prawn flavour), glasses of goat bollock wine (honest!) and a memorable round of songs including ‘Father Abraham’ and a French bloke who wandered in off the street to see what the noise was and entertaining us. err…. in French! The climax involved Danno climbing onto a beer cooler to give us a rendition of….we’ll never know, the lid of the cooler gave way and Danno plunged @rse first into 10 gallons of iced water! With tears of mirth in our eyes, we wandered out into the night for more drinking dancing and silliness!

Sunday, and our first excursion - a cultural trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. En route, Plank invented a new sport for the local motorcyclists - ‘Spew dodging’. The visit to the tunnels was fine until Tamps upset the locals by getting naked to climb into a Viet Cong hidey hole. After firing off some very big and extraordinarily loud Vietnam War machine guns, lunch followed at a quiet riverside restaurant!

Monday found us on a trip to the Mekong Delta, and the Virgins once again upsetting the locals when they were all required to get naked at a petrol station for some ritual hosing down. A short visit to the Military Snake Research Centre (Large poisonous snakes, feeble barriers, stupid tourists…you get the idea) before arriving at the Mekong River. A pint or two of restorative Gin and Tonic and a very pleasant chug along the river brought us to a waterside restaurant. Another gastronomic extravaganza ensued with restaurant staff making local delicacies at the table. Highlight of the meal was the ritual gutting of a live cobra, it’s still beating heart and blood, drained into a glass of rice wine and served to eight brave tourists. Bungle, Nando, Eton, Danerous, Tampon, Chef, Danno and Balders stepped up to the plate and chowed down on their tasty treat…..mmmmm! The cobra was then cooked in a delicious curry and served to all of the tourists.

The return coach trip, with the Tourists buzzing on the high octane mix of Gin, Tonic and snake curry found us in the small town of Phu Cyou. Disembarking adjacent to the town centre boating lake, the opportunity for a Virgin Triathlon was too great to miss. Local peasants and children were showered with money for the rent of their bicycles and Cold War era swan pedaloes were hired. With a Le Mans style start, the Tour Virgins set off on a 500 meter cycle ride around the town, swerving through the chaotic traffic, returning to the start for a refreshing pint before heading out onto the lake in the swan boats for a 100 meter ‘dash’ around a pole in the middle of the water. Everything was going well until, realising he had no chance of winning, Deuce, launched a devastating Exocet attack on Danerous’ pedalo. Holed below the surface, and taking on water, Danerous failed to repel boarders and he and Deuce were hurled into the drink as the pedalo capsized while tears of laughter coursed down the faces of the cheering Tour party. By now the townsfolk had stopped and joined in, cheering the gladiatorial battle now raging out on the lake. Another refreshing Pint and a 500 meter run around the lake saw Nando in first place, narrowly followed by Eton and Tampon.

Tuesday was a free day and with half the Touring party travelling by hydrofoil to Vung Tau the rest stayed at the hotel, chilled by the pool and soaked up the sun.

On Wednesday we headed South on the plane to Singapore… or at least we tried to. Wandering up to the Immigration desk, Tamps discovered he’d lost his visa. Cue panic and running around…having eventually solved that, he wandered over to the Customs desk……where they noticed that he was trying to smuggle ammunition onto the aircraft. Narrowly avoiding an International terrorist incident, Tamps had to point out that he just liked to collect shell casings from the guns at Cu Chi!

You’d think that would be it wouldn’t you?...err, this is a Vandals Tour.“Bing Bong….”Missa Owe’ to secuwitee’', Chef (for it is he - thinking it must be the ten litres of Gin he was smuggling) “What’s the problem ?” Customs Official – extracting an enormous bronze penis from Chef’s case “Wha in Go’s name you call vis” Cue 6 young customs ladies giggling and cringing with embarrassment, whilst Chef tried to explain the ‘Prick of the tour’ trophy, using hand signals to Vietnamese military officials who only speak pigeon English and have big guns. Eventually we arrived in Singapore!

Joined by ‘Jack Jack’ from Australia, we spent a couple of hours drinking at Muddy Murphy’s Irish Pub. With Fat Olly dealing cards for a game of ‘Higher – Lower’, Tiger’s inability to count and ‘Jack Jack’ required to down his drink every time two Jacks were dealt, who would have thought the deck would have been loaded? A drunken attempt to sing ‘One Flat Hand and a couple of ducks’ descended into farce, particularly when some American F16 pilots tried to join in (and had to down endless pints)

Our first game in Singapore on Thursday evening under floodlights was against Singapore Cricket Club. Captained by Fat Olly, the team were (for some bizarre reason) highly motivated and even warmed up before the game even though it was over 30^o. With several days of monsoon rain, the pitch varied in texture from quagmire to granite. Once again, the heavyweight and mobile Vandals pack battered the home side up front allowing Vandals backs to move wide and show what they were capable of. With several well worked tries including a 75 meter interception by Swiss, Vandals dominated the game for a 30 - something Win.

After the game we were invited to spend a fantastic evening in the world famous Singapore Cricket Club. With the view over the Padang, amongst the skyscrapers, excellent food and an amazing ‘Colonial’ atmosphere, what better way to round off a Vandals victory? The evening continued with a freeform artistic rendition of ‘The Tour so far’, performed by the Virgins.

Friday morning dawned with a ‘wake up call’ from the Tour Virgins dressed in their Tour Theme – Punkawallah’s – and a breakfast banquet! Champagne and Guinness were the order of the day very generously provided by Clive Kunkler. A morning spent relaxing was followed by a trip to Raffles for Gin Slings in the Long Bar whilst Deuce ‘flew’ around on a broom shouting ‘Harry Potter’. From Raffles we moved on to a bar for a few cooling beers then to Samy’s for a huge Indian Feast eaten off banana leaves and including Fish Head curry. The meal concluded with the Virgins proving themselves by sucking giant fish eyes dry! The evening concluded with drinks in the Crazy Elephant Bar at Clark Quay.

Our last full day of Tour was spent relaxing and preparing for our last and most gruelling game against Singapore’s No1 side ‘The Bucks’. Buck’s spies had been to watch us play SCC and rumour had it that Vandals had a ‘big, mobile pack’. With 9 days drinking and a hard fought game only 2 days previously, Vandals were always going to be up against it, but with Captain Danno leading from the front a spirited performance ensued. By half time, the Bucks had built a commanding 4 try lead. A stern half time talk finally woke us all up and Vandals returned to the tactic which had proved successful in our two previous games: - Powerful drives from the front 5 close to the breakdown. After a disallowed try by Diver (which everyone agreed was ‘good’) the Bucks ran in their only try of the half for a 33-10 victory against a by now, very weary Vandals XV. The evening was spent at The Bucks ‘clubhouse’, the Brewerks Pub at Clark Quay. With 4 litre table top ‘jugs’ of home brewed beer washed down with 4 litre table top ‘jugs’ of Gin and Tonic, Vandals spirit was soon restored and we were joined by our own supporters club, the Squadron of USAF F16 pilots who had been following our progress. The worlds loudest ever rendition of ‘Father Abraham’, ‘Alouette’ and a hilarious version of ‘3 Blind Mice’ by The Bucks Captain followed. The evening was brought to a head when Swiss was grassed up by a Vandal back in the UK for telling Tour Tales. An impromptu Court session followed with Swiss having to drink ‘A Saturday night out in a glass’ (A pint of curry, beer and assorted drinks). We moved on to ‘The China Jump’ for some very late night drinking before a crowd of very quiet and sleepy Vandals crawled onto the coach the next morning for the very quiet flight home!

All in all, a fabulous Tour and with two wins out of three, a very happy ending!

Videos taken by the guys on tour are available here.