Day 251, 6th February Uthomphon - Savannakhet The sun rose above the tree-line in misty clouds giving it a somewhat moon-like appearance at first - maybe that’s what the circular white disk on the Lao flag represents? We had managed to survive last night, the soldiers never came back, only the sound of distant gun-fire in the night. I began to wonder about Stephane and Toby - where were they free-camping? Were they okay? After we’d packed up our tents it was only a short 30-mile ride into Savannakhet, and to help us the road surface was new. Nick had a [View Full Entry]

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Day 249, 4th February Ban Dong - Sepon - Muang Phin - Sethamuaki This trip is turning into a lesson in madness! Either we’re going to get ourselves blown up with un-exploded stuff from the wartime - or, we’ll get shot by rebels! We’ve already lost Toby and Stephane. Toby went to get his bike repaired in Vietnam and we’ve not seen him since. And Stephane passed us yesterday while the rest of us were necking down beers - he’s somewhere up ahead. So, read on and shake your heads in dis-belief at our stupidness…. We actually had a good sleep [View Full Entry]

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Day 247, 2nd February DMZ at coast - Truong Son - Cam Lo Nick and Rory woke us at 7.30am after their camping suareé in the DMZ, they’d not been blown up by un-exploded stuff, and we were on the road just afterwards. We looked on the nearby Ben Hai estuary, and beyond to the south was and endless white sandy beach stretching into South Vietnam. As we were looking south, we notice that the bluff we were standing on was actually a bunker, and that there were loads of overgrown trenches, many with rusting remnants of barbed-wire from the war [View Full Entry]

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Day 245, 31st January Cam Xuyen - Gateway to Annam - Dong Hoi Our goal today is Dong Hoi. A place where we can book into a cheap hotel and get cleaned up before visiting the Vinh Moc Tunnels. Our sleep was disturbed last night by riverboat people who were up very early shifting riverbank sand from one place to another. They didn’t seem to notice six tents camped next to their place of work. As we rode off, the wind was behind us and the road was damp. Toby had another puncture, and he was also back to his problem [View Full Entry]

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Day 243, 29th January Tam Diep - Thanh Hoa - Tha Vinh - La Van I had a rough sleep on the farmers patio last night, six tents crammed together on a small patio, and the humid and stick air. It was still hot despite there being a bright full moon with a few wispy clouds. After making our own breakfast, we thanked the local guy who’d let us camp, and headed off along the valley back to state highway 1. It wasn’t long before we had left the hills and were on flat and flooded land again. Rice paddies and [View Full Entry]

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Day 241, 27th January My Duc - Perfume Pagoda We got blitzed last night and woke up with hazy heads on the floor of a foulded military holding cell. It was disgusting really. Stephane had puked everywhere, Toby had puked over his sleeping bag and fouled his kegs, and I’d just pissed myself! What a disgusting bunch of geezers - what was in that moonshine? We left after apologizing and cleaning up the cells and headed along dirt roads towards the Perfume Pagoda, not that far away apparently. Apparently we just had to imitate a pagoda and make pagoda noises and [View Full Entry]

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Day 239, 25th January Hanoi We decided to stay onother day in this mad city, besides, it was raining! After breakfast of fried-eggs on French bread, I went off to the fabric shop I’d been to yesterday to pick up my silk sleeping-bag liner I’d had made for $6. On the way back there was another classic motorbike accident - I’ve stopped counting them now. The rest of the day we spent eating and drinking beer-hoi in the foodhall opposite our hostel. Toby was still paranoid about the gay German cyclist experience while we supped our beers. But, I reckon he’s [View Full Entry]

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Day 236, 22nd January Hanoi The Mai Phuong Hostel isn’t a bad place really. A good breakfast and a cuppa is always nice first thing in the morning. And if I don’t want their breakfast, there’s a sandwich maker a few streets away who does good French bread with fried eggs popped in. The bad thing with that is that I have to negotiate the market where they are stir-frying insects and slicing goat brains like cheese to pop in a sandwich, yuk! Today I went to Ho-Chi-Minhs mausoleum with Rory and Toby. The visit was free, but first you had [View Full Entry]

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Day 233, 19th January Cat Ba Island - (ferry) - Haiphong - Phu Thai We were up early for breakfast and a bout of mass disorganisation. Our friend at the café a few doors down bought our tickets for Haiphong for us. Rory and Nick were grinning like Cheshire cats because of their ‘Swedish Conquest’ on the beach last night. Scott was in a bad way because he had drank too much last night and had filled his bathroom with puke. Lets just face it - we are just a bunch of blokey animals. Actually, that’s not true, today was my [View Full Entry]

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Day 230, 16th January Halong City West - Halong City East (ferry) Cat Ba Island The other guys found us at our hotel, they were in the other Halong City (east) and told us that they had hired a boat for US$40 that would take us and our six bikes to Cat Ba town on Cat Ba Island, inclusive was a tour of Halong Bay! So we got ready and caught the small ferry over to Halong City East and boarded our boat with another backpacker, Christoph from France. The small motor-boat seemed top-heavy with our bikes on the roof and [View Full Entry]

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