Mandalay. The name rolls off the tongue quite nicely with an almost musical feel. As a remote dot on the map, Mandalay seems exotic and romantic - a far flung city of mystery and enchantment. Lonely planet described it as a 'thoroughly modern city' however, and we didn't expect too much. Well, we're not sure which city LP actually visited, 'cause it sure didn't look 'thoroughly modern' to us! Beyond the dusty mechanic shops and food stalls typical of Asian cities, we found peaceful, leafy suburbs through which to pedal alongside monks and children. Stilted houses stood amongst coconut trees and the people were friendly and relaxed. We befriended a Monk while checking out the 'teak monastery' and hung out a while in his monastic school, where he was studying Pali, the ancient language used in ... read more

Back in Thailand. The 'downtempo groove' to which we aluded in the last entry was to be a 10 day Vipassanameditation retreat in the south - and we had a 15 day visa in which to make it work. Better get on with it... Our one night in Bangkok was spent in the ever-restful Kaosan Rd area. The room was a dark little shoebox and it was unfortunate that K was hit by a sudden bout of illness that kept her bed-bound for most of the next day. Our journey to the south should have been disasterous, according to the guidebook, which cautions against buying bus & boat tickets through private companies - particularly those in our area, which are said to be especially dodgy. There's not much we can say on that topic other than ... read more

Our bus from Saigon had been surprisingly comfortable considering we'd paid bottom dollar. A few hours of easy travel brought us to the Cambodian border where we had to disembark and do all the passport stuff before meeting the bus again on the other side. As expected, the border official took our visa payment then advised us of an extra 'Express processing' fee of $2 per person. Of course, it's a visa on arrival - there can't be an 'express' service. Seeing as he'd already stamped us in, we said we didn't need it 'express' and that the regular service is ok for us. With some muttering he relented and our precious travel documents were returned. People talk about the 'unavoidable' extra charges at these borders but it's hard to imagine anyone nottelling them to shove ... read more

Getting to Hanoi should have been easy. For a while it looked like it wouldn't be. Then it was, thus the first sentence doesn't really make sense. It does sound good though. A solid, punchy first line, don't you think? We'd heard (and read) about the remote border region near Vieng Xai and the rampant overcharging of helpless, option-less tourists. To avoid this, we took the soft option of booking a single bus all the way to Hanoi. We rose early in Sam Neua and hauled ourselves and our stuff up the hill to the bus station (why put a bus station on top of a hill anyway?), only to be told that there was 'no bus today' - it hadn't arrived from Vietnam the day before thanks to the Tet festival, which marks the Vietnamese ... read more

The sleeper bus wasn't too bad. That's not to say that it was amazing but... it wasn't too bad. The double beds weren't exactly roomy but there was a little curtain and some complimentary snacks. So far so good. We weren't so enamoured with the group who came onto the bus with cases of beer, sat up the back and talked loudly to each other about how 'out of it' they were gonna be once they 'popped the valium'. Call them Bangkok tourists- an altogether different set of travellers than we tended to meet in south Asia. Still, things were moving along and we were making an attempt at sleep when it happened - the sickening thud of big things colliding. A period of swift deceleration was followed by much confusion, apprehensive glances and futile conjecture. ... read more