Dannyk

As a veteran of hungover bus journeys, I managed to get some kip and my ipod passed the time I was awake. Paul, on the other hand, wasn't enjoying the ride at all, and insisted that the remaining long journeys were done after a good night's sleep and no alcohol. We arrived in Sihanoukville in the afternoon, and the handy guide we yoinked from the last guesthouse told us that the place to be was up by Weather Station Hill. So we got a couple of motos from the bus station to a hotel called 'Mealy Chenda Guesthouse'. Whilst the guesthouse was OK, with air-con and a T.V., noone else was there! After settling in, we headed to the nearest beach, called Victory Beach. On the way there, we saw nothing bus hotel developments, and a ... read more

The bus to the border was fine, but once we got over to Cambodia, the road went from potholey tarmac to dirt, tnen back to tarmac and kept changing until we neared the capital Phnom Penh. The dirt churned up by the traffic got into the air con, which made the air inside the bus very dusty. The Cambodian visa costs 20 US dollars on the border, but for some reason the buses make you pay 25, but I couldn't be arsed to argue. About 8 hours after I had left Ho Chi Minh, I found myself in the centre of Phnom Penh. I'd heard of a place called 'Number 9 Guesthouse' by the lake in Phnom Penh's backpacker ghetto, and hopped in a tuk-tuk (a motorbike with a home-made trailer) and headed for the lake. ... read more

The moped arrived on time, but the driver was a different guy to the one I'd agreed 50K dong with, and asked for 80K. We agreed on 65. The moped didn't have a foot well so my backpack was balanced in between the driver and the handlebars. The fact that he had to lean to one side to see the road didn't seem to bother him, but I was a bit nervous, especially when we were bombing it along a dual carriageway with really bad side winds, and I had to lean the other way to stop us from falling over. Arriving in one piece at possibly the crappiest airport I'd been to yet, I thanked the driver for my near death experience and got my plane to Ho Chin Minh. Just out of the terminal ... read more

The bus from Nah Trang to Hoi An was another overnight job, and another journey with me being the only foreigner onboard. The guy sitting next to me this time was fascinated with my video ipod, which hampered my plans to watch South Park, so I went to sleep. I awoke to flashing blue lights about an hour later, and realised that we had been stopped by the police. Seeing as noone on board spoke any English, I still don't know why we were stopped, and why we had to wait there for over an hour. All I got out of the Vietnamese guys sitting next to me was a big grin and the rubbing of his thumb and forefinger. I decided to stay at a chain of guesthouses called Thanh Binh I, II and III. ... read more

My plan was to head up to Nha Trang, and then back down to Saigon via Mui Ne, perhaps do a Mekong Delta trip, and the head to Phnom Penh to meet Paul. The overnight bus to Nha Trang was pants. For some reason they had put me on the cheapest bus that blatently wasn't a tourist bus, judging by the fact that I was the only foreigner on the bus. I asked as the travel agents whether they would be showing a film on the trip, because that can help to pass the time, she said 'yes'. What she neglected to mention was that the DVD on show would be some kind of Vietnamese comedy stage show that lasted about 4 hours, and was played at the loudest volume possible. There went my chance of ... read more

The flight from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh, or Saigon as it is better known (although this actually only refers to District 1 of the city) took just over an hour. From the airport I shared a taxi with a couple of Yanks, who were staying at a hotel way out of my price range, so I headed off to find somewhere a bit more affordable. On my way I bumped into John, a guy who I'd met whilst in Laos. He told me that he was staying cheaply down some alley, but sadly they had no room. Luckily a guesthouse a few alleyways down had a room for 6 bucks, which was a bargain, even if it was on the top floor of the building. That night I went out with John and his girlfriend ... read more

The 18 hour journey stated with a bus over to the other side of the island, followed by a 2 hour ferry. At the ferry teminal I then took a minibus to the ticket office for the bus, which I thought I'd already obtained :s. Exchanging my ticket for another ticket I then took a Tuk-Tuk to another office, and got a sticker, and then took a tuk-tuk to where the bus would, I was promised, eventually pick me up. It was 2 hours late. Finally I was on the last vehicle to Bangkok, and could get some rest. I was beginning to regret choosing the budget option of travel. Arriving near Khao San at about 9ish, I decided to check out a couple of guesthouses off the main road, as they were rumoured to be ... read more

The boat over from Phangan to Samui took about an hour, and we managed to find a group of hotels together, all offering rooms for the same rate, so had a butchers at all of them and chose the best one. It was right next door to Pizza Hut, which suited Danny B. We were staying on Chaweng beach. Whilst we didn't venture much outside of the beach area, and the strip of bars and restaurants along the street running parrallel with the beach, and so I can't say much about the rest of the island, I didn't rate Samui. It is very developed, and the beach was always very busy, with someone trying to sell you something every 5 minutes. The nightlife was OK, but after the full moon it didn't really compare. One night ... read more

After writing a mamouth update for Koh Phangan, we had a powercut, and I lost all my work, so it's been over a week now and I'm just about prepared to write it again. It's actually my birthday today, and I'm in Hoi An, about half way up the coast of Vietnam, a quietish place that has a really beautiful old town on the river. Walking around the town, aside from the mopeds and motorbikes, it feels like you've travelled back a few decades as there has been a government initiative to keep the town the way it is, which is great. Anyway, I'll probably end up writing an update for Hoi An when I get home, so back to Koh Phangan. I think that the last time I wrote in the blog, I was boarding ... read more

After a long time searching the google cache for my blogs, I have managed to recover all but 7 entries, which is a relief. I'll be putting them back up at some point probably, maybe when I get home in a month or so. For now, I'll continue where I left off, which is Vientiane. Leaving Vang Vieng early doors, we piled into a tuk-tuk/van with the kayaks on the roof and drove about an hour to the river that we would be kayaking down. The kayaking was in pairs, and I went with Force, whilst Larry and Dan paired up. Before we got in the water, we were given helmets for the white water parts of the river, which were absolutely comedy, and I couldn't stop laughing at the other 3, with bright yellow helmets ... read more