We arrived in Siem Reap and were met by Tom (our tuk-tuk driver for the next week), who took us to "Sweet Dreams Guest House". This was not the place that we were expecting though. We thought that we would be going to Number 11 Guest house but it turned out that they had moved to a new address and we where to be their first customers (they were still laying the patio when we arrived). Before we could settle in, we were asked if we wanted to see the sunset over Ankor. It had been a long day, so we [View Full Entry]

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The bus journey to Kampot was without inccedent and fairly short (about 5 hours). When we arrived there where more than 20 touts trying to get us to stay at there guest houses (which was strange as there was only about 10 guest houses), our guest house of choice was fully booked (no really) so we went across the road and got a room there instead ($7 for hot water,tv,and a fan), we booked a couple of motos to take us to the Phnom Chhnork and Phnom Sorsia caves for that afternoon, the day was very hot and as soon as [View Full Entry]

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First time So the bus stopped at some hotel or other and we took a tuk-tuk down to the "backpackers" end of town called lakeside(where the rooms are cheap and the showers are cold)after Emma had looked in about four differant hostels we settled on "number 11 Happy Guest House" we took a room with a/c and no hot water for $7 a night. First thing next morning after putting in our laundry,having a harty breakfast and generaly sorting ourselves out we took a tuk-tuk over to the LaosPDR embbassy to arrange to get our visas (mistake number one, you need [View Full Entry]

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We arrived safely at the small airport and after a short wait, where met by a young chap from the Southern Hotel that we had booked the night before. Emma had chosen the hotel for its location rather than its charm, because we only planned to be in town for two days, so we wanted easy access to a travel agents and the town itself. After a short drive we arrived at the hotel and hit the town running... We immediately arranged a rate with a two cyclo drivers for a trip to a few spots in town and agreed that [View Full Entry]

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(Anna there is a caterpillar picture at the bottom of the page). Having left Hoi An far too many hours before hand, we arrived safe and sound away from the typhoon a little later than anticipated at about 1.30pm. Claire and Emma let Bruce and I get on with the gritty business of selecting a hotel, so we based ourselves in a modern mini hotel, that had wonderfully comfortable beds and plenty of hot water. All for a mere seven dollars per room including breakfast. Having settled in, we wasted no time and arranged a tour with a group of "Dalat [View Full Entry]

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Our motorbike journey left us, soaking wet, bedraggled and dirty but in high spirits. We booked into a hotel but (having had to share our bath water with live small red worms), decided to check out the following morning. We upgraded to the Vang Hung I just down the road. It was much nicer but still had a half size bath. It was clean, had AC and looked nice, but it was a whopping 22 American dollars a night. As a treat for Emma's birthday we thought that we would splash out. On the day, she loved opening all the cards [View Full Entry]

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As promised (by the gentleman that had spoken to us on the train before it departed Hanoi), we were collected at the train station and taken to a hotel called the Thai Bingh II. It was modern (as are nearly all the hotels in Hue), was well located and we took a lovely room for ten dollars. It was raining in Hue when we arrived and surprise, surprise we did not venture far on our first day. We only managed to get as far as the "Manadarin" restaurant at the end of the road. It is run by a local photographer, [View Full Entry]

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Never, never, never get your Hanoi train ticket from the smiling lady who has the travel concession in the Vietnamese passport control building. True to her word, the minibus with the screaming banshee did pick us up from the hotel (our earlier telephone call may have helped in this) and she did meet us at the station with some train tickets. However, not until we boarded the train two and a half hours later, did we find out that our soft sleeper tickets where in fact hard sleeper tickets. We don't mind hard sleeper but when you pay extra for soft [View Full Entry]

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As we disembarked the bus into the bright hot morning air, we realised that we had no VMD (dong) and a quick look in the photocopied pages of the Lonely Planet we had, showed that there was no bank in town. So there was no other option but to use the black market, in the form of a young man who met us as we got off the bus. He seemed a little disappointed that we had no Lonely Planet to sell him, but more disappointed that we didn't need to buy one. He did however cheer up when we said [View Full Entry]

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Our trip on the bus from Lijiang to Dali was not without event... Firstly, as we were going over a mountain pass, we were forced to stop and join a queue of other buses whilst the Chinese military played with their tanks. There was a race track with targets set around it and when the tanks fired their guns the windows of the bus shook. Then, as we approached Dali, the bus driver pulled over and jestured for us to get off the bus. Unfortunately we did not realise that he was trying to do us a favour by dropping us [View Full Entry]

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